The Aristocrats!

by The Stray on 11 March 2013

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)

Sorceries (4)


Instants (2)


Enchantments (2)

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Deck Description

<i>"So, this family walks into a Talent Agency. A man, a woman, their son and daughter, and a dog. The talent agent looks at them and asks, 'so what do you do?' The man takes off his pants..."</i>

The Aristocrats is a hybrid Aggro-Midrange strategy that is built around the power of the two Aristocrats (Falkenrath and Cartel), Champion of the Parish, Silverblade Paladin, and Knight of Infamy to push through damage, while playing around spot removal and gaining value with the sac-friendly Doomed Traveler and keeping attackers at bay with Boros Reckoner. The deck can easily switch between Aggro and Midrange as the board stage changes, and relies on the synergy between all of its working parts to achieve victory.

How to Play

Typical Game Plan

The Aristocrats is a creature-based strategy. There are 30 creatures in the deck, and 2 of the spells produce even more creatures. That said, it doesn't really want to summon it's hand and swing sideways with everything every turn. Sure, it will do that when the opponent has an empty board or a few utility creatures (most midrange and control strategies), but it likes to make the most out of Knight of Infamy's Exalted, pumping one creature to go into the fray and keeping the rest back to block. Then it drops Miss Tickles herself and lets her go to work, sailing over the opponent's board for 4, 5, or even higher as more humans get eaten, or else pumps out 5/5 demon tokens with the Skirsdag High Priest.

The Cards In-Depth

The core of the Aristocrats is this:

4 Doomed Traveler
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat

Champion of the Parish is the first-tun drop of choice for White. It can easily grow to 3/3 by the third turn, and will frequently be a 3/3 on second turn when you attack with a Knight of Infamy out. However, in this deck, it's not a dead draw in the late game, as it can be used to feed one of your aristocrats. It's also an excellent blocker once you've entered that stage of the game, as it gets fatter and fatter if they haven't answered it early. That turns it into one of the targets for Silverblade Paladin later on.

Doomed Traveler is also a one drop, though it's less vital to get it out early. Doomed Traveler is the chump blocker of choice, recycling itself for the cause over and over (even more so when Orzhov Charm bounces it back on to the field). It's also the snack of choice for the Aristocrats. It can even do both duties, chumping a threat and being sac'ed in response. This is the bread-and-butter card of the deck.

Cartel Aristocrat is the sleeper hit. Already a champ in the Humanimator deck that sets up infinite loops, this lady is an excellent sac engine. She can sneak through blockers, escape spot removal, stop their own creatures, survive trades, turn on morbid for your Skisdag High Priests, create surprise aerial blockers out of Doomed Travelers, and generally causes your opponents headaches whenever she appears. A word of advice...don't ever drop her on an empty field if you can help it. She's too important to the strategy to be left vulnerable. Also, she can't dodge mass removal with her protection. With these caveats in mind, she's still a powerful bear that will win you many games.

Miss Tickles herself, the mighty Falkenrath Aristocrat, does everything Cartel Aristocrat does and more. She survives Wraths, trades, and more at haste, and only dies to exile and minus toughness effects. And because a full third of your cards are humans, she grows larger frighteningly fast. Get her bonded to a Silverblade Paladin, and it's gg if they don't have the answer.

The support of the Aristocrats is this:

3 Knight of Infamy
2 Silverblade Paladins
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Skirsdag High Priests
3 Zealous Conscripts

The Knights of Infamy are important, but not crucial, to your attack strategy. They turn on Exalted, provide fodder for your Airstocrats, and have Protection from White, which makes them less vulnerable to Detention Sphere, Azorius Charm, and sudden Restoration Angel blockers. That said, they can easily be swapped for their white cousin Knight of Glory if your meta is more heavy on black for removal and creatures, and with Thalia if you are facing more control.

The Silverblade Paladin is a creature that acts as an enchantment for one of your main kill creatures. Double Strike is one of the most powerful abilities in Magic, and Silverblade is just as excellent on offense as it is on defense. It's one of the more powerful options available to you, and will frequently win you the game out of nowhere.

Boros Reckoner is a little odd in this list, but it's power cannot be ignored. Cheesy Beefaroni here is your wall, stopping weenie rushes and punishing almost any attempt to remove it with damage. It buys you the time you need to get your other cards into position, and can often win games by itself if you're running the Blasphemous Act combo. However, the card is much weaker against control, and can usually be sided out in those matches (unless it's American control, in which case you need to leave it in so they don't pull the Blasphemous Act shenanigans on YOU).

The Skirsdag High Priests offer more value out of your one-drops. If you can get him online with an Aristocrat, a second creature, and something to eat, you can get a repectable number of demons out of him (I usually get two to three before running out of things to profitably sacrifice). This can create surprise blockers as well, if you need a presence in the air to, say, derp a Restoration Angel or Sigarda, Host of Herons. The trouble is, he's a horrible early-game play. He doesn't develop your board much by himself, and you don't want to be forced into chumping him early if you can help it. You want to play him a few turns after your opponent has gone through the removal in their hand, so he'll wind up stuck in your hand if you get him in your initial grip.

Zealous Conscripts top out your curve, and are worth it. The two-for-one nature of stealing their creature and attacking with it and the conscripts can break a game wide open, and with all your sac engines it's easy to turn that into permanent advantage. Zealous Conscripts is one of those cards that simply destroys midrange if it drops, and turns games right around. That said, it's really terrible against control that isn't packing anything worth stealing, and can be sided without too much trouble.

You don't actually have to be running 3 copies of Zealous Conscripts for this deck. There are a number of 4 and 5 drops in the format you can replace the third copy with. A miser's copy of Restoration Angel was in the Pro Tour-winning version, and I've seen versions that run Exalted Angel, Sorin, Olivia Voldaran, and even a main-deck Obzedadt here. This one slot is highly variable, so choose based on your meta.

The spell package of the Aristocrats is:

2 Lingering Souls
4 Orzhov Charm

Lingering Souls provides a ton of aerial bodies that can chump, slip over ground forces, and get eaten by the Aristocrats. There's 4 between main deck and the sideboard, and they come in at different times, but 4 bodies for one card can't be beat.

The Orzhoz Charms are the secret weapons of the deck. All three modes are relevant: saving an Aristocrat, Paladin, high Priest, or Reckoner from removal is awesome. Killing an opponent's creature is relevant, even if the life loss hurts. The trickiest play, however, is the resurrection clause. Never before has Magic had a resurrection effect so cheaply at instant speed. This allows you to abuse it for all manner of nasty tricks. This simple bounce effect, from graveyard to play, allows you to get infinite versatility out of your one-drops. It's like a Snapcaster Mage for one-mana creatures!

The lands of the Aristocrats are:

4 Blood Crypt
3 Clifftop Retreat
1 Dragonskull Summit
4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
1 Vault of the Archangel

To be honest, I would be running 3 Cavern of Souls in this list if I had them (removing the Summit and 2 Retreats). Since I don't, this is the land package I'm working with. If you have the Cavern of Souls, by all means use them!

The Vault of the Archangel is a hedge against getting blown out by aggro or midrange. The deck plays a lot of shocklands untapped, and the one maindeck removal spell costs life, so the lifelink portion of the Vault is relevent. The deck is too color-hungry to support a second utility land that isn't Cavern of Souls, but you could play Slayer's Stronghold or Rogue's Passage in this slot if you find the meta supports it.

What the Deck Does Well

The deck beats face very, very well. It can get off to explosive starts, and goldfishes at about a turn 4 or 5 kill. It's also extremely adaptable to the board state. Control can't get going quick enough to kill it, it can stall out aggro with it's powerful blockers, and many midrange decks have conniptions dealing with creatures it can't kill. Since it switches plans from aggressive to defensive and back to aggressive, it can react to many game plans, and because it has creatures that are so very hard to get rid of with spot removal, it can just keep coming. A good player at the helm of the deck can turn almost any game state to his advantage.

What The Deck Struggles With

Color screw is a very real possibility. Even when running Cavern of Souls, sometimes you will miss one of your three colors, and you don't have many options for fixing that play well in the deck.

If spot removal is poor against the Aristocrats, mass removal is bad. Mutilate, Supreme Verdict, and (especially) Terminus will kick this deck hard. Red-based removal (bonfire of the Damned and Rolling Temblor), on the other hand, aren't as effective (the deck is built to absorb that kind of mass damage) but can still cause problems if your board isn't well-developed.

The deck can handle small amounts of life gain, but large Sphinx's Revelations, the Humanimator infinite life combo, and bouncing Thragtusks with Restoration Angel can really cause the deck problems in the long run. Be prepared to deal with this if these kinds of shenanigans are big in your Meta.

Sideboarding

Potential Substitutions

"...the talent agent look at the family, covered in blood, cum, and sweat. 'Jesus,' he gulps, 'What the hell do you call an act like that? Who are you people?'

The family stands, takes a bow, and proclaims 'We're the Aristocrats!'"

Deck Tags

  • Aristocrats
  • Red
  • White
  • Black
  • Aggro
  • Midrange
  • Hybrid
  • Standard
  • Tournament

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

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Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

34017190

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

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