Toshiro Umezawa Aristocrats

[ISBPathfinder]

I have built Toshiro before in the past. The previous version was more of a traditional control decks where as with this version I decided to see if I could make it an aristocrats deck. The recent printings of Szat's Will and Rise of the Dread Marn are what drove me to pursue this idea.

Since the last time I played Toshiro Umezawa they also changed the rules allowing commanders to die. This is also kind of a secret buff to Toshiro as it means you can chain Murder spells between commanders which you couldn't do before.

This is still quite rough. There were a number of very respectable cards that I cut while considering things (like Grave Pact) which might still make the list but to some degree I tried cutting in a way that kept me heavy on creatures and instants because that is where I choose to have more focus on.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER (1)

1 Toshiro Umezawa

CREATURES (25)

1 Viscera Seer

1 Blood Artist

1 Bloodghast

1 Priest of Forgotten Gods

1 Reassembling Skeleton

1 Zulaport Cutthroat

1 Ayara, First of Locthwain

1 Grim Haruspex

1 Ophiomancer

1 Pawn of Ulamog

1 Plague Engineer

1 Sedgemoor Witch

1 Woe Strider

1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan

1 Dread Presence

1 Ebondeath, Dracolich

1 Pitiless Plunderer

1 Rankle, Master of Pranks

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Tormod, the Desecrator

1 Vile Entomber

1 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

1 Doom Whisperer

1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

1 Syr Konrad, the Grim

ARTIFACT (6)

1 Skullclamp

1 Sol Ring

1 Jet Medallion

1 Sword of the Animist

1 Ashnod's Altar

1 Primal Amulet

ENCHANTMENT (3)

1 Bitterblossom

1 Necropotence

1 Dictate of Erebos

INSTANT (23)

1 Cling to Dust

1 Cremate

1 Defile

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Bile Blight

1 Corpse Churn

1 Go for the Throat

1 Heartless Act

1 Plumb the Forbidden

1 Wake the Dead

1 Corpse Dance

1 Force of Despair

1 Grave Birthing

1 Grim Return

1 Rise of the Dread Marn

1 Soul Shatter

1 Succumb to Temptation

1 Vona's Hunger

1 Deadly Rollick

1 Makeshift Mannequin

1 Moonlight Bargain

1 Szat's Will

1 Thrilling Encore

SORCERY (4)

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Diabolic Intent

1 Agadeem's Awakening

1 Living Death

LAND (38)

1 Cabal Coffers

1 Cabal Stronghold

1 Deserted Temple

1 High Market

1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

1 Phyrexian Tower

1 Reliquary Tower

27 Swamp

1 Thespian's Stage

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Vesuva

1 Volrath's Stronghold

Approximate Total Cost:

[nobody]

back when I played Toshiro, I Found carnival of souls to be the all star of the deck, got to have mana to haiku those instance you know. Otherwise your deck looks sweet!

[Ulka]

I was just thinking about rebuilding Toshiro myself so I'm glad to see a more updated list for me to spitball off of.

[ISBPathfinder]

back when I played Toshiro, I Found carnival of souls to be the all star of the deck, got to have mana to haiku those instance you know. Otherwise your deck looks sweet!

Carnival of Souls - Its an interesting card and one that I have never managed to pull the trigger on. I guess my concern is that I see so many token decks in most of the metas I have played in and the idea of throwing away 10 life to a big burst of tokens from one of my opponents seems like it could be hard to maintain. If it was a may effect or just my own creatures it might change things but every creature doing it sort of concerns me.

Beyond that I also try to as much as possible stick to instants and creatures as my focus with Toshiro. Toshiro obviously has most of his synergy in instants but due to a number of creature recursion instants I put creatures as a secondary. This isn't to say that I don't run things that are not either of those but I find that the number of cards that are not instant, creature, or land are very limited. I could still for instance run Grave Pact, Phyrexian Altar, and Altar of Dementia as three cards at somewhat of the top of my list of cards that don't fit into those categories.

Assuming I can get some testing in with this deck I do expect that a lot of cards will change but I have a much harder time finding room for cards that aren't instant, creature, or land.

I was just thinking about rebuilding Toshiro myself so I'm glad to see a more updated list for me to spitball off of.

Good luck. Hopefully I can get some testing in sometime soon. I expect that there will probably be a bunch of upfront changes after I manage to test. Going aristocrats with this version is also VERY different from my last one and I am not sure if the heavy amounts of instant speed removal will have good synergy with the concept but I hope it works out. Its possible I could have gone a lot more proactive with more rez effects rather than removal but that just wouldn't feel like Toshiro to me.

[Haman]

I ran an older version of your deck, 40 lands with more reanimation. What advice can you give When you are fighting a Maelstrom Wanderer with alot of time walk effect?

[ISBPathfinder]

I ran an older version of your deck, 40 lands with more reanimation. What advice can you give When you are fighting a Maelstrom Wanderer with alot of time walk effect?

Maelstrom is going to be a tough cookie in that its going to be a heavy ramp kind of deck. When it comes to creatures you can try to eliminate a lot of them with spot removal but if his win condition is just casting his commander and chaning turns into more ramp and attacks its a lot harder. Ugin's Nexus is something you can bring into any deck even though there is no real synergy here even if he answers it, it gives you an extra turn so its probably something at least to throw in.

Another thing you could try is Imp's Mischief. It would cost a little life but there are actually a few extra turns like Time Stretch and Time Warp that can be redirected. Mono black doesn't have a ton of things to do against extra turns but you could possibly consider some effects to search an opponents library to steal or extract cards. These also don't have a lot of synergy with Toshiro but they are things you could consider.

Unfortunately Maelstrom is a commander that the correct answer is usually to try to race than it is to try to out value or answer. Keep in mind that it isn't soley your issue though and that often this type of commander is someone that other players are also trying to take down. Sometimes chump blocking Maelstrom attacks with bad tokens is more effective than trying to remove him.

[Haman]

thanks for your quick reply.... i think i would try something like silent arbiter to delay the attack.

haha my maelstrom wanderer friend has been persuading me to dismantle Toshiro, citing that I seldom cast Toshiro in games. But usually it's more correct to play Toshiro when my own gy is stacked,thus giving the impression either one would die without casting Toshiro or the lategame Toshiro kills many things.

As for going aristocrat direction, it's like cutting the kokusho into smaller pieces and spread them within the deck. Would it work better? Hard to say also

[ISBPathfinder]

thanks for your quick reply.... i think i would try something like silent arbiter to delay the attack.

haha my maelstrom wanderer friend has been persuading me to dismantle Toshiro, citing that I seldom cast Toshiro in games. But usually it's more correct to play Toshiro when my own gy is stacked,thus giving the impression either one would die without casting Toshiro or the lategame Toshiro kills many things.

As for going aristocrat direction, it's like cutting the kokusho into smaller pieces and spread them within the deck. Would it work better? Hard to say also

Aristocrats is a different direction for sure. It will be more aggressive as a whole but also require more pieces in play generally speaking for it to work. Kokusho is good because it doesn't take much investment to play him but its very easy for a Blood Artist in a wrath to do far more work than Kokusho ever could just due to the number of creatures who often leave play.

I would generally speaking call this current approach a much more aggressive proactive plan but its also less controlling as the tradeoff. Some of why I stopped playing Toshiro several years back was just because I felt like looping Gray Merchant was one of my only ways to win so I potentially like a more diverse and proactive gameplan.

[ISBPathfinder]

Ok, I never got around to testing this idea but I kept looking at Sedgemoor Witch and how freaking SWEEET it would be in this deck and I really do want to field this for some games to at least have tested the concept out. As I got to poking at the list I just kept making adjustments. I felt like I kept too many of the original cards I enjoyed in my traditional list which was a far more controlling list and I needed to adjust away from some of the instants to something that would work better for me. Also now that my LGS is open again and playing I am back to seeing more token and combo as the win conditions than what I was encountering during the Covid pause. Some of that has shifted me away from some of the edict effects a little. I felt like I needed a few more creatures and creature engines at that then what I had.

DECK CHANGES:

• Plaguecrafter → Priest of Forgotten Gods I originally passed on Priest because well..... its kind of slow. In retrospect though getting my opponents to sacrifice when I want it to happen opens up the toshiro flashbacks and the fact that it gives me mana when I do it as well is actually really nice and I think plays to how Toshiro wants to play. Plague crafter was more of a throw away ETB effect but I think lowering the curve and having an ongoing threat that gives me Toshi triggers when I want them is going to be better for the deck. It also draws cards so thats cool.
• K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth → Sedgemoor Witch I think that K'rrik is too much setup. Its a cool card but its going to cost me a lot of life and take time to set up that I would prefer to not be doing. So lets just lower the curve down and have more sweet synergy instead. I really love what the Witch does its just absolutely perfect for this deck concept.
• Overseer of the Damned → Doom Whisperer Overseer does silly things with Grave Pact things but I ended up not going as deep into edicts and even ended up cutting a number of them in this change. I like that Doom Whisperer gives a lot of access to what I draw and even filling up the graveyard as needed is nice. It has a nice stat line for the mana plus it flies and I just really like its activated ability and have wanted to test it in a deck like Toshiro for a while now.
• Liliana's Triumph → Heartless Act Back to my usual meta I see too many token and combo setups. Its more important for me to have the surgical removal than value removal multiple opponents.
• Word of Command → Vile Entomber I really love word of command and its a sweeeeeet card. That said I think it plays better towards a more controlling build than what I was going for. I am not really sure about the entomber especially given that I don't have actual Entomb in this list but I like that it comes on a body with deathtouch. There have been other variations of this sort of card in Gravebreaker Lamia and Corpse Connoisseur but the small bump in cost as well as less relevant bodies have always kept me from pulling the trigger on them. Really I want to give this effect a shot and see what my thoughts are and I liked the less cost + deathtouch of this variation. Its possible I could see Gravebreaker Lamia also contesting with this spot but I just need to test them at some point and see how much I value this. I really think that its going to be heavily focused towards Bloodghast but we will see. I only have a handful of cards that on their own are good targets but I felt that some redundancy towards a Bloodghast online was fine.
• Sudden Spoiling → Grim Haruspex Sudden Spoiling felt like a more controlling card than where I felt like I was trying to be with this deck. I also think that to some degree I need to make some of my more situational responses be cheaper because holding up 3-5+ mana for something I may or may not want is a bit harder when trying to be proactive too with a low number of ramp focused cards present.
• Crypt Incursion → Cling to Dust Shifting to cheaper graveyard interaction. I also like that cling for card draw seems fairly good where as crypt when its not so optimal is kind of a dead card. I really wanted a cheaper interaction with surgical interaction vs a larger splashier effect in this case. I am not sure that I will use the Escape mechanic much in here but even flashing it back from Toshiro for a second draw potentially seems fine.
• Dark Bargain → Plumb the Forbidden lowers the cost of the draw a little which I think is good because Dark Bargain has always felt a tad clunky to me at four mana. Even without sacrificing anything Plumb is still ok as some cheap draw but I think it really opens up in response to a sweeper or even just throwing away some chaff tokens.
• Scour from Existence → Sword of the Animist Scour is nice to have but I am not as dedicated to ramping and big mana in this build. I also am not as control focused and while its nice that it hits anything, I felt like I could use something a little more proactive. I like Sword of the Animist here in that it can curve with my commander and give me some ongoing value ramp. This ramp also plays well into the coffers plan so I felt like even though I was a low ramp low curve kind of deck it made sense to utilize.

So, I guess where I am at right now I am questioning if I want a little more ramp or not. Ramp is odd when running a low curve but I have enough draw that I think I am more looking for some value ramp effects than trying to tempo into my plans or ramping into something big. Getting more mana helps me to play more effects when I have good draw going. I am still thinking about maybe Dowsing Dagger as it would play fairly well with my land copy effects like Vesuva / Thespian's Stage. I likewise considered Sword of Hearth and Home but I lack much to flicker and its increased cost to use plus need to hit an opponent all sound a touch harder for me to get behind. Needing to hit someone once with the Dagger is something that I can use surprise and some removal to potentially get past but the sword seems harder to justify for me in a deck like this. I could also consider some ramp like Gilded Lotus potentially but with any of these artifact ramp concepts the downside is always that they aren't creatures or instants which I try to put a lot of focus to. I likewise considered Phyrexian Altar but have some similar holdups about it as with ramp plus I strongly dislike infinite combos. Lots of my hold up on adding more ramp to the deck has been primarily on how much my creature and instant count seem to matter in a deck like this.

Anyways, my hope is to get the deck together and at least test the concept. I really love some of the cool synergies in here like Tormod, the Desecrator with Toshiro or Bloodghast. Since I saw Sedgemoor Witch I have had a very hard time not thinking about the possibilities of it in a Toshiro list and it fits this build concept sooooooooo well I just haven't been able to get it out of my head.

[ISBPathfinder]

Still poking at this a bit. I got most of the list ready and just need to prep the lands and maybe a change or two that I threw in last time. I wanted to give the new dragon a chance in here though as I liked what it could potentially do as an attacker or blocker here. I felt like it had some flexability that I wanted to see in action for myself.

DECK CHANGES:

• Falkenrath Noble → Ebondeath, Dracolich Falkenrath is fine but its a bit boarderline of an aristocrats payoff. It does trigger off of opponents creature deaths which is good but its also expensive and hits only one opponent per trigger. With a deck like this I always have a fear of random flyers and I like that Dracolich fits a lot of concepts that this deck would want giving me repeatable flying blocker who trades well in combat and has flash mechanics. He isn't as cheap as moving a Reassembling Skeleton and he isn't a super impressive attacker but what I want to test him for is his versatility in roles. I won't really ever have any hope of Reassembling Skeleton performing much of a role in combat where as I think Dracolich really can.