Teysa, Token Shenanigans
Commander / EDH*
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ch-ch-ch-changes —June 6, 2018
Only a minor change at the moment, but a major one planned - I'm considering swapping out the commander from Teysa to Regna, the Redeemer and Krav, the Unredeemed. This deck was originally designed as an aristocrats / tokens deck, but it has shifted more towards combo over time - not because I want to be, but because it was incredibly difficult to win otherwise. Krav & Regna should help out by providing a consistent sac outlet + token producer + draw engine, which are all things this deck needs to function (and often lacks, because people point their removal at it).
+Isolated Chapel - better fixing is always good. I've really wanted to improve the manabase of this deck, but budget is an issue. Glad for the reprint in Dominaria.
Edit:
Tested using R&K as commanders (swapping out Teysa and Darkest Hour), so I now have some insight into what sort of changes to make. Overall, I would say testing went pretty badly - lost 4 games (out of 4), none of which were particularly close. I would say this was partially my own fault, partially the deck's fault, partially the commander's fault, and partially my opponents' fault.
-I tried to play the deck differently, by focusing more on the aristocrats side of things, and less on the combo side. This had some issues, because the deck has extreme difficulty winning with aristocrats-style things - Grave Pact and Blood Artist are great cards, but they are much, much slower than winning with combo, and also easier to disrupt.
-The deck is lacking some things, mostly removal / interaction. Creature removal is somewhat understandable - I never want to use Teysa's first ability to exile things, but it is nice to have in a pinch. The bigger influence is it acts a weak rattlesnake effect, so people are less likely to play / attack me with scary things. I think Orzhov has difficulties with noncreatures in general though - black obviously can't kill artifacts or enchantments, but I also feel like white is a distant second to green. It has no ETB value creatures (which means it also can't recur its removal as easily), and most of its disenchant effects are either one-for-one, or symmetric (which means you also hit your own.... which is painful if you're relying on artifacts / enchantments for mana / card advantage).
-deck definitely felt like it was built with Teysa in mind - she is a small human (relevant for stuff like Mentor of the Meek and Angel of Glory's Rise), and she is also much cheaper to cast. Will need to run a lot more ramp if I want to switch commanders. Simultaneously, Regna wants consistent lifegain, while Krav wants consistent black mana (and tokens to sacrifice).
-Regna got completely shut down one game by an opponent's Erebos, God of the Dead. Worth keeping an eye out for, and ties into me needing more noncreature removal. Teysa (and the deck in general) gets shut down by Rest in Peace effects, but those effects also usually draw more hate from the entire table, so they don't last as long.