Korvold: The King Of Competitive Aristocrats

In Bracket 5 (or cEDH), power is everything. Decks are crafted to win you the game as quickly as possible. They’re less about theme and more about winning the game. Bracket 5 decks are ruthless, so if you’re not prepared, you’ll be taken out quickly. Competitive Aristocrats aren’t a major player in the cEDH metagame, but you do have one great option: Korvold, Fae-Cursed King.

Why Korvold?

When it comes to competitive Aristocrats, you do technically have a few options. Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim does see some niche play in metagames, and can handle itself in Bracket 5. However, it’s usually a bit weak for the speed of Bracket 5. Chatterfang, Squirrel General can be used, but it’s more of a Combo deck than an Aristocrat deck. Teysa Karlov is a great Aristocrats commander, but not a great competitive Aristocrats commander.

So, we look to the best option, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. Korvold is a value engine, and a commander you don’t technically ever need to cast. Draw engines are quite impactful in Bracket 5, so having one in your command zone is very useful. Five mana is a bit costly, but if Korvold, Fae-Cursed King hits the battlefield, you get a lot of payoff.

Another key factor that makes Korvold, Fae-Cursed King a great cEDH commander is its colors. Jund (Black/Red/Green) is a great color pairing, with Black and Red in particular giving useful cards for both ramp and combos. Green lets you play some useful utility cards and opens up for more “sideboard” options to adjust to specific metagames.

The Tutors

A key aspect of a Bracket 5 deck is tutors. You want to make your deck as consistent as possible. With 99-card libraries, it’ll be difficult to draw the specific cards you want. Tutors help to add consistency since you can either draw the card you want, or a tutor to put that card into play.

On the Black side, you have the classics of Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Imperial Seal. Since you want to sacrifice your permanents with your commander in play, cards like Diabolic Intent and Eldritch Evolution are especially strong.

A lot of combos in the deck rely on creatures. So, Worldly Tutor, Summoner's Pact, Green Sun's Zenith, and Nature's Rhythm are all key players. These get your combo enablers onto the battlefield quickly so you can start comboing off.

The Ramp Package

Thanks to Green, you can play some great utility cards to ramp quickly. Tireless Provisioner is fantastic with fetchlands, giving you two Treasure tokens for playing a land. It becomes stronger with cards like Exploration and Exploration Broodship that let you play multiple lands per turn.

Cards that generate mana without spending mana are your best friend in cEDH. With a Jund commander, you get both Simian Spirit Guide and Elvish Spirit Guide to generate a colored mana just by exiling it. Lotus Petal is another quick mana generator. You need a more specific board state, but Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are other 0-cost mana generators.

There are a few creatures that help you ramp further. Orcish Lumberjack can turn any Forest into three mana of Red and/or Green. You do have to tap it, but that’s a big acceleration of mana. Tinder Wall turns one Green mana into two Red mana as a pseudo-ritual. If you have extra lands in your hand, you can sacrifice Krosan Wayfarer to get ahead of your normal mana curve more. Since these all sacrifice themselves, if you draw them late-game, they’re a Korvold, Fae-Cursed King trigger.

Interaction

In Bracket 5, you need ways to interact with your opponents. Luckily, Jund has access to some great cards. Despite not having Blue, you still have counterspells in the form of Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast. Even though these only counter specific cards, Blue is the most played color, so they’re rarely a dead card. Likewise, Veil of Summer makes your spells uncounterable if any of your opponents cast a Blue or Black spell (two of cEDH’s most common colors). Deflecting Swat acts as a way to redirect a spell to someone else to ensure your permanents and spells are safe.

All The Combos

Combos are the “Bread and Butter” of cEDH. If you’re winning in Bracket 5, it’s through a combo. With Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, you have access to a ton of different combos. You can take advantage of the draw power obtained from both your commander and Necropotence. With cards like Hexing Squelcher and Dosan the Falling Leaf, you can shut down counterspells so you can guarantee your combos are able to resolve.

Witherbloom Apprentice + Chain of Smog

This is the easiest combo in the deck, and it only requires two cards: Witherbloom Apprentice and Chain of Smog. All you need is Witherbloom Apprentice on the battlefield and Chain of Smog in your hand. Simply cast Chain of Smog and target yourself with it. This lets you copy the spell and repeat this loop infinitely. With Witherbloom Apprentice, this causes all opponents to lose 1 life and you to gain 1 life. The combo nets you infinite life, infinite burn damage to all your opponents, and infinite magecraft triggers.

Shifting Woodland + Aftermath Analyst + Squandered Resources

This one has a lot more moving parts. In order to achieve this combo, Aftermath Analyst must be in the graveyard, and Shifting Woodland and Squandered Resources are on the battlefield. You also need four card types in your graveyard so Shifting Woodland‘s delirium is active, as well as at least three lands that can generate for and a total of 8 lands (not counting Shfiting Woodland).

To begin, tap your land to generate mana first if possible, then sacrifice them to Squandered Resources and make another mana. Do this to all of your lands except Shifting Woodland. Once they’re all in the graveyard, activate Shifting Woodland to turn it into Aftermath Analyst. Then, activate the effect of Aftermath Analyst, which will make Shifting Woodland be sacrificed and go into the graveyard, and then all lands (including Shifting Woodland are returned to the battlefield. Then, just repeat this loop to generate infinite mana, landfall triggers, sacrifice triggers, and death triggers.

With infinite mana, you can cast Korvold, Fae-Cursed King and turn this into infinite draws to find any other infinite combo you want that can close out the game. If you know no one can interact with your mana, get to Mayhem Devil to burn all your opponents to win.

Chatterfang, Squirrel General + Warren Soultrader

This combo is simple, only requiring Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Warren Soultrader. All you have to do is sacrifice any other creature you control with Warren Soultrader to create a Treasure token by paying 1 life. With Chatterfang, Squirrel General, this also creates a 1/1 Squirrel. You can keep paying life to sacrifice this Squirrel token to Warren Soultrader to make as many Treasure tokens you want so long as you can pay life. With the Treasure tokens, you can cast Korvold, Fae-Cursed King to add on “free” card draw as well. This isn’t infinite since you have a finite amount of life, but if you win the game the turn you commit to the combo, this won’t matter.

Flow Of The Deck

This competitive Aristocrat deck is about getting to your combos as quickly as possible. Since it relies so heavily on creatures, there is a lot of recursion in the deck to get any ones you lose through interaction back on the battlefield. Reanimate gets any creature back for one mana, and Lively Dirge can dump a card into your graveyard for combo setup, and reanimate practically all of your creatures (since only one creature costs more than 4 mana). They’re a bit more specific, but Six and Underworld Breach can help to get a combo card back, too.

This build of Korvold, Fae-Cursed King isn’t a turbo deck, and plays a more Midrange plan, assembling your combo pieces a few turns later than turn one like many other decks. The idea is to ramp with cards like Lotus Cobra and Nissa, Resurgent Animist with permanents that let you play multiple lands per turn. You still take advantage of cheap mana dorks like Birds of Paradise and Delighted Halfling to generate excess mana on your future turns.

To help get to your combos quickly, there are a lot of rituals to help generate a ton of mana with just a few spells. Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, and Culling the Weak are all explosive cards that create a ton of mana. Rite of Flame, Simian Spirit Guide, and Elvish Spirit Guide all help to get that extra bit of mana out too. With this mana, you’re usually casting either Korvold, Fae-Cursed King or one of your combo enablers (or a way to get to them).

Win Conditions

You have three primary win conditions in the deck. The first one is the Witherbloom Apprentice and Chain of Smog. It requires very little set up, and since it’s so low-to-the-ground mana-wise, you can play the combo very early.

Another win condition is to create an infinite sacrifice loop. Once you have that on the battlefield, just stick Mayhem Devil down and burn everyone out of the game. This is slower, and if there are any scenarios a player can’t lose the game, you can at least use it to wipe all creatures off of the battlefield by targeting them.

The final win condition is a kind of combo, but first requires you to generate infinite Treasure tokens (usually with Tireless Provisioner). You need Chatterfang, Squirrel General that created infinite Squirrel tokens in the same loop and Ruthless Technomancer on the battlefield. Cast Orcish Bowmasters and deal 1 damage to any target. Using the infinite Treasures, activate Chatterfang, Squirrel General and sacrifice one of your infinite Squirrel tokens to give Orcish Bowmasters +1/-1 to kill it. Then, use Ruthless Technomancer‘s ability to reanimate Orcish Bowmasters and deal 1 damage to any target. Repeat this loop until all your opponents are burned out of the game.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Korvold, Fae-Cursed King has notable strengths and weaknesses in the cEDH metagame. Competitive Aristocrat decks aren’t common, which works in Korvold, Fae-Cursed King‘s favor. Fewer opponents will be prepared to go up against an Aristocrats deck, so you can go under the radar and pop off with a sudden combo if you catch your opponents slipping.

This decklist is very big on creatures and very big on ramp. It has a very low mana curve, letting you set up for your combos quickly before anyone might be able to get a stable board state going. The deck’s biggest strength is being able to be hyper-aggressive for potential turn 1/2 wins, but it can play the Midrange game well if a game goes on for long. Thanks to recursion like Noxious Revival and card draw that gets around some Stax pieces like Necropotence, you can play well into various decks.

The main weakness of the deck is that it’s very creature-heavy. It struggles pretty hard against Stall/Stax decks. Since Aristocrats lists require multiple engine pieces in play, it is weak against interaction. Deflecting Swat and Sylvan Safekeeper can help, but if you don’t have protection, you can struggle, especially with the many forms of free removal and counterspells there are in Bracket 5. Essentially, you trade away interaction for quicker combos and a better Midrange plan.

Decklist

The decklist is heavy on creatures (especially for Bracket 5). However, competitive Aristocrat decks need them. Korvold, Fae-Cursed King pairs well with a lot of creatures and engines, allowing you to draw a lot of cards simply by playing your deck to get to your combos. It’s quite consistent thanks to how many tutors you have access to, and can speed ahead in a game with how much mana generation it can explode with.

In Conclusion

While competitive Aristocrats is not a common Bracket 5 archetype, it’s still viable in the metagame thanks to the power of Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. You don’t mind your permanents getting sacrificed when they can easily stumble you into various infinite combos.

This flavor of Aristocrats takes advantage of spells that sacrifice creatures to tutor for cards, letting you fine-tune the archetype to the high-power field. In most cases, you’re winning through traditional burn damage like most Aristocrat builds do. With all your effects, you can easily dig through your deck for your tutors and card enablers, letting you breeze through the setup stages and get to your combos. Competitive Aristocrats is surprisingly versatile, and an archetype that can shine in the late-game if you make it past the first few turns once other combos are countered/stopped.