Aristocrats Deep Dive | A Complete Guide to the Aristocrats Archetype in Commander 

I love korvold, I just find it cool that a king was turned into a dragon at his wedding and then ate the whole wedding party.

"When we do gameplay, we're gonna have so many episodes where it's just gonna be us building a deck out of spite." That sounds awesome honestly.

I understand that cards such as Hunted witness and Doomed traveler seem to be kinda meh to a lot of players, but as someone who's played orzhov aristocrats for a long time, I've noticed that these one drop cards give tons of value for their cmc. They give 2 bodies for just a single mana. That's like 2/3 of the bodies from a ministrant obligation while also being simply 1/3 the cost of a ministrant of obligation. 2 bodies for a single mana is unheard of, and I really don't get why people underestimate it. You can draw like 4 cards by turn 3 with a hunted witness and a skull clamp, or you could have potentially 8 mana on turn 4 with a hunted witness and an ashnod's altar on the field. 1 hunted witness and a yawgmoth basically allow you to distribute 2 -1/-1 counters and draw 2 cards by T4 all on curve. You can even add a 2 and a 3 drop for even more value to basically keep your opponents leagues behind you all in the early game. I just think that these cards maybe deserve a better review imo is all. They seem especially good for going off early or being hyper mana efficient late game.

Cop: How were you able to beat 12 robbers with your bare hands? Me: I was listening to Nitpicking Nerds. Cop: Is that a band?

Teysa Karlov and the Orzhov Church are wondering why you snubbed the death-harmonicon herself in a video about aristocrats. Love your content! This show has made my regular podcast rotation!

So true about accidentally going infinite with the altars. My wife put together a Korvold deck and realized Ashnod's Altar went infinite with Animation Module if Korvold is on the battlefield. Completely insane, draw your library, and Korvold is a kill shot

I swear, whenever I start to explore a new aspect of MTG, you guys drop a bomb video on the topic. Unbelievable. You've earned a patron.

I've always been partial to Teysa Karlov as my Commander in Aristocrats. She doesn't do a lot on her own, but certain death triggers are insane when you double proc then with her effect. And she can also make your tokens useful in situations where you either don't have or don't need to use a sac outlet. Someone swings a wide board at you or a big creature that you can't block, Inkshield it with Teysa on board and you just got a bunch of 2/1 creatures with Flying, Vigilance and Lifelink. Or resolving a sacrifice of Kokusho the Evening Star while she's on board. Huge damage and a ton of healing, especially if you have a Reanimate or something else to pull Kokusho back out and do it again.

Oh hey they're talking about my favorite archetype, neat.

Just reworked my Teysa deck, and the advice really helped me understand my win cons better and clean up my deck a bit! Thanks for the vid!

archetype - * waves arms * deepdive!

Aristocrats is a great archetype and you did a wonderful job covering it (besides missing Teysa as others mentioned). Thanks for the content!

I miss disclaimer guy... he would have said "Disclaimer guy here: the netpicking nerds are not responsible for any injuries suffered or property damage during a robbery"

GREATEST Commander podcast!! love you guys. good luck to blowing up !

These dudes never heard of Teysa Karlov. Best commander podcast my ass.

My favorite aristocrats deck I own is hands down Chatterfang so powerful with a couple infinite combos & really fun to play plus who doesn't want a squirrel general.

Edgar Markov with aristocrat sub theme has been working for me

With the Ashnod and Phyrexian versions of Altars, while it does not come up very often, keep in mind that these are mana abilities and cannot be responded to, gets around Split Second and can just help you snowball into other spells. Not a lot of people know that these mana Altars are mana abilities, since they read "sac:make mana". Sacrificing is the cost, mana is what you get out of it. It's the same as tapping an Elvish Mystic or basic land; they cannot respond to you tapping for mana. Same with the Altars

great channel with deep deck analysis you got another subscription!

Im soo happy I can watch this in 4k now!

I literally just started building a korvold deck. Great timing boys 👍🏼

Please do more archetype deep dives!

Grave Pact has prevented so many attacks/created so many concession when it's snuck on. It's kind of salty even for black and has won faster than wipes do sometimes. Great vid, won't repeat what everyone else already said on Korvold but agree.

Bolas's brick made a return. Nice. Well, good video about aristocrats. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the video, I love Yawgmoth as my commander!

Judith, the Scourge Diva is my favorite aristocrats commander because of that death trigger. My loop that I like to use with her is with Decaying Soil, Phyrexian Altar, and any creature that is essentially free to cast ie Priest of Gix, Mogg War Marshal, Memnite

I love that syr Konrad works with fiery emancipation infect and Lifelink. The deals damage is so much more fun

Living Death plus Altar of Dementia in a Sidisi deck is the best feeling ever

I love this video because Aristocrats always kinda confused me, and after watching your breakdown I realized that I've basically been trying to make Karador Zombie Aristocrats, and for some reason that just helps me really focus more on how to properly structure it without getting distracted by other kinds of mechanics and what not. It is up to 6 mass reanimation cards now though with Haunting Voyage joining Living Death, Patriarch's Bidding, Zombie Apocalypse, Eerie Ultimatum, and Rise of the Dark Realms.

This was a great video. Would love to see more like it. Only suggestion is a general suggested outline. You started by saying 5 to 7 sac outlets, but didn't do that for anything else

I love most of those cards you guy's dropped in this video

Awesome video!

Great video as always! Couple of comments from an aristocrats aficionado: -Pitiless Plunderer is much better than Pawn of Ulamog & co. since he doesn't say "nontoken". He accidentally combos with anything, much like Ashnod's Altar. I think recently people realized how strong he is since he went from a few cents to 5$. -Another great card to check out is Chittering Witch. She gives you 4 bodies for 4 mana and can be used as a (inefficient) sac outlet in a pinch.

I still love Grave Titan in my Ayara deck. 3 bodies, 3 Ayara pings, and 3 sac fodder for Ayara/Phyrexian Tower/an altar. Plus whatever dictate/blood artist type triggers I have. It's a solid card, and fun to reanimate!

Aristocrats are one of the only archetypes I haven’t built yet :p When I build it I will be coming back to this. Great video :)

So surprised you didn't think of teysa or Ayli. Those are very very good Aristocrats theme commanders. And they can easily be great removal as well.

I like how the podcast scenario started normal. Aka walking in a grocery store but added twist you’re now fighting someone

This is what I was waiting for 😎

I paused mtg for about 2 months, just came back and you guys granted me this video about one of my favourite archetypes to play?! BEST DAY!🙏 So in addition i have a question: you recommended 7-12 sac outlets for an aristocrat deck. But what do you recommend if you have a good sac outlet in your command zone? To my logic you could maybe go below 7 outlets. You guys are the best😁!

I built wilhelt aristocrats as my first aristocrats deck and I absolutely love it.

thanks guys great watch

When considering mazirek as an aristocrat commander, he acts like a Melira with persist creatures. If you have a mazirek + free sac outlet + persist creature on board, that's infinite death triggers. Combo with cutthroat or blood artist for profit. I like including pattern of rebirth in my mazirek deck to turn a token into a woodfall primus. With mazirek and a sac outlet on board, that's infinite primus triggers. Is it salty? Most likely. But sometimes you just wanna close a game.

Shirei has been my long time favorite edh deck. I always check the new sets to see if there are any new sac outlets/payoffs or good 1 power creatures

Learned alot! Definitely gonna be playing elenda she is so underused! Maxing it out is going to be expensive for like... 5 of the cards but hey! It's so good even without stuff like dreadhorde general

My judith deck is not fun so its on my rebuild pile and this vid came at the perfect time. Cheers lads.

Hey, had a bit of spicy stuff for when yall eventually look into spellslinger. Mystic Speculation is a crazy good card in niv-parun. Very efficient

Storytime: Back in Stronghold block WOTC promoted the first tribal set, Legions. I made a Orzhov cleric deck that would attack and have sacrifice effects for extra loss of life effects, my group hated it, LOL. A decade later I realize I had made a Aristrocrats deck. I remade that deck, for giggles, recently with some new Clerics, long live Clerics! :P

pretty good video, i enjoyed it a lot. ive been playing aristocrats for a long time and ive played pretty much every aristocrats commander. i think by far teysa karlov is the best one. she can win pretty fast with a critical mass and shes great with combos as well. the fact that she takes 40 pings and makes it 20 to win is so good on its own. you guys definitely got me off of grave titan which i agree is not good in aristocrats decks. ministrant of obligation is great for teysa karlov because it represents 3 bodies on its own and 5 bodies with teysa, thats 1/4th of a win right there. i also am sad yall forgot about my favorite card: tombstone stairwell any graveyard deck wants it, it makes tokens on each upkeep for everyone and youll have the most creatures in the grave and it sacs for you at the end to trigger everything. dark prophecy is great, it draws so damn much in token decks like teysa. i also love the idea of lillianna dreadhorde general, ill try her out and see if shes good.

Syr Konrad + Morality Shift w/ an eldrazi in your deck is fun times. Ive seen games where it just wipes the board and kills every opponent instantly, and in case where it hasn't it maimed everyone LOL

I have used the mimic vat in my meren to extreme effect. Create token to sac token to get death trigger. Create token to block on opponents turn to kill and get effect. Better than you would expect.

personal story time I got back into the game in 2019, after a 5 year break. My return was the result of living with 3 other mtg players at the time and i was really digging all the new stuff and reprints. One of the first themes i heavily invested in was Aristocrats; I had built two or three of them (one being sek'kuar, which you shouldve included in the video :P). I am SOO lucky i was obsessed with aristocrats, because almost every god-damn necessary staple is a 40-50 dollar card right now. It is disgusting how expensive aristocrats got in the past two years, and it's all because there are clutch staples that they refuse to reprint lol

You guys rock

One of my favorite death trigger payoffs is Spiteful Prankster from Jumpstart. Of course Mayhem Devil as well. Infinite treasure sac kills are the best kills.

I have used mimic vat to interrupt combos and reanimate effects by exiling things as they die (even if I put them back) e.g: I exiled triskellion to stop a makaeus-triskellion combo, steal massive creatures from other people and even do a repeatable 3 mana boardwipe with an athertide whale in the vat, and aethersquall ancient on the board

I have yet to make a deck that utilizes an aristocrat theme, but you guys certainly make building one look tempting. Also, I decided to go searching for that Ferrari comment on your RL video, and um... wow. I don't know why they thought comparing car clubs to a trading card game was comparable. Bafflingly. There are some other very strange takes though on the video. It would seem the RL is just a very divisive topic.

Don't forget about my four-color Aristocounters deck with Ishai and Reyhan at the helm. Gotta get me a new Vorinclex.

Victimize i use to get my key creatures back and to add reanimate redundance, it works very well when you only need to get a specific creature back to win

I'm trying to make an Ertai, the corrupted aristocrats/control deck so I'm revisiting this video, we'll see how well it goes.

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder is pretty broken as a commander too. Very easily combos and just values out with so many different cards.

Favorite combo in my hogaak deck is altar of dementia and living death, it isn't infinite but might as well be

Awe, I miss joe😢 lol. Great episode 😁

Aristocrats is super fun, my third deck was the korvold brawl deck that I turned to commander and have been upgrading more since. I recently built a sweet Orah cleric aristocrats(an excellent home for ministrant of obligation btw). Damn do I love throwing away my creatures for the greater good of my victory. Also I've found victimize to be nuts in my decks, I run it in both my aristocrats decks as a way to sacrifice a creature I would sacrifice anyways to bring back two of my biggest ETB/LTB creatures, card is actually really good. I also run it in my sedris reanimator deck, it's less good here because I have less expendable creatures but the deck is all about cheating in big bois and bringing back both a sphynx of the second sun and a jin gitaxis is worth the risk

A card I do recommend for Mardu Aristocrats is Purphoros, God of the Forge. An indestructible enchantment for 4 Mana that deals 2 damage to each opponent whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control (yes, it includes tokens..). It is like the big brother of Impact Tremors. Especially deadly if you play many small creatures and / or token makers.

Im my very first booster pack ever I opened a Liliana, it was $70 at the time I still have that card and it’s the highlight of my collection.

Can't wait the battle of Spite Decks

I would love an updated Grismold deck tech!! He seems to break some of the exceptions to these guidelines

Mimic vat is super good at stealin permanents and also awesome for like Spore frog, or False Profit Daring apprentice or etb critters, and Ive impinted somones combo peice as it went into the graveyard and just kept it removed

My favorite engine in this archetype is the Scarecrone engine with Wingrattle, Chain Breaker, Poppet, either Metallic Mimic or Mikaeus, and Reaper King.

Good video BUT there are a few you guys missed that are definitely worth mentioning: This one is a wincon if you have a replacement effect in play. It’s called ‘blasting station’ it’s both a sac outlet and a damage outlet in 1, 3 mana artifact. Next, is in my opinion a better card draw engine for death triggers. It’s called ‘species specialist’. It cost 1 more mana than the others you mentioned but does not drain your life. Next is a drain outlet that is very similar to Syr Konrad. It does cost 1 more mana but the up side is HOW it does damage. Syr konrad actually deals direct dmg and as such can be prevented. This card states each opponent loses 1 life which cannot be as easily prevented. It’s called ‘dreadhound’ and like Syr Konrad will also deal dmg on mill. Next is also a very beautiful aristocrat card that both creates and sacrifices creatures called ‘tombstone stairwell’. What’s great about it is it will spawn and sacrifice tokens on EVERY UPKEEP. This is both an ETB drain trigger, a sac outlet and card draw(it’s a tap ability tho) called ‘Ayara, first of lochtwain’. Also worth mentioning that Ayara is also legendary. Lastly, this is a cost reducer and an ETB drain trigger called ‘bontu’s monument’.

Kinda had a feeling "will they name..." there it is. "And how about..." just incoming. Great job! You might perhaps want to add things to sacrifice, like the Weaponcraft Enthusiast, and talk about the added value of sad robot in this deck. Last I noticed some inexperienced players in my playgroup to hit on aristrocrats and miss out all the things to keep track of, like the right moment to trigger the grave pact effect, when to sacrifice in response to hate and when not to, the thought of getting stuff back (reanimation) vs getting new stuff (draw/token generation), how to play around combat-heavy decks, distributions in your deck (utility creatures, payoff creatures, sac-me-creatures, sac outlets, stuff that doesn't say aristocrats at all, like anguished unmaking). Then there's the pseudo-trap of creatures that sacrifice themselves, like a spore frog. And speaking of it: You forgot good ol' steve! You could probably do two more videos just about aristocrats, so that the deep dive is REALLY DEEP!

Got a japanese alternate art Liliana using your link :) I was curious, do you get a % of purchases or is it just a static amount as long as we buy cards with your link?

I have a few Arisrocrats decks, but only my Teysa Karlov runs Ministrant of Obligation. With Teysa on the field, that makes it five bodies for three mana, four of which have flying, lifelink, and vigilance. The tokens get to be aggressive towards players without flying blockers, gain life, and stay ready to chump block, gain life again, and set off more death triggers. Then, the Ministrant get circumstantially reanimated via Living Death or Reveillark or something onto the battlefield at some point to set off all that value again. That said, I've cut it from any other deck I tried to put it in. It just doesn't provide the same kind of value elsewhere.

I really wanna do a hungry hungry korvold deck.. Sounds like it would be fun

Put THAT in the police report!

For what its worth, the afterlife mechanic is much better when taking advantage of Teysa Karlov doubling death triggers

I don't know about this advice. Everywhere I go, I always get in trouble for letting my sac out

Savra is a fun way to turn sacrificing creatures into removal/life gain as bonus value.

I would have wished to see some blue cards as inspiration for my Grimgrin deck.

I feel no one ever mentions Whisper, Blood Liturgist. It does a lot of cool stuff, but people just pretend it never existed. It’s a once per turn (tap), sac 2, reanimate. So much you can do with repeatable reanimates in this kind of deck, especially for free with the upside of sacing two creatures. Worth checking out even with the tapping.

I run Meren, and am trying to work in a theme of 'women with alternate art', which isn't very many cards yet. Not sure if I'll foil the women that don't have alternate arts, we'll see? I'm adding the big bottomed Sheoldred card, to fit the theme, and have the 2 from the Tattoo drop/Vraska, Golgari Queen, so it is a running gag at this point. Meren is obviously from the Drop. I'm really considering getting the Vault Visara as removal that can kill one of my own if needed. Also, the art is very, uh, impressive. The deck really loves her recursion, and doesn't run much other recursion as a result. The other main source is Haakon, who is there to combo off mostly with other knights. A bit card intensive I suppose, but the deck is good at value-stalling (I don't think you can call it durdling if I'm also wiping out swathes of your board), and can win via damage in a few ways. For a deck that usually wins by going infinite, it isn't obscene to face, and is easily derailed due to the lack of blue for counters, but it tries to be redundant where possible. I want Field of the Dead for Tatyova, ironically also for aristocrats purposes, since the deck has Altar of Dementia as a safety valve/back up win con. I'm slowly adding more and more utility lands, so it's looking better and better, and it's arguably better than Rampaging Baloth since it doesn't need a creature to do this job, making me a badly needed space for something more powerful than just infinite tokens off landfall. It has a much lower floor than the Baloth though, being a dead card early, while the Baloth is likely making desperately needed blockers early, as I tend to have lots of islands and forests out, since they are easier to cheat out, and I actually find I can run out of them already, when I've got 24 basics, so I have no idea how people run so many less. I could run both, but that feels really inefficient, since I also have Meloku and Avenger of Zendikar (which I feel like I need as a 'not lose' card) to make tokens to mill people. Regarding the reserved list though, I do have a few cards I'd love to get that are priced absurdly, and that is annoying. Some of these effects have seen other versions printed, even better ones at times, but the odd one sticks out. I think allowing proxies that pass deck inspection should be fine, and this would largely solve the problem. This isn't the kind of game that should have Ferraris.

I really love my Alesha deck that has a aristocrat theme to it.

It would be nice if after all this time wizards would change their stance on the reserve list. And make a distinction of what is a collectible and what is a powerful reprint that they want for comander.

Right in time for me to build a Rakdos Aristocrats deck around Tevesh Szat and Rograkh! But I feel like I'd miss the white cards like Cruel Celebrant...hmmm. LMAO that League of Legends point really hit home for me. Reserve List is terrible.

My Ghave deck functions as an aristocrat deck. I have a sub theme of enchantments and it uses all the enchantments you listed plus Earthcraft and all the doubling effects I can get. It's pretty fun. I've been thinking about adding Bastion of Remembrance. What are your thoughts on that card?

I think I need to rewatch this, did I not hear Teysa Karlov mentioned once?

I just played a Marchesa, Black Rose deck and won mostly off Oona's Blackguard

Hey I think you may have forgotten to upload this to the podcast feed. I can’t see it.

Ministrant of Obligation is consistently one of my favorite cards in my Teysa Karlov deck. It's absolutely bonkers. So much value, especially with skull clamp on the board.

I generally agree about Ministrant of obligation, but it does go infinite in Tayam aristocrats with Tayam and Ashnod's alter.

LADS! You mentioned my girl Shirei! Not expecting that. Thanks!

Judith is HIGHLY, HIGHLY undervalued for her strategy. I have built a steal and sac, pinger deck with a goblin and goad subtheme. Judith is really good. I recommend trying her out. She is much better than she seems. Zirda the Dawnwaker could abuse the heck out of Mimic vat.

"welcome to the best commander podcast IN THE WORLD" Beezy: *shifty eyes of uncertainty*

When the new elf deck from kaldheim comes out i will be turning that into aristocrats

Oooh, Grave Titan sounds great for Aristocrats. 😻

if you can play priest of the forgotten gods turn 2 and do its ability turn 3 it's pretty oppressive

How many board wipes do you need in Aristocrats? I've seen some run none and others run up to around 6.

When are those NN gameplay videos dropping?

Ministrant of Obligation is one of the best sacrifice fodder cards for my Teysa Karlov deck. 4 1/1 flying lifelink vigilance tokens on death is no joke

Well done gents.

Great video! What about black market to get tons of mana?