I was working on this list for my competitive 1v1 compendium, and thought this deck was interesting enough that it deserves its own thread--especially as I don't think this deck is completely finished yet. If anyone is inspired to help develop this, suggestions are appreciated.
Most Teysa lists pursue a token theme. I tried that strategy for a long time, and just couldn't make it work for me. The token-producers just aren't strong enough on their own to cut it in EDH. With Teysa, they give you access to a lot of potential removal...but that only helps much against creature decks, and is reliant on Teysa.
Instead, I ended up dropping the token theme, and going for a reanimator/combo deck. Here are the main ways to win with this deck:
1. Iona, Shield of Emeria + Painter's Servant, to lock out all spells. Iona costs too much to realistically play early enough, so we reanimate her--there are several ways to discard her if you draw her, but we also run Entomb and Buried Alive to get her directly into the graveyard. Victimize and Living Death are capable of putting both creatures directly into play, though Painter's Servant is also easy to cast if you draw it.
3. Teysa, Orzhov Scion + Painter's Servant/Darkest Hour + sacrifice outlet + any creature. This combo enables infinite sacrifices. With Altar of Dementia, you can win right there--the other sacrifice outlets don't necessarily win immediately, but are more versatile.
This deck also has access to a couple of truly ridiculous card advantage engines. Skullclamp + the dynamic duo of Bloodghast and Nether Traitor is disgustingly good in any deck, and becomes twice as good with Teysa out. (I frequently Entomb/Buried Alive these spirits, and tutor for Skullclamp as soon as I can.)
Also, turn 1 Weathered Wayfarer, turn 2 fetch and play Library of Alexandria results in phenomenal card advantage, as Wayfarer helps you keep your hand at 7.
I do find myself wishing that this deck had a few more cheap/tokeny creatures: some of the combos require a random creature to start them off, which is sometimes difficult to find. More creatures also improve the utility of the reanimation spells, and white creatures might help Teysa occasionally RFG something important.
Here are the cards I'm playing that I'm not completely sold on, though I'm not yet ready to cut them.
Carrion Feeder: the idea was to have a sacrifice outlet that's also a creature, so I can reanimate it if need be. It can become an infinitely large win condition with some of the combos, though the lack of evasion is annoying. Carrion Feeder got the nod over the competition because it's by far the cheapest, though Fallen Angel does have evasion. This is by far the clunkiest sacrifice outlet to use though, as it usually can't win the game immediately. I'm not sure if this slot is even necessary, though I do like having cheap creatures to sacrifice.
Angel of Despair: a reanimation target for when there's something I really need to deal with. However, it hasn't yet been necessary, it's too expensive to hardcast, and I generally want to save reanimation for Iona.
Knight-Captain of Eos: Potential soft-lock against some decks with Elspeth, Knight Errant. It also can be used as removal in a pinch with Teysa, and is not a bad target to recursively reanimate in a pinch. However, it's yet to actually be useful in practice, and 5 is pretty much the top of my curve. I'm not sure it does enough, though it's probably better than similar cards like Cloudgoat Ranger.
Darkest Hour: it's a combo piece in one of the combos, but is redundant with Painter's Servant. Unlike Painter's Servant, it has essentially no use outside of that one combo. This deck has enough combos that bringing redundancy to one of them may not be so important, though Darkest Hour is as cheap as it gets, and fairly difficult to destroy.
Sacred Mesa: I wanted to have an enchantment (for Idyllic Tutor, Academy Rector) that made white creatures, but the mana cost is problematic in practice. This is not a deck that needs a lot of mana to win--I usually combo off with 5 or 6 lands in play. I've yet to encounter the situation where making a Pegasus token is the best use of 2 mana, especially when Sacred Mesa essentially has an upkeep of 1W. Possibly Mobilization might be better, but 3 mana per token is also pretty steep. Probably I should just drop this slot.
Demonic Collusion: Tutors are good in a combo deck, especially when you might get to use them twice. Demonic Collusion made the cut because occasionally the discard can be useful--getting Iona out of my hand is important, especially when I can be tutoring up a reanimation effect. So this is obviously a good card, but I wonder whether it costs too much mana...once again, 5 is pretty much the top of my curve, and by the time I can cast this I'm trying to have already won. Note that I haven't been able to find room for cheaper tutors like Beseech the Queen and Diabolic Tutor.
And here are a few of the cards I've been considering, that seem like they might deserve a spot in this deck somewhere.
Reanimate/Exhume: For a reanimator deck, I don't actually have that many reanimation effects. At least one cheap spell like these might be useful, so I can tutor for it and play it in the same turn. Out of these two, Reanimate is probably better, though I do have an additional tutor for Exhume (Shred Memory).
Body Snatcher: With a sacrifice outlet, this is a pretty versatile guy. It's just a Zombify if you sac him with the first trigger on the stack. However, it's also a kind of Dramatic Entrance if need be--if I haven't been able to discard Iona, I can get her directly into play through Body Snatcher. That versatility is appealing (also, it's a creature, which is nice), but it's not so great without a way to sacrifice it immediately.
Extractor Demon: Unearth makes this really tempting, as it's quite easy to Entomb or Buried Alive it to the yard, and it looks like a combo piece. The trouble is that it requires a separate sacrifice outlet to work in a combo...and the point of the sacrifice outlets is that they should be able to win by themselves, given infinite sacrifices. As such, Extractor Demon seems quite extraneous, though I'd love to include it if I could figure out something better to do with it.
Hell's Caretaker: Very synergistic with this deck, and can even serve a combo piece. However, I'm afraid that it's probably too slow and fragile to work well.
Kokusho, the Evening Star: Ironically enough, Kokusho, banned because he's too tempting a reanimation target in multiplayer, isn't quite good enough to run in a dedicated reanimator deck in 1v1. He still plays nicely with sacrifice outlets and repeated recursion, so I'd like to include him, but I'm not sure he does enough.
Solemn Simulacrum: Doesn't interact with Teysa, but still solid, though it doesn't go so well with Balance. Other accelerators like Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot are also worth considering, though I don't think this deck needs them much.
As you can see, there are a lot of ways one could take this deck. Most people still aren't building for the 1v1 banned list, so a deck like this, based around cards banned in multiplayer, is still pretty much a new and unexplored direction for the format.
Skeletal Scrying is also a powerful card you are missing.
Your also missing
Wasteland
Tectonic Edge
which should probably be included.
I agree Sacred Mesa seems like a weak alternate win condition. Bitterblossom / Debtors Knell / Elspeth do this better.
Death Grasp seems like a weak card to be included just to have an infinite mana outlet when there are so many more powerful creature removal spells available.
Salt Flats over Tainted Field? Seems like you've enough fetches and whatnot to get a swamp of some sort.
@Narglfrob: You'd need three creatures to use Teysa as the sac outlet but with her second ability one other creature and an Altar of Dementia or some such is also infinite. Wasteland is great of course (another way to keep Wayfarer going, always amusing to pop Wasteland and respond to it with Wayfarer), though I'm less sold on Edge. I think Death Grasp is a great spell for a sudden spell or just getting yourself a turn or so worth of life. Imperial Seal should probably find a spot. Bitterblossom seems bad unless you get it really early.
Also, Have to you tried substituting Persecute for Abandon Hope (or run alongside)? Abandon Hope lets you choose what cards to discard (as opposed to choosing a color), lower cost thats less taxing on the manabase, and acts as a discard outlet in itself.
Edit: The more I play Tectonic Edge, the more I don't like it. I'd play Rishadan Port over Tectonic Edge personally.
With Darkest Hour, don't you need 3 white creatures in play to combo with Teysa?
Darkest Hour actually turns off Teysa's first ability, but it doesn't matter (we don't use that ability much anyways). It enables her second ability, which is what we need. We do need a separate sacrifice outlet though.
In principle, I agree that I should try to find room for more tutors, but I'm not actually sure they're necessary. What I mean by that is that I don't feel limited by cards when playing this deck--instead, it's mana-limited. 95% of the time, I have plenty of things I want to cast, and only enough mana to cast 1-2 of them per turn. Partly this is because we don't have access to any really powerful accelerators, like Tolarian Academy, and partly this is because cards like Skullclamp, Scroll Rack, and Weathered Wayfarer keep your hand full, but suck up mana every turn.
There are so many combos in this deck that I haven't had much difficulty just drawing into one. This is especially true when I can set up multiple combos through the tutors I do have--for instance, Painter's Servant and Recurring Nightmare tend to be good targets, because they can lead to combo wins in a bunch of different situations.
Because the mana doesn't flow so easily, I'm afraid that packing the deck with tutors might result in situations where I draw too many tutors. Such a hand would definitely be able to set up a winning combo, but it will probably take several turns before it can be played--if you meet with any kind of disruption, as I expect quality opponents to have ready, this may well be too slow.
It's probably worth noting that the average combo kill for this deck in the current configuration is around turn 5 or 6, both as a goldfish and against real decks. When I'm winning that quickly already, can you see how more 3+ cost tutors might be a liability?
Skeletal Scrying is also a powerful card you are missing.
Again, I'm most limited by lack of mana. I honestly can't ever see casting this for more than 3 or 4 in this deck, which isn't great. I already have really great card advantage engines in this deck, between Skullclamp and Library of Alexandria, so I don't really feel like I need more draw.
Your also missing
Wasteland
Tectonic Edge
which should probably be included.
Yeah, I guess I'll make room for Wasteland. Mana denial really isn't something this deck is able to do, so Strip Mine is just in there as removal for important lands. However, it can't hurt to have another one, especially with with Weathered Wayfarer. I don't like Tectonic Edge in EDH though. By the time my opponent has 4 lands in play, it's often too late for land destruction.
I agree Sacred Mesa seems like a weak alternate win condition. Bitterblossom / Debtors Knell / Elspeth do this better.
Sacred Mesa is not really an alternate win condition. It's just meant to be a way to give me creatures to kickstart a combo, while also comboing with Teysa to make removal, in a pinch. In theory, this should be useful, but I think it just costs too much mana to be practical. I'm going to try Mobilization instead to see if it's any better, but I'm not too hopeful. This slot will probably become something else.
Death Grasp seems like a weak card to be included just to have an infinite mana outlet when there are so many more powerful creature removal spells available.
Death Grasp is nice because it's a win when I have infinite mana, but it's also passable as removal. Yeah, it's not the best...but it's still perfectly reasonable for killing Rofellos. The infinite mana combo comes up often enough that I think it's worth having access to something like this.
That said, Profane Command does the same job with infinite mana. Because that particular combo also allows me to draw my deck if I have Skullclamp in play (and if I have Nether Traitor, it's a good bet I have Skullclamp), Profane Command is likely good enough for this job on its own. Death Grasp is probably cuttable.
Sicken to shore up the Rofellos matchup?
Not for this deck, I think. It rarely has extra mana to cycle, especially considering that I already have 3 other spells that usually cycle. Sicken gets cycled much more often than it's cast, just it's just going to slow me down most of the time.
Salt Flats over Tainted Field? Seems like you've enough fetches and whatnot to get a swamp of some sort.
I forgot about Tainted Field. It should probably be added, though I don't think I want to cut Salt Flats. There's a strange tension with the basic lands though, as I'm trying to keep enough Plains to make Emeria, the Sky Ruin functional. I've yet to have a game go long enough to make it active, but it ought to happen eventually, and it could easily win games if it does. Due to this, I'm loathe to cut any more Plains, but it seems wrong to cut one of my few Swamps for Tainted Field.
Bitterblossom seems bad unless you get it really early.
I think Bitterblossom makes the cut just for synergy with Skullclamp. It's also one of the best tutor targets to have available against Braids, which is pretty relevant at the upper tiers of competition.
Seems awful. Like Extractor Demon, only worse. Highway Robber only does anything if I already have the complete Reveillark combo assembled, at which point I should be able to win anyways, though infinite sacrifices. Mirror Entity doesn't make the cut either--it's just a Reveillark-specific sacrifice outlet. I have enough non-specific sacrifice outlets that I really don't need another, especially one that gives me no benefit for the sacrifice and only works for one combo.
Also, Have to you tried substituting Persecute for Abandon Hope (or run alongside)? Abandon Hope lets you choose what cards to discard (as opposed to choosing a color), lower cost thats less taxing on the manabase, and acts as a discard outlet in itself.
I've thought about running Abandon Hope (and am running Last Rites, which is very similar but almost strictly superior). If I needed more ways to discard cards, I might run it, but I think I have plenty already. To be honest, I usually end up able to discard every turn, just from drawing so many cards. I'm still tempted to run Abandon Hope, because I really love Last Rites in this deck, but I think the mana cost is too much of an obstacle. With Last Rites, I most often discard 3-4 cards, cleaning out an opponent's hand. Abandon Hope costs about twice as much as Last Rites to do the same job--I just don't think my mana base can support it.
I recently found out that locals were hosting tournaments every Sunday for 1v1 French list EDH. I was very interested in trying out Teysa, so I put together most the deck and gave it a test run. The results weren't as good as yours, but that may be partially due to my inexperience with the deck so far. That said, let me give a rundown on what happened and what I think the deck needs improvement with.
I only played against Rofellos and Zur. While it's true that both of those are in the upper echelon of generals, I thought it would be a good way to see just how competitive this deck could be. I played about 3 games against Zur and 2 games against Rofellos. I didn't win any of them, but I was extremely close twice. The speed at which those decks punch at is just at a whole different level compared to Teysa, and here are some observations:
Lack of interactivity - this is a problem because even though we are a combo deck, we are a slower combo deck. Generals that come out the gate fast or play faster combo will just be more effective than we will. Our combos often require quite a few pieces and/or time to setup, and the deck lacks both serious acceleration and spells to stall the early game. Granted our combo pieces may be useful on their own, they are often not powerful enough to disrupt the game state.
I offer different solutions and directions to move the deck in. The first is to run more answers. This means more cheap removal and more hand disruption. Why? Because we cannot come out the gates fast, we best be sure to be prepared for those who can. Crippling the opponent allows you to slowly but surely assemble the deck's more delicate combos. The deck can do without a lot of stuff (like Carrion Feeder) that are situational combo pieces and don't really help accelerate your gameplan because the rest of the pieces are somewhat narrow.
The second solution is to run more accelerants. This deck is kinda slow, and without ways to deal with stuff early on, you sorta just sit there and fumble around hoping that permission doesn't deny your combo pieces. So running more acceleration would definitely help, although I see this not being as effective since Sol Ring and Mana Crypt aren't in the format. And even if they were, the deck is extremely color hungry, meaning artifacts like Coalition Relic would be the way to go.
The third option is a bit more far-fetched. While playing the deck, I was wondering if we could just tune it a completely different way. Cards like Balance are extremely powerful for clearing the board, and we could play eye for eye with the opponent thanks to the color combination. This could be followed up with an Armageddon and/or Desolation Angel. Kinda lame, but it's won me many games. That means pretty much no reliance on combo, which also means the general would probably be better off as GCO or Selenya. Just throwing that out there, cause I know Surging Chaos has had some success with a more control-ish GCO list.
Here is a list of cards that I feel are underperforming (at varying levels):
- Carrion Feeder: it's like this deck's Glassdust Hulk, except much worse. I haven't even come close to winning with it and I don't think that I ever will, considering that it doesn't have evasion. Yes it can be used in some Reveillark and Karmic Guide shenanigans, but at least the other two are good on their own.
- Sword of Fire and Ice: equipment in here just isn't that shiny. I get that you want to make sure that Stoneforge Mystic and Steelshaper's Gift aren't dead cards, but I don't think running less-useful cards just to validate tutors (of which I think one can leave) is optimal. I would consider cutting Steelshaper's Gift just because Stoneforge Mystic is a creature that can be used later on for stuff like Victimize and Recurring Nightmare. I will agree that Bloodghast and Skullclamp are quickly becoming my MVPs in this deck when I'm not aggressively going for combo.
- Demonic Collusion: yea you're right, this is too slow. Yes I do often wish I had discard outlets, but no this is a bit too high on the curve. It's a lot better on paper than in practice, and my Xiahou Dun deck has taught me that. It's no better in than it was in there.
- Sacred Mesa: never wanted to cast it. Like ever. I'm even sometimes reluctant to cast Elspeth because she has so little board impact. I would keep Bitterblossom just cause it's so cheap and is insane with Skullclamp, but the other two are in question.
- Death Grasp: one drain is enough as stated before. I've never felt like I needed it, although tis valid that you can nuke Rofellos. We might be better off running the full removal suite anyways (looking at Devour in Shadow, Snuff Out, stuff like that).
- Tutors: I think we could use a few more if we want to be a more combo-ish deck. Because these combos often require many pieces (3-4), the more we can search for the better. It's either this or run more card draw to gradually draw into stuff.
- Knight-Captain of Eos: resounding 'meh'. Never really wanted to cast it. It's alright, but I'm definitely in favor of running something with more functionality in terms of combo and/or control.
- Martial Coup: in a perfect world, this is good. Unfortunately, it's a bit overpriced. I would probably like to see Wrath of God or Damnation in here. As for making tokens - never really needed to. Having something to sac was usually not a problem, and a lot of times I would actually just sac Teysa for Victimize or Recurring Nightmare lol (which are also two of my more common methods of winning).
After playing the deck, I came to a realization of why Teysa weaker as a general than most other generals. The fundamental problem is that Teysa doesn't do anything on her own, which is fine in some respects, but it does weaken her value overall. However, Teysa is in excellent colors, so I think we should make the most of that by running all sorts of cheap removal, hand disruption, and maybe a few black card draw spells to fuel the deck. Every combo in the deck requires many cards to setup, so I think taking a slightly slower approach with more answers might help the deck run smoother.
I'll be playing the deck over the weekend, so I'll let you know how it performs against other generals.
EDIT:
I would also like to know at what rate you go for combos. I tried fairly aggressively, but I found it just doesn't work out that way. Taking my time led me to be completely overpowered due to lack of interaction and/or acceleration. I think we need to have one or the other to survive.
I'm glad you've been playing the deck. Sorry it didn't perform better for you.
To be honest, I agree with almost everything you noted. This deck has a lot of potential power, and can sometimes win games very quickly or win them from nowhere...but it's not very consistent. Sometimes it just piddles around with irrelevant cards and doesn't do much of anything. I would be very happy to work on improving it with you.
I like both your first solution and your second solution. I think we can go both ways at once. I'd like to cut the worst cards from this deck (and there are quite a few cards that do very little), and add more removal, acceleration, and tutors.
Acceleration is the toughest part. There just aren't that many that suit our purposes. Chrome Mox ought to have been in here all along (replacing a land), and I suppose we can add Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot...but we pretty much run out of options for consistent colored acceleration after that. What else is there? I'm not very interested in expensive accelerants like Gilded Lotus because our spells, by and large, are quite cheap...with the right cards, we can easily win with about 6 mana.
I don't like your third option so much. It could work...but it's a totally different deck. It might be interesting to make a Ghost Council deck with a similar reanimation theme and Armageddons, but I think that's a separate discussion. I'll work on that deck with you too, if you want to try it (though GCO is pretty lame, so maybe we could go with Oros, the Avenger for Worldgorger Dragon shenanigans as well...hmm...)
I agree with all your cuts, except possibly Sword of Fire and Ice. It's really not a bad card, even here, and has won me games against blue decks. It's not very exciting, but Skullclamp is SO good here that I kind of want to keep both equipment tutors. Perhaps we should just cut the Sword and Steelshaper's Gift though. I'll sleep on it.
A lot of the cards we're cutting were meant to provide Skullclamp fodder and tokens to combo with. They didn't really work out that well, so we can replace them, but we should make some effort to look for similar sources. Even just adding a few manlands might be enough from a combo perspective. Unfortunately, token generators don't really come any more efficient than Sacred Mesa (which has singlehandedly won one game for me, but is usually disappointing).
These are the cards I think can be replaced, at the end of the day: Emeria, the Sky Ruin (never got it online, so it's not really worth warping the manabase around) Angel of Despair (unless we squeeze in several more reanimation effects, this is never worth reanimating. Too expensive to hardcast) Carrion Feeder (best use I've ever gotten out of him is Skullclamp fodder) Knight-Captain of Eos (meh, agreed) Twisted Abomination (body is irrelevant, would be better as a land) Undead Gladiator (cool, but kind of clunky in practice) Altar of Dementia (this is a core combo piece, but the Eldrazi titans make me nervous. I think I'd be more comfortable with Blasting Station now.) Martial Coup (too slow. Wrath/Damnation would be better.) Sorin Markov (much as I love him, this may not be the deck for him. He's pretty slow, and we don't really have a need for what he's selling.) Death Grasp (okay removal, but redundant with Profane Command) Sword of Fire and Ice (mostly here so Skullclamp isn't lonely) Steelshaper's Gift (Skullclamp is cool. Completely dead cards after finding Skullclamp aren't.) Sacred Mesa (sucks up so much mana) Demonic Collusion (costs too much)
That gives us quite a bit of room to work with. In addition to the removal/discard, and maybe a little acceleration, we need tutors. Imperial Seal and Grim Tutor are pretty obvious. Corpse Connoisseur is a little expensive, but might be worthwhile, considering how important Entomb is in this deck. Expedition Map isn't really a tutor, but we should play that too. I think I want Night's Whisper and maybe Sign in Blood or Skeletal Scrying too.
I'll play around with these changes and update when I get something I'm happy with. Looking forward to hearing your input on anything I might have missed.
Regarding the rate at which I go for combos, it totally depends on what I'm drawing. I usually use only 1 tutor to assemble a combo. I go for either cards (Skullclamp, Phyrexian Arena) or multiple options (Buried Alive). Once I draw a combo piece or two, I just tutor for whatever's missing to win. Usually it works...but then those are those games where you don't have the card advantage engines OR any tutors, and those games hurt.
I'm glad you've been playing the deck. Sorry it didn't perform better for you.
To be honest, I agree with almost everything you noted. This deck has a lot of potential power, and can sometimes win games very quickly or win them from nowhere...but it's not very consistent. Sometimes it just piddles around with irrelevant cards and doesn't do much of anything. I would be very happy to work on improving it with you.
I like both your first solution and your second solution. I think we can go both ways at once. I'd like to cut the worst cards from this deck (and there are quite a few cards that do very little), and add more removal, acceleration, and tutors.
Acceleration is the toughest part. There just aren't that many that suit our purposes. Chrome Mox ought to have been in here all along (replacing a land), and I suppose we can add Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot...but we pretty much run out of options for consistent colored acceleration after that. What else is there? I'm not very interested in expensive accelerants like Gilded Lotus because our spells, by and large, are quite cheap...with the right cards, we can easily win with about 6 mana.
I don't like your third option so much. It could work...but it's a totally different deck. It might be interesting to make a Ghost Council deck with a similar reanimation theme and Armageddons, but I think that's a separate discussion. I'll work on that deck with you too, if you want to try it (though GCO is pretty lame, so maybe we could go with Oros, the Avenger for Worldgorger Dragon shenanigans as well...hmm...)
I agree with all your cuts, except possibly Sword of Fire and Ice. It's really not a bad card, even here, and has won me games against blue decks. It's not very exciting, but Skullclamp is SO good here that I kind of want to keep both equipment tutors. Perhaps we should just cut the Sword and Steelshaper's Gift though. I'll sleep on it.
A lot of the cards we're cutting were meant to provide Skullclamp fodder and tokens to combo with. They didn't really work out that well, so we can replace them, but we should make some effort to look for similar sources. Even just adding a few manlands might be enough from a combo perspective. Unfortunately, token generators don't really come any more efficient than Sacred Mesa (which has singlehandedly won one game for me, but is usually disappointing).
These are the cards I think can be replaced, at the end of the day: Emeria, the Sky Ruin (never got it online, so it's not really worth warping the manabase around) Angel of Despair (unless we squeeze in several more reanimation effects, this is never worth reanimating. Too expensive to hardcast) Carrion Feeder (best use I've ever gotten out of him is Skullclamp fodder) Knight-Captain of Eos (meh, agreed) Twisted Abomination (body is irrelevant, would be better as a land) Undead Gladiator (cool, but kind of clunky in practice) Altar of Dementia (this is a core combo piece, but the Eldrazi titans make me nervous. I think I'd be more comfortable with Blasting Station now.) Martial Coup (too slow. Wrath/Damnation would be better.) Sorin Markov (much as I love him, this may not be the deck for him. He's pretty slow, and we don't really have a need for what he's selling.) Death Grasp (okay removal, but redundant with Profane Command) Sword of Fire and Ice (mostly here so Skullclamp isn't lonely) Steelshaper's Gift (Skullclamp is cool. Completely dead cards after finding Skullclamp aren't.) Sacred Mesa (sucks up so much mana) Demonic Collusion (costs too much)
That gives us quite a bit of room to work with. In addition to the removal/discard, and maybe a little acceleration, we need tutors. Imperial Seal and Grim Tutor are pretty obvious. Corpse Connoisseur is a little expensive, but might be worthwhile, considering how important Entomb is in this deck. Expedition Map isn't really a tutor, but we should play that too. I think I want Night's Whisper and maybe Sign in Blood or Skeletal Scrying too.
I'll play around with these changes and update when I get something I'm happy with. Looking forward to hearing your input on anything I might have missed.
Regarding the rate at which I go for combos, it totally depends on what I'm drawing. I usually use only 1 tutor to assemble a combo. I go for either cards (Skullclamp, Phyrexian Arena) or multiple options (Buried Alive). Once I draw a combo piece or two, I just tutor for whatever's missing to win. Usually it works...but then those are those games where you don't have the card advantage engines OR any tutors, and those games hurt.
Thanks for the response.
I'm relieved to hear that you're having similar problems with the deck, and hopefully we can rectify them. The first thing I think we should do is to evaluate our combos and then see which ones are most efficient and see if we can improve them with either consistency or functional redundancy. Or we could just up the tutor count, which has always been good for me. It sucks that this deck doesn't pack the same punch as Sharuum (I now pretty much play a slightly modified version of your list all the time), so I'm still adjusting to how intricate these combos are. I'm not the most proficient at judging and weighing combos and opportunity costs of running potentially dead combo limbs, so I'll just leave this idea here for people to comment on. I don't think we're missing anything though - the primary Painter combos (either with Teysa or Iona); Recurring Nightmare shenanigans (Yosei is pretty good here);and Reveillark/Karmic Guide combos (haven't been lucky with these - how about you?).
And honestly, here's the weird part. Even though we are a combo deck, I do sometimes prefer going for Bloodghast as an Entomb target more often than not, then tutor for Skullclamp because that is definitely this deck's primary card advantage engine. I think if we up the interactivity, this becomes a very strong strategy as we will be drawing tons more answers to slow the game down instead of weak semi-combo pieces.
Okay, so onto the rest of the discussion:
@Acceleration
You're right. The acceleration for this deck will be pretty hard to come by, but it doesn't have to be in overwhelming quantities either. Making quality tempo plays via removal and/or hand disruption may work well enough in our favor and buy enough time to set up. I think the addition of Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot is fine, although there are Marble Diamond, Charcoal Diamond, and Star Compass as well. I'm not sure we need all of those. You're also right that this deck doesn't need a ton of mana to win, as all our pieces cost 2-3 mana each. We can usually play one, untap, and then play 2 of them the next turn and just win.
- Mortify (meh, could be good, but is a bit costed for just slight functionality - what do you think?)
The latter four I have personally had much success with - I'm not sure if they're your favorites though haha. The first group should probably find room in here just based on pure efficiency.
@Hand Disruption
Just a tad more would go a long way. Last Rites is easily one of the more awesome discard effects in this deck, which is why I still think we should leave some good reanimation targets like Angel of Despair around. Also, anything that can perform disruption and is a creature is just double as good, since we could use the bodies for Teysa and reanimation combos.
I'm just trying to browse around for more bodies to serve as combo fodder, and I kinda like Reliquary Monk and Devout Witness. Not saying this is enough, but it's a start. As far as token producers go, it's the upkeep of Sacred Mesa that's a real turnoff. I'd rather run Mobilization, no joke. Lab Rats is an idea, Promise of Bunrei is another; Even the Odds and Raise the Alarm. The problem with a lot of these token producers is that you usually don't need to produce that many tokens, you just need something to start things off with. That said, I have no problem sacrificing functional creatures to begin a combo (as I've stated before, I often even play Teysa just to sacrifice her haha).
I'm still not sold on Sword of Fire and Ice. I feel like it really is chaff in this deck, especially since we hardly go into the red zone. I also don't own a Loyal Retainers, so I've been running Exhume in that spot (which has been pretty good, actually). Like-wise, I think I'll be fiddling around with different slots and numbers of the next week and I'll hopefully be able to post more updates between now and then. I'll try to make my way to meet up with Evergreen and co so we can get some real games in this weekend.
I do feel like the GCO deck could be good, but it's also very stale and not even the most efficient general to get the job done. If I wanted to play a geddon general, I'd go with something like Jenara instead so I can at least have both a fast and evasive clock. So I'd probably want to stick to Teysa anyways, even if she is slightly inferior as a general than most.
Awesome input, as always. Your help is greatly appreciated!
One of the things I do when I'm looking to boost consistency in a deck is see if there's any predilection for any tribal capacities that I may have overlooked. This deck already seems to be digging into spirits a bit. Maybe there's more to dig up there? For example, you're running entomb and burried alive, perhaps Iname, Death Aspect could be #3. There's probably plenty of other black and white spirits that Iname could dig up that would also serve other slots in your deck. Perhaps Graveborn Muse would serve as an alternate draw engine, for instance. You've got some zombies in there too. Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker could probably be another combo to abuse with Teysa and a sac outlet, and Twilight Drover might also be a token engine worth looking at.
Just some food for thought.
I also love Promise of Brunei, it's one of my favorites, but most people look at me like I'm crazy when I say that. Devouring Greed is also a decent kill card in some decks. Good for a surprise now and then. Not sure how it'd fit here.
The first thing I think we should do is to evaluate our combos and then see which ones are most efficient and see if we can improve them with either consistency or functional redundancy. Or we could just up the tutor count, which has always been good for me. It sucks that this deck doesn't pack the same punch as Sharuum (I now pretty much play a slightly modified version of your list all the time), so I'm still adjusting to how intricate these combos are. I'm not the most proficient at judging and weighing combos and opportunity costs of running potentially dead combo limbs, so I'll just leave this idea here for people to comment on. I don't think we're missing anything though - the primary Painter combos (either with Teysa or Iona); Recurring Nightmare shenanigans (Yosei is pretty good here);and Reveillark/Karmic Guide combos (haven't been lucky with these - how about you?).
And honestly, here's the weird part. Even though we are a combo deck, I do sometimes prefer going for Bloodghast as an Entomb target more often than not, then tutor for Skullclamp because that is definitely this deck's primary card advantage engine. I think if we up the interactivity, this becomes a very strong strategy as we will be drawing tons more answers to slow the game down instead of weak semi-combo pieces.
I consider the combos in this deck to be about as elegant as Sharuum's. They just don't feel as smooth because the framework of the deck isn't as strong--there's no blue draw spells to pull everything together, no general to recur discarded/destroyed pieces, and no internal artifact synergies to make all the cards play nicely together. The combos themselves however, are just as good. The ones involving Teysa require the same number of pieces as the Sculpting Steel combo (not counting the sacrificial creature, which usually isn't a problem. The other combos are all basically 2 card combos too, which is about as good as it gets.
I like both Painter's Servants combos. I win the majority of games with infinite mill or Iona (note that just reanimating Iona is frequently good enough to win--the Servant in addition is very nice, but not necessarily needed). I win some with Yosei/Recurring Nightmare too. I have not won many games with Reveillark/Karmic Guide, but that's not too big a deal. I think that Karmic Guide is definitely worth running anyway, and with Karmic Guide in, Reveillark belongs as well. These are quite useful cards outside of this specific combo, so they ought to be fine.
I don't think that going for Bloodghast/Skullclamp first is weird. I frequently do that, and it usually ends well for me. If my starting hand contains Skullclamp or one of the equipment tutors, my first priority is always finding Bloodghast. Massive card advantage wins games.
Quote from MCR »
@Acceleration
You're right. The acceleration for this deck will be pretty hard to come by, but it doesn't have to be in overwhelming quantities either. Making quality tempo plays via removal and/or hand disruption may work well enough in our favor and buy enough time to set up. I think the addition of Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot is fine, although there are Marble Diamond, Charcoal Diamond, and Star Compass as well. I'm not sure we need all of those. You're also right that this deck doesn't need a ton of mana to win, as all our pieces cost 2-3 mana each. We can usually play one, untap, and then play 2 of them the next turn and just win.
I don't like the Diamonds so much, mostly because they don't manafix. Manafixing is very important in a 2-color deck with enemy colors. There aren't as many nonbasic lands to help out. Especially if we want to include some more early game BB spells, we can't ignore this. I like Solemn Simulacrum well enough. It can go in. I don't think the other creatures are quite good enough to make the cut--Kor Cartographer is just a worse Jens, and Jens is already sort of borderline, and KotWO isn't consistent enough.
- Mortify (meh, could be good, but is a bit costed for just slight functionality - what do you think?)
The latter four I have personally had much success with - I'm not sure if they're your favorites though haha. The first group should probably find room in here just based on pure efficiency.
How do you figure that Rend Flesh is good, while Mortify is overcosted? 1BW shouldn't ever be a problem, so Mortify is almost strictly better. I like all of the removal spells in the first list (though I've yet to actually play with Oust in a constructed format). I'd also like Mortify and maybe Sudden Death, if we can find enough room. Also, with the changes we're making, I think we'll have more black mana than white, so Damnation may be better than Wrath of God (especially as I'd like to keep Hallowed Burial).
Quote from MCR »
@Hand Disruption
Just a tad more would go a long way. Last Rites is easily one of the more awesome discard effects in this deck, which is why I still think we should leave some good reanimation targets like Angel of Despair around. Also, anything that can perform disruption and is a creature is just double as good, since we could use the bodies for Teysa and reanimation combos.
I've yet to actually reanimate Angel of Despair. Partly this is because I have so few reanimation spells--only Loyal Retainers, Recurring Nightmare, and Karmic Guide, in my list. Loyal Retainers doesn't even work on AoD (though I do think it's a bit better than Exhume). I'm not necessarily averse to keeping AoD in, but I don't feel like we currently have enough support for it. It's never been useful for me in testing.
Hymn and Inquisition should be fine. Gerrard's Verdict doesn't really fit here...we can't afford to give our opponents the choice of cards.
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@Sacrificial Bodies
I'm just trying to browse around for more bodies to serve as combo fodder, and I kinda like Reliquary Monk and Devout Witness. Not saying this is enough, but it's a start. As far as token producers go, it's the upkeep of Sacred Mesa that's a real turnoff. I'd rather run Mobilization, no joke. Lab Rats is an idea, Promise of Bunrei is another; Even the Odds and Raise the Alarm. The problem with a lot of these token producers is that you usually don't need to produce that many tokens, you just need something to start things off with. That said, I have no problem sacrificing functional creatures to begin a combo (as I've stated before, I often even play Teysa just to sacrifice her haha).
Devout Witness might be worth a try. I've been wanting to fit in more artifact/enchantment removal, and she's not bad. Mobilization is also worth a shot, though I'm not convinced it's really going to be any better than Sacred Mesa in practice. None of those other cards are good fits here I think--they're simply too narrow.
Why not. Let's try them all. Don't forgot to ditch Emeria and add more swamps though.
So we're looking at adding:
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Solemn Simulacrum
Snuff Out
Sickening Dreams
Damnation
Return to Dust
Hymn to Tourach
Inquisition of Kozilek
Devout Witness
Mobilization
Imperial Seal
Grim Tutor
Beseech the Queen
Sign in Blood
Night's Whisper
Skeletal Scrying
We need to identify about 4 more cards to cut if we want to play all these. For now, I think I'm going to test without Solemn Simulacrum, Mobilization, Inquisition of Kozilek, and...something else. I'll see how that goes.
I've actually been thinking about running Iname, just to get Bloodghast and Nether Traitor. I don't think it's worthwhile overall though...it's just too expensive. 6 is the very top of our curve, and the spirits are cards we want to find early. We need to make this deck faster, as well as more consistent. I don't think the other cards you suggest have enough synergy with what this deck is trying to do.
I took the modified list and met up with Evergreen. We only had the chance to play a few games, but we quickly realized that combo might not be the best approach for this color combination. After some discussion and analysis, we concluded that the list might be better served in a B/W control shell, with GCO as its general.
Reasons that support this choice:
- This is in no way stating the Teysa cannot be a competitive combo general. What we noticed is that while the deck creates synergy with itself, the transactions are rather minute compared to what other generals can perform. If you don't have a combo kill, you have nothing at all. Any one piece does very little on its own, unlike what you see in other combo decks like Sharuum. And I always hate to bring up Sharuum, because she is definitely the epitome of an excellently synergistic deck that can make both gigantic power plays and deadly combos, backed by a fistful of resilience. You just don't see that with Teysa. The games I won were actually off the back of token beats or reanimation - which is what I think the deck should focus on instead.
- B/W is a color combination with all the answers. We noticed that the exquisite removal package set the stage for the deck. The deck can easily play eye for eye against any general, and oftentimes come out ahead. This strategy, backed by Armageddon effects, can prove to be quite brutal. That said, Balance was a true all-star.
I think you're giving up on this idea a little too quickly. You don't fit the strategy to the color combination--you make the color combination work towards the strategy.
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- This is in no way stating the Teysa cannot be a competitive combo general. What we noticed is that while the deck creates synergy with itself, the transactions are rather minute compared to what other generals can perform. If you don't have a combo kill, you have nothing at all. Any one piece does very little on its own, unlike what you see in other combo decks like Sharuum. And I always hate to bring up Sharuum, because she is definitely the epitome of an excellently synergistic deck that can make both gigantic power plays and deadly combos, backed by a fistful of resilience. You just don't see that with Teysa. The games I won were actually off the back of token beats or reanimation - which is what I think the deck should focus on instead.
It's true that Teysa doesn't do much outside of the combo. However, for a combo deck, there are few generals that will. GCO certainly wouldn't contribute more (and trying to win with GCO is pretty miserable). Teysa does directly tie into a viable win-condition, even if she doesn't do it singlehandedly. She doesn't do it as well as generals like Sharuum or Iname...but so what. Most generals can't. Some synergy is better than none, and the potential power of this strategy is worth trying to unlock. Versatile generals aren't the only things that make decks work.
I'm surprised you won any games with token beats...I never have. All of my wins occur through a combo (I consider reanimating Iona to be a combo). Just because it's a Teysa combo deck doesn't mean it should only be able to win through combos involving Teysa--I find having an effective reanimation plan is a benefit to this deck, not a drawback. We ARE focusing on reanimation as well as Teysa combo.
Quote from MCR »
- B/W is a color combination with all the answers. We noticed that the exquisite removal package set the stage for the deck. The deck can easily play eye for eye against any general, and oftentimes come out ahead. This strategy, backed by Armageddon effects, can prove to be quite brutal. That said, Balance was a true all-star.
Answers are good, but you've got to be able to win too. Armageddon is not synergistic with this kind of strategy at all--we build up a little mana and win. The Armageddon deck wants to play a threat capable of winning, blow up the lands, and hope the threat survives long enough to win. It has its strengths, but I think it has more weaknesses overall (it's awkward against artifact mana and can lose to bad luck pretty easily). I think that going infinite with Teysa, or reanimating Iona + Painter's Servant is a stronger, faster, and more explosive strategy than anything you'll find in a GCO control deck. You can add control elements here, and (as long as you keep the tutors) it will still be a viable combo deck.
I just don't see why (or how) your testing indicated that a B/W control shell with GCO would be better. I've tested that kind of deck before, and I don't think so at all.
You may be right that I am giving up on this deck quickly, but I haven't abandoned the B/W archetype entirely. I think I was just most put off by the fact that I would always have combo pieces that don't do enough on their own. I had already began prepping a GCO list because he is a built-in sac outlet, enabling cards like Body Snatcher and Academy Rector much more easily. At that point at least you have a general that gives you a wider range of functionality rather than just a potential combo piece. It's great when a Teysa combo happens, but I never expect it to. I am also not doubting that reanimator is the best strategy to win with here, because it is.
Let's just say I stick with Teysa - here's what I see that I don't like.
In the end it's the combo redundancy that uses pieces which aren't very good on their own that bothers me the most. Blasting Station and Phyrexian Altar - I think we only need one. Painter's Servant and Darkest Hour - I think we only need one. That's when I began to question if I even wanted Teysa as my general, because she is only ever useful in those stretched out 4-piece combos. You're right in a sense that winning with beats is much more difficult and much more of a drag than with infinite combos, but I have not been getting the kind of draws that enable me to consistently go into them, especially in an interactive game. Many tutors I use actually go towards making sure that I can keep myself in the game, or to stunt their generals from completely dominating me. Reanimation should be bumped up several notches, as it is definitely the deck's more easily accessible and powerful strategy. Corpse Connoisseur should probably find its way in here, as well as Reanimate/Exhume/Necromancy.
I mention geddon because BW is the most equipped in terms of keeping the board devoid of creatures (while GCO can evade it). Many decks (and you even mention this in several of your 1v1 decks' weaknesses) have a hard time dealing with geddon effects, and BW is able to capitalize on this with access to tutors so that you can either properly set up for it or properly time it. And while I've had much success with geddon effects and believe it is an excellent way of sealing the deal, reanimation should still be the primary strategy here.
If your results with the deck have been drastically different, please let me know. It's possible that I may be playing the deck completely wrong and haven't seen the light yet. Believe me when I say that I do wish to play Teysa, but as of right now that notion has been plummeting southwards for me. That said, I will still be developing the BW archetype as a whole, just to see if I can find more powerful synergies to supplement either general and either strategy.
That's the nature of combo pieces. Most of them don't do enough on their own. It's annoying when they do nothing on their own, but it's still not unusual, and it shouldn't rule them out.
GCO is a built-in sacrifice outlet, but that's not much to build around. The mana cost attached removes most of the combo potential. It's not so difficult to find something to kill Academy Rector that it's worth running a general for that purpose. You do get some synergies out of him, but they're all quite minor. They don't win games.
You might be able to pare back the combo redundancy a bit, though that's not necessarily a good thing. I don't consider Blasting Station and Phyrexian Altar to be redundant. If they were, the Altar wouldn't make the cut. Phyrexian Altar was included because it gives you access to a different combo--all you need is Teysa and Nether Traitor in order to go infinite. The fact that Phyrexian Altar can replace Blasting Station in some situations is nice, but it's not why the card is in here. Darkest Hour is redundant with Painter's Servant, and could be cut--the main reason I have it in here is because Idyllic Tutor can find it but not the Servant, so for 1 card slot I get 2 additional ways to find this effect. I think that may be worthwhile, but it's not required.
If you're usually tutoring just to stay in the game or to stunt another general, you may be doing it wrong. This is a fast deck. I haven't tested against Iname, and Iname may be an exception sometimes (as it might be a faster combo deck), but against most opponents I can go for a combo and win before they're able to do whatever they're trying to do. You have to play to win with this deck, not to not lose.
Reanimation is indeed this deck's best strategy, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can greatly enhance that aspect of it. The reason it's so powerful is because you're reanimating Iona, the best reanimation target ever printed. When you can only run so many ways of getting Iona into the yard, it doesn't make sense to pack the deck with reanimation effects that will most often have no available target. I do think Corpse Connoisseur is a good call, and perhaps one more reanimation effect, but I don't think you can take it much farther without adding several more reanimation targets (I would not recommend this).
I feel like you're overrating Armageddon's ease of use. It's a symmetrical card, and it takes quite a lot of doing to break that symmetry to such an extent that you can parlay it into a win. Yes, a lot of decks are weak to it, but there's a reason you don't see it played very often--it takes a very specific type of deck to actually get consistent use out of it. You need a LOT more than just good removal (although actually, you don't need removal at all). Reanimation has little synergy with Armageddon. If your reanimated beastie needs to be followed with Armageddon in order to get there, it's probably not a good enough beastie. If you don't have a reanimated beastie, then you're probably not going to be able to get benefit out of Armageddon, making it a dead card in many situations. If you want to abuse Armageddon, GCO is not the way to go. There's no synergy there. You need to be playing a very aggressive general to make that work consistently--something like Isamaru (or Doran, Uril, or Zur). You want a general that stands a good chance of winning the game in a few turns by itself. GCO won't cut it.
I really think the internal synergies in this deck, though not up to Sharuum-standards, are better than anything else you're going to find for this strategy. It's no coincidence that Painter's Servant is a key card for both reanimated Iona and the main Teysa combo, or that Nether Traitor is part of both a draw engine and an infinite combo. The many different combos that can assembled in this deck and the multifunctionality of many of the cards contribute more to the deck's overall speed and consistency than anything else could. You can assemble one of the combos here (including reanimating Iona) more quickly and consistently than you could reanimate Iona in a GCO deck built to do so. There are simply more options available, so the chance to assemble a gamewinning combo with a single tutor is much higher.
I have actually been trying to fine tune my tesya EDH for awhile now. I took a differant build. I decided to do it with Cleric's. they quickly caught my attention to their power in edh when my friend was trying to do a Vhadi deck. I have some of the combos you mention but in differant forms. I don't have a big access to cards or means to get them so my deck is nearly a pauper EDH lol. I was wondering tho with your deck if you would have use for Bitter Ordeal?
And if you would like i could post up my version of Teysa, one so you can see if you like how it runs and two, for any advice you would like to give to me. Just remember that i don't have the means of getting any expensive cards and i currently can't buy any more cards but it would be nice to see someone else's view on my deck
It took me a while, but I'm beginning to wrap my head around your deckbuilding philosophies. Believe me when I do understand your card choices and what they're trying to accomplish. I think I've been a bit of a negative nancy in here, but that's solely because I've been playing against high-power generals and expecting this deck to miraculously win more than lose. Even though the matchups may be a struggle, the fact that I can keep up with this incarnation of the deck shows potential. I also understand that my sample sizes are rather small, meaning I haven't given the deck wide enough scope to pass final judgment. So in short, your latest post made me give Teysa another chance.
Let's start with what has been working for me.
I managed to play Teysa again today for about 10 games versus Rofellos and Sedris. Thanks to rearranging a few changes, I'm feeling more confident about the deck. I won 4 games versus Sedris (losing 2), and 2 games versus Rofellos (losing 2). Of those 6 wins, 5 of them were non-interactive (so either Iona, Shield of Emeria or Blasting Station). The increase in tutors and card draw has definitely been fueling the consistency of the deck enough so that I can actually set up multiple angles of attack on a much more regular basis. There are a few cards in here that have been absolute MVPs and I definitely want to point them out and give them gold medals or something:
Balance: I think most of my victories were because of this card. I don't actively tutor for it, but I've had it in more than half of my games; and if I have it, I think I'll win. You can setup ridiculous plays (especially with the help of Kjeldoran Outpost and Orzhov Basilica) to simultaneously wipe their board of creatures, force them down on lands after they've accelerated, and then pitch reanimation targets from your oversized hand. Easily the best card in this deck for me so far.
Bloodghast/Skullclamp: the more I play with this deck, the more I shudder at this. Drawing 4 to 6 cards off this combo is usually more than enough for me to win, and then Bloodghast becomes the starting sacrifice for Victimize and the other Teysa combos. I aggressively go for Ghast/Clamp if I don't already have combo pieces in my hand.
Weathered Wayfarer: there's some subtle interaction here that makes a huge difference. You can actually play mana denial with this guy or set up plays with Balance (with Orzhov Basilica and Kjeldoran Outpost). Sometimes I even tutor for him as the starting sacrifice because he is the cheapest creature in the deck (and Carrion Feeder is no longer here).
Land Tax: broken in every way. Actually, two games that I won were because I overstocked my hand, pitched Iona, and then reanimated her the next turn.
So I took a few things out that I felt weren't pulling their weight.
(Note also that I do not own a Library of Alexandria, so I don't play with one.)
Debtor's Knell: yes this is really good with Academy Rector, but that's about it. I have never hard casted it, and while I have had enough mana to do so, its effect wasn't relevant by then. Most of the time I'll be satisfied just tutoring up Arrest to stop a general, Bitterblossom to go with my Skullclamp, Land Tax versus LD, and Recurring Nightmare if I need the reanimation.
Eternal Dragon: was never really good for me here. Is there something I'm missing outside of the fact that it may potentially be recurred?
Springjack Pasture: cute, but too expensive really. The colorless mana hurts the early plays of this deck too much, and with the updated list, finding a creature to sacrifice isn't too bad anymore.
Liliana Vess: we've already reached a critical mass of tutors, and I think she's just a tad too slow for the deck now.
In the end I decided to keep the combo redundancy with Darkest Hour and Phyrexian Altar. I do want to question whether or not we need Idyllic Tutor, although I guess it is fine for fetching out a piece for any strategy (Arrest on the defense, Darkest Hour for Teysa, Recurring Nightmare for Iona). I think we MAY be filled up to the brim on tutors. Return to Dust was pretty good the few times I used it, although it is a bit pricey - any other suggestions here? ( On a side note, Devout Witness performed admirably) I have slightly mixed feelings about Corpse Connoisseur after messing with him in actual practice. He's really good with a discard effect, but hardcasted he is definitely on the slower side. It sucks that there aren't better options for putting things to the graveyard.
I never got the Yosei lock on anyone, although I guess having that option doesn't hurt. After looking for some other possible reanimation targets, I sort of still want Angel of Despair. She falls into the same category as Debtor's Knell, where I'd never want to hardcast it. Iona is fine enough, and going for Bloodghast/Nether Traitor isn't bad either, so maybe another target isn't necessary. Linvala, Keeper of Silence is also a pretty awesome card that could probably find its way in here. She doesn't have any particular synergies, but she is absolutely nuts against certain matchups.
The games I lost to Rofellos were pretty much because I either didn't have a turn 2 removal spell or I just couldn't keep up (aka I didn't draw into any combo pieces and/or tutors). That's just the nature of the matchup though, so I won't put any blame on Teysa. The Sedris deck (which is pretty much just UBR good stuff with invoke dudes) had a hard time keeping up. If I attacked from multiple angles, I could usually just overwhelm him with must-counter spells and he'd fall apart. One thing to note is that solo Iona's potential greatly diminishes against decks with 3+ colors, just because they'll have answers for her in every color. It's better then to wait for the Victimize or Living Death with Painter's Servant. Okay I''m done being captain obvious.
So I'm feeling a bit more confident with the list now. It's still not optimized, but it is getting closer. I'll have to play a bit more and have a larger sample size against other generals to get a true feel for what the deck needs.
That is a very fine looking list sir. I understand and agree with all of your changes. (It's really a pity that you can't play Library of Alexandria though...it's much better than average here, due to the interaction with Weathered Wayfarer).
I think I want to squeeze in both Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond, and I also want to test Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Other than that, I'm happy with that list for testing purposes. It's certainly better than my first list. I'm going to keep a close eye on both Darkest Hour and Idyllic Tutor, but I'm not ready to cut them yet.
You explained all your choices very well, so I don't have much to add. Corpse Connoisseur may be slow, but I think we probably want him anyway, at least for now. Return to Dust seems fine to me. I understand why you still want Angel of Despair...but I just don't know. Assuming that the 5/5 body isn't going to win many games, she basically lets you turn a reanimation effect into a Vindicate, under the right circumstances. That's not terrible (especially with Recurring Nightmare or Victimize), so she definitely does have some merit. I have found her very awkward to use though. We might want to consider Necrotic Sliver instead of or in addition to Angel of Despair. The extra mana cost is annoying, but here's a card that we actually can hardcast and have it be reasonable. It's also brought back by Reveillark, which is a nice little perk. Worth thinking about, anyway.
A couple other little ideas to consider are Guul Draz Assassin and Preacher (Preacher is especially good with sacrifice outlets, resulting in an edict every turn if need be.) Both of these cards, though somewhat fragile, offer repeatable removal--something I've found to be extremely valuable against general-based strategies. Against removal-light powerhouses like Rofellos or Azami, either one of these cards could dominate the game if unanswered.
That's all I got for now, until I get some more testing of my own done. It sounds like your matches against Rofellos and Sedris went tolerably well--it wouldn't surprise me if they improve with practice either. 50% against Rofellos is pretty good for a fresh deck, and I suspect the matchup will turn out to be better than that in the end. A deck with this many tutors and this many modes of attack is amongst the most challenging to play, in my opinion--but the more you learn its ins and outs, the more you'll win with it. Especially against Rofellos, watch your mulligans--against very fast generals, you'll do best by aggressively mulliganing for removal. Don't try to force particular combos--let the combo come to you
I'll try to get some testing done in the next few days (though I regrettably have very little spare time for Magic these days). We'll see how it goes.
You're right that with practice I should be able to shore up many of my matchups. The color combo allows me to constantly keep my opponent at bay by attacking both their board and their hand with extremely cheap, but efficient spells. It really is a strategy I'm quite impressed with. Setting up angles of attack is indeed difficult, although not completely foreign to me thanks to experience with Sharuum. I see a lot of similarities here.
Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond could possibly find their way in here. I'm more willing to run Diamond because of both Weathered Wayfarer and Land Tax. It's also true that I can pitch redundant and/or expensive spells early game to Chrome, so I'll keep a lookout for that. How important is acceleration here? It would be really nice, but I don't know if its absolutely crucial to run these that give speed at the cost of card disadvantage. BUT! I keep thinking about Balance and how insane these plays will be! Either way, these might be better than Coldsteel Heart (which I have not been impressed by in here).
You know it's funny that you mention Gruul Draz Assassin cause I was totally eyeing that guy last night. I actually think he's pretty awesome here, especially since he's so cheap and becomes a must deal with threat. Preacher, while somewhat slower, is also an awesome suggestion. If we somehow decide to run both moxen, I'd probably want both of these guys in the deck. Linvala, Keeper of Secrets, Necrotic Sliver, and Angel of Despair I will keep on my bench at all times and swap them in and out to see how well they perform. You're right in the fact that we don't need need any of those and we're a bit tight on room anyways. And while we're on the subject of creatures, Xiahou Dun, The One-Eyed (as mentioned by Pysces) is actually pretty solid in here, especially with the slight increase in reanimation spells.
Same deal. I'll come back here when I actually have more stuff to say after a greater amount of testing.
I took a similar decklist for a testdrive today and didn't have very good results.
Like other people were saying-- when it combos, it locks. When it doesn't, you lose... and pretty frustratingly.
Most of the other people in my group were playing decks built for multiplayer and most of them go heavy-blue control. Against any non-blue deck I won probably 75% of the time, against blue decks I lost probably 90% of the time.
I'd find that I had very few answers to having any part of my combo counterspelled. Even after I put a Boseiju out on the field I still had very few options in terms of actually getting things out or getting them to work since I'd have to fight through a massive net of counterspells and spelljacks.
This may be a problem with my playstyle. Any advice?
Were you playing multiplayer or 1v1? This deck isn't intended for multiplayer.
This discard spells and card advantage engines are your outs against blue. Multiplayer blue decks aren't going to be pressuring you too much--take your time to set up the critical turn. Bloodghast and Nether Traitor are both very good against permission decks, especially if you can sneak out an early game Skullclamp, which shouldn't be too hard. Later on, just make sure to attack their hand before trying to play anything important. There's enough discard here that it shouldn't be an issue (especially if you're using the updated list).
I haven't had any particular trouble against blue decks.
I took a similar decklist for a testdrive today and didn't have very good results.
Like other people were saying-- when it combos, it locks. When it doesn't, you lose... and pretty frustratingly.
Most of the other people in my group were playing decks built for multiplayer and most of them go heavy-blue control. Against any non-blue deck I won probably 75% of the time, against blue decks I lost probably 90% of the time.
I'd find that I had very few answers to having any part of my combo counterspelled. Even after I put a Boseiju out on the field I still had very few options in terms of actually getting things out or getting them to work since I'd have to fight through a massive net of counterspells and spelljacks.
This may be a problem with my playstyle. Any advice?
It really depends what type of blue decks you're up against. If you're up against Zur, you're going to have to play a lot differently than if you were up against, say, Intet or something random like that. I find that I have trouble with blue-based generals that are more aggressive, so I'll usually have to play eye for an eye early game. Balance is pretty brutal here if you can resolve one, which will help shave them down (especially if it's a multi-colored deck that needs its colorful mana base). I've had decent success baiting counterspells by playing a Castigate or Hymn first before dropping something more important. Since this deck has so many ways to win, you can sort of run things out there and then base your combos on whatever sticks.
Versus permission-based strategies I don't aggressively go for combo. Like Khymera stated, try to sneak in or force through your Skullclamp engine, as it will easily overwhelm your opponent.
@Khymera
I'd like to ask what you think of Animate Dead here over, say, Exhume. Why? Because a lot of times I'll be looking at Idyllic Tutor in my hand thinking: I don't have anything to sacrifice to Recurring Nightmare .
I've also been a bit unimpressed by Scroll Rack here. Since there's so much business (and most of it is cheaply costed), I rarely feel the want or need to rack it away. I can see exactly how my turns want to play out, and I don't want to jeopardize it by scrounging up a fresh three cards. Granted it is powerful with Wayfarer, Tax, and Library, I'm still not liking it. It's also getting to a point where there's too many tutors haha; your fears were correct. I'm okay with "into hand" tutors, but when I'm stocked up on Vampiric, Enlightened, and Imperial, I'm somewhat disappointed. Yes they're cheap, but man it's annoying to have to give up my draw steps.
I did a bunch of searches last night on creatures that could improve the deck or certain combos of the deck, but it's close to optimal as is. I re-read Guul Draz Assassin and while I still like him a lot I'd like to hear what you think about Darkblast in this slot as well.
Animate Dead over Exhume seems fine to me. Considering that we're almost always reanimating Iona, who does a good job of preventing enchantment removal, the disadvantages are fairly slight. Animate Dead is much, much worse in situations where the opponent has something like Seal of Cleansing, Aura of Silence, or Wickerbough Elder down...but those situations aren't terribly common, and can be worked around.
I've been happy with Scroll Rack. It's obviously nuts with Land Tax/Weathered Wayfarer, but even without those it's very solid in a deck with so many tutors. Used aggressively, it just lets you see a ton more cards. It's more similar to Necropotence than anything else. As I said, I use it quite aggressively: even if my hand is well-stocked business, I'll almost always Rack away either all the cards in my hand or all but 1. Since you can decide the order to put the cards in after you see what you drew, you can sculpt gameplans pretty easily based on what you see. Remember, the stuff you put on top isn't lost unless you want it to be--you can always just put it on top and draw it next turn. It's such a powerful tool in this deck that I can't see cutting it.
I agree that having too many "top-deck" tutors is annoying, but you still don't want to cut any of the 1-mana ones. They're powerful, versatile, and get you what you need, even if they are a little clunky.
I like Guul Draz Assassin better than Darkblast. To be honest, I really dislike Darkblast in EDH, even though I know it's not bad...personal prejudice, I guess. Though it's excellent against a few select decks, I always found it to be a dead card in my hand more often than a card I wanted to see. I would prefer to play more versatile removal, even if it costs a little more. While it's nice that you can redraw Darkblast whenever you need to, I'd rather play something that won't eat up my draw step, like the Assassin. Feel free to test Darkblast, and if you like it enough I'll try it too...but I think I'll pass for now.
I've had the opportunity to test 4 matches with the updated deck. Encouragingly, I've won them all, though there were definitely some close games. One of my matches was against a cool Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker prison deck that I've played before with Teysa and had a 1-4 record against (don't laugh; it's a really solid deck that just hasn't been made public yet). I went 2-0 against it fairly easily this time, so that's a good sign.
My experience with this version is that approximately half the time, you just win. It's not uncommon to manage something like a turn 3 Iona or a turn 4 infinite combo (with disruption), and most decks can't stand up to that. The games where you don't have access to that are a lot more difficult, obviously, but they've all been winnable so far (though I'm definitely still making major mistakes, like tutoring for cards that wind up being irrelevant).
Though it's not the fastest or most elegant win-condition, I've been extremely happy to have access to the infinite combos with Teysa. When all of our other win-conditions involve the graveyard, it's been important several times to have access to a combo that can ignore stuff like Relic of Progenitus. The Nether Traitor/Phyrexian Altar combo has also been really solid a couple of times, considering that Nether Traitor/Skullclamp is worth getting just for the card advantage, and from there a single tutor can win you the game.
There aren't really any cards I've been unhappy with so far (though there are a few new ones I have yet to draw, like Devout Witness). I do want to test Guul Draz Assassin and Necrotic Sliver, both of which I think will be strong, and am trying to figure out what the best cuts might be.
How has your testing been going?
Edit:
Random thought, but is Deathrender something we are interested in? It's another way to cheat Iona into play, without using the graveyard, and it's another target to flesh out Stoneforge Mystic/Steelshaper's Gift. I think it might actually be good here.
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Lands:
9 Plains
5 Swamp
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Arid Mesa
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Salt Flats
1 Scrubland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Springjack Pasture
1 Kor Haven
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Strip Mine
1 Kjeldoran Outpost
1 Library of Alexandria
Creatures:
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Painter's Servant
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Bloodghast
1 Nether Traitor
1 Undead Gladiator
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Academy Rector
1 Reveillark
1 Karmic Guide
1 Knight-Captain of Eos
1 Twisted Abomination
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Angel of Despair
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Liliana Vess
1 Sorin Markov
Artifacts:
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Scroll Rack
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
Enchantments:
1 Darkest Hour
1 Land Tax
1 Bitterblossom
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Arrest
1 Debtors' Knell
Sorceries:
1 Steelshaper's Gift
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Castigate
1 Smallpox
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Balance
1 Buried Alive
1 Victimize
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Dimir Machinations
1 Last Rites
1 Vindicate
1 Persecute
1 Living Death
1 Demonic Collusion
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Death Grasp
1 Profane Command
1 Martial Coup
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Shred Memory
1 Insidious Dreams
Most Teysa lists pursue a token theme. I tried that strategy for a long time, and just couldn't make it work for me. The token-producers just aren't strong enough on their own to cut it in EDH. With Teysa, they give you access to a lot of potential removal...but that only helps much against creature decks, and is reliant on Teysa.
Instead, I ended up dropping the token theme, and going for a reanimator/combo deck. Here are the main ways to win with this deck:
1. Iona, Shield of Emeria + Painter's Servant, to lock out all spells. Iona costs too much to realistically play early enough, so we reanimate her--there are several ways to discard her if you draw her, but we also run Entomb and Buried Alive to get her directly into the graveyard. Victimize and Living Death are capable of putting both creatures directly into play, though Painter's Servant is also easy to cast if you draw it.
2. Yosei, the Morning Star + Recurring Nightmare, to lock out untap steps. This also works with Debtor's Knell and one of the many sacrifice outlets.
3. Teysa, Orzhov Scion + Painter's Servant/Darkest Hour + sacrifice outlet + any creature. This combo enables infinite sacrifices. With Altar of Dementia, you can win right there--the other sacrifice outlets don't necessarily win immediately, but are more versatile.
4. Reveillark + Karmic Guide + sacrifice outlet. Also enables infinite sacrifices.
5. Teysa, Orzhov Scion + Phyrexian Altar + Nether Traitor. These three cards result in infinite mana and and infinite spirits to sacrifice, resulting in an instant win with Death Grasp, Profane Command, Skullclamp, or Altar of Dementia.
This deck also has access to a couple of truly ridiculous card advantage engines. Skullclamp + the dynamic duo of Bloodghast and Nether Traitor is disgustingly good in any deck, and becomes twice as good with Teysa out. (I frequently Entomb/Buried Alive these spirits, and tutor for Skullclamp as soon as I can.)
Also, turn 1 Weathered Wayfarer, turn 2 fetch and play Library of Alexandria results in phenomenal card advantage, as Wayfarer helps you keep your hand at 7.
Stoneforge Mystic and Steelshaper's Gift are included because Skullclamp is just that good. Sword of Fire and Ice is just there so the tutors aren't useless if I already have Skullclamp. I don't think I need any more equipment than that.
I do find myself wishing that this deck had a few more cheap/tokeny creatures: some of the combos require a random creature to start them off, which is sometimes difficult to find. More creatures also improve the utility of the reanimation spells, and white creatures might help Teysa occasionally RFG something important.
Here are the cards I'm playing that I'm not completely sold on, though I'm not yet ready to cut them.
Carrion Feeder: the idea was to have a sacrifice outlet that's also a creature, so I can reanimate it if need be. It can become an infinitely large win condition with some of the combos, though the lack of evasion is annoying. Carrion Feeder got the nod over the competition because it's by far the cheapest, though Fallen Angel does have evasion. This is by far the clunkiest sacrifice outlet to use though, as it usually can't win the game immediately. I'm not sure if this slot is even necessary, though I do like having cheap creatures to sacrifice.
Angel of Despair: a reanimation target for when there's something I really need to deal with. However, it hasn't yet been necessary, it's too expensive to hardcast, and I generally want to save reanimation for Iona.
Knight-Captain of Eos: Potential soft-lock against some decks with Elspeth, Knight Errant. It also can be used as removal in a pinch with Teysa, and is not a bad target to recursively reanimate in a pinch. However, it's yet to actually be useful in practice, and 5 is pretty much the top of my curve. I'm not sure it does enough, though it's probably better than similar cards like Cloudgoat Ranger.
Darkest Hour: it's a combo piece in one of the combos, but is redundant with Painter's Servant. Unlike Painter's Servant, it has essentially no use outside of that one combo. This deck has enough combos that bringing redundancy to one of them may not be so important, though Darkest Hour is as cheap as it gets, and fairly difficult to destroy.
Sacred Mesa: I wanted to have an enchantment (for Idyllic Tutor, Academy Rector) that made white creatures, but the mana cost is problematic in practice. This is not a deck that needs a lot of mana to win--I usually combo off with 5 or 6 lands in play. I've yet to encounter the situation where making a Pegasus token is the best use of 2 mana, especially when Sacred Mesa essentially has an upkeep of 1W. Possibly Mobilization might be better, but 3 mana per token is also pretty steep. Probably I should just drop this slot.
Demonic Collusion: Tutors are good in a combo deck, especially when you might get to use them twice. Demonic Collusion made the cut because occasionally the discard can be useful--getting Iona out of my hand is important, especially when I can be tutoring up a reanimation effect. So this is obviously a good card, but I wonder whether it costs too much mana...once again, 5 is pretty much the top of my curve, and by the time I can cast this I'm trying to have already won. Note that I haven't been able to find room for cheaper tutors like Beseech the Queen and Diabolic Tutor.
And here are a few of the cards I've been considering, that seem like they might deserve a spot in this deck somewhere.
Reanimate/Exhume: For a reanimator deck, I don't actually have that many reanimation effects. At least one cheap spell like these might be useful, so I can tutor for it and play it in the same turn. Out of these two, Reanimate is probably better, though I do have an additional tutor for Exhume (Shred Memory).
Body Snatcher: With a sacrifice outlet, this is a pretty versatile guy. It's just a Zombify if you sac him with the first trigger on the stack. However, it's also a kind of Dramatic Entrance if need be--if I haven't been able to discard Iona, I can get her directly into play through Body Snatcher. That versatility is appealing (also, it's a creature, which is nice), but it's not so great without a way to sacrifice it immediately.
Extractor Demon: Unearth makes this really tempting, as it's quite easy to Entomb or Buried Alive it to the yard, and it looks like a combo piece. The trouble is that it requires a separate sacrifice outlet to work in a combo...and the point of the sacrifice outlets is that they should be able to win by themselves, given infinite sacrifices. As such, Extractor Demon seems quite extraneous, though I'd love to include it if I could figure out something better to do with it.
Hell's Caretaker: Very synergistic with this deck, and can even serve a combo piece. However, I'm afraid that it's probably too slow and fragile to work well.
Kokusho, the Evening Star: Ironically enough, Kokusho, banned because he's too tempting a reanimation target in multiplayer, isn't quite good enough to run in a dedicated reanimator deck in 1v1. He still plays nicely with sacrifice outlets and repeated recursion, so I'd like to include him, but I'm not sure he does enough.
Blasting Station: Another instant-kill sacrifice outlet, but quite redundant with Altar of Dementia. It sucks drawing both.
Solemn Simulacrum: Doesn't interact with Teysa, but still solid, though it doesn't go so well with Balance. Other accelerators like Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot are also worth considering, though I don't think this deck needs them much.
Tutors: Imperial Seal, Beseech the Queen, Grim Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, and Brainspoil are all good tutors that are worth considering. Expedition Map may also be worth considering, as Library of Alexandria is pretty good if you can find it early.
As you can see, there are a lot of ways one could take this deck. Most people still aren't building for the 1v1 banned list, so a deck like this, based around cards banned in multiplayer, is still pretty much a new and unexplored direction for the format.
With Darkest Hour, don't you need 3 white creatures in play to combo with Teysa?
Also Imperial Seal, Beseech the Queen, Grim Tutor seem to powerful and "on gameplan" to not be included.
Skeletal Scrying is also a powerful card you are missing.
Your also missing
Wasteland
Tectonic Edge
which should probably be included.
I agree Sacred Mesa seems like a weak alternate win condition. Bitterblossom / Debtors Knell / Elspeth do this better.
Death Grasp seems like a weak card to be included just to have an infinite mana outlet when there are so many more powerful creature removal spells available.
Sicken to shore up the Rofellos matchup?
@Narglfrob: You'd need three creatures to use Teysa as the sac outlet but with her second ability one other creature and an Altar of Dementia or some such is also infinite. Wasteland is great of course (another way to keep Wayfarer going, always amusing to pop Wasteland and respond to it with Wayfarer), though I'm less sold on Edge. I think Death Grasp is a great spell for a sudden spell or just getting yourself a turn or so worth of life. Imperial Seal should probably find a spot. Bitterblossom seems bad unless you get it really early.
Also, Have to you tried substituting Persecute for Abandon Hope (or run alongside)? Abandon Hope lets you choose what cards to discard (as opposed to choosing a color), lower cost thats less taxing on the manabase, and acts as a discard outlet in itself.
Edit: The more I play Tectonic Edge, the more I don't like it. I'd play Rishadan Port over Tectonic Edge personally.
In principle, I agree that I should try to find room for more tutors, but I'm not actually sure they're necessary. What I mean by that is that I don't feel limited by cards when playing this deck--instead, it's mana-limited. 95% of the time, I have plenty of things I want to cast, and only enough mana to cast 1-2 of them per turn. Partly this is because we don't have access to any really powerful accelerators, like Tolarian Academy, and partly this is because cards like Skullclamp, Scroll Rack, and Weathered Wayfarer keep your hand full, but suck up mana every turn.
There are so many combos in this deck that I haven't had much difficulty just drawing into one. This is especially true when I can set up multiple combos through the tutors I do have--for instance, Painter's Servant and Recurring Nightmare tend to be good targets, because they can lead to combo wins in a bunch of different situations.
Because the mana doesn't flow so easily, I'm afraid that packing the deck with tutors might result in situations where I draw too many tutors. Such a hand would definitely be able to set up a winning combo, but it will probably take several turns before it can be played--if you meet with any kind of disruption, as I expect quality opponents to have ready, this may well be too slow.
It's probably worth noting that the average combo kill for this deck in the current configuration is around turn 5 or 6, both as a goldfish and against real decks. When I'm winning that quickly already, can you see how more 3+ cost tutors might be a liability?
Again, I'm most limited by lack of mana. I honestly can't ever see casting this for more than 3 or 4 in this deck, which isn't great. I already have really great card advantage engines in this deck, between Skullclamp and Library of Alexandria, so I don't really feel like I need more draw.
Yeah, I guess I'll make room for Wasteland. Mana denial really isn't something this deck is able to do, so Strip Mine is just in there as removal for important lands. However, it can't hurt to have another one, especially with with Weathered Wayfarer. I don't like Tectonic Edge in EDH though. By the time my opponent has 4 lands in play, it's often too late for land destruction.
Sacred Mesa is not really an alternate win condition. It's just meant to be a way to give me creatures to kickstart a combo, while also comboing with Teysa to make removal, in a pinch. In theory, this should be useful, but I think it just costs too much mana to be practical. I'm going to try Mobilization instead to see if it's any better, but I'm not too hopeful. This slot will probably become something else.
Death Grasp is nice because it's a win when I have infinite mana, but it's also passable as removal. Yeah, it's not the best...but it's still perfectly reasonable for killing Rofellos. The infinite mana combo comes up often enough that I think it's worth having access to something like this.
That said, Profane Command does the same job with infinite mana. Because that particular combo also allows me to draw my deck if I have Skullclamp in play (and if I have Nether Traitor, it's a good bet I have Skullclamp), Profane Command is likely good enough for this job on its own. Death Grasp is probably cuttable.
Not for this deck, I think. It rarely has extra mana to cycle, especially considering that I already have 3 other spells that usually cycle. Sicken gets cycled much more often than it's cast, just it's just going to slow me down most of the time.
I forgot about Tainted Field. It should probably be added, though I don't think I want to cut Salt Flats. There's a strange tension with the basic lands though, as I'm trying to keep enough Plains to make Emeria, the Sky Ruin functional. I've yet to have a game go long enough to make it active, but it ought to happen eventually, and it could easily win games if it does. Due to this, I'm loathe to cut any more Plains, but it seems wrong to cut one of my few Swamps for Tainted Field.
I think Bitterblossom makes the cut just for synergy with Skullclamp. It's also one of the best tutor targets to have available against Braids, which is pretty relevant at the upper tiers of competition.
Seems awful. Like Extractor Demon, only worse. Highway Robber only does anything if I already have the complete Reveillark combo assembled, at which point I should be able to win anyways, though infinite sacrifices. Mirror Entity doesn't make the cut either--it's just a Reveillark-specific sacrifice outlet. I have enough non-specific sacrifice outlets that I really don't need another, especially one that gives me no benefit for the sacrifice and only works for one combo.
I've thought about running Abandon Hope (and am running Last Rites, which is very similar but almost strictly superior). If I needed more ways to discard cards, I might run it, but I think I have plenty already. To be honest, I usually end up able to discard every turn, just from drawing so many cards. I'm still tempted to run Abandon Hope, because I really love Last Rites in this deck, but I think the mana cost is too much of an obstacle. With Last Rites, I most often discard 3-4 cards, cleaning out an opponent's hand. Abandon Hope costs about twice as much as Last Rites to do the same job--I just don't think my mana base can support it.
I'm not sure if it's the card you are looking for, but his recursion capabilities have been nothing but stellar in every black list I've run.
RW Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas
I recently found out that locals were hosting tournaments every Sunday for 1v1 French list EDH. I was very interested in trying out Teysa, so I put together most the deck and gave it a test run. The results weren't as good as yours, but that may be partially due to my inexperience with the deck so far. That said, let me give a rundown on what happened and what I think the deck needs improvement with.
I only played against Rofellos and Zur. While it's true that both of those are in the upper echelon of generals, I thought it would be a good way to see just how competitive this deck could be. I played about 3 games against Zur and 2 games against Rofellos. I didn't win any of them, but I was extremely close twice. The speed at which those decks punch at is just at a whole different level compared to Teysa, and here are some observations:
Lack of interactivity - this is a problem because even though we are a combo deck, we are a slower combo deck. Generals that come out the gate fast or play faster combo will just be more effective than we will. Our combos often require quite a few pieces and/or time to setup, and the deck lacks both serious acceleration and spells to stall the early game. Granted our combo pieces may be useful on their own, they are often not powerful enough to disrupt the game state.
I offer different solutions and directions to move the deck in. The first is to run more answers. This means more cheap removal and more hand disruption. Why? Because we cannot come out the gates fast, we best be sure to be prepared for those who can. Crippling the opponent allows you to slowly but surely assemble the deck's more delicate combos. The deck can do without a lot of stuff (like Carrion Feeder) that are situational combo pieces and don't really help accelerate your gameplan because the rest of the pieces are somewhat narrow.
The second solution is to run more accelerants. This deck is kinda slow, and without ways to deal with stuff early on, you sorta just sit there and fumble around hoping that permission doesn't deny your combo pieces. So running more acceleration would definitely help, although I see this not being as effective since Sol Ring and Mana Crypt aren't in the format. And even if they were, the deck is extremely color hungry, meaning artifacts like Coalition Relic would be the way to go.
The third option is a bit more far-fetched. While playing the deck, I was wondering if we could just tune it a completely different way. Cards like Balance are extremely powerful for clearing the board, and we could play eye for eye with the opponent thanks to the color combination. This could be followed up with an Armageddon and/or Desolation Angel. Kinda lame, but it's won me many games. That means pretty much no reliance on combo, which also means the general would probably be better off as GCO or Selenya. Just throwing that out there, cause I know Surging Chaos has had some success with a more control-ish GCO list.
Here is a list of cards that I feel are underperforming (at varying levels):
- Carrion Feeder: it's like this deck's Glassdust Hulk, except much worse. I haven't even come close to winning with it and I don't think that I ever will, considering that it doesn't have evasion. Yes it can be used in some Reveillark and Karmic Guide shenanigans, but at least the other two are good on their own.
- Sword of Fire and Ice: equipment in here just isn't that shiny. I get that you want to make sure that Stoneforge Mystic and Steelshaper's Gift aren't dead cards, but I don't think running less-useful cards just to validate tutors (of which I think one can leave) is optimal. I would consider cutting Steelshaper's Gift just because Stoneforge Mystic is a creature that can be used later on for stuff like Victimize and Recurring Nightmare. I will agree that Bloodghast and Skullclamp are quickly becoming my MVPs in this deck when I'm not aggressively going for combo.
- Demonic Collusion: yea you're right, this is too slow. Yes I do often wish I had discard outlets, but no this is a bit too high on the curve. It's a lot better on paper than in practice, and my Xiahou Dun deck has taught me that. It's no better in than it was in there.
- Sacred Mesa: never wanted to cast it. Like ever. I'm even sometimes reluctant to cast Elspeth because she has so little board impact. I would keep Bitterblossom just cause it's so cheap and is insane with Skullclamp, but the other two are in question.
- Death Grasp: one drain is enough as stated before. I've never felt like I needed it, although tis valid that you can nuke Rofellos. We might be better off running the full removal suite anyways (looking at Devour in Shadow, Snuff Out, stuff like that).
- Tutors: I think we could use a few more if we want to be a more combo-ish deck. Because these combos often require many pieces (3-4), the more we can search for the better. It's either this or run more card draw to gradually draw into stuff.
- Knight-Captain of Eos: resounding 'meh'. Never really wanted to cast it. It's alright, but I'm definitely in favor of running something with more functionality in terms of combo and/or control.
- Martial Coup: in a perfect world, this is good. Unfortunately, it's a bit overpriced. I would probably like to see Wrath of God or Damnation in here. As for making tokens - never really needed to. Having something to sac was usually not a problem, and a lot of times I would actually just sac Teysa for Victimize or Recurring Nightmare lol (which are also two of my more common methods of winning).
After playing the deck, I came to a realization of why Teysa weaker as a general than most other generals. The fundamental problem is that Teysa doesn't do anything on her own, which is fine in some respects, but it does weaken her value overall. However, Teysa is in excellent colors, so I think we should make the most of that by running all sorts of cheap removal, hand disruption, and maybe a few black card draw spells to fuel the deck. Every combo in the deck requires many cards to setup, so I think taking a slightly slower approach with more answers might help the deck run smoother.
I'll be playing the deck over the weekend, so I'll let you know how it performs against other generals.
EDIT:
I would also like to know at what rate you go for combos. I tried fairly aggressively, but I found it just doesn't work out that way. Taking my time led me to be completely overpowered due to lack of interaction and/or acceleration. I think we need to have one or the other to survive.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
To be honest, I agree with almost everything you noted. This deck has a lot of potential power, and can sometimes win games very quickly or win them from nowhere...but it's not very consistent. Sometimes it just piddles around with irrelevant cards and doesn't do much of anything. I would be very happy to work on improving it with you.
I like both your first solution and your second solution. I think we can go both ways at once. I'd like to cut the worst cards from this deck (and there are quite a few cards that do very little), and add more removal, acceleration, and tutors.
Acceleration is the toughest part. There just aren't that many that suit our purposes. Chrome Mox ought to have been in here all along (replacing a land), and I suppose we can add Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot...but we pretty much run out of options for consistent colored acceleration after that. What else is there? I'm not very interested in expensive accelerants like Gilded Lotus because our spells, by and large, are quite cheap...with the right cards, we can easily win with about 6 mana.
As for removal/disruption, there's plenty we could add. I'd probably start with Diabolic Edict, Snuff Out, Hero's Demise, Mortify, Oust, Hymn to Tourach...maybe Inquisition of Kozilek and Path to Exile, though I really don't like those cards much. Sickening Dreams? Any other good ones spring to mind? I'd like to stay away from difficult mana costs as much as possible. I do think I want to play Linvala, Keeper of Silence too...I find her to be really strong against all kinds of competitive decks.
I don't like your third option so much. It could work...but it's a totally different deck. It might be interesting to make a Ghost Council deck with a similar reanimation theme and Armageddons, but I think that's a separate discussion. I'll work on that deck with you too, if you want to try it (though GCO is pretty lame, so maybe we could go with Oros, the Avenger for Worldgorger Dragon shenanigans as well...hmm...)
I agree with all your cuts, except possibly Sword of Fire and Ice. It's really not a bad card, even here, and has won me games against blue decks. It's not very exciting, but Skullclamp is SO good here that I kind of want to keep both equipment tutors. Perhaps we should just cut the Sword and Steelshaper's Gift though. I'll sleep on it.
A lot of the cards we're cutting were meant to provide Skullclamp fodder and tokens to combo with. They didn't really work out that well, so we can replace them, but we should make some effort to look for similar sources. Even just adding a few manlands might be enough from a combo perspective. Unfortunately, token generators don't really come any more efficient than Sacred Mesa (which has singlehandedly won one game for me, but is usually disappointing).
These are the cards I think can be replaced, at the end of the day:
Emeria, the Sky Ruin (never got it online, so it's not really worth warping the manabase around)
Angel of Despair (unless we squeeze in several more reanimation effects, this is never worth reanimating. Too expensive to hardcast)
Carrion Feeder (best use I've ever gotten out of him is Skullclamp fodder)
Knight-Captain of Eos (meh, agreed)
Twisted Abomination (body is irrelevant, would be better as a land)
Undead Gladiator (cool, but kind of clunky in practice)
Altar of Dementia (this is a core combo piece, but the Eldrazi titans make me nervous. I think I'd be more comfortable with Blasting Station now.)
Martial Coup (too slow. Wrath/Damnation would be better.)
Sorin Markov (much as I love him, this may not be the deck for him. He's pretty slow, and we don't really have a need for what he's selling.)
Death Grasp (okay removal, but redundant with Profane Command)
Sword of Fire and Ice (mostly here so Skullclamp isn't lonely)
Steelshaper's Gift (Skullclamp is cool. Completely dead cards after finding Skullclamp aren't.)
Sacred Mesa (sucks up so much mana)
Demonic Collusion (costs too much)
That gives us quite a bit of room to work with. In addition to the removal/discard, and maybe a little acceleration, we need tutors. Imperial Seal and Grim Tutor are pretty obvious. Corpse Connoisseur is a little expensive, but might be worthwhile, considering how important Entomb is in this deck. Expedition Map isn't really a tutor, but we should play that too. I think I want Night's Whisper and maybe Sign in Blood or Skeletal Scrying too.
I'll play around with these changes and update when I get something I'm happy with. Looking forward to hearing your input on anything I might have missed.
Regarding the rate at which I go for combos, it totally depends on what I'm drawing. I usually use only 1 tutor to assemble a combo. I go for either cards (Skullclamp, Phyrexian Arena) or multiple options (Buried Alive). Once I draw a combo piece or two, I just tutor for whatever's missing to win. Usually it works...but then those are those games where you don't have the card advantage engines OR any tutors, and those games hurt.
Thanks for the response.
I'm relieved to hear that you're having similar problems with the deck, and hopefully we can rectify them. The first thing I think we should do is to evaluate our combos and then see which ones are most efficient and see if we can improve them with either consistency or functional redundancy. Or we could just up the tutor count, which has always been good for me. It sucks that this deck doesn't pack the same punch as Sharuum (I now pretty much play a slightly modified version of your list all the time), so I'm still adjusting to how intricate these combos are. I'm not the most proficient at judging and weighing combos and opportunity costs of running potentially dead combo limbs, so I'll just leave this idea here for people to comment on. I don't think we're missing anything though - the primary Painter combos (either with Teysa or Iona); Recurring Nightmare shenanigans (Yosei is pretty good here);and Reveillark/Karmic Guide combos (haven't been lucky with these - how about you?).
And honestly, here's the weird part. Even though we are a combo deck, I do sometimes prefer going for Bloodghast as an Entomb target more often than not, then tutor for Skullclamp because that is definitely this deck's primary card advantage engine. I think if we up the interactivity, this becomes a very strong strategy as we will be drawing tons more answers to slow the game down instead of weak semi-combo pieces.
Okay, so onto the rest of the discussion:
@Acceleration
You're right. The acceleration for this deck will be pretty hard to come by, but it doesn't have to be in overwhelming quantities either. Making quality tempo plays via removal and/or hand disruption may work well enough in our favor and buy enough time to set up. I think the addition of Coalition Relic and Darksteel Ingot is fine, although there are Marble Diamond, Charcoal Diamond, and Star Compass as well. I'm not sure we need all of those. You're also right that this deck doesn't need a ton of mana to win, as all our pieces cost 2-3 mana each. We can usually play one, untap, and then play 2 of them the next turn and just win.
As far as being more efficient with Teysa by providing bodies, Solemn Simulacrum, Kor Cartographer, and Knight of the White Orchid come to mind. The aren't that awesome as far as utility goes, but they provide fodder.
@Removal
I'm down with the following:
- Snuff Out
- Oust
- Hero's Demise
- Sickening Dreams (INSANE IN HERE OMFG)
- Wrath of God
- Return to Dust (is a randomly insane blowout card - I want to give it a shot)
- Slaughter Pact
- Rend Flesh
- Sudden Death
- Darkblast
- Mortify (meh, could be good, but is a bit costed for just slight functionality - what do you think?)
The latter four I have personally had much success with - I'm not sure if they're your favorites though haha. The first group should probably find room in here just based on pure efficiency.
@Hand Disruption
Just a tad more would go a long way. Last Rites is easily one of the more awesome discard effects in this deck, which is why I still think we should leave some good reanimation targets like Angel of Despair around. Also, anything that can perform disruption and is a creature is just double as good, since we could use the bodies for Teysa and reanimation combos.
The addition of Hymn to Tourach and Inquisition of Kozilek should be good enough (not sure about Inquisition - I'm also kinda down with Gerrard's Verdict here).
@Sacrificial Bodies
I'm just trying to browse around for more bodies to serve as combo fodder, and I kinda like Reliquary Monk and Devout Witness. Not saying this is enough, but it's a start. As far as token producers go, it's the upkeep of Sacred Mesa that's a real turnoff. I'd rather run Mobilization, no joke. Lab Rats is an idea, Promise of Bunrei is another; Even the Odds and Raise the Alarm. The problem with a lot of these token producers is that you usually don't need to produce that many tokens, you just need something to start things off with. That said, I have no problem sacrificing functional creatures to begin a combo (as I've stated before, I often even play Teysa just to sacrifice her haha).
@Card Draw and Tutors
I think that Imperial Seal, Grim Tutor, Beseech the Queen, Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper, and Skeletal Scrying should all be in here.
@Cuts
I'm still not sold on Sword of Fire and Ice. I feel like it really is chaff in this deck, especially since we hardly go into the red zone. I also don't own a Loyal Retainers, so I've been running Exhume in that spot (which has been pretty good, actually). Like-wise, I think I'll be fiddling around with different slots and numbers of the next week and I'll hopefully be able to post more updates between now and then. I'll try to make my way to meet up with Evergreen and co so we can get some real games in this weekend.
I do feel like the GCO deck could be good, but it's also very stale and not even the most efficient general to get the job done. If I wanted to play a geddon general, I'd go with something like Jenara instead so I can at least have both a fast and evasive clock. So I'd probably want to stick to Teysa anyways, even if she is slightly inferior as a general than most.
Awesome input, as always. Your help is greatly appreciated!
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
Just some food for thought.
I also love Promise of Brunei, it's one of my favorites, but most people look at me like I'm crazy when I say that.
Devouring Greed is also a decent kill card in some decks. Good for a surprise now and then. Not sure how it'd fit here.
Glissa, the Traitor, Ulasht, the Hate Seed, The Mimeoplasm
I consider the combos in this deck to be about as elegant as Sharuum's. They just don't feel as smooth because the framework of the deck isn't as strong--there's no blue draw spells to pull everything together, no general to recur discarded/destroyed pieces, and no internal artifact synergies to make all the cards play nicely together. The combos themselves however, are just as good. The ones involving Teysa require the same number of pieces as the Sculpting Steel combo (not counting the sacrificial creature, which usually isn't a problem. The other combos are all basically 2 card combos too, which is about as good as it gets.
I like both Painter's Servants combos. I win the majority of games with infinite mill or Iona (note that just reanimating Iona is frequently good enough to win--the Servant in addition is very nice, but not necessarily needed). I win some with Yosei/Recurring Nightmare too. I have not won many games with Reveillark/Karmic Guide, but that's not too big a deal. I think that Karmic Guide is definitely worth running anyway, and with Karmic Guide in, Reveillark belongs as well. These are quite useful cards outside of this specific combo, so they ought to be fine.
I don't think that going for Bloodghast/Skullclamp first is weird. I frequently do that, and it usually ends well for me. If my starting hand contains Skullclamp or one of the equipment tutors, my first priority is always finding Bloodghast. Massive card advantage wins games.
I don't like the Diamonds so much, mostly because they don't manafix. Manafixing is very important in a 2-color deck with enemy colors. There aren't as many nonbasic lands to help out. Especially if we want to include some more early game BB spells, we can't ignore this. I like Solemn Simulacrum well enough. It can go in. I don't think the other creatures are quite good enough to make the cut--Kor Cartographer is just a worse Jens, and Jens is already sort of borderline, and KotWO isn't consistent enough.
How do you figure that Rend Flesh is good, while Mortify is overcosted? 1BW shouldn't ever be a problem, so Mortify is almost strictly better. I like all of the removal spells in the first list (though I've yet to actually play with Oust in a constructed format). I'd also like Mortify and maybe Sudden Death, if we can find enough room. Also, with the changes we're making, I think we'll have more black mana than white, so Damnation may be better than Wrath of God (especially as I'd like to keep Hallowed Burial).
I've yet to actually reanimate Angel of Despair. Partly this is because I have so few reanimation spells--only Loyal Retainers, Recurring Nightmare, and Karmic Guide, in my list. Loyal Retainers doesn't even work on AoD (though I do think it's a bit better than Exhume). I'm not necessarily averse to keeping AoD in, but I don't feel like we currently have enough support for it. It's never been useful for me in testing.
Hymn and Inquisition should be fine. Gerrard's Verdict doesn't really fit here...we can't afford to give our opponents the choice of cards.
Devout Witness might be worth a try. I've been wanting to fit in more artifact/enchantment removal, and she's not bad. Mobilization is also worth a shot, though I'm not convinced it's really going to be any better than Sacred Mesa in practice. None of those other cards are good fits here I think--they're simply too narrow.
Why not. Let's try them all. Don't forgot to ditch Emeria and add more swamps though.
So we're looking at adding:
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Solemn Simulacrum
Snuff Out
Sickening Dreams
Damnation
Return to Dust
Hymn to Tourach
Inquisition of Kozilek
Devout Witness
Mobilization
Imperial Seal
Grim Tutor
Beseech the Queen
Sign in Blood
Night's Whisper
Skeletal Scrying
We need to identify about 4 more cards to cut if we want to play all these. For now, I think I'm going to test without Solemn Simulacrum, Mobilization, Inquisition of Kozilek, and...something else. I'll see how that goes.
I've actually been thinking about running Iname, just to get Bloodghast and Nether Traitor. I don't think it's worthwhile overall though...it's just too expensive. 6 is the very top of our curve, and the spirits are cards we want to find early. We need to make this deck faster, as well as more consistent. I don't think the other cards you suggest have enough synergy with what this deck is trying to do.
I took the modified list and met up with Evergreen. We only had the chance to play a few games, but we quickly realized that combo might not be the best approach for this color combination. After some discussion and analysis, we concluded that the list might be better served in a B/W control shell, with GCO as its general.
Reasons that support this choice:
- This is in no way stating the Teysa cannot be a competitive combo general. What we noticed is that while the deck creates synergy with itself, the transactions are rather minute compared to what other generals can perform. If you don't have a combo kill, you have nothing at all. Any one piece does very little on its own, unlike what you see in other combo decks like Sharuum. And I always hate to bring up Sharuum, because she is definitely the epitome of an excellently synergistic deck that can make both gigantic power plays and deadly combos, backed by a fistful of resilience. You just don't see that with Teysa. The games I won were actually off the back of token beats or reanimation - which is what I think the deck should focus on instead.
- B/W is a color combination with all the answers. We noticed that the exquisite removal package set the stage for the deck. The deck can easily play eye for eye against any general, and oftentimes come out ahead. This strategy, backed by Armageddon effects, can prove to be quite brutal. That said, Balance was a true all-star.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
It's true that Teysa doesn't do much outside of the combo. However, for a combo deck, there are few generals that will. GCO certainly wouldn't contribute more (and trying to win with GCO is pretty miserable). Teysa does directly tie into a viable win-condition, even if she doesn't do it singlehandedly. She doesn't do it as well as generals like Sharuum or Iname...but so what. Most generals can't. Some synergy is better than none, and the potential power of this strategy is worth trying to unlock. Versatile generals aren't the only things that make decks work.
I'm surprised you won any games with token beats...I never have. All of my wins occur through a combo (I consider reanimating Iona to be a combo). Just because it's a Teysa combo deck doesn't mean it should only be able to win through combos involving Teysa--I find having an effective reanimation plan is a benefit to this deck, not a drawback. We ARE focusing on reanimation as well as Teysa combo.
Answers are good, but you've got to be able to win too. Armageddon is not synergistic with this kind of strategy at all--we build up a little mana and win. The Armageddon deck wants to play a threat capable of winning, blow up the lands, and hope the threat survives long enough to win. It has its strengths, but I think it has more weaknesses overall (it's awkward against artifact mana and can lose to bad luck pretty easily). I think that going infinite with Teysa, or reanimating Iona + Painter's Servant is a stronger, faster, and more explosive strategy than anything you'll find in a GCO control deck. You can add control elements here, and (as long as you keep the tutors) it will still be a viable combo deck.
I just don't see why (or how) your testing indicated that a B/W control shell with GCO would be better. I've tested that kind of deck before, and I don't think so at all.
Let's just say I stick with Teysa - here's what I see that I don't like.
In the end it's the combo redundancy that uses pieces which aren't very good on their own that bothers me the most. Blasting Station and Phyrexian Altar - I think we only need one. Painter's Servant and Darkest Hour - I think we only need one. That's when I began to question if I even wanted Teysa as my general, because she is only ever useful in those stretched out 4-piece combos. You're right in a sense that winning with beats is much more difficult and much more of a drag than with infinite combos, but I have not been getting the kind of draws that enable me to consistently go into them, especially in an interactive game. Many tutors I use actually go towards making sure that I can keep myself in the game, or to stunt their generals from completely dominating me. Reanimation should be bumped up several notches, as it is definitely the deck's more easily accessible and powerful strategy. Corpse Connoisseur should probably find its way in here, as well as Reanimate/Exhume/Necromancy.
I mention geddon because BW is the most equipped in terms of keeping the board devoid of creatures (while GCO can evade it). Many decks (and you even mention this in several of your 1v1 decks' weaknesses) have a hard time dealing with geddon effects, and BW is able to capitalize on this with access to tutors so that you can either properly set up for it or properly time it. And while I've had much success with geddon effects and believe it is an excellent way of sealing the deal, reanimation should still be the primary strategy here.
If your results with the deck have been drastically different, please let me know. It's possible that I may be playing the deck completely wrong and haven't seen the light yet. Believe me when I say that I do wish to play Teysa, but as of right now that notion has been plummeting southwards for me. That said, I will still be developing the BW archetype as a whole, just to see if I can find more powerful synergies to supplement either general and either strategy.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
GCO is a built-in sacrifice outlet, but that's not much to build around. The mana cost attached removes most of the combo potential. It's not so difficult to find something to kill Academy Rector that it's worth running a general for that purpose. You do get some synergies out of him, but they're all quite minor. They don't win games.
You might be able to pare back the combo redundancy a bit, though that's not necessarily a good thing. I don't consider Blasting Station and Phyrexian Altar to be redundant. If they were, the Altar wouldn't make the cut. Phyrexian Altar was included because it gives you access to a different combo--all you need is Teysa and Nether Traitor in order to go infinite. The fact that Phyrexian Altar can replace Blasting Station in some situations is nice, but it's not why the card is in here. Darkest Hour is redundant with Painter's Servant, and could be cut--the main reason I have it in here is because Idyllic Tutor can find it but not the Servant, so for 1 card slot I get 2 additional ways to find this effect. I think that may be worthwhile, but it's not required.
If you're usually tutoring just to stay in the game or to stunt another general, you may be doing it wrong. This is a fast deck. I haven't tested against Iname, and Iname may be an exception sometimes (as it might be a faster combo deck), but against most opponents I can go for a combo and win before they're able to do whatever they're trying to do. You have to play to win with this deck, not to not lose.
Reanimation is indeed this deck's best strategy, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can greatly enhance that aspect of it. The reason it's so powerful is because you're reanimating Iona, the best reanimation target ever printed. When you can only run so many ways of getting Iona into the yard, it doesn't make sense to pack the deck with reanimation effects that will most often have no available target. I do think Corpse Connoisseur is a good call, and perhaps one more reanimation effect, but I don't think you can take it much farther without adding several more reanimation targets (I would not recommend this).
I feel like you're overrating Armageddon's ease of use. It's a symmetrical card, and it takes quite a lot of doing to break that symmetry to such an extent that you can parlay it into a win. Yes, a lot of decks are weak to it, but there's a reason you don't see it played very often--it takes a very specific type of deck to actually get consistent use out of it. You need a LOT more than just good removal (although actually, you don't need removal at all). Reanimation has little synergy with Armageddon. If your reanimated beastie needs to be followed with Armageddon in order to get there, it's probably not a good enough beastie. If you don't have a reanimated beastie, then you're probably not going to be able to get benefit out of Armageddon, making it a dead card in many situations. If you want to abuse Armageddon, GCO is not the way to go. There's no synergy there. You need to be playing a very aggressive general to make that work consistently--something like Isamaru (or Doran, Uril, or Zur). You want a general that stands a good chance of winning the game in a few turns by itself. GCO won't cut it.
I really think the internal synergies in this deck, though not up to Sharuum-standards, are better than anything else you're going to find for this strategy. It's no coincidence that Painter's Servant is a key card for both reanimated Iona and the main Teysa combo, or that Nether Traitor is part of both a draw engine and an infinite combo. The many different combos that can assembled in this deck and the multifunctionality of many of the cards contribute more to the deck's overall speed and consistency than anything else could. You can assemble one of the combos here (including reanimating Iona) more quickly and consistently than you could reanimate Iona in a GCO deck built to do so. There are simply more options available, so the chance to assemble a gamewinning combo with a single tutor is much higher.
And if you would like i could post up my version of Teysa, one so you can see if you like how it runs and two, for any advice you would like to give to me. Just remember that i don't have the means of getting any expensive cards and i currently can't buy any more cards but it would be nice to see someone else's view on my deck
Let's start with what has been working for me.
I managed to play Teysa again today for about 10 games versus Rofellos and Sedris. Thanks to rearranging a few changes, I'm feeling more confident about the deck. I won 4 games versus Sedris (losing 2), and 2 games versus Rofellos (losing 2). Of those 6 wins, 5 of them were non-interactive (so either Iona, Shield of Emeria or Blasting Station). The increase in tutors and card draw has definitely been fueling the consistency of the deck enough so that I can actually set up multiple angles of attack on a much more regular basis. There are a few cards in here that have been absolute MVPs and I definitely want to point them out and give them gold medals or something:
Balance: I think most of my victories were because of this card. I don't actively tutor for it, but I've had it in more than half of my games; and if I have it, I think I'll win. You can setup ridiculous plays (especially with the help of Kjeldoran Outpost and Orzhov Basilica) to simultaneously wipe their board of creatures, force them down on lands after they've accelerated, and then pitch reanimation targets from your oversized hand. Easily the best card in this deck for me so far.
Bloodghast/Skullclamp: the more I play with this deck, the more I shudder at this. Drawing 4 to 6 cards off this combo is usually more than enough for me to win, and then Bloodghast becomes the starting sacrifice for Victimize and the other Teysa combos. I aggressively go for Ghast/Clamp if I don't already have combo pieces in my hand.
Weathered Wayfarer: there's some subtle interaction here that makes a huge difference. You can actually play mana denial with this guy or set up plays with Balance (with Orzhov Basilica and Kjeldoran Outpost). Sometimes I even tutor for him as the starting sacrifice because he is the cheapest creature in the deck (and Carrion Feeder is no longer here).
Land Tax: broken in every way. Actually, two games that I won were because I overstocked my hand, pitched Iona, and then reanimated her the next turn.
Here is the list that I played today:
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Lands:
7 Plains
8 Swamp
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Arid Mesa
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Salt Flats
1 Tainted Fields
1 Scrubland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Kor Haven
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Strip Mine
1 Kjeldoran Outpost
Creatures:
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Painter's Servant
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Bloodghast
1 Nether Traitor
1 Devout Witness
1 Academy Rector
1 Corpse Connoisseur
1 Reveillark
1 Karmic Guide
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Artifacts:
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Scroll Rack
1 Coalition Relic
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Blasting Station
Enchantments:
1 Darkest Hour
1 Land Tax
1 Bitterblossom
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Arrest
Sorceries:
1 Imperial Seal
1 Reanimate
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Castigate
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Smallpox
1 Exhume
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Balance
1 Sign in Blood
1 Night's Whisper
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Buried Alive
1 Victimize
1 Grim Tutor
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Dimir Machinations
1 Last Rites
1 Vindicate
1 Persecute
1 Damnation
1 Living Death
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Profane Command
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Hero's Demise
1 Sickening Dreams
1 Shred Memory
1 Snuff Out
1 Insidious Dreams
1 Return to Dust
So I took a few things out that I felt weren't pulling their weight.
(Note also that I do not own a Library of Alexandria, so I don't play with one.)
Debtor's Knell: yes this is really good with Academy Rector, but that's about it. I have never hard casted it, and while I have had enough mana to do so, its effect wasn't relevant by then. Most of the time I'll be satisfied just tutoring up Arrest to stop a general, Bitterblossom to go with my Skullclamp, Land Tax versus LD, and Recurring Nightmare if I need the reanimation.
Eternal Dragon: was never really good for me here. Is there something I'm missing outside of the fact that it may potentially be recurred?
Springjack Pasture: cute, but too expensive really. The colorless mana hurts the early plays of this deck too much, and with the updated list, finding a creature to sacrifice isn't too bad anymore.
Liliana Vess: we've already reached a critical mass of tutors, and I think she's just a tad too slow for the deck now.
In the end I decided to keep the combo redundancy with Darkest Hour and Phyrexian Altar. I do want to question whether or not we need Idyllic Tutor, although I guess it is fine for fetching out a piece for any strategy (Arrest on the defense, Darkest Hour for Teysa, Recurring Nightmare for Iona). I think we MAY be filled up to the brim on tutors. Return to Dust was pretty good the few times I used it, although it is a bit pricey - any other suggestions here? ( On a side note, Devout Witness performed admirably) I have slightly mixed feelings about Corpse Connoisseur after messing with him in actual practice. He's really good with a discard effect, but hardcasted he is definitely on the slower side. It sucks that there aren't better options for putting things to the graveyard.
I never got the Yosei lock on anyone, although I guess having that option doesn't hurt. After looking for some other possible reanimation targets, I sort of still want Angel of Despair. She falls into the same category as Debtor's Knell, where I'd never want to hardcast it. Iona is fine enough, and going for Bloodghast/Nether Traitor isn't bad either, so maybe another target isn't necessary. Linvala, Keeper of Silence is also a pretty awesome card that could probably find its way in here. She doesn't have any particular synergies, but she is absolutely nuts against certain matchups.
The games I lost to Rofellos were pretty much because I either didn't have a turn 2 removal spell or I just couldn't keep up (aka I didn't draw into any combo pieces and/or tutors). That's just the nature of the matchup though, so I won't put any blame on Teysa. The Sedris deck (which is pretty much just UBR good stuff with invoke dudes) had a hard time keeping up. If I attacked from multiple angles, I could usually just overwhelm him with must-counter spells and he'd fall apart. One thing to note is that solo Iona's potential greatly diminishes against decks with 3+ colors, just because they'll have answers for her in every color. It's better then to wait for the Victimize or Living Death with Painter's Servant. Okay I''m done being captain obvious.
So I'm feeling a bit more confident with the list now. It's still not optimized, but it is getting closer. I'll have to play a bit more and have a larger sample size against other generals to get a true feel for what the deck needs.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
I think I want to squeeze in both Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond, and I also want to test Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Other than that, I'm happy with that list for testing purposes. It's certainly better than my first list. I'm going to keep a close eye on both Darkest Hour and Idyllic Tutor, but I'm not ready to cut them yet.
You explained all your choices very well, so I don't have much to add. Corpse Connoisseur may be slow, but I think we probably want him anyway, at least for now. Return to Dust seems fine to me. I understand why you still want Angel of Despair...but I just don't know. Assuming that the 5/5 body isn't going to win many games, she basically lets you turn a reanimation effect into a Vindicate, under the right circumstances. That's not terrible (especially with Recurring Nightmare or Victimize), so she definitely does have some merit. I have found her very awkward to use though. We might want to consider Necrotic Sliver instead of or in addition to Angel of Despair. The extra mana cost is annoying, but here's a card that we actually can hardcast and have it be reasonable. It's also brought back by Reveillark, which is a nice little perk. Worth thinking about, anyway.
A couple other little ideas to consider are Guul Draz Assassin and Preacher (Preacher is especially good with sacrifice outlets, resulting in an edict every turn if need be.) Both of these cards, though somewhat fragile, offer repeatable removal--something I've found to be extremely valuable against general-based strategies. Against removal-light powerhouses like Rofellos or Azami, either one of these cards could dominate the game if unanswered.
That's all I got for now, until I get some more testing of my own done. It sounds like your matches against Rofellos and Sedris went tolerably well--it wouldn't surprise me if they improve with practice either. 50% against Rofellos is pretty good for a fresh deck, and I suspect the matchup will turn out to be better than that in the end. A deck with this many tutors and this many modes of attack is amongst the most challenging to play, in my opinion--but the more you learn its ins and outs, the more you'll win with it. Especially against Rofellos, watch your mulligans--against very fast generals, you'll do best by aggressively mulliganing for removal. Don't try to force particular combos--let the combo come to you
I'll try to get some testing done in the next few days (though I regrettably have very little spare time for Magic these days). We'll see how it goes.
You're right that with practice I should be able to shore up many of my matchups. The color combo allows me to constantly keep my opponent at bay by attacking both their board and their hand with extremely cheap, but efficient spells. It really is a strategy I'm quite impressed with. Setting up angles of attack is indeed difficult, although not completely foreign to me thanks to experience with Sharuum. I see a lot of similarities here.
Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond could possibly find their way in here. I'm more willing to run Diamond because of both Weathered Wayfarer and Land Tax. It's also true that I can pitch redundant and/or expensive spells early game to Chrome, so I'll keep a lookout for that. How important is acceleration here? It would be really nice, but I don't know if its absolutely crucial to run these that give speed at the cost of card disadvantage. BUT! I keep thinking about Balance and how insane these plays will be! Either way, these might be better than Coldsteel Heart (which I have not been impressed by in here).
You know it's funny that you mention Gruul Draz Assassin cause I was totally eyeing that guy last night. I actually think he's pretty awesome here, especially since he's so cheap and becomes a must deal with threat. Preacher, while somewhat slower, is also an awesome suggestion. If we somehow decide to run both moxen, I'd probably want both of these guys in the deck. Linvala, Keeper of Secrets, Necrotic Sliver, and Angel of Despair I will keep on my bench at all times and swap them in and out to see how well they perform. You're right in the fact that we don't need need any of those and we're a bit tight on room anyways. And while we're on the subject of creatures, Xiahou Dun, The One-Eyed (as mentioned by Pysces) is actually pretty solid in here, especially with the slight increase in reanimation spells.
Same deal. I'll come back here when I actually have more stuff to say after a greater amount of testing.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
Like other people were saying-- when it combos, it locks. When it doesn't, you lose... and pretty frustratingly.
Most of the other people in my group were playing decks built for multiplayer and most of them go heavy-blue control. Against any non-blue deck I won probably 75% of the time, against blue decks I lost probably 90% of the time.
I'd find that I had very few answers to having any part of my combo counterspelled. Even after I put a Boseiju out on the field I still had very few options in terms of actually getting things out or getting them to work since I'd have to fight through a massive net of counterspells and spelljacks.
This may be a problem with my playstyle. Any advice?
This discard spells and card advantage engines are your outs against blue. Multiplayer blue decks aren't going to be pressuring you too much--take your time to set up the critical turn. Bloodghast and Nether Traitor are both very good against permission decks, especially if you can sneak out an early game Skullclamp, which shouldn't be too hard. Later on, just make sure to attack their hand before trying to play anything important. There's enough discard here that it shouldn't be an issue (especially if you're using the updated list).
I haven't had any particular trouble against blue decks.
It really depends what type of blue decks you're up against. If you're up against Zur, you're going to have to play a lot differently than if you were up against, say, Intet or something random like that. I find that I have trouble with blue-based generals that are more aggressive, so I'll usually have to play eye for an eye early game. Balance is pretty brutal here if you can resolve one, which will help shave them down (especially if it's a multi-colored deck that needs its colorful mana base). I've had decent success baiting counterspells by playing a Castigate or Hymn first before dropping something more important. Since this deck has so many ways to win, you can sort of run things out there and then base your combos on whatever sticks.
Versus permission-based strategies I don't aggressively go for combo. Like Khymera stated, try to sneak in or force through your Skullclamp engine, as it will easily overwhelm your opponent.
@Khymera
I'd like to ask what you think of Animate Dead here over, say, Exhume. Why? Because a lot of times I'll be looking at Idyllic Tutor in my hand thinking: I don't have anything to sacrifice to Recurring Nightmare .
I've also been a bit unimpressed by Scroll Rack here. Since there's so much business (and most of it is cheaply costed), I rarely feel the want or need to rack it away. I can see exactly how my turns want to play out, and I don't want to jeopardize it by scrounging up a fresh three cards. Granted it is powerful with Wayfarer, Tax, and Library, I'm still not liking it. It's also getting to a point where there's too many tutors haha; your fears were correct. I'm okay with "into hand" tutors, but when I'm stocked up on Vampiric, Enlightened, and Imperial, I'm somewhat disappointed. Yes they're cheap, but man it's annoying to have to give up my draw steps.
I did a bunch of searches last night on creatures that could improve the deck or certain combos of the deck, but it's close to optimal as is. I re-read Guul Draz Assassin and while I still like him a lot I'd like to hear what you think about Darkblast in this slot as well.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
I've been happy with Scroll Rack. It's obviously nuts with Land Tax/Weathered Wayfarer, but even without those it's very solid in a deck with so many tutors. Used aggressively, it just lets you see a ton more cards. It's more similar to Necropotence than anything else. As I said, I use it quite aggressively: even if my hand is well-stocked business, I'll almost always Rack away either all the cards in my hand or all but 1. Since you can decide the order to put the cards in after you see what you drew, you can sculpt gameplans pretty easily based on what you see. Remember, the stuff you put on top isn't lost unless you want it to be--you can always just put it on top and draw it next turn. It's such a powerful tool in this deck that I can't see cutting it.
I agree that having too many "top-deck" tutors is annoying, but you still don't want to cut any of the 1-mana ones. They're powerful, versatile, and get you what you need, even if they are a little clunky.
I like Guul Draz Assassin better than Darkblast. To be honest, I really dislike Darkblast in EDH, even though I know it's not bad...personal prejudice, I guess. Though it's excellent against a few select decks, I always found it to be a dead card in my hand more often than a card I wanted to see. I would prefer to play more versatile removal, even if it costs a little more. While it's nice that you can redraw Darkblast whenever you need to, I'd rather play something that won't eat up my draw step, like the Assassin. Feel free to test Darkblast, and if you like it enough I'll try it too...but I think I'll pass for now.
I've had the opportunity to test 4 matches with the updated deck. Encouragingly, I've won them all, though there were definitely some close games. One of my matches was against a cool Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker prison deck that I've played before with Teysa and had a 1-4 record against (don't laugh; it's a really solid deck that just hasn't been made public yet). I went 2-0 against it fairly easily this time, so that's a good sign.
My experience with this version is that approximately half the time, you just win. It's not uncommon to manage something like a turn 3 Iona or a turn 4 infinite combo (with disruption), and most decks can't stand up to that. The games where you don't have access to that are a lot more difficult, obviously, but they've all been winnable so far (though I'm definitely still making major mistakes, like tutoring for cards that wind up being irrelevant).
Though it's not the fastest or most elegant win-condition, I've been extremely happy to have access to the infinite combos with Teysa. When all of our other win-conditions involve the graveyard, it's been important several times to have access to a combo that can ignore stuff like Relic of Progenitus. The Nether Traitor/Phyrexian Altar combo has also been really solid a couple of times, considering that Nether Traitor/Skullclamp is worth getting just for the card advantage, and from there a single tutor can win you the game.
There aren't really any cards I've been unhappy with so far (though there are a few new ones I have yet to draw, like Devout Witness). I do want to test Guul Draz Assassin and Necrotic Sliver, both of which I think will be strong, and am trying to figure out what the best cuts might be.
How has your testing been going?
Edit:
Random thought, but is Deathrender something we are interested in? It's another way to cheat Iona into play, without using the graveyard, and it's another target to flesh out Stoneforge Mystic/Steelshaper's Gift. I think it might actually be good here.