Cayth, Famed MechanistCayth, Famed Mechanist| art by Boell Oyino

Welcome back to Bottom of the Barrel! This is a series where we pick a theme from EDHREC and look at the “bottom of the barrel.” This means that we look at the least played color-combinations and pick a commander in those colors to brew a spicy new deck around!

Today's edition takes a look at a Modern Horizons 3 "backup commander" in Cayth, Famed MechanistCayth, Famed Mechanist.

Cayth is a very cool design, and reminds me a lot of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan's Xavier Sal, Infested CaptainXavier Sal, Infested Captain.

You could take Cayth in so many different directions: tokens, +1/+1 counters, a deck themed around "fabricate" cards - the list goes on. Our deck today focuses on an archetype that's usually found in black, and is only found in Jeskai colors (red, white, and blue) 36 times on EDHREC: Aristocrats.

The "Aristocrat" theme is focused around sacrificing creatures for value, oftentimes leading to a crazy winning turn. The most popular color combination for this theme, with 26,000 decks on EDHREC, is Orzhov (black and white), and this makes a lot of sense.

In black, we have Blood ArtistBlood Artist and Zulaport CutthroatZulaport Cutthroat to ensure we can win the game, but what happens when you take black away? Can Aristocrats still be good without its most crucial color?

Spoiler alert: Yes.

Category #1: Death Triggers

A good Aristocrat deck benefits off of its own creatures dying, and while these colors don't have a "blood artist option", they do have some good value pieces. Boss's Chauffeur gets bigger over time and creates an instant board when it dies;

Anax, Hardened in the Forge creates 1/1 tokens when our nontoken creatures die; Gleaming Barrier is a cheeky piece of ramp; Solemn Simulacrum is always a great card;

Wurmcoil Engine creates 2 3/3 tokens when it dies; Runed Servitor and Friendly Teddy both draw cards (the "full table card draw" plan will be important later); and Cathodion can be a ridiculous combo piece.

A few of these cards create tokens, and tokens are amazing with Cayth because of her ability to populate any token we have! Speaking of tokens...

Category #2: Tokens

Our deck creates tokens in 2 main ways: the fabricate ability that Cayth grants our nontoken creatures, and multiple cards that create token copies of creatures temporarily.

Gaining Servo tokens from Cayth's fabricate ability is a great way to create disposable blockers as well as sacrifice fodder, but outside of these servo tokens, we have several cards that create tokens:

Phantom Steed can make a token copy of a creature we exile with it each combat; Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink can grant us a temporary copy of something, as well as act as an amazing mana sink in the late game; Jaxis, the Troublemaker can make temporary token copies with card draw attached to them;

Muster the Departed allows us to populate every turn if a creature dies (which they will); The Jolly Balloon man can make flying balloon copies of our creatures, which is hilarious; and Feldon of the Third Path can copy something in our graveyard every turn.

Category #3: Sacrifice Outlets

Since this is an Aristocrats deck, it would not be complete without sacrifice outlets. This category includes all the "usual suspects" like Goblin Bombardment, Ashnod's Altar, and Altar of Dementia, but also includes some outlets that are lesser played.

The new Ravenous Amulet is a strong card draw piece; Drowned Rusalka lets us loot when we sacrifice a creature; Dark-Dweller Oracle gives us impulse draw; Trading Post acts as a way to sacrifice our creatures and artifacts for value; Spawning Pit is a sneaky way to build up to a huge board state; and High Market is a "free sacrifice outlet", as it doubles as a land!

Category #4: Recursion/Reanimation

Sacrificing creatures naturally means that we need ways to bring those creatures back, whether it be to our hand or directly to play. White has no shortage of recursion options, so our recursion package is as strong as it could be.

Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle lets us bring back small creatures when we cast historic spells (this deck is full of artifacts!); Sevinne's Reclamation is a 2-for-1 reanimation spell that copies itself from the graveyard; and Storm of Souls is a way to return our entire graveyard to play as a bunch of 1/1 flyers!

Category #5: "Secret Spice"

The "secret spice" for this deck comes in the form of creatures with persist. The persist mechanic means that if a creature dies without a -1/-1 counter on it, it returns to the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it.

Astute observers might see why this is so good: Cayth grants all creatures "fabricate", which means they can enter with a +1/+1 counter on them.

If they enter with both types of counters, they are cancelled out, allowing us to sacrifice the creature all over again. This means that any "persist creature" goes infinite with Cayth on the board, provided we have a free sacrifice outlet.

The "persist creature" package in this deck includes Glen Elendra Archmage, Lesser Masticore, Kithkin Spelldancer, and Furystoke Giant.

Outside of these cards going infinite with our commander, Ashnod's Altar + Cayth + Nim Deathmantle means that we have infinite "enters" and "dies" triggers if we choose to make the servos when we reanimate the sacrificed creature.

Remember the "group draw plan" from before? Yeah, Friendly Teddy or Runed Servitor means that everyone draws their deck, and in my opinion, that's beyond hilarious.

Closing Thoughts

This brings us to the end of our seventh edition of Bottom of the Barrel! I hope you enjoyed exploring a lesser-played color-combination in the world of Aristocrats! This deck was so fun to brew, as it still feels like a very strong Aristocrats deck, even without black!

If you have any thoughts or ideas about this decklist, let me know in the comments below!

Check out my decklist below!

Nick Benstead

Nick is a full-time educator of America's youth, teaching them to love stories, and write for expression. Outside of teaching, his life is steeped in Magic the Gathering, whether it be through playing commander with his wife, or coming up with wacky brews to take to Friday Night Magic at his local game store.