Comboing Off in Mono-Black Aristocrats

Aristocrats is an archetype defined by its ability to profit off of its own creatures dying. The archetype's name originated from the cards Cartel Aristocrat and Falkenrath Aristocrat, both of which allow you to sacrifice a creature at instant speed for some temporary protection. As it turns out, sacrificing a creature is sometimes a strategy all by itself. Black decks in particular have so many ways to benefit from own creatures dying that these cards spawned an entire archetype, one that won the Standard Pro Tour Gatecrash in 2013.

In Commander, Aristocrat decks can win with incidental value over time. They can also close the game out in a single turn with a combo. The basic Aristocrats infinite combo loop is illustrated in this visual guide:

These are the three pillars to Aristocrats combos: the sacrifice outlet, the sacrifice payoff, and the enabler. Wizards has yet to print a card that has multiple elements of this combo in one card. Whatever shape this combo takes, there are always three cards required. Let's explore some of the best options for each pillar in the card pool.

Sacrifice Outlet

Our sacrifice outlet is the base of our combo. We need a way to sacrifice our enabler infinitely.

The cheapest enablers are Viscera Seer and Carrion Feeder. The former is preferred because the extra bonus of scrying a card is much more useful than making one of our creatures really big.

However, these two cheaper options don't solve an important piece of the combo, which is that we need mana to recur our enabler. That's why in order to keep this a three-card combo instead of a four-card combo we need to bump the mana cost up to three.

Phyrexian Altar and Warren Soultrader effectively do the same trick — sacrifice a creature for one mana — but Warren Soultrader's cost of one life isn't negligible. If one of our payoffs doesn't actually net us life, the Warren Soultrader combo will only let us win if our life total is higher than our opponents'. Also, cards that make artifacts enter the battlefield tapped like Blind Obedience, or that remove all artifact abilities like Collector Ouphe, will completely stop the combo from getting past step one.

Warren Soultrader is still a very attractive choice; it can bank mana early on by sacrificing creatures and stockpiling Treasure tokens, it fulfills the Zombie creature type requirement of one of our enablers, Gravecrawler (more on that in the next section), and because it's easier to tutor out of the deck with cards like Lively Dirge or Entomb and then reanimate it from the graveyard. Phyrexian Altar, on the other hand, is an artifact and less likely to be susceptible to removal since most removal in Commander focuses on creatures.

Sacrifice Payoff

Our sacrifice payoff is the card that, because we are causing infinite death and enters triggers, will deal damage or cause life loss to our opponents each time we go through the loop.

Zulaport Cutthroat is the best in his class for the following reasons:

1. He causes loss of life without targeting opponents
2. He damages all of your opponents at once, not just one
3. He costs the least amount of mana possible
4. Black spells have many ways to reanimate a creature, but no way to bring an artifact or enchantment back from the graveyard to the battlefield

No one else can keep up with the Cutthroat's efficiency. He does have some tight competition in Blood Artist and Vengeful Bloodwitch. All three of these options get around damage prevention measures like Worship, but Blood Artist and Bloodwitch are stopped by opponents who have protection from black, protection from their opponents, or protection from everything (via cards like The One Ring).

Let's look at some more options:

For an extra mana, Ayara, First of Locthwain offers much better early game utility. Her life drain ability works when creatures enter, so as we build our army and assemble the combo we earn some incidental life gain to help stabilize our position. Additionally, her tap ability can provide once-per-turn card draw if there are disposable creatures lying around. She's a decent consideration for an Aristocrats combo commander since she ticks off the sacrifice payoff box.

Bastion of Remembrance provides a token body when it enters and, as an enchantment, is generally even harder to remove than other card types.

The Meathook Massacre can be a sweeper at any point in the game and the static effect it leaves behind causes our opponents to lose one life every time a creature we control dies. Or, in the turn we combo off, we can cast it for X=0 and only use its static effect. This is one card that won't work with Warren Soultrader, because unless we have more life than our opponents, the recursion loop will drain us along with our opponents in a race to the bottom.

The Enablers

These are the best universal options for our enabler:

Gravecrawler pairs nicely with Warren Soultrader, which has the required Zombie creature type. Forsaken Miner only works with sacrifice payoffs that target an opponent — and therefore commit a crime — each time we sacrifice him.

There are other options that cost two mana to recur such as Bloodsoaked Champion and Reassembling Skeleton, but these require a fourth card to provide that second mana every time we sacrifice them. Cards that fit that fourth card requirement are Pitiless Plunderer and Pawn of Ulamog. Four cards is a lot more than three, so unless you want redundancy and access to their extra value, stick to the core three-card version of this combo.

When to Push the "I Win" Button

So we've got our combo assembled. There are a few points where an opponent can disrupt our plans.

When we combo off, we have to reduce the odds that our opponents have an answer. Our opponents can either respond to one step in our combo or lose. This is where basic game awareness is your best tool. Are they leaving mana open instead of casting cards in their hand? How telegraphed has the combo build-up been? These are important considerations that inform your decision to push or to hold off on going for the win.

Instant Speed Removal

When we go to cast our final piece of the combo, that's the perfect time for someone to throw a wrench in our plans. They will have to remove either the sacrifice outlet or the sacrifice payoff, as the enabler can usually be cast directly from the graveyard (unless their form of removal exiles that creature).

In mono-black there aren't ways to stop players from casting spells on your turn, and only one spell that can counter a counterspell in Imp's Mischief (by redirecting their counterspell to Imp's Mischief, you essentially counter their counter).

Stax Pieces

Black is a notoriously bad color for dealing with artifacts, but it can remove enchantments that stifle our combo like Blind Obedience, Authority of the Consuls, and the biggest bogeyman for black decks, Rest in Peace. Be sure to run a copy of Withering Torment or Feed the Swarm as an out for these stax pieces that would lock us out of the game-winning combo.

Black has few cards in its repertoire to protect its combo pieces. You can protect creatures with spells like Undying Malice or Not Dead After All, but black has no way to grant hexproof at instant speed to save Gravecrawler from a Swords to Plowshares. If you really want to center the deck's build around this combo, you could run Silver Shroud Costume as an instant speed source of protection from targeted removal.

Any Responses?

If you want to try out these combo lines in a playtest, here's a link to an Ayara, First of Locthwain list with all of the cards mentioned in this article: https://edhlab.gg/decks/25585. Add this deck to your favorites and play it against a few of your own decks, or other decks made by EDHLAB community members.

I hope you found this guide helpful, especially if you were unclear on how these combos work and what the leanest, meanest version of the combo is. Come join our Discord for more deckbuilding and playtesting discussions!

EDHLAB maintains a strict policy against the use of generative AI in the production of creative media. All blog articles and images hosted by EDHLAB are made without the use of generative AI.