Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth
Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth
Approximate Total Cost:
About The Deck
Common win conditions for this deck are:
- Commander damage (usually utilizing Cranial Plating and/or Nettlecyst)
- Beating people with a swarm of animated artifact tokens due to effects like Rise and Shine, Cyberdrive Awakener, or Tezzeret the Seeker's ultimate ability.
- Sacrificing a bunch of tokens while Marionette Master is on the board
- Life loss chip away with cards like Zulaport Cutthroat and similar effects. However, my list isn't leaning super heavy towards that like a proper Aristocrats deck might.
- Revel in Riches, which can be sped up with Pitiless Plunderer.
- Mechanized Production, which is often best on some sort of token like a Clue or Treasure (which also helps pursue the Revel in Riches angle), or a land like Darksteel Citadel or Mistvault Bridge.
March of the Machines combined with an effect like Zulaport Cutthroat while Eloise is on the board creates an infinite life loss loop for your opponents. March of the Machines animates any zero cost artifact instantly making it a 0/0 that dies, which triggers Eloise to make a Clue, which becomes a 0/0 creature that dies, and this repeats infinitely and can only be interrupted by removing either March of the Machines or Eloise (there is no part of this loop that is optional). There are a few dangers associated with approaching this path to victory. If an opponent interrupts the loop by removing your "life loss" component, the loop still continues infinitely bringing the game to a draw unless someone else has another piece of removal. If opponents stop the loop by eliminating both Eloise and your "life loss" component, then you are locked out of replaying your commander until you can deal with your own March of the Machines, or play another "life loss" component followed by Eloise (in that order). I do not have March of the Machines in the deck, although it was in earlier versions, because of the amount of games I ended up with the card just sitting in my hand unable to utilize it because I don't hardcore lean into the aristocrats strategy, and I did not enjoy having an essentially dead card sitting in my hand when it could have been something else. If you made this path your main goal and really focused on the aristocrats angle, I could totally see including this. If your playgroup is low on interaction, this would be be totally viable as well. My playgroup tends to be high on interaction overall, so this doesn't work for me as well without a pretty significant shift in the deck I believe.
This deck tends to do fairly well, although it is very much still in the tinkering phase with little adjustments made pretty often.
