Gimme' ten reasons for the Grand Envoy
You might like Teysa, because...
- You love playing with all recources the game offers to you.
- You want your opponents to pay debts and benefit you with their loss.
- You understand the importance of making sacrifices for the greater goal of adding to your wealth.
- You look forward to surviving board wipes and continue even stronger.
- You enjoy long and grindy games and demand to stay in the game even if the unbelieving cause troubles.
- You are ready for overloaded stacks and resolving a ton of triggers.
- You value servants that are refusing to die and see the graveyard as an extended hand.
- You undertstand politics and want to have the tools to be an advokist at the table.
- You feel the need to play a low curve and use all your mana in the most efficient way possible.
- You like to have the option to build aggro, combo, control, pillowfort, swarm, reanimator, stax or any hybrid of all these archetypes with the same commander.
I'm not going to give you reasons against Teysa, because if you don't like the things I listed above, you know this commander is not for you. Rather I would like to take you on a very brief journey through the archive of the other Orzhov commanders and give you my thoughts and compare them to the Orzhov Scion.
The Return to Ravnica version of Miss Karlov. As commander she is suited for a pillowfort strategy, because she is convincing your opponents to not attack you. Vigilance and protection from creatures pay into her favor and with some equipment or auras, she can be turned into a nice unblockable voltron lady. She is a bit expensive when it comes to the mana cost, but hey, a No Mercy on a 4/4 body with protection is still okay for 7 mana. I absolutely love the artwork on this one.
Ayli is the most popular Orzhov commander if we listen to EDHREC and I see why. Once the requirements for her second activated ability are met, she is pretty awesome at throwing Anguished Unmaking's for saccing a creature and said spells mana cost. However, I see problems with her. She wants you to be a lifegain deck to meet the "10+ > starting life" condition, but on the other hand she needs creatures to sacrifice for her abilities. Sure, there are ways to get everything under one roof, but from what I know it really lacks consistency.
As a lieutenant for Teysa she is actually really amazing. If you play drain effects and lifegain, she is a perfect choice, fulfilling multiple roles for just one slot in the deck.
Big ol' uncle of Teysa is another Orzhov Commander that cares about lifegain, but he cares about lifegain triggers. The more you get, the more +1/+1 counters you put on him, which then you can remove six, to exile target creature. That ability is similar to Teysa, Orzhov Scion and like he says: "Ambition runs in our family"!
If build correctly he makes a very strong commander, though not completely to my taste. Including him in Teysa decks doesn't make much sense in most cases, mechanically and from a flavor standpoint aswell. At least currently Teysa is scheming against the Ghost Council, which he is a part of, so I renounce the fat uncle.
An interesting Orzhov commander that will stay on the battlefield for a long time and taxes your opponents a lot. He is one of the more unspecific commanders, but you defintely don't want to run him for a reanimator strategy. Otherwise he is very good of course, but not for Teysa. We don't run him because Teysa has reanimation elements in most variations and does not need this type of taxing effect.
Daxos cares about enchantments and can spit out spirit tokens. Thats where it ends. Very unspecific commander otherwise, that probably wants to play enchantment creatures from the Theros Block and some pillowfort enchantments. No use for him in Teysa.
Kambal is a typical Death & Taxes commander, that is very unspecific aswell. Typically played with heavy pillowfort cards and a well rounded removal suite. But for Teysa he is to meaningless to get granted a slot in the deck.
Very cool Orzhov commander that can be build very powerfull with stax elements and other black/white goodstuff. With his blink ability he dodges all sorcery speed removal your opponents play, so he very rarely goes to the command zone, once casted. Nothing significant good to grant a spot in Teysa lists.
Another quite mana intense commander. He is being mostly played with goodstuff and has not a very specific theme attached to him. Nothing to gain from the vampire in Teysa lists.
The two partner commanders of C16. Typically you don't see these played individually, but for the partners in other color combinatons, these can give great utility use. No need for them in Teysa.
This commander serves for the foundation of weired combo decks, that commit to suicide. Interesting for sure, but no need for her in Teysa.
This is one of the less popular commanders in Orzhov colors. You can do some cool stuff with the abilities, but he is very slow and black/white have no real support for untapping them, so it would give more value. Teysa says "No"!
A commander that sees very little play in multiplayer commander, due to the fact that he is pretty unimpactful. If I recall correctly he did see some duelcommander play with minor success. No place in Teysa.