Elas il-Kor, Sadistic PilgrimElas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim | art by G-Host Lee

The cat's out of the bag

Hello! Welcome to Archetypes of Imagination, a series where I'll be building decks based on popular Commander archetypes. I'll be using Scryfall's tagging system and EDHREC's Tag pages to build around a new theme each week.

Scryfall has a really cool way of categorizing cards, where each card has specific labels attached to it for later reference. For example, Esper SentinelEsper Sentinel has the card advantage tag and Arcane SignetArcane Signet has the ramp tag. EDHREC's tag system is really cool too, letting users see popular cards associated with a given strategy.

The tokens tag shows users that Artifact MutationArtifact Mutation works well with the strategy and the enchantress tag does the same for Sanctum WeaverSanctum Weaver.

This week, we'll be building a deck that cares about creatures dying. We'll be gaining life, making our opponents lose life, and probably drawing an absolutely unreasonable amount of cards.

Death triggers decks, or Aristocrats decks as they're sometimes called, rely on having creatures to sacrifice, sacrifice outlets, and payoffs for those sacrifices. Our commander this week, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic PilgrimElas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, provides a nice payoff for our creatures dying.

She'll gain us life when our creatures enter, and ensure our opponents' life totals tick down when our creatures die. And, I could've stopped there. But you know what works well in Aristocrats decks? Recursion!

So, for the first time in this series, I'll be adding a companion to this deck: Lurrus of the Dream-DenLurrus of the Dream-Den. This Cat Nightmare is crazy strong, letting us cast a low-cost spell from our graveyard on each of our turns.

Combined, ElasElas and LurrusLurrus represent a powerful engine that we'll have access to in every game.

Our commander provides powerful control over life totals, and our companion provides easy recursion for our dead creatures. Let's talk about the other key pieces that make the deck work well…

NoNo

There's one group of creatures I want to talk about first: one-mana creatures with death triggers. Cards like Doomed TravelerDoomed Traveler, Indebted SpiritIndebted Spirit and Infestation SageInfestation Sage are at the core of this deck's strategy.

These creatures leave behind tokens when they die, and can easily be recurred from the graveyard with LurrusLurrus on the board.

So, with ElasElas on the board, one of these creatures entering and dying before the same happens to the resulting creature token represents two life gain for us and two life loss for each of our opponents, and that's before any of the graveyard shenanigans or other death payoffs we have in the deck. Plus.

My favorite card from among this group is the aforementioned Indebted SpiritIndebted Spirit which gives us the option of bestowing it upon another creature to get an additional afterlife trigger. I think that flexibility, even at a slightly higher mana cost, is worth it!

Speaking of other death triggers, there's a lot here. Just about every Blood ArtistBlood Artist effect under two mana is in this deck. Vraan, Executioner ThaneVraan, Executioner Thane is probably my favorite out of this group, even if it isn't the strongest. It encourages you to spread your sacrifices out over multiple turns, but rewards you with double the life point swing.

I also really like The Meathook MassacreThe Meathook Massacre, which skirts around LurrusLurrus' mana cost restriction by being an x-cost spell.

This is a board wipe and a win condition stapled together, truly one of the best cards for any black-based aristocrats deck. And, as kind of an odd pick, I've included Norn's WellspringNorn's Wellspring. This card provides some nice card selection, and can even act as a card advantage engine should we rack up enough death triggers.

If I hadn't restricted this deck to be all small mana value, I'm sure this card would've been cut. But, with that mana value restriction, Norn's WellspringNorn's Wellspring puts in some work!

And, of course, sacrifice outlets are what makes a death-trigger-centric deck function. There's a pair of these from Aetherdrift that work really well here: Gas GuzzlerGas Guzzler and Zahur, Glory's PastZahur, Glory's Past. Both of these cards care about our opponents losing life, which our commander conveniently enables.

When paired with a select few other cards (Muraganda RacewayMuraganda Raceway and Nesting BotNesting Bot) from Aetherdrift that can start our engines, these cards can spin up to maximum effectiveness quickly. There's also a collection of card draw spells that let us sacrifice a creature, all variants of Village RitesVillage Rites.

Given how easy it is for us to recur creatures with LurrusLurrus, the additional cost of sacrificing a creature to these spells isn't much of a cost at all.

There's also, of course, some classic repeatable sacrifice outlets like Carrion FeederCarrion Feeder. Repeatable, on-board outlets like this one are truly phenomenal in aristocrats decks, so there's a good few cards from that sub-category included.

There's a few sacrifice outlets in the deck that really function as self-contained value engines, and I wanted to shout those out quickly. Hidden StockpileHidden Stockpile provides sacrifice fodder, a sacrifice outlet, and card selection.

You really can't ask for much more out of a card. FleshtakerFleshtaker is similar, providing life gain and card selection, while also acting as a sac outlet should we lack a free one.

And, another classic, Priest of Forgotten GodsPriest of Forgotten Gods. This card is ramp, removal, and card advantage stapled together. It's one of my favorite Magic cards ever made, and I'm super happy it works well in this deck.

I am The Curve KeeperThe Curve Keeper

Those of you who have read my articles before will know that I absolutely love a solid game plan for the first few turns. One of my favorite things to do in a game of Commander is have a solid idea of what my deck will do on each of the first three or so turns. So, what does this deck want to do on its first few turns?

Turn 1: Deploy a sacrifice outlet or a sacrificable creature. This sets us up well for later turns, when we'll need both of these categories fulfilled to enact our game plan.

Turn 2: Play out some payoff for having creatures die. This can be ElasElas, some Blood ArtistBlood Artist variant.

Turn 3: Cast more sacrificable creatures or a sacrifice outlet. Once we have a payoff on the board after our second turn, it's time to get some disposable creatures on the board and start the death trigger onslaught.

These are, of course, idealistic. Sometimes, we'll only have a sacrifice outlet that costs two mana, and we'll need to shift things around. Or, sometimes we'll need to remove an opponent's early game threat instead of casting more spells on turn three. But, these guidelines show the general vibe of the deck well.

This is an aggressive list, aiming to establish value pieces early in the game and ensuring that they remain on board through the use of aa. Here's the full decklist, for those of you who are interested:

Commence the EndgameCommence the Endgame

That's all for this week, folks! As always, there's a few more cards I didn't get to talk about earlier that I want to bring up now. Kami of False HopeKami of False Hope is just ridiculous with LurrusLurrus.

This Spirit lets us blank one opponent's combat step entirely, and it's quite hard to get rid of permanently in this deck. And, to nobody's surprise, Ocelot PrideOcelot Pride is a pretty good card.

We'll be making a lot of tokens and gaining a lot of life here, so this card will be working at maximum effectiveness. I also really like Sporogenic InfectionSporogenic Infection.

Again, with LurrusLurrus on the battlefield, this card is easy to recur. It's a great piece of removal, and having the ability to recast it when it inevitably falls off of a creature is just great.

I'll see you all next week for a deck focused on card draw!

Cooper Gottfried

Cooper is a student at Brandeis University, where he’s Editor in Chief of its community newspaper, The Brandeis Hoot. Outside of Magic: The Gathering, his hobbies include weightlifting, writing, and Dungeons and Dragons.