Teshar has been one of my absolute favorite commanders since Dominaria, and this deck has increasingly become a problem for all kinds of metas. It's mono white reanimator/mill which is a bizarre, off color effect that turns out to be very fun to utilize. Please excuse the rough version(s) of this primer as I learn more about formatting.
The main enabler for almost all combos in this deck is of course Teshar himself, so I will discuss everything with the idea that Teshar is in play.
How the combos work:
Teshar's ability triggers on CAST of any Saga, Legendary, or Artifact, which means that you don't care half of the time if the cast gets countered, especially with all the recursive abilities of creatures in the deck. This also can allow you to work around stax in various circumstances.
Required Pieces: Teshar, a Sac outlet, one (or two) low cost artifacts, a creature with a recursive ability.
So Step one, sac a
Glint Hawk
say to
Altar of Dementia
and have a
Memnite
in play and a
Spellbook
in hand. Step two, the hawk goes to the yard and then you cast a
Spellbook
. Step three, this cast trigger brings the hawk back which bounces the
Memnite
back to your hand. Repeat ad infinitum to mill your opponents out. The altar of dementia can be replaced with
Blasting Station
,
Ashnod's Altar
, or
Phyrexian Altar
. The
Glint Hawk
can be replaced by any of our other recursive creatures to bring any sacrificial artifact back from the yard, which changes the loop slightly but ends up with the same effect.
Other lines of note:
1.
Filigree Familiar
+
Ashnod's Altar
/
Phyrexian Altar
+
Sensei's Divining Top
= draw your deck. With whatever cards you want or need in hand you can typically find an outlet for the kill.
2.
Restoration Specialist
+
Lotus Petal
+
Aetherflux Reservoir
= gg. If the reservoir is on the field and you can loop the specialist and lotus petal it generates enough casts to kill the table.
3.
Myr Retriever
/
Workshop Assistant
/
Leonin Squire
/
Scrap Trawler
+ a sac outlet + any artifact you can sacrifice either to the outlet or of it's own accord = a loop that can be funneled into various places. If it generates mana
Staff of Domination
draws your deck,
Walking Ballista
kills the table,
Mentor of the Meek
draws the deck as well,
Aetherflux Reservoir
shoots the table dead,
Altar of Dementia
mills everyone out. Etc.
My thoughts about hyper focusing on milling as a means to a faster win are that it is just a bad, bad idea. If you are playing in any kind of competitive or tuned meta you want 100% control over what goes to your yard and when vs just blindly pitching. If your interactive pieces all end up in the yard and you can't stop someone from comboing out, what's the point of having interaction at all? EDH is a 4 player game...and there is a lot that can get in the way of a graveyard focused deck. Don't put all your cards in an easy to destroy basket! Card draw is difficult in mono white, but actually made a LOT easier via Teshar's ability. Mentor of the meek, recurring
Urza's Bauble
or
Mishra's Bauble
, and the incredible passive looting effect of
Gate to the Afterlife
(which allows you to effectively SCULPT YOUR HAND AND GRAVEYARD) during a loop all add up to a very viable way to get cards into your hand. Pitching cards you want to reanimate at a later time during your discard step is GOOD in Teshar. Keep the interaction, pitch the enablers for combos...at least some if it's safe.
Interaction:
White has some great interaction but is limited when contrasted with most of the other colors. That said, I believe that running several of the white counters and lots of the destroy/remove effects are necessary. These cards will prove their worth over and over again if you include them. It feels pretty amazing also to rock a mono white deck that has answers to blue players going off, which let's face it, will be often what you find in a competitive meta.
Anyhow, more details to come along with flushed out lines as they relate to some new cards from Modern Horizons. Enjoy Teshar and feel free to ask any questions you like. I have faced most of the common cEDH decks with this list and can talk more about matchups and common interactions that are important to work around!
UPDATE: With the addition of
Scrapyard Recombiner
and
Ranger-Captain of Eos
this deck has been sped up and new lines have emerged.
Scrapyard Recombiner
w/ Teshar in play can grab a
Memnite
, then either a
Scrap Trawler
or a
Workshop Assistant
, or if you a looking for a finisher you can get
Walking Ballista
. Similarly
Ranger-Captain of Eos
is a house. He can get all the 0 drops, a
Glint Hawk
, a
Weathered Wayfarer
, and a finisher in the form of
Walking Ballista
. Plus you can sac him either on your turn to prevent interaction or another players turn to prevent a win. He's a tutor and a
Grand Abolisher
all in one. There may be some love I have for this card.
