Teysa, Orzhov Scion - Life Gain/Drain

Commander / EDH* Aristocrats Lifegain Multiplayer Tokens WB (Orzhov)

Kajarak32

Lands (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x High Market
• 1x Kor Haven
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 6x Plains
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Mass Removal (4)

• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Overwhelming Forces
• 1x Winds of Abandon

Targeted Removal (4)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Utter End

Life Gain=Life Drain (2)

• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Vizkopa Guildmage

Card Draw (11)

• 1x Ambition's Cost
• 1x Ancient Craving
• 1x Greed
• 1x Krav, the Unredeemed
• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Minions' Murmurs
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood
• 1x Well of Lost Dreams

Ramp (9)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Good Stuff (7)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Gift of Immortality
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Teysa Karlov
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

GY Recursion (3)

• 1x Revival / Revenge
• 1x Unburial Rites
• 1x Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed

Life Gain (3)

• 1x Ajani's Welcome
• 1x Deathgreeter
• 1x Suture Priest

Commander (1)

Tokens (10)

• 1x Army of the Damned
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Chittering Witch
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Plague of Vermin
• 1x Regna, the Redeemer
• 1x Rite of Belzenlok
• 1x Sengir Autocrat
• 1x Zombie Infestation

Life Drain (6)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Debt to the Deathless
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Sac-Outlets (4)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

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Maybeboard

Other (5)

• 1x Mortify
• 1x Rhox Faithmender
• 1x Soul Warden
• 1x Soul's Attendant
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

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Hello.

This deck is a "pet-deck" of mine that I have been working and re-working, tweaking and re-tweaking to create something that is both powerful and fun. It seeks to abuse the interactions with tokens and the plethora of life gain and drain triggered abilities that exist in the Orzhov colors.

Thanks for looking, and all comments are welcome!

The above decklist is up-to-date as of THB.

Below information up-to-date as of RIX (Currently out-of-date with the decklist, but is still a good resource! Will look to update the below info soon.)

Full deck primer can also be found at: MTGSalvation Deckbuilder - Teysa, Life Gain/Drain

General Deck Building Philosophy

When building decks, I try to stick to a few main rules:

1. If a deck has at least one infinite combo in it, then I do not put any tutors in the deck that can search for any piece of the combo(s).
2. A deck should try to stick as close as possible to only having one infinite combo in it.
3. I do not play mass land destruction as a strategy, and also try to avoid cards that could, in any scenario, accidentally act as such without also winning the game in the process.
4. In a similar vein, I avoid stax locks that affect lands, so stax in general is a strategy that I typically will not employ.

To the above made points, this deck fails most on point 2, and point 2 has been the hardest thing to control in this deck. I have already made many changes to this deck in searching for the right balance for this deck, and I will likely make similar choices in the future. This decks goal is not to combo, so if that is your goal, this deck may not be for you. That said, this deck's combo potential is probably a little on the high side for me and maybe others. If anyone as suggestions related to this issue, or just wants to converse about any of my philosophies, I'd be happy to do so. :)

Now, let's get to the deck!

Why Teysa?

Other General Options:

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim: Ayli looks very similar to Teysa on the surface, but because her abilities are limited by mana (and your current life total) her ceiling is lower than Teysa's. Also, because Ayli's abilities cost mana to activate, and because her life gain is based on the size of the sarificed creature, she is suited to a less token-driven deck (probably much more reanimator), and I will argue that nontoken strategies will be less effective in many ways-one main one being life gain.

Ghave, Guru of Spores: Ghave is a very powerful, token-driven commander, and I actually believe that he may be able to give Teysa a run for her money as head of this type of deck. Ghave does have some problems that Teysa generally does not though: 1. He is scary. Tables may hate on Ghave. 2. Tip-toeing around infinite combos-Ghave is notorious for combining with basically everything, and in my eyes, that's a downside because I don't enjoy "accidentally falling" into a win. 3. He is not at all a rattlesnake. In fact, because of point #1 (he is scary), he will likely actually cause more people to attack you whereas Teysa's abilities strongly discourage opponents from wanting to bother you.

Karador, Ghost Chieftain: Karador is just such a good general that he could lead almost any kind of deck, and even make it work, probably. That includes this one, to a point. He is good, but his talents are likely somewhat wasted here as he, similar to Ayli, somewhat encourages a less token-centric deck build. This is a big deal.

Karlov of the Ghost Council: Karlov is similar to Teysa because he can act as a rattlesnake, but I will argue that he is a rattlesnake in a scarier, and less effective way. Basically, he screams "remove me" any time he is actually "working". This is bad. Also, his rattlesnake effect is manabound, making it much harder to use reactively. Overall, a Karlov deck just has different goals than ours. (Voltron)

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: The mighty life-gainer himself... I'll do is good general for any deck that "just wants to play life gain". He gives free life gain, which means life gain triggers, and he even has a mana-dump ability that triggers on life gain. I'll do does not provide "free" removal and a rattlesnake effect as Teysa does, and Teysa also acts as a kind of trigger-doubler and board-protecter as well. I think Oloro also wants to play more "generic" life gain cards such as Ajani's Pridemate and Cradle of Vitality. In general, it's playstyle will differ greatly from this decks.

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter: Vish Kal shares the same issues as Karlov and Licia. He just has different goals.

Licia, Sanguine Tribune: Pretty similar to Karlov, but she adds red. Green is the best color to add for these types of decks, and red is next after that. Lucia is just going to end up having different goals than this deck does, though. (Voltron)

Vona, Butcher of Magan: Too slow, and too hard to abuse in our colors. Not worth it at all.

Ravos/Tymna + (Partners): Partners for a life gain deck are quite genetic, and seem to encourage more winning through attacks. In general, I think that the Partners don't add enough to a life gain deck to be considered better in any configuration. There are better commanders.

Am I missing any that should be here? Let me know!

Why Life Gain/Drain?

Though many people see life gain as a "futile" and/or useless theme to build around due to the alternate win con that commander adds, paired with the nature of how many games are finished off through means of an infinite combo or other arbitrarily ridiculously large game-ending effects (Craterhoof...), the truth is, that if done correctly, life gain can be a huge boon to many already strong strategies. Mainly, life gain does a few things very well: 1. It keeps you alive. Though some argue that life gain is useless, it is still very good at keeping you in the game. 2. It provides fuel for powerful effects (mainly black). Your life total is a resource, and with more life, you can do more things. This is the main idea of this deck as you will be able to translate points of life, directly or indirectly, into anthing you want/need-board presence (tokens), mana, and/or card draw. 3. It actually provides a somewhat reliable and fun win-con through draining effects like Sanguine Bond.

You may like this deck if:

• You are interested in strategies involving life gain as a theme.
• You like to win through non-combat means.
• You enjoy token-centric deck builds.
• You love triggered abilities.
• You like to be proactive, but you still want to be able to be reactive if needed.

How are we winning?

All decks need to have a direction they are headed in order to function well. This deck has a few different directions, but they all work together splendidly.

The main goal/win-con of the decks is to set up a board brimming with life gaining potential, and then waste the opponents by landing a draining effect or three, such as Sanguine Bond and/or Vizkopa Guildmage. Also, Blood Artist and Co. are normally enough to take a table down by themselves. Because the deck has so many ways to achieve this type of victory, that is the way you will win 90+% of the time. This deck's other ways of winning are either supplementary to this way of winning, or they are incidental. Such as:

• Combat damage: This deck can make a lot of tokens, and as we all should know, tokens are good at lots of things, including overwhelming opponents if need be.
• Big spells: Living Death, Plague of Vermin and/or Debt to the Deathless are all fairly game-ending effects. If you can properly set up and resolve one of these, you will likely win.
• Infinite combos: This deck plays zero tutors to achieve these loops, but they exist. There are more than a few ways to achieve a loop in this deck also, so it is easier to "go infinite" than it may seem.
• Aetherflux Reservoir: Yep, it can happen. Turn your massive amount of life into a death ray and laugh maniacally.

Starting Hands and Mulligans

A good starting hand for this deck should have: Some land and maybe some mana sources. We would also love to have both B and W mana, but B is almost always more important. Also, we would like to have access to some card draw to hopefully get to an engine of ours. Also, we would like access to a life gaining creature, mainly a soul sister or similar variant. This deck tends to be kind of a slow starter, so the starting hand is important.

Early Game

Not going to lie, this is the toughest part of the game for this deck. We have big plans and humble starting grounds, so this is when we need to hustle the most as our deck has a lot of pieces to put together. This part of the game, we should be playing our soul sisters and variants, looking for recurring draw and/or recurring token generators, and also looking for any sacrifice outlet. We are looking to build a board of tokens, life gainers, and Teysa. If the board is wiped, we are probably ok and left with some Spirits to help rebuild. Just hold on and keep searching for ways to build up ability-chains.

Mid Game

By the mid game, we should have at least built up a decent defense by making a few black tokens that we can sacrifice for Spirits, or we already have a few Spirits and are able to threaten attackers with exile via Teysa. If you have not, then you should probably be looking for a way to set this up, or you may need a sweeper.

Late Game

By the late game, you should have access to almost any resource you could want/need, and you are now just looking for a way to end it. Be patient as this deck becomes very resilient later in the game, and not many things will be able to stop you as long as you are looking for any missing pieces. If someone else is threatening the win, or may be doing so soon, keep some removal up. Teysa will act as the biggest deterrent.

Specific Card Descriptions

The Commander

Teysa, Orzhov Scion: The master herself. The reasons she leads our deck are manifold. She acts as a "limitless" form of instant creature removal, a strong form of board protection, a pretty potent rattlesnake, and a powerful trigger-doubler. She provides a lot for the deck, and even works as a piece of many combos.

The Supporting Cast

Blood Artist: Death triggers are the best, and this being a drain effect means that this is basically a manifestation of this deck.

Nether Traitor: This card provides for many infinite loops, and even without that, it is an easy and powerful engine for token generation and triggered abilities.

Soul's Attendant: Creatures come in, they give you life. Basic idea of the deck.

Suture Priest: Fun card to play against opposing token decks, and also fuels our life gain strategy.

Rhox Faithmender: Decent butt, white creature just in case, lifelink is a small bonus too, and doubling our life gain can be very powerful, especially if we have a drain effect like Sanguine Bond.

Viscera Seer: 1 mana, black creature, effective sacrifice-outlet. A+

Zulaport Cutthroat: Not quite Blood Artist, but it does have it's moments. It's still an extremely powerful effect here, and we want/need it.

Soul Warden: Another soul sister.

Deathgreeter: The black (and better) soul sister.

Pitiless Plunderer: This card turns all sac-outlets into Phyrexian Altar+. Very, very powerful. Also, it's a black creature for gravy.

Ophiomancer: Incredible token engine as it provides a stream of black creatures, one every upkeep. Just needs any sac-outlet and it'll provide an army of Spirits.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel: Potentially HUGE life gain and drain on a black body. Awesome.

Vizkopa Guildmage: Provides a large drain effect on a multicoloroed body, and can often end games out of nowhere. Even the lifelink can be useful. Good stuff all around.

Mentor of the Meek: It doesn't take a lot to make this an amazing card draw engine, and it can even be applied to some loops to draw your whole deck.

Skirge Familiar: This deck has the potential to draw cards by the gobs, so discard outlets are good to have around. Can also be applied to some loops to make infinite mana or draw your whole deck... or both.

Smothering Abomination: Draw every time I sacrifice a creature? Yes, please! This card ranges from a steady stream of cards, at least one every upkeep, or it can deck you. Crazy strong. It is worth mentioning that it is not a black creature unfortunately.

Ashen Rider: Basically just a staple removal card in Orzhov. The fact that it can be recurred makes it very worth the inclusion.

Requiem Angel: Basically, it's a second copy of Teysa on a better body.

Kokusho, the Evening Star: Similar to Gray Merchant of Asphodel, but it's a death trigger on a 5/5 flyer.

Grave Titan: Black army in a can. Too good not to play.

Solemn Simulacrum: This card gets flak every now and then for being not as good as people think it is, but I am a big supporter of this card. It is just plain never bad, and that is good enough.

Martyr's Cause: Just another sac-outlet. It's effect has it's moments as well.

Carnival of Souls: Dangerous at times, but if you have at least one ETB life gain trigger, it can make massive amounts of mana. Also, what other deck can play this card?

Moonlit Wake: Death trigger life gain on a noncreature permanent makes it more resilient. Not to be underestimated.

Fanatical Devotion: Same as Martyr's Cause. This deck needs a critical mass of sacrifice effects because of how important they are to how the deck functions.

Boon Reflection: The worst of the life doublers, but I like playing all of them. It's a worthwhile effect even at 5 cmc.

Zombie Infestation: Powerful effect that can power some loops.

Dark Prophecy: This card can be dangerous, but the risk is always well worth it. Once landed, it will draw you cards in big grips. And again, what other deck can play this card to such effect? But seriously, it can be dangerous. If you want to perform a loop with this on the battlefield, you could end up decking yourself before you kill the opposition. Make sure to remove it yourself somehow if it'll cause issues.

Gift of Immortality: This card is underestimated to an insane degree, but in this deck, it is ridiculous. Stick it on any creature, sacrifice it every turn for an army of Spirits. That is the worst case scenario of the card. If you can land in on anything with an ETB or death trigger, it can be devastating for your opponents.

Greed: This is another underrated card. Just one B and 2 life for a card is a steal.

Dictate of Erebos: Do I need to explain why this is good? Nah, I don't think so.

Bitterblossom: Comes down early and provides a steady stream of black tokens.

Anointed Procession: Doubling tokens means doubling other triggers as well, and when you combine this effect with Teysa, it often quadruples your effects. Very strong.

Phyrexian Arena: I have seen some hate about this card recently, but I am an avid supporter and defender of this card. Playing this early is an incredible boon, and we'll worth the "bad" late game top decking, especially in Orzhov.

Black Market: This is a fun card that I just like to include because it has a high ceiling that if you can pull it off, is a blast to abuse.

Phyrexian Reclamation: This card is very strong. It has such a small opportunity cost for such a great, repeatable effect.

Sanguine Bond: The best version of the life gain to drain effects.

Phyrexian Altar: Arguably the best (if not, then the second best) sacrifice outlet. Colored mana for tokens is great.

Codex Shredder: This card can pull any card from your graveyard, and that is a good effect. It's also a permanent, so it can be recovered somewhat easily. Also, it slowly stocks up your graveyard for ya.

Gilded Lotus: 3 repeatable colored mana, for 2 mana opportunity cost basically. Very good.

Vedalken Orrery: I have been running this card in every one of my decks for years as being able to cast everything at the best possible moment.

Alhammarret's Archive: Let's be honest, I probably would have been playing this card if it only did one of the things it does. It doing both just makes this kind of crazy here. Perfect for us.

Panharmonicon: Another trigger doubler, and well worth it here.

Aetherflux Reservoir: This is just fun, it's not a storm win-con or anything, but it gives us some incidental life gain, and can cause some pretty fun scenarios where you can hold the table hostage.

Mind's Eye: This is a one card draw engine. 1c per card is very good. Strong in most decks, and probably underrated.

Mirage Mirror: Oh, the things that can be done with this card. It can be literally anything, and that means a lot. Normally it will act as a second doubler of some kind.

Thran Dynamo: Similar to Gilded Lotus. 3 repeatable colorless mana for the small opportunity cost of 1 mana.

Trading Post: This card does a lot of good things, but most often, making a white Goat for 1c and 1 life is pretty decent.

Well of Lost Dreams: Easy to trigger, and allows us to draw many, many cards.

Skullclamp: Broken? Yeah, broken.

Ashnod's Altar: Next in line to Phyrexian Altar for best sac-outlet. 2 mana per creature is great.

Sol Ring: Duh.

Mana Crypt: Extra, extra good in this deck since life usually means nothing to us.

Anguished Unmaking: Sometimes, people play cards we don't like. This takes care of those things.

Utter End: ^Ditto.

Minions' Murmurs: Lots of creatures = lots of cards. Don't sleep on this card.

Plague of Vermin: With at least one soul sister-type effect, this becomes dumb. It will win the game 99% of the time.

card:Debt to the Debtless: Big X Spells win games they say, so here it is.

Ancient Craving: Decent draw spell-it's necessary.

Army of the Damned: Lots of black Zombies means lots of dead opponents. Flashback is gravy.

Living Death: Either a board wipe or a mass reanimate. But why choose? This is both! Good stuff.

Ambition's Cost: Literally the same as Ancient Craving.

Overwhelming Forces: Wipe out one players stuff, and draw oodles o' cards.

Why aren't you running ___?

Sun Titan: I love this card to death, but it has become too easy to combo with in this deck (and others), so I have created a self-policing rule stating that I cannot ever put Sun Titan and Gift of Immortality into the same deck if that deck also runs "free" sacrifice outlets. And trust me, this deck prefers the Gift.

Defiant Bloodlord: Played it, and it was just ever good enough. Costs too much, and is too easily removed.

Cathars' Crusade: I should probably be running this card because it's ridiculous, but I just hate the math about it. Too hard to keep track of all the different amounts of counters on all of my tokens.

Sadistic Hypnotist: This just seems too easy, and everyone would hate me for using it.

Blasting Station: Just not my style effect. Seems to only do something when I'm already winning.

Darkest Hour: Combo card. It's just too easy as you'll win immediately whenever you draw it.

List of Combos

There are (I think) 2 main categories of combos in this deck, and they can be achieved in a multitude of ways. Because there are so many interchangeable pieces, I am only going to list the basic structure of the combos and what they end up doing. If I miss something here that you think should be noted, please let me know as I'm sure I will. :)

Combo Type #1: Nether Traitor

Yes, Nether Traitor combos so much that he gets his own section here. It really is an incredible card in this deck, and I will explain the basics of loops involving it here:

Basically, in order to keep a Nether Traitor loop going, we need to be getting at least one black mana somewhere, and we need to be able to kill a creature also. To do this, the most basic structure is: Nether Traitor + Teysa, Orzhov Scion + Phyrexian Altar = Infinite colored mana. Now after you have assembled anything like the above, you can add in almost any other card in the deck, and it will win you the game. Lots of games are won on the back of Nether Traitor, maybe even too many.

Combo Type#2: Draw Your Deck

This combo is easier to pull off than you might think, even though we're in Orzhov, and there are many ways to do it. Basically, you will need a card draw engine , and a way to provide, limitlessly, whatever resource(s) it is asking for (i.e. Mentor of the Meek with limitless token ETBs and generic mana, Well of Lost Dreams with limitless life gain and generic mana, Greed with limitless life and black mana, etc.).

Again, there are many ways to combo in this deck, so always keep your eyes on your boardstate to see if you can achieve a loop.

Possible Future Changes

I love Nether Traitor to pieces, but it may actually just do too much too easily as it leads to a game win when drawn or put into the bin more times than not. I'm thinking of replacing Nether Traitor with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed as he will provide access to Living Death loops which would occur less frequently. Also, those loops would require a slightly more developed/specific board state to "go off". Thoughts? Let me know!

Am I missing anything? Let me know!

If there is any information that you think should be detailed here that is currently not, please let me know in the comments. Also, feel free to comment about anything! Thanks for taking a look at my deck. :)

Top Ranked	Achieved #22 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.72
Tokens	Cleric 0/1 B, Demon 6/6 B, Elephant 3/3 G, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Rat 1/1 B, Serf 0/1 B, Snake 1/1 B, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure, Warrior 1/1 W, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Potential builds, Love it, commander, immediate make, want to make, Commander, Cool decks, Primers, Krav, EDH