Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

Commander / EDH Masterful

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Adventures in the Forgotten Realms —July 16, 2021

With AFR and AFC here, there are quite a few new cards to consider for aristocrats.

• First up are Dancing Sword and Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant. Despite having cool death triggers, they aren't repeatable with Teysa Karlov, so we won't be running them here. Icingdeath's equipment is legendary, so we'd have to sacrifice one of them, effectively making it so they weren't doubled by Teysa (not that such an equipment would be super useful in the first place). Dancing Sword would potentially be strong if worded differently, but in its current state, it becomes a creature and stops there.

• Guardian of Faith could be a meta-answer to a ton of board wipes. It's not nearly as strong as Teferi's Protection, but it still does a great job of protecting your creatures. Additionally, having a situational effect like this on a creature lets it perform as fodder in worst-case-scenarios, something that's very important in aristocrats. It's too situational to make it in this list, but don't be afraid to play it if you're losing to boardwipes often.

• Ebondeath, Dracolich makes a noble attempt at competing with Reassembling Skeleton, but it's ultimately too expensive. Flash is nice, but 4 mana for a single creature is probably too slow.

• Deadly Dispute joins the ranks of Village Rites, Costly Plunder, and the like for instant speed sacrifice-based draw. These cards are never bad to play, but they're not as good as repeatable draw like Skullclamp or Midnight Reaper.

• Shambling Ghast is the best death trigger from the two sets. Creating a treasure upon death is strong, especially if it's recurred multiple times in the same turn with Teysa out. However, it still doesn't quite make the cut due to the difficulty of bringing it back repeatedly. Most of our infinite combos utilize Reassembling Skeleton or Nether Traitor, so Ghast won't help. If we just use it for value, making a treasure is generally worse than making a creature in aristocrats.

However, the card I'm considering most for the deck is Loyal Warhound. At first glance, it may seem like a bad ramp card, but it has quite a few reasons to play it over its contemporaries. First, it's a creature. Aristocrats love creatures, especially Teysa, since they mean more death triggers. It also has perfect stats for our secret commander, Skullclamp. Having played a lot of Knight of the White Orchid, believe me when I say creature ramp is worth it. Additionally, I wouldn't say the land coming in tapped, being limited only to a basic plains, or only ramping when behind on lands are deal breakers. Like I mention in the primer somewhere, if your opponents win the die-roll for turn order, they'll choose to go first 99% of the time, and most playgroups will let you choose to go second if you win the die-roll. Therefore, you shouldn't have a problem being behind in lands to at least one player every game. The main downside of the card is that it won't usually ramp you on turn 2 which is sometimes the most crucial ramp turn. Thankfully, Teysa isn't a commander you want to run out ASAP, so having 4 mana by turn 3 isn't as necessary as it is for some decks. For now, I'll be replacing Fellwar Stone with the Warhound. I'm confident the dog will be strong, but I could see myself swapping fellwar back in the future. In faster metas, consistent ramp like Fellwar Stone is definitely better. Warhound is the greedy option since it gives more value overall.

Like always, if there are any cards I missed or anything you want to hear my opinions on, let me know in the comments. I read and answer every comment eventually, but it can sometimes take me a while.