So, there's a lot to talk about here. Of all the decks I've been brewing recently in preparation of the release of GRN, this in the one I'm the happiest about creating (and also the strongest I think, although that remains to be seen). We received numerous sac outlets and graveyard recursion this season. I figure it may be time for Aristocrats to make a comeback! We've got a lot of power BG in the form of Assassin's Trophy and Vraska, Golgari Queen plus creature cards that leave other creatures behind when they die. Throw in a little re-an (and a little bit of graveyard hate ourselves) and we've got ourselves a deck:
Like aristocrat days of yore, the purpose of the deck is to sac our own creatures for beneficial gain. But instead our opponent's losing life and us gaining life, we're casting powerful creatures like Demon of Catastrophes or drawing cards via Vraska, Golgari Queen.
THE PLAYERS
-Legion's Landing: We want to be flipping this guy Turn 4, but barring this, it's easily replaced by another copy of itself.
-Hunted Witness: Loved this card the second I saw him. Obviously replaces himself with a body when he dies. I debated on having both him and Doomed Dissenter in the 75, but couldn't find room for Dissenter.
-Deadeye Tracker: Oh baby! A small guy that gets bigger every time we explore, with the added benefit of A)Being only one B CMC and B) Nuking most opponent's graveyard strats. You guys MUST understand how important this is in a Standard Format that has Surveil, Undergrowth, AND Jump-Start, which are powerful strategies that are all reliant on cards in the bin.
THE SAC OUTLETS
-Vraska, Golgari Queen: Draws cards, kills things, kills players. In that order. 'Nuff said.
-Demon of Catastrophes: He's got Frample, ya'll. FRAMPLE! And he's below curve for what he does.
-Plaguecrafter: For when you need to get rid of a pesky creature with Hexproof or a planeswalker you hate *cough Teferi cough*.
THE REMOVAL
-Assassin's Trophy: Enough has been said about how this may be the greatest removal spell in the history of MTG. I concur.
-Cast Down: For everything else.
THE RECURSION
-Journey to Eternity and Find // Finality: I debated on if I should have both of these cards in the mainboard. I'm more concerned with the Find half of the card, but I figure it works best against control and aggro match ups and less against midrange (which I suspect a large portion of the meta will be).
THE ODD MAN OUT
-Vraska's Conquistador: I know, I know, his abilities are situational. But if we do manage to stick a Vraska, he gives us a little more reach and incremental damage should we recur him. Easily the most replaceable card in the deck.
THE SIDEBOARD
-Emmara, Soul of the Accord: Mostly to help deal with aggro match ups.
-Knight of Autumn: A module creature spell with relevant abilities. Good against midrange more than anything else.
-Dead Weight: There are a ton of powerful creatures in the format with 1 and 2 toughness. This card helps evening the field.
-Poison-Tip Archer: Many of you may wonder why this guys in the SB and not the MB. The reason for this is that the 4 CMC of the mainboard is full. Simply put, we can't afford him, even tho he acts like what a traditional aristocrat deck wants to do. However, he does protect us against flyers, and gives us some reach against aggro as well.
-?: Have one slot left and have no idea what should go here. Maybe another Emmara?
I do think the deck is pretty good, and will only get better once the next set is released when the Orzhov Guild enters into the mix.
What I do like about the deck is trying to fit Vraska, Golgari Queen into a deck that can actually try to make her worthwhile. I've been pretty down on this card, as it is hard to gain true card advantage with her.
So I like the Legion's Landing because yo can sacrifice excessive of them to Vraska.
The obvious blowout for the deck is Goblin Chainwhirler. I think some sort of insurance for this card needs to be put in place, otherwise you are just going to fold to the card every time. I think the creature suite is going to need to be configured differently.
I think 3 x Vraska, Golgari Queen would be the number I'd play. I can see playing her for the specific reason of being a 4 mana sort of Abrupt Decay a lot of games. The thing is that you're sacrificing a creature to Demon of Catastrophes, so I think your ability to have sacrifice fodder is not as good as you think.
If you're simply ticking her up to get to the ultimate and then draw another couple of her for your draws, it feels terrible.
I wonder if it's worth trying at least one Doom Whisperer over a Demon of Catastrophes, for the reason that your sacrifice targets are more precious than you're anticipating? Just so good against control decks that don;t pressure your life total. You can be quite aggressive with your life to get the cards you need.
I agree with and have been thinking about some of the suggestions you made. Originally, I had planned on having 2 Vraska, Golgari Queens and 2 Doom Whisperers in the deck. What made me pause was the fact that I'm not running nearly enough creature recursion to make Whisperer's Surveil more profitable. Maybe we could go with something like:
The game plan has basically shifted to straight up trying to Turn 4 and Turn 5 a 6/6 Flying Trampling Demon. I guess it's less 'Aristocrats' and more 'Deal with a Devil'. And this is fine, it's just important to know what your deck is fully committed too.
The creatures that survive a Finality would be Poison-Tip Archer and the Demons. I'm not positive about this card, but it can be a one card advantage card if you use the Find, and certainly a blow out for probably most creature centric decks.
I do like the Plaguecrafter as a sort of main deck hedge against planeswalker only decks.
It is a shame that there isn't a lot to gain advantage out of Surveil for the deck, you might be able to get some advantage with Journey to Eternity and putting creature cards into your graveyard for targets, but this is slow.
The thing with posting any deck at the moment is that it's just guess work on what's actually going to be better strategies. If you're looking to win through 6 demons, and you come up against 4 x Assassin's Trophy and 4 x Vraska's Contempt then you might always be behind the 8-ball.
That's why it would be nice to come up with a GRN Aristocrats deck that can sort of go wide to ignore the one-for-one decks that will be in my opinion be popular, which I'm seeing in the forums so far. That's not to say the the real world will be like this, but a lot of players go to that sort of control removal first, before actually coming up with specialized synergy decks.
That was advantage of spamming the board decks, as opponents spot-removal looks pretty bad.
If you're really looking for creatures you just want to sac there are saporlings and two drop creatures that drop tokens when they die like Doomed Dissenter and Martyr of Dusk, or cards that make more than one creature like Jungleborn Pioneer. And of course, Izoni, Thousand-Eyed is the best card you want to play in an aristocrat style deck as she sacs for cards and provide a ton of bodies. She's even better when you have reoccursion like Journey to Eternity.
Go wide decks I think works best in Abzan, but it really depends if a certain whirly boi stick around after rotation.
People keep putting up builds centered around Journey to Eternity. I don't think that card is good - it still has the normal aura problems of 2-for-1 v. bounce/exile/Instant-speed-kill spells, it sucks up a ton of mana and it's not even particularly hard to kill once it's online now that Assassin's Trophy is a card.
I like the Aristocrats idea, and still think BWR Aristocrats was just out-and-out the most fun Standard deck ever, but the tools we have now don't really support that in terms of alternative kill conditions and combo potential in aggressive decks. What I think the current cardpool does support is a slow churn of creatures in and out of the graveyard and hard-to-deal-with fatties that can capitalize on that.
Still in early draft mode, but what I think this deck wants to look like:
I think the best things we can do around the WBG Graveyard deck is to combine Charnel Troll and Nullhide Ferox as undercosted fatties, get a bunch of ETB creatures to replicate spell effects while complementing the Troll and Ferox's deckbuilding requirements, and fill in the gaps with beatdown creatures that churn the library into the graveyard to fuel the Troll. I also think Golgari Findbroker is an overlooked gem - In a deck that doesn't run many Instants/Sorceries anyway, he's a real fat Eternal Witness who does a reasonably acceptable Muldrotha, the Gravetide impersonation.
People keep putting up builds centered around Journey to Eternity. I don't think that card is good - it still has the normal aura problems of 2-for-1 v. bounce/exile/Instant-speed-kill spells, it sucks up a ton of mana and it's not even particularly hard to kill once it's online now that Assassin's Trophy is a card.
I like the Aristocrats idea, and still think BWR Aristocrats was just out-and-out the most fun Standard deck ever, but the tools we have now don't really support that in terms of alternative kill conditions and combo potential in aggressive decks. What I think the current cardpool does support is a slow churn of creatures in and out of the graveyard and hard-to-deal-with fatties that can capitalize on that.
Still in early draft mode, but what I think this deck wants to look like:
I think the best things we can do around the WBG Graveyard deck is to combine Charnel Troll and Nullhide Ferox as undercosted fatties, get a bunch of ETB creatures to replicate spell effects while complementing the Troll and Ferox's deckbuilding requirements, and fill in the gaps with beatdown creatures that churn the library into the graveyard to fuel the Troll. I also think Golgari Findbroker is an overlooked gem - In a deck that doesn't run many Instants/Sorceries anyway, he's a real fat Eternal Witness who does a reasonably acceptable Muldrotha, the Gravetide impersonation.
I don't know how to quote single passages from posts, so i'll just address your points paragraph by paragraph:
1) It's only a 2 for 1 if an opponent is using a card that exiles, which narrows their removal options mightily. Assassin's Trophy my Demon of Catastrophes or Journey to Eternity? Who cares? I still keep my creature or Journey flips. I'd say there's an 80% chance we come out of the exchange 1 for 1, possibly to our advantage. It only sucks up your mana IF you use it to bring back little creatures. If someone kills your Doom Whisperer, you're paying the same amount to bring it back from the graveyard.
2) Maybe. I think it's still to early to tell. We don't know what the next meta will look like until GRN is released. Yes, there is a lot of graveyard support, but Aristocrats and Re-an strats serve two different (but somewhat similar) functions. I like your analysis and concurrent deck you posted, but I'm not sure we need to head that direction just yet. As I mentioned previously, this deck probably can and will get better once the next Ravnica set is released and we get access to Orzohv guild mechanics.
3) I think cards like Charnel Troll may work better in decks that actually don't want to use the graveyard as a resource. I haven't been sold on it as a card overall, because it requires you to feed it creatures from your graveyard, so you're constantly having to pitch creature cards to the bin to keep this one guy alive instead of casting them. Seems a but much.
One thing about Journey to Eternity, The Flipped Side can be done at instant speed, that is a huge advantage for it's expensive cost. Especially given that Instant Speed Reanimation is pretty powerful.
If you're really looking for creatures you just want to sac there are saporlings and two drop creatures that drop tokens when they die like Doomed Dissenter and Martyr of Dusk, or cards that make more than one creature like Jungleborn Pioneer. And of course, Izoni, Thousand-Eyed is the best card you want to play in an aristocrat style deck as she sacs for cards and provide a ton of bodies. She's even better when you have reoccursion like Journey to Eternity.
Go wide decks I think works best in Abzan, but it really depends if a certain whirly boi stick around after rotation.
Yeah, a lot of people have been bad-mouthing Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, namely because of her mana cost and Goblin Chainwhirler. But you're right, she is perfect for Aristocrats. Martyr of Dusk is a card I didn't know existed. I almost want to move Deadeye Tracker to the SB (bring it in to deal with graveyard, surveil, jump-start, and undergrowth mechanics) for Martyr. Maybe remove Seal Away and Dead Weight from the 75. To make room for Izoni, I'd have to remove either Plaguecrafter (MB) or Midnight Reaper from the deck.
1) It's only a 2 for 1 if an opponent is using a card that exiles, which narrows their removal options mightily. Assassin's Trophy my Demon of Catastrophes or Journey to Eternity? Who cares? I still keep my creature or Journey flips. I'd say there's an 80% chance we come out of the exchange 1 for 1, possibly to our advantage. It only sucks up your mana IF you use it to bring back little creatures. If someone kills your Doom Whisperer, you're paying the same amount to bring it back from the graveyard.
Any Instant speed removal (eg. Shock, Cast Out, Trophy, Lighting Strike, etc.) can 2-for-1 by targeting the creature before Journey resolves, most white removal exiles, Teferi bounces, Vraska's Contempt could still be everywhere and Lava Coil is getting a lot of talk in every slow red deck discussion page. There's very little removal that doesn't have the potential to blow Journey out.
I'm not saying the card's not worth examining, but there are a lot of draws that decks built around it can have that just won't do anything, a lot of ways for opponents to turn it into a blowout, and the cards that go into it aren't very good on their own - together, it's not a great sign.
Good point. I guess I was thinking in terms of Journey having already been resolved. That's kinda why I never wanted to run more than two copies in the deck. If it were two mana, it may have been worth it to run 3-4.
Seems pretty obvious that Journey to Eternity should target something with Hexproof if possible. What are the Hexproof creatures that will be in standard.
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
Turn two Journey on a Llanowar Elves isn't bad, but I'm not a fan of Journey without Muldrotha, the Gravetide in Sultai. Between the two you're guaranteed for something to stick.
Another target on turn three is Shanna, Sisay's Legacy. She works with tokens and is semi-hexproof and on curve. However, if you want to land Journey on a turn 1 or 2 creature on turn 3 the best bet is still Adanto Vanguard. It gets around removal and dodges later game exiling effects by coming down early. The earliest hexproof creature otherwise is the Jungleborn Pioneer I mentioned. Two bodies with one being hexproof.
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Temple Garden
4 Swamp
4 Plains
CREATURES 18
4 Hunted Witness
4 Deadeye Tracker
4 Vraska's Conquistador
2 Plaguecrafter
4 Demon of Catastrophes
4 Vraska, Golgari Queen
INSTANTS AND SORCERIES 4
2 Cast Down
4 Assassin's Trophy
ENCHANTMENTS 8
4 Legion's Landing
2 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Journey to Eternity
2 Seal Away
2 Emmara, Soul of the Accord
2 Knight of Autumn
2 Find // Finality
2 Dead Weight
2 Plaguecrafter
2 Poison-Tip Archer
1 ?
Like aristocrat days of yore, the purpose of the deck is to sac our own creatures for beneficial gain. But instead our opponent's losing life and us gaining life, we're casting powerful creatures like Demon of Catastrophes or drawing cards via Vraska, Golgari Queen.
THE PLAYERS
-Legion's Landing: We want to be flipping this guy Turn 4, but barring this, it's easily replaced by another copy of itself.
-Hunted Witness: Loved this card the second I saw him. Obviously replaces himself with a body when he dies. I debated on having both him and Doomed Dissenter in the 75, but couldn't find room for Dissenter.
-Deadeye Tracker: Oh baby! A small guy that gets bigger every time we explore, with the added benefit of A)Being only one B CMC and B) Nuking most opponent's graveyard strats. You guys MUST understand how important this is in a Standard Format that has Surveil, Undergrowth, AND Jump-Start, which are powerful strategies that are all reliant on cards in the bin.
THE SAC OUTLETS
-Vraska, Golgari Queen: Draws cards, kills things, kills players. In that order. 'Nuff said.
-Demon of Catastrophes: He's got Frample, ya'll. FRAMPLE! And he's below curve for what he does.
-Plaguecrafter: For when you need to get rid of a pesky creature with Hexproof or a planeswalker you hate *cough Teferi cough*.
THE REMOVAL
-Assassin's Trophy: Enough has been said about how this may be the greatest removal spell in the history of MTG. I concur.
-Cast Down: For everything else.
THE RECURSION
-Journey to Eternity and Find // Finality: I debated on if I should have both of these cards in the mainboard. I'm more concerned with the Find half of the card, but I figure it works best against control and aggro match ups and less against midrange (which I suspect a large portion of the meta will be).
THE ODD MAN OUT
-Vraska's Conquistador: I know, I know, his abilities are situational. But if we do manage to stick a Vraska, he gives us a little more reach and incremental damage should we recur him. Easily the most replaceable card in the deck.
THE SIDEBOARD
-Emmara, Soul of the Accord: Mostly to help deal with aggro match ups.
-Knight of Autumn: A module creature spell with relevant abilities. Good against midrange more than anything else.
-Dead Weight: There are a ton of powerful creatures in the format with 1 and 2 toughness. This card helps evening the field.
-Poison-Tip Archer: Many of you may wonder why this guys in the SB and not the MB. The reason for this is that the 4 CMC of the mainboard is full. Simply put, we can't afford him, even tho he acts like what a traditional aristocrat deck wants to do. However, he does protect us against flyers, and gives us some reach against aggro as well.
-?: Have one slot left and have no idea what should go here. Maybe another Emmara?
I do think the deck is pretty good, and will only get better once the next set is released when the Orzhov Guild enters into the mix.
So I like the Legion's Landing because yo can sacrifice excessive of them to Vraska.
The obvious blowout for the deck is Goblin Chainwhirler. I think some sort of insurance for this card needs to be put in place, otherwise you are just going to fold to the card every time. I think the creature suite is going to need to be configured differently.
I think 3 x Vraska, Golgari Queen would be the number I'd play. I can see playing her for the specific reason of being a 4 mana sort of Abrupt Decay a lot of games. The thing is that you're sacrificing a creature to Demon of Catastrophes, so I think your ability to have sacrifice fodder is not as good as you think.
If you're simply ticking her up to get to the ultimate and then draw another couple of her for your draws, it feels terrible.
I wonder if it's worth trying at least one Doom Whisperer over a Demon of Catastrophes, for the reason that your sacrifice targets are more precious than you're anticipating? Just so good against control decks that don;t pressure your life total. You can be quite aggressive with your life to get the cards you need.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Temple Garden
4 Swamp
4 Plains
CREATURES 20
4 Hunted Witness
4 Deadeye Tracker
2 Poison-Tip Archer
2 Plaguecrafter
2 Midnight Reaper
4 Demon of Catastrophes
2 Doom Whisperer
2 Vraska, Golgari Queen
INSTANTS AND SORCERIES 6
2 Cast Down
4 Assassin's Trophy
2 Find // Finality
ENCHANTMENTS 8
4 Legion's Landing
2 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Journey to Eternity
2 Seal Away
2 Emmara, Soul of the Accord
2 Knight of Autumn
2 Dead Weight
2 Plaguecrafter
3 Ritual of Soot
2 Ashes of the Abhorrent
The creatures that survive a Finality would be Poison-Tip Archer and the Demons. I'm not positive about this card, but it can be a one card advantage card if you use the Find, and certainly a blow out for probably most creature centric decks.
I do like the Plaguecrafter as a sort of main deck hedge against planeswalker only decks.
It is a shame that there isn't a lot to gain advantage out of Surveil for the deck, you might be able to get some advantage with Journey to Eternity and putting creature cards into your graveyard for targets, but this is slow.
The thing with posting any deck at the moment is that it's just guess work on what's actually going to be better strategies. If you're looking to win through 6 demons, and you come up against 4 x Assassin's Trophy and 4 x Vraska's Contempt then you might always be behind the 8-ball.
That's why it would be nice to come up with a GRN Aristocrats deck that can sort of go wide to ignore the one-for-one decks that will be in my opinion be popular, which I'm seeing in the forums so far. That's not to say the the real world will be like this, but a lot of players go to that sort of control removal first, before actually coming up with specialized synergy decks.
That was advantage of spamming the board decks, as opponents spot-removal looks pretty bad.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Go wide decks I think works best in Abzan, but it really depends if a certain whirly boi stick around after rotation.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
I like the Aristocrats idea, and still think BWR Aristocrats was just out-and-out the most fun Standard deck ever, but the tools we have now don't really support that in terms of alternative kill conditions and combo potential in aggressive decks. What I think the current cardpool does support is a slow churn of creatures in and out of the graveyard and hard-to-deal-with fatties that can capitalize on that.
Still in early draft mode, but what I think this deck wants to look like:
4 Glowspore Shaman
4 Merfolk Branchwalker
4 Seekers' Squire
1 Assassin's Trophy
4 Charnel Troll
4 Plaguecrafter
4 Knight of Autumn
1 Golgari Findbroker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Trostani Discordant
3 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Isolated Chapel
3 Swamp
3 Forest
1 Plains
I think the best things we can do around the WBG Graveyard deck is to combine Charnel Troll and Nullhide Ferox as undercosted fatties, get a bunch of ETB creatures to replicate spell effects while complementing the Troll and Ferox's deckbuilding requirements, and fill in the gaps with beatdown creatures that churn the library into the graveyard to fuel the Troll. I also think Golgari Findbroker is an overlooked gem - In a deck that doesn't run many Instants/Sorceries anyway, he's a real fat Eternal Witness who does a reasonably acceptable Muldrotha, the Gravetide impersonation.
I don't know how to quote single passages from posts, so i'll just address your points paragraph by paragraph:
1) It's only a 2 for 1 if an opponent is using a card that exiles, which narrows their removal options mightily. Assassin's Trophy my Demon of Catastrophes or Journey to Eternity? Who cares? I still keep my creature or Journey flips. I'd say there's an 80% chance we come out of the exchange 1 for 1, possibly to our advantage. It only sucks up your mana IF you use it to bring back little creatures. If someone kills your Doom Whisperer, you're paying the same amount to bring it back from the graveyard.
2) Maybe. I think it's still to early to tell. We don't know what the next meta will look like until GRN is released. Yes, there is a lot of graveyard support, but Aristocrats and Re-an strats serve two different (but somewhat similar) functions. I like your analysis and concurrent deck you posted, but I'm not sure we need to head that direction just yet. As I mentioned previously, this deck probably can and will get better once the next Ravnica set is released and we get access to Orzohv guild mechanics.
3) I think cards like Charnel Troll may work better in decks that actually don't want to use the graveyard as a resource. I haven't been sold on it as a card overall, because it requires you to feed it creatures from your graveyard, so you're constantly having to pitch creature cards to the bin to keep this one guy alive instead of casting them. Seems a but much.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Yeah, a lot of people have been bad-mouthing Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, namely because of her mana cost and Goblin Chainwhirler. But you're right, she is perfect for Aristocrats. Martyr of Dusk is a card I didn't know existed. I almost want to move Deadeye Tracker to the SB (bring it in to deal with graveyard, surveil, jump-start, and undergrowth mechanics) for Martyr. Maybe remove Seal Away and Dead Weight from the 75. To make room for Izoni, I'd have to remove either Plaguecrafter (MB) or Midnight Reaper from the deck.
Any Instant speed removal (eg. Shock, Cast Out, Trophy, Lighting Strike, etc.) can 2-for-1 by targeting the creature before Journey resolves, most white removal exiles, Teferi bounces, Vraska's Contempt could still be everywhere and Lava Coil is getting a lot of talk in every slow red deck discussion page. There's very little removal that doesn't have the potential to blow Journey out.
I'm not saying the card's not worth examining, but there are a lot of draws that decks built around it can have that just won't do anything, a lot of ways for opponents to turn it into a blowout, and the cards that go into it aren't very good on their own - together, it's not a great sign.
Off the top of my head, Vine Mare ...Nullhide Ferox is basically a nonbo. Any others?
-Stay Frosty
Another target on turn three is Shanna, Sisay's Legacy. She works with tokens and is semi-hexproof and on curve. However, if you want to land Journey on a turn 1 or 2 creature on turn 3 the best bet is still Adanto Vanguard. It gets around removal and dodges later game exiling effects by coming down early. The earliest hexproof creature otherwise is the Jungleborn Pioneer I mentioned. Two bodies with one being hexproof.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles