While I know that there are a number of different variations on the Aristocrats floating around out there, I wanted to come up with my own version of this deck after reading an article on Daily MTG where the author swapped in Varolz, the Scar-Striped for Falkenrath Arisocrat. I was looking through my cards when I found one card that I had been trying to figure out what to do with since I pulled it from an Innistrad repack: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. I realized that although he takes some time to put out, he has a lot of nasty abilities and can work really well in a deck that focuses on sacrificing creatures. Using Grimgrin as my foundation, I built a BUG Aristocrats deck that has proven fairly effective in most of my playtesting.
***Please note that Gravecrawler and Geralf's Messenger have been omitted from this deck because, quite simply, they are too expensive for me to purchase at this time.
Here is the reasoning behind some of the choices that I made when constructing this deck.
Mainboard
-Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, like Falkenrath Aristocrats, is the primary sacrifice engine for this deck. Unlike Falkenrath Aristocrats, however, Grimgrin does not require the creature being sacrificed to be a particular creature type to receive a number of different bonuses while in play. He Murders a creature each time he attacks and he gets +1/+1 counter for it, thus removing your opponents creature's and getting stronger each turn. He also provides you with an outlet for sacrificing your creatures, which is particularly useful when used in combination with Blood Artist.
-Judge's Familiar fits the theme of the deck in that it helps Blood Artist drain the opponent's life while also allowing you to counter a spell that may be potentially devastating against the deck.
-Strangleroot Geist, Young Wolf, and Demonlord of Ashmouth are integral cards for this deck because of the undying mechanic. They die and activate Blood Artist's ability, and they also provide +1/+1 counters that can be used by Zameck Guildmage to fill my hand or Korozda Gorgon for creature removal. In addition, Demonlord of Ashmouth has flying and provides me with another way of sacrificing creatures to keep this deck moving forward.
-Garruk Relentless
is another important card for this deck because he provides tokens which can be sacrificed to keep Grimgrin moving, and he can also be used to tutor for specific cards if I don't have them in my hand.
-As was noted above, Zameck Guildmage, Korozda Gorgon, and Bioshift allow me to keep my undying creatures in the game while allowing me to draw, remove a threat, or strengthen another creature on the battlefield.
-Skirsdag High Priest capitalizes on my creatures being sacrificed by allowing me to produce large creature tokens at little to no cost.
-Stitcher's Apprentice acts as another sacrifice engine in this deck that allows me to sacrifice an undying creature while putting another creature on the battlefield. This token can be sacrificed later to fuel Grimgrin or Blood Artist.
-Tragic Slip, Putrefy, and Rapid Hybridization are all creature removal spells that I can use to slow my opponent down until Grimgrin enters the battlefield. Rapid Hybridization is also useful if cast on my own undying creatures because it allows me to put a 3/3 creature onto the battlefield for one blue mana.
-Arbor Elf is a mana dork that can be used in conjunction with Overgrown Tomb and Breeding Pool to make sure that I am not hurting for mana and can push out higher cost cards earlier in the game.
Sideboard
-Fog is included in the deck in case I am matched up against an aggro deck. In this instance mana fixing is less important than making it to the midgame, so -3 Arbor Elf, +3 Fog.
-Hidden Strings has been sideboarded in the event that my opponent plays a mass removal spell which takes my undying creatures out of the game before I can remove their +1/+1 counters. Hidden Strings allows me to account for Grimgrin's primary weakness (i.e,. his inability to untap without a creature being sacrifice) while also allowing me to tap or untap an additional permanent. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord has also been sideboarded to capitalize on situations where my creatures have been killed off and my graveyard is full, and he can also be used to send more creatures to my yard if Grimgrin isn't on the table. -2 Bioshift, -2 Zameck Guildmage]], +2 Hidden Strings, +2 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord.
-Judge's Familiar and Dispel are sideboarded in the event that I come up against a control deck. Because creature removal is less important in this situation, I can take out both Tragic Slips and 1 Rapid Hybridization to make the deck more control-oriented. -2 Tragic Slip, -1 Rapid Hybridization, +1 Judge's Familiar, +2 Dispel.
-Korozda Gorgon is another +1/+1 token remover that can be used to get rid of indestructible creatures (e.g., Falkenrath Aristocrat) or generally weaken larger creatures. In conjunction with an extra Putrefy and Tragic Slip, I see this card being very useful in beating down a deck that relies on indestructible weenies due to Boros Charm and/or mirror matches against another Aristocrat deck. -2 Bioshift, -1 Rapid Hybridization, +2 Korozda Gorgon, +1 Putrefy.
-Abrupt Decay gets rid of Liliana of the Veil. Enough said. I'll figure out how to fit this in there somewhere.
If you have any suggestions or comments concerning this deck I would love to hear your thoughts!
