Teysa's Aristocrat Nonsense

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo WB (Orzhov)

l0gin4me

Creature (34)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bloodsoaked Champion
• 1x Boreas Charger
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Cartel Aristocrat
• 1x Demon of Dark Schemes
• 1x Elenda, the Dusk Rose
• 1x Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
• 1x God-Eternal Bontu
• 1x Golgari Thug
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Krav, the Unredeemed
• 1x Luminous Broodmoth
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Regna, the Redeemer
• 1x Remorseful Cleric
• 1x Requiem Angel
• 1x Selfless Spirit *f-pre*
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Teysa, Orzhov Scion
• 1x Wispmare
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Land (38)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Brightclimb Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Castle Ardenvale
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Flagstones of Trokair
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Lotus Field
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 7x Plains
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Shambling Vent
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Instant (4)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection

Commander (1)

Artifact (14)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Deathrender
• 1x Grafted Wargear
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Skyclave Relic
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Treasure Map  ^Flip
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip
• 1x Debt to the Deathless
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Hour of Revelation
• 1x Merciless Eviction

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Open the Graves
• 1x Smothering Tithe

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This deck is built around Teysa Karlov and her ability to doubling death triggers. One thing I avoided in this deck was two card combos. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is in the deck, but there is no Triskelion or Walking Ballista. This deck does try to go infinite, but generally requires 3-4 pieces + Teysa Karlov to do so. Most of these pieces are interchangeable to some degree, and will fall into one of these categories:

I want to watch things die

To get an aristocrats deck to work, you need a payoff for when things die. These payoffs come in three general forms: life drain, card draw, and mana.

Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat work to siphon life from your opponents. If you have reached a point where you have infinite death triggers, this will kill your opponents and win the game for you. Even if you haven't gone infinite, there are a couple effects in this deck that cost you life. Having incidental life-gain can help offset that.

Skullclamp, Midnight Reaper, Grim Haruspex, Erebos, Bleak-Hearted, and Liliana, Dreadhorde General all have a triggered ability that allows you to draw cards when a creature dies. Since these are triggered abilities, Teysa Karlov will double them. With just one of these and Teysa Karlov you to turn any creature in the deck into two cards (four cards with Skullclamp).

Pawn of Ulamog, Sifter of Skulls, and Pitiless Plunderer all give you a token than can be sacrificed for mana when a creature dies.

Please die

Probably the most important ability for any aristocrat deck is the ability to kill your creatures at will. Cartel Aristocrat, Ashnod's Altar, Grafted Wargear, Phyrexian Altar, Yahenni, Undying Partisan. and Razaketh, the Foulblooded all allow you to kill your own creatures without spending mana.

Krav, the Unredeemed requires a to activate, but tutors out Regna, the Redeemer. Together, they allow you to spend on each players turn to effectively gain a life, draw a card, and make a 1/1 Warrior creature token.

Please die again

While Teysa Karlov does give you an additional death trigger, it is often good to have creatures that can effectively be sacrificed multiple times. There are two general ways this is accomplished and a couple outliers:

In Magic, the most common way for a creature to die multiple times is for it to leave behind a token on death. There are many creatures that could do so, but that is a one and done ability. For commander, I like to focus on repeatable value. The only two creature that generate their own token I left in were Elenda, the Dusk Rose and Wurmcoil Engine. Elenda, the Dusk Rose at worst leaves behind a single token when she dies and will generate an additional token for each creature she sees die before she dies. If Teysa Karlov is out, Elenda, the Dusk Rose has TWO different death triggers that get doubled. This means she will generate two creatures by default and each creature she sees die will result in an additional four tokens. Wurmcoil Engine doesn't scale like Elenda, the Dusk Rose, but has a high level of consistent value.

Rather than focusing on creatures that leave behind tokens, this deck focuses on effects that give you a token when another creature dies. Pawn of Ulamog, Sifter of Skulls, Open the Graves, Requiem Angel, and Teysa, Orzhov Scion all do this in some way.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Luminous Broodmoth will allow almost all the creatures in the deck to die twice.

Deathrender doesn't allow a creature to die twice, but does allow you to provide a replacement from hand for free. With a card draw that gets triggered on death, this can be enough. Notably, Teysa Karlov does double this trigger as well. This means that Deathrender can cheat two creatures onto the battlefield.

Please don't stay dead

To truly go infinite, we need a way to recur our dead creatures. Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodsoaked Champion, and Nether Traitor can recur themselves. Nim Deathmantle can recur any creature as long as there is the mana necessary to pay for the triggered ability. Demon of Dark Schemes can also reanimate any creature in you graveyard for and . Since the Demon of Dark Schemes generates on a death trigger, Teysa Karlov and any creature that can die twice will generate the required. All of these recursions do require mana, which can be generated with the cards listed above in "I want to watch things die" or the effects of Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar.

Golgari Thug puts creatures back on top of our deck where they may be drawn again. Without Deathrender, it is hard to have the mana to recast those creatures and go infinite. Even then, regrowing key creatures can be really helpful and dredge can help "search" our deck for key creatures.

Other

The above sections relate to the decks win condition. There are additional ramp and protective measures that are self explanatory. This is where I will mention any additional card/synergies that don't fall into the above categories:

Stoneforge Mystic works in this deck as a tutor that can later be sacrificed. Notably, Stoneforge Mystic can get a sac outlet (Grafted Wargear), a card draw engine (Skullclamp), a way to recur creatures (Nim Deathmantle), a way to generate additional sac fodder (Deathrender), or a way to protect an important creature (Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots). After doing so, Stoneforge Mystic can get that equipment onto the battlefield through counter magic and be sacrificed for value.

Solemn Simulacrum, Boreas Charger, and Massacre Wurm all have abilities that trigger on death that Teysa Karlov can double. Solemn Simulacrum drawing an additional card is fairly simple, but the Massacre Wurm can be brutal. If Teysa Karlov and Massacre Wurm are on the battlefield together, your opponents are losing four life for each creature they control that dies. I wanted to point out that while dying, being bounced, or being exiled will all trigger the ability of Boreas Charger, Teysa Karlov will only give you a second copy if Boreas Charger died. Also, the triggered ability of Boreas Charger checks on resolution that the opponent still has more lands than you. If the first ability resolving brings your land count up to match the the land count of the opponent the second trigger will fizzle since the target is no longer valid. To get both triggers, you have to target an opponent who has two more lands than you.

Wispmare, Shriekmaw. Selfless Spirit, Remorseful Cleric, and Burnished Hart are all creatures that provide a beneficial effect and sacrifice themselves. Teysa Karlov doesn't double any of this, but the rest of the deck is built to provide incidental value when they sacrifice themselves.

Castle Ardenvale and Westvale Abbey   are both lands that produce tokens and (can) enter the battlefield untapped. Being able to fit ways to produce sac fodder into the mana base is always good.

Flagstones of Trokair and Lotus Field are in the deck mostly because I had copies of them and the fixing options for enemy color decks aren't amazing. If you do get them both and can sacrifice the Flagstones of Trokair to the enter the battlefield trigger of Lotus Field, then they are ramp. If not, neither is terribly bad by themselves. As a side note, Lotus Field does lower the number of lands you have in play and make it easier to find valid targets for Boreas Charger.

NOTE: I didn't bother specifying for each category, but some cards work with all creatures. Others are restricted in some way (non-token is the most common restriction). It would have been to wordy to add the appropriate metaphorical asterisks to all the cards.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	URG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.44
Tokens	City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Energy Reserve, Human 1/1 W, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Morph 2/2 C, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W, Warrior 1/1 W, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink, Zombie 2/2 B