@Wel5 Thanks a lot. It was a pretty quickly made brew but it looks fun and has the potential for turn 4 kills, which should be cool. I am excited to get to test it out a bit more. If there are different color combos you are thinking about with Bone Picker or anything else let me know. I am going to be drawing up Bone Picker Aristocrat decks with as many color combinations as I can, when I have the time. I am pondering Mardu and Jund ones right now.

I've been pondering an esper 'flying matters' bone picker list here Picker fliers.... Its a really interesting card, but its also pretty tricky to find a spot for. The strength of delver is that it fits super well in spell-heavy lists, but picker seems to like a mix of hard removal and creatures. I'm almost expecting to see it in a Uktabi Drake/Tarmogoyf/Killspells B/G/x lists but I'm finding it pretty difficult to judge.

@lagotripha yeah, I think the problem is its not a card that can be randomly slotted into decks easily. It needs to be built around, as you need enablers to get the most out of it. I think it fits best in decks that are mostly creatures. My Junk list looks fun, and I think Uktabi Drake could be very strong. Especially if you are also running things like Varolz, the Scar-Striped and Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip. Turn 1, swing for 2 flying. Turn 2, play your Bone Picker(s). Turn 3, play Lili or Varolz, Swing for 3 flying. Turn 4, make your Picker into a 5/4, or bring back the Drake, either way, you are swinging for 5 flying. They are below 10 and you may be in Blood Artist range already.

However, my new Esper list looks fun too. Mausoleum Wanderer seems decent with things like Doomed Traveler and Lingering Souls. It also is very good at keeping other decks off tempo. But most importantly, it is a great enaler for your Picker if you need it. Sidisi's Faithful is another solid enabler that can really slow down other creature decks and is quite abusable with Lili. Here is what I got so far: Aristocrats of Esper Bones

For those interested, here are my other three Bone Picker deck color combinations. Mardu, Jund, and Grixis.

I've always wanted to try out an aristocrats deck, so I built a budget version of your deck, do you mind checking it out? - Budget Mardu Aristocrats -

Much respect! +1

@HarrisonHarry Thank you! That is awesome, I will take a look.

I used to play abzan aristocrats with no Collected Company due to price. It played fairly well, as i added removal in place of CoCo. How does your deck run with no access to CoCo? Were there times that you wished you had that card to speed you up? Your deck looks very nice, i am thinking switching to Mardu.

@DonaldFuck Good question! The deck actually runs great without CoCo. I have never really wished I had it. I think its the big difference between Abzan and Mardu. CoCo wouldn't really speed Mardu up at all, like it would with Abzan. Abzan needs to grow the board-state and win with sacs a bit more than Mardu and CoCo is great for that. But the Mardu build is more aggressive than Abzan and relies on attacks quite a bit more and we have burn for a little extra reach. Our plan is to sneak in a few early attacks with our little guys, preferably Bloodsoaked Champion to soften up the opponent. Mardu also has Mogg War Marshal to help us widen our board a bit more early on than Abzan would be. Then, on turn 4, rather than drop a CoCo, we would much rather drop a Falkenrath Aristocrat and start going for the kill on the spot. Swing for about 4-5 with the haste and then sac the board or bolt them next turn for the win. So basically, we would rather get a big attack in on turn 4 and possibly win with what we already have on the board then just grow the board a little more. Does that make sense?

Anyways, both are great decks. I just prefer the aggressive line that Mardu takes. Any Aristocrat deck is going to be insanely resilient and will go very wide. But Mardu can put on a bit more pressure and starts applying that pressure a bit earlier. Enough pressure to suffocate a lot of other decks.

Nice deck! Definitely a +1 from me. I love the flavor of the deck and how versitile it can be. It's actually helped me solve a problem I was having. I wanted to build a Mardu vampire deck based on the vampire courts of The Dresden Files, but none of my theme gimmicks were working well. I had the idea of using Falkenrath Aristocrat to sacrifice humans when I stumbled upon your deck. It's more of a casual budget version. You should check it out and tell me what you think: The Dresden Files - Vampire Court Aristocrats. Again, fantastic job on this deck!

@Abzkaban Thank you! I am glad you like it. I would be happy to check out your deck. And I have been meaning to check out The Dresden Files for a long time.

It's a fantastic series. I highly recommend it!

LordSnow thanks for your answer. I will proxy some of the cards that i don't own right now, to see how the deck plays. I always liked Mogg War Marshal,here it is incredible. If you want check my Aristocrat deck i own in my profile named abzan ormendahl aristocrats! Your deck is sweet.

I'm confused as to what the combo is.

@pokejerk20 The combo of an aristocrat, an artist, and bodies to sac. You can easily kill your opponent without ever having to swing if you don't want to, just by saccing your extra bodies. Have you seen an aristocrat deck before? They play as a combo deck.

Oh, no i've never seen anything like this. That's cool.

@pokejerk20 Definitely try it some time if you can! They are so much fun. Its very interactive and it has tons of little tricks to learn. Just accumulate creatures and sac them to bleed your opponent to death.

You really really need to be running 4 Blood Artists if you're making an aristocrats deck, and honestly if it were me I'd also run 4 Zulaport Cutthroat. The life drain can win you games very easily, especially when stacked.

@PixelatedScarecrow I would have to respectfully disagree. Having played well over 100 games with the deck, I can confidently say 8 artists is far too many for any deck that isn't running Rally the Ancestors or something of that sort. Drawing a late game artist on an empty board is simply terrible. Hell, drawing a Blood Artist in your opening hand isn't even that great. I used to play 8 and it was definitely a mistake. After playing so many games I have settled on 5 and that really seems to be the sweet spot.

Hi there, always liked the aristocrats decks, what would you recommend as a replacement for Dark Confidant, as it is clearly out of my budget getting a play set of it :-/

@ArcticJohn good question. I would say a good budget option would be either Asylum Visitor or Grim Haruspex. Good luck, have fun with the deck!

I too believe grim Haruspex is an awesome card engine that also has synergy with the overall strategy of the deck!

LordSnow i think the Grim Haruspex fits better into the theme, i also thought about Pain Seer, from your experience with the deck do you think it wil have good attacks so we can trigger it's ability?

@ArcticJohn I would say Grim Haruspex definitely fits the theme better and may work better in this deck. Asylum Visitor may be a better overall card though. And I am skeptical of Pain Seer a little bit. I don't think there will be too many opportunities to attack with it. I rarely attack with Dark Confidant unless the board is all clear or I want it to die. Our other attackers all have some type of evasion or are available to return from the graveyard if the got blocked and die. Plus you wouldn't be drawing until at least turn 4 and that is only if it survives its attack. With Grim Haruspex a lot of times you will be able to play it and sacrifice something immediately or in response to them killing the Haruspex. You will be at least drawing something off of it.

@ LordSnow This deck looks sweet and seems like a lot of fun to play! Out of curiosity, what is this deck's worst matchup? It seems like infect and burn might be tough because of their speed and fast clocks, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter!