THIS PRIMER IS CURRENTLY UNDER RE-CONTRUCTION TO BECOME THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND COMPLETE SOURCE FOR BREWING WITH TEYSA

This will take some time for me to complete, but I encourage you to check out the contents already there. This source will recieve constant updates in both quality and content, so stay tuned!

Did you pay your debts?

Welcome fellow brewers! Let me introduce myself. My names Sebastian and I'm living in Germany. I started playing magic around 15 years ago and have been playing since then, with occasional breaks here and there. I mainly played 60 card casual games during my first years and had a number of drafts up until now. It got pretty quite for magic around 2010, but eventually in 2015 I stepped into the commander format and have been hooked since then. It is the one and only reason why I play magic. If it would've not been for commander I would do something else now for sure, but this great format offers so much freedom in deckbuilding and gameplay, that I was falling in love again.

My relationship with the Orzhov Guild started back in original Ravnica, where I picked up the precon 60-card deck and played with it casually. I upgraded it for many years to come and had great success with it on kitchen tables. I liked the story of the Orzhov guild and there concepts of the world, aswell as what black and white embody in Magic. Draining opponent's life, reanimating stuff from the graveyard, unconditional removal, sacrifice themes and overall very resillient strategies. You have to make sacrifices for the guild, but the wealth that you will end up in, is unmatched by other guilds.

As for Teysa herself: I loved the card back in the day - I love the card now - I will love the card forever. Her role in magic's story is great and the writing for her character is flat out amazing. Gameplay wise she is a very special commander, enabling multiple ways to play her and tackle deckbuilding around her. We will get more into this later, but the sheer versatility she has as our commander is something you won't find with many other cards, especially not in Orzhov colors.

When it come to this primer, I want to deliver you the most comprehensive and up to date source for brewing with Teysa. She was one of my very first commander decks and over the last two years I was working on that deck constantly and with great devotion. I don't believe that there is a "best" version of the deck or a card that has to absolutely be in the deck. (well, Skullclamp has to I guess) Rather I want to deliver all possible strategies and card choices there are and encourage you to experiment. After all, we all have different perceptions of what is fun, we have different metas which might demand different decissions and of course we have different budgets. This primer is going to be for all of you fellow Teysa brewers out there and I hope I can satisfy you all.

Lastly, If you like to keep up with brewing around Teysa, I urge you to add this primer to your subscriptions, add it to folders, share it to friends and if you got inspired or got something positive out of it, leave me an upvote or even better, a comment, so we can all contribute to the greatness of this primer. I will update this with every new sets release, talking about new cards and evaluating them. I might not know all cards and interactions within the possibilities and I don't claim this source to be perfect nor complete, but I will give my best to keep it as complete as I can though.

Gimme' ten reasons for the Grand Envoy

You might like Teysa, because...

  1. You love playing with all recources the game offers to you.
  2. You want your opponents to pay debts and benefit you with their loss.
  3. You understand the importance of making sacrifices for the greater goal of adding to your wealth.
  4. You look forward to surviving board wipes and continue even stronger.
  5. You enjoy long and grindy games and demand to stay in the game even if the unbelieving cause troubles.
  6. You are ready for overloaded stacks and resolving a ton of triggers.
  7. You value servants that are refusing to die and see the graveyard as an extended hand.
  8. You undertstand politics and want to have the tools to be an advokist at the table.
  9. You feel the need to play a low curve and use all your mana in the most efficient way possible.
  10. 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.

Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts

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, Eternal Pilgrim

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.

Karlov of the Ghost Council

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.

Athreos, God of Passage

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 the Returned

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, Consul of Allocation

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.

Obzedat, Ghost Council

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.

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter

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.

Ravos, Soultender & Tymna the Weaver

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.

Selenia, Dark Angel

This commander serves for the foundation of weired combo decks, that commit to suicide. Interesting for sure, but no need for her in Teysa.

Triad of Fates

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"!

Ghost Council of Orzhova

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.

Teysa, where shall I take you?

The possibilities with this Orzhov commander are very broad and like I mentioned earlier in the "Why-Section", you can build almost any archetype with Ms. Karlov. In this section I'm going to examine all the possible archetypes and give you a general idea of the powerlevel and the strategy. We are also going to talk about Teysa in the first place, which we didn't so far, so let's get into it.

Teysa, the Orzhov Scion Show

Aggro Show

Combo Show

Control Show

Pillowfort Show

Swarm Show

Reanimator Show

Stax Show

All these options...

In this section I listed a ton of cards that can be used to brew with. They are split up in different categories, so you as the builder will have a better time finding the stuff that you need. As I said earlier, I'm not trying to do all the work for you, as our perceptions of fun and good strategy are vastly different. In my opinion a lot of the fun comes from experimenting on your own. Set yourself a basic starting point and then streamline your build going forward. This process can take ages, but the satisfaction you feel if you get it to perform consistent in the way you want to, is just priceless.

I want to stress out again that by no means this list is complete. It's a collection of cards generally played in Teysa and/or Orzhov decks using edhrec.com as the basic source. But since edhrec never gives you all options and sometimes even misses out on really good cards, I added some more cards that I found noteworthy.

Manafixing Lands Show

Lifegain & Lifedrain Show

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43% Casual

57% Competitive

Revision 37 See all

(5 years ago)

-1 Merciless Executioner main
+1 Plaguecrafter main
-1 Scrubland main
+1 Shambling Vent main
Date added 8 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

7 - 0 Mythic Rares

37 - 0 Rares

29 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.62
Tokens 2/2 C Artifact Creature Spawn, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Morph 2/2 C, Serf 0/1 B, Servo 1/1 C, Snake 1/1 B, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders Other BW Lifegrain, EDH, Idea List
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