My personal spin on the popular Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim Lifegain deck; it adds Tribal synergy and an Aristocrats strategy to the mix in order further differentiate the deck from those led by other Lifegain commanders like Karlov of the Ghost Council and to play to our commander's strenghts.
The Commander
Ayli's two abilities make the base of the deck. Her first gives us a cheap repeatable sac outlet and a means for lifegain and her second gives us repeatable targeted removal when we have 50 or more life, which we'll want to have anyway. Deathtouch makes her a great blocker, and her low CMC enables her to be cast early and multiple times per game. As a Cleric, Ayli also synergises with our tribal subteam, which adds to her value in the deck.
High Priests
These are what I consider the core creatures of the deck.
Rotlung Reanimator, Edgewalker and Ancestor's Prophet are great payoffs of our tribal strategy. Rotlung Reanimator give us double the sac fodder and a much nedded boost after board wipes. Edgewalker helps by cheapening most of our creatures, some of which we can then cast for free (including the first casting of our Commander), and Ancestor's Prophet's instant-speed lifegain is amazing when the board is big enought.
Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant and Auriok Champion are great early-drops that net us lifegain from the beginning of the game, and add great value when we start sacrificing and recurring our own creatures. Healer of the Pride gives us even more lifegain when we put a creature onto the battlefield, but her high mana cost and the fact she only triggers with our creatures makes her not as powerful as her sisters.
Rhox Faithmender and Children of Korlis are great additions to the lifegain strategy, and together will make you a not very desirable target for attacks. The Faithmender by itself already doubles life you get, which can make Ancestor's Prophet get even more out of hand.
Ravos, Soultender and Athreos, God of Passage both help us get creatures back when they die, or at least discourage anyone from destroying our creatures. RAvos also has an anthem efect that can come in handy, and I find that Athereos becomes a creature more often then not, considering all the double whites and blacks we have on our permanent's mana cost.
Death & Profit
We'll be doing quite a lot of sacrificing with Ayli's abilities, which means ways to add extra value to our bodies is a great way to get a lead on our opponents. Besides, if we profit when our creatures die, our opponents will think twice before trying to remove our creatures. With these cards, a board wipe full of our creatures in play can be more profit then loss.
Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and Wayward Disciple will drain our opponents and give us life whenever a creature of our dies, which will be quite frequently. The Artist has the bonus benefit of also triggering when an opponent's creature dies. They may only drain for one per death, but it quickly stacks up, and a board wipe can represent a huge life swing in your favour if any of these are in play.
Black Market and Dark Prophecy both tie deaths to a tempo advantage, giving much needed card draw and useful mana ramp. The Market is specially powerful by gaining a counter with any creature that dies, giving you more black mana then you'll ever need.
Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos makes so our loss is also our opponents' loss, and our loss will be much smaller then of those who have no means of recursion and who don't profit with death. By avoiding shroud, hexproof and indestructable, forcing a sacrifice is also a great way to deal with Voltron builds and any pesky creature in general.
Reclaiming the Dead
One of the ways we'll have to get more creatures to sacrifice is by recurring creatures we already sacrificed. Ravos, Soultender and Athreos, God of Passage can both do that, but they aren't the only means of recursion we'll have. Another bonus of the recursion subtheme is that we'll be able to recover a key creature if it's destroyed, and we won't always need to cast our Commander from the Command Zone, avoiding the tax.
Palace Siege and Phyrexian Reclamation are both enchantments that can get creatures back from our graveyard to our hand, the Siege one per turn and the Reclamation any number of times we can pay the mana and the life. Palace Siege also has the added versatility of the Dragons mode, which we rarely use, but the option is nice. Another recursion enchantment the deck runs is Gift of Immortality, which protects a creatuere and allows us to sacrifice it once per turn. Great with some of our highter-toughtnes creatures.
Custodi Soulcaller and
Bishop of Rebirth
both allow us to recur something directly to the battlefield when they attack. They aren't our best reanimation options, so it might be worth replacing them with the pair of Reveillark and Karmic Guide, but I consider that their Cleric subtype makes them worth an inclusion.
Patriarch's Bidding and Dawn are great mass reanimation spells, returning almost all of our creatures from the graveyard directly to the battlefield. As Dusk's Aftermath, Dawn has the bonus of countaining a one-sides board wipe. It's important to note that Patriarch's Bidding can be just as beneficial to an opponent running a tribal deck as it is to you, so that's something to keep in mind.
Creature Generation
Another way to get more creatures to sacrifice is to create them, in the form of tokens. Most of the tokens we generate will also be big enough to protect us in combat and even to sometimes win the game through combat damage. Rotlung Reanimator gives us zombie tokens, but we can get more and stronger ones.
Crested Sunmare
and Angelic Accord give us significant bodies based on our lifegain, bodies that can be used in combat to then be sacrificed to gain life and then be replaced by a new one. If ither of those generators stay in play, things can get out of hand for our opponents very fast.
Skirsdag High Priest can use our clerics to create a Demon every turn something dies (which we can make to be every single turn). Westvale Cult Leader
generates one Cleric per turn, which we can use as sacrifice fodder or to tap to use abilities such as those of the High Priest or of the Ancestor's Prophet.
Winning the Game
Just gaining life does not normaly win us the game by itself, but we have some ways around that. If we get one of our generators online, we can sweep or opponent with angels, demons and horses, but we also have some other options. This deck does not run neither Felidar Sovereign nor Test of Endurance, which are strong includes, but I find there are more fun ways to win the game.
Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond are two amazing enchantments that not only combo between themselves, giving us infinite life and draining our opponents for infinite, but they also enable many of our other combos and win strategies. Sanguine Bond by itself turns all life gain into damage, which transforms cards like Ancestor's Prophet and Rhox Faithmender into lethal threats, and Exquisite Blood can get us huge amounts of life if we get a little aggressive.
Aetherflux Reservoir can net us small amounts of lifegain throught the game, and once we get enough life can be used to nuke an opponent and still leave us in a confortable position. With Children of Korlis in play the Reservoir's cost becomes just a single creature, and if combined with Rhox Faithmender can even get us life. If in play with Exquisite Blood, the Reservoir can go infinite, killing all opponents in one fell swoop.
Exsanguinate and card:Debt the Deathless can get us huge lifeswing lategame, and when combined with Sanguine Bond can outright kill an opponent. Again, combining this with Rhox Faithmender, things get even more brutal.
Karlov of the Ghost Council and Serra Avatar can both easily get huge in this deck and swing unimpeded with the aid of a Rogue's Passage, but their lack of protection make them not that reliable. Of course, a Lightning Greaves could included, both to better enable this strategy and to protect other valuable creatures. Their best use is probably to be sacrificed to Ayli, specially if Sanguine Bond is in play.
If we can transform Westvale Abbey
, Ormendahl, Profane Prince
will be a great ally, maybe even winning us the game. Even if he can still be exiled, haste, indestructability and flying makes it way more reliable then Karlov of the Ghost Council and Serra Avatar.
Tree of Perdition can be used to get our opponets life to somewhere we can easely deal with it, and then be sacrificed to get us a lot of life. If we have means to recur the Tree and repeat this, it can easely win us the game.
Other Utilities
Cleric creatures like Grand Abolisher and Leonin Arbiter help us disrupt our opponents and protect our plays, Fiend Hunter and Kor Sanctifiers serve as removal on a body that can be sacrificed and others give us some much needed utility, ranging from card draw to protection to more lifegain.
In addition to the removal Ayli brings to the table we also have spells like Utter End and Grasp of Fate that can help us deal with any pesky permanents we come across. Council's Judgment is specially valuable since it can deal with permanents that can't be targeted, and Righteous Confluence's extra versatility is also great. The deck also run a few board wipes like the aforementioned Dusk and the classic Wrath of God, but those can be replaced to your liking. I find that Fumigate's life gain greatly synergises with the deck, so I recommend its inclusion.
Well of Lost Dreams, Underworld Connections and Phyrexian Arena all give us extra card draw. Greed is another great card that could be considered, but since we want to maintain a treshold of 50 life, I prefer not to include it.
Conclusion
This is the deck. not super competitive, but still powerful and fun. I've included some suggestions you might want to check out in the maybeboard. If you have any suggestions, plase leave them bellow, and if you enjoyed the deck, remember to upvote!
