Just over 18 months ago I attempted to adapt the Pro Tour Gatecrash winning deck, the Aristocrats, to Pauper. While the decks I worked on were certainly fun they failed to perform at a competitive level for any stretch of time. So when Zulaport Cutthroat was printed in Battle for Zendikar I was hopeful that the associated Pro Tour would give the archetype a chance to shine again. I was not disappointed.

Hall of Famer Gabriel Nassif piloted a Black-Green Aristocrats build to a Day Two finish. His deck was a midrange build that attempted to generate card advantage with Collected Company, Grim Haruspex, and Smothering Abomination. The combination of Hangarback Walker, Nantuko Husk, and Rogue’s Passage gave the deck a way to win via one shot.

Christian Calcano and Team TOGIT were incredibly successful with their Blue-Black Aristocrats deck. Calcano and friends eschewed card advantage for a more aggro-combo feel, using Bloodsoaked Champion to press the advantage and Sidisi’s Faithful as an additional sac outlet. The key card in their build was Whirler Rouge - making three bodies to feed to Nantuko Husk while also being able to make the Zombie Insect impossible to block- the mythic uncommon from Magic Origins helped to make the deck hum.

It was the Dimir flavor of the deck that helped me to realize what my old builds of the deck had been missing.

Looking back, these decks are very good at building a large Carrion Feeder or Bloodthrone Vampire but they still have to attack for the win. The white version was great at gumming up the ground while the blue version evolved over time into a Cloudfin Raptor deck. After watching Calcano’s deck in action I realized where I had gone wrong.



I had built a midrange aggro deck when I should have been thinking about combo.



Both Nassif and Calcano are able to go over the top and completely ignore traditional combat if needed. The decks I had been working on simply wanted to beat down. Considering the number of options available to Pauper that was simply lazy deckbuilding on my part.



With renewed energy I started to look at potential creatures that could act as Whirler Rogue in Pauper. I was happy to find Subterranean Scout and Neurok Invisimancer. The former would work with Nantuko Husk (and its various functional reprints) and Bloodthrone Vampire, but might be dead given a large enough Carrion Feeder. If the goal was to have the large creature connect immediately with a life total, then Invisimancer, which cleared that path, made the most sense. Conveniently Neurok Invisimancer cost three mana, making it an ideal fit for an Unearth deck. With this in mind I started down the path of a Dimir deck.



Whenever I build a synergy forward deck, I tend to push hard on key pieces first and then try to massage the numbers. You’ll see an absurd number of sacrifice outlets in the blue-black deck and very few ways to interact with the opponent - only Mesmeric Fiend and Rotting Rats to assault a hand. Heck, I slotted in Myr Sire over Perilous Myr because I wanted more chances at a lethal attack. Sam Black discussed this method in his article “Sideboard Lightning Bolt” as a way to figure out key elements of a deck, while also identifying weak spots, before trying to shoehorn in interactive elements. My first draft looked something like this:

I played a few quick test games and realized that the deck had potential. I then decided to use a tried and true method to help generate ideas and iterate the deck: social media. Often, when I have a nugget of an idea but do not have enough time to test every option I will post the list to various pages. If the idea is good enough it will generate feedback almost immediately. That was the case here. Almost instantly I started to receive notifications and started having discussions about potential inclusions. The most resonant note was that I needed to lower my curve. In Pauper, there is almost no reason to run Nantuko Husk over Bloodthrone Vampire. The extra point of power rarely matters and the fact it costs one less matters enough that it gets the nod. If a world exists where the format slows down AND Flame Slash vanishes entirely, then maybe Husk can earn its keep. Until then, I’m taking Vampires over Zombies. During these conversations I came to realize that red may be a better fit than blue as a secondary color. Inspired by both Izzet Blitz and Affinity I became enamored with the idea of both Fling and Temur Battle Rage as additional finishing moves. The addition of Hissing Iguanar - the best Blood Artist impersonator in Pauper - also made Mountains an interesting path.



My red foray was cut short when Matt Ferrando suggested moving to green. His idea was to pack Ashen-Skin Zubera and Dripping-Tongue Zubera for exponential death triggers (and the potential upside of tons of extra tokens). Matt also suggested a Shred Memory tutor package, which would allow the deck to retrieve key cards such as Rite of Consumption, Fists of Ironwood, or Macabre Waltz. I tested his build and make some tweaks, the biggest was moving from Macabre Waltz to Death Denied. The Zubera build could be explosive - I notched at least one turn three kill. Additionally, when the Zuberas worked they worked incredibly well, often generating an insurmountable advantage. The deck would sputter, drawing cards out of sequence and had a hard time recouping card advantage. By the time I could set up a winning suite of cards I was already dead.





Death Denied, though, was fantastic. Drawing one with five mana available would put me right back in any game. Having a full graveyard was hardly a problem and treating it as repository for tutor targets worked extremely well. I retained the Shred Memory toolbox and proceeded to work on a red version. The deck was far more grindy thanks in part to maindeck Mesmeric Fiend and Rotting Rats. I included the discard package to help stall the game to the Hissing Iguanar finish. In hindsight, these should have been some combination of Sultai Emissary and Butcher Ghoul as those cards simply help accelerate the deck on the damage axis more quickly than the other package can stall opponents. Mesmeric Fiend definitely deserves a spot in the sideboard as a form of interaction, but I am less sure about its maindeck status.



As of this writing, I am most confident in the black-red version of the deck.





I noodled around with different versions for a time. I tested out a black-green deck that avoided the Zubera package in favor of Sultai Emissary and Nest Invader.





I returned to the blue build complete with Shred Memory in tow, this time testing out both Shadow Alley Denizen and Ghostform.





I even went deep, using the Aristocrats shell to help facilitate a Safehold Elite/Ivy Lane Denizen kill. The two cards in concert with a sacrifice outlet generate an arbitrarily large Carrion Feeder or Bloodthrone Vampire, provided you continue to place the +1/+1 counter on the persisted Safehold Elite.





I was having fun even though I was not winning as often as I would like. Time and time again I would encounter the same pattern. If I hit my cards in the correct sequence, then the deck would succeed. Otherwise, it would almost assuredly fail. At times I could draw the game out to such a point where a Death Denied would seal the deal, but that is hardly reliable.



I was very tempted to push the decks harder towards filling the graveyard. Satyr Wayfinder or Faithless Looting could easily find a home, but crafting the deck around a Tortured Existence engine could mean adding Commune with the Gods. Turning the graveyard into a curated library sounds fantastic, especially in conjunction with Death Denied, but that is far too risky. Many decks find a home for Bojuka Bog or Relic of Progenitus, making decks all in on the graveyard less than ideal. Without their presence, these decks would be far more consistent.



And that is where I am going to leave off today - on consistency. The Aristocrats is able to find a home in Standard in part because that format is slower. Looking at these early weeks the games go long giving the Aristocrats time to set up its winning combination. Pauper lacks these moments. Instead, the convoluted decks are stitched together with potent selection spells like Ponder and Preordain. It is possible that those could find a home in this style of deck, but they are far better suited to powering up Kiln Fiend and Delver of Secrets.



In order for a deck to succeed in Pauper it must be consistent. Until these decks reach a similar level as their established brethren, they’ll be a fun diversion but little else.



Keep slingin’ commons-

-Alex



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