I've heard from a number of sources that Black aggro has a tough time in cube. I'm only just know getting my cube out into the world for some real testing, but black does seem to be lacking in good, aggressive two-drops and curve-topping finishers at four and five mana. I'm not gonna give up on it before I even start, but I do want a couple alternatives in mind, should the worst be true. I've heard people talk about Pox decks, which seem pretty cool and it's definitely on my radar, but something I haven't seen get much attention is Aristocrats. It wouldn't enable Mono-Black aggro, but it does give black something aggressive and distinct to contribute to the cube. For those unfamiliar, here's a good article that lays down the foundation of the deck.
I wasn't playing Standard at the time, but I was aware of the deck and it seemed pretty cool. Has anyone tried to do anything along these lines in Cube? Do some of the specific parts required to make it work end up feeling underpowered? Does it fall apart if it doesn't get ALL the pieces it needs? Does it just take up too much space to shoehorn in? If it did work, what were some of the all-stars? What cards did a good job of greasing the wheels?
I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, looking at replacements for Black aggro before I even get good testing in; but half the fun of building your own cube is theorycrafting, daydreaming, and tinkering with hypotheticals, right?
Braids, Cabal Minion seems like a fine 4-drop top curver to me. No need to really search for something else at that spot. Doomed Blade on a stick like Nekrataal and Skinrender are also great material. Locking the board with Neither also worth a 4 mana investment. If you have room for Falkenrath Aristocrat, she can also get the job done when splashing red.
But the point that you seem to be missing is that the 3-drop slot is the most important one for black aggro. Master of the Feast, Flesh Carver are Hypnotic Specter are the classic guys that you want. Silumgar Assasin and Mardu Strike Leader are also excellent as new school dudes.
About the lack of powerful 2-drop, I think you're kind of right. There's not that much of it out there. However, the point is that those who exist and are viable are just SO strong that they push black aggro over the top when put together. Pack Rat, Dark Conduisant, Nezumi Graverobber and Bitterblossom are just insane at bringing value to the table.
Disturbing opponent with discard sorceries is also part of the game plan in a black agressive shell. Moreover, drafting swords is important when drafting that kind of deck, because of the evasise and recursive bodies the color can bring.
The way I've built black in my cube is more similar to aristrocrats than most.. Have to break the singleton rule to make it happen tho.
There aren't enough cheap cubeable sac outlets in black and blood artist is too critical to the strategy.
Most cubes it's about symmetrical permanent destruction, but blood artist can create so many other interesting combo/synergies.
Multiple recursive creatures + blood artist + damnation in the creature matchups is awsome
Carrion feeder + gravecrawler + blood artist is a very sweet interaction. 1 Black mana for 1 drain life + 1 counter on the carrion feeder.
goblin bombardment/falkenrath artiocrat + blood artist + xathrid necromancer + bloodsoaked champion/humans is disgusting.
Black aggro is a Tier 1 deck in my cube. The colour does lack for depth in aggressive two drops (since Bitterblossom, Confidant, and others are all AAA cards) but that's the only real issue with it, since it does many things better than white or red. I have no experience at all with the 'aristocrats' type of deck, however.
Flesh Carver should move UP on that list. It's probably the best engine for an actual Aristocrats style deck.
Also, Braids, Cabal Minion and Smokestack are kinda sac outlets, and are some of the more powerful cards of their ilk. And Skullclamp! Greater Gargadon is also a boss in that deck, but it looks like you're only listing black cards.
Oops, I posted up about Sam Pardee's draft, then noticed it ws posted already. I agree that the deck looked sweet and makes me want to fit in blood artist and the cutthroat.
Blood Artist has been a longtime favorite of mine, and has never left my cube in any iteration. It fills the black 2-drop gap admirably and opens up a whole plethora of deckbuilding options, especially in decks with tutors.
One way to make this kind of strategy more exciting is to include the pieces for the Persist infinite combo, where you sac a Persist creature indefinitely for infinite damage and/or life. Here are the pieces you need, and examples of each that I think are worth considering even for cubes that don't care about this combo:
Has anyone tried Skirsdag High Priest with "aristocrats" support? Curious to hear feedback, thanks!
I've considered it, but it seems slow and fragile.
Definitely slow and fragile, but a 2-drop that makes 5/5 fliers should be difficult to activate, right? I am bringing this up because I have drafted BG sacrifice combo decks 3 times recently, and they have been very good with the one major problem of not having actual good finishers. I am often able to recur and sacrifice dudes for tons of value, but it can be difficult to actually kill my opponent. I am considering Blood Artist, Cutthroat, Husk, Phyrexian Ghoul, and Skirsdag - also Goblin Bombardment in red and Butcher of the Horde in multi. This deck feels at its best as either Jund, Mardu, or Abzan. It runs quite a few cards that will go late if no one else is playing this archetype, so my hope in a draft would be to prioritize fixing when I'm not sacrificing a major synergy piece.
If you're pushing sac/recursion decks Priest of the Blood Rite might work well for you as a finisher. I've never tried Skirsdag High Priest, but it looks way too unreliable for cube.
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Key cards I feel are goblin bombardment, blood artist, outpost siege. Works in aggro shells, works with tokens, works with threaten effects. Offers late game reach and board control for aggro/control lists. Plays great with Falkenrath Aristocrat obviously. Is wonderful with recursive black creatures (crawler/bloodghast) and pox as well.
I am going to list the cards in my Cube that play well with this archetype below. I see this deck as base black with red, white, and green all as reasonable splashes. I am sure someone could build a decent list with some blue cards, but as the Cube designer I am not specifically supporting this strategy in blue.
Reanimation spells plus fatties and black discard outlets also make a very powerful sub-strategy. Aggro zombie creatures like Diregraf Ghoul and Sarcomancy also have great synergies with the zombie theme.
Other token creators are also great if you have the fixing for additional white mana, especially the powerful planeswalkers. Aggressive white creatures can be good to create a very aggressive shell - human sub-theme can be particularly powerful with Xathrid Necromancer and Champion of the Parish (Gather of the Townfolk and Bloodsoaked Champion are great cards to abuse the human synergy).
Corpse Dance, Whip of Erebos, and Recurring Nightmare play very nicely with Deranged Hermit and Acidic Slime. Evolutionary Leap is a complete house in this archetype. I included Curse simply because of persist fuel plus sac outlets. In addition to this list you can also pick up some green fatties for the reanimation sub-theme. Hornet Queen can be particularly nasty here.
Just wanted to share some results we had with our premilinary testing of the aristocrat package. In one sentence : The deck seems awesome. You can check the decklist by yourself just over there. You can also take a look at what we added to the cube in order to support the archetype just under the list.
Seriously, this deck was full of interesting synergies and was none sense good. We seeded it in order to test the archetype against a various field without any power, so we can see it as pure as it is. The deck went 4-0 after defeating UW Control, RG Sneak-Emrakul (Thanks to Collected Company and Bone Shredder) and various aggro lists (RW Burn and UB Tempo). Some cards that were already in the cube did play a major in that result, that's for sure, but also some new ones as well.
Within the first group, Recurring Nightmare and Eternal Witness were super good, as always, but certainly were revitalized by the new mechanics that were turned on by adding the crat package. Liliana, Heretical Healer and Bone Shredder normally feel like fine filler cards in midrange shells, but were monstrously good in there. Feel like they find their true home, especially LHH. And the new pieces, Rally the Ancestors, Grim Flayer, Zulaport Cutthroat, Nantuko Husk, Viscera Seer and Evolutionary Leap were also all major role player. Even a card like Whisperwood Elemental exceed our expectations. Wasn't added especially to support the aristocrat decks, but ended up being complete value engine in it. No joke, combine with Rally the Ancestors and Zulaport Cutthroat, it manages to drain 28 life with the elemental on the field because of the dying triggered it procures to your face-up nontoken creature. Even UW Control couldn't deal properly with it.
Getting value out of LHH, Nightmare, Witness, Shredder and Rally was super effective and brutal when combine with the throater. Yavimaya Elder and Wild Monngrel also never felt that good! Grim Flayer was super strong as well in order to find the pieces you need and fill your yard at the same time. Speaking of the card, we recommend any player who has golgari cards in their cube to try it out! It's simply good in any GB decks, period
With all that said, I understand some may don't have the actual space for it, but I recommend any cube manager to try it out. It's like adding a completely new bracket to the cube clock! And don't be afraid to run the rally, it's god damn good. Let yourself be rewarded for it. Worth it.
So I put the package in that Zetsu_Sensei recommended into my 450 unpowered cube, (sans karmic guide, melira, and immortal servitude) and it was great. Went extremely well and was a blast to play. It basically opened up a new archetype that felt just as consistent and potent as the decks around it.
Went green/black due to lack of fixing and went 2-2. Though that was through misplays on my part and not on the deck.
The new Ravnica set has a lot of cards that play well in Aristocrats shells. Is anyone here running a 'crats package and care to elaborate on what has been working/not working for them?
I'm excited to hear about Aristocrats in 2019 as well. I'm currently trying to slowly add some aspects of that archetype into my cube starting with Goblin Bombardmenet. Anyone got a recent decklist or a mockup of a deck that they think might do fine nowadays?
I'm excited to hear about Aristocrats in 2019 as well. I'm currently trying to slowly add some aspects of that archetype into my cube starting with Goblin Bombardmenet. Anyone got a recent decklist or a mockup of a deck that they think might do fine nowadays?
I've been trying to build a very small (30 card decks) 4 player cube with a Mardu aristocrats archetype in it, and even in a 150 card cube, -good- Aristocrats cards are pretty light on the ground. I only just made it to enough cards to support the archetype, and I had to run Barrage of Expendables and other deep cuts to reach a density I was happy with. Alesha and Isareth have been -really- good in testing with Mogg War Marshall and friends, getting an extra twoorthree creatures for the engine (once assembled) every turn, and they both also reanimate Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and Falkenrath Noble. If that sounds like a clunky magical christmasland to you, in which Alesha or Isareth dodge removal long enough to grind value from Goblin Bombardment and equallyfragilecreatures, it sorta is, and that's the best case scenario I've had in testing. It's really nice against Toxic Deluge (You pay how much life? Oh, okay, sac my board and finish the job!), but somehow still feels very fragile to well timed removal. Instant speed free sac outlets are a must. Any sort of timing restriction or mana payment on your sac outlet really messes with your ability to blank removal or get value out of suicidal or counterintuitive attacks.
That being said, I did set out to build a cube of three colour archetypes predominantly out of mono-coloured cards (One card per guild, one hybrid card per wedge), made for four players and 30 card decks, so my experiences are very likely not to translate. My approach to looking at archetypes might help though?
Whenever I've had to find cards to fit an archetype, I've looked at decklists for competitive Canadian and Australian Highlander. There are a surprising number of similarities between Highlander and Cube - No ban list, singleton format, very high power level and a -very- fast format despite the deck-building restrictions. I would suggest starting by checking out decklists or primers there.
Aristocrats, specifically, -is- a deck in Highlander, but more of a tier 2.5 deck rather than a real powerhouse. This is probably due in part to the fact that it's a low to the ground three colour deck, with a curve that tops out at Butcher of the Horde and Falkenrath Aristocrat. There's no time to stumble on your mana, and no huge payoff as reward for the wonky manabase, with the only advantage over straight aggro being the room for tricky or counterintuitive plays and the amount of reach the various engines provide. It has a lot of overlap with some of the red aggro decks in that format, especially Goblins, so I don't really think mono-black Aristocrats archetype would be super viable replacement for Pox or aggro. That all being said, I think there's a place for lower power environments and in fact prefer them, and I am equally interesting in hearing about interesting Aristocrats inclusions or tech for my own current project.
The new Ravnica set has a lot of cards that play well in Aristocrats shells. Is anyone here running a 'crats package and care to elaborate on what has been working/not working for them?
I do, and I run duplicates, but I don't think it's necessary. You need sac outlets, recursive creatures and payoff for things dying. Think it can totally work in a normal cube.
Goblin bombardment, Blood artist, Zulaport cutthroat ,Carrion feeder, Falkenrath aristrocrat, greater gargadon, bloodghast, bloodsoaked champion, gravecrawler, Judith scourge diva, flesh carver, ophio mancer, braids cabal minion off the top of my head are all incredible in the archetype.
Midnight reaper, Murderous redcap, Geralf's messenger, Zealous conscripts, dread wanderer as tier 2..
White has some decent splashes in Sorin/Lingering souls.
Bombardment and skullclamp are probably the highest payoff for the archetype and blood artist effects are the glue that holds it all together.
I've thought about adding Rage Thrower and Hissing Iguanar as well as some of the other rusalkas. Honestly, I thought I was playing Rage Thrower until I just checked. That card is surprisingly good for a six mana 4/2, but I guess I cut it for being fragile.
My cube is so big that you can never count on seeing Blood Artist, so its relies on a wide array of effects. Nevertheless, it is a proven strategy here. Whether it's a main theme or a subtheme in a deck, it usually works out.
I'm going to retool a few things and see if this can become a theme for me. I think I'll get rid of the nonrecursive black 1 drops, add in Judith, and think about adding a black creature with a free sac outlet.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
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I support Aristocrats, and it 3-0s a good amount over here. In my cube composition, it's most commonly a variant of B aggro splashing either W or R. Occassionally you get versions that are more red or white, or full on Mardu. One of the things I like most about the archetype is that it doesn't really need Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat, as it can always lean harder on the aggro plan.
And if you want to see much more, just check out the decks labeled Aristocrats on my cubetutor.
Also, for all you pod lovers over there, the Aristocrats theme works really well for a "Zombie Pod" deck with all the black recursive creatures. Here's an example of that deck in my cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/1034160
I wasn't playing Standard at the time, but I was aware of the deck and it seemed pretty cool. Has anyone tried to do anything along these lines in Cube? Do some of the specific parts required to make it work end up feeling underpowered? Does it fall apart if it doesn't get ALL the pieces it needs? Does it just take up too much space to shoehorn in? If it did work, what were some of the all-stars? What cards did a good job of greasing the wheels?
I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, looking at replacements for Black aggro before I even get good testing in; but half the fun of building your own cube is theorycrafting, daydreaming, and tinkering with hypotheticals, right?
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
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2) Pox/Stax decks function like that Aristocrats deck does, but with better cards.
So no, you don't need to/shouldn't cut black aggro cards or Pox/Stax support cards to play Aristocrats cards.
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But the point that you seem to be missing is that the 3-drop slot is the most important one for black aggro. Master of the Feast, Flesh Carver are Hypnotic Specter are the classic guys that you want. Silumgar Assasin and Mardu Strike Leader are also excellent as new school dudes.
About the lack of powerful 2-drop, I think you're kind of right. There's not that much of it out there. However, the point is that those who exist and are viable are just SO strong that they push black aggro over the top when put together. Pack Rat, Dark Conduisant, Nezumi Graverobber and Bitterblossom are just insane at bringing value to the table.
Disturbing opponent with discard sorceries is also part of the game plan in a black agressive shell. Moreover, drafting swords is important when drafting that kind of deck, because of the evasise and recursive bodies the color can bring.
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There aren't enough cheap cubeable sac outlets in black and blood artist is too critical to the strategy.
Most cubes it's about symmetrical permanent destruction, but blood artist can create so many other interesting combo/synergies.
Multiple recursive creatures + blood artist + damnation in the creature matchups is awsome
Carrion feeder + gravecrawler + blood artist is a very sweet interaction. 1 Black mana for 1 drain life + 1 counter on the carrion feeder.
goblin bombardment/falkenrath artiocrat + blood artist + xathrid necromancer + bloodsoaked champion/humans is disgusting.
Makes for some really interesting gameplay.
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Also, Braids, Cabal Minion and Smokestack are kinda sac outlets, and are some of the more powerful cards of their ilk. And Skullclamp! Greater Gargadon is also a boss in that deck, but it looks like you're only listing black cards.
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Persist Creature
Murderous Redcap
Kitchen Finks
Woodfall Primus
Glen Elendra Archmage
Thunderblust
Twilight Shepherd
Zero-mana Sac Outlet
Goblin Bombardment
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Blasting Station
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Muzzio's Preparations (fantastic card, it turns this into a 2-card combo, and has great interactions with so many other cube creatures)
Anafenza the Kin-Tree Spirit
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I've considered it, but it seems slow and fragile.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/3pq
Definitely slow and fragile, but a 2-drop that makes 5/5 fliers should be difficult to activate, right? I am bringing this up because I have drafted BG sacrifice combo decks 3 times recently, and they have been very good with the one major problem of not having actual good finishers. I am often able to recur and sacrifice dudes for tons of value, but it can be difficult to actually kill my opponent. I am considering Blood Artist, Cutthroat, Husk, Phyrexian Ghoul, and Skirsdag - also Goblin Bombardment in red and Butcher of the Horde in multi. This deck feels at its best as either Jund, Mardu, or Abzan. It runs quite a few cards that will go late if no one else is playing this archetype, so my hope in a draft would be to prioritize fixing when I'm not sacrificing a major synergy piece.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
What's not to like? It's a synergy-smorgasbord.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Black (base of the archetype):
1 Bloodsoaked Champion
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Bloodghast
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Sultai Emissary
1 Carrier Thrall
1 Relentless Dead
1 Blood Artist
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Skirsdag High Priest
1 Xathrid Necromancer
1 Mardu Strike Leader
1 Flesh Carver
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Bone Shredder
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Phyrexian Ghoul
1 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Abyssal Persecutor
1 Priest of the Blood Rite
1 Entomb
1 Smallpox
1 Attrition
1 Curse of Shallow Graves
1 Buried Alive
1 Corpse Dance
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Living Death
Reanimation spells plus fatties and black discard outlets also make a very powerful sub-strategy. Aggro zombie creatures like Diregraf Ghoul and Sarcomancy also have great synergies with the zombie theme.
White:
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Academy Rector
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Reveillark
1 Karmic Guide
1 Gather the Townsfolk
1 Secure the Wastes
Other token creators are also great if you have the fixing for additional white mana, especially the powerful planeswalkers. Aggressive white creatures can be good to create a very aggressive shell - human sub-theme can be particularly powerful with Xathrid Necromancer and Champion of the Parish (Gather of the Townfolk and Bloodsoaked Champion are great cards to abuse the human synergy).
Red:
1 Mogg War Marshall
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Hordeling Outburst
1 Brimstone Volley
1 Puphoros, God of the Forge
Purphoros, Bombardment, and Gargadon are particularly awesome for the combo engine.
Green:
1 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Wild Mongrel
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
1 Acidic Slime
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Evolutionary Leap
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Curse of Predation
Corpse Dance, Whip of Erebos, and Recurring Nightmare play very nicely with Deranged Hermit and Acidic Slime. Evolutionary Leap is a complete house in this archetype. I included Curse simply because of persist fuel plus sac outlets. In addition to this list you can also pick up some green fatties for the reanimation sub-theme. Hornet Queen can be particularly nasty here.
Multi:
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Lingering Souls
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
1 Butcher of the Horde
Several of the other BW cards are also pretty good like the Sorins, Tidehollow Sculler, and Sin Collector.
Colorless:
1 Skullclamp
1 Smokestack
If I first pick Skullclamp this is likely the top archetype I am looking for first.
I'm sure I forgot some things, and there are plenty of cards that play well in this deck that I didn't include in the lists.
1x Boreal Druid
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Viscera Seer
1x Grim Flayer
1x Lotus Cobra
1x Sylvan Caryatid
1x Wild Mongrel
1x Zulaport Cutthroat
1x Bone Shredder
1x Eternal Witness
1x Flesh Carver
1x Kitchen Finks
1x Nantuko Husk
1x Yavimaya Elder
1x Whisperwood Elemental
1x Rancor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Evolutionary Leap
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Natural Order
1x Collected Company
1x Rally the Ancestors
Lands :
1x Bayou
1x Blooming Marsh
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Savannah
1x Marsh Flats
1x Shambling Vent
1x Ash Barrens
2x Plains
2x Swamp
5x Forest
1x Rally the Ancestors
1x Return to the Ranks
1x Karmic Guide
1x Viscera Seer
1x Blood Artist
1x Zulaport Cutthroat
1x Carrier Thrall
1x Nantuko Husk
1x Pawn of Ulamog
1x Buried Alive
1x Grim Haruspex
1x Goblin Bombardment
1x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1x Evolutionary Leap
1x Pattern of Rebirth
1x Birthing Pod
1x Whisperwood Elemental
1x Murderous Redcap
1x Grim Flayer
1x Catacomb Sifter
1x Immortal Servitude
Within the first group, Recurring Nightmare and Eternal Witness were super good, as always, but certainly were revitalized by the new mechanics that were turned on by adding the crat package. Liliana, Heretical Healer and Bone Shredder normally feel like fine filler cards in midrange shells, but were monstrously good in there. Feel like they find their true home, especially LHH. And the new pieces, Rally the Ancestors, Grim Flayer, Zulaport Cutthroat, Nantuko Husk, Viscera Seer and Evolutionary Leap were also all major role player. Even a card like Whisperwood Elemental exceed our expectations. Wasn't added especially to support the aristocrat decks, but ended up being complete value engine in it. No joke, combine with Rally the Ancestors and Zulaport Cutthroat, it manages to drain 28 life with the elemental on the field because of the dying triggered it procures to your face-up nontoken creature. Even UW Control couldn't deal properly with it.
Getting value out of LHH, Nightmare, Witness, Shredder and Rally was super effective and brutal when combine with the throater. Yavimaya Elder and Wild Monngrel also never felt that good! Grim Flayer was super strong as well in order to find the pieces you need and fill your yard at the same time. Speaking of the card, we recommend any player who has golgari cards in their cube to try it out! It's simply good in any GB decks, period
With all that said, I understand some may don't have the actual space for it, but I recommend any cube manager to try it out. It's like adding a completely new bracket to the cube clock! And don't be afraid to run the rally, it's god damn good. Let yourself be rewarded for it. Worth it.
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Went green/black due to lack of fixing and went 2-2. Though that was through misplays on my part and not on the deck.
Highly recommend if you have the space.
I've been trying to build a very small (30 card decks) 4 player cube with a Mardu aristocrats archetype in it, and even in a 150 card cube, -good- Aristocrats cards are pretty light on the ground. I only just made it to enough cards to support the archetype, and I had to run Barrage of Expendables and other deep cuts to reach a density I was happy with. Alesha and Isareth have been -really- good in testing with Mogg War Marshall and friends, getting an extra two or three creatures for the engine (once assembled) every turn, and they both also reanimate Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and Falkenrath Noble. If that sounds like a clunky magical christmasland to you, in which Alesha or Isareth dodge removal long enough to grind value from Goblin Bombardment and equally fragile creatures, it sorta is, and that's the best case scenario I've had in testing. It's really nice against Toxic Deluge (You pay how much life? Oh, okay, sac my board and finish the job!), but somehow still feels very fragile to well timed removal. Instant speed free sac outlets are a must. Any sort of timing restriction or mana payment on your sac outlet really messes with your ability to blank removal or get value out of suicidal or counterintuitive attacks.
That being said, I did set out to build a cube of three colour archetypes predominantly out of mono-coloured cards (One card per guild, one hybrid card per wedge), made for four players and 30 card decks, so my experiences are very likely not to translate. My approach to looking at archetypes might help though?
Whenever I've had to find cards to fit an archetype, I've looked at decklists for competitive Canadian and Australian Highlander. There are a surprising number of similarities between Highlander and Cube - No ban list, singleton format, very high power level and a -very- fast format despite the deck-building restrictions. I would suggest starting by checking out decklists or primers there.
Aristocrats, specifically, -is- a deck in Highlander, but more of a tier 2.5 deck rather than a real powerhouse. This is probably due in part to the fact that it's a low to the ground three colour deck, with a curve that tops out at Butcher of the Horde and Falkenrath Aristocrat. There's no time to stumble on your mana, and no huge payoff as reward for the wonky manabase, with the only advantage over straight aggro being the room for tricky or counterintuitive plays and the amount of reach the various engines provide. It has a lot of overlap with some of the red aggro decks in that format, especially Goblins, so I don't really think mono-black Aristocrats archetype would be super viable replacement for Pox or aggro. That all being said, I think there's a place for lower power environments and in fact prefer them, and I am equally interesting in hearing about interesting Aristocrats inclusions or tech for my own current project.
I do, and I run duplicates, but I don't think it's necessary. You need sac outlets, recursive creatures and payoff for things dying. Think it can totally work in a normal cube.
Goblin bombardment, Blood artist, Zulaport cutthroat ,Carrion feeder, Falkenrath aristrocrat, greater gargadon, bloodghast, bloodsoaked champion, gravecrawler, Judith scourge diva, flesh carver, ophio mancer, braids cabal minion off the top of my head are all incredible in the archetype.
Midnight reaper, Murderous redcap, Geralf's messenger, Zealous conscripts, dread wanderer as tier 2..
White has some decent splashes in Sorin/Lingering souls.
Bombardment and skullclamp are probably the highest payoff for the archetype and blood artist effects are the glue that holds it all together.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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I've thought about adding Rage Thrower and Hissing Iguanar as well as some of the other rusalkas. Honestly, I thought I was playing Rage Thrower until I just checked. That card is surprisingly good for a six mana 4/2, but I guess I cut it for being fragile.
My cube is so big that you can never count on seeing Blood Artist, so its relies on a wide array of effects. Nevertheless, it is a proven strategy here. Whether it's a main theme or a subtheme in a deck, it usually works out.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Here's a good example deck: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/1042151
And if you want to see much more, just check out the decks labeled Aristocrats on my cubetutor.
Also, for all you pod lovers over there, the Aristocrats theme works really well for a "Zombie Pod" deck with all the black recursive creatures. Here's an example of that deck in my cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/1034160
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