mdbook wiki

Ayara, First of Locthwain

7 min read

Ayara, First of Locthwain

At a glance

  • Commander: Ayara, First of Locthwain
  • Colors: Mono-Black
  • Archetype: Mono-black aristocrats drain-control (pinger inevitability)
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

The commander’s REAL printed text

Whenever Ayara or another black creature you control enters, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. , Sacrifice another black creature: Draw a card.

Two engines in one card:

  1. A passive table-wide drain. Every black creature that enters — including Ayara herself and every recurring 1-drop — pings each opponent for 1 and gains you 1. In a 4-player pod that is 3 life off the table per black ETB, plus 1 to you.
  2. A repeatable card-advantage sac outlet. Tap + sacrifice a black creature to draw. This both refuels and feeds death/sacrifice triggers.

The scout’s paraphrase was accurate for the broad strokes, but two corrections worth noting: Ayara’s draw ability only sacrifices BLACK creatures (so colorless artifact creatures like Myr Moonvessel don’t feed it), and the drain triggers on any black creature entering, not on sacrifice. The deck is therefore built to (a) maximize cheap, recurring black ETBs and (b) keep black bodies flowing into the sac outlet. Note the assignment’s is_control:false flag — but the engine plan is genuinely a grind/inevitability control deck, so I built it as control per the rubric: spot removal + edicts + sweepers to survive, and repeatable per-opponent drain as the inevitability clock, not draw-go-into-wrath.

commander_oracle_ok = true.

Gameplan

Curve out cheap black creatures, each one chipping the table via Ayara on entry. Use edicts and removal to keep aggressors honest, board wipes to reset against go-wide decks, and the Cauldron Familiar food loop + recursion to generate inevitable, repeatable drain. Close with a devotion bomb (Gray Merchant) or a mass-drain finisher (Gruesome Fate) once the board is wide.

Key synergy lines

  • Cauldron Familiar loop: Cauldron Familiar’s ETB drains each opponent for 1. With any Food source (Tempting Witch, Sweettooth Witch, Feed the Cauldron, Bake into a Pie, Foreboding Fruit), sacrifice a Food to return Familiar from the graveyard — it re-enters, drains again, and Ayara triggers again. Each loop = 3+ life off the table. This is the primary inevitability engine.
  • Ayara as a draw engine: Tap + sac a spent black body (Bile Urchin, Maggot Carrier, a looping Familiar) to draw. Pairs with Mortician Beetle (grows on every sac) and the death-trigger creatures.
  • Free sac fodder → drain outlets: Bile Urchin, Death Cultist, Vampire Neonate sac/tap themselves for direct drain; Lampad of Death’s Vigil and Vermin Gorger are repeatable sac-for-drain outlets that convert any creature (including reanimated bodies) into life loss.
  • Recursion grind: Persistent Specimen, Cadaver Imp, Corpse Hauler, Dutiful Attendant, Bonebind/Undertaker-style loops return black bodies to re-trigger Ayara’s ETB drain repeatedly.
  • Devotion payoff: Ayara is = 3 devotion by herself; with a board of black 1-drops, Gray Merchant of Asphodel routinely hits each opponent for 5–8 and gains it all back. Gruesome Fate drains for your creature count — a one-card kill off a wide aristocrat board.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 36: 31 Swamp + Bojuka Bog (graveyard hate), Witch’s Cottage (creature recursion), Barren Moor & Polluted Mire (cycling lands), Piranha Marsh (ETB ping for 1).
  • Ramp — 10: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Charcoal Diamond, Mind Stone, Guardian Idol, Star Compass, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Springleaf Drum, Mana Cylix, Everflowing Chalice. (Deck is creature-cheap, so this is plenty — held to the band, no over-ramp.)
  • Card advantage — 10: Village Rites, Deadly Dispute, Corrupted Conviction, Costly Plunder, Altar’s Reap, Reckoner’s Bargain, Nasty End (sac-for-cards, which double as Ayara fuel), Foreboding Fruit (+Food), Sign in Blood, Read the Bones. Ayara’s own sac-draw is on top of this.
  • Spot removal / interaction — 11: Diabolic Edict, Geth’s Verdict (edict + drain), Cruel Edict, Devour Flesh, Fleshbag Marauder (edict on a black body — itself an Ayara trigger), Murder, Bake into a Pie (+Food), Feed the Cauldron (+Food), Defenestrate, Vanquish the Weak, Extinguish the Light.
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe — 4: Innocent Blood (turn-1-capable edict-wipe), Nausea, Shrivel (-1/-1 sweeps), Drown in Sorrow (-2/-2 + scry). Plus Crypt Rats as a repeatable board-wipe-on-a-stick that doubles as a finisher (: deal X to each creature and each player`), reinforcing the control inevitability plan.
  • Payoffs / enablers (the rest): the black-creature drain core — Cauldron Familiar, Bile Urchin, Death Cultist, Maggot Carrier, Acolyte of Xathrid, Vampire Neonate, Pulse Tracker, Kalastria Healer, Sanguine Syphoner, Basilica Screecher (extort), Gnawing Zombie, Okiba Reckoner Raid (Saga: drain twice then a menace anthem), Mortis Dogs — plus sac outlets (Carrion Feeder, Viscera Seer, Bloodthrone Vampire, Lampad, Vermin Gorger), the Food witches, recursion bodies (Persistent Specimen, Corpse Hauler, Cadaver Imp, Dutiful Attendant), Mortician Beetle, and the finishers Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Gruesome Fate.

Explicit win condition

Drain the table to 0 via repeated Ayara/aristocrat triggers — inevitability, not combat. The primary kill is the Cauldron Familiar + Food loop and repeatable sac-drain outlets (Lampad, Vermin Gorger) ticking each opponent down every turn. The closers are Gray Merchant of Asphodel (devotion drain, often 5–8 per opponent) and Gruesome Fate (drain = your creature count) cashed in off a wide board. Crypt Rats provides a repeatable mass-damage/burn-out backup.

Pilot notes

  • Lead on cheap black creatures even into open mana — each ETB is free table damage with Ayara out, and they become sac fodder later.
  • Don’t over-sacrifice to Ayara’s draw early; you want bodies on board for Gray Merchant devotion and Gruesome Fate. Sac the spent/looping pieces (Bile Urchin, a Familiar mid-loop), not your devotion count, unless you need the card.
  • Hold a board wipe for go-wide decks; you out-grind almost everyone with the recursion + drain engine, so trading 1-for-1 on removal is fine.
  • Sequence Food makers before Cauldron Familiar dies so the loop is online; Witch’s Cottage can re-buy Familiar if it gets exiled-adjacent or stranded.
  • Gray Merchant is a haymaker — try to land it with maximum black permanents in play, ideally as a follow-up to a sweeper when you’ve rebuilt and opponents haven’t.

Weaknesses

  • Lifegain / fog-the-drain: dedicated lifegain decks can outpace the per-1 drips; lean on Gray Merchant / Gruesome Fate burst and Crypt Rats to punch through.
  • Graveyard hate shuts off the Familiar loop and recursion grind — keep a non-loop drain plan (Lampad + fresh bodies) as backup.
  • Fast wide aggro before sweepers land can race you; mulligan toward an early Innocent Blood / Nausea and cheap interaction.
  • Single-target spot removal on Ayara turns off the engine; she’s only so recasting is cheap, but expect to pay the tax. The aristocrat shell still functions at reduced output without her.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

Graph View

Backlinks