As one of the most enduringly popular MTG Commander archetypes, the roots of Aristocrats reach far back into the game’s history. In fact, one of the more intriguing Aristocrats Commanders, Teysa, Orzhov Scion, made its MTG debut way back in Guildpact. While its combination of token generation and removal is potent, this legend is surprisingly underplayed in Commander today.
Teysa, Orzhov Scion MTG
Teysa is a real all-in-one package for Aristocrats, providing a sacrifice outlet/payoff and token generator all in one. To make the most of both sides, you’ll want to run a range of long-term token generators, like Bitterblossom and Skrelv’s Hive, to ensure a steady stream of sacrifice fodder. Token doublers, like Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Ocelot Pride, are great here to maximize your value.
While Teysa can sacrifice your white creatures no problem, you’ll need other sacrifice outlets, like Altar of Dementia, to convert your black creatures into Spirits first. Since you’ll be sacrificing constantly, with Teysa or otherwise, payoffs like Pitiless Plunderer and Cruel Celebrant can get you a ton of value here. You can also use trigger doublers like Teysa Karlov and Drivnod, Carnage Dominus to take things even further.
Built like this, Teysa becomes a supremely grindy engine that can keep the best of your opponents’ creatures off the board. To sustain this engine in the long run, recursive creatures like Reassembling Skeleton are a huge help. You’ll also want to include some repeatable reanimation pieces, like Chthonian Nightmare and Nim Deathmantle, to ensure you always have something to sacrifice even in the late game.
Death Begets Death
Though Teysa is more than capable of winning a fair game of Magic, it can also bust out some terrifying combo lines when needed. Perhaps the flashiest of these is its interaction with Darkest Hour, or Painter’s Servant naming black. With either of these cards in play, sacrificing three white creatures to Teysa’s first ability will get you three Spirits, letting you repeat and exile every opposing creature in play.
Combining Teysa with Bishop of Wings and Divine Visitation will let you set up a similar loop, though you’ll need three Angels to kick this one off. Sacrifice all three to Teysa, and you’ll make three more, gaining 12 life in the process. You can stack up infinite activations of Teysa’s ability this way to gain infinite life, letting you win with Vito of the Dusk Rose or Aetherflux Reservoir.
Teysa is also capable of generating infinite enters/dies triggers and mana, alongside Phyrexian Altar and Nether Traitor. Sacrificing Traitor will get you a mana and a token, then you can sacrifice the token and reanimate Traitor, netting one mana. You can then repeat to close out the game in any number of ways, from a big Walking Ballista burst to a slow Blood Artist grind.
An Underplayed Budget Banger
As potent as Teysa, Orzhov Scion is as an MTG Aristocrats Commander, it actually doesn’t see a ton of play in that role right now. According to EDHREC numbers, in fact, only 4,114 players run Teysa in the command zone. While it fares better in the 99, appearing in 31,100 decks there, these still feel like surprisingly low statistics for a card of this caliber.
On the bright side, Teysa’s low popularity and multiple reprints ensure that it’s a very affordable card to pick up at present. You can grab near-mint base copies of Teysa on TCGplayer for just $0.94. At this price, Teysa is an absolute steal, and an ideal starting point for a powerful budget Aristocrats brew.
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