Standard: Xathrid Necromancer Aristocrats for future standard

From the M14 spoiler, Xathrid Necromancer seems like a really good constructed card.

Rotlung Reanimator was amazing in standard about ten years ago -- just for fun, here's a Zombie deck that won French Nationals in 2003:

Now, here is a deck played by megafone and ar7ic that can put many Humans into the graveyard and can also make good use of Zombie tokens:

Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Knight of Infamy, 2 Skirsdag High Priest
3 Silverblade Paladin, 2 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Zealous Conscripts
5 removal
2 varying slots
24 lands (including 4 Cavern of Souls)

This deck uses Champion of the Parish and Cavern of Souls for synergy with the "Human" creature type on stuff like Doomed Traveler and Cartel Aristocrat. It goes light on normal "token combo stuff" (with 0 Blood Artist, 0 Sorin, and only 2 Lingering Souls), instead playing "pump creatures" (Knight of Infamy and Silverblade Paladin) to attack with a giant Champion of the Parish or a giant flying Vampire.

Xathrid Necromancer fits this deck's strength -- it is a Human; it cashes in on Humans; and it makes lots of tokens. Here's a sketch of an all-in Aristocrats combo deck for summer standard, using the same WBr Humans mana-base:

Future Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Blood Artist, 2 Gather the Townsfolk, 3 Skirsdag High Priest
4 Xathrid Necromancer, 4 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat, 2 Sorin
3 removal
24 lands

This weakens the mana-fixing power of Cavern of Souls a lot, so it might be optimal with something like 12 shocklands, 4 Clifftop Retreat, 4 Isolated Chapel, and 4 Plains. I've called Blood Artist weak, but sacrificing creatures will be much more affordable when Xathrid Necromancer is legal.

Here is a fun turn-4 goldfish:

T1 Champion of the Parish.
T2 Gather the Townsfolk, attack for 3.
T3 Xathrid Necromancer, attack for 4 with Champion.
T4 Blood Artist, Cartel Aristocrat.

Attack for 5 with Champion of the Parish. Sacrifice 4 Humans to drain 4 life and make 4 Zombies. Sacrifice 4 Zombies to drain the last 4 life.

Wackier options include Intangible Virtue, Bloodthrone Vampire, Disciple of Bolas, and Maw of Obzedat. Brian Braun-Duin sketched a WB Humans deck with Mutavault and suggested the glorious option of Increasing Devotion. A more sensible option might be to play a 4c Human Aristocrats deck with Avacyn's Pilgrim and Mayor of Avabruck, using the Necromancer just for value instead of for combo potential.

Video: Highlights from Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats

(Working through a backlog of CFB videos.)

Here are some highlights from this recorded 8-man of Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats.

M1G1 -- Sideboarding vs. Naya Aggro

To make room for more removal and Unflinching Courage, Pardee takes out all the Blood Artist and all the Sorin from his deck.

I like Abrupt Decay. I typically like cutting Blood Artist, because -- Blood Artist is really good when we're trading resources, which is what we want to be doing in this matchup, but it doesn't actually make us any ... It makes trading resources better for us, but it doesn't help us successfully trade resources, if that makes sense.

Cartel Aristocrat helps us successfully trade resources -- we're trading a Spirit token to give it protection to hopefully trade for one of his guys. So that's a trade we're willing to do. Blood Artist makes that trade more profitable for us, but we don't need those trades to be more profitable; we just need them to be happening. So I like shaving Blood Artist out.

I think Unflinching Courage is good. I think Sorin's also not very good in this matchup, because he's very slow, especially on the draw. I like Garruk because he can kill -- if they have Fiend Hunter, if they have Avacyn's Pilgrim -- there's just a lot of little guys he can kill.

This seems like a great plan for on the draw versus Naya aggro -- if you make the entire deck about 1-for-1 trades, something like Lingering Souls ends up taking over.

Blood Artist is sort of a combo card in a deck that often wants to scrape card advantage instead of making a combo kill. Making a lot of creatures and pumping them with Sorin and Gavony Township is the "real plan," and Blood Artist just speeds up the kill by one turn when that plan is working. It creates the illusion of a lower creature curve (since it's technically a 2-drop), but I wonder if Selesnya Charm or something would just be more effective.

M2G1 -- Picking a turn two creature

So here's the tricky spot -- whether you play Aristocat or Voice. If they have access to Pillar of Flame (I guess he could still be Jund), it's typically better to play the Aristocrat first, because you don't want to get your Voice killed, so that's why I'm doing that here. The other, secondary, reason is that they're going to hit for the same amount this turn, so it doesn't really matter.

[The opponent plays another GB land and passes.] I guess if I'd played Voice, he would have had to main-phase his [spell] -- I'm guessing he's going to cast a Grisly Salvage here.

This was just a sensible play and good reasoning. Aristocrat before Voice to guarantee you'll get the Elemental.

M3G1 -- What to do with Sorin

The two Searing Spears in the graveyard are, of course, for the Voice of Resurgence in graveyard and the Elemental it made. Pardee untaps and plays Sorin on turn 4 here:

I'm just going to play it and plus it. He could kill it, potentially, with a Warleader's Helix, in which case I'd rather have minus'ed it, but it's not that likely that he has it -- they usually only run 1 or 2 Helixes -- and even in that case, I think I'll be in good shape.

Basically I think it's much more likely that he has something like a Snapcaster for his Searing Spear to kill Sorin, but maybe that just doesn't matter that much and I should just do it anyway. No, I'm gonna plus. I can always minus next turn, unless he has the Warleader's Helix, which I don't think he does. I don't think he would have snap-killed that Voice token if he had a Warleader's Helix.

He goes back and forth on this one before deciding to +1 and make a token. I think the decision is very clear -- even with a power boost, his small army will not be much pressure for a UWR deck with 17 life and 5 cards. Generating a second army of Vampires should be done as quickly as possible.

The +1 is better against the Snapcaster turn that he sniffs out, but it's also better against most other possibilities: Supreme Verdict, Restoration Angel, or just Azorius Charm.

Other notes
- Pardee says that the deck's biggest problem is mana-flood. He plays 22 mana lands + 3 Gavony Township
- He boards out the Skirsdag High Priests against UW decks -- the logic being that sacrificing a Doomed Traveler to trigger Morbid is walking into Supreme Verdict.

Standard: Quack Quack's Immortal Servitude Aristocrats

I've seen a 3-1 version of this deck somewhere, but Quack Quack is known to be good at MTGO, so this 4-0 version is worth posting:

The creature curve here is 4/20/1, if you were wondering. The idea here must be a combo-kill with Blood Artist, because I don't see any Gavony Townships or Sorins or Garolz the Scar-Striped.

I am not sure what this deck does against Rest in Peace or how Elvish Visionary is better than 4/1 haste flying, but I just purchased 2 Immortal Servitude so I hope they go up in value.

By the end of summer I hope we see, like, Gruul War Chant Aristocrats.

Standard: UWR vs BWG Aristocrats

From Guillaume Matignon's stream, here's a BWG Aristocrats deck curving out on the play and still having zero chance of winning:

Pretty brutal. Matignon seemed not to know his opponent's deck, but his commenters gave a pretty clear explanation:

Pas le bon! A mieux deck against aggro (as seen in Brad Nelson's wins against Zombies and Naya Aggro) but much less bien against Rea -- and apparently against blue decks.

Matignon kills a Skirsdag High Priest with the Staticaster / Restoration Angel combo, and the opponent scoops early.

Another note: Matignon's version of the deck, intriguingly titled "UWR Wafo," plays 2 Rewind, 2 Restoration Angel, and a handful of other creatures.

UPDATE: From R3 of the same tournament, here's how Junk Aristocrats can beat UWR -- double Voice of Resurgence:

Matignon lost this match. Renounce the Guilds did a lot of work for him, but Turn // Burn seemed weak against armies of tokens.

Standard: Batutinha's BWG Aristocrats

Batutinha won a PE yesterday with a BWG Aristocrats deck I've never seen before. It uses Young Wolf , Doomed Traveler, and Voice of Resurgence to make a full set 12 "Penumbra creatures."

He beat Reanimator in the final and semi-final. Hopefully a Craterhoof Behemoth was blocked and eaten by a Maw of the Obzedat during one of those games.

EDIT: Michael Hetrick's article today points out that MasoX as 4-0'ed a DE with BWG Aristocrats a few days before Batutinha's win. The only difference between the maindecks is that MasoX has a Garruk Relentless where Batutinha used the 3rd Sorin.