Death and Tokens [Primer]

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo Infinite Combo Tokens Value Engine WB (Orzhov)

DungeonMaestro

Ramp (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Oketra's Monument
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy

Lifegain (8)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Falkenrath Noble
• 1x Fumigate
• 1x Kaya's Wrath
• 1x Scoured Barrens
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Sacrifice Fodder (7)

• 1x Bloodsoaked Champion
• 1x Doomed Traveler
• 1x Hunted Witness
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Tenacious Dead
• 1x Tithe Taker
• 1x Xathrid Necromancer

Face Damage (5)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Falkenrath Noble
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Boardwipe (2)

• 1x Fumigate
• 1x Kaya's Wrath

Stax (2)

• 1x Tithe Taker
• 1x Tocatli Honor Guard

Land (36)

• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Forsaken Sanctuary
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 1x Orzhov Guildgate
• 7x Plains
• 1x Scoured Barrens
• 19x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Removal (10)

• 1x Despark
• 1x Fragmentize
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Spark Harvest
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Tragic Slip
• 1x Utter End

Token Generator (7)

• 1x Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
• 1x Hidden Stockpile
• 1x Oketra's Monument
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Requiem Angel
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Xathrid Necromancer

Free Sacrifice Outlet (5)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Fanatical Devotion
• 1x Viscera Seer

Other (1)

• 1x Bog Initiate

Commander (1)

Card Draw (10)

• 1x Costly Plunder
• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Viscera Seer

Recursion (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Unearth
• 1x Victimize

Sacrifice Outlet (6)

• 1x Costly Plunder
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Hidden Stockpile
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Victimize

Tutor (1)

• 1x Diabolic Tutor

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Maybeboard

Ramp (8)

• 1x Bontu's Monument
• 1x Boreas Charger
• 1x Bubbling Muck
• 1x Carnival of Souls
• 1x Corrupted Grafstone
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Songs of the Damned

Boardwipe (4)

• 1x Dusk / Dawn
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Massacre Girl
• 1x Wrath of God

Token Generator (4)

• 1x Field of Souls
• 1x Hallowed Spiritkeeper
• 1x Spawning Pit *list*
• 1x Teysa, Orzhov Scion

Protection (2)

• 1x Leyline of Sanctity
• 1x Mandate of Peace

Lifegain (1)

• 1x Suture Priest

Tutor (1)

• 1x Mausoleum Secrets

Sacrifice Fodder (7)

• 1x Archon of Justice
• 1x Blood Pet
• 1x Garrison Cat
• 1x Hallowed Spiritkeeper
• 1x Massacre Girl
• 1x Ministrant of Obligation
• 1x Orzhov Enforcer

Sacrifice Outlet (6)

• 1x Blasting Station
• 1x Cartel Aristocrat
• 1x Spawning Pit *list*
• 1x Teysa, Orzhov Scion
• 1x Whisper, Blood Liturgist
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan

Stax (3)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Suture Priest

Recursion (2)

• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Whisper, Blood Liturgist

Face Damage (6)

• 1x Blasting Station
• 1x Bontu's Monument
• 1x Debt to the Deathless
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Torment of Hailfire

Removal (6)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Archon of Justice
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Disenchant
• 1x Final Payment
• 1x Teysa, Orzhov Scion

Other (3)

• 1x Duress
• 1x Embalmer's Tools
• 1x Leonin Relic-Warder

Card Draw (2)

• 1x Harvester of Souls
• 1x Sign in Blood

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This is my Teysa Karlov EDH deck, focusing on tokens and death payoffs. The main strategy of this deck is to get creatures on board and sacrifice them for value, snowballing into more creatures and more value, working towards a win either grinding out your opponents or by comboing off.

Categories

• Land - Pretty self explanatory

• Ramp - Anything that gets you ahead on mana: mana rocks, cost reducers, etc

• Removal - Targeted removal to eliminate specific threats, as well as edict effects to force sacrifices and hurt your opponents' boards.

• Board Wipe - Anything that will destroy all or most of the creatures on board.

• Card Draw - Things that draw you cards, or let you scry repeatedly to fix your draws. In this deck most of these effects are on death triggers, but not all of them.

• Sacrifice Outlet - This is one of the most important categories. These are what let you sacrifice your creatures. All of them either let you sacrifice creatures for free, or provide some additional value for their cost.

• Sacrifice Fodder - These are the creatures you want to be sacrificing with your outlets. They can all either bring themselves back from the graveyard, make additional tokens for you to sacrifice, or have some other beneficial effect when they die.

• Token Generator - These create tokens for you specifically to be sacrificed. Some trigger on death so Teysa doubles them, others happen at different times. Pay attention to when they trigger as that can be important for sequencing.

• Recursion - These let you bring back creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield. This lets you recover from having important creatures removed, as well as letting you bring back your fodder creatures to be sacrificed again.

• Face Damage - This is primarily how you win. Most of these trigger when a creature dies so Teysa doubles them, some of them are targeted and others hit all opponents, pay attention to which is which.

• Maybeboard - It's a bit of a hodgepodge. Some cards are ones I intend to run but don't have yet, some are other options I'm considering for certain slots, and a few are cards I've cut but may re-add.

Ramping

Most of the ramp is fairly self explanatory, but there are a few cards worth discussing in more detail. Ashnod's Altar, Pitiless Plunderer, and Sifter of Skulls all give you mana for what you already want to be doing: sacrificing creatures. That makes them exceptionally valuable because they can all give you very large amounts of nowhere, enabling some very explosive turns. All three of them can also be used for the infinite combo.

A card from the maybeboard to consider: Pawn of Ulamog. Basically the same as Sifter of Skulls but one mana cheaper. Very worth running, I just haven't picked one up yet.

Tokens

Tokens are a very important part of this deck's strategy. They act as a multiplier for the amount of creatures we can sacrifice, and they also make for very good blockers. All of our tokens exist entirely to be sacrificed, so keeping some around on board means you generally don't have to worry about combat damage unless your opponents have creatures with trample or unblockable. In a pinch, combat can also act as a backup sacrifice outlet if we loose our actual sacrifice outlets. Teysa also gives all of our tokens vigilance and lifelink, so its not uncommon to be able to chip in for a little bit of damage and bolster our life total. It is rare that this deck will win through combat damage, but if we don't have any of our pingers (Blood Artist etc) it is possible to create large (sometimes infinite) amounts of tokens and swing for the win.

There are three main categories of token generators in this deck. The categories are in no particular order, but cards are loosely listed from best to worst within their category. All token generation effects in category A and B are doubled by Teysa.

A. sacrifice fodder creatures that make tokens when they die:

• Xathrid Necromancer In category A and B, capable of making a ton of tokens. Generally don't sacrifice it until you need to.

• Ministrant of Obligation Makes two tokens (4 with Teysa)

• Orzhov Enforcer Deathtouch makes it a very good blocker to leave up.

• Hunted Witness It's a bit of a tossup between the last two. Situational which one is better.

• Doomed Traveler

B. Permanents that make tokens when other creatures die.

• Requiem Angel Very strong because it can make tokens when other tokens die as long as they aren't spirits.

• Sifter of Skulls Eldrazi scions can be sacrificed for mana which makes this a great ramp piece, and they can sacrifice themselves which is very nice if your sacrifice outlets get removed.

• Xathrid Necromancer Mentioned in A, makes tokens when it dies as well as other creatures.

• Field of Souls The next two are both good, Field wins out because it's one mana cheaper.

• Open the Graves

• Hidden Stockpile Only once per turn on your turn. Only still in here because it is also a sacrifice outlet, which makes it nice early, but its a bit of a jack of all trades master of none. I plan to replace it with Spawning Pit.

C. Permanents that make tokens when you cast spells.

• Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder Exceptionally strong and makes a ton of tokens. In combination with a way to make mana when you sacrifice creatures this can give you a ton of mana, sometimes infinite.

• Oketra's Monument Nice ramp piece that gives some incidental tokens. Very useful early game when you don't have a ton of stuff to sacrifice.

Recursion

Having ways to bring creatures back from the graveyard can be an important form of card advantage for aristocrats style decks. It lets us get more value out of our sacrifice fodder, as well as easing the recovery from board wipes. Creatures that can recur themselves are discussed in the Combo section, here we will discuss all the effects that let you bring other creatures out of the graveyard. These are in no particular order.

• Phyrexian Reclamation Flexible and reusable, very useful. Downside is you have to recast the creature, but for fodder that is a pretty low downside.

• Whisper, Blood Liturgist Reusable, acts as a sacrifice outlet, and doesn't care about mana cost. You can use it to repeatedly recur fodder creatures, or get back big creatures for no cost.

• Sun Titan Only lets you get low CMC stuff, but you can also get back non-creatures which is nice if a mana rock or sac outlet gets destroyed. It's also a big creature, and its effect can be used multiple times if it doesn't get destroyed (or if you recur it).

• Reveillark Great for getting back fodder, or any low power creature that has been removed, and its effect is doubled by Teysa. (if you run a Karmic Guide, these two go infinite)

• Victimize Any two creatures from the graveyard for the cost of one. Basically a stronger one-shot version of Whisper's ability.

• Witch's Cottage Probably the weakest form of recursion in the deck because you can only do it once (twice if you use Orzhov Basilica to bounce it), and you need some other way to get the card back to your hand.

The Combo

The combo this deck is built around is infinitely sacrificing and recurring creatures, and using those ETB/LTB triggers to win. You don't need to combo off to win, but it is a very efficient way to do it. There are a lot of different ways to put together this combo, so be prepared to get creative!

There are four components to this combo. Cards are listed loosely from best to worst for how well they fulfill their respective part of the combo. The best ones fulfill more than one part.

Part 1: Self Recurring Creatures

All of these creatures have the same mana cost to recur them, making them generally interchangeable but some do have restrictions on when they can be used that are important to consider.

• Reassembling Skeleton This is generally the best option. It is consistent and unrestricted, so you have the most choice in when you combo off.

• Bloodsoaked Champion Has the benefit of being 1CMC rather than 2, but the combat restriction means you can only combo off on your turn, which can be relevant.

• Tenacious Dead Like Bloodsoaked Champion it is 1CMC, but it is the least consistent because you have to have the mana available to recur it right when it dies. This means you can't start the combo with it in your graveyard, and you have to find another effect to bring it back if it ends up there.

With some tweaking these are some other options you could run: Nether Traitor, Gravecrawler, Oathsworn Vampire

Part 2: Sacrifice Outlets

Any of the outlets in the "Free Sacrifice Outlet" category will work for this part of the combo.

• Ashnod's Altar Overall the best sacrifice outlet in the deck, and the best for this combo. Because it produces mana from sacrificing, all you need is something to filter some of it to black (discussed in the mana section).

• Altar of Dementia This is another strong option because it can act as both a sacrifice outlet, and the way to win off the combo (milling your opponents out).

• Carrion Feeder 1CMC and in very limited circumstances can act as a win condition for the combo.

• Viscera Seer 1CMC and useful for fixing your draws. Outside of the combo it is usually better than Carrion Feeder

• Fanatical Devotion Allows you to protect your other combo pieces from removal. If you don't care about getting the combo off early this can be a better option than Carrion Feeder and Viscera Seer.

• Hidden Stockpile Costs 1 mana to sacrifice a creature, meaning you have to produce more mana to go infinite with this than any of the free sacrifice outlets, but it can work in a pinch.

Part 3: Mana

All the self recurring creatures this deck runs require one generic mana and one black to return them from the graveyard to the battlefield. There are a few different ways to put this part of the combo together, but as long as you are able to produce two mana (at least one being black) from every loop you are good to go.

One of these two is required because they are the only way to produce an arbitrary amount of black mana.

• Pitiless Plunderer Treasure tokens can be sacrificed for mana of any color, so this is a great option.

• Bog Initiate This can filter any amount of colorless mana that you have to black.

These can be used to support one of the above two.

• Ashnod's Altar Produces two mana every loop, very good.

• Sifter of Skulls Only makes one token per loop, less good.

Teysa Karlov can also be an important tool for putting this part of the combo.

Requiem Angel or any other token producer can make an additional token to sacrifice to get a second copy of Pitiless Plunderer's effect.

Here are a couple different ways to put together this part of the combo:

• Ashnod's Altar + Bog Initiate

• Pitiless Plunderer + Teysa Karlov

• Pitiless Plunderer + Sifter of Skulls

• Bog Initiate + Sifter of Skulls + Teysa Karlov

If you put this part together in a way that produces more than two mana per loop and you don't have something to use this combo to win, you can just use the infinite mana to cast whatever else you want to. This deck doesn't run any, but if you run cards like Exsanguinate you can also use this infinite mana directly to win.

Another fun optional piece of tech for this combo is Embalmer's Tools. It reduces the recurring cost to just {B} for Reassembling Skeleton and Bloodsoaked Champion which is equivalent to creating an additional mana per loop. It doesn't really have any application in this deck outside of recurring those two specific creatures which is why I haven't included it, but if you want to go all in on the combo its an option.

If you have one, Phyrexian Altar can also be used for this part of the combo.

Another option: Pawn of Ulamog can fill the same role as Sifter of Skulls.

Part 4: Winning

Like the mana section there are a variety of options for how to turn this combo into a win, but generally this part is a bit more straightforward.

The first option is using direct damage. Any of the below will be effectively equivalent when doing this combo infinitely so I've just listed them by mana cost, but they do have some individual nuances if you aren't able to go infinite yet.

• Zulaport Cutthroat Cheap and hits the whole table, it is a 1/1 so its not hard for it to get removed.

• Blood Artist It targets which can be a good political tool. Same downside at Zulaport Cutthroat, easily removable.

• Cruel Celebrant Slightly more restrictive casting cost, but also more durable.

• Corpse Knight Doesn't get doubled by Teysa

• Falkenrath Noble Basically a tougher Blood Artist

• Syr Konrad, the Grim Triggers when creatures are recurred as well as when they die, and also triggers off milling. Highest potential damage output in a non-infinite context.

I don't run it anymore, but Vindictive Vampire also goes in this category.

The next option is milling. The main card that does this is Altar of Dementia. It is a good backup to the direct damage route, but you do have to wait for your opponents to draw from an empty library to die, which depending how competitive a table you are at can be a big risk. Altar of Dementia + Syr Konrad, the Grim is a way you can pull off an immediate win when there is a Hushbringer type effect suppressing on-death effects. Syr Konrad, the Grim can also mill out opponents if you can produce infinite black mana, but his mill is symmetrical so you risk drawing out as well. That said, if you are playing against other creature heavy decks and a Hushbringer is preventing Konrad from pinging on death, you can use Konrad's mill to ping everyone, but this requires the total amount of creatures left in libraries to be greater than or equal to the highest life total among your opponents, which isn't always the case.

Plan C is creating infinite tokens. Any of the cards that create tokens when another creature dies can do this, but this deck doesn't have a way to give the tokens haste, so you either have to make the infinite tokens on the end-step before your turn (not possible with Bloodsoaked Champion), or wait a full turn cycle to untap with them which puts a huge target on you. Teysa Karlov does give them lifelink and vigilance, so they can attack and block quite profitably if you aren't able to win with them. That said, these cards are your options for this win condition:

• Requiem Angel Makes flying spirits, which can be nice

• Field of Souls Same as above

• Sifter of Skulls Can be sacrificed for a bunch of mana if you aren't able to attack with them

• Open the Graves They're zombies. Enough said

• Xathrid Necromancer Only works with Bloodsoaked Champion, the other two aren't human

As mentioned above, although it isn't a great option you can use this combo to make an infinitely large Carrion Feeder and attack with that to win. It doesn't have trample or evasion, you can only kill one opponent at a time with it, and it doesn't have any protection from removal. That said winning with a huge zombie would be pretty sweet.

If I missed any ways in this deck to win off this combo, let me know.

Important Note: Your card draw outlets can kill you. The card draw on Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, and Midnight Reaper are not 'may' abilities, so if you go infinite with those on board you can kill yourself by drawing your entire library if you have less cards than your opponents have health. Both Dark Prophecy and Midnight Reaper deal damage to you when your creatures die, so you need to make sure you have a way to cancel out that damage or not have those cards on board. Midnight Reaper can be sacrificed when you no longer need the draw, but Dark Prophecy needs to be cancelled out. Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Falkenrath Noble all gain you life, but Corpse Knight and Syr Konrad, the Grim don't.

Feedback and questions are welcome!

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Pitiless Plunderer + Teysa Karlov Pitiless Plunderer + Sifter of Skulls
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 0 Mythic Rares 19 - 0 Rares 32 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.52
Tokens	Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Morph 2/2 C, Servo 1/1 C, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, Spirit 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 WB, Thrull 1/1 B, Treasure, Warrior 1/1 W w/ Vigilance, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Decks