Mono-black aristocrats built around Ayara: every black creature entering drains each opponent for 1, and Ayara's tap ability turns spare black bodies into cards. The deck floods the board with cheap recursive creatures and token makers, sacrifices them through outlets, and stacks death-trigger drainers and draw engines so each creature pays off on entry, on death, and again when it returns from the graveyard. Heavy black devotion and a Swamp-heavy mana base add a second axis of big drains and scaling mana. How it wins: Repeated small drains from creatures entering and dying, punctuated by devotion-fueled Gray Merchant hits and mass token turns sacrificed into drainers, grind opponents out while the deck stays ahead on cards and life. Key roles: - Recursive fodder: Cheap creatures that return from the graveyard by landfall, death or life-loss conditions. They re-trigger Ayara's entry drain and feed sacrifice outlets again and again (Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, Nether Traitor). - Sacrifice outlets: Free or repeatable ways to convert creatures into mana, cards, opponent sacrifices or tokens. They turn the board into fuel for every death payoff (Ashnod's Altar, Priest of Forgotten Gods, Ghoulcaller Gisa). - Death drain payoffs: Permanents that make opponents lose life whenever creatures die. Life gain is also converted into extra drain, so each sacrifice becomes damage (Zulaport Cutthroat, Blood Artist, Marauding Blight-Priest). - Death-fueled card and resource engines: Creatures and enchantments that draw cards, make Treasure or create replacement bodies whenever a creature dies. Paired with Ayara's own sacrifice-to-draw, they keep the chain going (Grim Haruspex, Pitiless Plunderer, Blight Mound). - Mass bodies and devotion finishers: Token floods that can all be sacrificed, plus devotion-scaling drain and mana that reward a board full of black permanents (Army of the Damned, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Nyx Lotus). - Swamp count synergies: Swamp-scaling removal, mana and land-drop triggers that exploit the near-mono-Swamp manabase and also enable landfall recursion (Cabal Stronghold, Dread Presence, Mutilate).

Ayara, First of Locthwain decklist

• Barren Moor
• Cabal Stronghold
• Command Tower
• High Market
• Mortuary Mire
• Myriad Landscape
• 32× Swamp
• Corrupted Conviction
• Cult Conscript
• Defile
• Gutterbones
• Reanimate
• Sol Ring
• Village Rites
• Wayfarer's Bauble
• Arcane Signet
• Blood Artist
• Bloodghast
• Charcoal Diamond
• Dogged Detective
• Dreadhorde Invasion
• Feed the Swarm
• Fellwar Stone
• Heartless Act
• Jet Medallion
• Nether Traitor
• Oathsworn Vampire
• Priest of Forgotten Gods
• Reassembling Skeleton
• Skeletal Grimace
• Skyclave Shade
• Swiftfoot Boots
• Thornbite Staff
• Unmarked Grave
• Zulaport Cutthroat
• Ashnod's Altar
• Bastion of Remembrance
• Blight Mound
• Body Count
• Braids, Arisen Nightmare
• Crowded Crypt
• Decanter of Endless Water
• Grim Haruspex
• Liliana, Heretical Healer
• Marauding Blight-Priest
• Midnight Reaper
• Morbid Opportunist
• Ophiomancer
• Patriar's Seal
• Pawn of Ulamog
• Phyrexian Arena
• Toxic Deluge
• Defiler of Flesh
• Drag to the Underworld
• Dread Presence
• Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
• Falkenrath Noble
• Hagra Mauling
• Mutilate
• Nyx Lotus
• Pitiless Plunderer
• Vindictive Vampire
• Ghoulcaller Gisa
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• Ogre Slumlord
• Bolas's Citadel
• Plague of Vermin
• Army of the Damned