Masterful Thoughts on the new card Shambling Ghast?

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kirbysan It's not bad, but I don't like it as much as Doomed Traveler and the like. Making a creature is more useful than treasures or -1/-1 counters in aristocrat strategies. It's theoretically very strong if reanimated multiple times in one turn while Teysa's out to get a bunch of treasures, but that's a niche scenario.

Thank you very much for posting and maintaining this deck list!

I see so Teysa Karlov lists which, having played Teysa regularly since she came out, I question how they perform or if someone ever actually ran more than once. It's nice to see a list which actually sees play, and even gets updated regularly.

I love Teysa as a commander and am grateful to you for the work you've put into this. My deck was starting to lose it's competitiveness and I was lost as to what to do; this has helped me significantly! Major props Masterful!

MilkBreath56 Glad the primer and deck have helped out. I've been playing and updating this deck since Teysa was spoiled, and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Cheers!

First off, I'm super happy you keep this updated. Thank you. Second, how do you feel about Lolth, Spider Queen ?

ShadowUmbreon She's worse at drawing cards than Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools and Liliana, Dreadhorde General . She's also worse at making tokens than Tevesh and Elspeth, Sun's Champion . However, her emblem is pretty unique and she's hard to deal with when we have a lot of creatures out. Since we're not really trying to attack people, I don't think the emblem is insane, but it's a wincon. If the rules work for multiple emblems, Teysa is the place where they're most easily obtainable. I'd probably play Tevesh before her, but she's competitive for the 3rd planeswalker slot. If you're a D&D fan or otherwise think she's cooler than Tevesh or Liliana, I'd go ahead and play her. She'll never be bad in any aristocrats deck.

Masterful I'm thinking of adding in Guardian of Faith since it can get around annoying board wipes. What would you take out for it?

kirbysan You could take out Brought Back since it's a similar effect we might hold up at instant speed, but it's much worse against wipes. Blight Mound is also a decent option to replace since it's just redundancy.

Hey Masterful, love the build! I have a card I keep thinking about I'm curious what you think. How do you think Carnival of Souls in Teysa? If it's a good fit what would you cut?

Brightwrath Carnival seems powerful when combined with Reassembling Skeleton or Nether Traitor . It acts as another Pitiless Plunderer type affect. Otherwise, it can help turbo out more creatures. I must've overlooked it since it isn't a death trigger. For what to swap out, I'd probably go with Stoneforge Mystic , Blight Mound , Spawning Pit or some other redundant effect in the deck. I'm not 100% sure yet, but I might add it in an update sometime soon. After all, it has a ton of combo power.

Masterful, ran 2 games yesterday and had a blast but I noticed one thing that could be troublesome. The deck is leaning more heavily on Skullclamp as our secret commander but we don't really have a way to recur it if it gets destroyed. If we have Second Sunrise or Brought Back with mana open that's great but if not we're kinda SOL. Do you usually hold Skullclamp till you can get more value out of it late game or do you just play it through if it gets destroyed?

Masterful

I wonder how effective Blight Mound is on the BF. Do you already have some experiences with it?

kirbysan Don't play clamp if you can't get immediate value out of it. The best times to play it are when you're running out of steam early, or to draw a ton of cards late. If you're just playing it to draw 2 cards when we could've done something else, it's usually too risky. Wait until you have a bunch of creatures and mana open or if you have nothing else. I don't think the deck completely relies on it though. We have a ton of other draw engines. I'm also not sure we could include any artifact recursion that has synergy with the rest of our deck.

Housegheist As a 3 mana creature doubler, blight mound is pretty strong. It's also an infinite combo payoff if you don't have a drainer out. While it's not as good as Pawn of Ulamog , a bad pawn is still a great card for Teysa. I've found it strong with a strong board state and weak when behind, like any creature doubler. However, it has the added benefit of being an enchantment, making it harder for our opponents to interact with.

What about the new Abiding Grace ? We have 5 creatures that cost 1 mana in the deck that we could get back each turn.

Masterful, did you review Inkshield? Leaving 5 mana open seems like a lot but could provide us with a lot of tokens to sac if someone tries to hit us for lethal.

Eloniel We have 6 actually (you may have missed Nested Shambler), but I still don't find 6 to be enough to justify running such a slow engine. I ran the odds in a calculator, and there's a 60% chance we'll have a 1-drop by turn 6. Since Abiding Grace is useless otherwise, it'd be a dead card too often to run with this few 1-drops. Even though it'd be active 60% of the time, its payoff isn't great enough to warrant that risk. I could see it and Lurrus of the Dream-Den in a different build with probably 8+ one drops. If you want to play it in this build, it wouldn't be horrible. It's just too risky a card for me to personally include it in the decklist.

kirbysan Unfortunately, Inkshield is too expensive and situational. Leaving up 5 mana for a card at instant speed will slow down our gameplan. Most of the deck is focused on developing creatures and piecing together engines at sorcery speed. Leaving up such a massive situational spell will hurt our ability to develop and won't necessarily pay off. That being said, it's a very fun card. I could see it in a build with more fun instant-speed tools like Orim's Chant, Mana Tithe, Withering Boon, etc. That way, it wouldn't feel as bad to leave up mana since we'd likely be able to cast at least some of our stuff if inkshield goes to waste. If you think Inkshield would be a fun inclusion, don't be afraid to play it yourself. "Gotcha!" cards can be some of the best moments in EDH.

Any thoughts on Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools or Lolth, Spider Queen Interesting thing with latter is, that with the death-trigger-doubler you could ultimate her the turn she comes out.

But i would disagree with your thoughts on Ink-Shield. I mean, 5 mana isn’t pretty cheap but can’t count how often it helped me through dangerous situations or even was part to prepare the final blow. The thing is, for each one dmg you prevented, you create a 2 power flier… you can attack with them to deal lethal dmg or clamp ‘em or so. I count it as a very powerful tool.

Maybe you can give me your thoughts on my Teysa-rebuild. I tried to make it more streamlined.

BR Housegheist

Death and wine [Rebuild]

Commander / EDH* Housegheist

SCORE: 11 | 10 COMMENTS | 887 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS

Ah, before i forgot:

Why aren’t you using Lurrus of the Dream-Den as a constant recursion piece? If i counted right, you have about 14 potential creature- and 8 non-creature-targets. And it works so well, if you are using Wayfarer's Bauble ;)

Could be worth it, couldn’t it?

I just checked in after a long absence and thank you so much maintaining the decklist! I'm going to go through your list tonight and see what you've updated, thank you!!!

Housegheist Tevesh is slow but strong once he sticks for a couple turns. All of his abilities are great for aristocrats, but it's hard to fit 5 mana planeswalkers that accrue value slowly in the deck. It's a similar story for Lolth, but I value her a bit less. She draws less cards, and her ultimate is a lot worse despite potentially coming out faster. Dealing a bit more combat damage doesn't have much synergy with the deck's main gameplan. I find Lurrus to be a bit slow and grindy but is otherwise a good card. As a value engine, she feels like a slightly worse Ophiomancer. Her greatest strength is in bringing back key combo pieces which is legitimately good, but I don't know how much we need that effect compared to our other cards. Her and Tevesh are on my short-list for cards I could see including in a future update, but I'll have to test them more first. I'll take a look at your decklist as well.

delendaest Cheers! I'm always trying to keep it updated. The new Innistrad sets should give us some goodies soon, so we can look forward to that.

Thanks for yours answers.

I grabbed an Urza's Saga from a pack, i'm willing to add it to my Teysa deck, but i fear the situation where i would already have my sol ring and my skullclamp in play/hand/graveyard, i would feel safer with a 3rd target but i can't afford a mana crypt or vault, any suggestions ?

I was thinking about Glaring Spotlight as an hexproof hate and a boardwipe protection & potential win condition.

Eloniel Chances are, if you already have/had Sol Ring and Skullclamp, you're pretty far ahead or its late in the game. Either way, losing Urza's Saga in two turns without anything to tutor probably won't matter. Playing it for the opportunities to tutor clamp or sol ring when you don't have them is more than worth the downside of it dying without tutoring anything lategame. Playing something like Glaring Spotlight could dilute the consistency of the deck since it seems very niche. I could see running it if your playgroup relies on Hexproof a ton, but normally, I'd play Saga with only the two tutor targets. I'd even play it without sol ring, that's how powerful tutoring clamp is from a land slot.

Have you considered using Damn over Toxic Deluge? The Deluge would hit your small creatures anyway and Damn seems more flexible and less Life-intensive.

Lolth, Spider Queen's ultimate could be used as a backup plan. But i agree, that it would not fit the first intention of the gameplan.

What i like about Lurrus of the Dream-Den is, that it can bring your permanents back to the BF. Lost a Skullclamp, Sol Ring oder Wayfarer's Bauble? Just recur it. Same is true for your Creatures with death-trigger. I think it's hard to compare it with Ophiomancer. In raw creature-creation the Ophiomancer is way ahead, in flexibility it's not. But if i had an an Ophiomancer i would use it either way :)

Housegheist Sorry for the late response as college just started up for me. Usually the life loss from deluge isn't as big a deal as the extra mana from Damn would be. When we're talking about having to wipe the board, we're going to need all the mana we can get on that same turn to rebuild. It's a similar philosophy for why Wrath of God is better than Fumigate. Usually 1 mana is a lot more impactful than life on a boardwipe, especially since we're in a 40 life format with a deck that has many ways to gain life. My meta even plays at 30 life every game, and I find deluge irreplaceable by any other board wipe. Life is a resource. Never be afraid to spend it aggressively for strong advantages like cards and mana. If you want a fourth wipe for creature-heavy metas though, Damn is probably the next best one.

Yeah Lurrus is never a bad card for any aristocrat deck. She's just slow and grindy in a deck that's already good at slow and grindy games. I don't think I could replace any current cards with her, but she's in the shortlist for cards that almost have a slot.

Masterful Thoughts on the new card Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia spoiled in Innistrad? We could play it a turn faster than Ophiomancer but won't be able to use the token until next turn. Also, since Ophiomancer got spoiled in the new Commander Collection: Black I have a new place in my heart for it.