Murder of Ravens (Aristocrats) (Standard)

So much fun! You basically don't ever plan to attack, you just wall up with a bunch of creatures that deliver value when something dies and then drain the opponent out by sacking them at the right times. With just a couple of extra cards out, you can get 3-4 damage on the opponent's turn every time with the cauldron familiar combo and draw lots of cards. A bunch of the creatures have deathtouch, so the opponent is afraid to attack, and once you get Revenge of Ravens out, go-wide strategies like Field of the Dead zombies don't work, because they can't attack you without dying.

This deck is good at jamming up the board until you can get a Revenge of Ravens out.

Strategy tips:

Once you have a Witch's oven and Cauldron familiar out (or Ayara, First of Locthwain) wait until their end step to sack and replay the cat or sack a Dreadhorde Invasion zombie, that way, you have them untapped most the time to be able to respond to the opponent. If they attack with something that's going to hurt, block with a creature and then sack it and replay it (cat) or get a food token. If you have a food token, you can play a cat later at instant speed as a surprise blocker or a point or two or three of burn damage with Ayara, First of Locthwain or Corpse Knight out.

Cruel Celebrant is a removal magnet, so if you have an Oven or Araya out, try to keep them untapped to be able to sack as much as you can while their removal is on the stack, that way, you can get all of the death triggers (even the one from her dying.) So often times, You gain 2-3 life, they take 2-3 damage and you get a food token. (Then you can add insult to injury by replaying a familiar for more damage etc.)

A fun trick is if they're swinging in with a flyer is to sac an Orzhov Enforcer to spawn the flying token on their attack step. Between the death triggers on the enforcer and the ETB trigger on the token and then the death triggers on the token, it can often be a 6 point life swing and you get a card in the process when they thought they had an easy attack. :D

You basically only attack if they have an empty board on turn 2 after you played a 1 drop, or if you have an Order of Midnight (it can't block, so you just swing and maybe sack it if they have a blocker that would kill it.) On Alter Fate, you generally want to return a Cruel Celebrant or Ayara, First of Locthwain.

Dreadhorde Invasion might seem weird here, but if you have Ayara out, you get an ETB drain on every turn and you can sack it on every turn for a card (and probably a Cruel Celebrant/Corpse Knight trigger.)

Board wipes are common, so if you're getting wiped, you'll want to sack as much as you can ahead of time for value. Don't worry about sacking a cauldron familiar, go for things that don't have death triggers (you'll get them anyway) If you do it right, you should have a couple of creatures right back on the board and a few cards, so you can generally rebuild pretty fast and they take a lot of damage from all of the triggers, so it's painful for them to do!

What's next:

Right now, I'm splitting Murderous Rider and Mortify for removal as one is great for planeswalkers (and has a good lifegain blocker) while the other takes out Cavalcade of Calamity (or other annoying enchantments) or Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. As the meta gels, I might go one over the other. I really enjoy the sack fodder Dreadhorde Invasion provides, but if it comes down to it, that's what I'm pulling and adding another Midnight Reaper for card draw and more Murderous Riders.

Have fun with it!!