Sideboard


My Abzan Aristocrats deck for Standard. This deck is EXTREMELY fun to play with! When you're against it you literally can't expect what is going to happen! Always expect the unexpected!

The main goal of this deck is to sacrifice all of your creatures to trigger Zulaport Cutthroat's ability so that when our stuff die, each opponent will lose a total of X life and we'll gain X life where X is the number of Zulaport Cutthroat's*the number of creatures that died.

The engine of the deck is what pushes the win through for us. Our main engine in the deck is Zulaport Cutthroat. Whenever one of our creatures die; he'll trigger and it will slowly bring them down to 0 life.

Our sac Engine's are Evolutionary Leap and Nantuko Husk. The Husk is the better one since we don't have to pay any mana to sacrifice our dudes. This will make him really big and probably die to a Valorous Stance, but because his ability is at instant speed; we can respond to the Valorous Stance or any removal spell with any sacrificing we want to do. Evolutionary Leap is really good. Against Control decks, it does amazing since it gets a lot of value off of sacrificing your dudes and makes their board wipes pretty bad. They also can't really deal with it that well so if it shows up turn 2; they won't like you at all ;) (but that's ok).

Fuel is what we use to continue doing what we want to do with our Engines.

Blisterpod: When he dies we get an Eldrazi Scion Token. This will Fuel our Zulaport Cutthroat more than once since we triggered him with our Blisterpod and our Scion Token.

Sultai Emissary : This guy only costs us 2 mana and when he dies he makes another 2/2. So basically he'll trigger Zulaport Cutthroat and also "come back" stronger? I like it!

Hangarback Walker: This guy is great in general. We can run him as a huge body to swing with early on, or we can pop him to make a ton of Thopter Tokens. The tokens can help us block oncoming flyers that we usually have problems with, such as Mantis Rider . Your opponents never want to pop this guy so they'll always try to use stuff like Abzan Charm to exile him. But in response we can sacrifice him to Nantuko Husk or Evolutionary Leap .

Catacomb Sifter : When he enters, he brings a Scion Token with him. What's his job is to block early on in the game and let us scry whenever one of our creatures become sac bait or get killed by removal/combat. The scry really helps us get rid of land we don't need and can help dig for the right things we need!

Liliana, Heretical Healer  : She is good as she's usually a Planeswalker the turn she comes out or at the very least; the next turn. Her -X can resurrect any creature from our graveyard as all of our stuff costs less than 3 (meaning we can do this the turn she flips) and they're all non-legendary. Her -8 can just be a breeze for us as we can kill multiple creatures per turn, and at the end step; get them back and do it again!

Abzan Ascendancy : This card is great! Not only is it complete fuel for our deck; it can also help us be a bit more of the aggressive side if we have to in order to get their health down early on before our fun begins! Whenever one of our non-token creatures die; we get a Spirit Token that can not only Fly past our opponents creatures, but can be used as bait for our Engines, or can help block the likes of Mantis Rider or Wingmate Roc .

Our removal can also work as sac engines as well.

Murderous Cut: Straight up removal. I had Bone Splinters in here but I found it to be too costly for the fact that it could end up being "Sacrifice a creature." incase somebody counters it or makes the destroyed creature indestructible. Murderous Cut usually gets cast for 1 since Gather the Pack will usually reveal lands we don't want. And it's just straight up better.

These are cards that are just icing on the cake when it comes to our usual combo of Zulaport Cutthroat and sac engines!

Abzan Charm: This card is totally a hit in this deck! It gets rid of any threats, it can put counters on our creatures to hit harder and get more value out of them (I'm talking about you Hangarback Walker) and it can also draw us some cards when we're almost or completely empty handed. This card works whenever you want it too for whatever you want it to! Impossible to not include this!

Smothering Abomination: This guy will net us cards WHENEVER we sacrifice a creature! With him on the battlefield, we're almost always certain to draw cards since our main way of killing our creatures is to sacrifice them. He also flies and is capable of trading with a large portion of the main flyers which is what we need.

Complete Disregard : This card takes down any early threat that can harm us such as Hangarback Walker (without popping him open!), Mantis Rider , Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  , etc.

Duress: Comes in against control for some hand disruption early on. Some of their spells can get annoying and stop you from doing what you want to do so this is needed in the control matchup.

Dromoka's Command: Great card against aggro decks like R/G Landfall, Atarka Red and RDW makes your creatures not only die to theirs but it'll make yours big enough to trade instead! It also prevents some burn effects that are thrown at us (except a spell mastery Exquisite Firecraft ).

Self-Inflicted Wound: This card is literally just for Abzan Aggro. Anafenza, the Foremost is the Anti-Aristocrats card and we get completely wrecked by it if we can't remove it. The card is just good against Abzan decks in general though.

Ultimate Price: Kills a mono-colored creature. Easy.

Silkwrap : This can be a cheap and easy way to take care of threats like Hangarback Walker, Mantis Rider and especially Anafenza, the Foremost!!! It also can do an ok job in the mirror match by taking their Zulaport Cutthroat.

Abzan Charm: Really good card. I just don't have a current spot for it in the 75 besides this 1 slot. I will definitely add 2 more once I'm able to get the deck going.

Evolutionary Leap : Another copy for the control matchups.

These are some key things while playing this deck you should keep in mind:

This deck absolutely fears Anafenza, the Foremost. Every piece of removal we have kills it except Complete Disregard but that card is too good to pass up. Either way, watch out for it and be prepared to kill it ASAP.

Liliana, Heretical Healer   will flip very easily. She can be flipped off of a 0 casted Hangarback Walker or even a Manifest creature from Sultai Emissary dying. A Manifest Creature IS NOT A TOKEN. Therefore Liliana, Heretical Healer   will transform.

Whenever your creatures die. If Catacomb Sifter is there and he dies at the same time; he'll still "see" the others die and therefore the scry trigger will still go off.

When Hangarback Walker is cast for or brought back from the graveyard with Liliana, Heretical Healer  , he'll still hit the battlefield and will immediately die causing the on death triggers you have to go off.

If someone were to exile Nantuko Husk with something such as Stasis Snare or Silkwrap , Nantuko Husk can sacrifice himself to activate his own ability in response so that he goes to the graveyard instead of exile!

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