Aristocrats!
Introduction:
Ravnica Allegiance is almost here and with it a slew of new commanders to brew around! My personal favorite of these new options is my new aristocrats commander
Teysa Karlov
! I have always loved Teysa and the Orzhov from a flavor perspective and the card is a mechanical home run! Aristocrats is deck I've been interested in for a while but my experience with it is largely from Mardu Aristrocrats lists in Canadian Highlander (which I highly recommend and you can learn more about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv-AKGSJEh0&t=291s). Despite the very sad loss of
Goblin Bombardment
I have decided to press on without access to red and hopefully Teysa in the command zone can carry me to victory!
Disclaimer: I do not consider myself an accomplished deck-builder or writer. This is both my first primer and first deck of this kind. Take what I say with a grain of salt and thanks for reading! Any and all help and criticism in regards to my writing, deck building, or formatting is much appreciated!
Overview:
When building an aristocrats deck, I believe the most important components are as follows:
Creatures to sacrifice (creature fodder)
Sacrifice outlets
Ways to generate value by sacrificing creatures
Teysa is synergistic with these components in a number of ways. In your average aristocrats deck, there are generally three or four kinds of fodder that you will see. There are spells or creatures that are efficiently costed that bring out multiple bodies such as
Lingering Souls
or
Sengir Autocrat
, persistent and recursive creatures like
Kitchen Finks
or
Bloodghast
, and then there is the type we are interested in today,
Doomed Traveler
type effects. These synergize extremely well with our commander in two big ways. They are death triggers to double up, and make creature tokens to beef up. I've included several of these to make up some of the lower end of the creature base curve. A couple of these creatures come at one mana, such as the traveler himself, Guilds of Ravnica's
Hunted Witness
, and at two we have
Doomed Dissenter
,
Carrier Thrall
, Hangerback Walker, and the new
Orzhov Enforcer
and
Tithe Taker
. Of these, I tried to select the ones with the most relevant bodies and efficient casting costs. My suspicion is that we want to see these kinds of creatures early and often but I believe it will take a fair amount of play-testing to determine the correct number. Notably, there are also a few creatures at higher mana costs which have this effect themselves but also grant the effect to some or all of our other creatures.
Hallowed Spiritkeeper
,
Pawn of Ulamog
, Teysa, Orzhova Scion,
Xathrid Necromancer
,
Sifter of Skulls
, and
Requiem Angel
. I plan on testing a couple of larger creatures that have this same effect though I do not know if they will make the final cut. These are
Ministrant of Obligation
,
Flesh Carver
who doubles as a sac outlet, and
Elenda, the Dusk Rose
.
I wanna talk about a couple cards that work well with this effect. Phyrexian Reclemation can come down as early as turn one and curve nicely into one of these creatures, then allow us to reuse them over and over, providing a massive board and a strong card advantage engine.
Mimic Vat
works much the same way. Though it is a little more expensive, it has the added flexibility of being able to copy your opponents creatures therefore scaling well with the rest of the table.
I've added a few token makers without major synergies just to keep the deck running and make sure we always have something to sacrifice. Endrek Sahr, Master Breeding is incredibly creepy but makes a lot of tokens,
Bitterblossom
is tried and true,
Legion's Landing
comes out early and keeps the ball rolling later on, and Matial Coupe and
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
(master of karate and friendship for everyone) double as board wipes when needed.
To top this section off I just want to mention that
Anointed Procession
seems like it could get way out of hand with all of these effects when left unchecked.
Sacrifice outlets are pretty standard. We want a lot of them and we want them to be cheap. The free and repeatable ones are typically the best. I've decided to include
Viscera Seer
,
Spawning Pit
,
Ashnod's Altar
,
Phyrexian Altar
,
Yahenni, Undying Partisan
, and Martyr's Curse. Then of course there are the lands. These are basically free since we're in a two color deck and can really come in handy. These are
High Market
,
Phyrexian Tower
, and a personal favorite of mine
Westvale Abbey
.
I have a couple of paid sac outlets that I believe are well worth it due to their synergies with Teysa. Skull Clamp is nuts with Teysa out, netting four card per every one mana investment;
Hidden Stockpile
actually nets us a token every turn if a creature dying is what triggers revolt.
Krav, the Unredeemed
is just good value and comes with a free
Regna, the Redeemer
to generate some more tokens, and
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
can take care of any creature threat while Ayli, Eternal Pilgram is harder to activate but has a bit more reach.
Next a couple one off effects in
Disciple of Bolas
, another personal favorite that provides some raw card draw and a great target for Mimic Vat once he's done his thing.
Diabolic Edict
will cure whatever ails us at the time.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
is a similar consideration but I have decided to leave her out for now.
And finally, the pay offs. I would love to do nothing more with this deck than to
Blood Artist
people out, so we have the aforementioned man himself, along with his new friend from Allegiances
Vindictive Vampire
, and some other blood thirsty friends in
Falkenrath Noble
and
Zulaport Cutthroat
.
Living Death
Lets you do it all again and can double as a makeshift board wipe in a pinch!
Athreos, God of Passage
does a decent impression of this effect, though it doesn't work with tokens which is highly unfortunate. I've relegated him to the maybe board for now.
Of course there is also one of my least favorite effects to play against and one I'm the most excited to exact revenge with:
Grave Pact
. I've included it's sister
Dictate of Erebos
as well but I'm on the fence about big fat uncle
Butcher of Malakir
. He seems a tad bit slow and I'm really not sure how much of the effect is needed. He's set aside for now but is at the top of the list of cards to try out once the inevitable tweaking begins.
A draw engine is something I firmly believe is absolutely necessary for any good EDH deck.
Dark Prophecy
,
Midnight Reaper
,
Grim Haruspex
,
Smothering Abomination
and
Harvester of Souls
. The earlier we see these cards the better. They're great by themselves and even better with Teysa on the battlefield. The only consideration here is that there are several that damage you and you won't want to forget that that will be doubled as well. Be wary as stacking up multiple of these effects on a big board could open up an unexpected path to victory for your opponents if you're caught with your pants down.
A couple of non-synergistic cards just to keep the card advantage flowing are
Phyrexian Arena
,
Night's Whisper
, and
Mentor of the Meek
. They are all pretty solid in the deck I believe but it will take some play-testing to find the proper configuration here.
Twilight Prophet
is another that I've gone back and forth on. Not quite as tried and true as the rest but worth a test eventually without a doubt.
In the ramp slots we have some synergistic stuff, some rocks, and something a little more exciting that I'm excited to try out.
Solemn Simulacrum
provides a death trigger to double,
Orzhov Signet
,
Fellwar Stone
, and
Thought Vessel
help us ramp into a turn three Teysa, and the new
Smothering Tithe
,
Pitiless Plunderer
, and
Revel in Riches
make for great ramp and fixing as well as a sneaky awesome alternative win condition.
Boreas Charger
is one I definitely want to try out eventually. This one warmed my heart as a white player.
We don't have to mention
Sol Ring
specifically anymore right?
That's about it! The last few slots are dedicated to interaction and are pretty meta specific. Personally, I like versatile removal like
Anguished Unmaking
and
Vindicate
; if you're not sure what to add you can't go wrong with those.
Swords to Plowshares
and
Path to Exile
are over performers in my creature heavy meta and I'm never unhappy to see them. I've considered a
Forsake the Worldly
and
Utter End
as well but have stuck them in the maybe board for now to come in and out if I feel the need for them.
Closing Thoughts:
As I'm sure you've noticed, this deck has a few cards too many. I hope to fix that soon, and that is where the help part comes in! As you can probably tell by my overlong ramblings, I've spent way to much time and thought on this deck and could use an additional pair of eyes or two! I have more than likely become too attached to some cards as I tend to do and need help figuring out what the worst of this pile of cards is. My cousin and brew buddy has surely become extremely annoyed by my texts by this point as I've been excitedly sending him questions and musings for three days now. If you're reading this buddy, sorry and thanks! You've been awesome!
I also want to thank all of you once more for your time. If you have made it this far I want you to know how much I appreciate you reading my little primer! I really hope you enjoyed it and look forward to hearing how I can improve going forward.
