The Returners *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH Casual Midrange WB (Orzhov)

NV_1980

Creature (34)

• 1x Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
• 1x Archangel of Thune
• 1x Athreos, God of Passage
• 1x Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Celestine, the Living Saint
• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Drivnod, Carnage Dominus
• 1x Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
• 1x Elenda, the Dusk Rose
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Hallowed Spiritkeeper
• 1x Hell's Caretaker
• 1x Hunted Witness
• 1x Imperious Oligarch
• 1x Kambal, Profiteering Mayor
• 1x Liesa, Forgotten Archangel
• 1x Luminous Broodmoth
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Mirkwood Bats
• 1x Mondrak, Glory Dominus
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1x Requiem Angel
• 1x Royal Assassin
• 1x Skirsdag High Priest
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Teysa, Opulent Oligarch
• 1x Thalisse, Reverent Medium
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x High Market
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 7x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 6x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip
• 1x Windswept Heath

Artifact (7)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Commander (1)

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Attrition
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Grave Betrayal
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Smothering Tithe

Instant (9)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fracture
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Vanishing Verse

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Toxic Deluge

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Welcome to The Returners {W}{B}!

Hi there! Welcome to the primer of this Orzhov, resurrection(-token), LTB-deck; commanded by Teysa Karlov. Sit down, please. Let’s explain what you’re up against, gently though simultaneously sternly. Of all the humans that inhabit the multi-verse, few have been as influential a force as Teysa. Her fame spread far due to her exploits in thwarting the Izzet magelord Zomaj Huac from taking over Ravnica. Then, for her assistance in returning the great Boros Angel home of Parhelion to its proper place. Though her attempts at ousting the corrupt Obzedat from their ruling position over Ravnica failed at first, she bade her time and eventually became its matriarch, as well as the Orzhov guild leader. Since that time, her cleverness, knowledge on governing, diplomatic savvy and espionage skills have allowed her to turn Ravnica into a stable, thriving plane that has grown more powerful than ever. Her force of skilled warriors is unparalleled, and its support of ancient, ghost champions too terrifying to contemplate. The living she loses, become part of an ever-growing army of undead spirits bound to her will. Now here you stand, … on her doorstep. With a force that by her standards can only be described as ‘marginally entertaining’. Think carefully before moving against Ravnica … not even the Phyrexians stood a chance against the powerhouse she has assembled. Take note of your friends. Whoever falls against Teysa, will find themselves becoming her unwilling ghost-allies and thus your deadly adversaries. Remember that well, before displaying any forms of hostility against her! This deck is meant to be played casually. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course anyone is welcome to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this primer; hope you will enjoy it!

Why Teysa?

Because she takes all the most significant strengths of the Orzhov guild and enhances them. Let’s face it, white-black is just exceptional when it comes to making things happen when its stuff dies; token generation, life-gaining, revenge-killing. Aside from enabling the doubling up on those benefits, she turns vanilla creature tokens into insanely scary creature tokens. As a combatant she’s not overly powerful but that’s ok, she is meant for a higher purpose anyway (making the deck’s army scary). In terms of casting cost, Teysa is mid-range; she’s usually able to appear before mid-game begins but one needs to be a little careful in not getting her killed too often, as recasting her then becomes a bit of a drag.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The following parameters determine the strength of the deck. For each, a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad) is allocated; when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck.

• Mana: indicates the availability of mana sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Interaction: indicates how much this deck can mess with opponents’ board states and turn-phases.
• Resilience: indicates the measure in which the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 3

Fortunately, the average CMC of this deck is low enough that it doesn’t require all that many mana-sources to make it effective at what it does. Therefore decided to keep said resources at a relatively low level. The deck features four rocks, two treasure-generating permanents and an instant-mana spell. There’s also three ways to sacrifice creatures for mana.

Ramp: 1

Mono-white is actually quite good at this, but unfortunately it doesn’t yield much opportunity to fetch swamps. Same for Orzhov, it’s not exactly its strong-suit. The good news is that white has in its spell-arsenal one of the best ramping cards ever created for MTG.

Card Advantage: 5

Aside from decks featuring blue, no color combinations are better at CA than Orzhov; especially when it comes to providing draw triggers. In total, the deck holds six draw-options fueled by deaths of other creatures; half of which work through my own sacrifices. Aside from that there’s also two more regular draw options, a draw-steal card and two strong tutors.

Overall speed: 4

As this deck features a lot a low-cost spells, including many permanents, it’s relatively easy to kick it into gear; especially when combined with its excellent CA-abilities. This advantage comes at a price, for very few of its spells and permanents are powerful off their own accord. True strength is achieved when combining the individual pieces into synergetic wholes.

Combo: 2

Orzhov actually lends itself quite well to combos, but this deck doesn’t really contain any. Instead, its victory depends a great deal on a plethora of synergy-bonuses from letting (my own) creatures die. Powerful creature tokens, resurrections, damage dealing, life-gain and card-advantage being the most potent examples.

Army: 4

It’s all about the numbers in this one. Most individual creatures will not be particularly powerful by themselves, but boy do they work together well with their brothers and sisters! There’s tokens galore, some decent bonuses, lots of utility and to top it off, my creatures are not likely to die permanently any time soon.

Commander: 4

Teysa’s presence I consider to be the icing on the cake when playing this. Her main benefit, doubling all LTB triggers, is absolutely beautiful and strong but it’s not required for most of the deck’s synergies to work well. There’s also a few cards in here that act as a redundancy to her powers.

Interaction: 5

Creatures appearing and dying is going to cause some major discomfort for whatever deck attempts to face this one. Amongst its many perks resulting from this are eight life drain options, three ways to force opponents to sacrifice their stuff, three manners to drain opposing creatures’ power and six ways to exile opposing creatures and other permanents. There’s also three independent options to just destroy whatever.

Resilience: 5

Opposing decks are going to be hard-pressed to get rid of this deck’s permanents. Aside from some massive token-generation abilities, the deck features seven solid recursion options (half of which don’t even require an activation cost). In case the opposition still gets the upper hand, copious life-gain opportunity strengthens the deck’s survivability.

Spellpower: 3

Five high-powered enchantments form the core of the deck’s strongest overall spell-impact. An impressive creature-wipe and no fewer than seven single destruction/exile spells round out the deck’s spell arsenal.

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Total power score: 36

Token armies are fun, because if you happen to lose one, … that’s ok. There’s always more where that came from! When combining token generation (based on sacrificing/losing creatures) with resurrecting said creatures, one can create some truly ridiculous board-states. Not to mention the copious additional bonuses and perks one can obtain through ET/LTB effects.

General strategy

We’re in the business of creating as many LTB (Leave The Battlefield)-triggers as we possibly can and benefiting from these through a variety of means. This can be life-drain, life-gain, forced opposing sacrifices, card-advantage and above all: token generation! We can finish off opponents by attacking them with massive token waves and not worry about the consequences as this deck makes it easy to generate more tokens OR even by bringing its creatures back from the dead.

Kicking this deck into gear requires some mana/card-advantage resources, a few token generators, ideally a resurrection resource and a few cards that benefit from creatures leaving the battlefield. Once most of that has been assembled, it’s beneficial to summon Teysa in order to get maximum benefit from the flow that these cards enable.

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a cheap-to-cast rock like Arcane Signet, Orzhov Signet, Thought Vessel or Sol Ring. This is a must; I’m not going to start a game without this hand (even if I have to mulligan down to three cards). The ideal hand would also contain some additional ramp like Land Tax and/or low-cost draw options like Esper Sentinel or Skullclamp.

Early game

With priority given to resources mentioned in the previous section, it’s also time to get the general flow of the deck going. One ought to aim for early token generators like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Doomed Dissenter, Hunted Witness, Imperious Oligarch, Ophiomancer or Skirsdag High Priest. These will be key to use most of the deck’s other cards, so get them up fast. Also, don’t be afraid to use them (up); the deck features plenty of ways we’ll get into later to retrieve them, in case they should perish.

Next on the agenda: early LTB-benefits. The most useful ones in this phase of the game involve energy and card-advantage, like Ashnod's Altar, Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, Midnight Reaper, Pitiless Plunderer, Phyrexian Altar or Priest of Forgotten Gods. Other options involve dealing out pain or actually allowing for some life-gain for the deck’s wielder. Famous options include Attrition, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Blood Artist, Corpse Knight, Mirkwood Bats and Zulaport Cutthroat.

This phase ends with having some of the above in place, as well as the arrival of Teysa Karlov onto the field, in order to maximize token generation, gaining LTB benefits and strengthening tokens that remain with the vigilance and lifelink abilities.

Mid- and End-game

After three or four turns, we can start to send out some attacks, mess around with opposing board-states and initiate some boosts that will increase the effectiveness of our army and their token/LTB benefits. Bringing in some resurrection by now has grand potential to keep yourself ahead of the competition in terms of board-presence. This deck features some excellent options for that, including Athreos, God of Passage, card:Celestine, Hell's Caretaker, Luminous Broodmoth, Phyrexian Reclamation and Sun Titan.

As more than just this deck are bringing key-pieces onto the field, it’s also time to start removing some key pieces from the opponents’ sides and gain the advantage in terms of board-presence. One-shot removal like Anguished Unmaking, Fracture, Heliod's Intervention, Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares are all excellent at this. There’s also options in permanent-form, like Dictate of Erebos, Grave Pact, Massacre Wurm and Royal Assassin.

The more expensive token generators, like Elenda, the Dusk Rose and Requiem Angel will now make an entrance. More importantly though, some doublers should be introduced, like Anointed Procession, Drivnod, Carnage Dominus and Mondrak, Glory Dominus. Let’s also not forget the army power/toughness boosters that will make a heavy impact on the balance of power, like Archangel of Thune and Cathars' Crusade.

Card Choices

Lands

The deck’s reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Ancient Tomb: major colorless mana for a small price in life-points; excellent land to start games with.
• Arid Mesa/Bloodstained Mire/Flooded Strand/Marsh Flats/Polluted Delta/Verdant Catacombs/Windswept Heath: the lands used to filter through the deck, which finds the cards that matter to the deck’s strategy quicker.
• Cabal Coffers/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: tried and true, the famous duo that can potentially grant oodles of black mana.
• Command Tower/Mana Confluence/Reflecting Pool: great all-color mana lands that have very few disadvantages in their use.
• Caves of Koilos, Fetid Heath/Godless Shrine/Isolated Chapel /Temple of Silence: lands that provide Orzhov mana, that depending on circumstances enter the battlefield tapped or untapped. The best MTG has to offer on this front has been incorporated, except for the original dual lands which are outside most players’ price-range.
• High Market: if our creatures are doomed anyway, why not gain from that?
• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: very useful mana battery in a permanent-rich deck; especially when said permanents are hard to get rid of.
• Reliquary Tower: because discarding sucks.
• Vault of the Archangel: Teysa already gives some excellent bonuses to the deck’s tokens, but including deathtouch into that mix is just brutal.
• Westvale Abbey  : mana, token generation and the ability to transform into a massive demon … what more can one ask from a land?

Mana and ramp

The cards used to accelerate mana-availability:

• Arcane Signet: the best cheap-to-cast mana rock in MTG. Period.
• Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar: sometimes they have to give their lives for the greater good (or evil).
• Dark Ritual: instant black mana boost for the win!
• Land Tax: a favourite in starting hands; because it allows the tutoring of three basic lands in turn 1, which is enough advantage for many decks to secure wins.
• Orzhov Signet: not as great as Arcane Signet, but close.
• Pitiless Plunderer: sure, fill the graves, there’s plenty of treasure in those.
• Smothering Tithe: don’t want to pay draw-tax? Aight, thank you for the mana!
• Sol Ring: are there EDH decks without this card?
• Thought Vessel: a cheap mana generator that allows me an unlimited hand-size.

Card Advantage

The mechanisms that provide card advantage:

• Dark Prophecy: yay, something died! Gimme!
• Demonic Tutor/Vampiric Tutor: the perfect cards to find whatever is needed.
• Enlightened Tutor: some enchantments and artifacts are just too good not to tutor for.
• Esper Sentinel: more prevent-draw-taxes.
• Grave Betrayal: one of the most insane enchantments ever; there are so many cards in this deck that have intense synergy with this. Whatever dies on the opposite side comes under the control of this enchantment’s wielder; enhanced no less!
• Grim Haruspex/Midnight Reaper: dancing on graves fills our hands.
• Phyrexian Arena: one of the standard black enchantments used for additional draw.
• Reanimate: since this can be used to steal someone else’s stuff, it’s considered in this section rather than in recursion.
• Skullclamp: not one, but TWO cards when it dies!
• Teysa, Opulent Oligarch: you get pain, we get some draw (and a spirit).

Tokens

Stuff that poops out babies and/or enhances said babies.

• Adeline, Resplendent Cathar: the larger this army grows, the stronger she becomes.
• Archangel of Thune: any life gained, translates into a lot of power/toughness bonuses.
• Anointed Procession: doubles tokens; it’s just that simple (and powerful).
• Cathars' Crusade: though this deck is focused on LTB, it sure does well in the ETB department too, so this enchantment can be taken advantage of copiously.
• Elenda, the Dusk Rose: so one vampire can transform into many vampires? With lifelink, you say? Sweet!
• Hallowed Spiritkeeper: a filled graveyard isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
• Hunted Witness: a civilian dies, a soldier rises.
• Imperious Oligarch: leaves a small, sweet token behind once she dies.
• Kambal, Profiteering Mayor: you get tokens? We get tokens. Not happy? Ok, can compensate you with some additional drain.
• Mondrak, Glory Dominus: more token doubling; gotta love it.
• Ophiomancer: deathtouch tokens are awesome.
• Requiem Angel: has the potential to create excellent, little fliers to harass the opposition.
• Skirsdag High Priest: a demon-token-generator? Hell yes!
• Thalisse, Reverent Medium: we didn’t get enough tokens this turn, so our medium brought in a few more.

Drain, Gain and Pain

Cards that either cause pain or grant life or both!

• Attrition: in a deck with this many tokens, it’s ok to sacrifice some to kill opposing stuff. Works exceptionally well when combined with Grave Betrayal.
• Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim: not just excellent to provide some life-gain (when something is about to die anyway), but a great point-removal card too.
• Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat: so it died … alright … drain time!
• Corpse Knight: whenever it ETB’s on our side, you get hurt.
• Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim: you’re killing that? Are you sure? Like … really sure?
• Grave Pact: why would our creature die alone? He needs some companions in the hereafter. Yours to be exact.
• Mirkwood Bats: sacrificing tokens is usually just beneficial. Now, it’s also detrimental … to you.
• Massacre Wurm: oomph! Doubling up on this LTB effect with Teysa becomes painful fast.
• Priest of Forgotten Gods: how crazy good is this? Pain, forced sacrifices, mana and draw for its wielder … quite astounding results just for sacrificing a few tokens.
• Syr Konrad, the Grim: this is an amazing card. It damages opponents for discarding creatures, milling creatures, deaths of creatures, resurrections of creatures … in/from ANY graveyard.

Resurrection

Creatures ought not be lost to us forever.

• Athreos, God of Passage: costly enterprise to prevent these returns.
• Celestine, the Living Saint: with just a little bit of life-gain, this beauty can resurrect a lot.
• Hell's Caretaker: give up a token, bring back a non-token creature.
• Liesa, Forgotten Archangel: this deck’s creatures won’t die permanently, while it ensures opposing creatures do; painful when combined with the forced sacrifice featured in this deck.
• Luminous Broodmoth: a nice, free method to resurrect every non-flying creature.
• Phyrexian Reclamation: here’s some mana and some life … welcome back!
• Sun Titan: excellent resurrection tool that can be applied every attack.

Removal

If they can’t join you, beat them.

• Anguished Unmaking: a little life loss for an exile of anything? Sold!
• Fracture: any non-creature permanent dies!
• Heliod's Intervention: destruction or life-gain; both awesome!
• Path to Exile/Swords to Plowshares: white’s most famous exile spells.
• Royal Assassin: those guys had better not get tapped!
• Toxic Deluge: gets around hexproof, shroud, indestructibility and ward.
• Vanishing Verse: most permanents are mono-coloured anyway.

Notable exclusions

• Delney, Streetwise Lookout: fits into this deck very well, but haven’t managed to get one yet.
• Dictate of Erebos: made this beauty part of too many decks featuring black already, so decided to go without it this time around.
• Ocelot Pride: excellent token generator that’s fun in token-oriented decks, but other than that not super on-theme, doesn’t do anything with LTB and on top of it all, is very expensive to obtain.

Thank you for reading!

Appreciate the time you took to read this primer. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	1 month
Last updated	4 days
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.97
Tokens	Clue, Copy Clone, Demon 5/5 B, Human 1/1 W, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Morph 2/2 C, Snake 1/1 B, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, Spirit 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 WB, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W