I played Magic until a couple of years ago but some friends and I decided to get back into it with casual 100€ budget decks with modern restrictions. I want to try out the Aristocrats strategy with Orzhov colors. I came up with the following deck by googling and tinkered with the cards a little bit.
Maybe you can give me some feedback here.
The general idea should be pretty clear: Play a ton of "when a creature dies, your opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life" effects in combination with creatures who can sacrifice other creatures. The best targets for those sacrifices are self replacing cheap creatures. The final blow can be given by Rally the Ancestors.
My thoughts in detail:
1. I decided to put 10 sac outlets into the deck, of which 6 are creature permanents. The other 4 are draw spells to keep the engine running. I think this is enough, since creatures will die through other effects anyway, so I don't want to clump up my deck with it.
2. The aristocrat number is 11, because the best one is Cruel Celebrant and I'm not sure if we play 1v1 or 1v1v1 or 2v2 in the future. So Blood Artist is included only 3 times since it affects only 1 opponent at a time but has the advantage of the effect triggering whenever another creature dies (opponents included). So, Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat are 3-offs. Athreos, God of Passage, well, it's included only once because I wanted some room so I reduced it from 2 to 1 and moved the 2nd one into the sideboard. It's cool and a nice recursion but not needed that often.
3. Only 20 lands, yes. The average mana cost is 1.38, so I think 20 should be enough. Not sure if 22 is too much.
4. I included Tragic Slip while knowing that I can block many creatures with my fodder, but with it and Morbid I can kill off even larger creatures (green stompys) easily but can also finish of some unwanted key creatures (Sliver, Elves).
5. In the past, we usually didn't play with sideboards, but we wanted to try it out in 1v1 plays. So, here my thoughts were:
- Change 4x Tragic Slip with 4x Duress against Control / Combo decks
- Change 3x Rally the Ancestors with 2x Rest in Peace and 1x Athreos, God of Passage against decks which interact with their graveyard. The idea is to shut the opponent down while bypass my original graveyard interaction with Rally through bouncing dead creatures into my hand with Athreos. Not sure, if this works the way I think it works.
- Against artifact / enchantment heavy decks the idea is to switch Tragic Slip with Disenchant / Duress. Either prevent it fro being cast or remove it once it hits the table. Not sure what I should go for here.
- Against Burn / Shooter decks I would trade 4x Tragic Slip fleshing out my aristocrat bodys to 4 / 2 each and a 4th Rally to be somewhat more resistant against creature removal.
So, what do you think about this deck? Is it to cheap in its mana curve? Do I last long enough to win the game or am I constantly mana screwed due to only 20 lands? Would you change some cards?
I played Magic until a couple of years ago but some friends and I decided to get back into it with casual 100€ budget decks with modern restrictions. I want to try out the Aristocrats strategy with Orzhov colors. I came up with the following deck by googling and tinkered with the cards a little bit.
Maybe you can give me some feedback here.
The general idea should be pretty clear: Play a ton of "when a creature dies, your opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life" effects in combination with creatures who can sacrifice other creatures. The best targets for those sacrifices are self replacing cheap creatures. The final blow can be given by Rally the Ancestors.
My thoughts in detail:
1. I decided to put 10 sac outlets into the deck, of which 6 are creature permanents. The other 4 are draw spells to keep the engine running. I think this is enough, since creatures will die through other effects anyway, so I don't want to clump up my deck with it.
2. The aristocrat number is 11, because the best one is Cruel Celebrant and I'm not sure if we play 1v1 or 1v1v1 or 2v2 in the future. So Blood Artist is included only 3 times since it affects only 1 opponent at a time but has the advantage of the effect triggering whenever another creature dies (opponents included). So, Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat are 3-offs. Athreos, God of Passage, well, it's included only once because I wanted some room so I reduced it from 2 to 1 and moved the 2nd one into the sideboard. It's cool and a nice recursion but not needed that often.
3. Only 20 lands, yes. The average mana cost is 1.38, so I think 20 should be enough. Not sure if 22 is too much.
4. I included Tragic Slip while knowing that I can block many creatures with my fodder, but with it and Morbid I can kill off even larger creatures (green stompys) easily but can also finish of some unwanted key creatures (Sliver, Elves).
5. In the past, we usually didn't play with sideboards, but we wanted to try it out in 1v1 plays. So, here my thoughts were:
- Change 4x Tragic Slip with 4x Duress against Control / Combo decks
- Change 3x Rally the Ancestors with 2x Rest in Peace and 1x Athreos, God of Passage against decks which interact with their graveyard. The idea is to shut the opponent down while bypass my original graveyard interaction with Rally through bouncing dead creatures into my hand with Athreos. Not sure, if this works the way I think it works.
- Against artifact / enchantment heavy decks the idea is to switch Tragic Slip with Disenchant / Duress. Either prevent it fro being cast or remove it once it hits the table. Not sure what I should go for here.
- Against Burn / Shooter decks I would trade 4x Tragic Slip fleshing out my aristocrat bodys to 4 / 2 each and a 4th Rally to be somewhat more resistant against creature removal.
So, what do you think about this deck? Is it to cheap in its mana curve? Do I last long enough to win the game or am I constantly mana screwed due to only 20 lands? Would you change some cards?
4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
5 Plains
7 Swamp
// Sac-Outlets
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Viscera Seer
4 Village Rites
// Fodder
4 Doomed Traveler
4 Garrison Cat
4 Hunted Witness
4 Cruel Celebrant
3 Blood Artist
3 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Athreos, God of Passage
// Win Condition
3 Rally the Ancestors
// Spot Removal
4 Tragic Slip
4 Duress
4 Disenchant
1 Athreos, God of Passage
2 Rest in Peace
1 Rally the Ancestors
1 Blood Artist
1 Zulaport Cutthroat