Witch's Oven and Cauldron Familiar are a natural and compelling combination from Throne of Eldraine. It might not look like much, but it lets you drain for 1 every single turn, as well as providing an infinite chump blocker. It also causes a creature and an artifact to die on every single loop, which seems pretty easy to abuse. Aristocrats has long been a Standard deck that's bubbling below the surface of the metagame, chock-full of synergies waiting to be put together in the right configuration. We'll explore the Rakdos version in another article; for now we think we have a nice build using White as the complementary color.
Orzhov Witch's Oven
These white creatures really take advantage of the Cauldron Familiar loop. This deck can kill the opponent surprisingly quickly without ever needing to attack. If multiple copies of these creatures start to stick around, the game won't last long.
Ayara, First of Lochthwain is a cool new card that fits perfectly into this strategy. The mana's not perfect since we need to include some Plains in the deck (we miss you, Isolated Chapel), but it has two relevant abilities that this deck seeks. In addition to supplementing the Corpse Knight and Cruel Celebrant strategy, it provides an additional sacrifice outlet (that provides real value) in case we haven't found Witch's Oven. Of course, Midnight Reaper is just incredibly good at digging us into our Witch's Oven, and even better once we do.
The remainder of the deck needs some more testing to determine which cards supplement the main strategy best. We definitely want a critical mass of cheap bodies and/or token producers to enable the core strategy of the deck. However, with so many options available, we believe the power level is here and are excited to test the idea starting on September 26 on Arena!
