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Contemporary Theatre

Modern Humans RBW (Mardu) Tokens Vampires

Golden_Ladybug

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Creature (20)

Planeswalker (2)

Land (24)

Instant (7)

Sorcery (7)

Sideboard

Creature (2)

Artifact (3)

Instant (4)

Sorcery (6)

As the Innistrad-RtR Standard comes to a close, I find myself feeling the lovely pair of Falkenrath Aristocrat and Cartel Aristocrat still have a lot to offer.

This Modern Brew of The Aristocrats attempts to take the powerful interactions of the standard deck, and make them more appropriate for a Modern Metagame.

Between Doomed Traveler, Bloodghast, Lingering Souls and Cartel Aristocrat the deck can fight through spot removal and board-wipes quite well, and provide a versatile and powerful offensive team.

Blood Artist, Skirsdag High Priest and Teysa, Orzhov Scion grant additional value from these creatures in the form of attacking my opponent's life totals while bolstering mine, generating 5/5 Demons, Swarms of 1/1 Tokens and (occasionally) exiling a creature.

At the top of my curve, Falkenrath Aristocrat does the same thing she did (and for a little while longer, continues to do) in Standard; pressures enemy Planeswalkers and swoops in to threaten life totals. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad provides streams of chump blockers and speeds up the clock.

THOUGHTS

Now that Thoughtseize has been spoiled for Theros, its likely that they shall take the place of my Inquisitions of Kozilek, most likely depending on whether I like them enough in that slot. I haven't played much with the 'seize before, nice to finally have a reason to.

I'm having difficulty constructing my sideboard. I feel like my deck is particularly weak against very fast Aggro decks (Sligh, Affinity, etc), R/G Tron and wants a more stable game against UWR and Hatebears. I haven't yet tested against most of the field, but that's my feeling right now. As always, combo seems like a boogeyman that I don't really want to randomly lose to.

Slaughter Games is a house, and seems like its definitely worth including to nail decks that rely (or are greatly improved by) a number of high cost power cards.

Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt, Grafdigger's Cage, Nihil Spellbomb et al seem necessary in some capacity, and all have their merits. They feel like fairly powerful silver bullets against decks like Living End Cascade, DredgeVine or even just Melira Pod.

Malakir Bloodwitch, Phyrexian Crusader and Sword of War and Peace all seem like they'd position the deck a lot better against G/W Hatebears and UWR.

Sowing Salt and Ghost Quarter both seem like they make my match up against Tron a lot better.

I'm not sure how best to approach the Aggro side of things. Maybe Pyroclasm?

All comments, suggestions and +1s are greatly appreciated.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Testing Results and Thoughts — Sept. 4, 2013
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While I will admit that my testing has not been exhaustive, I have gotten some valuable insights into what works and what doesn't.

Shrivel worked really well in the sideboard against Affinity and RDW, so I think that I'm fairly happy to devote some slots to them in the 'board.

elspeth has had a weird relationship with the rest of the deck. When I'm winning, she's exceptionally good (and almost always the play over Sorin), but on the defence those Lifelink Vampires blow her Soldiers out of the water. I've also been trying out Ajani Vengeantfoil as my second planeswalker, and despite his pedigree he's mostly been a Lightning Helix on a stick, and taking advantage of his +1 has been hard to do without the defences of dedicated control decks.

So, I'm still not sure what Planeswalker lineup I want, but I'm starting to think that a 1/1 Split of Sorin and Elspeth is the most correct way to proceed.

I tried Fulminator Mage over Teysa, Orzhov Scion, and in some ways I prefer the land destruction angle. In some ways I prefer the token generation, sacrifice tricks and the whole "must answer this card, or else it'll get out of hand".

Figure of Destiny was really consistent, and once he gets to his Spirit Warrior he becomes exceptionally difficult to handle, and if he makes it up to his Avatar mode he's game winning. But everyone already knew that. I tried him over the Skirsdag High Priest and one Doomed Traveler, and he performed really well. But, just like Fulminator Mage, he attacked from a different angle than the other cards in my deck; I'm not sure if I want to jump on those cards because of their raw power, rather than the synergy the competing cards bring.

I should probably just go with the Raw power thing.

Greater Gargadon was really awkward. Damn near impossible to hardcast, he takes up the same sort of idea space as a one-drop. I can't realistically get him to come into play unless I suspend him in the first two turns, and do some really tricky sacrificing to make him come in while it still matters.

Demon At Death's Gate is just so risky. I either didn't have three black creatures to sacrifice it, or I thought that I would just straight up lose if I did.

Grim Lavamancer has been testing real good, but I'm still not sure what it edges out in the list. I've been testing it over one of my Doomed Travelers, but I like having the full playset there.

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