Cartel Aristocrat

Creature — Human Advisor

Sacrifice another creature: Cartel Aristocrat gains protection from the color of your choice until end of turn.

Discussion (45)

lagotripha on Bunrei Aristocrats

1 week ago

This is an interesting list. It reminds me of some of my older Cartel Aristocrat / Mortician Beetle / Pawn of Ulamog lists.

Depending on how competitive you want to be there are a few options, and a few powerful directions. Cabal Therapist is notable in being powerful hand disruption- other aristocrats cover various options, from the venerable flying brick Falkenrath Aristocrat to my pet pick Spawning Pit . Indulgent Aristocrat and vampire/human dual tribal is a fairly strong choice.

Powerful card advantage options are out there in Priest of Forgotten Gods / Dark Prophecy // Grim Haruspex / Midnight Reaper even to the point of enabling Zombie Infestation storm wins.

For a more aggressive gameplan hand disruption, even the humble Duress will offer a lot- dodging board wipes is valuable. Plan your sideboard too- it will help a lot to know that you have a plan for burn or artifacts, almost no matter what it is. Just keep an eye on your curve and remember the number of modern games being decided in turns 1-4 by aggro and combo lists.

Angrath_the_flame_chained on Bloodlord Aristocrats

1 month ago

Personally I would consider using 2 or 3 copies of Judith, the Scourge Diva and a playset of Priest of Forgotten Gods . If the budget is not an issue a playset of Bloodghast would work splendid in this deck, though you would need to rework your mana base with some fetches and shocklands.E.g Blood Crypt , Bloodstained Mire , Sacred Foundry and Arid Mesa . Perhaps 3 Seraph of the Scales instead of Hunted Witness and more copies of Cartel Aristocrat as your sac outlets. I would remove Shamble Back and Spark Harvest completely. I would use 3 Fatal Push and 2 Dreadbore instead as a removal package. In place of Utter End and Raise the Alarm I would use playset of Cruel Celebrant or Blood Artist as the main drain engine of the deck. I would also run Tithe Taker in place of Martyr of Dusk . As for the sideboard 2 copies of Grafdigger's Cage for graveyard hate, 2 copies Vandalblast for artifact hate, Bedevil and an extra copy of Anguished Unmaking

multimedia on Teysa aristocrat build

2 months ago

Hey, I play a $200 budget casual version of Teysa aristocrats, Lady of Death (Budget).

I play a few cards that are $5 or over especially Skullclamp . The main combo I play doesn't care about combat instead has interaction with sac outlets and can use creatures in my graveyard: Reveillark + Karmic Guide + sac outlet ( Viscera Seer ). When an aristocrat ( Zulaport Cutthroat ) is added to this combo it becomes a win condition doing infinite damage to all my opponents.

Lark is great because it can reanimate three parts of this combo: Guide, Seer and Cutthroat as well as Teysa (she has 2 power). Lark has interaction with Teysa; if Lark leaves the battlefield as a result of it dying then it triggers Teysa getting to then reanimate four potential creatures. With Teysa on the battlefield before Lark dies you can reanimate all the creatures for this combo at one time. You don't technically need all the creatures as part of this combo in your graveyard, but it speeds up the process when you can get them all into your graveyard to be reanimated.

Lark + Guide is flexible because you don't have to have Teysa on the battlefield to combo. You can instead reanimate two creatures each time, each iteration of Lark dying. Each iteration have to reanimate Guide which leaves one other creature to reanimate. Start with reanimating a sac outlet ( Carrion Feeder ). Then the next iteration of the combo reanimate an aristocrat ( Cruel Celebrant ) to complete the combo.

Lark + Guide can also be good with a token theme because there's many creatures who create a token who Lark can reanimate. Can instead of adding an aristocrat, add a token creator ( Doomed Traveler ) to make infinite Spirit tokens or Pawn of Ulamog to make infinite Eldrazi tokens. The token creator has to have 2 or less power so Lark can reanimate it. Afterlife creatures ( Tithe Taker ) you want them to die to give you token value and most of them can be reanimated with Lark. Lark + Guide + sac outlet ( Cartel Aristocrat ) gives you infinite reanimation of all creatures with 2 or less power from your graveyard.

captainamerica on bw

5 months ago

You've got a pretty rad looking Teysa, Orzhov Scion deck for Commander, and pick up a single copy of Cruel Celebrant if possible.

otherwise, Cartel Aristocrat and Bloodthrone Vampire . If you could pick one up Skullclamp would help make this deck unreal.

nathanl69 on Grandma's crippling sacrificial addiction

5 months ago

I'd cut Pitiless Pontiff for Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder . Cartel Aristocrat is also pretty good, considering the entire Aristocrats archetype is named after it. Doomed Traveler , Doomed Dissenter and Hunted Witness are very good sacrifice fodder and would allow you to sacrifice things much more efficiently.

You have enough life gain to where Caves of Koilos is pretty much just an original dual land.

biggestmtgnerd on

5 months ago

The main issue that I see with this deck is that it is a little too slow (unless you wish to really lean into the Heartless Summoning route, in which case you would want to bump up that up to 4 of those). I recommend a couple of one-drops like Doomed Traveler or Hunted Witness as some good early game sacrifice fodder or blockers, cards like Viscera Seer as a sacrifice outlet, or cards like Mortician Beetle or Quest for the Gravelord as early-game threats. To fit this in, I recommend cutting down on the four mana cards, as you don't want a starting hand cluttered with too many four-drops. I recommend cutting restoration angel; it's a good effect for a lot of decks, but since you don't have many enter the battlefield effects, it's not super useful (in the same vein, I also recommend cutting Cloudshift . If you want it for the creature protection, try a couple of Selfless Spirit s instead). I'm also not completely sure about Desecration Demon ; it's a cool card and I get why you like it, but it kinda isn't related to your theme, so I'm not sure about it. I'm also not sure about your 6 and 7 mana creatures. Butcher of Malakir is cool and is a personal fave of mine, but grave pact has the same ability for cheaper, and is harder to kill. Abhorrent overlord, ascendant evicar, and sorin markov are decent, but they cost a bit too much mana for my liking. The one six mana card that I think might go well with your deck is Sun Titan , which you could probably replace Whip of Erebos with; it has a cool infinite combo where, if you have an infinite sacrifice outlet like Viscera Seer , then you can target the titan with Banisher Priest , then sacrifice the priest and use sun titan's enter the battlefield effect to bring back the priest, which can be sacrificed again for infinite death triggers, allowing you to go through your whole deck with the seer, get a very big Mortician Beetle , make the opponent sacrifice everything with grave pact, or other fun shenanigans. If you want other cards that could be a threat later on, I recommend X cards like Hangarback Walker or, if that costs a little bit too much money, Mikeaus, the Lunarch. I'm also not sure about the devotion subtheme; you do have some cards with a lot of black, so it might be powerful, but devotion tends to be a little iffy in two color decks, so I'm not sure about it. Other cool cards to consider might be Cartel Aristocrat , Bone Splinters , Plaguecrafter , or Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim . Hope that helps!

lagotripha on RB Vampires HELP

6 months ago

Your manabase looks fine.

I've played a bunch of vamp variants- the battle is that mardu vamps (which is basically all B/R vamps decks that aren't secretly just a Stromkirk Noble and burn list, because the white vamps are really, really good) has several different ways it can go.

You can build around Stromkirk Captain in a go-wide strategy in which case maindeck Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle and Legion Lieutenant , or around Blood Artist , Cartel Aristocrat and Falkenrath Aristocrat in a sacrifice strategy, or around discard outlets with Stromkirk Condemned , Falkenrath Gorger , Olivia, Mobilized for War , or around trading efficiently with Gifted Aetherborn , Stromkirk Captain and Vampire Nighthawk , or dip more heavily into spells, or lifelinker spam to land Blood Baron of Vizkopa . You can also split the difference between any of these plans, because there are cards to bridge basically any strategies.

Vamps is incredibly versatile, with a big pool of synergies to draw from. You can stretch from lurn-like aggro all the way to blood-baron control. So play with the tools, target a section of the game you want to win in and build to that. And don't be scared to switch it up.

The reason to go to mardu is the options it gives you (and bloodghast triggers)- not just in the sideboard, but throughout the deckbuilding process. You can absolutely bring a different vamps deck each friday, and your opponents will misplay because they were expecting what you've done before. That is incredibly strong.

gocubsgo on Karador

6 months ago

Looks great! Cards like Aura Shards and Return to Dust are edh allstars (I'm guessing one of the cards you skipped was Vampiric Tutor ? That one's pretty good too), and there's a bunch of gameplan-specific cards like Buried Alive and Dread Return that will work perfectly with Karador, Ghost Chieftain . Some other staples you might want to add are Eternal Witness and Sol Ring .

First thing you should probably change is playing 2x Makeshift Mannequin ... I know you're into playing banned cards and everything, but this format has RULES!

I'd also look for is more ways to get things into the graveyard. Right now, I see you've got:

Inconsistent Options: Extractor Demon Nyx Weaver Satyr Wayfinder Perpetual Timepiece

Consistent Options: Corpse Connoisseur Buried Alive Jarad's Orders

and a couple sac/discard outlets like: Bloodthrone Vampire Cartel Aristocrat Viscera Seer Harrow Fauna Shaman

The consistent options are great, since they allow you flexibility to find any answer, support synergies, and aren't going to whiff. The inconsistent options don't have the same upsides. The main reason you'd want to play them is to grind out value, so I think Perpetual Timepiece and Nyx Weaver could work (although I've been looking for an excuse to try Grindclock because I'd imagine it can take over a game if let's unintended for a few turns). Corpse Connoisseur is only useful if it's already in the graveyard, and Entomb might be a better option. Extractor Demon has the same issue where it's overcosted for a Thought Scour effect. Overall, since you only have three or so creatures that benefit from being cheated out from the graveyard, cards like Satyr Wayfinder might end up hitting things like Harrow , Buried Alive , etc. too often. This means you're probably going to have to play more self-mill type cards to justify cards like Ramunap Excavator .

Some options to get stuff into the yard: Grim Flayer Underrealm Lich Life from the Loam Golgari Grave-Troll (not my favorite since you don't draw a card, but if you have enough graveyard effects, it could work)

Sylvan Ranger seems strictly worse than both Sakura-Tribe Elder (puts the land into play and puts himself in the graveyard to reduce Karador cost) and Rampant Growth . There seem to be a couple cards like this that are meant to provide some enter-the-battlefield trigger and then get sacrificed for value, but I only see Viscera Seer , Cartel Aristocrat , and Bloodthrone Vampire . That means most of the time you play cards like Elvish Visionary , it'll just be a 1/1 on the battlefield. Viscera Seer is fantastic, but the other two outlets don't get you much value anyway, which makes cards like Yavimaya Elder more valuable. Looking into effects like Qasali Pridemage , Selfless Spirit , and maybe even Spore Frog is probably where you want to go, since they are situationally fantastic, can put themselves in the graveyard to cast karador, and are much stronger options to cast with Karador later in the game. They can subtly win you games sometimes. Maybe looking into things like Skullclamp could help if you want extra sac outlets, but you'd probably want ~10-15 cards that make 1/1's to justify it (not entirely sure though). It's wildly powerful though, especially if you can recur 1/1's with Karador.

Tutors: Eldritch Evolution Diabolic Intent (These two double as sac outlets if you want to go with that strategy)

Recursion: Unburial Rites Living Death Journey to Eternity  ^Flip (imagine how fun turn two Sakura-Tribe Elder into card could be? Also can be used to protect Sheoldred, Whispering One or Karador later in the game)

Finally, figuring out how you want to use your toolbox cards ahead of time help. Right now, there are a couple good lines for Buried Alive , such as Dread Return + Sheoldred, Whispering One , but what happens if you don't have three creatures available? Then you want Unburial Rites in your deck so you can pay 3W next turn.

Some final things to hammer out: 1. What's the plan for early game? Is it playing sac outlets then creatures with ETB triggers for extra value? It is playing utility creatures like Qasali Pridemage to develop a relevant board and solid recur value later in the game? Is it to ramp as quickly as possible into huge threats? Is it getting creatures into the graveyard ASAP with Grim Flayer or Entomb so you can Reanimate something huge on turn three? It's not bad to dip into each method, but you can have the best synergies if you heavily commit to one strategy, otherwise you might end up with great curve like Reanimate , Bloodthrone Vampire , and Ramunap Excavator , but no real value. 2. What's the win condition? I'd expect reanimating huge things out providing too much value with Karador, but even the best reanimation target Sheoldred, Whispering One isn't going to close out a game. The other targets like Soul of the Harvest and Harvester of Souls are great value, but bashing with a 6/6 can only go so far. If you're going more the reanimation route, perhaps dreaming bigger like It That Betrays could help. If you play these big boys, playing Ashnod's Altar could be fun, plus I think it's got a bunch of infinite combos. Sadly, a lot of the best options like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite are ~10-20 bucks. 3. My personal strategy would be to play a bunch of cheap value creatures like Selfless Spirit , ramp like Sol Ring and Sakura-Tribe Elder , the best graveyard stashers like Entomb and some self-mill cards (but only ones that can win me the game if left unattended, like Underrealm Lich ), 3-5 board wipes (you can always recur your threats) and the classic interaction package ( Swords to Plowshares , etc.), and probably 7-10 or so curve-topping creatures that can end games for you (from Grave Titan to It That Betrays ).

The deck looks great, it's gonna be scary in no time!