I really like your deck, I went through the same process moving from Teysa Karlov back to OG Teysa and ended up trying to build something that would work in any of the Orzhov aristocrats commanders like your deck. I would switch out Falkenrath Noble for either of Cruel Celebrant or Vindictive Vampire . I've always disliked that it can only target one player at 4CMC. Also another personal preference, but I would run Despark over one of your removals. I feel like most things that will need to be removed will make Despark a better deal. Here's my deck for reference

kyleskickinit

Falkenrath Noble is honestly the first card I plan to cut to get Cruel Celebrant out. Its lower on the curve, meaning that I can play it out more easily. As well, in a pinch, I can also use it with Teysa to exile a creature

The removal package does need to change a bit. Fleshbag Marauder , Necrotic Sliver , Plaguecrafter , Shriekmaw , Despark , Tragic Slip and Unexpectedly Absent are on my list of includes, with Shriekmaw and Tragic Slip being on the lower end of the removal additions. I like Fleshbag, Plaguecrafter and Necrotic Sliver, because they can always sac themselves and make a white token that can now be used to exile another creature. Despark and Unexpectedly Absent are more instant speed removal for "any" targets.

My goal is to hopefully swap out some of the creatures that say "non-token" creatures, for things that just care about "Creatures". Darkest Hour I feel will need to be slotted in eventually for combo potential, but I gotta have something to combo it with, whether its Altar of Dementia or a Blood Artist like effect. I don't think I need to worry about "how big" my tokens get, but its more so "making" tokens. I need stuff that isn't reliant on ETB, because some of the higher tier decks run Torpor Orb , thus I'm looking for things with on death triggers or on cast. God-Eternal Oketra is the best case scenario, because it can make tokens BUT it also can be sacced to exile something in a pinch and then just put it back in my library. Dreadhorde Invasion is just a worse Bitterblossom .

I will need to manage my sac outlets that "Do things", and not just adds mana or anything. I'd like to include more creatures that are easily returnable, such as Bloodsoaked Champion , Bloodghast and Gravecrawler (though I don't run enough Zombies to make it able to cast from the graveyard).

I REALLY want to try Aetherworks Marvel in the deck! Just the thought of saccing my things or there is a board wipe and then spending energy to cast cards, its basically cheating mana, but you also dig for cards. That means in a pinch, you could Wrath of God at instant speed, get that Path to Exile or even just get additional value out of it

Quick tip: I would replace for example Ravos, Soultender and Whisper, Blood Liturgist for Oversold Cemetery and Nim Deathmantle

Also Wurmcoil Engine feels a bit off theme, he is just there because he is value, but in no way has any synergy with Teysa, Orzhov Scion , he is probably what remains of your old deck ;-)

Also I run more Blood Artist effects, so Vindictive Vampire and Pious Evangel  ^Flip. These effects are basically your wincon if you don't go onto the Darkest Hour tour. It makes people think again about playing a board wipe and gives more value to your boardwipes when you play them if needed.

From war of the spark we also have Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord and Liliana, Dreadhorde General wich have amazing synergy with what the decks wants to do and that is being an aristocrats deck.

And ofcourse from modern horizons the new Yawgmoth, Thran Physician sack outlet and card draw and removal, it's basically everything orzhov wants...

At one point I cut Divine Visitation as well, since I found it too mana intensive and often to reliant on having a boardstate. Wich often can be a bit of a problem, since Teysa draws sooooo much hate. (wich is understandable) I replaced it for more recursion.

I do like your addition of Living Death and I'm gonna give it a go with that card as well. Since we mostly exile threats, I don't think whatever comes back is that much of a problem for us :)

And about darkest hour. It's up to you if you want to play it, it takes the deck from a nice deck to play against to full on combo. I kinda like that, I have the card and depending what powerlevel I'm up against I put it in or not. It's like a switch you can turn on and off. ".Darkest Hour I feel will need to be slotted in eventually for combo potential, but I gotta have something to combo it with, whether its Altar of Dementia or a Blood Artist like effect." - You already play it hahah. You just need teysa and a sac outlet and your done. One of the altars means infinite mana, Dementia is everyone is milled, one of the blood artists and everyone is dead, Gravepact/dictate the board is empty, Carrion Feeder is infinite big, Viscera Seer you scry for your wincon. And even without Darkest Hour that is why you want to run more of these blood artist effects and recursion to keep your guys on the board.

Also....where is your card draw? It feels like your gonna fall into the orzhov trap wich is being without a hand and without enough recursion you will slow down quite fast and the other decks will get the upper hand. 1 Midnight Reaper and 1 Grim Haruspex are not enough to stay dangerous..

Hope these tips will help you a bit

And otherwise if you want this is my decklist with what I play: Teysa, Orzhov Scion: a Dance Macabre

Ripwater

I have considered Nim Deathmantle for a couple of reasons, namely for combos with anything that makes two creatures and Ashnod's Altar . It is still a work in progress and might make it in. At the time of this post, I cannot really afford new cards, due to personal reasons. Ravos was an add because it also buffs my small weenie creatures, so it sort of made sense. Whisper was added due to recurrable effects that can be used multiple times and not a one and done type of effect

Wurmcoil and Hangarback Walker are both from the previous build, you are correct. At the time of this post I replaced them with Sandsower and Ogre Slumlord . Whether or not they say it is hard to say, but the deck is still needing tweaking as I go

Vindictive Vampire I did consider, but ended up using Falkenrath, since it was more of a Blood Artist (in the sense that it triggers WHENEVER a creature dies, not just mine). Liliana is also another high $$$ card, and hasn't been purchased for that reason. It WAS considered, do not get me wrong. Sorin I don't see much reason to play, not really doing much. I think I'd rather play the ones that make tokens (Elspeth and Sorin) if I add planeswalkers to the deck

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician IS a card I'd love to get, and yet another $$$ card. Might try and trade for it, since I would honestly most likely play it over Liliana

Divine Visitation was removed as of this post, in place of Aetherworks Marvel . I literally forgot this was a card. Sure, we don't do allot with Energy counters, but we are constantly saccing our own things! Digging 6 cards deep and just casting it for free essentially is AMAZING! It means we might get out an instant speed removal or even a board wipe. It will also just help us to see more of the deck.

I'd like to get a DH for the deck. I feel like its "not needed" to make the deck playable, but it changes the power level very quickly. I might trade out one of the creature based sacs for Altar of Dementia, just to be able to actually mill people as another possible win con.

To address your concern about card draw: Corpse Augur (replaced today with Mentor of the Meek ), Grim Haruspex , Krav, the Unredeemed , Midnight Reaper , Tymna the Weaver , Night's Whisper , Painful Truths (replaced with Sign in Blood instead), Read the Bones , and Skullclamp make up the draw package. Most of them are "whenever X creature dies", but some of them also take on the properties of working with the Spirits we make to help us to connect (Tymna). Krav turns creatures into life gain and card advantage, and Skullclamp because...well, thats obvious. Bolas's Citadel . while not straight up card draw, can help really churn through the deck.

My biggest weakness I am having with the deck, is not having fodder, or not enough things to do with the sac. Like, I know I got enough sac outlets, cause I am sometimes flooded with them all. But it just feels like I dont have enough TO sac to get these triggers when I don't have my engine going

foxboy93

First of all I ofcourse don't know what your budget is. These cards I mentioned are in the higher price range, but unfortunately not on any reserved list and very easy to trade :) But fair enough if you don't want to spend that amount of cash on them!

To respond to your responses :)

The nim deathmantle I think is an auto include in any teysa deck, we play orzhov and we run out of a hand eventually. To use your turns to start looping stuff on the battlefield is pretty good. Nim is a real enabler in that way also an engine for your drain effects.

It felt exactly like that with the wurmcoil and the walker ;) The slumlord is really good, he often provides quite a lot of tokens and that's what teysa wants :) What's your plan with the Sandsower ? Cause if you only run it to untap Whisper, Blood Liturgist then I would just run another recursion effect instead of such a niche card... What about Dread Return , Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord , Chainer, Dementia Master are all very affordable recursion effects :-)

Vindictive Vampire I would just run in addition too, tbh. IF you really want to go towards the Aristocrats style! Lily I can totally understand. The standard meta still hasn't settled and therefor it's still uncertain if she will see play or not. I think as soon as that happens we'll know if she goes up or down. Nontheless it is a reaaaally powerfull card. Sorin is criminally underrated and in a aristocrats deck an absolute powerhouse and much better than the token generator sorin... Almost all your creatures are cmc 3 or less, wich means Sorin will fetch them out of your graveyard the turn he enters + the lifelink is a really nice addition as well. Gives you space to run for example Command the Dreadhorde or Bolas's Citadel . The ping effect I often use to ping a planeswalker, next to this it's on +2 so he grows big fast. I rarely draw him and go well this is completely useless right now...

Since Orzhov lack proper card draw like blue has, I would run Yawgmoth and lily tbh. They are both that good, but being on a budget Yawgmoth will probably do more for us.

Let me know how the Aetherworks Marvel works out for you! I have it in my binder as well and im curious about it!

DH i would keep out of your deck unless you play at a 75%+ powerlevel table. Otherwise it will ruin the more casual pods and it won't be fun for anyone. But that's the nice thing, see it more as a kill switch you can dump in your deck increasing the powerlevel of you deck quite a lot.

My bad about the draw then, it was late and I was about to get to bed, think I just overlooked them :-) Midnight Reaper I still need to get as well, I have one and it's in my Meren deck.... I have 2 bolas's Citadel's in my binder, but no idea what to cut for it in my list (you can always take a quick peek if you want to see if you have some ideas?)

I think what is almost more important than sac outlets are the recursion effects. It really is the engine of the deck. I play around 8-9 effects and a ton of card draw to get too them. Again Orzhov is not the fastest color when it comes to ramp, so we go midgame fast, and there we see out other problem. Going into the midcame empty handed is killing or not having a recursion effect on the field is also terrible to bring back out dead... As long as we can Recur our creatures we are good to go. That's why I'm no fan of Whisper/Ravos, they are creatures. People like to play boardwipes/spotremoval so often they won't survive. Putting your recursion on any other slot is better than a creature. If you are low on sac fodder than whisper is a horrible recursion effect because you need 2(!!) creatures to recur one thin. In my opinion Chainer/Victimize/Dread Return are all better because if they can drag your Sun Titan out of your grave the moment it resolves you have gass again :) Whisper and Ravos both need to wait an entire round wich is quite long to stay alive!

Ripwater

It's not that I don't want to spend the money for them, but to narrow down why I cannot afford them, I recently lost my job so cash is a bit tighter :c

The deck I have going is mostly replacing creatures with tokens. So saccing something to make a token to then sac again is sort of the goal. Thus cards that make tokens when another creature dies is good, or on cast. I am trying to avoid some of the ETB cards, since I have been running into more Torpor Orb effects to shut it down, meaning it's harder to keep it going with ETB and then recur. It is also why cards like Reassembling Skeleton and Nether Traitor are so important, cause they are easily recurable triggers to sac again to, which is another reason I wanted to add Bloodghast and Bloodsoaked Champion . Slightly harder to recur, but are repeatable. If I get enough Zombies, Gravecrawler is another possible addition.

Sandsowers ability is to tap down creatures, not untap "Tap 3 untapped creatures, tap creature". The reason I added it as of now, is to help slow down. The big bad attackers with trample or big guys that can kill me in one fell swoop. Tap a big one, sac three Spirits and exile something else if I have to.

If I add another Blood Artist, id likely put Falkenrath Noble back. It's a flyer that triggers whenever a creature dies, so not just my own. Sorin isn't a bad idea, but I feel like making a +1/+0 emblem seems good if I can protect him. Downticking to recur something basically puts him at near death already though. I see Planeswalker cards as "modal" spells more than anything; if I only get one activation, I need to make it count. So compared to Elspeth, Suns Champion, who is also a board wipe, seems much better, imo. Liliana is a very potent card and I could see it going in, as well as the uncommon Ob. Destroy my own creature, draw two and then recur seems decent.

DH can be in the deck and just not cast. Having it and not using it, is better than needing it and not having it. Another option is to try and include tutors as well. While I cannot afford Vampiric Tutor or Demonic Tutor , anything to get cards in my hand seems good, such as Beseech the Queen or even Diabolic Tutor .

I'll take a look at your list and comment on your list link accordingly if possible

Ravos and Whisper were added for a few reasons; 1) able to be used repeatedly 2) are creatures that, in a pinch, can be used as fodder and 3) it's what I have available. Some of the cards in the maybe list are cards I own, or are cheap enough to get.