Intro
Lurrus was the cat's pyjamas in standard for a short time and I wanted to give her an eternal home in Pioneer. This deck follows a typical aristocrat plan to abuse enter/leave the battlefield triggers with sac outlets, but with the deck building restrictions of Lurrus of the Dream-Den to get her to recur a creature a turn so we can sac them again for even more triggers.
Each card function has other options to consider that do similar things mechanically. You should be able to swap like-for-like based on your personal preferences, budget, and meta.
Originally Lurrus was a companion, but with the mechanic nerf I've instead moved a couple of copies of her to the mainboard.
Feedback appreciated!
Sac Fodder
These 1-drops are our first options to be removed by our sac outlets because of their enter/exit abilities and cheapness to be recast with the big cat out.
Other options: Charming Prince, Hunted Witness, Mire Triton, Dusk Legion Zealot, Garrison Cat, Gutterbones
Sac Outlets
These cards allow us to sac our own creatures to trigger the abilities of either the fodder or the happy mourners.
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Cartel Aristocrat: a sac outlet so good there's a deck archetype named after it. Free to use and protects itself.
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Priest of Forgotten Gods: If you can activate her ability just once, she's immensely powerful; drawing, removing and ramping. Coupled with triggers from the happy mourners or the sac fodder, she can deliver a huge hit at once.
Other options: Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Pitiless Pontiff, Qarsi Sadist, Fiend Artisan
Happy Mourners
These guys love our stuff coming in or dying. The more you do it, the more effective they are. Our mass recursion cards can give them plenty of ammo to use against our opponent.
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Corpse Knight: slightly different to the others, just pinging your opponent for 1 every time a creature comes into the battlefield, but with our necromancy spells they can do some really heavy lifting for us.
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Cruel Celebrant and Zulaport Cutthroat: very similar lifegain and ping damage guns. Two or more of these out can give you a huge advantage quickly if other creatures you own are dying.
Mass Recursion
These spells let us get creatures out of the yard to be thrown back in there and give us even more enter/exit triggers.
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Rally the Ancestors: at instant speed, we can get all of the creatures we've put in the graveyard back onto the battlefield. No, they can't attack. Yes, they will be exiled at the end of your turn, but not from the graveyard. Get the team back together and then send them back where they came from and abuse all the triggers on the way out. All for 4 mana.
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Return to the Ranks: Slower rally but it does mean our CMC 1 and 2 creatures can hang around for a bit from the graveyard if needed. The ability to convoke the cost is a real sweetener. This card can help us get our key combo pieces out should we need them.
Other options: Call of the Death-Dweller, Kaya's Ghostform, Immortal Servitude
Lands
I'm terrible at manabases. These lands let you have mana of the right colour to cast the spells in this deck and they're not too pricey. We're running 22 due to the low-ish average CMC. Easy and obvious upgrades are available. The only highlight here is a couple of Castle Locthwain which can give us a draw option should we run out of steam a bit.
Sideboard
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Duress: I can't afford Thoughtseize, and this still might get rid of something obnoxious.
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Fragmentize: Grafdigger's Cage is crippling to this deck, and your opponents will sideboard it against you. This can help you get through the second game.
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Sign in Blood: running of of steam can be an issue, esp. with so many low-cost cards and potential for hand disruption. A cheap draw option that shouldn't be too costly with our lifegain effects.
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Fatal Push: liable to be amped up with all our stuff dying and should get rid of a lot in the format.
Other options: Tithe Taker, Vampiric Rites, Spark Harvest, Final Payment
