Ayli: Eternal Sacrificing

Commander / EDH Control Lifegain Reanimator WB (Orzhov)

MegaMatt13

Creature (26)

• 1x Ashen Rider
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Cavalier of Dawn
• 1x Coffin Queen
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Daxos, Blessed by the Sun
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 1x Karlov of the Ghost Council
• 1x Knight of the White Orchid
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x Liesa, Forgotten Archangel
• 1x Liesa, Shroud of Dusk
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Skyclave Apparition
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Soul Warden
• 1x Soul's Attendant
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Suture Priest
• 1x Tithe Drinker
• 1x Twilight Prophet
• 1x Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

Instant (6)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Despark
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Land (35)

• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x High Market
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 8x Plains
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 14x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold

Artifact (11)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Cosmos Elixir
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Pristine Talisman
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Well of Lost Dreams

Commander (1)

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Ambition's Cost
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Command the Dreadhorde
• 1x Damn
• 1x Debt to the Deathless
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Fumigate
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Unburial Rites
• 1x Victimize

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Greed
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Smothering Tithe

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead

Artifact (1)

• 1x Whip of Erebos

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Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim just loves sacrificing victims for her religious rituals. This deck weaponizes her life gain. She reanimates her victims just so she can sacrifice them all over again. Multiple boardwipes and ETB exile/destroy creatures keep the board clear of threats. Please offer feedback and upvote. Please read the Notable Exclusions section. Many cards have already been playtested (including the Reveillark/Karmic Guide combo)

She Worships Death: Removal

This is ultimately a control deck. Ayli slowly wins through keeping the board clear of threats. Once we're up to 50+ life we can use her second sacrificing ability to control the board. We can't rely on that ability alone though. We won't always be above 50 life and we may not always have enough creatures to sacrifice for the ability. The Orzhov guild offers some of the best removal in the game. Combined black and white can take care of any type of permanent, often exiling them. The deck uses boardwipes, instants, and creatures (which can be reanimated) to control the board.

Boardwipes:

Merciless Eviction: The flexibility of this boardwipe is amazing. Sacrifice important creatures to Ayli in response to casting this so that they go to the grave for reanimation.

Fumigate: On theme with the lifegain theme. This can net a lot of life.

False Prophet: Boardwipe on a stick! It gets around indestructible as it forces players to exile their creatures. Great reanimation target.

Toxic Deluge: Gets around indestructible creatures. With all the lifegain in the deck, you won't miss the loss of life.

Austere Command: Another flexible boardwipe that can be tailored to take out whatever is most threatening

Cleansing Nova: Yet another flexible boardwipe.

Creatures

Ashen Rider: Expensive to cast but can ruin board states when a reanimation engine gets going.

Karlov of the Ghost Council: Synergizes with the life-gain theme, allowing us to exile threats.

Noxious Gearhulk: Destroys any creature and fits into lifegain theme.

Plaguecrafter: Cheap edict effect creature that can be the bane of voltron decks.

Ravenous Chupacabra: Cheap unconditional removal creature that can be reanimated.

Instants

Anguished Unmaking, Despark, and Path to Exile: Flexible and efficiently costed removal spells.

She Manipulates Death: Reanimation Engines

The deck is all about repeatedly abusing ETB and death triggers for incremental value. We need reanimation engines to do this. Again Orzhov is king at reanimation as black and white have the best creature recursion around. Gradual revisions of this deck have taught me that repeated engines are more valuable than one-time effects. However, a few one-time effects are included which are cheap and can steal from any graveyard. Please see the Notable Exclusions section for my reasoning behind not including some reanimators like Karmic Guide and Ravos, Soultender.

One-Shot Reanimators

Reanimate: One mana to bring back a creature from anywhere! The life lost is negligible in a lifegain deck.

Animate Dead and Necromancy: Incredibly well costed reanimation spell that also adds devotion to black. They also synergize with Sun Titan and Emeria Shepherd as permanents. Necromancy's ability to be an instant can be a nasty surprise on an opponent's turn.

Victimize: I almost don't count this as a one-time effect in this deck. The deck has so many death triggers that often I am getting one death trigger and two ETB triggers off of one card (for 3 mana!)

Repeatable Reanimation Engines

Sheoldred, the Whispering One: At 7 mana she's expensive but she acts as both a removal and reanimation engine. Black is incredibly popular in my playgroup so Swampwalk is a relevant ability, particularly useful if someone has a Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out.

Phyrexian Reclamation: Dirt cheap to cast and repeatable. It's the only reanimator that brings creatures to hand instead of the battlefield but it makes up for that with it's cheap cost.

Sun Titan: The deck has a low average CMC so there are a lot of creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and lands that can be targeted by his ability.

Coffin Queen: Can reanimate from any graveyard each turn, providing more sac fodder for Ayli.

Unburial Rites: I like the surprise factor of this one. Often opponents forget that it's in your grave for the flashback.

Mimic Vat: only 3 mana activation cost for a repeatable Ashen Rider, Sun Titan, or Gray Merchant of Asphodel, among others.

Whips of Erebos: synergizes with the lifegain theme while also bringing back a threat every turn, giving it haste.

She Toys with Life Itself: Using Life as a Resource

As an Orzhov lifegain commander, Ayli uses life as a resource to be spent. The most obvious way to do this is her exiling ability when she gets to 50+ life. We can't always count on being north of 50 life and we want other ways to spend the life we gain. Also the deck has multiple ways to keep our life total high.

Incremental Life Gain/Drain

Daxos, Blessed by the Sun, Soul Warden + Soul's Attendant: The Soul Sisters give us slow, incremental life gain.

Blood Artist, Kambal, Consul of Allocation, and Suture Priest: Weenies that slowly ding our opponents and buffer our own life totals.

Blind Obedience and Authority of the Consuls: weenie enchantments that slow down opponents and can slowly accrue life gain value.

Card Advantage

One of the ways that Black draws cards is through spending life. The following spells use life as a resource for card advantage:

Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, Greed and Erebos, God of the Dead: Black enchantment staples that can net large card advantage over the long game.

Read the Bones: Smaller sorcery that for 2 life can keep our hand fueled.

Disciple of Bolas: A reanimation target that draws us cards and refills our life total.

Well of Lost Dreams: can draw a lot of cards with all the life we're gaining.

Twilight Prophet: Performs double duty by drawing cards and draining our opponents.

Large Life Drain Finishers

Debt to the Deathless: Massive life drain finisher, especially when Crypt Ghast or Cabal Coffers are out.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Kokusho, the Evening Star: Standard life drain creatures that can finish off games when reanimated.

Sanguine Bond + Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose: Weaponizes life gain whether it be incremental or one big hit.

Aetherflux Reservoir: A giant bomb that can kill people at instant speed. It can also be used politically, threatening an opponent with instant death if they mess with you.

Notable Exclusions

The following cards have either been playtested or are banned in my usual playgroup:

Karmic Guide and Reveillark: I had this famous combo in my deck at first and it bored me to tears. If combos are your thing...knock yourself out. I just found it far too easy and non-interactive.

Exquisite Blood: Similar to above. The combo with Sanguine Bond is just far too easy and uninspiring in my opinion. Again, if combos are your thing...go to town.

Ravos, Soultender: EDHREC shows that over 50% of Ayli decks have this card. I thought it would be a no-brainer to include. However, I found waiting a whole turn cycle to have a creature return to HAND was far too inefficient. Being a creature made him fragile too. If I'm waiting that long for a creature, I'd much prefer it to return to the battlefield.

Corpse Dance: I really enjoyed this one. A reanimator with buyback is great! If only it didn't have that clause about it only targeting the top creature in your grave. I found this frustrating at times. It is another one I may return to.

Sorin Markov and Tree of Perdition: Both of these are banned in my playgroup for their easy manipulation of life totals.

Felidar Sovereign and Test of Endurance: Again I find these to be boring win conditions.

Divinity of Pride: I can understand why this makes it into a lot of builds and spent quite a bit of time in mine. However, this build is all about repeating ETB and death triggers. This creature has neither. Also, I wanted to reduce the average CMC of my creatures.

Beacon of Unrest and Obzedat's Aid: I like the flexibility of these cards, but they are one-shot reanimators for 5 mana. That's just too rich for a one time effect. I've cut back on the number of one time reanimators in the deck. The ones I have left range from 1 to 3 mana.

Ashnod's Altar, Viscera Seer, and other sac outlets: Since I'm not doing infinite combo shenanigans, I don't really need sac outlets with 0 activation cost. My commander is a sac outlet and I don't find I need redundancy of this effect. When I'm sacrificing I want it to either be for Ayli's life gain or exiling abilities.

Top Ranked	Achieved #5 position overall 8 years ago
Date added	8 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.23
Tokens	City's Blessing, Golem 3/3 C, Illusion */* U, Treasure
Folders	Commander/EDH, EDH, Favoites, Possible EDH, Decks I Like, Reference Decks, Cool Decks Maybe, Future Ideas, Interesante EDH decks, Ayli'n'