Ayara and the Little Aristocrats

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Hazzenko
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Post by Hazzenko » 4 years ago

I changed my old Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder to Araya, and need some advice, staying at low budget but keeping it a bit competitive and fun.
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Last edited by Hazzenko 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
Nonsense Grenzo || Kess || Mogis || Anje || Obosh || Xantcha || Infernal Kirin || Haunt || Ayara

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

I'll preface this by asking what sort of advice you're looking for - do you want to make your deck more powerful? More consistent? Faster? Resilient? Tuned for a specific meta? Or something else? I'll also inquire as to what your definition of budget is - based on your decklist, it looks to maxing out at around ~$2-$3/card.

Anyway, the two things I would first look for in a deck are card advantage and mana production. Running Ayara in the command zone gives you a significant benefit in this regard, since she provides card draw... but not card advantage, since you do need to keep her suitors flowing. I'll highly recommend Swiftfoot Boots and/or Lightning Greaves as a way to both protect her and grant haste - tap abilities work much better with haste. You could go a little deeper and also run some untap abilities like Magewright's Stone, but I wouldn't do that without also having some other creatures with tap abilities worth repeating. you already have Thornbite Staff, which is a solid start to that road - also interesting if you have something like Avatar of Woe, Visara the Dreadful, or Whisper, Blood Liturgist.

Beyond your commander, I see ~8 sources of repeatable card advantage, plus a couple of one-off card draw effects. I think you look pretty good on that front. I'll throw out Harvester of Souls as an option, but it is a bit expensive. The one thing I would suggest is token generation - Pawn of Ulamog and Open the Graves are both solid options for double-dipping on sacrifice triggers, and giving you more expendable bodies for Ayara.

After that, I'd take a look at mana production. I only see ~3 pieces of actual ramp, plus a couple of ways to fetch a land into hand. This doesn't seem like enough. Black doesn't have a ton of budget options for ramp (although it does have some very powerful mana doublers available - Cabal Coffers, Nirkana Revenant, etc). Because you're a monocolor deck, I think it's okay for you to have some number of colorless mana sources (even if they don't help cast your commander the first time) - I'll throw out Charcoal Diamond, Wayfarer's Bauble, Mind Stone, Worn Powerstone, and Hedron Archive as options, but there are a ton of other options for artifact mana. Consider aiming for all the big black mana doublers over time though. I will call out Cabal Stronghold as an easy inclusion though.

After that, I'd look at interaction. I don't see any board wipes - makes some sense, given how many creatures you have, but I'd still recommend running one or two. 41 creatures is.... a very high count. Crux of Fate and Deathbringer Regent are both cheap options, but better wraths do exist. Also no interaction for artifacts/enchantments - not that black has a lot of options, but I would recommend Nevinyrral's Disk and Steel Hellkite as potential solutions.

The last thing I would touch on is ways to close out a game, but I see Twilight's Call and Plague of Vermin (which looks hilarious, btw), which both seem like excellent ways to win with Ayara. Probably don't need anything else.

As for cuts.... as I mentioned, 41 creatures is a lot. I'd probably start by cutting some of the more low-impact ones.
Hope that helps!

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Hazzenko
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Post by Hazzenko » 4 years ago

Mookie wrote:
4 years ago
I'll preface this by asking what sort of advice you're looking for - do you want to make your deck more powerful? More consistent? Faster? Resilient? Tuned for a specific meta? Or something else? I'll also inquire as to what your definition of budget is - based on your decklist, it looks to maxing out at around ~$2-$3/card.
I want a deck to be more consistent while still a low budget. You're right on the $2-$3/card, some cards I already have, like Thornbite Staff, and most of them was from my old Endrek deck, but they will be cut to make the deck more consistent. I need to find my duplicates of Boots and Greaves, but I'm not sure on more tap abilities to make a good use of Magewright's Stone.

Seem really needed to use more board wipes. I will include for now Steel Hellkite, Crux of Fate and Necromantic Selection due its "return one" part. Maybe use more creatures that destroy/edict, like Shriekmaw and Fleshbag Marauder?

In: Whisper, Blood Liturgist, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Pawn of Ulamog, Open the Graves, Cabal Stronghold, Worn Powerstone, Hedron Archive, Crux of Fate, Necromantic Selection, Steel Hellkite,
Out: Cauldron Familiar, Skittering Surveyor, Dusk Legion Zealot, Pilgrim's Eye, Sanitarium Skeleton, Skinrender, Thoughtpicker Witch, Undercity Informer, Witch's Oven, Skulltap, 1 Swamp
Nonsense Grenzo || Kess || Mogis || Anje || Obosh || Xantcha || Infernal Kirin || Haunt || Ayara

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