I'm not a fan of leaning too heavily into infinite combos, and as such don't run Darkest Hour (among others). In particular, I'd prefer running cards that are pretty good without being a combo piece. Painter's Servant may come in, since it gives value for Teysa's abilities even if it can't go infinite (such as by not having enough creatures to pop off with), but I'm on the fence about it.Mookie wrote: ↑4 years agoI've been playing Teysa 1.0 for a while, and my experience has been that building a perfect list for her is very, very difficult - I'm pretty sure that of all my decks, Teysa is the one most in flux by a significant margin. Unlike some generals that have a very obvious direction (ex: Tatyova, Benthic Druid wants you to play lands), there are a lot of directions Teysa (and Orzhov in general) can go - you can lean into token production, or sacrifice synergy, or take a more controlling route and take advantage of her exile ability alongside Orzhov's great removal. And of course, this is before we start discussing any sort of lifegain synergies or reanimation strategies, which Orzhov can also support.
The issue with almost all of these strategies is that they are generally focused on your board position - either they require you to already have a bunch of creatures on the battlefield, or they merely generate more creatures (instead of some other resource, such as ramping out more lands or drawing more cards). This means that many cards are vulnerable to Wrath of God and other board wipes.
To address the original issue (lots of synergistic pieces that are weak without support), there are several approaches I've taken with my own deck:
-include a few one or two card combos that provide a large impact with minimal setup. I've grown to be a pretty big fan of Buried Alive -> Living Death.
-run more card draw and recursion, to make assembling the right combination of synergistic pieces more consistent
-focus on artifacts and enchantments, which tend to be more resilient to removal, and thus more likely to stick around
Including cards that fulfill multiple tasks at the same time also makes assembling synergies easier (ex: Altar of Dementia is a sacrifice outlet, a win condition, and a way to set up reanimation.
Specific cards I'll suggest: Dawn of Hope, Darkest Hour, Grim Haruspex, Altar of Dementia, Living Death, Grave Pact (+Dictate of Erebos), Pitiless Plunderer.
Another approach you could take is swapping Teysa for Krav & Regna, and seeing how that feels. (I once tried to do so, but didn't have enough lifegain in my deck. However, it looks like you have substantially more support for them than I did)
Yawgmoth will go in as soon as I get a copy.darrenhabib wrote: ↑4 years agoI have no personal experience with playing Teysa, Orzhov Scion, but there are a few things that I feel could be done.
Firstly you should really be running the Darkest Hour combo, and now you have Painter's Servant to further this.
I do have a Yawgmoth, Thran Physician deck, so there are some similarities. And yes you should run him in the deck, he is a sacrifice outlet and a draw mechanism and a creature killing machine.
Orzov has a lot of infinite combos at it's disposal. Are you a fan of trying to assemble combinations of cards that are game winning? The thing is that a lot of these combos involve sacrificing creatures and you already have these in your deck.
Now as you know Teysa, Orzhov Scion + Karmic Guide + Reveillark allows you to exile all opponents creatures.
This is a very powerful tool. So I'd give yourself more access to this via Buried Alive and some more reanimation cards, Dance of the Dead and Necromancy.
Cruel Celebrant can be the third creature you Buried Alive for to win the game.
You can also play Leonin Relic-Warder and you already have Sun Titan which can go infinite with Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy. You need a sacrifice outlet as well.
These will give you infinite ETB/LTB which can be combined with Lifegain or Drain creatures.
Fiend Hunter can also be combined with Sun Titan and a sacrifice outlet to give you infinite ETB/LTBs as well.
The neat thing is that Leonin Relic-Warder and Fiend Hunter as individual cards are good on there own as they represent disruption on opponents as well if need be.
So to start you off these are the changes I personally would make:If you want me to explain the cuts then just ask, I'm being a bit lazy and hoping you'll just accept them at face valueAdd
Ha, not wanting to build combo is totally reasonable. Honestly, I much prefer the games I win via sacrifice engines and aristocrats nonsense over the games I win via combo. My issue has been similar to yours - it's very difficult to assemble the right set of cards. More specifically, if feels like as soon as I start to get set up, an opponent will break things apart, and it takes several turns before I can get things going again (which is usually too slow). In particular, I feel like my sac outlets have an average lifespan of around one turn cycle, which is pretty bad. So, over time, I've leaned harder into combo as a way to speed things up.yeti1069 wrote: ↑4 years agoI'm not a fan of leaning too heavily into infinite combos, and as such don't run Darkest Hour (among others). In particular, I'd prefer running cards that are pretty good without being a combo piece. Painter's Servant may come in, since it gives value for Teysa's abilities even if it can't go infinite (such as by not having enough creatures to pop off with), but I'm on the fence about it.
I had stayed away from Grave Pact effects for two reasons; one, I have a Meren (formerly Savra) deck focused on that kind of board control, and two, because I wanted to lean on Teysa's exile ability for pinpoint removal, which helps deal with creatures I don't want to hit the yard, or don't want recurred, but also is a more political move. Pact effects negate Teysa's ability, since the Pact trigger resolves first.
Haruspex I had been considering, but I felt like I was sacrificing many more tokens than creatures, and it doesn't replace itself. Still, it's a decent add, and I'll consider it. Pitiless Plunderer I've been considering, but I feel like I've had more games where I had mana I didn't know what to do with than I have games where I needed a few more mana in a given turn. Yes, it sort of doubles as a backup Phyrexian Altar (with another free sac outlet), but I don't know what I would cut for it if I did decide to add it.
Zacama
