Deathharmonicon

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo Infinite Combo Necropotence Tokens WB (Orzhov)

Magorian

Creature (28)

• 1x Archon of Justice
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Carrier Thrall
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Cathodion
• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Doomed Traveler
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Hunted Witness
• 1x Krav, the Unredeemed
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Myr Retriever
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Orzhov Enforcer
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Requiem Angel
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Teysa, Orzhov Scion
• 1x Tithe Taker
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Land (37)

• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 9x Plains
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Shambling Vent
• 15x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Warped Landscape

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Fumigate
• 1x Kaya's Wrath
• 1x Mastermind's Acquisition

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Divine Visitation
• 1x Field of Souls
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Revel in Riches
• 1x Smothering Tithe

Commander (1)

Artifact (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Charcoal Diamond
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Library of Leng
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Marble Diamond
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Instant (4)

• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Secure the Wastes

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Unearth
• 1x Victimize
• 1x Vindicate

Creature (2)

• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Weathered Wayfarer

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Darkest Hour
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Land Tax

Artifact (1)

• 1x Blasting Station

Instant (2)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

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Hi everyone! This is my combo/aristocrats build for the new printing of Teysa. I would love your help identifying a clear upgrade plan. If you have any suggestions for cards to add, and which cards are weak and should be cut, I would love to hear your suggestions! In any case, here is the primer for the current build:

The Combos Show

Because the deck centers around death triggers, there are multiple ways to create infinite death triggers. Some of these combos can result in infinite mana and/or infinite tokens, but all of them are game ending when combined with Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant, or Zulaport Cutthroat. There are a lot of redundant cards, so I'll break this down into categories based on the unique cards in each version of the combo.

Reassembling Skeleton

Reassembling Skeleton's ability to recur itself is ideal for infinite loops. All we need is for our sacrifice of it to create colored mana and at least one token. Token generators include Pawn of Ulamog, Pitiless Plunderer, Requiem Angel, Sifter of Skulls, Teysa, Orzhov Scion, and Field of Souls.

• Reassembling Skeleton + Phyrexian Altar + any token generator = Infinite death triggers.

Sacrifice the skeleton to the altar, create a token, sacrifice the token to the altar, recur the skeleton and repeat. This is the basic engine, but it has many variations:

Variations Show

• Reassembling Skeleton + Phyrexian Altar + Teysa Karlov + any token generator = Infinite death triggers, infinite mana, and infinite tokens.

• Reassembling Skeleton + Teysa Karlov + Pitiless Plunderer + any sac outlet = Infinite death triggers.

• Reassembling Skeleton + Pitiless Plunderer + Ashnod's Altar = Infinite death triggers and infinite colorless mana.

• Reassembling Skeleton + Pitiless Plunderer + Ashnod's Altar + Teysa Karlov = Infinite death triggers and infinite mana of any color.

Nether Traitor

Nether Traitor can recur itself in much the same fashion as Reassembling Skeleton. Its recursion cost is cheaper, so it is easier to create infinite mana, but it does have the restriction that a creature must hit the graveyard before you can pay the cost to bring it back. This means that the engine cannot be driven by Pitiless Plunderer, but any other token generator will work because creature tokens do hit the graveyard before they cease to exist.

• Nether Traitor + Phyrexian Altar + any creature token generator = Infinite death triggers and infinite mana of any color.

• Nether Traitor + Phyrexian Altar + Teysa Karlov + any creature token generator = Infinite death triggers, infinite tokens, and infinite mana of any color.

If you don't have Phyrexian Altar, Pitiless Plunderer can provide the colored mana to recur Nether Traitor as long as you have another creature token generator and any other sac outlet.

Nim Deathmantle

Rather than relying on a creature that can recur itself, Nim Deathmantle can bring back any creature provided we generate enough colorless mana in the exchange. The simplest creature to pair this with by far is Cathodion.

• Nim Deathmantle + Cathodion + Phyrexian Altar = Infinite death triggers.

That is the basic engine, but again, there are many variations.

Variations Show

• Nim Deathmantle + Cathodion + Phyrexian Altar + Teysa Karlov = Infinite death triggers and infinite colored and colorless mana.

• Nim Deathmantle + Cathodion + Ashnod's Altar = Infinite death triggers and infinite colorless mana.

• Nim Deathmantle + any afterlife creature + Ashnod's Altar = Infinite death triggers.

• Nim Deathmantle + any afterlife creature + Ashnod's Altar + Teysa Karlov = Infinite death triggers, tokens, and colorless mana.

Divine Visitation

Most of the combos in the deck rely upon recurring a creature, because most of the token generators required for the loop only check for non-token creatures in order to trigger. However, Requiem Angel instead checks for non-spirit creatures as its restriction, which creates a great interaction with Divine Visitation

• Divine Visitation + Requiem Angel + any sac outlet = infinite death triggers.

• Divine Visitation + Requiem Angel + Teysa Karlov + any sac outlet = infinite death triggers and infinite tokens.

Card Draw Show

There is a lot of incidental card draw that I won't mention here, but there are two pieces that I want to highlight.

Death Triggers

Sticking with the death trigger theme, we're running Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, and Midnight Reaper. These will draw a ton of cards with the aristocrats strategy, and do remember that those draws are doubled when your commander is out. The most important thing, though, is that if you have assembled an infinite death trigger combo but don't have any of the win conditions to capitalize on it, you'll be able to draw cards until you find your win condition as long as you have any of these cards in play. Just be sure to sacrifice your card draw piece before you deck yourself!

Additionally, Skullclamp fits very well in this theme. It can kill your tokens for death triggers when you don't have another outlet, and with your commander out this becomes pay 1, draw 4. Not bad.

Necropotence

Necropotence is extremely powerful in this deck. It can be fueled by the lifelink tokens you have in more grindy games, but its greatest utility is in drawing a chunk of your deck when you're only a card or two away from assembling your combo. It is paired with Reliquary Tower or Library of Leng to maximize your card advantage, but if you're missing one of those two pieces it is plenty powerful to draw back up to seven every turn.

Removal Show

There is a typical package of targeted removal and sweepers, but the spicy pieces are Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir. Already powerful, they're particularly broken when Teysa Karlov is in play. Very often your ability to sacrifice creatures for mana, either through your sac outlets or Eldrazi tokens, turns into a one sided board wipe at the same time. And that's a board wipe that ignores hexproof and indestructible creatures.

Ramp Show

Like removal, we're running a typical ramp package of mana rocks and fetches, such as Sol Ring and Solemn Simulacrum. There are two other ramp packages worth mentioning though.

Tokens

There is a subtheme of mana producing tokens, either through Eldrazi or Treasure tokens.

• Treasure: Pitiless Plunderer, Revel in Riches, and Smothering Tithe turn common events into extra mana.

• Eldrazi: Pawn of Ulamog and Sifter of Skulls capitalize on your aristocrats strategy to generate tokens you can sac for mana without another sac outlet. Carrier Thrall is more of a single use value piece, but pairs well with Teysa Karlov and Ashnod's Altar.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

We all know about pairing Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth with Cabal Coffers, but this deck can also make use of Cabal Stronghold. "Basic" is a supertype, so your basic plains will count as a basic swamp when Urborg is in play. As just a two color deck, we run enough basics that Stronghold will be easy to activate for a profit.

Alternate Win Conditions Show

Combos can be fragile, so here are your backup plans.

Revel in Riches

It is extremely easy to generate 10 treasures either through removal and Revel in Riches, sacrifice outlets and Pitiless Plunderer, or Smothering Tithe in a multiplayer game. Just try to survive until your next upkeep!

Approach of the Second Sun

Approach of the Second Sun can be a powerful win condition because it is difficult to interact with. Even if it is countered on its second casting, you still win the game. It pairs particularly well with Necropotence, since you can spend the 7 life you gain to put it immediately back into your hand to cast the next turn. This could be an argument to include Vedalken Orrery for an instant speed win at the end of your turn, provided you have 14 available mana.

The deck has powerful synergies and a lot of redundancy, but I know I have some suboptimal cards. Planned upgrades are in the maybeboard. Thank you for your help!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.94
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Morph 2/2 C, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, Spirit 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 WB, Treasure, Warrior 1/1 W
Folders	Commander