Ayara Casual Primer

Commander / EDH Casual Mono-Black Multiplayer Tokens

kinestetika

Creature (19)

• 1x Abhorrent Overlord
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Bloodsoaked Champion
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Oathsworn Vampire
• 1x Ogre Slumlord
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Piper of the Swarm
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Relentless Dead
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Tenacious Dead
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Instant (10)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Insidious Dreams
• 1x Necrologia
• 1x Rain of Filth
• 1x Supernatural Stamina
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Enchantment (14)

• 1x Attrition
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Call the Bloodline
• 1x Carnival of Souls
• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Dreadhorde Invasion
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Shadows of the Past
• 1x Sinister Concoction

Land (36)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Peat Bog
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Sequestered Stash
• 26x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Witch's Cottage

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Bubbling Muck
• 1x Doomsday
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Thoughtseize

Commander (1)

Artifact (14)

• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Bontu's Monument
• 1x Desecrated Tomb
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Paradise Mantle
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Ratchet Bomb
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Springleaf Drum
• 1x Welding Jar
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

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This is a fun and fast Ayara, First of Locthwain build for multiplayer casual EDH commander. It has a low curve, facilitates multiple strategies, control, card-draw and a set of combos to win, which can be tutored with Insidious Dreams + Bolas's Citadel if needed. For example:

• Ayara, First of Locthwain + Reassembling Skeleton + Desecrated Tomb + Phyrexian Altar .

If playing against less powerful builds, linear recursion will also do the job just fine and keep the game fun.

Flavor - Succumbing to Boredom

The Lady of Locthwain is a classic romantic hero, keeping an ever growing menagerie of pets and husbands. Unfortunately, she quickly tires of everything, cannot escape a neverending hunger for the next love of her life...

How to play

To keep a hand or mulligan?

Casual EDH decks need a bit more land than competitive decks, because the game is expected to last longer. This deck has 36 land. That means most games you will draw three lands in your opening hand. Without additional draws, you're likely to make land drops until turn four or five. If you start with two lands in your opening hand, you run a relatively high chance of not making your turn three land drop.

The main challenge of Ayara is her mana cost: . That means Sol Ring and similar will not be of much help to get her out. Only keep hands with at least two swamps. If you draw two lands and no recursive creature or token maker, you should consider using the free mulligan.

Dark Ritual is the ideal card to have in your opening hand, enabling you to play Ayara on turn one and making her first sacrifice on turn two.

Assembling the engine...

1. First, many cards provide pets for Ayara to get bored with and sacrifice: Bitterblossom , Dreadhorde Invasion , Ophiomancer , Call the Bloodline , Piper of the Swarm , etc. Many of these are enchantments and keep your drawing engine alive during boardwipes.
2. Next, many of Ayara 's suitors just keep coming back, even though they obviously have their best times behind them... perhaps they are not elves: Hans , Kingston , Carlos , Johannes , Nether Traitor and Bloodghast . There is no point in bringing more than one of these suitors into play. As long as you can sacrifice these slippery gentlemen in response to spot removal like Path to Exile , or bring it back in response to Bojuka Bog , you can keep your engine alive. If you draw another one, you could hold it back as a replacement just in case. Typically you would activate Ayara 's ability during the end-step before your own turn starts. You keep your mana untapped for answers, or the threat of an answer, if you have none, and only bring your suitor back right before he gets sacrificed.
3. Of course, we are not satisfied with one extra card per turn. The aim is to draw a card that provides much more draw, such as Dark Prophecy , Necropotence , Midnight Reaper , Ad Nauseam or Necrologia . You need more draw to maintain your board state, put some pressure on your opponent's life totals, while hanging on to your own, drawing the answers you need against threats and assembling your combo.

The end-game

If you've drawn a tutor - for example Vampiric Tutor or Wishclaw Talisman and can create enough mana to cast the Citadel during your turn, and can have Ayara on the battlefield, you're ready to win the game as follows:

1. (During the end step before your turn) Play Scheming Symmetry searching Insidious Dreams , tap Ayara, sacrificing a creature, drawing the dreams.
2. (During the end step before your turn) Cast Insidious Dreams creating one of several possible stacks to play during your turn.

Alternatively, you could use Doomsday with different timings.

Example Stack 1

1. Bolas's Citadel
2. Phyrexian Altar
3. Bontu's Monument
4. Oathsworn Vampire

Example Stack 2

(This stack could even run at instant speed with Shimmer Myr (which is not in the deck at this moment).

1. Bolas's Citadel
2. Phyrexian Altar
3. Desecrated Tomb
4. Reassembling Skeleton

Example Stack 3

(with graveyard hate on the battlefield, e.g. Leyline of the Void )

1. Bolas's Citadel
2. Carnival of Souls
3. Carrion Feeder
4. Ogre Slumlord
5. Tenacious Dead

Example Stack 4

1. Bolas's Citadel
2. Phyrexian Altar
3. Phyrexian Reclamation
4. Abhorrent Overlord , creating at least 8 harpies (3 for Ayara, 3 for the Citadel, 1 for the Carnival, 1 for the Reclamation)

Example Stack 5

1. Bolas's Citadel
2. Bloodchief Ascension
3. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
4. Mindcrank

After the first counter is placed on the Ascension , proliferate 2x with Yawgmoth and tap Ayara for the win.

Line-up against opposing strategies

In casual commander I find that, while assembling the wincon, maintaining a modest battlefield presence pays off, preventing to get overrun but also not presenting the biggest threat to anybody. Politics is important and cards like Wishclaw Talisman , Scheming Symmetry Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Attrition can help to buy time, or create lasting alliances. At the same time, an early Leyline of the Void can prevent powerful graveyard-based decks from developing too fast and Altar of the Brood can cripple your opponent's strategies. When playing against one or more overpowered decks, your best strategy is to combo out as quickly and with as little warning as possible, which might happen sometime around turn 5 if you're lucky. Cards like Rain of Filth will help with that. If your meta is high powered, you may need to add more tutors to the deck to make this more consistent. On the other hand, if your opponents are less powerful, you might just cruise along and win by draining life without bringing out a combo.

Specific lineups:

• Large Creatures and Voltron: Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos are the perfect answer against large unblockable, trampling indestructible creatures with hexproof. However, the deck has other, less final, answers too. Being the black player, as long as you leave some mana untapped and have a set of smaller creatures on the battlefield, you may not be the first to get attacked... so hold your fire. This is the easiest match-up.
• Token decks going wide:Many decks can crank out tokens a lot faster than us. Ratchet Bomb and Blood Artist are the answers you would be looking for. A harder match-up than a few big creatures.
• Control and spells:These decks are prepared to fend off attacks. As we're not attacking and present no immediate threat to life totals, we may stay out of the line of fire. However, we do have some lines of defense during our winning turn. We could add to our stack Buried Ruin , after the Citadel, and Imp's Mischief , at the end, when the counter spell will come. Cyclonic Rift will hurt, but with our low curve, we'll recover fast.
• Stax: With a low curve, mana sources such as Rain of Filth , and recursion using activated abilities from the graveyard, this deck should fare relatively well against stax.
• Graveyard hate:This is annoying, but not entirely knock you out, as some of the combo's still work, and tokens are still coming. However, a turn one Leyline of the Void under an opponent's control will make it much harder to win and we would be dependent on another player to remove it. Politically isolate and eliminate the Void owner or be lucky with your draws.
• Recursive spot removal or gaining control of commanders: There are many cards in the deck that let you sacrifice Ayara when very bad things are about to happen. Bontu's Monument , Syr Konrad, the Grim and card:Blood Arist provide backup life drain.

Choices and cards not in the list

• Gravecrawler : Although it makes for the combo with the lowest mana cost, its combo requires as many cards, and the need for an extra zombie makes it a poor card in the early game.
• Mirage Mirror : This card provides so many creative options, as a threat, as an answer, in politics, or even as an extra Carnival of Souls while comboing out.
• Jet Medallion and Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder : These have poor interaction with most of our combos, which depend on activated abilities.
• Carnival of Souls sees little play, so is much less likely to get removed pre-emptively than Phyrexian Altar . It also enables you to draw some mana off your opponents creature plays, which you might use to power some activated abilities. Of course, when somebody creates 1,000 spider tokens things look less rosy - but when that happens, you would most likely lose anyway. No Ashnod's Altar - it is more fun to create bats instead..
• Shimmer Myr : Not in the deck at present. It would make possible winning at instant speed, but it will only be useful occasionally and otherwise a dead card.
• Cabal Coffers : If you have trouble getting your combo to go off or have been thwarted, this could speed up life drain in the late game,
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel : Nice life drain, but I opted for Abhorrent Overlord for better synergy with Ayara .
• Thornbite Staff : Ayara is no shaman, and the high equip cost make this gadget a risky investment.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Ayara, First of Locthwain + Reassembling Skeleton Desecrated Tomb + Phyrexian Altar
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.33
Tokens	Bat 1/1 B, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Harpy 1/1 B, Morph 2/2 C, Rat 1/1 B, Snake 1/1 B, Vampire Knight 1/1 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B