MTG Salvation

Here's my final list, although it will probably be shift somewhat as I play. The general idea is to make for some token shenanigans, with plenty of removal to deal with unwanted nasties.

The first thing I would immediately add to your deck is Darkest Hour. It is quite a powerful combo with Teysa and allows you to basically exile creatures at will with three white guys out.

I considered that, but Darkest Hour makes all creatures black and only black, so I couldn't use Teysa's ability at all, since I wouldn't control any white creatures

I think that looks like a solid deck. Probably better than my Teysa deck.

Since BW is so good at killing GY's, I run Living Death variants.

Hex might be hard to cast, but that depends on your local meta.

Possible cuts: Respelendant Mentor and some of the other lifegain. Congregate may be an exception if you go against tokens though. I'd squeeze in more token generation or BW creatures instead.

Voracious Hatchling is really good, IMO.

I run Cremate a lot too, but you may decide you don't have space.

Whatever that BW zombie maker enchantment from ALR might be considered.

Vindicate and *** are some notable ommissions, possibly you don't have them.

Teysaa is one of the easiest generals to recast: I'd go with 38 lands and 4-6 mana artifacts.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Unfortunately I only have about a tenth of these cards, so I'd like to cut down the list to know what to trade for. I put Hex in because I could wipe my opponent's board even if they have 3-4 creatures, and just kill my own expendable tokens. I think more token generation is a good idea, but I'm trying to stick to reusable generators as opposed to one-time uses. I thought Resplendent Mentor might be useful in response to board wipes/in a stalemate or when my tokens aren't doing anything. Good catch on Vindicate, I forgot about that. Lastly, I was recommended to avoid Wrath of God because it only affects creatures, and only sends them to the graveyard, as opposed to making them harder to get back (as opposed to exile or bottom of library). Thanks for your suggestions, I'll definitely rethink some of those cards

Just my rendition of a token deck. With such an inexpensive general thats so directly based around removal i didn't feel too many of the slots in the deck needed to revolve around creature removal spells. Also i didn't feel like you were going to have a solid win condition other than maybe trying to swarm people with abnormally large tokens, and what else are cards like breeding pit really well paired with? why giant flying trampling demons and the like. This being a quick rework of the deck there are obvious other cards that COULD prove to be useful in the deck

• Honor of the pure
  
• Oversold Cemetary

just among the most common that spring to mind. Also i liked captain of the watch FAR more than the belfry spirit as it comes with more tokens and doesn't have to be removed from the game... not to mention the fact that it benifits the tokens it creates directly. Also the painter's servant felt too fragile compared to the enchantment version.

Anyway i hope this helped in some way.

Hey Aryakin, thanks for making the point about my deck not really having any win conditions other than swarmy tokens. You're totally right, and what other context are we going to have where huge tramply demons are actually playable? I love the idea, and I think I might copy a few of yours. Also, it's comforting that our decklists are so similar, as it means I'm at least going in the right direction. Thanks

no problem man, i did try to use what you had posted as a basis considering what you wanted to run etc. I've been sitting around eye-balling my lord of the pits etc and thinking about all the angel decks that seem to run around my local card shop i just used your request as an excuse to express that desire onto a medium

darkest hour actually is a fun way to combo with teysa. get any token into play, darkest hour, and Phyrexian Altar for infinite mana. add Bitter Ordeal to it and you have a fun win con that not many people will see coming

I would definitely add Painter's Servant, it's amazing w/ Teysa.

darkest hour actually is a fun way to combo with teysa. get any token into play, darkest hour, and Phyrexian Altar for infinite mana. add Bitter Ordeal to it and you have a fun win con that not many people will see coming

I've got to agree with Darkest Hour. It's true that it shuts down Teysa's removal, and that sucks...but you can still very often just win after you play it. Infinite creature sacrifices are extremely powerful and easy to abuse. Instead of messing around with more complicated combos, you can just win with Blasting Station or Altar of Dementia. These are the best win conditions for a Teysa deck in my opinion, and is how my build usually wins. Token swarm is a decent plan b, but trying to kill anyone with creatures is really hard in EDH. The combos are much easier to pull off.

Another combo I'm fond of that doesn't require Painter's Servant or Darkest Hour is Teysa + Phyrexian Altar + Nether Traitor. Both are fine cards in this deck anyhow, but this will allow you to generate infinite colored mana and infinite white tokens. Pretty damn good. Bitter Ordeal is an interesting option, but I think you can do better: it only really works if you have a reusable sacrifice outlet, and any sacrifice outlet should be able to win by itself in this scenario.

I've looked over a few decklists, but I don't think combo is the way I want to go with this deck. That is not to say that I don't think the combo works, and works well, but I think I would have more fun with something of a tokeny/demony beats deck. Thanks for the suggestions

In my current meta people with infinite combo's or "auto-win" situations tend to catch alot of hate from multiple people rarely ever lasting long enough to produce said combo's. They work in the begining because no one knows its there but soon everyone catches on and eventually you'll find that anytime you sit down you'll auto start clocks that tick down way too fast for you backed with devastating effects to any "combo" plan.

people who play 1v1 EDH have thier thing and thats cool, if you want to run "i win" combos effectively thats where you need to do it, but the vast majority of EDH decks will tend to get less credibility from MOST (stressing the word MOST) playgroups if thier only really viable in duels. And again i say to each its own, if thats what you wanna do or how you win im glad for you (this isn't said as a state of argument) but alot of people seem like they dont understand that in multiplayer formats the less auto win situations you have the better your chances at survival will be. Trust me you dont wanna be the Standard Bearer of your local card shop.

Hey Aryakin, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. I think you're arguing that in most situations, an auto win combo will catch a lot of hate, making victory difficult if not impossible after the first time it goes off. What I want for this deck is the opposite--I want to win through attrition and creature damage while controlling threats until I can amass a sizeable army, or at least a few demons. Teysa is there for easy token generation, her colors, and recurrable removal that itself prevents recursion. Would it be fair to say that you agree with this approach, as opposed to trying to get some sort of combo to win?

yes i was responding to khymera

Ah, my mistake

Updated what I think will be the final decklist. I've gotten a lot of feedback and while more is always welcome, there's only so far I can get theorycrafting. I'm going to stick with the current list (updated the OP) and trade for the cards I don't have, and then go from there. Thanks for all the help

B/W Creatures are sick cause you sac them then get more white dudes. I like hybrid dudes and Necromancer's Covenant

I just registered to post here.

You HAVE to run Mirror Entity. It is such a HUGE bomb in EDH Teysa, that it's not even funny. When you have teysa, 6 tokens, and 9 mana, you drop mirror and swing with seven 5/5's. Next turn that's 8 9/9's. It's really really good, and it should be run in a teysa deck.

I run Teysa myself, and I get a lot of use out of the following cards:

Braids, Cabal Minion
Woebringer Demon
Magus of the Abyss (would be the original enchantment if I had the cash)

These cards work great in winning a war of attrition, which a lot of games in my neighborhood seem to degenerate into. I imagine World Queller would fit right in here as well, I just haven't picked one up yet.

As we're talking about wars of attrition, Soul Warden and Deathgreeter are cheap and subtle ways to gain a lot of life over the course of a long game.

Quote from Biomechanika

Here's the problem. EDH is a format that heavily encourages players to build decks with all sorts of answers in them. Attrition usually doesn't work, because as soon as you develop a sizeable amount of beef, the board is cleared, and you'll have to start over.

Even if you can't stand the idea of combo, I highly suggest that every EDH deck include one instant-win combo of some sort, if possible. That way, when your creatures have all died for the 9001st time, at least you'll have a route to possibly winning the game.

the exception of course is when it is your General who is able to self amass sizable beef all on his own such as in the case of Jenera, Asura of War or Ob Nixilis, the Fallen then attrition becomes a somewhat realistic approach to winning.

Your decklist is very solid, though some things I honestly care little for, but personal tastes aside, some really good recursion in the form of a very old card is Purgatory. I just found that in my friends' collection, and for the cost in EDH, it's a very very good card. It's basically 2 life for Genesis that puts the creature into play. It's fairly awesome.

With your fatty beaters, you should give it a try. It could work very well.

I really think you should consider Tombstone Stairwell. Assume you have 4 creatures in your graveyard, you get 4 black Zombie tokens EVERY upkeep of EVERY player that die EVERY turn. That's a LOT of Spirit tokens