Ever thought about Oketra's Monument or Bontu's Monument?

Housegheist Oketra's Monument and Bontu's Monument provide semi-useful value on top of a not-very-consistent cost-reducer. Oketra's only reduces 9 of our creatures' mana costs, as we only have ~15 white creatures, and quite a few of them have only colored mana in their mana costs. That means it's mostly just a token-maker when we cast creatures, which isn't a super efficient way of making fodder. I much prefer fodder that's self-sufficient and can build us a board from nothing. Bontu's reduces the cost of more creatures, but it's non-death trigger drain isn't super useful since we're not looking to cast a ton of creatures. We'd much rather have our creatures die and bring them back.

Consistent ramp that can always tap for mana tends to be better for our strategy, especially since we can play it earlier than turn 3. Furthermore, cards like Knight of the White Orchid and Loyal Warhound provide valuable self-sufficient fodder in addition to mostly consistent ramp.

A new Kamigawa card got leaked yesterday on Reddit and it seems an absolute blast for Teysa. What do you think?

esperdeathblade I'd say Junji is a similar power level to Archon of Justice. They both have strong effects that get even better when Teysa can double them, but 5 mana is a steep price to pay. It's almost certainly less impactful than most of our 4-drops, like Luminous Broodmoth that doubles all of our creatures or Elenda, the Dusk Rose who spirals out of control. But let's evaluate his ability individually.

Reanimating a single creature from any player's graveyard is decent, but for 5 mana, it's a poor rate. We can reanimate a creature for 1-2 mana with Animate Dead or Reanimate, and we don't play either currently. Since Junji can reanimate two creatures with Teysa out, it gets a bit better, but Victimize can do the same for 2-less mana.

Junji's other ability, forcing each opponent to discard two cards is comparatively more powerful. With Teysa out, we discard 4 cards, sometimes putting multiple players into topdeck mode. However, the power of this effect is very situational. Many decks have permanent-based card draw engines which will already be out by the time we resolve this 5-drop, and some decks don't care about losing their hands or will even thank us.

There's something to be said about Junji's versatility, since you can choose differently based on the situation, and you're even allowed to choose one of each with Teysa. Overall though, it's a bit too slow and low-impact for this current build. In a slower, grindier meta with more control decks, I can see the discard with reanimation options being quite valuable. And definitely play him if you think he's fun!

What do you think about will the wise?

halestor91 Will the Wise is interesting. I've mostly glossed over the Stranger Things cards since their art and flavor are so strange when compared to most magic cards. When looking closer, he seems like a politics-focused card and doesn't have much power outside of that. In a 40 life game of EDH, it's safe to assume opponents who play optimally will never let you get more than one clue each trigger since 2-3 life total isn't much to pay. In that case, getting 2 (or 3 with Teysa) clues isn't super amazing. Our deck doesn't have any synergies with clues outside of cracking them to draw cards which is not a great rate for 2 mana per card. Additionally, since we don't have much to gain from a ton of clues, an opponent who does (such as an artifact-synergy deck) could take the clue with a lot more upside than us. However, if you like the political aspect of the card, really enjoy Stranger Things, or otherwise think it's cool, go ahead and include it.

Masterful, I ran about 8 1v1 games this past weekend with some of the card swaps you recommended while the rest were on the way. I think pulling 3 basic plains from the deck may be too much. We only have 5 Plains sources to fetch and with Archaeomancer's Map, Knight of the White Orchid, Loyal Warhound, Arid Mesa, Flooded Strand, Windswept Heath that can only fetch plains, we would need 7 Plains sources to grab. Some games it wouldn't matter but I found myself with no lands to fetch in one pretty early on, so my fetches were dead in the water. Also not a big fan of Exotic Orchard since I don't find myself needing other colors. We don't have a way to recur other player's cards now and if they don't play black or white it's pretty bad for us. My thoughts are either we need to cut down more on the Plains fetch to introduce more synergy or rebalance the mana base. Out of our current fetches I found Archaeomancer's Map to be the most disappointing, probably because I didn't play against green. What would you swap out for artifact & enchantment removal like Return to Dust if you're going up against light stax?

kirbysan If you prefer, going for 4-plains and 5-swamps or the reverse would be fine. Personally, I'm hesitant to go for more plains than swamps because of how it can ruin an early Necropotence and how many more black cards we play. I haven't yet ran out of basic plains to fetch for and it be a big problem, but theoretically, it could be bad, so I'll probably cut a swamp for a plains myself. The thing is, in the late game, we're not focused on ramping, and making our land drops despite off-color white fetches should be doable because of how much card draw we have. At the point where we've drawn and/or played every plains from our deck, we should be good on mana.

Exotic Orchard definitely seems bad in 1v1 since you only have one opponent, so I wouldn't play it there. Orchard is meant to be a good land in multiplayer free for all which is the most common way to play EDH. At the very worst, it's just a basic land, but at it's best, which is most of the time in multiplayer, it's an untapped dual. It doesn't have to do with casting opponents' spells. Archaeomancer's Map is another example of a card that's meant for multiplayer. In multiplayer, green and ramp strategies are incredibly popular, so it's meant as a catch-up ramp spell that also fixes our land drops for the next couple turns.

For anti-stax, I don't recommend Return to Dust since it's 4 mana. Against those strategies, you're less likely to have access to large amounts of mana, so low mana artifact/enchantment removal like Disenchant and Fragmentize would do a lot better. Even cards like Cathar Commando could do work since they work well with the aristocrat strategy of the deck. For cards to swap out, you could take out redundant pieces like The Meathook Massacre, Shambling Ghast, and Deadly Dispute. Just don't go all in on cutting cards from a single package, like every tutor, every 1-drop fodder piece, etc.

Masterful, I suppose my situation is more specific since my pod runs a Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain Storm & a Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow. No green, plenty of control. I'm going to keep a sideboard for these guys, and normie pods who run green. I've already sideboarded Archaeomancer's Map for Chrome Mox and Blight Mound for Opposition Agent. I'm typically running up against pieces like Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, Null Rod, Cursed Totem, Grafdigger's Cage which I think we can get around by running a bit more removal. Thinking of swapping out Knight of the White Orchid & Loyal Warhound for more rocks but that'll drop our creature count. Also, while I loved Razaketh, the Foulblooded before, it's really difficult getting him out through hardcasting. I had him twice in hand and would've much rather had a cheaper sac outlet, ramp or fodder. Last night I lost to Thassa's Oracle, Demonic Consultation 3x which can be pretty infuriating once you've built up a board state and have no answers. I'm thinking Grand Abolisher to protect our pieces when we're going to combo off. Hushbringer since we don't have many etb effects and she's fetchable. Angel's Grace similar to our Teferi's Protection so we don't insta lose. I don't want to run too many off flavor hate pieces but it seems like they are towards me, thoughts?

Never mind about hushbringer. Didn’t read it fully. But Torpor Orb would work.

kirbysan It sounds like your meta is a bit more competitive, not to mention 1v1 being a somewhat different format, than this deck is geared for. If you're committed to playing Teysa and want to power up the deck, I recommend utilizing the Competitive EDH Database. Here, you'll get a good picture of how to make the deck faster and more resilient to combo and stax. While there's only one orzhov deck listed, it's actually quite useful for comparison. Grand Abolisher, Angel's Grace, Opposition Agent, and Torpor Orb are all good inclusions, especially if you're playing against decks they'd be strong against. Furthermore, consider Silence, Damping Sphere, Drannith Magistrate, Dauthi Voidwalker, Deafening Silence, Ethersworn Canonist, and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben depending on what you need. For cuts, redundant things, high CMC, or whatever you've found yourself not wanting should be good.

Thanks for the quick response and suggestions! I'll pick them up and report back my findings.

Masterful, full set of Neo Kamigawa has released. Anything interesting in there? I didn't spot anything myself personally.

kirbysan Just released the update. Not much is new, just the addition of Takenuma, Abandoned Mire instead of a swamp. Aristocrats don't seem to be a focus of this set. It's more artifact, enchantment, and combat themed which is sad for Teysa but cool for many other EDH archetypes.

No thoughts on Spirit-Sister's Call?

Housegheist 5CMC - too expensive, only works at end of turn so can't combo off on your turn, only works once at EOT so not explosive, you'd probably be saccing a creature to recur another creature but since our CMC has been lowered there's probably less powerful targets, finally whatever you get back once sacced gets exiled. Living Death is far better in our 5CMC slot and for 1 more you can bring back everything from your graveyard with Storm of Souls which we recently cut.

Hey Masterful Thanks for the updates!

Question, have you considered adding in any of these rocks or ramp: Dark Ritual, Mox Diamond, Mana Vault, Mind Stone, Commander's Sphere, Chromatic Lantern?

I don't personally own a Mox Diamond but thought about getting one soon haha. But was just curious if there were any other mana rocks or ramp you were thinking about adding. Again, thanks for all your hard work with keeping the list updated and providing us with feedback. :)

Sorry - I also forgot to ask about Jeweled Lotus? This card would be great to help get Teysa out once we have our engine assembled - but would love to know your thoughts.

Foster_I_Am I think Dark Ritual, Mana Vault, Jeweled Lotus fall into a one-off explosive category which may be useful if you're going to combo off and win that turn. However, early game they're not as strong as the incremental ramp we get from other mana rocks. I don't think Mind Stone and Commander's Sphere are good enough as it's 2CMC for colorless and 3 for color. Chromatic Lantern is useful for color fixing but when running 2 colors I don't see it as a big issue unless you're trying to get Necropotence out early but even then I don't have that issue. I like Mox Diamond except for the price tag and early game you sometimes need that land, but 0 cost mana rocks are my jam. I'm personally going to experiment with Chrome Mox and Mox Opal, possibly Mox Amber. They all have their specific drawbacks but we have cheap stuff to pitch to Chrome Mox, if you're running more artifact ramp then Mox Opal conditions will be easier to hit. Mox Amber will likely be the most difficult to get off regularly as we have so few legendaries.

Housegheist Spirit-Sister's Call is too slow unfortunately. At 5-mana with a sac-stipulation, only getting one creature back per turn isn't great. It also requires we already have creatures in the yard. It might be fine in grindy metas, but it's not fast enough for our current gameplan.

Foster_I_Am I'd say Dark Ritual, Mox Diamond, and Mind Stone are the best of these acceleration cards. They can help you out if your meta is very fast and you find yourself needing even more early ramp. The reason I don't play rituals and Mana Vault is because they have an opportunity cost of denying us card advantage when games get grindier, which they more often can in casual metas. Commander's Sphere and Chromatic Lantern are too slow at 3 mana, and Jeweled Lotus finds less value in our deck since Teysa is not a great early/accelerated play. It's also a dead draw if we already have Teysa out. Mox Diamond however, if you can afford it, is probably worth it. I don't play it here since it's very expensive and won't improve the deck's power by very much, but if you want to buy one/already have one, it's correct to play it.

kirbysan I agree with most everything you said. Chrome Mox is a great card that I've had in at various times. My desire to play it and Mox Diamond goes up or down depending on how fast/grindy my meta is at any given time. I might put it/them in again soon. I don't think we have enough artifacts for Mox Opal to be good. If we played more cheap stax pieces and other 0-mana artifacts, opal would fit, but right now it seems too situational. Mox Amber seems even more situational as we don't play very mana legendary creatures, especially not cheap ones. Not being able to play it until after we spend 4 mana on Teysa kinda defeats the purpose of being a fast and free mana rock.

Masterful I’m not sure if your missing the options which Spirit-Sister's Call offer. It’s not just creatures. You could sac a land to get your fetch back… or a treasure for artifact recursion… or a no more needed Land Tax to get back Meathook Massacre or Bastion of Remembrance I know, you’re avoiding 5cmc and up more than the devil holy water, but you may miss a extremely versatile piece over here. ;o)

Lurrus of the Dream-Den is better. It's cheaper, it's a creature, you don't have to wait till EOT, and it's fetchable with Recruiter of the Guard. And it never made it into the deck. A lot of the deck will be based on your playgroup and how competitive/fast/grindy/staxy it is with your redundant pieces swapped out for group specific pieces. So you're welcome to try it out but I'd recommend Lurrus first and see how it plays.

Lurrus is cheaper but only functions on 2cmc and less, could not reanimate your Bastion of Remembrance f.e. or can get your fetch back to have another mana open.

If your goal is to get more out of ramp then 2cmc is sufficient. At 5+cmc you’re looking for bombs that do something when it hits the table like Living Death or Bolas's Citadel. If your table is giving you enough time to recur everything with a 5cmc once a turn and not removing it or simply winning faster than you can recur then you either had a really weird draw or aren’t tutoring your pieces correctly honestly. I’m finding games will not go past turns 6-7 unless the whole table is playing tons of removal. If that’s the case then this card won’t stick.

Hi, i come back to suggest Inkshield, it might worth it to comeback into a game after a boardwipe/asymmetrical boardwipe.