I've asked about it before, it'd be a fun play depending on the group but 5 mana is a lot to hold up for a chance that it'll work. The deck is more about developing a board state and chaining off than reactionary pieces.

Housegheist It's interesting you bring up artifact/land recursion as I actually didn't realize it did that. This makes it a fine value/grindy piece, but I still feel its too slow for its mana cost. At 4-6 mana, we have huge bombs that accelerate us ahead like Bolas's Citadel, Living Death, or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. The turn Spirit-Sister's Call comes down, it's often going bring back one cheap creature, since that's what we're likely to have in the yard by turn 4-6. We also need to sac a creature which isn't difficult but another stipulation we have to keep in mind. In some specific circumstances we could get back other permanents like fetchlands or Bastion of Remembrance, but we already have a lot of redundancy for those pieces, so we don't rely on needing to recur them. Once we have 5 or more mana to play a card like SSC, we don't need ramp or slow recursion as much as we want to be turbo-ing out a win. There's also a huge problem with its exile clause. If we bring back a creature with a death trigger, which is what our deck wants to bring back most, then it'll exile instead of dying, denying us any triggers.

Eloniel In more reactive decks, I can see Inkshield as a nice "gotcha," but we're looking to spend all of our mana on our turn to develop creatures. We don't play enough instants to give us alternatives if we hold up mana for casting inkshield but don't. Teferi's Protection already acts as a great fog and has more versatility, stopping boardwipes, non-combat damage, etc. for 2-less mana. Even though we'd get a huge board of tokens, that's a pretty narrow situation for a card that's dead in our hand most of the time.

How are you doing with the current build?

I’m running the deck in a pod of $50 upgradeded precons and I get wrecked every time.

I played 8 turns yesterday and never even created a token before dying.

I’m really curious to know what kind of decks are you playing against when you win?

Hmm what about Priest of the Blessed Graf ?

Hey Masterful Have you ever considered including Altar of Dementia and Bloodsoaked Champion for additional combo pieces?

For example: Altar of Dementia, Pitless Plunderer, Champion or Reassembling Skeleton.

Cormix76 The current version runs really well for me. Not sure why you're having this problem, but here are my guesses:

• The deck is fairly hard to play. You'll have to manage multiple triggers, stack your sacrifices, sacrifice in response to things, etc. It can take a while to pilot effectively, and even I don't play it at 100%.
• Traditionally precons are pretty underpowered, but sometimes they can be strong. For ~$50, you can include a lot of powerful combo pieces, and several precon commanders are incredibly strong.

Just because they're playing upgraded precons doesn't mean you're at the same power level as them, and they might have more experience with their decks than you do with this one.

Eloniel On average, Priest of the Blessed Graf seems worse than our other token makers. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and Ophiomancer both make 3+ tokens every round. If you can get 2+ tokens every round with it, it might be worth it. So maybe in heavy green metas, but otherwise I like our current token makers.

Foster_I_Am We have enough tutors and card draw to make our combo consistent. More combo pieces like these are fine when we're comboing off, but they lower our deck's grindiness and value when we draw them by themselves. Our focus with most of the deck is to assemble a value-engine to draw into a combo or drain them out.

Hey Masterful QQ - You mentioned Ophiomancer can make 3+ tokens every round. That only works if you have a sac outlet or way to kill the Snake token before your turn ends correct? Otherwise, Ophiomancer's ability won't resolve when your opponent's turn starts (i.e. their upkeep).

I often find myself usually only making one Snake token, as it's not that common actually to have a sac outlet on the board in this deck - which is why I'm definitely keeping Spawning Pit in. However, a death touch token is awesome - and if it's killed I can just make another one on my opponent's next upkeep. Either way, great card!

Foster_I_Am We can pretty consistently have a sac outlet. With Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Phyrexian Altar, and Ashnod's Altar, we have 5 repeatable sac outlets. We have 6 tutors that can fetch these as well, bringing our sources for repeatable sac up to 11. In addition to our many non-repeatable outlets like Phyrexian Tower or Village Rites, I find I usually have adequate outlet sources for sacking an Ophiomancer snake every turn.

As one who enjoys piloting Teysa Karlov, I love your list.

Forgive me if this has been brought up already...but since Reassembling Skeleton is such an important card in your list, have you ever considered Bloodsoaked Champion? He's kind of a better skellie, only with (IMO) a minor condition to be met in attaining "Raid."

Nic44 I can see playing either. Personally, I enjoy bringing skeleton back on my opponents' turns to use mana more efficiently. Having to attack to bring back champion can also be not-ideal since even losing one fodder to combat could cost us death triggers at some point. However, I see the utility of being 1-less mana for combo turns, so it's a solid alternative that's up to personal preference.

Masterful, full set of Streets of New Capenna released today. Did you see anything you liked? Tenacious Underdog is kind of interesting but no better than Reassembling Skeleton. You have to pay 4, 2 life but you get to draw off the death trigger. I also wish the casualty mechanic was on something stronger.

Masterful, the commander set has some possibly good cards:

Body Count could be real useful for drawing a lot of cards if we're running out of steam on a combo turn. Since the spectacle conditions shouldn't be hard if we have an aristocrat out, then it could be draw 5+ cards for only 1 mana.

Life Insurance is the only orzhov card this set. It's 1CMC more than Smothering Tithe, only works off non-token creatures but doubles off Teysa Karlov, gives you the extort mechanic for extra mana payoff and potentially provides more Treasure tokens. I think Smothering Tithe is still stronger since you can drop it early and accrue the treasures as turns progress. Life Insurance requires you to have bodies and a sac outlet.

Masterful

Thank you for your response. My group has really come to enjoy playing a fun and challenging Commander variant called "2DH" which limits cards in one's deck to not exceed $2.00 concerning TCGPlayer "listed median" price (with Commanders having a cap of $5.00 by the same rule) so I may add Bloodsoaked Champion to my list just for the added redundancy since lack of viable tutors is a thing in this format. Being able to reanimate Reassembling Skeleton at instant speed on opponent's turns is a huge plus for skellie, though...and in my "regular Edh" Teysa deck I only play it and not Champion.

kirbysan I hadn't considered Tenacious Underdog until you pointed it out, but he seems like a strong grindy card. The fact that you can just keep bringing him back to draw 2 cards apiece with Teysa and get continuous fodder seems good. The only problem is that 4 mana every time is a lot. I'm not confident enough to include him off the bat, but I'll keep my eye on him.

Body Count feels a bit win-more. It's not as strong as our other draw outlets that only require one sacrifice or also count as fodder. If we're getting a million death triggers in one turn, we're probably winning anyway.

Life Insurance feels worse than either Smothering Tithe or Black Market, and we're playing neither of those. I don't see room for these 4+ mana slow ramp spells. They're nice in grindy games, but we'd rather be developing cheap fodder in early turns and hopefully ending in mid-late game.

Thanks for your suggestions! I should hopefully have time to do the New Capenna deck update sometime soon, so stay tuned for that!

Nic44 Oh that's an interesting format idea! I love budget alternatives since the more accessible the game is, the better. I can see wanting Bloodsoaked Champion in the circumstances you mentioned. Good luck and have fun!

Masterful

Here is the link to the "2DH" version of my Teysa Karlov Aristocrats deck.

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/gCM35s9q0US9Gim-1EKP4A

I do move cards around quite often due to my nitpicky nature along with the price limitation rule...but the core cards/concept remain intact.

The power level in my group creeped up so high that it became stagnant...so we decided to give this Commander variant a shot. We absolutely love it...it makes the experience feel like Edh used to feel like because of the limitations on usable cards. This allows, or rather forces, a deck builder's dream come true because of, again, the limitations make you get real creative with what you're aiming to accomplish with a given deck. The ONLY real hang-up of this format is keeping up with the ban list...but it's not as bad as one may think.

Hey Masterful, Hope all is well! Just was wondering if you saw anything interesting or worth including in your deck with the new Capenna release?

Additionally, have you ever considered running any of the following cards:

Hidden Stockpile - Feel like it's a great card with only 2 CMC and can possibly generate a decent amount of tokens. Not to mention it can also be used as a sac outlet (though it does cost 1 colorless mana).

Tithe Taker - Can possibly slow down your opponents and can create tokens when it dies.

Bennie Bracks, Zoologist - Can be easy to cast by tapping tokens and then can also draw cards from the tokens we sac. Might be interesting to test.

Not sure if you've tried any of those but they caught my eye recently. Just wanted to hear your thoughts first :)

Thanks! -Cory

Newly spoiled Black Market Connections could be good if we don't mind the life loss. 3CMC enchantment. 1 Treasure for 1 life. Draw a card for 2 life. 3/2 Shapeshifter token for 3 life. And we can do all 3 per precombat main phase. Seems like pure gas and having only 1 black instead of 3 like Necropotence means an early turn 3 play would be possible.

Foster_I_Am Just released the update, sorry for the lateness! I got caught up in school and work.

• Hidden Stockpile is slow for token generation, but it does a good impression of Bitterblossom. As a sac outlet, it's inefficient since you have to pay mana. The real strength of the card is that it does both. Personally, I like my token-makers as death-triggers, and my sac-outlets as cheap creatures or artifacts that grant me mana. It's not a bad card though, so play it if you like it!
• Tithe Taker: I'm more a fan of the mana utility provided by Carrier Thrall than the Grand Abolisher-lite effect from taker. If you find your playgroup constantly disrupting you on your turn, it could be worth it.
• Bennie Bracks, Zoologist: He's great at 1-mana, but I think our current draw suite is stronger with a higher ceiling than 1-card per turn. And while we have token makers in the deck, we're not all in on a token strategy, so other decks have more to gain from his effect than we do.

Let me know what you think of the update and thanks for the suggestions!

kirbysan Black Market Connections is a super interesting card. It's definitely better than Phyrexian Arena which is its closest comparison at the moment. The versatility is strong since we can generate fodder, mana, or cards whenever we're lacking them. Making all 3 is a crazy strong option that can pull us ahead in the early game for 6-life per turn, which isn't the most when we have lots of lifegain potential in the deck. I'm pretty enthusiastic about this card right now, but I'm gonna sit on it for a bit until my next update when the full Baldur's Gate commander lists are released. Thanks for the suggestion!

Maybe you‘re missing the Point that bennie bracks triggers not on your endstep but each endstep. This can be 4 cards a turn… pretty solid to me ^^

Also deep gnome terramancer just got spoiled and may help you ramp in a different/faster way with all the fetchlands and green ramp in the same way you like Smuggler's Share. It’s more fetchable, sackable late game and the ramp is better since you pull lands instead of making treasures. Might want to swap another plains ramp for this one.

Housegheist Maybe Bennie is better than I'm giving him credit for, but even though he can trigger on our opponents' turns, he has a few downsides compared to our other draw engines. To trigger him on our opponents' turns, we need to have one of our 12 creatures that die and make tokens, Ophiomancer, or Urza's Saga. That means we have 14 ways to trigger him multiple times per round as long as we have a sac outlet. That's not bad, but in comparison, Grim Haruspex and Midnight Reaper have 31 ways to trigger since they count all of our creatures. I'd say its worth it if we can consistently play him for one mana early, but I don't know how often we can do that without testing him more first. That being said, I'll move him higher into my "considering" list in my head and update you when the full Baldur's Gate commander sets come out. A one mana creature that draws cards half as often as Grim Haruspex is quite good, but how often is he one mana? If you have any testing with him let me know.

kirbysan Deep Gnome Terramancer is insane. The fact that it gets dual lands, can trigger multiple times per round, doesn't care if our opponents have less lands than us, and HAS FLASH will make it a definite include. I'm not sure if I should cut Knight of the White Orchid for costing double white, Loyal Warhound for only getting basic plains tapped, Land Tax for being a non-creature utility card, or a fodder piece to have more ramp. I'm leaning towards Warhound or Land Tax since having more "only if the opponent has more lands" ramp technically has anti-synergy with this dude. With this dude and Black Market Connections, I'm super excited for what the rest of this set has to offer!

Masterful, I think Bennie Bracks, Zoologist could be very useful if you have Smothering Tithe or Smuggler's Share out, since he says token, not just creature token. It might cover the gaps if we don't want to sacrifice a creature for a token that turn and I've run away with Smothering Tithe many a time before.

Masterful, also the way convoke works, it doesn't just reduce the colorless. You could play him for free by tapping 4 creatures including a white one.

That are the reasons Bennie Bracks is just insane af^^

Masterful, what about Lethal Scheme ?

Can destroy creature or planeswalker with convoke... And in this deck, you can have a lot of tokens, so you can easily destroy something for free... And the bonus : connives.

Destroy something for 0 and draw 4 card. Not bad (ok ok... then discard 4 cards...) but it is more than ok I guess.