Orzhov Teysa (Standard)

We want to flood the board with followers for our cause by any means necessary. While Teysa Karlov is in play, our tokens will be better than everybody else's tokens, I guarantee it. In a multiplayer format where you want to end the game but not leave yourself open to attack, vigilance and lifelink both have irregularly high equity.

When you swear fealty to Teysa, you must be prepared to give her everything and then some. Not only is this deck prepared against removal spells, it welcomes them! Even in death, you generate value and valuable tokens to go forth and conquer. What dies is never truly dead in these colors, and we have a few ways to bring our subjects back to the battlefield where they have the opportunity to die again. How fortunate for them!

This deck doesn't run a lot of removal such as Kaya's Wrath or Crush Contraband, as our board will hopefully be more impressive than our opponents, so no need to remove their threats. And we know how removal works against Orzhov decks (it doesn't).

This deck also eschews singularly powerful cards such as Zetalpa, Primal Dawn and Angel of Grace. While you may want to add them to bump up the power of this deck, when I make a deck, I dedicate myself to the theme. I don’t just want to win, I want to tell good stories as well.