MicroBrews 1: A Noble Excursion

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SwaggyMcSwagglepants

14 March 2016

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Hello, and welcome to MicroBrews. I'm Swaggy, and I'll be writing this article series.

Now, the first question that might come to you is "what is MicroBrews?" Microbrews is a deck series where I display rogue decks, commonly known as brews, from different formats (my preferred format is Modern, however, Pauper and a Highlander variant are all distant possibilities – I am not a big fan of Standard) from either my own head-brain, a list online, or a user list. I'm aiming to put out another MicroBrews every two to three weeks. These decks will appear as a list in the article.

Just some things you should know about this article series in general:

• I might cut the diamond, but I don't polish it: By that, I mean most of these lists are rough concepts and aren't polished into that smooth, shiny list that happens when people grind hours into it. If you have a suggestion, comment. I'd love it if people could show me lists of their edits to my deck, or results from FNMs or Modo Leagues!
• These are maindecks (meaning sideboards are not included): Sideboards change so frequently based on metagames and new innovations. And, they take a lot of work. So I am going to make life simpler for me and just focus on making the maindeck better.
• Keep it to constructive criticism: I am not going to listen to anything like "You're such a bad deck builder Swaggy, why don't you stop playing Magic and get a life, nerd." I have faith that you readers are good people and can avoid this, but once in a Blood Moon someone will say stuff like that, and I'd like to discourage it.
• This is a Spike Brew column: If I'm going to build a deck, I have to believe it can face the metagame it's put against. It might be more than capable of it, or it might fall flat. But if I personally think it's a flop, then I won't post it. Also, I'm really not going to look into casual formats (sorry Elder Dragon Highlander players!) or custom formats (sorry Sam Black!).
• Please, Please, Please, Please post your own decks in the comments! These are lists I'd love to edit and display! Of course, I want them to be competitive, but anything goes. Also, this isn't another "Advertise your Deck!" so don't spam it; this is for creative or competitive rogue decks. I will definitely prioritize Modern, since that is the format I currently play, but Pauper and Canadian Highlander are so open that a list that looks somewhat competitive is up for contention. I might do a Standard MicroBrew before a rotation because there aren't set rules about what you need in a certain deck, which makes brewing much more fun and enjoyable for me!

So, for the first edition of this article, I decided to build a Modern deck that not only is strong as a midrange list, but also is very synergistic.

Mardu Aristocrats

4x Dark Confidant 3x Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim 2x Liliana, Heretical Healer 4x Butcher of the Horde 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet 4x Lightning Bolt 4x Path to Exile 4x Inquisition of Kozilek 1x Terminate 2x Lightning Helix 2x Bitterblossom 4x Lingering Souls 1x Kolaghan’s Command 1x Painful Truths 4x Marsh Flats 3x Bloodstained Mire 2x Arid Mesa 2x Godless Shrine 1x Blood Crypt 1x Sacred Foundry 3x Blackcleave Cliffs 3x Shambling Vents 1x Ghost Quarter 2x Swamp 1x Mountain 1x Plains

Short explanation of this decklist:

Aristocrats is a deck based around sacrificing creatures, usually for powerful effects or synergy reasons. This Mardu deck is a midrange list utilizing powerful cards like Butcher of the Horde, Young Pyromancer, Bitterblossom, Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip, Lingering Souls, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, besides other strong midrange cards that are in Mardu colors.

Now, we go to the real part of this article:

Getting Down and Dirty with Aristocrats

Token Producers

Lingering Souls: Might not be very mana efficient, but Lingering Souls provides a lot of value to the list. The flying on the Spirit tokens is extremely important. And, Lingering Souls has synergy with Liliana, Defiant Necromancer  ^Flip, since it can be discarded with her +2 and then cast from the bin for its flashback cost.

Bitterblossom: Very good at supplying a steady stream of tokens. It is hard to remove, and is consistent with giving out a Faerie Rogue (that flies – value!). But, the life loss is a real issue, and since it is hard to remove, this could be a real liability. But, the reward is high enough in the list to merit the inclusion.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: What a powerhouse! By running 8 ways to kill creatures (that put them in the graveyard – Path to Exile does not synergize, but is another removal spell) plus having opposing creatures die in combat, it should not be too hard to get a Zombie, or two, or five out.

Aristocrats

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim: Ayli is probably the most recent piece to Aristocrat's toolkit. She has a good set of stats, being a 2/3 with deathtouch for , which is good on offense and defense. Her abilities aren't very mana efficient, but her Vindicate ability is unbelievably powerful. It gives the deck reach against enchantments like Blood Moon and Keranos, God of Storms. The lifegain is also important, because Dark Confidant, Bitterblossom, Painful Truths, and our manabase hurt. A lot. Overall, this might be a hidden gem, but could be a flop because she isn't mana efficient.

Butcher of the Horde: When Butcher hits the opponent for the first time, they are going to become very scared. First off, his body is incredible. A 5/4 flyer for ?!? WHAT?!? This is already great. And then Wizards decided he wasn't good enough. A 5/4 lifelinker hitting the opponent's face is great. And when he comes out, he can become the scariest threat anybody has seen by hitting for 5, and possibly gaining 5 life, and being able to block an opposing threat. He can just win a game singlehandedly.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: Hey, so Kalitas makes zombies, right? Well, they can be sacrificed to make him bigger. And then, when he goes into the red zone, he can net more life. Just more reasoning on why he's a powerhouse.

Control

Path to Exile and Terminate: These are just two efficient removal spells. That kill stuff. That need to be killed. Nothing really to say otherwise.

Lightning Bolt: No, the most efficient burn spell is not going to be included in a Modern deck that plays red. Why would anyone play Lightning Bolt?

On a more serious note, I'm assuming most people would know why Bolt would merit a spot. It's too powerful not to include.

Inquisition of Kozilek: This is the best interaction in Mardu colors. It's very cheap, and hits the majority of the scary cards in the Modern format.

Lightning Helix: Provides a good life swing, and does a good portion of damage. A bit more expensive Bolt with upside.

Card Advantage

Dark Confidant: doesn't have the cantrips or heavy card draw without downside, but playing cards each turn is something very vital to the strategy. The life loss is a small price to pay for the card advantage. In addition, if the life loss is too great, Bob can be sacrificed to any one of the Aristocrats.

Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip: A 2/3 lifelinker for isn't terribly exciting. But when a nontoken creature dies – wait, this deck is really good at making stuff die – she flips into Liliana, Defiant Necromancer  ^Flip, a much more exciting card. And she provides sacrificial fodder!

Liliana, Defiant Necromancer  ^Flip: She got there! Discarding cards isn't that great, but Lingering Souls is a good combo with her. But wait! If a creature is discarded, next turn, it can come back to the battlefield! And her ultimate is exactly what the deck wants to see! Being able to sacrifice something and get it back makes any of our Aristocrats happy (besides Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, since he only likes to eat zombies). Overall, I think this Liliana is sufficiently better, through her synergy, than Liliana of the Veil to take a couple of spots in the list.

Kolaghan's Command: In the dictionary, right next to "two-for-one," you can find a picture of Kolaghan's Command. It can be very disruptive to the opponent, by killing a creature/doming them for two, or making them discard a card, or killing a troublesome artifact. And if the opponent doesn't need to be messed with, getting a dude back from the bin for sacrificial use or just to play as a creature is very good.

Painful Truths: The best card draw spell in Mardu colors, but they weren't lying when they said that Painful Truths was painful. It's not really feasible to run more because of the big dent it leaves on the life total.

Okay, hopefully, you've got a good understanding of my card choices for this list. Now, let's examine the deck as a whole:

Strengths

Everything doesn't have to die. By that, I mean Lingering Souls and Bitterblossoms sole purposes aren't to provide sacrificial fodder (although that is a major reason why they are included in the deck). They can just be token producers. The deck can play a token game and sometimes sacrifice those tokens for value.

Better against removal than most other decks. If your opponent kills a Bob or Pyroclasms away your tokens, you can sacrifice them to Ayli or Butcher to get additional value instead of just letting them die for no value.

Hard to get over. This list runs a lot of creatures and creature-making spells. It also has a lot of ways to gain card advantage and answers to a lot of threats, and the deck is very synergistic. This makes it so someone can't really go over you or go longer than you.

No awful matchups (excluding Eldrazi): Like most midrange Modern decks, there isn't really a matchup that makes this deck folds on itself. Besides Eldrazi. That deck is nuts.

Weaknesses

The deck is very grindy. This deck isn't extremely fast in setting up its game plan. I mean, of course T2 Bob into T3 Lingering Souls into T4 Butcher of the Horde is a real possibility, but usually, I can't see the deck having a very fast start.

Weak to combo. Ad Nauseam seems like a horrible matchup for the deck. There's not a ton of disruption, and they can just go off. Storm also seems like a bad matchup for the deck.

No excellent matchups. As you can see below, we don't really have anything above a 55%.

Matchups

In this section, I'll give a rating of 1 to 100%, 1 being shake the opponent's hand and sign the match slip as a 0-2 drop, and 100% being you have to really screw up to lose this matchup. Like, have a monumental punt.

• Eldrazi: 37%. We have a lot of blockers, and if they stumble, we might be able to deal some damage and kill some threats. But Eldrazi usually is way too fast and efficient for us to win reliably.
• Infect: 55%. They can go off very fast, but classically, Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom are bad cards against them. And we are packing a lot of removal to kill their stuff. And Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim having deathtouch proves to be hard for them to remove.
• : 50%. Whichever player can capitalize on stumbles from the opponent and kill or Inquisition of Kozilek the right things wins. I think this has a worse matchup against Junk, because Butcher of the Horde doesn't like opposing Lingering Souls and Path to Exiles. Liliana, Defiant Necromancer  ^Flip seems very good in this matchup, because hitting their hand when they don't want it to be attacked can wreak havoc, and returning cards from your graveyard like Butcher of the Horde and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet can tilt the game in your favor.
• Zoo/Burn: 42.5%. We really want to see Lingering Souls and Lightning Helix. If we can stabilize, we basically have the game. But since we hurt ourselves so much with our cards and manabase, the Zoo/Burn player can kill us much faster.
• Affinity: 47.5%. We have a lot of removal and blockers, and Butcher of the Horde can hit for lots of damage and net life that the deck needs to take out the early onslaught of dudes. Kolaghan's Command really shines in this matchup.
• Lantern Control/Barbershop: 45%. Lingering Souls is really the star here, being useful from the bin. Kolaghan's Command and Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim can help us kill their Ensnaring Bridges, and we have Bob to help us draw additional cards.
• Abzan CoCo: 52.5%. If we can keep a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet on the board, we win. But they can combo off really fast. Fortunately, we have lots of removal to take out a combo piece, and Butcher of the Horde is bigger than anything they play.
• Living End: 50%. We have a lot of creatures, and we can sacrifice our stuff with our Aristocrats in response to the Living End. Fulminator Mage is rough to play against, but with our removal base, we can take out at least a couple of their creatures before they hit the red zone. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet can also help because if their stuff dies, it goes to exile instead of dying, which means they can't Living End those creatures out again.
• Merfolk: 50%. Spreading Seas and Cursecatcher are rough to play against, but we can keep up a board presence, and, once again, Butcher of the Horde lets us race them by netting life and leaving up blocks.
• Grixis Delver: 55%. They deal themselves a lot of damage, and your creatures almost always outclass theirs. Counterspells might be an issue for this deck, because losing tempo really hurts it.
• Dredge: 50%. If you go along a tokens route, you can trade your Spirits/Faerie Rogue their creatures fairly well. Vengeful Pharaoh is an issue for Butcher, but you should be able to stall the game until you have the more dominant position, or until they mill themselves out.
• Ad Nauseam/Storm: 42.5%. There isn't much we can do besides pray for Inquisition of Kozileks and Ayli, Eternal Pilgrims for Ad Nauseum before they combo off so you can hopefully gain 10 life and use her Vindicate ability to kill a Phyrexian Unlife.

Tips and Tricks

These are just some last things that a player who might want to pick up the deck should remember:

1. Sacrifice your Dark Confidant if your life total is getting too low! If you are at a precariously low life total, or just want to keep life high because of Ayli, just sacrifice Bob to gain some value.
2. Discard wisely with Liliana, Defiant Necromancer  ^Flip! You can always default to a land if you need to discard later on in the game. Lingering Souls and creatures are almost always the better choice over spells, since Liliana can reanimate creatures and Lingering Souls has flashback.
3. Don't forget that you can play this deck as Mardu Tokens! You don't always have to sacrifice your tokens to an Aristocrat. All of the Aristocrats are pretty good without sacrificing dudes. Having some Faerie Rogues or Spirits can make Infect decks not want to swing in, and are good at blocking Tarmogoyfs or Insectile Aberration  ^Flips.
4. You can sacrifice Shambling Vents. Usually, this is the wrong play, but if you need to, you can sacrifice a Shambling Vents to get a sacrifice trigger off of it. This might be right against decks like Lantern Control, where Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim needs fodder, but if the Lantern player is smart enough, they won't give you it. But they'll usually give you lands, and you might be able to Vindicate one of their important permanents.

Final Words

I really hope you guys all enjoyed MicroBrews! It's really rewarding for me to put out content to the community. This will be a continuing series, and I hope to reveal many more exciting and innovative decklists.

Remember, post your lists! This will hopefully be a place where people will share ideas and talk about brews together. And, if you're lucky, I will choose one of the coolest lists to deck tech or reconstruct here!

If you want to find me, you can always link me in a comment, or tweet at me @Dustydeckbox.

Thanks for reading and Happy Tapping!