Would you mind putting together a bit of a primer for your build?
From your comments it sounds like piloting the deck requires aggressive mulling to pull off very specific sequencing and lines of play which may not be apparent to people familiar with traditional Aristocrats. So far in my pre-proxy goldfishing I've been a little unclear on what those lines are and there have been a lot of games that end up with an ok-ish board presence but not enough blood artists to finish off with a sac wave, not enough muscle to push damage through, missing combo pieces, or high variability in ramp where it's either explosive or clunky. Perhaps with a little guidance I could be more helpful with deck tuning.
The only engine I can think of for Geist right now would be Geist + Cauldron Haze + Blood Artist + Viscera Seer. Cauldron Haze could also double the payoff from a non-infinite sac wave, and even works on 1/1s like Blisterpod as they still return to the field as 0/0s before dying again as a state based action iirc. Not really better than Melira combo but it's something.
As for the thread, Aristocrats traditionally gets most of its value by clogging the board, profitably chump-blocking and sac'ing creatures for direct-damage drain pings, grinding incremental card advantage, and generally trading raw aggro power for removal / sweeper resilience. This thread covers several color combinations spanning a broad variety of cards, so it's not uncommon for sac outlet + blood artist to be the only cards shared between decks. I think it's fine to keep developing it here.
The updates look good. I've got a couple tuning questions:
Can you tell me more about the 3/1 split on Blisterpod & Birds? When do you Chord for a Bird? (I'd just a soon go for the full playset for consistency. /shrug)
Is Bloodthrone Vampire needed? You have 4 Viscera Seer (+2x Chord) as a Sac outlet, which seems like plenty to me for this deck. I really like Nest Invader, I'd maybe drop Bloodthrone to fill out the Nest Invader playset.
From what I can tell so far the playsets of Recruiter and Visionary have helped with the card draw more than a singleton Bob would. To accrue significant advantage from Bob you'd want to drop him T2-T3, and I think that's a bit at odds with Chord of Calling and running 1x Bob. Plus a lot of the rest of your creatures are relatively low-priority removal targets, so I think Bob would be a lightning rod where you're guaranteed to get value from Recruiter's instant speed ability.
EDIT: Have you tried 3x Chord? It seems pretty important for many of the strategies you've described. Could be over the 4th Recruiter since that doesn't stack.
EDIT2: Some number of Commune with the Gods may also help dig for either Cryptolith Rite or a combo piece. Gotta balance CoCo creature hit rate, of course, but it's an option.
Hi Aezuriel, I think leaning on Scion tokens for ramp into CoCo or Abbey makes a lot of sense and (afaik) hasn't been explored well enough in Modern so far so I'm happy to see you working on this. Here's some initial feedback to take with a grain of salt until I can run it through a bit of testing for proper data...
I see a lot of ramp: 4x Birds of Paradise; Eldrazi Scions from 4x Blisterpod, 3x Nest Invader, and 1x Catacomb Sifter; finally 4x Cryptolith Rite (is the right number for this without any benefit in multiples?). With all of this ramp it looks easy to dump your hand incredibly quickly, regularly hit T3 CoCo, and flip Abbey ~T4 (?) Beyond that thought I'm imaging a lot of instances of dumping your cards and then not having much to do with your mana outside of Duskwatch Recruiter's ability, if he's out. Is this the case? If so, maybe more mana sinks? Or add the fourth Abbey?
With respect to CoCo, it looks like you'd get more value out of it (and more value from your ramp) by raising your curve: currently 12x 1-drops, 11x 2-drops, 6x 3-drops, maybe try to work in another 3x 3-drops if possible?
I'm confused at seeing only 1x Blood Artist / 1x Zulaport Cutthroat – that seems incredibly low for an Aristocrats style deck. I would want to always have at least 1 Artist on the field to be getting pings with each Scion sac, or +5 -5 for Abbey, and I'd want them to be common enough that I don't need to dig for one too hard. I know that you can tutor one with Chord, and that 3x Elvish Witness, 1x Duskwatch Recruiter, and CoCo all help you scan for them.. but I'd still start with 4 in the board, using those other helper cards to search for one when you don't come across it in normal play rather than essentially depending upon the helpers to get an Artist at all.
I'm also a little uncertain about including the infinite combo here with so few copies of its components. How often and how early is this actually assembling in real matches?
Overall, Leveraging Scions sounds great but I'm a little concerned over having more mana than outlets, I'd like to have more Artists to add value to Scion sacs and more 3-drops to get more value out of CoCo, and I'm tempted to just gut Melira and ditch the combo. Again, just raw initial impressions and I may be way off here, so I'll check back in with you after more testing.
In my experience removal is only problematic when paired with targeted discard or countering of Rally/Return. Even then a big enough Scry sac wave can immediately set up another Rally / CoCo / missing combo piece and shouldn't be discounted. Personally I think it can be one of the most resilient non-control combo decks, for whatever that's worth.
As for why one should play Aristocrats or RallyFenza over Melira Company, there isn't an amazing argument, really. Melira is obviously tier 1 and has a more efficient & reliable combo that can be built around graveyard hate, a stronger toolbox element to give better sideboarding, and a beat down plan that gets more value out of CoCo and allows it to attack from both "fair" and "unfair" angles. Aristocrats can be (IMO) a bit better against midrange due to recursion naturally helping to overcome disruption. Its Plan B (large sac waves) can also go straight through clogged board states due to direct damage. It can sometimes have an edge as an unexpected niche/gimmick deck against unprepared opponents. At heart, though, most Aristocrat players choose it over Melira because it's fun and can be built cheaper, rather than a competitive advantage.
@jdragon130: I think the best way to specifically target Mardu would be to add an activated ability with a cost that's the third color. With that said all three of your proposals look a little too stacked tbh. The third one seeming the most reasonable.
In my experience so far Asylum Visitor needs more support to get one or both players reliably hellbent if it's meant to be your primary card engine. It seemed ok with a combination of Rotting Rats, Wrench Mind, and Smallpox in conjunction with Inquisition & Liliana. I'm not sure how much you'll get off the latter alone but it might be enough. If you try this list let me know how many cards you end up drawing.
Regarding the Emmerakul question I think that running 1x Emmerakul,Blightsteel Colossus or some other "win in one turn" creature is easily the right choice when building around 3x Nahiri.
Nahiri is interesting and is worth exploring though I'm not totally sold on her yet.. I wish her +2 was more useful (draw, then discard), and her -2 gives the opponent a lot of control with the "tapped" clause. I don't know how much value you'll really get outside of ultimate. Anyone have experience with her?
Unfortunately "dying" involves going into the graveyard, and when Rest in Peace's replacement effect sends them into exile instead of the graveyard it prevents the second part of Athreos's ability from working. Thus, Athreos doesn't "dodge" RIP.
Is Heir of Falkenrath good without cards that want to be discarded? I like Heir but can't imagine running her in Modern without Bloodghast / Lingering Souls / Madness fodder to pitch. I guess there's extra lands but there won't be too many of those in a 19 land deck. How has she worked for you?
Demon of Death's Gate is a very fun but inherently risky card. Not tournament viable but good for a casual deck. Here is where my (old) brew ended up if you reaaally want to run him and are looking for a starting point.
And I wouldn't want to go below 21 lands. Even if you're not casting CoCo you need rally at 4 CMC and being able to reliably cast two creatures on T4 can get you the combo assembled a turn faster.
You really need a minimum of 5 blood artists, ideally 6. This deck doesn't have a beat down plan B like Abzan Company, its Plan B is to pull off a couple big sac drains and that won't happen with 3x Zulaport. And unless you're running Chord I wouldn't go below 4x Anafenza / Melira.
To play Devil's advocate on the 3 CMC rule, Kitchen Finks technically gives you a *three* card combo for infinite life, so you don't need Blood Artist. In its own way that can be just as fast or faster. I think it's ok to run 1-2x Finks if you've already got 3-4x safehold elite.
Agreed, Cartel Aristocrat is mostly valuable if you need a free sac outlet. You'd need to take things in a more Aristocrats direction with Zuluport Cutthroat and friends to see enough payoff.
It would be a little sad to see Avacyn wipe out your own Spirits or the Confidant you happened to need. In that sense Goblin Dark Dweller sounds a little safer and more compatible even if the maximum value isn't as high.
Otherwise your list looks good but maybe a little light on threats? Having some more 1-2 drops for early board presence might be good.
My midrange version of deck won last night, even beat Tron. Thanks to anguish unmaking. Arm 61 cards and so far it is working. I side into super friends lol with all walkers. They really make the other midrange control matches a plus
Cool list, I'm working on something similar but I had some questions:
(1) How has Abbot performed for you in that list? In my experience he doesn't do very well in higher curve decks since he has a harder time reliably flipping cards until very late, and with fewer cheap spells to chain he's rarely a good beater. I'm thinking about running Asylum Visitor (synergizes with Lili's discard and the set ping is more compatible with higher curve), or the fourth Young Pyromancer and a Grim Lavamancer MB.
(2) Would you move any number of Anguished Unmaking into the main? To me it makes the most sense to have a catch-all solution in the deck game 1, and then side in more specialized answers later. I was thinking 2 Kommand and 1 Unmaking MB, for instance.
From your comments it sounds like piloting the deck requires aggressive mulling to pull off very specific sequencing and lines of play which may not be apparent to people familiar with traditional Aristocrats. So far in my pre-proxy goldfishing I've been a little unclear on what those lines are and there have been a lot of games that end up with an ok-ish board presence but not enough blood artists to finish off with a sac wave, not enough muscle to push damage through, missing combo pieces, or high variability in ramp where it's either explosive or clunky. Perhaps with a little guidance I could be more helpful with deck tuning.
The only engine I can think of for Geist right now would be Geist + Cauldron Haze + Blood Artist + Viscera Seer. Cauldron Haze could also double the payoff from a non-infinite sac wave, and even works on 1/1s like Blisterpod as they still return to the field as 0/0s before dying again as a state based action iirc. Not really better than Melira combo but it's something.
As for the thread, Aristocrats traditionally gets most of its value by clogging the board, profitably chump-blocking and sac'ing creatures for direct-damage drain pings, grinding incremental card advantage, and generally trading raw aggro power for removal / sweeper resilience. This thread covers several color combinations spanning a broad variety of cards, so it's not uncommon for sac outlet + blood artist to be the only cards shared between decks. I think it's fine to keep developing it here.
Can you tell me more about the 3/1 split on Blisterpod & Birds? When do you Chord for a Bird? (I'd just a soon go for the full playset for consistency. /shrug)
Is Bloodthrone Vampire needed? You have 4 Viscera Seer (+2x Chord) as a Sac outlet, which seems like plenty to me for this deck. I really like Nest Invader, I'd maybe drop Bloodthrone to fill out the Nest Invader playset.
From what I can tell so far the playsets of Recruiter and Visionary have helped with the card draw more than a singleton Bob would. To accrue significant advantage from Bob you'd want to drop him T2-T3, and I think that's a bit at odds with Chord of Calling and running 1x Bob. Plus a lot of the rest of your creatures are relatively low-priority removal targets, so I think Bob would be a lightning rod where you're guaranteed to get value from Recruiter's instant speed ability.
EDIT: Have you tried 3x Chord? It seems pretty important for many of the strategies you've described. Could be over the 4th Recruiter since that doesn't stack.
EDIT2: Some number of Commune with the Gods may also help dig for either Cryptolith Rite or a combo piece. Gotta balance CoCo creature hit rate, of course, but it's an option.
I see a lot of ramp: 4x Birds of Paradise; Eldrazi Scions from 4x Blisterpod, 3x Nest Invader, and 1x Catacomb Sifter; finally 4x Cryptolith Rite (is the right number for this without any benefit in multiples?). With all of this ramp it looks easy to dump your hand incredibly quickly, regularly hit T3 CoCo, and flip Abbey ~T4 (?) Beyond that thought I'm imaging a lot of instances of dumping your cards and then not having much to do with your mana outside of Duskwatch Recruiter's ability, if he's out. Is this the case? If so, maybe more mana sinks? Or add the fourth Abbey?
With respect to CoCo, it looks like you'd get more value out of it (and more value from your ramp) by raising your curve: currently 12x 1-drops, 11x 2-drops, 6x 3-drops, maybe try to work in another 3x 3-drops if possible?
I'm confused at seeing only 1x Blood Artist / 1x Zulaport Cutthroat – that seems incredibly low for an Aristocrats style deck. I would want to always have at least 1 Artist on the field to be getting pings with each Scion sac, or +5 -5 for Abbey, and I'd want them to be common enough that I don't need to dig for one too hard. I know that you can tutor one with Chord, and that 3x Elvish Witness, 1x Duskwatch Recruiter, and CoCo all help you scan for them.. but I'd still start with 4 in the board, using those other helper cards to search for one when you don't come across it in normal play rather than essentially depending upon the helpers to get an Artist at all.
I'm also a little uncertain about including the infinite combo here with so few copies of its components. How often and how early is this actually assembling in real matches?
Overall, Leveraging Scions sounds great but I'm a little concerned over having more mana than outlets, I'd like to have more Artists to add value to Scion sacs and more 3-drops to get more value out of CoCo, and I'm tempted to just gut Melira and ditch the combo. Again, just raw initial impressions and I may be way off here, so I'll check back in with you after more testing.
As for why one should play Aristocrats or RallyFenza over Melira Company, there isn't an amazing argument, really. Melira is obviously tier 1 and has a more efficient & reliable combo that can be built around graveyard hate, a stronger toolbox element to give better sideboarding, and a beat down plan that gets more value out of CoCo and allows it to attack from both "fair" and "unfair" angles. Aristocrats can be (IMO) a bit better against midrange due to recursion naturally helping to overcome disruption. Its Plan B (large sac waves) can also go straight through clogged board states due to direct damage. It can sometimes have an edge as an unexpected niche/gimmick deck against unprepared opponents. At heart, though, most Aristocrat players choose it over Melira because it's fun and can be built cheaper, rather than a competitive advantage.
@Murray I'm counting 56 cards there. Missing Bolt, perhaps?
In my experience so far Asylum Visitor needs more support to get one or both players reliably hellbent if it's meant to be your primary card engine. It seemed ok with a combination of Rotting Rats, Wrench Mind, and Smallpox in conjunction with Inquisition & Liliana. I'm not sure how much you'll get off the latter alone but it might be enough. If you try this list let me know how many cards you end up drawing.
Regarding the Emmerakul question I think that running 1x Emmerakul,Blightsteel Colossus or some other "win in one turn" creature is easily the right choice when building around 3x Nahiri.
Nahiri is interesting and is worth exploring though I'm not totally sold on her yet.. I wish her +2 was more useful (draw, then discard), and her -2 gives the opponent a lot of control with the "tapped" clause. I don't know how much value you'll really get outside of ultimate. Anyone have experience with her?
Otherwise your list looks good but maybe a little light on threats? Having some more 1-2 drops for early board presence might be good.
Cool list, I'm working on something similar but I had some questions:
(1) How has Abbot performed for you in that list? In my experience he doesn't do very well in higher curve decks since he has a harder time reliably flipping cards until very late, and with fewer cheap spells to chain he's rarely a good beater. I'm thinking about running Asylum Visitor (synergizes with Lili's discard and the set ping is more compatible with higher curve), or the fourth Young Pyromancer and a Grim Lavamancer MB.
(2) Would you move any number of Anguished Unmaking into the main? To me it makes the most sense to have a catch-all solution in the deck game 1, and then side in more specialized answers later. I was thinking 2 Kommand and 1 Unmaking MB, for instance.