Has anyone had experience running a mardu version with lightning bolts, Dark Confidant and discard like Tidehollow Sculler, IoK and Thoughseize?
I have been wanting to make a deck like this for a long ass time but haven't been able to get it to work.
I was thinking a controlly version like this could be pretty cool.
First of all, been following the thread for a few months now and decided to pull the trigger on my own version of this deck. Got most of the cards I needed and went 4-0 at a small FNM tonight.
I think this deck is a little bit different then the other lists, but I decided it was good to have the podless combo pieces available to work with.
Game 1 he beat me down really fast. Game two got a windbrisk heights of stony silence into play, stabilized and won a grindy game via cutthroat triggers from bitterblossom sacs to viscera seer. Game three, turn 2 stony silence, stabilized at 3 life, started to turn the game back in my favor and won handily.
Round 2 (GR aggro - budget) 2-0
Not much here, game 1 got combo off and T4 win. Game 2 overwhelmed with creatures and board presence.
Round 3 (mono - white midrange budget) 2-0
Similar to round 2, young kids playing for fun and enjoying a good night of free modern. Cool group of pups, and the future of the game is good.
Round 4 (GW tokens) 2-0
This was interesting, he was also 3-0 on the night when we faced off. He had a heavy token brew that relied on parallel lives and lots of creatures. We did a lot of trading at first, but my recursion and sticking a couple of bitterblossoms overwhelmed him. Game 2 was pretty fast as well. murderous redcap did some good work in this match.
Again, I know this list is a bit different than the other aristocrat lists being ran, but I wanted to throw it out there. Teysa and Bitterblossom were very nice to have out together especially with a viscera seer out. It never was long until I scryed into the card I needed and the windbrisk heights also did a lot of work smoothing out the draws and getting into the cards I needed. Athreos was cool, if anafenza wasn't in play I would stack triggers from redcap and give them the option of it going to my hand twice so I could reset the -1/-1 counters on finks and redcap or he could take a lot more damage to make it go to the GY only for the persist trigger to hit. Or I could do it vice versa and make him take a total of 6 just to get rid of the redcap (3 from redcap damage and 3 from athreos trigger).
It was a lot of fun, seemed very consistent, but I need to conduct more playtesting! Thoughts and ideas for improvement are much appreciated.
I really like this build! I run an Abzan list and mana can be de demanding at times. I'm definitely sleeving this up and giving it a go. Thanks for the post.
I took some of your deck ideas, mixed them in with my original build, and was able to test today with a friend for about 4 hours against Abbott Jund, Merfolk, and Big Zoo.
First, I must say this deck is running VERY well. I'm quite pleased with the results from today and have a couple things I plan on doing to hopefully tune it just a bit more. (Changes below not yet incorporated above)
I am going to switch out one Isolated Chapel for a second maindeck Plains. We both decided that 2 maindeck Plains are necessary for this deck to keep going if we're up against an opponent that is attacking our land base which we believe to be one of, if not the biggest weakness. If we can't get out our sideboard cards, namely Keening Apparition to get rid of Spreading Seas and Blood Moons that could be fairly devastating to our game plan. If we can't get Return to the Ranks or Rally the Ancestors going we'll likely get pretty far behind also.
Secondly, we both agreed that a second Horizon Canopy in the main would be nice for additional card draw getting important pieces into our hand that we scry into while saccing our board. The second Horizon Canopy is probably going to replace one of the Temple Gardens
As for today's test matchups:
(Abbott)Jund was pretty much a walk in the park. I testing against this the most since he was also testing this deck for his own personal interest. Jund wanted to be offensive with Lightning Bolts and Terminates and found itself 2 for 1'ing and not getting ahead. Scavenging Ooze seemed like a real threat on the surface, but typically wasn't aggressive enough to exile my whole graveyard after dropping a Satyr Wayfinder and saccing my board. He simply didn't have enough green mana to get rid of all of my threats that I could get back with Return to the Ranks and Rally the Ancestors. Out of 12-15 games, I only lost once by a close margin.
Big Zoo was really fast and came in for a ton of damage with Wild Nacatl and Knight of the Reliquary using exhalted triggers. He got me down to low life the majority of the games, but had no board sweepers allowing me to recur my Voice of Resurgence and resaccing them to get Elemental tokens that were typically 2-3 more Power/Toughness than his Knight of the Reliquary ever was. We only play 3-5 games here, but I ended up winning all of them.
Merfolk was pretty interesting and required the most thinking out of the 3 decks. Æther Vial was tricky when going in for early damage because I was never sure if I should swing with my sac outlet creatures in case he was willing to flash in a dude and trade with them halting my gameplan. Spreading Seas really slowed me down and we didn't ever sideboard since we were most concerned with the "Game 1" experience if you will during testing. I only got 2-3 games in against Merfolk and ended up winning all of these matches as well. I was always happy to see Master of Waves when I had Bitterblossom out and either Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat out since all of the tokens traded resulting in serious damage and life gain; an unforeseen plus to this matchup.
I would like to say that my testing opponent is by no means a newb to MTG and has actually taught me quite a bit about the game to throw out the accusation that maybe the testing session was weighted more on player skill and was not an even playing field. We've both been playing for several years: He 4-5 and myself since Urza block (haiatus from Torment to Zendikar block) how many ever years ago that was. So I'd like to think that our experience and skill is sufficient to properly test this Aristocrat/Token deck. ANYWAY!
Weaknesses:
While neither of us were able to test some other decks that we would have liked to today, namely Tron, Affinity, Twin, Burn, Control i.e. Grixis, UW, Blue Moon or other Moon type builds, we both felt that these in particular could present a challenge for this deck. With that said, that is how we arrived at the changes stated above and the sideboard above. Creature decks simply don't seem to get there, Jund wants to interact and can't affectively, and Merfolk with the exception of land hate strategies also falls short like other creature decks.
I am going to continue to play this deck for the next couple of months and continue to report accordingly.
PLEASE comment and leave any and all suggestions and criticisms as they're important to me as I would love to see this deck flourish going forward!
Why not try to fit 3 maindeck ghostquarter. Helps against tron and moon a lot. I think you can cut fetches down to 3 each and get rid of a godless shrine so you fetch a regular basic for the second w/b source.
@ButcheroftheCards
I've tried, but when I did, it either turned up to be a weaker version of 8rack or hatebears. And if you're following that, might as well play 8rack or hatebears.
You don't have a clear picture with your deck because the decklist your decklist doesn't have a clear strategy. The decklist you're making seems a lot like one of the ones I built where it can switch from agro to long-game, hence the confusion. Let me explain
1) Voice of resurgence CAN be agressive. Opponent doesn't want to destroy it to get tokens and secondary triggers from blood artist effects, but it can also be defensive. You can block and get a second body. Either is profitable for you because you get blood artist triggers
2) Voice works really well with Liliana, Heretical healer. Kill off voice and you can get it back. more bodies and more blood artist trigers. It's hard for them to decide what to remove.
3) Yes, rally is the combo, but it's also the finishing combo. For agro decks, they push in with aristocrats or small annoying things. Then when they can't do that, they stall for the rally to do the finishg damage. For Voice decks, it's a body generator on top of damage to make your voice token bigger. It's a pump spell, a force multiplier and a damage spell all in one
4) Abzan Ascendency is more for slower decks, actually. It takes three turns to get 1 or two 1/1 fliers? That's pretty slow. But it creates extra bodies for blood artist triggers. They try to kill something? Well, you get a second body to get another trigger. Works amazing with Evolutionary leap. Kill your dude (preferably a voice of resurgence) to get a new dude from your deck, and a new spirit dude. If you did it with voice, blisterpod or tukatounge thallid, that's another dude left behind too. Then you can sac again to get ANOTHER dude with Evolutionary Leap to get ANOTHER dude and another dude. Lots of Blood artist triggers.
5) Flagstones only work well with smallpox varaints. but if you're playing that deck, I think 8rack does hand denial control much better.
As for how you can make the deck offensive and defensive, depending on what your opponent is doing. You can attack with voice and low drops, then block and chump to stall for your rally finish. Or you can block with voice to create a wall with the token that gets bigger with more creatures on the field. Abzan ascendency helps with that a lot. Then finish off with the combo or attack with a big massive creature.
Funny you say that. My friend and I were discussing Ghost Quarter earlier today and whether or not it was doable in this deck's 75. Our thoughts on it as a Sideboard or Mainboard option are a bit split. On one hand it is a savior against Tron/Merfolk/Affinity, but on the other hand it will likely create issues with mana consistency since were only running anywhere from 20-21 lands and playing 3 colors. We could use it as a sideboard option, but have decided that Fulminator Mage may be a decent and slightly better choice as well. Fulminator Mage does demand "Lili colors", but would probably be flip-flopped with her in a sideboard situation so we're no so black heavy going into game 2. We can also get him back with Rally the Ancestors and do double duty with him. Again, these are all hypotheticals here do require testing.
As for cutting Fetches for GQ's, this is probably not an option currently for us because, as you'll notice we've chosen Verdant Catacombs and Windswept Heath, both of which can tutor up Dryad Arbor which is absolutely key IMO. He can essentially be flashed in as a chump blocker, or as a sac target generating decent damage and life gain, not to mention he can contribute to convoke. Want access to this guy 100% of the time that we have an uncracked fetch out. If we draw into him, that's ok too.
Let me know what you think and thank you for your ideas, they're being discussed and will likely be put into practice as to not rule them out without trying them first.
Which cards you play depends on what kind of strategy you want to go for. Abzan lists are, to the best of my understanding, more of a value/attrition based strategy that keeps creatures around for days because so many of them give you more from their death (Doomed Traveler, Blisterpod). Mardu are more aggressive typically. Orzhov tend to be more combo or aggro.
In order to play this deck you need some kind of "free" sac outlet (Viscera Seer, Cartel Aristocrat, Falkenrath Aristocrat). Basically one that doesn't cost mana to use is preferable. Then you need some kind of card to get value out of the death of your creatures. Typically that's Blood Artist because it deals damage to your opponent and gains you life. It actively moves you closer to winning while also making it harder for you to die.
Rally is much better for the combo because its instant speed which allows you to activate the combo any time you think you can pull it off such as when the blue player taps out.
leaving me with 2 lands and a 1/1 flyer, and a creature in the grave and him with.... nothing. and a card discarded
I am thinking of adding Smallpox to this deck as well, but am not sure how to pull it off,
maybe with the Tidehollow Sculler..
But when you make it less aggro-y or combo-y you probably have to add Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek or you'll be too slow vs real combo. if that makes any sense... but I dont want to add those.
A lot of people have tried the Small Pox thing and found they didn't like it. They all ended up saying its a different deck and it requires you to build it a specific way to support Small Pox and this deck usually has such a low curve that the land loss really really really hurts.
What's the best strategy? and how do you react when someone boards in graveyard hate? are you just dead?
sorry for this chaotic post but I am losing a clear picture of where the deck is going.
As far as what the best strategy is, well that depends on who you talk to you. I think the combo strategy is best. Others think the Abzan value/attrition plan is best. You need to decide how you want to play the deck then we can give you more advice on how to acheive that plan.
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Funny you say that. My friend and I were discussing Ghost Quarter earlier today and whether or not it was doable in this deck's 75. Our thoughts on it as a Sideboard or Mainboard option are a bit split. On one hand it is a savior against Tron/Merfolk/Affinity, but on the other hand it will likely create issues with mana consistency since were only running anywhere from 20-21 lands and playing 3 colors. We could use it as a sideboard option, but have decided that Fulminator Mage may be a decent and slightly better choice as well. Fulminator Mage does demand "Lili colors", but would probably be flip-flopped with her in a sideboard situation so we're no so black heavy going into game 2. We can also get him back with Rally the Ancestors and do double duty with him. Again, these are all hypotheticals here do require testing.
As for cutting Fetches for GQ's, this is probably not an option currently for us because, as you'll notice we've chosen Verdant Catacombs and Windswept Heath, both of which can tutor up Dryad Arbor which is absolutely key IMO. He can essentially be flashed in as a chump blocker, or as a sac target generating decent damage and life gain, not to mention he can contribute to convoke. Want access to this guy 100% of the time that we have an uncracked fetch out. If we draw into him, that's ok too.
Let me know what you think and thank you for your ideas, they're being discussed and will likely be put into practice as to not rule them out without trying them first.
It really depends on your meta, but I don't think fulminator can answer your problems. It helps, but it's too slow. Tron can easily be built by turn 5. And you lose automatically to natural tron. Similarly, Amulet Bloom can win VERY fast unless you disrupt them early, and with your small removal suite, GC is really the only option I can reccomend. Against Blood Moon, you can GC your own land to get the land you need.
I don't find tutoring up for Dryad Arbor to be necessary because if you're running green, you have blisterpod, Tukatounge thallid, young wolf, and a plethora of choices for early drops. Dryad Arbor is just a win-more card. I can think of very few scenarios where fetching that arbor is actually beneficial. And it's a body that doesn't even create a second body for your artist triggers. For your scenarios, Why not just get an extra tukatounge thallid or young wolf so when you chump block the previous turn, you get a free chump block the next turn also.
Yes, GC weakens your mana base, but it strengthens up your deck against a lot of matches. I find that if your deck can be tuned to win decently with 3 GC, the deck can become significantly more resilient. I've won against tron mulling to 5 and keeping 2 ghost quarters, having no drops turn 1-3. Then side in some fulminators for extra hate.
So you would recommend gq over vault of the archangel? I can see it helping in a lot of ways, my meta seems pretty aggro heavy but I think it's worth a try.
Ghost Quarter can't get you a basic vs Blood Moon. Unless you mean you can sac it in response to blood moon being cast, which is true, but then they've effectively blanked one of your mana sources and slowed you down a full turn. And that's just the threat of blood moon. They might never cast it, and you're keeping it open the whole time just in case. Doesn't seem optimal to me.
So you would recommend gq over vault of the archangel? I can see it helping in a lot of ways, my meta seems pretty aggro heavy but I think it's worth a try.
As stated, it really does depend on your meta. But I don't think vault is very good for anti agro. It activates on turn 4, which is pretty late for agro. I think your 4 finks should do a pretty good job against it anyway.
Ghost Quarter can't get you a basic vs Blood Moon. Unless you mean you can sac it in response to blood moon being cast, which is true, but then they've effectively blanked one of your mana sources and slowed you down a full turn. And that's just the threat of blood moon. They might never cast it, and you're keeping it open the whole time just in case. Doesn't seem optimal to me.
Yes, that's what I mean. And that's not how it goes in actual play. Our curves are rather low and we only need 4 mana at most. It's not like we expect GC to come in multiples by turn 4. And you usually play around bloodmoon. Maybe your first land is a dual and then you fetch basics for lands 2 and 3. At four you have the mana you need and keep GC up just in case.
I see some of these lists that have done well in testing do not have collected company... Any reasoning behind that?
This deck is about death triggers, not ETB triggers. I understand that you have to have creatures on the field to have them die but most lists are already so tight on slots that company is too hard to fit in. Beyond that its four mana, which, depending on your build, can be a bit rough to hit consistently. Not every build even runs green and company doesn't do enough to justify splashing green just for it. Also, if you are on the combo plan Company can bury your Rally which is no good either.
The basic point is that Company is no better here than any other random deck that plays a lot of low cmc creatures and usually not good enough to go out of your way for it. I could see an Abzan list maybe running a couple copies but then the question becomes, what do I take out for it?
Regarding Ghost Quarter: I actually run 2 or 3 copies of it main deck with no issue. I used to run Vault of the Archangel but found that I activated to seldom that it was just a wasted colorless land where I would rather have access to Ghost Quarter. I don't think this deck just folds to Tron once assembled, especially if you are on the combo plan. Tron is notoriously weak to combo decks due to their lack of instant speed/meaningful interaction. Mono-B Tron being the single exception to that.
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[wagawagawali], Disruption early game, or aggro early game. A turn 1 BSC, or thoughtseize, just disrupt, play into counters because the creatures just come back, though this might be more my play style. I play risky, and try to get my opponent to burn their counters. my friend remanded my falkenrath, then I just recast it. That's what I'm talking about you know? Who really cares if they counter things. Play slick, let them take the creature while you burn theirs or remove theirs.
The sideboard is really what hits the T1 decks. You know, the olivia hits tron, the crumble to dust hits tron, the stony silence(tron&affinity) and bolts, paths, dreadbore, crackling doom, make me into affinitys and infects nightmare. My friend went to his first pro-level even and said he 0-2 scrubbed out. In doing so, he noticed a key feature when playing modern. There is no meta game in modern really, just sideboard vs your bad match ups, because you need to win those match ups.
Fish is another deck where I board in all the removal I can, and try to outrace them
Jund is a 70/30. It's a nightmare for me, even though it's kind of the same, in the ways we both have lots of removal, and disruption. I haven't played against it too much. It seems like it eats me alive, right? I worry about the scavenging ooze the most. Help me beat Jund TT_TT
Burn....Burn used to worry me, but then I put in the timely reinforcements. Then we have all kinds of hand disruption. See burn is like a one trick pony that relies on the cards it receives from the beginning of the game, to go forward. It fetches for the few lands in the deck, to thin out to have better top decks, but if I take away that advantage and send them into top deck mode early....all they do is possibly draw a card...play a card...that's it. I went down to 11 by Thought seizing twice and fetching some stuff, and still came out on top.
By the way the 1 bojuka bog is amazing if drawn mid game. Against storm it's a total hose. Keep it up and if they haven't gone off on their turn 3 drop it. Also hits control, stops snapcaster, stops KC, stops living end...dead. <- best match up ever. Let them living end your guys back
Another thing is, take a look at what black white tokens is doing. hand disruption small creatures buffs etc...Flood the field. Thats how I beat control is that I went WIIIIDEEEEE. at the end of the 4th match I had 9 goblin tokens a falkenrath, a blood soaked champion, and 2 bloodghasts.
Let me ask those who are saying ghost quarter for the deck. How do you feel having 1 or more in your opening hand? not good I bet? man lands yo. Man lands
I check out for a month and Wizards gives us this beautiful Cutthroat bro! And he can attack! And he's a Human, for when it matters! Going to ditch Outpost Sieges for 2 Blood Artist and replace the normal 4 Artists with Cutthroats, aw ye.
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GW Hatebears more like HateBROS BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
I check out for a month and Wizards gives us this beautiful Cutthroat bro! And he can attack! And he's a Human, for when it matters! Going to ditch Outpost Sieges for 2 Blood Artist and replace the normal 4 Artists with Cutthroats, aw ye.
is one power, making it a 1/1, really worth replacing BA which triggers off opponents stuff dying?
This deck doesn't seem to depend on the opponents creatures dying. The combo is based off the deaths of our own creatures. Besides the only removal you would MD is path to exile...
I'm starting to get a feel for the abzan build over the orzhov. I like the fact that combo is the main win con but if for some reason we just need a beat down voice of resurgence works wonders...
How are the matches against combo decks like twin/tron or aggro decks like burn/infect?
I really like your bw combo focused list alphagprime, but I only counted 58 cards and was wondering what the last two were or if I missed something that you mentioned later. I'm going to brew up a mardu human focused version soon here, and I'll test it out at my lgs as soon as I can, maybe post a list for you guys. It'll probably be different and sub-optimal, I've noticed my play style isn't always conducive to winning, but I'm more in it for "doing what I want to," as in making the deck work within my weird parameters and quirks, so please, bear with me. I've really been loving dega colors lately so I'm looking forward to playing this.
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I have been following this thread for the past month wanting a new deck to play in Modern and really like this one since I've always been a fan of graveyard shenanigans and a lot of the creatures played in these decks are my favorites from past standards. I seem to do this a bit different than everyone else though, so I figured I'd put my deck list up for judgement. I originally was going to go Mardu but slowly phased out the Red the more I tested it. I've played it in two small local tournaments now and have gotten 2-1 and 3-1 to it, losing only to control and burn (and I didn't have Leyline of Sanctity at the time.) I still feel like the deck needs some tweaking but not sure what or where.
Hey guys, How again do we not die horribly to a side-boarded Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace? since they are replacement effects and both blood artist and cutthroat resolve on creatures hitting graveyards, kinda like legacy/vintage helm of obedience combo. since i am seeing sideboards without enchantment removal.
Hey guys, How again do we not die horribly to a side-boarded Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace? since they are replacement effects and both blood artist and cutthroat resolve on creatures hitting graveyards, kinda like legacy/vintage helm of obedience combo. since i am seeing sideboards without enchantment removal.
I played a few games against Grafdigger's Cage and a friendly game against Leyline of the Void and you kinda just power through it. It is super rough and I probably should have more enchantment removal in my list, at least in the sideboard. Tidehollows can grab them, but I agree that I should have something more reliable. I was thinking of adding one or two copies of Utter End, but there might be something quicker that I don't know about.
Hey all -- I've been lurking this thread since February, it's awesome to see that aristocrats has gotten this much attention! This is far and away my favorite deck to play.
After spending a lot of time weighing the options (and learning modern along the way), here's the build I came up with -- there's a full writeup covering card choices and deck design on TappedOut!
I'm thinking that the way to go for aristocrats is is straight-up value, not leaning too heavily on any specific combo. I've opted to avoid: Collected Company, since that imposes too harsh of a limit on the deck design; zombies, since graveyard hate is too common / powerful in modern; and Lingering Souls / Bitterblossom, since tokens alone don't provide enough value to be worthwhile here. Instead, I'm running cards like Voice of Resurgence and Dark Confidant that are just plain powerful and demand answers, plus a strong removal suite that rivals pretty much any deck out there for value. The plan is to grind the opponent out until you find a way to win, and this deck has a lot of ways to win -- I think one of the biggest strengths of the archetype is that it can attack from so many different angles. Falkenrath Aristocrat and Butcher of the Horde can go for a beatdown strategy, Cartel Aristocrat can cut through a stalled board for damage, Abzan Ascendancy and Blood Artist can combo off for lethal, Rally the Ancestors can win the game at instant speed for 4cmc, and Sorin, Solemn Visitor from the sideboard can turn an army of dorks into a wincon. For me, having a lot of different ways to win the game is a big part of what makes this deck great.
Running both Voice of Resurgence and Falkenrath Aristocrat required me to be in four colors, but that actually isn't too difficult. This is pretty much Abzan -- there's very little red, and you don't need red at all until turn four or later.
For death trigger effects, I decided to double down on variety by choosing several 1-ofs -- there's Blood Artist, Blade of the Blood Chief, Abzan Ascendancy, Athreos, God of Passage, Fecundity and Liliana, Heretical Healer. The thinking here is that you're usually better off with a variety of death trigger effects on the board than with multiples of the same death trigger effect. Plus, too many of these effects can make the deck too durdly.
Most of the feedback I've gotten on this so far has been that it's too scattered, but again, I think the variety of wincons and death triggers is a strength here. The deck actually has a strong core, with 4x each of Blood Artist, Doomed Traveler, Voice of Resurgence and Viscera Seer. Plus, Viscera Seer can help us dig for answers and function as sort of a toolbox when necessary.
What do y'all think about this game plan? Also, I'm relatively new to modern -- how do y'all think this stacks up to the meta?
I have been wanting to make a deck like this for a long ass time but haven't been able to get it to work.
I was thinking a controlly version like this could be pretty cool.
I think this deck is a little bit different then the other lists, but I decided it was good to have the podless combo pieces available to work with.
3x anafenza, kin-tree spirit
4x viscera seer
2x teysa, orzhov scion
2x athreos, god of passage
4x kitchen finks
4x Zulaport Cutthroat
4x Cartel Aristocrat
1x murderous redcap
2x auriok champion
SPELLS (12)
4x Path to Exile
2x dismember
4x bitterblossom
2x rally the ancestors
4x Godless Shrine
4x Isolated Chapel
2x Plains
2x Swamp
4x bloodstained mire
3x windbrisk heights
1x ghost quarter
2x vault of the archangel
1x Wrath of God
2x blood baron of viskopa
3x stony silence
2x ghost quarter
2x keening apparition
2x leyline of sanctity
3x leyline of the void
Here are the brief results from my FNM:
Round 1 (Affinity) 2-1
Game 1 he beat me down really fast. Game two got a windbrisk heights of stony silence into play, stabilized and won a grindy game via cutthroat triggers from bitterblossom sacs to viscera seer. Game three, turn 2 stony silence, stabilized at 3 life, started to turn the game back in my favor and won handily.
Round 2 (GR aggro - budget) 2-0
Not much here, game 1 got combo off and T4 win. Game 2 overwhelmed with creatures and board presence.
Round 3 (mono - white midrange budget) 2-0
Similar to round 2, young kids playing for fun and enjoying a good night of free modern. Cool group of pups, and the future of the game is good.
Round 4 (GW tokens) 2-0
This was interesting, he was also 3-0 on the night when we faced off. He had a heavy token brew that relied on parallel lives and lots of creatures. We did a lot of trading at first, but my recursion and sticking a couple of bitterblossoms overwhelmed him. Game 2 was pretty fast as well. murderous redcap did some good work in this match.
Again, I know this list is a bit different than the other aristocrat lists being ran, but I wanted to throw it out there. Teysa and Bitterblossom were very nice to have out together especially with a viscera seer out. It never was long until I scryed into the card I needed and the windbrisk heights also did a lot of work smoothing out the draws and getting into the cards I needed. Athreos was cool, if anafenza wasn't in play I would stack triggers from redcap and give them the option of it going to my hand twice so I could reset the -1/-1 counters on finks and redcap or he could take a lot more damage to make it go to the GY only for the persist trigger to hit. Or I could do it vice versa and make him take a total of 6 just to get rid of the redcap (3 from redcap damage and 3 from athreos trigger).
It was a lot of fun, seemed very consistent, but I need to conduct more playtesting!
I took some of your deck ideas, mixed them in with my original build, and was able to test today with a friend for about 4 hours against Abbott Jund, Merfolk, and Big Zoo.
Here's the list:
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
2 Godless Shrine
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Isolated Chapel
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
Creatures:
4 Blisterpod
2 Blood Artist
2 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Doomed Traveler
2 Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Skirsdag High Priest
2 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Viscera Seer
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Abzan Ascendancy
2 Bitterblossom
1 Rally the Ancestors
3 Return to the Ranks
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Keening Apparition
2 Path to Exile
2 Tidehollow Sculler
First, I must say this deck is running VERY well. I'm quite pleased with the results from today and have a couple things I plan on doing to hopefully tune it just a bit more. (Changes below not yet incorporated above)
I am going to switch out one Isolated Chapel for a second maindeck Plains. We both decided that 2 maindeck Plains are necessary for this deck to keep going if we're up against an opponent that is attacking our land base which we believe to be one of, if not the biggest weakness. If we can't get out our sideboard cards, namely Keening Apparition to get rid of Spreading Seas and Blood Moons that could be fairly devastating to our game plan. If we can't get Return to the Ranks or Rally the Ancestors going we'll likely get pretty far behind also.
Secondly, we both agreed that a second Horizon Canopy in the main would be nice for additional card draw getting important pieces into our hand that we scry into while saccing our board. The second Horizon Canopy is probably going to replace one of the Temple Gardens
As for today's test matchups:
(Abbott)Jund was pretty much a walk in the park. I testing against this the most since he was also testing this deck for his own personal interest. Jund wanted to be offensive with Lightning Bolts and Terminates and found itself 2 for 1'ing and not getting ahead. Scavenging Ooze seemed like a real threat on the surface, but typically wasn't aggressive enough to exile my whole graveyard after dropping a Satyr Wayfinder and saccing my board. He simply didn't have enough green mana to get rid of all of my threats that I could get back with Return to the Ranks and Rally the Ancestors. Out of 12-15 games, I only lost once by a close margin.
Big Zoo was really fast and came in for a ton of damage with Wild Nacatl and Knight of the Reliquary using exhalted triggers. He got me down to low life the majority of the games, but had no board sweepers allowing me to recur my Voice of Resurgence and resaccing them to get Elemental tokens that were typically 2-3 more Power/Toughness than his Knight of the Reliquary ever was. We only play 3-5 games here, but I ended up winning all of them.
Merfolk was pretty interesting and required the most thinking out of the 3 decks. Æther Vial was tricky when going in for early damage because I was never sure if I should swing with my sac outlet creatures in case he was willing to flash in a dude and trade with them halting my gameplan. Spreading Seas really slowed me down and we didn't ever sideboard since we were most concerned with the "Game 1" experience if you will during testing. I only got 2-3 games in against Merfolk and ended up winning all of these matches as well. I was always happy to see Master of Waves when I had Bitterblossom out and either Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat out since all of the tokens traded resulting in serious damage and life gain; an unforeseen plus to this matchup.
I would like to say that my testing opponent is by no means a newb to MTG and has actually taught me quite a bit about the game to throw out the accusation that maybe the testing session was weighted more on player skill and was not an even playing field. We've both been playing for several years: He 4-5 and myself since Urza block (haiatus from Torment to Zendikar block) how many ever years ago that was. So I'd like to think that our experience and skill is sufficient to properly test this Aristocrat/Token deck. ANYWAY!
Weaknesses:
While neither of us were able to test some other decks that we would have liked to today, namely Tron, Affinity, Twin, Burn, Control i.e. Grixis, UW, Blue Moon or other Moon type builds, we both felt that these in particular could present a challenge for this deck. With that said, that is how we arrived at the changes stated above and the sideboard above. Creature decks simply don't seem to get there, Jund wants to interact and can't affectively, and Merfolk with the exception of land hate strategies also falls short like other creature decks.
I am going to continue to play this deck for the next couple of months and continue to report accordingly.
PLEASE comment and leave any and all suggestions and criticisms as they're important to me as I would love to see this deck flourish going forward!
Why not try to fit 3 maindeck ghostquarter. Helps against tron and moon a lot. I think you can cut fetches down to 3 each and get rid of a godless shrine so you fetch a regular basic for the second w/b source.
@ButcheroftheCards
I've tried, but when I did, it either turned up to be a weaker version of 8rack or hatebears. And if you're following that, might as well play 8rack or hatebears.
You don't have a clear picture with your deck because the decklist your decklist doesn't have a clear strategy. The decklist you're making seems a lot like one of the ones I built where it can switch from agro to long-game, hence the confusion. Let me explain
1) Voice of resurgence CAN be agressive. Opponent doesn't want to destroy it to get tokens and secondary triggers from blood artist effects, but it can also be defensive. You can block and get a second body. Either is profitable for you because you get blood artist triggers
2) Voice works really well with Liliana, Heretical healer. Kill off voice and you can get it back. more bodies and more blood artist trigers. It's hard for them to decide what to remove.
3) Yes, rally is the combo, but it's also the finishing combo. For agro decks, they push in with aristocrats or small annoying things. Then when they can't do that, they stall for the rally to do the finishg damage. For Voice decks, it's a body generator on top of damage to make your voice token bigger. It's a pump spell, a force multiplier and a damage spell all in one
4) Abzan Ascendency is more for slower decks, actually. It takes three turns to get 1 or two 1/1 fliers? That's pretty slow. But it creates extra bodies for blood artist triggers. They try to kill something? Well, you get a second body to get another trigger. Works amazing with Evolutionary leap. Kill your dude (preferably a voice of resurgence) to get a new dude from your deck, and a new spirit dude. If you did it with voice, blisterpod or tukatounge thallid, that's another dude left behind too. Then you can sac again to get ANOTHER dude with Evolutionary Leap to get ANOTHER dude and another dude. Lots of Blood artist triggers.
5) Flagstones only work well with smallpox varaints. but if you're playing that deck, I think 8rack does hand denial control much better.
As for how you can make the deck offensive and defensive, depending on what your opponent is doing. You can attack with voice and low drops, then block and chump to stall for your rally finish. Or you can block with voice to create a wall with the token that gets bigger with more creatures on the field. Abzan ascendency helps with that a lot. Then finish off with the combo or attack with a big massive creature.
Funny you say that. My friend and I were discussing Ghost Quarter earlier today and whether or not it was doable in this deck's 75. Our thoughts on it as a Sideboard or Mainboard option are a bit split. On one hand it is a savior against Tron/Merfolk/Affinity, but on the other hand it will likely create issues with mana consistency since were only running anywhere from 20-21 lands and playing 3 colors. We could use it as a sideboard option, but have decided that Fulminator Mage may be a decent and slightly better choice as well. Fulminator Mage does demand "Lili colors", but would probably be flip-flopped with her in a sideboard situation so we're no so black heavy going into game 2. We can also get him back with Rally the Ancestors and do double duty with him. Again, these are all hypotheticals here do require testing.
As for cutting Fetches for GQ's, this is probably not an option currently for us because, as you'll notice we've chosen Verdant Catacombs and Windswept Heath, both of which can tutor up Dryad Arbor which is absolutely key IMO. He can essentially be flashed in as a chump blocker, or as a sac target generating decent damage and life gain, not to mention he can contribute to convoke. Want access to this guy 100% of the time that we have an uncracked fetch out. If we draw into him, that's ok too.
Let me know what you think and thank you for your ideas, they're being discussed and will likely be put into practice as to not rule them out without trying them first.
Liliana is definitely good. Very good in fact but not necessary ultimtely but she does add some fun interactions to the deck.
Which cards you play depends on what kind of strategy you want to go for. Abzan lists are, to the best of my understanding, more of a value/attrition based strategy that keeps creatures around for days because so many of them give you more from their death (Doomed Traveler, Blisterpod). Mardu are more aggressive typically. Orzhov tend to be more combo or aggro.
In order to play this deck you need some kind of "free" sac outlet (Viscera Seer, Cartel Aristocrat, Falkenrath Aristocrat). Basically one that doesn't cost mana to use is preferable. Then you need some kind of card to get value out of the death of your creatures. Typically that's Blood Artist because it deals damage to your opponent and gains you life. It actively moves you closer to winning while also making it harder for you to die.
Rally is much better for the combo because its instant speed which allows you to activate the combo any time you think you can pull it off such as when the blue player taps out.
A lot of people have tried the Small Pox thing and found they didn't like it. They all ended up saying its a different deck and it requires you to build it a specific way to support Small Pox and this deck usually has such a low curve that the land loss really really really hurts.
As far as what the best strategy is, well that depends on who you talk to you. I think the combo strategy is best. Others think the Abzan value/attrition plan is best. You need to decide how you want to play the deck then we can give you more advice on how to acheive that plan.
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It really depends on your meta, but I don't think fulminator can answer your problems. It helps, but it's too slow. Tron can easily be built by turn 5. And you lose automatically to natural tron. Similarly, Amulet Bloom can win VERY fast unless you disrupt them early, and with your small removal suite, GC is really the only option I can reccomend. Against Blood Moon, you can GC your own land to get the land you need.
I don't find tutoring up for Dryad Arbor to be necessary because if you're running green, you have blisterpod, Tukatounge thallid, young wolf, and a plethora of choices for early drops. Dryad Arbor is just a win-more card. I can think of very few scenarios where fetching that arbor is actually beneficial. And it's a body that doesn't even create a second body for your artist triggers. For your scenarios, Why not just get an extra tukatounge thallid or young wolf so when you chump block the previous turn, you get a free chump block the next turn also.
Yes, GC weakens your mana base, but it strengthens up your deck against a lot of matches. I find that if your deck can be tuned to win decently with 3 GC, the deck can become significantly more resilient. I've won against tron mulling to 5 and keeping 2 ghost quarters, having no drops turn 1-3. Then side in some fulminators for extra hate.
Ghost Quarter can't get you a basic vs Blood Moon. Unless you mean you can sac it in response to blood moon being cast, which is true, but then they've effectively blanked one of your mana sources and slowed you down a full turn. And that's just the threat of blood moon. They might never cast it, and you're keeping it open the whole time just in case. Doesn't seem optimal to me.
As stated, it really does depend on your meta. But I don't think vault is very good for anti agro. It activates on turn 4, which is pretty late for agro. I think your 4 finks should do a pretty good job against it anyway.
Yes, that's what I mean. And that's not how it goes in actual play. Our curves are rather low and we only need 4 mana at most. It's not like we expect GC to come in multiples by turn 4. And you usually play around bloodmoon. Maybe your first land is a dual and then you fetch basics for lands 2 and 3. At four you have the mana you need and keep GC up just in case.
This deck is about death triggers, not ETB triggers. I understand that you have to have creatures on the field to have them die but most lists are already so tight on slots that company is too hard to fit in. Beyond that its four mana, which, depending on your build, can be a bit rough to hit consistently. Not every build even runs green and company doesn't do enough to justify splashing green just for it. Also, if you are on the combo plan Company can bury your Rally which is no good either.
The basic point is that Company is no better here than any other random deck that plays a lot of low cmc creatures and usually not good enough to go out of your way for it. I could see an Abzan list maybe running a couple copies but then the question becomes, what do I take out for it?
Regarding Ghost Quarter: I actually run 2 or 3 copies of it main deck with no issue. I used to run Vault of the Archangel but found that I activated to seldom that it was just a wasted colorless land where I would rather have access to Ghost Quarter. I don't think this deck just folds to Tron once assembled, especially if you are on the combo plan. Tron is notoriously weak to combo decks due to their lack of instant speed/meaningful interaction. Mono-B Tron being the single exception to that.
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The sideboard is really what hits the T1 decks. You know, the olivia hits tron, the crumble to dust hits tron, the stony silence(tron&affinity) and bolts, paths, dreadbore, crackling doom, make me into affinitys and infects nightmare. My friend went to his first pro-level even and said he 0-2 scrubbed out. In doing so, he noticed a key feature when playing modern. There is no meta game in modern really, just sideboard vs your bad match ups, because you need to win those match ups.
Fish is another deck where I board in all the removal I can, and try to outrace them
Jund is a 70/30. It's a nightmare for me, even though it's kind of the same, in the ways we both have lots of removal, and disruption. I haven't played against it too much. It seems like it eats me alive, right? I worry about the scavenging ooze the most. Help me beat Jund TT_TT
Burn....Burn used to worry me, but then I put in the timely reinforcements. Then we have all kinds of hand disruption. See burn is like a one trick pony that relies on the cards it receives from the beginning of the game, to go forward. It fetches for the few lands in the deck, to thin out to have better top decks, but if I take away that advantage and send them into top deck mode early....all they do is possibly draw a card...play a card...that's it. I went down to 11 by Thought seizing twice and fetching some stuff, and still came out on top.
By the way the 1 bojuka bog is amazing if drawn mid game. Against storm it's a total hose. Keep it up and if they haven't gone off on their turn 3 drop it. Also hits control, stops snapcaster, stops KC, stops living end...dead. <- best match up ever. Let them living end your guys back
Another thing is, take a look at what black white tokens is doing. hand disruption small creatures buffs etc...Flood the field. Thats how I beat control is that I went WIIIIDEEEEE. at the end of the 4th match I had 9 goblin tokens a falkenrath, a blood soaked champion, and 2 bloodghasts.
Let me ask those who are saying ghost quarter for the deck. How do you feel having 1 or more in your opening hand? not good I bet? man lands yo. Man lands
BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
is one power, making it a 1/1, really worth replacing BA which triggers off opponents stuff dying?
I'm starting to get a feel for the abzan build over the orzhov. I like the fact that combo is the main win con but if for some reason we just need a beat down voice of resurgence works wonders...
How are the matches against combo decks like twin/tron or aggro decks like burn/infect?
"What does MtheW stand for? The world may never know."
I have been following this thread for the past month wanting a new deck to play in Modern and really like this one since I've always been a fan of graveyard shenanigans and a lot of the creatures played in these decks are my favorites from past standards. I seem to do this a bit different than everyone else though, so I figured I'd put my deck list up for judgement. I originally was going to go Mardu but slowly phased out the Red the more I tested it. I've played it in two small local tournaments now and have gotten 2-1 and 3-1 to it, losing only to control and burn (and I didn't have Leyline of Sanctity at the time.) I still feel like the deck needs some tweaking but not sure what or where.
Here it is:
4 Viscera Seer
4 Bloodghast
4 Cartel Aristocrat
3 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Blood Artist
4 Geralf's Messenger
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
1 Atheros, God of Passage
2 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Damnation
4 Lingering Souls
4 Godless Shrines
8 Fetches
2 Plains
6 Swamps
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Sudden Death
1 Wrath of God
Like I said before, I lost to RW Burn, and Esper Control. I've won against RG Tron, Laterns, Mardu Tokens, Boggle.
Thank you for any advice and I'll answer any questions I can.
I played a few games against Grafdigger's Cage and a friendly game against Leyline of the Void and you kinda just power through it. It is super rough and I probably should have more enchantment removal in my list, at least in the sideboard. Tidehollows can grab them, but I agree that I should have something more reliable. I was thinking of adding one or two copies of Utter End, but there might be something quicker that I don't know about.
1 Blood Crypt
2 Forest
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
Fodder
4 Doomed Traveler
4 Voice of Resurgence
Death Triggers
1 Abzan Ascendancy
1 Athreos, God of Passage
1 Blade of the Bloodchief
4 Blood Artist
1 Fecundity
2 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Butcher of the Horde
1 Cartel Aristocrat
1 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Viscera Seer
Removal
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Path to Exile
2 Tidehollow Sculler
Other
3 Dark Confidant
2 Rally the Ancestors
1 Abzan Ascendancy
2 Auriok Champion
2 Damnation
1 Evolutionary Leap
2 Mark of Asylum
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Slaughter Games
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Stony Silence
Hey all -- I've been lurking this thread since February, it's awesome to see that aristocrats has gotten this much attention! This is far and away my favorite deck to play.
After spending a lot of time weighing the options (and learning modern along the way), here's the build I came up with -- there's a full writeup covering card choices and deck design on TappedOut!
I'm thinking that the way to go for aristocrats is is straight-up value, not leaning too heavily on any specific combo. I've opted to avoid: Collected Company, since that imposes too harsh of a limit on the deck design; zombies, since graveyard hate is too common / powerful in modern; and Lingering Souls / Bitterblossom, since tokens alone don't provide enough value to be worthwhile here. Instead, I'm running cards like Voice of Resurgence and Dark Confidant that are just plain powerful and demand answers, plus a strong removal suite that rivals pretty much any deck out there for value. The plan is to grind the opponent out until you find a way to win, and this deck has a lot of ways to win -- I think one of the biggest strengths of the archetype is that it can attack from so many different angles. Falkenrath Aristocrat and Butcher of the Horde can go for a beatdown strategy, Cartel Aristocrat can cut through a stalled board for damage, Abzan Ascendancy and Blood Artist can combo off for lethal, Rally the Ancestors can win the game at instant speed for 4cmc, and Sorin, Solemn Visitor from the sideboard can turn an army of dorks into a wincon. For me, having a lot of different ways to win the game is a big part of what makes this deck great.
Running both Voice of Resurgence and Falkenrath Aristocrat required me to be in four colors, but that actually isn't too difficult. This is pretty much Abzan -- there's very little red, and you don't need red at all until turn four or later.
For death trigger effects, I decided to double down on variety by choosing several 1-ofs -- there's Blood Artist, Blade of the Blood Chief, Abzan Ascendancy, Athreos, God of Passage, Fecundity and Liliana, Heretical Healer. The thinking here is that you're usually better off with a variety of death trigger effects on the board than with multiples of the same death trigger effect. Plus, too many of these effects can make the deck too durdly.
Most of the feedback I've gotten on this so far has been that it's too scattered, but again, I think the variety of wincons and death triggers is a strength here. The deck actually has a strong core, with 4x each of Blood Artist, Doomed Traveler, Voice of Resurgence and Viscera Seer. Plus, Viscera Seer can help us dig for answers and function as sort of a toolbox when necessary.
What do y'all think about this game plan? Also, I'm relatively new to modern -- how do y'all think this stacks up to the meta?