One of the consistent problems I been having with cube is the aristocrats archetype. Sure the cards are and its really awesome to be able to grab Melira, Sylvok Outcast with Kitchen Finks and Viscera Seer and gain infinite life or have Blood Artist and zulaport cutthroat in play and drain your opponent out with a sacrifice outlet.
However the problem with this archetype is it requires way too many pieces to function, very difficult to assemble and at best performs equally strong as any cube deck. One of the issue is Aristocrats struggles to assemble a board with enough to win via burn (i.e. Zulaport Cutthroat + Blood Artist) and it also struggles with attacking as their creatures are often smaller than the opponent/ could too easily be removed by midrange/ control decks. But here I purpose an alternative template to any Aristocrats deck:
Roughly 40-50% of the damage will be dealt from Blood Artist Effects and 50-60% of the damage will be dealt via direct attack from an aristocrats pay off.
Let's take this example:
Instead of attempting to assemble two Blood Artist effects with a board full of creatures and a sacrifice outlets. Lets suppose I have Blood Artist, 2 mana dorks and 2 random sacrifice outlets I assembled early game with a Westvale Abbey. Similar to the standard aristocrats deck, I could build up my board, potentially attack and end of turn sacrifice my board to the WestVale Abbey, drain the opponent for 5-7 off the Blood Artist and finish the opponent off with Ormendahl.
What this allows is you can arguably play 20 or so win cons that will slot into any traditional midrange value deck with this combo element.
2- Often it becomes very easy to assemble a Blood Artist effect naturally with your board and tutor up (or have one of the attack based finishers) on board to finish off the opponent. Secondly, these cards are largely not parasitic and could be easily slotted into other archetypes.
This method doesn't require a blood artist to be in play at all and is more or less a token based strategy, but you can imagine that with 3 tokens off a turn 2 Awakened Zone/ Sacrifice from Priest of Forgotten Gods early on with a Blood Artist in play to grab a turn 4 Decimator/ Elesh Norn could easily spell game over for the opponent.
There are also a lot of random cards that get alot of values of creature hitting the graveyard such as SkulLclamp, Liliana the last hope etc as well as creatures that generate mass sacrifice effects such as God-Eternal Bontu, Braids, Cabal Minion or SmokeStack but this is more or less the Rec/ Pod/ Stax archetype (which the Blood Artists would fit nicely in)
Going forward with my cube, I'm going to be playing all 6 Blood artist style effects essentially as the final reach required in a value based Braids deck or an all-in creature based deck with something like BloodThrone Vampire, Westvale Abbey, Predator Dragon, Greater Gargadon, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher where the value based cards like Bontu, Skull Clamp etc would help to setup for the eventual in.
I will be giving up on any variants of the +1/+1 -1/-1 persist combo + sacrifice outlet going forward. (Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcaps are fine creatures to play on their own)
Thank for reading all of this. If anyone has any has any additional cards, especially for the aristocrats win con like Predator Dragon/ WestVale Abby, please let me know - that would be greatly appreciated.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
However the problem with this archetype is it requires way too many pieces to function, very difficult to assemble and at best performs equally strong as any cube deck. One of the issue is Aristocrats struggles to assemble a board with enough to win via burn (i.e. Zulaport Cutthroat + Blood Artist) and it also struggles with attacking as their creatures are often smaller than the opponent/ could too easily be removed by midrange/ control decks. But here I purpose an alternative template to any Aristocrats deck:
Roughly 40-50% of the damage will be dealt from Blood Artist Effects and 50-60% of the damage will be dealt via direct attack from an aristocrats pay off.
Let's take this example:
Instead of attempting to assemble two Blood Artist effects with a board full of creatures and a sacrifice outlets. Lets suppose I have Blood Artist, 2 mana dorks and 2 random sacrifice outlets I assembled early game with a Westvale Abbey. Similar to the standard aristocrats deck, I could build up my board, potentially attack and end of turn sacrifice my board to the WestVale Abbey, drain the opponent for 5-7 off the Blood Artist and finish the opponent off with Ormendahl.
What this allows is you can arguably play 20 or so win cons that will slot into any traditional midrange value deck with this combo element.
1- Here's the list:
Blood Artist Effects (Drain based damage):
Blood Artist
Zulaport Cutthroat
Judith, the Scourge Diva
Mayhem Devil
Cruel Celebrant
Goblin Bombardment
ETB Burn (Drain based damage):
Purphorus, God of the Forge
Corpse Knight
Combo Finish Attack based Damage:
BloodThrone Vampire
Nantuko Husk (2 other functional reprints)
Westvale Abbey
Predator Dragon
Greater Gargadon
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
2- Often it becomes very easy to assemble a Blood Artist effect naturally with your board and tutor up (or have one of the attack based finishers) on board to finish off the opponent. Secondly, these cards are largely not parasitic and could be easily slotted into other archetypes.
One of the second options we can take is the sacrifice to add mana:
Culling the Weak
Altar of Dementia
Priest of Forgotten Gods
Awakening Zone
from beyond
Could easily played with your creature board for a one shot win:
Decimator of the Provinces
End-Raze Forerunners
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
This method doesn't require a blood artist to be in play at all and is more or less a token based strategy, but you can imagine that with 3 tokens off a turn 2 Awakened Zone/ Sacrifice from Priest of Forgotten Gods early on with a Blood Artist in play to grab a turn 4 Decimator/ Elesh Norn could easily spell game over for the opponent.
There are also a lot of random cards that get alot of values of creature hitting the graveyard such as SkulLclamp, Liliana the last hope etc as well as creatures that generate mass sacrifice effects such as God-Eternal Bontu, Braids, Cabal Minion or SmokeStack but this is more or less the Rec/ Pod/ Stax archetype (which the Blood Artists would fit nicely in)
Going forward with my cube, I'm going to be playing all 6 Blood artist style effects essentially as the final reach required in a value based Braids deck or an all-in creature based deck with something like BloodThrone Vampire, Westvale Abbey, Predator Dragon, Greater Gargadon, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher where the value based cards like Bontu, Skull Clamp etc would help to setup for the eventual in.
I will be giving up on any variants of the +1/+1 -1/-1 persist combo + sacrifice outlet going forward. (Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcaps are fine creatures to play on their own)
Thank for reading all of this. If anyone has any has any additional cards, especially for the aristocrats win con like Predator Dragon/ WestVale Abby, please let me know - that would be greatly appreciated.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i