Deathmonicon - Teysa Karlov Aristocrats EDH

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo Sacrifice Tokens Tokens WB (Orzhov)

Austin_Smith_of_Cards

Creature (30)

• 1x Archon of Justice
• 1x Athreos, God of Passage
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bloodsoaked Champion
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Cathodion
• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Doomed Traveler
• 1x Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
• 1x Elenda, the Dusk Rose
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Ministrant of Obligation
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Requiem Angel
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Seraph of the Scales
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Teysa, Orzhov Scion
• 1x Tithe Taker
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Woe Strider
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Instant (4)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Village Rites

Land (34)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Brightclimb Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 4x Plains
• 1x Scoured Barrens
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x Shambling Vent
• 1x Shattered Sanctum
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 7x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Damn
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Kaya's Wrath
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Wrath of God

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Commander (1)

Artifact (12)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Blasting Station
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Vat of Rebirth

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Bastion of Remembrance
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Divine Visitation
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Skrelv's Hive
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x The Meathook Massacre

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Skrelv's Hive

Artifact (1)

• 1x Vat of Rebirth

Creature (1)

• 1x Drivnod, Carnage Dominus

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This is a brew of a 75% list for the queen of aristocrats, Teysa Karlov. Token generators, a little lifegain payoffs, and a couple infinite combos seems to be the way to go.

Early playtesting indicates she is extraordinarily powerful; her strengths are in padding your life total while threatening to dominate the board by either going wide or sacrificing enough creatures to Grave Pact effects to ensure no creature will ever hit the board against you again. Of course, there is also the route of continually sacrificing for value and grinding out opponents, which is probably the most dangerous strength of this list.

Right now a lot of brainstorming, any suggestions or interactions are welcome. I do not own all the cards, but once I solidify a list I’ll be trying to snap them up.

Essentials Breakdown

Card Advantage

Card drawing and filtering is essential in a format like EDH where we can only have one of each card, but since this list focuses so much on sacrificing creatures for value, we really need ways to refuel our hand to continue to feed the machine.

Grim Haruspex and Midnight Reaper are both similar cards included for both being low on the curve and providing a repeatable source of card draw as our deck naturally does its thing. The life loss isn't so bad since we not only start with a high life total but also get incidental lifegain off our commander.

Mentor of the Meek synergises with all the weenie tokens we generate, providing a reliable source of card draw. With something like Black Market, we have the potential to really churn through our deck.

Good old Sadbot is here to fix Orzhov's mana ramp problems as well as replace itself on death, sometimes twice.

Smothering Abomination latches onto our natural sacrifice plan and helps to refuel our hand. An evasive 4-power creature isn't bad either.

Although not really infinite, Krav, the Unredeemed is a pretty strong sacrifice outlet that buffers our life total, draws us cards, and can become a beatdown threat in its own right.

Village Rites is a cheap oneshot card draw effect that also synergizes with our game plan.

Skullclamp is actually the nuts. "{1}, Sacrifice a creature: Draw four cards" would probably be never printed normally, even as a six or seven drop. And we can play it turn one!

Necropotence is a terrifying Magic card, but this list can make even more ample use of this infamous enchantment with its ability to naturally gain some life back. Oftentimes allows us to instantly draw into the combo pieces we need to win the game.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General is perfect for our list. Generates tokens, forces symmetrical sacrifice, and has a card draw triggered ability we get to double up on.

Mana Ramp

Not only do we want to consistently cast our high-costing spells, but we need to keep up with the mana disadvantage we're at in a multiplayer match.

Pitiless Plunderer is similar to Ashnod's Altar in that it combos with certain cards to go infinite (even more so with Teysa), but the ability to generate Lotus Petals on one of our creatures dying is by itself powerful enough to warrant inclusion.

Sadbot was already mentioned in the card advantage category, but the consistent ramping is worth noting again.

Ashnod's Altar can be used to accelerate our mana with fodder creatures, but its true strength is as a combo piece and free sacrifice outlet. More information can (will) be found in the combos section.

Mind Stone, Orzhov Signet, Sol Ring, and Talisman of Hierarchy is the current suite of mana rocks since I'm still picking up cards for the list and my budget couldn't make the cut for Mana Crypt or Mana Vault (and probably won't ever for the former).

Black Market is one of the best ways for our deck to pump out consistent, absurd amounts of mana. It gets its charge counters whenever ANYthing dies, so playing it into a full board before a wrath is a surefire way to either put you ahead of everyone else at the table, or ask for a removal magnet.

Revel in Riches unfortunately gives us our mana ramp when our opponent's creatures die, so we can't use our sacrifice plan to control it, but with Teysa and a boardwipe, the alternate win condition is VERY scary for an unprepared table.

Smothering Tithe is currently in playtesting, but the powerful interactions with this list seems undeniable. Interacts powerfully with Revel in Riches and absolutely hoses wheel effects.

Spot Removal

There's going to be all kinds of crazy, powerful, and problematic permanents thrown our way, and we're going to need ways to reliably deal with them.

Archon of Justice is technically more of a rattlesnake than actual spot removal, but with access to so many on-demand sacrifice outlets, it can be immediately eaten at sorcery speed to get rid of any two problematic permanents. Seems like a good tradeoff to me.

Although we're not really focused around lifegain, we usually have enough to buffer our life total and take advantage of Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim's last ability, which does everything we need it to.

Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile are autoinclude, cheap removal spells that permanently deals with an opposing threat.

Despark gets rid of anything big and ugly that isn't a land, no questions asked. Since our multiple Grave Pact-ish effects can keep creatures in check, flexibility to deal with artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers is key.

Boardwipes

For when the game is just getting out of hand, it's good to have a hard reset button available. Since a majority of the time we don't mind our stuff dying, we can use this to our advantage.

Dusk / Dawn does double duty as a wipe for larger creatures and as a way to retrieve all our weenie creatures back to our hand. Since a majority of our creatures will be small anyway, we don't lose many creatures in the process.

Kaya's Wrath is a standard creaturewipe that also buffers our life total. Chosen over Fumigate for costing one less and having infinitely cooler flavor.

Living Death is a pseudo-boardwipe that this list can make extra use of by sacrificing all our creatures beforehand, floating a ton of mana or such, and immediately getting them all back.

Wrath of God is the classic all-star wipe that can even take care of regenerating creatures, although that's less of a thing in more modern magic.

Tutors

Since our deck does somewhat rely on piecing combo components together to get a win, we need ways to find them.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier lets us sacrifice fodder for a hard tutor, unfortunately doesn’t trigger twice with Teysa.

Demonic Tutor and Grim Tutor are among the strongest tutors in Magic, literally finds us whatever we want on-demand.

Diabolic Intent is identical to Demonic Tutor, with the additional cost of sacrificing a creature. I’d consider it a sidegrade as opposed to strictly worse.

The Pieces & Interactions (In Progress)

All spells and notable lands not mentioned in the essentials Breakdown will be explained here.

Creatures

Carrion Feeder and Viscera Seer are, most importantly, cheap, free sacrifice outlet for our combos. Once we can an infinite loop going, in the case of Feeder, we can make it infinitely large and beat down, or the Seer can put the exact card we need on top of our library.

Doomed Traveler is a cheap dork that doesn’t look all that much, but will still go infinite with Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle.

Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant, and Zulaport Cutthroat are our main payoffs once we can get an infinite recursion loop going; the payoff being winning the game. Until then, they're really good at pressuring opponents and padding our life total.

Reassembling Skeleton is a combo piece and excellent sacrifice fodder with all our treasures and random Scion generators.

Kind of a sidegrade to Grand Abolisher, Tithe Taker was chosen for its afterlife trigger while still deterring interaction during our turn.

Athreos, God of Passage is a highly resilient threat that provides recursion for our fodder. Sometimes it also turns into hefty life loss for our opponents if looping a creature ends up being too problematic.

Cathodion at the very worst is a colorless ritual effect, and at best produces infinite mana with the help of Nim Deathmantle and Teysa.

Hallowed Spiritkeeper and Seraph of the Scales are efficient mid-drops that each generate plenty of tokens on death, and both can go infinite relatively easily with Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar.

Pawn of Ulamog and Sifter of Skulls are similar token generators that create Eldrazi dorks upon one of our nontoken creatures dying that can be popped for mana.

Xathrid Necromancer generates a Zombie token on death, and sometimes gives us incidental tokens off our other creatures (if they're Human).

Yahenni, Undying Partisan wins games. It might not look much at first glance, but the haste coupled with the ability to get really big out of nowhere, and utility as a free sacrifice outlet makes it one of the best cards in the list.

Elenda, the Dusk Rose is initially overcosted and squishy, but being played into a full board with lots of fodder grows her very quickly, and when she does die, she creates so. Many. Tokens.

Whisper, Blood Liturgist is a way to repeatedly recur our bigger threats or a combo piece at the cost of the random dorks we generate.

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder ensures we never run out of fodder to sacrifice. Also, with Divine Visitation, he creates angels instead of thrulls, so you’ll never have to sacrifice him while quickly generating a beefy board.

Ogre Slumlord is a token producer that also deters opponents from attacking us.

Reveillark provides powerful recursion, and oftentimes the higher evoke cost won't be necessarily since we have access to so many on-demand sacrifice outlets. Great utility in reanimating key combo pieces after a boardwipe.

When it comes to bombs, Kokusho, the Evening Star is about as good as it gets for this list. Strong evasive body, and a death trigger that opponents may auto-scoop to if a sac outlet and Teysa are out.

Thanks to the reprint in Ultimate Masters, I was able to pick up a copy of Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in my budget. Undying doesn’t actually work triggering twice since the creature will have already returned to the battlefield before the second trigger resolves, but getting double mileage from our nontoken fodder is strong enough.

Requiem Angel is one of the cornerstone token generators in this list; unlike most of our other generators, the Angel triggers off of non-Spirits instead of nontokens. Not only does this get extra EXTRA usage from some of our creatures, but with Divine Visitation we create an infinite loop since the Spirits will be created as Angels instead.

Artifacts

Nim Deathmantle is the cornerstone to a lot of the combos in this list. Combined with Ashnod's Altar, anything that creates on death allows us to create infinite dies triggers, and with Teysa out, turns into infinite tokens. Using the Altar of Dementia as an outlet, we mill out our opponents, Carrion Feeder will be infinitely large, Blasting Station will deal infinite damage, and any of our Blood Artist effects will be infinite drain.

Mentioned above, Altar of Dementia is a free sacrifice outlet that can outright win the game through milling.

Blasting Station is not necessarily a free outlet, but with all the triggers from token generation on death, this quickly becomes a machine gun that kills opponents outright even without an infinite loop.

Enchantments

Bastion of Remembrance is a Blood Artist variant that doesn’t go away to a boardwipe.

Anointed Procession is a powerful tool that doubles our tokens, not just on death triggers. This includes stuff like Treasure tokens, which can really pull us far ahead into the game.

Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos are both effective creature culling tools, but it also doesn’t take too much board setup to create a lockdown situation where our opponents are unable to play creatures. Sometimes draws out concedes against certain decks.

Divine Visitation allows us to switch from a sacrifice archetype, and just go full-blown tokens and beat down. Of course, it also has special interactions with Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder and Requiem Angel that enables gross combo potential.

Lands

Barren Moor and Secluded Steppe are a pair of cycling lands for either mana or digging a little deeper.

Field of Ruin is the land destruction card being utilized in the manabase.

Phyrexian Tower is a repeatable sacrifice outlet that also provides additional ramp.

Temple of the False God is a Sol land, provides additional mana starting mid game.

Vault of the Archangel is admittedly here because I like the gothic flavoring, but it does provide a threatening defense by giving our board deathtouch.

Westvale Abbey   generates tokens for us to sacrifice, but can also transform into a significant threat if need be.

Degenerate Combos (Eww)

Some combos I either saw from other sources or came up with:

Teysa Karlov + Cathodion + Blasting Station + Nim Deathmantle = infinite Blasting & mana

Teysa Karlov + Pitiless Plunderer + Reassembling Skeleton + sac outlet = infinite dies triggers & sacs

Teysa Karlov + Requiem Angel + Divine Visitation + sac outlet = infinite angels & dies triggers

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder + Divine Visitation = never have to sacrifice Endrek Sahr

Requiem Angel + Divine Visitation + Blasting Station = infinite Blasting

Hallowed Spiritkeeper (with at least 2 creatures in the yard) / Seraph of the Scales + Ashnod's Altar + Nim Deathmantle + Blood Artist/Cruel Celebrant/Bastion of Remembrance/Zulaport Cutthroat = infinite mana, tokens & drain

Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.97
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Goat 0/1 W, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Morph 2/2 C, Phyrexian Mite 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 WB, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	White Back, Aristocrat, Ideas, Orzhov, Deathmonicon - Teysa Karlov Aristocrats EDH