The persistocrats

Commander / EDH Aristocrats BUG (Sultai) Combo Sacrifice

xixyz

Creature (27)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Devoted Druid
• 1x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fiend Artisan
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Master Biomancer
• 1x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Renata, Called to the Hunt
• 1x Rendclaw Trow
• 1x River Kelpie
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Woodfall Primus
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Journey to Eternity  ^Flip
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Survival of the Fittest

Land (28)

• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Necroblossom Snarl
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 2x Snow-Covered Forest
• 4x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Discerning Taste
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Gaea's Will
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Neoform
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Victimize

Commander (1)

Artifact (19)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Blasting Station
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Simic Signet
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

Instant (6)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Rushed Rebirth
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

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Sideboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Kodama of the East Tree
• 1x Silas Renn, Seeker Adept
• 1x Volrath, the Shapestealer

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This is my Persist deck, (Using a lot of over the top expensive cards but alternatives are available for most of them)

originally using Volrath as the commander, you still can board Volrath in if you want the value playstyle of the deck more than the combo. however in my experience there is little reason to actually play Volrath, aside from some cute synergies.

Primer

This is how it works. with Volrath: The deck can be a combo or a value based deck, centered on taking creatures with persist and making them something useful, this is an aristocratic list by nature so one could imagine that just having persist and being allowed to be sacrificed twice is pretty good value. But it doesn't stop there.

for combo

Some of the more expensive cards in the list are cards that make the combos work or that make them consistent Birthing Pod for example you want to find a persist creature and plop it down, next turn play pod immediately pod the (lets say 3 drop creature assuming you're on curve) and you get a 4 drop from your deck, as well as your persist creature back. If that 4 drop is a 4 drop with persist you do it again next turn for River Kelpie and if someone hasn't seen the writing on the walls by this point and you get to untap again or you get off a Neoform you use kelpi to get Mikaeus, the Unhallowed . The loop is whenever a creature you control with persist dies they trigger both persist and undying, if the creature had a -1 on it it comes back with undying otherwise persist triggers as normal and it comes back with a -1. Now with any sac outlet in the deck you have infinite sacrafice and infinite draw, with some you even have infinite mana. continue the loop until you get to Laboratory Maniac or if labman is out of the question you can dig for Exsanguinate if you are using one of the altars. and finally if you're using Altar of Dementia you get rid of kelpie and you mill the table out.(or just dont find kelpie in the first place if you already have altar of dimentia)

(as a side note mikaeus can be replaced with: Master Biomancer , Melira, Sylvok Outcast , or Renata, Called to the Hunt )

This is just one example a fairly slow example at that this would mean you win at best what turn 9, that's not the case. the example above is just how to play if you get pod to resolve, there are plenty of ways to get to a winning board state faster with totally different combos.

For example you have Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons . The loop is pay 1 to yawg kill an insect put a -1 on a creature somewhere and wipe the board 1 life and draw at a time.

another way you can circumvent having to go through all the pods is with any persist creature on the board and any sac outlet on the board, you can play Spark Double copying the persist creature. The loop is fairly self explanatory kill spark double to your sac outlet he persists and you get to choose a new thing to come in as, you choose the same creature with persist, spark double attempts to enter with a +1 counter but instead the +1 counter nullifies the -1 counter it gets from persist and you have infinite sacrafice.

value on top of this with the same infinites with persist you can get infinite puppeteer clique activations and essentially play Rise of the Dark Realms , sadly without any haste givers but if you stay cool with it you can hold off on doing it untill the end step right before your turn, and if anyone tries to interact with your board in any way other than a board wipe you can do it in response to that too.

Budget

if you are looking to play a deck similar to this on a budget most of the key cards of the list can be picked up fairly cheap. the lands and artifacts of the list can be replaced with less expensive ones as well as a downgrade to the tutors will leave you at a much cheaper deck than the one listed here but still very effective.

most of the deck can be put together with cheaper recursion methods and deck searching methods. as long as a general core stays in you should still find some success.

Thank you for checking out my aristocrats deck.

feel free to leave a comment if you tried the deck I’d love to hear how the deck works in other play groups, also if you have a suggestion to make the deck more budget friendly, I've never really worked on a budget before so I don't know the good budget options.

newest updates: It's been a while since I've visited this deck, with a handful of new sets since my last real update to the deck I figured it's time to take another look at the persist theme.

After playtesting I decided that the land count is a bit high for a deck with avg. cmc less than 3 so I cut a few for interaction and a couple cards that didn't quite make the cut before.

tasigur at the lead: Volrath was a little too 'cute' for the deck. while there were great moments that volrath could lead to I found it really unlikely that he ever actually hit the table. tasigur hopefully will lead to more card draw/graveyard filling and more of a reason to have a commander in the list.

another commander I had considered is kodaman and sylas ren for the cheating in and recursion but I've yet to playtest with it.

Top Ranked	Achieved #46 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #35 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Aristocrats 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 2 Mythic Rares 46 - 1 Rares 31 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.52
Tokens	Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Snake 1/1 G, Snake 1/1 G w/ Deathtouch
Folders	Favorites, EDH, ideas, neat decks