Beledros's Martyrs [Primer]

Commander / EDH Aristocrats BG (Golgari) Primer Sacrifice Tokens

Morex

Card Draw (4)

• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Moldervine Reclamation
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Card Draw/Sacoutlet (7)

• 1x Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x God-Eternal Bontu
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1x Lolth, Spider Queen
• 1x Vraska, Golgari Queen

Lands (28)

• 7x Forest
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkbore Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Necroblossom Snarl
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
• 1x Woodland Chasm

Lands Utility (7)

• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Hostile Hostel  ^Flip
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold

Protection (3)

• 1x Golgari Charm
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip

Ramp (9)

• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Three Visits

Ramp/Sacoutlet (2)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Phyrexian Altar

Recursion (5)

• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Veinwitch Coven
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip
• 1x Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip

Removal (8)

• 1x Binding the Old Gods
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Hagra Mauling  ^Flip
• 1x Mortality Spear
• 1x The Meathook Massacre
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Sacoutlet (4)

• 1x Spawning Pit *list*
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Woe Strider
• 1x Dina, Soul Steeper

Token Generator (8)

• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Mycoloth
• 1x Ogre Slumlord
• 1x Tendershoot Dryad
• 1x Verdant Force
• 1x Wolverine Riders
• 1x Blight Mound
• 1x Valentin, Dean of the Vein  ^Flip

Tutors (2)

• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Diabolic Intent

Utility (7)

• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Savra, Queen of the Golgari
• 1x Deadly Brew

Wincon (5)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Poison-Tip Archer
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat
• 1x Bastion of Remembrance
• 1x Exsanguinate

Commander (1)

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Beledros Witherbloom

Have you already played most Aristocrats decks and came to the same conclusion I did: I sure did wish I had some more mana to spend for all these things I wanna do. Well look no further, not only is Beledros Witherbloom in the color green and thus have ramp options for days, he ALSO provides his own ramp, with his own body, for the low low price of 10 Life. Not only does he provide ramp he also gives us tokens on EACH upkeep to use for the rest of the decks gameplan. If you still for some weird reason wanna play any of the other Golgari aristocrats Legendaries I suppose you could play Savra, Queen of the Golgari or Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, but why would you do that when you could play our lord and savior Beledros?

Playing the Deck

My build of Beledros is an aristocrats style deck, aristocrats decks are a controlling "combo" style deck which uses its creatures as fuel for different purposes. Aristocrats is a hard-maneuvered deck. It can at times be hard to calculate the best possible outcome and when you are supposed to make use of your sacrifices to get the best optimal play, but once you learn this you will be enjoying some of the most satisfying games which at times can leave your opponents wondering where it all went wrong. An aristocrats deck does things no other deck does and wins in unexpected ways, which is exactly what makes it fun to play. The deck relies on three card types:

Enablers, cards that sacrifices creatures for benefits. Some of our key Enablers are Woe Strider, Viscera Seer, Yawgmoth, Thran Physcian, Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar and Spawning Pit

Martyrs, cards that dies with added effects upon death. Cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Solemn Simulacrum, this particular deck does not run alot of creatures that get's added benefits when dying instead every creature is fair game and the deck runs several token engines to bypass this "problem". Our main token generators are Ogre Slumlord, Blight Mound, Wolverine Riders, Mycoloth and a few more.

Opportunists, cards that gains benefits of creatures dying. Our deck revolves alot on Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Poison-Tip Archer and Bastion of Remembrance to get us the win. The deck however also have other utility cards which benefits heavily on dies triggers like Grave Pact, Moldervine Reclamation and Savra, Queen of the Golgari just to mention a few.

To get to the point where we have all these three cardtypes in play we have several card draw options in the deck to get us there, when we are not drawing card we want to ramp us ahead or set up the board for the most amount of value when we get all three pieces on the board at the same time. Aristocrats deck can be heavyily manadependent with recuring and recasting our creatures again and again and that is one place where we get helped with our mana ramp spells and the biggest help of all, our lord and saviour: Beledros Witherbloom. Although our main gameplan is slow grind and drain our opponents to death we also have Exsanguinate for those moments when we have more mana than to use which easily happens with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Cabal Coffers and Earthcraft in play. We also have a combo in the deck with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + an aristocrat effect and Blight Mound or Ogre Slumlord, it's nice when it happen but certainly not our main goal.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• The deck "dodges" classic removal, our creatures often all have effects that benefits us when they die so single target removal and boardwipes could have devastating effects for our opponents and actually help us getting closer to winning.
• Aristocrats strategies become highly interactive when they have sacrifice outlets on the battlefield, as those sacrifice outlets can frequently be activated at any time. This gives Aristocrats players the ability to avoid dangerous forms of exile-based removal, for instance, by sacrificing their creatures in response to unfriendly spells.
• Our deck make use of sacrifice-based removal such as Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos which can persistently control enemy battlefields by forcing enemies to sacrifice their valuable creatures. This can leave opponents, especially Commander-Centric and Voltron strategies, unable to enact their deck’s primary gameplan, or without enough creatures to block our creature when they go on the offense.
• Our deck has some control element where it can keep withering down your opponents creatures and keep draining them to keep your life points high.

Weaknesses

• Aristocrats decks are very vulnerable to grave hate effects that exile graveyards, especially cards like Rest in Peace. Effects that prevent our deck from triggering any abilities when creatures leave the battlefield will wholly turn off some of our strategies and negate the benefits we gain from recuring our creatures.
• If an our deck is unable to find a sacoutlet or deathtrigger payoff card we may not be able get the advantage, and may wind up with many small, non-powerful creatures to sacrifice without making a significant impact on our opponents.
• Without an appropriate balance of token-makers, card draw and/or recursion, the deck can quickly run out of creatures to sacrifice and therefore cause the deck to stall out.
• The deck is slow. It can takes you several turns to win, the deck is kinda grindy so it is unfavorable for faster combo decks and agro lists.

Why is that in here?

Creatures Show

• Ashaya, Soul of the Wild: Huge body and more importantly the ability to make all our creatures to forests, which makes it so our game winning X-spells does just that, win.
• Avenger of Zendikar: Wins games with just a few lands by itself, and in case the board is already flooded with blockers on the opponents boards atleast the plants are useful martyrs for our Aristocrat gameplan.
• Ayara, First of Lochtwain: Sacrifice outlet, card draw and also drains our opponents for the pests and rats the deck creates.
• Blood Artist: Is an aristocrat.
• Dina, Soul Steeper: Sacrifice outlet with the added effect of hurting our opponents on lifegain.
• Eternal Witness: Every deck should have some recursion, and one that also can be sacrificed is beneficial for this deck. Can also be picked up again with the help of Volrath's Stronghold and Veinwitch Coven
• Farhaven Elf: Mana ramp and also a martyr.
• God-Eternal Bontu: Card draw and also a sacrifice outlet that is hard to get rid of with the added bonus of being a reacuring card draw outlet every 3 turns if you want it to be.
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel: Great source of lifegain and feels amazing to cast over and over again
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: Let's us sacrifice our martyrs again and also combos with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Blight Mound or Ogre Slumlord
• Mycoloth: Sacrifice outlet on ETB and after that it provides you additional martyrs on your upkeep
• Ogre Slumlord: Provides you rats(read: martyrs) for every nontoken creatures that dies, yours or your opponents.
• Pitiless Plunderer: Provides additional ramp whenever a nontoken creature on our board dies.
• Poison-Tip Archer: Is an aristocrat.
• Priest of Forgotten Gods: Sacrifice outlet, card draw and ramp, not to mention Life loss and forced creature sacrifice to any numer of opponents (gotta make friends sometimes.) all in a neat package of a 1/2 body for the measly cost of .
• Razaketh, the Foulblooded: Sacrifice outlet that also tutors, need I say more?
• Reassembling Skeleton: Amazing martyr that just keeps coming back for more.
• Sakura-Tribe Elder: It ramps and it dies.
• Savra, Queen of the Golgari: Gives added bonus to all the sacrificial-shenanigans the deck does.
• Tendershoot Dryad: Gives additional martyrs and pumps all Saprolings
• Valentin, Dean of the Vein  : Removes opponents cratures from the graveyard (and gets us additional tokens if you have the mana to spare), on the flipside it pumps our dudes and gives them trample on lifegain triggers.
• Veinwitch Coven: It gives us our martyrs back from the graveyard to die for us all over again,
• Verdant Force: Gives us martyrs on every upkeep.
• Vilis, Broker of Blood: Card draw and sometimes also removal.
• Viscera Seer: Free sac-outlet and let's get closer to finding what we need.
• Woe Strider: Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V Viscera Seer, it also has Escape so it can come back if we are in need of a free sac-outlet again after its deamise.
• Wolverine Riders: Great token generator that also provides us lifegain.
• Wood Elves: Ramps us and then stands ready to be sacrificed.
• Yawgmoth, Thran Physician: Sacrifice outlet, card draw, removal, proliferate, it does pretty much everything and more for this deck. The proliferate is extra sweet whenever we get the flipside of Valentine, Dean of the Vein in play.
• Zulaport Cutthroat: Is an aristocrat.

Instants Show

• Beast Within: Card is great, no explanation needed. It has the added bonus though of giving you another sacrifice target if you really need that last few points of damage.
• Golgari Charm: Good utility but mostly used for protection against boardwipes
• Hagra Mauling  : Land or Removal, well I'm sold, welcome to the deck.
• Heroic Intervention: Protection is great.
• Malakir Rebirth  : Sometimes protection, sometimes a land, it's a good card.
• Mortality Spear: Takes care of problems.

Sorceries Show

• Agadeem's Awakening  : Recursion for our blood sacrifices, or when needed a land.
• Bala Ged Recovery  : Graveyard recursion and as stated on a few previous cards: also a land.
• Deadly Brew: Removal and recursion in the same card.
• Diabolic Intent: Sacrifice and tutor in one.
• Exsanguinate: Alternative Wincon and also lifegain in a pinch
• Farseek: Land ramp is good in Beledros.
• Nature's Lore: Land ramp is good...
• Rampant Growth: Land ramp...
• Three Visits: Have you heard that land ramp is good in Beledros?
• Toxic Deluge: Always good to have atleast one massremoval.

Enchantments Show

• Bastion of Remembrance: Is aristocrat castle.
• Binding the Old Gods: Removal and also functions as land ramp.
• Blight Mound: Gives us more blood sacrifices and also makes pest slightly more dangerous
• Dark Prophecy: Card draw on our dies triggers
• Dictate of Erebos: Since we have alot of ways to kill our own stuff it's allways nice if everyone else also suffers for it,
• Grave Pact: See Dictate of Erebos.
• Moldervine Reclamation: Gives us card draw and life gain.
• Phyrexian Reclamation: Graveyard recursion is good in aristocrats decks.
• The Meathook Massacre: Removal, Aristocrats and lifegain all in one card. If ever there was a card that was autoinclude in aristocrats it would be this one.

Planeswalkers Show

• Liliana, Dreadhorde General: Everything we want in a planeswalker, sacrifice outlet for you and removal for our opponents, card draw, creates tokens and also a good ultimate.
• Lolth, Spider Queen: Creates tokens and also functions as card draw.
• Vraska, Golgari Queen: Removal, sacrifice outlet, card draw and life gain.

Artifacts Show

• Ashnod's Altar: Sacrifice outlet and ramp.
• Phyrexian Altar: Sacrifice outlet and ramp.
• Rings of Brighthearth: Double Beledros triggers are awesome, and there is also some other things you can do.
• Skullclamp: Card draw and a way to kill of our small creatures for more aristocrat triggers.
• Sol Ring: Big ramp, autoinclude.
• Spawning Pit: Free sac-outlet and also provides us tokens.

Updates

Innistrad: Midnight Hunt changes Show

IN

• The Meathook Massacre, I allmost cried when I saw this. It does EVERYTHING right, it acts as a aristocrat that can come down on turn 2 or it can serve as a boardwipe with aristocrats effects tacked on it that also gains you life for each creature your opponents control. Busted.
• Hostile Hostel  , An sacrifice outlett that when flipped can bring some serious pain to our opponents, and it comes with built in protection!

OUT

• Parallel Lives, This effect unfortunatly was never really that relevant and most of the times just cluttered in my hand for more relevant threats.
• 1 Forest, When utility comes in basics sometimes have to go.

Modern Horizon 2 + Adventures of the Forgotten Realms changes Show

IN

• Lolth, Spider Queenshe is very similar to Tevesh. Lolth however does most things Tevesh does but better, she gain more loyalty from our sacrifices and her tokens have much better stats than Tevesh. The ultimate of Tevesh may sometimes be more powerful than Lolth, however the deck usally kills everything on the board one way on the other and most of the time the ultimate just gave us 2-3 more creatures to sacrifice/hold hostage.
• Earthcraft, it should have been in the deck from the start as the deck already ran Nykthos, and now with the additions of Cabal Coffers and Urborg there really was no good reason not to run it.
• Cabal Coffers, ramp is good.
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, makes coffers better and also fixing.
• Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, more fixing.

OUT

• Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools, strictly worse Lolth.
• Witch of the Moors, I was never happy drawing it and that says alot considering what it does. Veinwitch Coven does a similar job, and at a cheaper mana value and can pull off multiple activations a turn as long as you have the mana for it.
• Doubling Season, this was a hard cut and I may put it back in later but as of today the 5+ mana slots was getting a little crowded.
• 2 Forest
• Swamp

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.46
Tokens	2/2 C Artifact Creature Spawn, Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Emblem Lolth, Spider Queen, Emblem Vraska, Golgari Queen, Goat 0/1 W, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Pest 1/1 BG, Plant 0/1 G, Rat 1/1 B, Saproling 1/1 G, Spider 2/1 B, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	decks to try