In just a few days, more specifically on July 13th, MTG Arena will host the Arena Weekend Qualifier and this month's format is Historic.
Today we are talking about Mardu Sacrifice, a deck made by Omrithopter, that recently won a 24 person tournament. You can check his other links here and here.
The list pretty recent and many people might not have noticed it yet so I it would be pretty interesting to check it and give you guys some information about it.
What’s the deck plan?
As many Sacrifice decks, this one relies on sacrificing creatures to generate card advantage and damage to kill the opponent. In order to make the sacrifice mechanics affordable, the deck is filled with cheap creatures and cheap interactions. Many of these creatures have abilities that are triggered when they die.
The Sacrifice Spells
Village Rites and Deadly Dispute are card advantage generators with 3 small differences among each other: Village Rites is 1 mana cheaper but doesn't generate the treasure token and can only pay its additional cost by sacrificing creatures only, while Deadly Dispute can also pay its additional cost by sacrificing an artifact. The treasure token can be relevant in this deck as it triggers Marionette Apprentice's effect and it can also be sacrificed in order to cast Rite of Oblivion. Overall, these 2 cards are pretty similar but the upside of the treasure token (as well as the possibility to sacrifice an artifact to pay its additional cost) can be relevant in some specific situations and this is why we have 4 copies of Deadly Dispute and only 2 copies of Village Rites.
Goblin Bombardment is just amazing considering the creatures we are playing in the deck: we get to deal damage while also cycling most of our creatures. On top of that, it's an easy way to flip Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger while also being a red permanent. It works pretty well against creature decks as a removal as well.
Chthonian Nightmare is among the most important cards of the deck: it generates a lot of value and if used correctly it can be possibly cast multiple times per turn. Remember the feeling of playing Lurrus of the Dream-Den and watching it die the same turn? Now you can get it back as many times as you need thanks to Chthonian Nightmare.
The Creatures You Want to Sacrifice
Shambling Ghast can be really useful when sacrificed: it can either ramp us or remove a creature thanks to its ability. It's probably the weakest among these 3 creatures but still decent.
Goblin Trapfinder and Unlucky Witness are both able to cycle themselves: the first one will grant us a creature spell while the second one will give us the option to choose among 2 exiled cards. Personally, among these 2 I think Unlucky Witness (within this archetype) is the most useful one as the deck doesn't take too much advantage from discounting (already cheap) creatures.
The Good Creatures
Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger is probably the strongest creature of the format right now and within this archetype it's really easy to flip it. Its +0 loyalty ability can deal tons of damage thanks to the many small creatures included in the deck and the 12 red permanents available. I don't think there is much to say about this crazy good card: it's just the king of the format right now.
Marionette Apprentice is another way for us to win the game. The card is already good within the sacrifice archetype but when combined with Goblin Bombardment it becomes even better and it can easily kill our opponent in just one turn.
The Removal Spells
We all know how strong Fatal Push is and in the current meta it kills practically everything for just one mana.
Claim the Firstborn among the removal spells? What? This card is even better than a removal spell in this archetype. This card needs to be combined with one of our sacrifice spells (or Rite of Oblivion) in order to generate the maximum value. We have many ways to sacrifice creatures so it won't be a problem to do so. One of the scariest cards of the format is Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury and Claim the Firstborn can solve the problem by stealing it. After you steal it you can even attack with it in order to generate some life and potentially remove a creature or planeswalker from the opponent's board. Right now, Claim the Firstborn hits basically everything in the format and if combined with one of our sacrifice spells it can generate a huge advantage. Just a tip: if you steal a creature that can flip into a planeswalker just remember not to flip it or the opponent will gain control of the flipped planeswalker.
Rite of Oblivion can remove everything and the additional cost is something we are not scared of in this archetype. On top of that, we can cast it twice thanks to the flashback ability.
The Sideboard
The decks we would like to avoid while playing this deck are the control ones: Thoughtseize and Juggernaut Peddler are really useful against this kind of decks. On top of that, Juggernaut Peddler is also a creature that can be sacrificed with no harm. We need hand destruction against control decks and these two spells are really good in doing so.
Fatal Push and Claim the Firstborn are just additional removal spells for aggro matchups.
Surgical Extraction can be really useful against combo decks and against control decks that have access to Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury.
Unlicensed Hearse is really good against Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury decks and in general against decks that need the graveyard.
Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger becomes really relevant in grindy matchups and is another good target for our sacrifice spells.
Molten Collapse can be very good against Boros Energy decks and can also deal with cards such as Pithing Needle. Descending should be really easy for this deck making this card even better.
Brotherhood's End can be really good against many aggro decks and is a good wrath right now in the format.
Conclusions
The deck should be really good against Boros Energy while not that good against control decks. Depending on what you expect to face the most, you should consider this option for the Arena Qualifier Weekend. I don't think this deck is the strongest in the format but it can potentially punish Boros Energy decks that are not really well built. If I were you, I would give it a try as the deck is really fun and really strong as well.