Teshar Retriever Eggs

Commander / EDH Artifact Combo Competitive Mono-White

Steinofthewest

Artifact (33)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Blasting Station
• 1x Chromatic Sphere
• 1x Chromatic Star
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Conjurer's Bauble
• 1x Conqueror's Flail
• 1x Engineered Explosives
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Grinding Station
• 1x Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mishra's Bauble
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Mystic Forge
• 1x Paradise Mantle
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Piston Sledge
• 1x Relic Vial
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Springleaf Drum
• 1x Urza's Bauble

Creature (28)

• 1x Arcbound Ravager
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Benevolent Bodyguard
• 1x Cathodion
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Ethersworn Canonist
• 1x Filigree Familiar
• 1x Glint Hawk
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Junk Diver
• 1x Memnite
• 1x Metalworker
• 1x Myr Retriever
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Phyrexian Walker
• 1x Ranger-Captain of Eos
• 1x Ranger of Eos
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Salvage Scout
• 1x Salvager of Ruin
• 1x Scrap Trawler
• 1x Skyclave Apparition
• 1x Skyscanner
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Wall of Omens
• 1x Weathered Wayfarer
• 1x Workshop Assistant

Instant (7)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Unexpectedly Absent

Commander (1)

Land (29)

• 1x Ancient Den
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mishra's Workshop
• 1x Mouth of Ronom
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 10x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Windswept Heath

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1x Steelshaper's Gift

---

Hello and welcome to the workshop. This is a competitive build of Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and while there are many different forms and variations of teshar, this is first and foremost a combo deck. I would say that Teshar is a storm deck and an eggs deck. Teshar has a unique ability that whenever you cast a historic spell you may return a creature with CMC 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. While historic spells collectively refer to artifacts, anything with the legendary supertype, and Sagas there is only one text we need to worry about and that is artifacts. At least for this list you may infer to Teshar's ability to read "Whenever you cast an artifact" for simplicity. This deck has gone through many revisions on my quest to make mono white "Viable." Am I bashing my own favorite color? Maybe a little but I digress. Now there are other "Viable" mono white commanders such as the recently released Heliod, and the equipment draw engine Sram. All have their strengths and weaknesses, but I prefer Teshar. White is by far the weakest color in EDH, lacking card advantage and ramp. Now I'm sure your asking yourself is the primer writer really bashing his own color he's brewing in? It's a love hate relationship, but this is where things get interesting. Teshar is a colorless deck splashing white. There are only 24 white cards in this deck, with Teshar being the High octane fuel we need to push retriever effects to the next level. Retriever effects are extremely powerful and even warranted a ban in modern in the form of KCI, but they only create half a loop without the help from Scrappy T, and Teshar is exactly that piece that allows us to go full circle. This deck is a resilient combo deck much like KCI, aimed to utilize Teshar's ability, sacrifice outlets, and death triggers to create value and eventually loops. Whenever we return an artifact from our graveyard to our hand with a creature retriever effect we can play it again, especially if its an "Egg" which is an artifact that costs zero. This triggers Teshar and we can return the creature retriever effect we used to bring the artifact back to our hand onto the battlefield. This is the "Eggs" portion of the deck, but that only scratches the surface. There is also a storm aspect. I spoke of valuing teshar and this can be done in a multitude of ways. Whether it be milling yourself with grinding stations to find more value, or killing artifacts to draw more cards. Many times the deck is an engine that just starts to snowball until you've begun to "storm off" into a definite loop or valued so much that you will draw your deck. The inherent problem of white is card draw and card selection, but this deck aims to stem that issue, to take mono white from a beat down color to a combo color. Welcome to the workshop grab your apron, lets begin.

Why or why not you should play this deck

--Why you should play this deck--

-You enjoy combo decks

-You like eggs decks

-You like puzzles

-You like memes

--Why you shouldn't play this deck--

-You like straight forward combos

-You don’t like combos

-You want to interact with counterspells

-The learning curve is steep and to some it may not be worth it

Sacrifice effects

Everything in this deck has a purpose and all is expendable, even our commander. To gain advantage from Teshar's ability we must put things into the graveyard, hopefully on our terms. "Greatness at any cost."

--Mana Generators-- We need to put creatures into our graveyard from the battlefield to generate value, Kark-Clan Ironworks, Ashnod’s Altar, and Phyrexian altar all put them into the graveyard while generating mana. Unfortunately they are enablers but they do not create an outlet. An example of an Ashnod’s Altar loop can be found in the “Recruiter of the Guard” section in the Tutors panel.

--Mill Outlets-- While the Mill Outlets like Altar of Dementia, and Grinding Stations put cards into our graveyard from the battlefield like the mana generators, their alternate value is to put cards from the top of our library into our graveyard. Depending on the situation this can be better or worse. Sometimes you need more mana but sometimes you need an outlet. These are both an enabler and an outlet, as you can perform a loop and kill your opponent. Sometimes you can even get away with blind milling yourself into a retriever effect and use Teshar’s ability to bring it back. An example of a Altar of Dementia Loop can be found in the “Double Zero ETB Retreiver” section in the Retriever Effects panel.

--Other-- The remainder have different values when activated but all do the same thing. Put cards into the graveyard from the battlefield to get value from Teshar. Skull clamp is both an outlet and an enabler. A Lot of the creatures in this deck have toughness 1 to accommodate Skullclamp to draw 2 cards right away for 1 mana. An example of a loop using Skull Clamp as an outlet and enabler can be something simple like Lotus Petal, Myr Retriever, and Skull Clamp. With Teshar on the field, you crack the Lotus petal for white. Pay into clamp to equip onto Myr Retriever. It dies, you draw two cards and pickup lotus petal, and when you cast lotus Petal again it brings back Myr Retriever to draw your deck.

Retriever Effects

These are your goodest bois, much like your common labrador retriever when you throw something they bring it back and you can continue to play fetch in a loop. This is the same with Teshar, your retriever effects are basically diving into the graveyard to pull an artifact back to hand, and when you cast it they jump back out. They are mostly redundant except scrap trawler, when they die they return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand. That is half the circle, but with teshar out we complete the circle. Whenever we return these artifacts to our hand we can cast them again. Teshar will have a cast trigger, and bring back that same very creature we used to get the artifact into our hand back into play. Retriever Effects are the bread and butter of the deck. Scrap trawler differs from the others being able to use other artifacts or itself with LESS cmc, this is actually extremely relevant and lets you play around graveyard non static hate.

--Double Zero ETB Retrievers-- Glint Hawk returns artifacts to your hand from the battlefield. Good ol’ Glint hawk, do not underestimate him. He is a ritual on mana positive rocks, and once you can kill him with two artifacts on the battlefield he can be looped. Why I call these double zero retrievers is because to technically go infinite you need two zero drops because he enters from the graveyard before the casted artifact resolves. An example of a mill kill using a Double Zero Loop would be let's say we have teshar on the field with an altar of dementia, and a Paradise Mantel. Cast Ranger of Eos tutoring up Glint hawk and Memnite. Cast Glint with the trigger on the stack sacrifice him and mill yourself. Now cast the Memnite Teshar cast trigger bringing back Glint Hawk. ETB picking up paradise mantel. Now sacrifice Glinthawk milling an opponent twice. Cast Paradise Mantel Teshar cast trigger bringing back glinthawk, this will pickup the memnite. Mill your opponent for 2 again and keep doing this loop. Alternatively if you are worried about your opponents milling into something like a memory journey you can mill yourself into an alternate kill with retriever effects and eventually transition into infinite mana and ballista for example.

Tutors

One of the biggest downsides of mono white is a limited selection of tutors. This means we must maximize every tutor we have, and thanks to Teshar some can be reused multiple times barring they are a creature with CMC 3 or less.

Ranger-Captain of Eos- This card is a combo with LED as well as being silence on a stick. It can also find LED by tutoring Weather Wayfarer into Inventor’s Fair into LED. The primary line with this card and LED in hand is to cast it, and finding Salvage Scout. Now sacrifice Ranger-Captain to prevent pesky interaction. Cast Salvage Scout and LED, crack LED discarding your hand and cast teshar. If you have one white leftover you activate Salvage Scout's ability to return LED from your graveyard to your hand. You then cast LED, teshar triggers bringing back Salvage Scout, crack LED and continue this loop until you have infinite mana. On the last cast of LED return Ranger-Captain of Eos with Teshar and find ballista. There are also a variety of one or less creatures to search based on your situation.

Ranger of Eos- Unfortunately this card is CMC 4 so you cannot return it. This is not the end of the world as this is also a combo with LED and has some other interesting interactions. With LED in hand you can perform the previously mentioned combo with one additional, one or less slot. If you already have an outlet for your infinite mana you can bypass ballista and find Benevolent Bodyguard to protect against spot removal. The other Line is if you have a sacrifice outlet for creatures find Glint Hawk and either a zero drop to perform a double zero loop or if that is not an issue find Ballista as an outlet. Finding Salvage Scout and Weathered Wayfarer can also get you to build a bomberman combo.

Recruiter of the Guard- This is a wonderful card in this deck. Not only does it find almost every creature in the deck, it is a two card combo with Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar. Lets say Teshar and Ashnod’s Altar are on the field because there are ways to implement the mana generation into this but for simplicity sake. Cast Recruiter of the Guard, tutor Memnite to hand, sacrifice Recruiter to make 2 colorless, cast Memnite. Teshar will trigger and bring back Recruiter for a ETB search. Find Phyrexian Walker, Sacrifice both Memnite and Recruiter to generate 4 Colorless. Cast Phyrexian Walker, Teshar will trigger bringing back Recruiter for an ETB finding Myr Retriever. Sacrifice Recruiter again for 2 Colorless Mana and Cast Myr Retriever, Recruiter returns with an ETB finding Ballista. Sacrifice Myr Retriever returning Memnite, you then cast Memnite returning Myr Retriever and then sacrifice Memnite Generating 2 Colorless then Myr retriever Generating 2 Colorless. Myr Retriever death trigger picks up Memnite and you can do this for an arbitrarily large amount of colorless mana and cast ballista to win the game. Beyond this are many different lines, including finding Grand Abolisher prior to protect yourself.

Stoneforge Mystic- Finds Clamp. There are some niche areas where you find Paradise Mantel for an extra reanimation or zero drop for a double zero loop, but you want to “Give em the clamps” so to speak.

Weathered Wayfarer- Already spoken about previously but can find different lands, like blast zone to get out from under a Stony Silence, or ramp such as Mishra’s Workshop.

Steel Shapers Gift- Yes Clamp is that important.

Inventors Fair & Enlightened Tutor- Fairly straight forward, but find any artifact that you are missing based off your hand, or tutor a value engine such as mystic forge.

Storm

I previously mentioned a storm aspect of this deck, and while sometimes you have a definitive line, other times you can ride value and mana generation into a kill. Cards like Cathodian, Sky Scanner, and Filigree Familiar are all value creatures. If you combine them with sacrifice outlets they start to generate value off Teshar’s Historic triggers. With Krark-Clan Iron works every time you sacrifice Cathodian you are generating 5 mana! Combine that with skull clamp and you are very likely to keep drawing into more historic spell which will bring back cathodian and make more mana and draw more cards. Keep in mind Cathodian combined with Altar of dementia generates 3 colorless mana and puts 3 cards into your graveyard to find what you need to win. The draw creatures can dig you further into your deck, combine them with a free way to put them into your yard and now every zero drop historic spell in your hand says draw a card, beyond whatever other value you are obtaining. One of the best storm cards in this deck is Mystic Forge, which I find myself tutoring more and more often. I was skeptical at first but this card is absolute gas. With a combination of fetches, tutor creatures, and top we can keep resetting the top card to cast it. Cards like Stoneforge Mystic can find value even post tutoring all your equipment just for the shuffle. If you have a Phyrexian Altar, and Mystic Forge your historic spell off the top can bring back creatures to turn into mana to cast more historic spells off the top, and if you get stuck you can use a Stoneforge Mystic shuffle, stars and spheres, and fetches to draw/shuffle past and keep the engine turning.

Matchups & Issues

This deck is purley a combo deck, and unfortunately we get hit hard by stax pieces. Always be aware of the opponents you are up against. If you know there may be null rod type effects keep that in mind in your opener. There are limited interaction spells, and while they may slow you down seeing one in your opener can be a safety net for stax and can sometimes save your life (Ex. Disenchant on Food Chain.) One of the best cards if you do get under a lock to drag yourself out is Mystic Forge, filter through the top until you find something you want to keep. There are a variety of different answers layered into the deck balanced to not slow it down. If the table is mostly proactive mulligan aggressively for a fast start, you can hang with the fastest with the right hands, albeit you are not the fastest. Base your hand on position at the table, and try to race, or disrupt just enough to buy time for a win. For reactive decks keep in mind teshar is actually good vs counterspells(Once Resolved). Or If you can force him through with a Cavern of Souls most of his engine is cast triggers and therefore can only be stifled. So although the opponent may counter the historic spell the retriever effect or other creature will still enter usually resulting in a loop. I usually do not cast Teshar unless I'm going to win, or I'm going to value so much there is a high chance I will win. Keeping his cost down is important especially against reactive decks, as if you can play your combo turn right you can cast him multiple times in a turn through removal spells, or pivot on the combo turn after they destroy a sacrifice outlet and try and force through another. Since we do not have counterspells utilize the silence effects to draw out counterspell well before deploying actual crucial pieces, and sometimes you just have to not be afraid to go for it. Don't be afraid to take risks. Your dead to flash anywho because your mono white.

I feel like i've rambled enough. Feel free to join us on the discord https://discord.gg/cd7FavX

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.73
Tokens	Elephant 3/3 G, Illusion */* U
Folders	Take Note, cEDH Conglomerate, White, General