Ministrant of Obligation
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vintage Legal

Ministrant of Obligation

Creature — Human Cleric

Afterlife 2 (When this creature is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, create two 1/1 white and black Spirit creature tokens with flying.)

cac1212 on Teysa Karlov

6 months ago

Ok I messed up and can't edit my comment so I'll continue from where I left off:

...Of course all commander decks need some good card draw, and black gives us plenty of options. We have plenty of access to cards like Night's Whisper which is always good, but since we want to kill our creatures we generally prefer to opt for things like Village Rites or repeatable triggers (which Teysa doubles for extra value) like Midnight Reaper or Dark Prophecy. These will help us get to the pieces we need to win. If you start off a combo such as Reveillark + Karmic Guide (a well-known combo that many player will try to stop very quickly. Consider removing this if your opponents tell you that your degenerate deck is only played by beta cucks) with repeatable card draw on board, you'll run into what you need to win eventually.

I personally like to (or maybe need to) run LOTS of removal to make sure our opponents don't trample all over us before we can set up our finishing turns. Targeted removal is my drink of choice, but good board clears like Merciless Eviction (which unfortunately doesn't let our creatures die if we cant sac them all first) and Austere Command can be easily subbed in if you find yourself going against lots of wide boards.

We love our recursion in this deck. All of our petty fodder and nasty big-hitters like Kokusho, the Evening Star (a card that can be subbed out for a tutor for a more combo/high power deck. I decided to leave him to help cope with the loss of Yosei, the Morning Star . I just think they're neat!) and Vindictive Lich are practically begging to be brought back to life to once again experience the sweet touch of death. Killing our creatures once is good, killing them twice is better. Also, if one of your three essential components gets hit by removal early, your opponents with audibly moan when they come back later. Thus, take out some recursion if you become the one at the table who inspires fear and loating.

Combos

Our main combo that will win us the game every time it's out (even without Teysa) is Reveillark combined with Karmic Guide. If Reveillark is in your graveyard, put in karmic guide and bring it back, sac karmic guide, then sac reveilllark to bring back karmic guide, rinse and repeat. Of course, we need a sac outlet to kill our combo pieces and our Blood Artist-type cards or card draw death-triggers to get one out to make the most of this. Best of all, we have a tutor card, Final Parting, which tutors out BOTH of our combo pieces! Simply put reveillark in the grave and bring in karmic guide on the next turn, or the same turn if you have 10+ mana from all of our juicy ramp. As I said above, infinite combos are mean and unfun to play against, so be careful. This one at least needs 4 cards, none of which are our commander, to win the game so it's not nearly as bad as others, but if you need to take it out, don't worry! Teysa will still eek out massive value from all of our other cards and get you plenty of wins without tilting your playgroup. Other infinite combos not included in this deck include Nim Deathmantle + a token generator such as Ministrant of Obligation + Ashnod's Altar or alternatively Reassembling Skeleton + Phyrexian Altar + token death-trigger like Blight Mound. There are many variations of these which I won't go into depth here.

Early Game Strategy

In your opening hand, you ideally want to have a ramp spell or two (preferably a creature to be used as fodder later like Loyal Warhound), one or maybe two removal spells, some fodder, some card draw, and lands. We don't want too many basic plains in our hand or we'll stifle our creature ramp cards like Boreas Charger (keep in mind Knight of the White Orchid can tutor our double land Godless Shrine). We won't worry about board clears or heavy hitters until later. Hangarback Walker may not seem like a good opening card at first, but he can quickly become a big threat in the midgame if played on turn 2 (or turn one with sol ring) and used as a mana sink with his tap ability which adds a counter to him for one mana on future turns. Recursion we don't want at all until we start killing our creatures. Tutors can be good, but the tutors I have included in this deck (with the exception of Ranger of Eos who is great in our first hand) are more useful in the mid/late game since they either put things in our graveyard (Unmarked Grave) which requires we have recursion, give our opponents a tutor as well (Scheming Symmetry or Wishclaw Talisman), or scale off of how many lands we have (Beseech the Queen). We won't be needing a sac outlet until later and we can be reasonably sure well run into one eventually if we have card draw; if not we can always use our small sacs like Phyrexian Tower to suffice in the mean time. Our protection spells can come in handy, but only keep these if we have our other good early game cards in hand.

Mid Game

In the mid game phases (~turns 4-6), don't get too hasty and play Teysa early if you have something else that is part of our 3 essential components (fodder, sac outlet, blood artist-type) which you don't already have on the board. It's often advantageous to instead opt for more card draw or removal on these turns to prolong our window of opportunity to pop off our game winning turns instead of playing Teysa before she is needed. Even though she does double the value of nearly everything we do, we dont necessarily need her on board to win, and we really only need her on the turn or two before our winning turn.

Late Game

All that's left to do once we have our three basic components is to start getting out as many token makers as we can to start reaping what we have sewn. Ideally we want repeatable card draw and recursion to draw into more and more creatures that we can sac on every turn. Even without our infinite combo we can do massive damage just with our tokens and by bringing back our creatures. Graveyard hate from our opponents can really hurt us, but with any luck we can out-pace our opponents with our ramp/card draw.

Miscellaneous Mechanics

If you're about to have something exiled, sac it! Let no fodder go to waste. You can also sac a creature as it is about to take combat damage after blockers are assigned without having any damage go through to you.

Brought Back can be used on our fetch land Marsh Flats for extra ramp. Consider adding more fetch lands to up the power level a bit.

Closing Notes

Have fun with Teysa! Add your own spin to things and let me know what card you love/hate. This deck is still in developement and will be changing bit by bit in the future. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to get to them. This is my first deck that I've posted on any platform and I'm excited to see what y'all think!

Masterful on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

9 months ago

Xxtormundxx Secure the Wastes and Increasing Devotion are usually too much mana. Cards like Doomed Traveler give us fodder for mana at a 2-1 rate, or 3-1 with Teysa out. Having to tap out just to play some fodder on turn 4 or 5 is tough when its not protected against boardwipes. Making fodder from creatures with Pawn of Ulamog or Elenda, the Dusk Rose tends to be more mana efficient than paying a bunch of mana for upfront tokens. Teysa also doesn't double them. They're definitely not that bad if you want to play them, I just prefer cheaper cards. If you want more fodder for 1 card, try Ministrant of Obligation.

Housegheist on Divine Machinations (Cleric Tribal)

1 year ago

Could Priest of Forgotten Gods, Demon's Disciple or Ministrant of Obligation help?

multimedia on Teysa Tokens

1 year ago

Hey, well done with your version of Teysa.

Consider Mimic Vat? It has lots of uses in multiplayer Commander because it can imprint an opponent's creature who died. Best of all it's a repeatable effect to create a creature token and you can change which creature is imprinted as long as the creature died.

Imprint your own creature who has a good dies effect such as Archon of Justice. Add a sac outlet such as Viscera Seer to sac the token before the next end step and control Teysa to repeatedly exile two permanents when the Archon token dies.

Consider Priest of Forgotten Gods and Skirsdag High Priest? These Priests are in my opinion underrated in multiplayer Commander since they're two drops who's if you get to tap them can take over a game with tokens. Skirsdag can be activated when any creature dies that gives it a lot uses in multiplayer. Teysa gives tokens vigilance, flying tokens can attack, then if they need to block, then be tapped to activate Skirsdag.

Imprint Ministrant of Obligation with Mimic Vat to then for three mana fuel Forgotten which then fuels Skirsdag and repeat.

Good luck with your deck.

unstable_anomaly on Blood Bending - Awaken the Avatar

1 year ago

Absolutely love it. +1 for the name alone, but solid build all around. If I could give +2 for your choice of basic lands I would. You've definitely inspired me to try and build my own version of Awaken the Blood Avatar .

Quick question though... do you rely mostly on sacrificing your tokens in order to reduce the casting cost of Awaken the Blood Avatar , or do you sac your regular creatures as well? I'm curious because I thought cards with afterlife might be good here. Doomed Traveler / Garrison Cat / Hunted Witness and Ministrant of Obligation just to name a few (there are many, many more in these colors. Theses would all pair really well with two cards you're already running Anointed Procession / Teysa Karlov .

Regardless of whether or not you decide to use those you could add Agadeem's Awakening  Flip / Rally the Ancestors or Wake the Dead for some pretty explosive turns. Luminous Broodmoth would be really good here as well.

multimedia on Teysa

1 year ago

Hey, you don't need massive help. This is a good first version especially if it's your first deck.

Some advice is try to reduce the mana curve. A 3.5 avg CMC is high, reducing this number will help gameplay. You want to prioritize the four, five or higher CMC cards. Keep the best ones for your strategy and cut the others. This deck building process is called streamlining or "cutting the fat". Adding more draw and ramp will help game play.

An example, the best fours drops here are: Teysa, Smothering Tithe, Pitiless Plunderer, Luminous Broodmoth, Elenda, Anointed Procession. Best five drops and six drops here: Sidisi, Thalisse, Wurmcoil Engine, Elspeth.

All the others not named could be cut to reduce the mana curve. A five drop that has a powerful die trigger is Archon of Justice, it's an upgrade for Liesa, Shroud of Dusk. Solemn Simulacrum is a fine four drop for ramp and a draw trigger when it dies, it's an upgrade for Kor Cartographer.

Reducing the mana curve means cutting high CMC cards for lower ones. Some examples:

  • Cutting Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts, a seven drop, adding one drop Skullclamp. Skullclamp is one of the better cards with Teysa for a draw engine. It's die trigger draws four cards, it's very good with the 1/1 token theme and sac outlets.

  • Cutting Increasing Devotion, adding Viscera Seer, five drop for a one drop. You can create tokens from many other sources that have more interaction with Teysa than Devotion does. Seer is a one drop repeatable sac outlet who can also be repeatable filtering the top card of your library to help draws especially with Skullclamp.

  • Cutting Debtors' Knell, adding Phyrexian Reclamation. A seven drop that doesn't do anything the turn you play it for a one drop that's mana efficient repeatable creature recursion even at instant speed.

  • Adding more two drop mana rocks: Talisman of Hierarchy and Orzhov Signet to improve ramp by cutting some four drops such as Oketra the True and Ill-Gotten Inheritance. For your deck Oketra is an expensive price card that's a mana expensive source of tokens which doesn't have much interaction with Teysa.

You could complete two combos with Teysa by adding two cards: Reassembling Skeleton and Ministrant of Obligation.

If interested I offer more advice. Would you like more advice? Good luck with your deck.

Masterful on Death and wine

1 year ago

This list looks really fun! I like Legion's Landing  Flip in Teysa. I've overlooked it in the past because of the land's lackluster activated ability, but I'm just now realizing how strong a 1 mana land-ramp card is in white. Since you can easily flip it in a deck with tokens, it seems strong.

I've been looking over your decklist, and I have a few suggestions about what to improve. First off, you're a little low on death triggers. Since this is Teysa's main strength, you may want to include more. If I counted right, you have 13 death triggers plus 2 more that aren't doubled by Teysa ( Luminous Broodmoth and Nether Traitor ). This makes Teysa herself more inconsistent. Just playing some more tokens-on-death cards like Ministrant of Obligation instead of Lingering Souls can go a long way to help facilitate her first ability as well as your cards that don't trigger off of tokens, like Pawn of Ulamog .

Second, I'd be careful about counting scry-effects like Temple of Silence , Woe Strider , or Path of Ancestry as card advantage. Scrying doesn't net you any cards. It's more like card filtering or card selection rather than card advantage. If you want lands that can provide card advantage, I'd go for Orzhov Basilica or Windbrisk Heights . Similarly, Verge Rangers don't ramp you, they just provide card advantage.

Overall, really cool list. I like Field of the Dead , Inkshield , and Shadowspear . They add some spice in unexpected places. I'm interested in where this list ends up. Cheers!

multimedia on Teysa Karlov Aristocrats

1 year ago

Hey, Skullclamp is one of the better repeatable die effects with Teysa since drawing 4 cards each time you equip to a creature for 1 mana is very good value. Skullclamp could replace Wayfarer's Bauble. The maybeboard is packed full of good cards that could be upgrades and there's several budget cards there to consider adding.

These cards could replace:

Other good budget cards with Teysa: Dark Prophecy, Midnight Reaper, Dreadhorde Invasion, Victimize, Ministrant of Obligation, Marauding Blight-Priest, Path of Ancestry, Witch's Cottage, Esper Panorama, Ash Barrens.

Good luck with your deck.

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