Persistent Specimen is a worse Reassembling Skeleton. But it’s fetchable with Ranger of Eos.

What about:

Morbid Opportunist

Welcoming Vampire

Kaya, Geist Hunter

?

Morbid Opportunist & Welcoming Vampire both have the "only once per turn" tag. This makes them infinitely worse than other cards that don't have the tag so I'd doubt they make the slot.

But you can use them during each opponents turns too, if you draw a card for each opponents turn and yours it's already pretty good. It's better than mentor of the meek that doesn't have this constraint but you need to pay a mana each time

Right, but the goal of the deck is to chain combos on your turn for as much value as possible. The current draw cards include Skullclamp, Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Midnight Reaper. If you're looking for more budget options or don't have these cards yet and have Morbid & Welcoming already then you should use them, but your explosive potential will be limited.

Storm of Souls provides full recursion for all creatures in your graveyard for 6cmc with no drawbacks. Could replace Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip? Command the Dreadhorde is still nice since it can target opponent's graveyards too.

What about Haunted Library?

I want to say it's no. It triggers on opponents death triggers rather than our own and you need a mana to pay for it so it's harder to chain.

kirbysan it would work. Teysa says if a creature dying causes an ability of a permanent you control to trigger. A creature dying causes haunted library to trigger.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work but it doesn't fit the strategy of the deck. You'd need to kill an opponent's creature in order for it to trigger. Sure we have some board wipes but the death triggers are mostly off sacrificing our own creatures.

Besides the land is there anything worth putting in teysa that will add more value?

Personally I'm picking up the following from Crimson Vow: Shattered Sanctum, Kaya, Geist Hunter, Persistent Specimen, Storm of Souls. Not sure about the swaps yet though but I think Storm of Souls could replace Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip. I've never used Agadeem's flipside for a land, it grabs everything from your graveyard, also makes them all Skullclamp targets and since we have no way to recur sorceries, it exiling itself doesn't matter much to us. I want to find a place for Kaya, Geist Hunter simply for the -2 ability since it's a cheap token doubler but no idea who to swap her out for.

kirbysan Eloniel esperdeathblade Halestor19 Sorry for the late response! I should have the crimson vow update coming soon. For my thoughts on the cards you mentioned, Kaya, Geist Hunter is a bit win-more. Her +1 isn't useful, and her -2 is slow to use repeatedly. I'd run Anointed Procession over her if you want this effect. However, tokens aren't the main strategy of the deck, and she doesn't actually produce any on her own.

Morbid Opportunist and Welcoming Vampire, like Kirbysan said, don't have as high a ceiling as our current draw pool. It's nice they trigger off of tokens, but only drawing one card per turn is a bit slow compared to our other cards. They're great budget options to replace any pricy card draw though.

Haunted Library, being something we can't trigger ourselves, doesn't synergize much with the rest of the deck. It's nice in slow, grindy situations, but we'd prefer creatures we can sac immediately.

Shattered Sanctum is a fine budget replacement for any of our current lands, but we don't actually need more duals, especially some that conditionally enter tapped. The only land we have that can enter tapped is Fabled Passage and that's because it can generate value with Brought Back et al. With the amount of fetches we have, color consistency isn't a problem. I also wouldn't replace a basic with it, since we need our basics for Land Tax, Keeper of the Accord, etc.

Storm of Souls is the best card we're getting with this set. It does everything we want in a mass reanimation spell, and funnily enough, them turning to 1/1s is somewhat of an upside for Skullclamp reasons. However, I wouldn't replace Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip for it. Awakening is played in a land slot since it's essentially a swamp with a small life tax that doubles as a huge reanimation spell. Not that I will, but I would replace a swamp over awakening any time. It's one of our best lands. I'm probably going to replace Command the Dreadhorde because we care more about reanimating our whole graveyard for no life than having the option to reanimate opponents' creatures. While we could play both, they fill the same niche, and we have tutors for when we really need this effect.

Persistent Specimen has a lot of potential. I'm on the fence about it. On the one hand, it's good redundancy for when our Reassembling Skeleton is lost or when we need to draw either. On the other hand, we have so many tutors that I'm not sure how much more we gain by running two of these. By costing 3 to reanimate, it requires an extra source of mana generation to go infinite, so I'm going to bench it for now.

Thanks for being patient and keeping up the discussion! I'll get the update out soon.

How about Faiths reward instead of second sunrise?

Con: 1 more mana.

Pro: Not double white. Brings back only your stuff, not the opponent's?

Hey Masterful - Hope all is well! Just wanted to check in here to see if you had any updated inclusions or exclusions from Innistrad?

Thanks :) -Foster

Foster_I_Am Yeah I kinda dropped the ball on that one. The set released around when I had finals, so I had no time. I'll do a writeup today covering the new(ish) cards.

Masterful No worries good sir! :)

What do you think about Secure The Wastes and Increasing Devotion? When I play Teysa, sometimes I found it helpful to create a bunch of sac fodder at once rather than one each turn (like Ophiomancer or Bitterblossom).

Xxtormundxx Secure the Wastes and Increasing Devotion are usually too much mana. Cards like Doomed Traveler give us fodder for mana at a 2-1 rate, or 3-1 with Teysa out. Having to tap out just to play some fodder on turn 4 or 5 is tough when its not protected against boardwipes. Making fodder from creatures with Pawn of Ulamog or Elenda, the Dusk Rose tends to be more mana efficient than paying a bunch of mana for upfront tokens. Teysa also doesn't double them. They're definitely not that bad if you want to play them, I just prefer cheaper cards. If you want more fodder for 1 card, try Ministrant of Obligation.

Masterful

How about Faiths reward instead of second sunrise?

Con: 1 more mana.

Pro: Not double white. Brings back only your stuff, not the opponent's. Brings back more card types (not that relevant?)

Vintrastorm The main reason we're not running Faith's Reward is because its 4 mana. Being 1 more mana makes it a lot worse as ramp, and the pros you mentioned aren't needed. Double-white mana is easier than coming a turn later, and bringing back opponents' stuff is only bad after a boardwipe or if an opponent has a sac-outlet. We'd never play Second Sunrise if it hurts us more than helps us, and even if its bringing back some of our opponents' stuff, bringing back a full board of our creatures will likely win us the game that turn.

However, I'm even skeptical of Second Sunrise costing 3-mana, which makes it quite bad as early ramp. I'm keeping it in the deck for now because its efficient board recursion with a sac-outlet, but it might be too situational. It's on my watchlist for cards I might replace with more fodder/cheap card draw in the near future, but if sunrise ends up not good enough for the deck, neither is faith's reward.

Hi Masterful,

Long-time follower, sometimes commenter.

I've been testing making my Teysa list more and less like yours. Some edits have been solid, others just haven't vibed with. What's your typical pod look like? What's the power-level (however you define it)? What's the meta?

Mine has been getting higher powered and faster, aggro and combo decks; looking through the extensive Maybeboard has been really helpful to guide my tuning.

Cheers to my fellow Teysa player, and thanks for the updates!

MilkBreath56 I play with a pretty consistent playgroup of 3-5 other people. We play at what I'd consider mid/high power level with games often ending around turn 6 or 8. Generally we won't play super fast or consistent infinite combos or stax, and control decks are quite uncommon. Like your meta, mine has been getting a lot faster and more aggressive as time goes on. To further put it into perspective, Mana Crypt, Gaea's Cradle, and Jeweled Lotus are often each seen once per game. Sometimes we'll play at 30 life to incentivize aggro and punish life-usage, and that can make Teysa harder to play, but she's still a powerhouse in my meta. Since I probably have 100 games on Teysa alone, I know her a lot better than any of my playgroup knows their decks, so she's a bit infamous. They've learned by now not to let me untap with a board full of fodder.

Glad the maybeboard is helpful as I've been wondering lately whether its good or if it clogs the page too much. I've been unable to keep up with the sheer amount of playable aristocrats cards in this format, so it's very outdated. If you're looking for more playable aristocrats cards, I recommend searching "whenever creature dies", "when ~ dies", "sacrifice", etc. on scryfall. It's a great resource for finding under-the-radar cards you wouldn't see on edhrec. Learning and utilizing scryfall's advanced search will get you very far in deckbuilding.

Always happy to have another Orzhov aristocrat. Cheers!

Thanks Masterful, that really helps me evaluate some of the recommendations.

When I first read through your list, I felt like there were too many high CMC cards, and that I wouldn't be able to get off the ground fast enough, compared to say a Lathril or Magda. (One of the guys in our pod can win on turn 2 or 3 with a perfect draw in Magda.) I personally don't care for the infinite combos or cEDH power level either; partially because it just doesn't feel "fun" and partially because I love Teysa so much and she doesn't really scale up to that power level the same way Urza, Dinah, Magda, and other cEDH staples do. We just need so many combo pieces, it's really not the same.

I love the deck because it's somewhat of a puzzle-box. How do you balance: guys who care about creatures dying, guys who we want to die, and ways to make creatures die. It's complex to balance and satisfying when it works; more-so to balance it at a power level appropriate to the pod. Going infinite with Reassembling Skeleton is OK in high power, but might not be if you're playing into a precon with $20 of upgrades. I feel like Tutors are another lever to help tune the power level as well. (I replace with draw effects like Sign in Blood to lower the power level.)

Sorry for the rambling... I'll end with one more question, based on your experience with the list: how often do you find yourself running out of/not drawing in to non-token creatures to reliably sac? This has been my most frequent challenge I'm trying to tune for. I had a game recently in which I had Bolas's, two drainers, and an Altar, but no gas for the engine.

Thanks again for your work- I owe you a pint, next time you're down to the pub!

MilkBreath56 I've been experiencing a similar problem in that the deck has too many high CMC cards that can clog our hand. Now that the format is speeding up, we can't afford to play as many big creatures with redundant effects. For example, Luminous Broodmoth and Nightmare Shepherd are probably not both needed, and neither are both Pitiless Plunderer and Sifter of Skulls. I used to prioritize the infinite combo a lot more back when the format was slower, but now, cheap fodder and card draw are king. The combo should still be accessible with our many tutors even though we'd have less redundancy. I'm working on an update to overall lower the curve of the deck, introduce more cheap fodder and card draw, and cut down on redundant 4+ CMC cards.

Despite the potential of lowering the curve, Teysa will never be as fast as the likes of Lathril, Blade of the Elves who can rely on tons of cheap mana dorks, or Magda, Brazen Outlaw who generates fast treasure from the command zone. Teysa's advantage is that she's a lot more resilient. Aristocrat boards will get a ton of value even if they're destroyed and can sometimes be brought back while elves or Magda just lose everything to a wipe. And if your Magda player is winning too consistently on early turns, their deck might be too strong for your meta.

The balance of death triggers to fodder to sacrifice is definitely a tough one. Thankfully many cards do multiple jobs. I'm glad you've been able to adjust the power level using the tutors. Another easy way to cut power would be cutting cards like Necropotence or Bolas's Citadel or fast ramp like Chrome Mox or Mana Crypt. Even cutting Skullclamp reduces power by a ton. Cards like Sign in Blood (or Marble Diamond/Charcoal Diamond for the ramp) are great replacements. If you ever need to increase power, stax cards like Opposition Agent and Dauthi Voidwalker could do a lot, but it's at the cost of making the deck more oppressive. If you ever find yourself up against precons, this list would need a lot of down-tuning, and some easy downgrades might be to remove Reassembling Skeleton, take out all the ramp, take out all the control cards, etc.

To answer your question, I agree with you that running out of fodder is probably this deck's #1 problem. It's mostly the same as our high CMC problem. We don't have enough cheap fodder, and too many of our creatures are 4+ mana. The update I'm working on should hopefully solve some of those problems. If you want to do some tuning yourself, I recommend trying different 1-2 drop creatures with useful death triggers, especially ones that create tokens.

Glad you're enjoying the deck and cheers again!