Death by 20 pings

> Intro

Teysa Karlov represents what I believe to be the best of the aristocrats strategy without leaning into a deck with a billion combos and little synergy without the combo assembled. This means you can establish a board and advance without durdling and waiting around for the combo to fall into our laps. I want to preface this primer with a few things. I am always open to suggestions on card choices and things I can try out to try and push this deck further, please leave them in the comments or the discussion section if deckstats allows that.

> Terms

• pinger: a pinger is something that deals damage once we sac something. Some pingers work when opponents' things die, some only ours.
• sac outlet: something that lets us sac one of our creatures for a benefit.
• sac payoff: something that gives us something when things on the board die.
• win condition sac outlet: a sac outlet that has a win condition attached to it like blasting station, altar of dementia, and goblin bombardment

> Prereqs for making the deck

• im going for an 8 power level or whatever we are calling as close to cedh without actually being cedh
• there is no budget but feel free to drop the expensive cards for other ones
• i dont want to include cards that are part of combos and are only good in the combo like triskelion in the mike and trike combo

> Premise of the deck

This deck is going for mass sacrifice fore value and mass reanimation to do it all again. This deck has a mass ping win condition with a combo sub theme where each piece that is a part of the combos has a function that synergies with the deck even when the combo is not present.

> How we are going to win

We are going to win by getting to 20 pings as fast as we can or alternatively we assemble an infinite combo to win if our primary wincon fails.

> Other aristocrats colors/commanders

> Mono-black:

Black is the primary aristocrats color but there are a lot of weaknesses to using mono-black as your choice such as limited options for removal and support colors as well as having to pick suboptimal sac outlets, sac payoffs, and sac fodder. There is one good piece of artifact removal in gate to phyrexia which gives us a free sac on our upkeep to destroy an artifact but that is at sorcery speed and tough to control. There is one good piece of enchantment removal in feed the swarm. other than that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for effects for each category we are looking for. The advantage for mono-black is that there are good ramp options in the form of cabal coffers type effects that really only work with a mass of swamps in the deck list. There are more of these types of effects as well in crypt ghast and cabal stronghold. The commanders I would choose are obviously Yawgmoth, Thran Physician because of him being a sac outlet and card draw engine in the command zone as well as a bit of removal. The problem with him is the huge target it puts on you and the lack of ways to protect him once he comes in. The other one is Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker but this is a niche build that requires the deck to be built around her and shes very vulnerable and costly.

> Orzhov:

What Orzhov brings to the table in terms of aristocrats is good removal from white, a good pinger in cruel celebrant, a fantastic recursion package that dives into our second strategy, infinite combos(more on this later), and one of my favorite cards in this deck, ministant of obligation. This color combo has lots of weaknesses such as weaker options for our last includes for card draw, ramp being a huge struggle and they have made me look for other color combos but in the end I always came back to Teysa Karlov because of a few reasons which ill explain at the end of this segment. As for commanders in this segment, Teysa Karlov is the only commander I choose and even though you can choose Teysa, Orzhov Scion, I do not because I have a condition for this deck which is I cannot play cards that are part of a combo and do not do anything else for the deck except be in the deck because of that combo. In the Teysa, Orzhov Scion deck, darkest hour is one of these cards. It is absolutely required in that deck to make it the best deck it can be and I feel like that card does nothing without the combo assembled so I go with Teysa Karlov as my commander instead.

> Golgari:

This color combo gives me all I want in terms of shoring up the weaknesses that Orzhov had. The card draw in green is a bit better for aristocrats than for white in something like guardian project which i would include in my last options for draw in a Golgari aristocrats deck. This color combo fixes the ramp problem with green but has the weaknesses of having a bit worse removal, a bit worse token production, and a lot worse graveyard recursion. We can use one of my favorite pingers though, poison-tip archer. We also have access to birthing pod but its a build around and its not a free sac outlet but it is very very powerful as a tutor. The commanders I would choose are Meren of Clan Nel Toth because of the recursion she brings, Grismold, the Dreadsower because of its ability to create bodies(this gives opponents creatures so I would change the payoffs I play to include every payoff that triggers off opponents' creatures dying like falkenrath noble and blood artist. there are 4 of them to my knowledge in this color combo, the two I mentioned just now and poison-tip archer and Syr Konrad, the Grim).

> Dimir:

Dimir gives us blue which lets us get easy access to combo protection and interaction with counterspells, easy ways to get combos online with infinite mana combos, and really good card draw. Where dimir lacks is in removal of artifacts and enchantments although they are getting better with cards like feed the swarm and ravenform which on a side note, wtf why does blue get exile artifact effects? The commanders I would pick are Kels, Fight Fixer or maybe Vela the Night-clad. Kels gives us a sac outlet and card draw although both at a cost, and Vela gives us a pinger and instant win button with rite of replication.

> Mardu:

This color combo adds red which gives us the best sac outlet as mentioned before, a few other pingers like Judith, the Scourge Diva and mayhem devil but these are narrow and the devil requires us to explicitly sacrifice to get the damage which is sometimes relevant. Mardu is great at token production with its goblins though. Mardu struggles with card draw although its a bit better now with the impulsive draw that red is getting like jeska's will and Mardu really struggles with ramp and mana production aside from rituals which I almost never use because aristocrats can't really capitalize on the explosiveness that rituals give you. The commanders I would use in this color combo are Queen Marchesa for card draw and sac fodder, Judith for the ping in your command zone, and maybe Alesha, Who Smiles at Death for the recursion(its tied to attacking so its a lot worse imo) or Juri, Master of the Revue who is hard to make work. He is a pinger but only when he dies which is why I dont really consider him a pinger and his payoff is really tough to make work with so much removal going around.

> Jund:

This color combination is the best for aristocrats in my opinion. It combines the best sac outlets with the addition of red with goblin bombardment, the best payoffs which are black, and ramp which is green. The reason I dont pick it for this primer is because without infinite combos or very very pushed, OP commanders like Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and Korvold, Fae Cursed King Jund doesnt have the tools to, in my opinion, be better than Teysa Karlov regardless of having better ramp and the best sac outlet in the archetype. The weaknesses of Jund for aristocrats is that it doesnt have the best of the best removal that white offers and it doesnt get to really use snuff out or the ones that are free when your commander is out(deadly rollick and deflecting swat) because your commanders are removal magnets or finishers and won't be on the field regularly to have these up all the time for free. The two commanders I would choose are the two I listed before, Korvold and Proosh.

> Abzan:

This color combines the best removal in white, the standard black and the best ramp in green. The advantages of this color are good recursion, ramp and payoffs. The disadvantage for this color combination is that in my opinion the decks focus way too much on combos and they slot in cards that dont do anything otherwise to get these combos working. The card quality in the decks goes down because they are more used for the combo rather than general aristocrats purposes. This is more an issue I have with how I want to build my decks as I dont like cards like that. Abzan is amazing and I think it being Orzhov with green added in makes it really good at shoring up the ramp weakness. I again think teysa is much much better than any commander they can churn out so I choose teysa karlov in the end after trying a lot of the commanders in this color combo. The commanders I chose in Abzan are Tayam Luminous Enigma, Tormod, the Desecrator and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa, and Nethroi, Apex of Death. Tayam and Nethroi fall into the trap of being way too reliant on combo and having dead cards in the deck. In Tayam's case, we need him on the battlefield to work so hes especially hard in removal heavy metas. Tormod and Sidar Kondo aristocrats is my second favorite deck in this archetype because while teysa karlov makes 40 pings easier by turning it into 20 pings, tormod and sidar make it easier to spread damage around with sidar giving everything pseudo unblockable to deal chip damage while setting up. Your creatures arent going to be doing much anyway so its easy to get in some damage and speed the game up. I went with a persist/undying build here that is heavy on getting things into and out of the graveyard to fuel tormod and make fodder for us. Ill include this tormod and sidar decklist because I believe its a really good one that is a good alternative to the teysa karlov decklist this primer is attached to.

> Summary

All of this is to say why I always ended up with teysa karlov as my commander and why I think shes the best aristocrats commander. I started with Teysa Karlov then went to 3 color pairings with Jund and Mardu before trying to go back to two color combos with Dimir and Golgari before going to Abzan when tormod came out. I usually try out color combos when commanders come out for those colors because the 99 is largely easy to choose aside from the flex cards that we will talk about below.

In the end the primary reason to pick Teysa Karlov over any of the rest of the commanders is as follows: the way to win here is to get to 40 pings and doing so with a four player pod while 3 other people are trying to win and disrupting you all the time is largely impossible. This is why aristocrats needs infinite combos to do something really scary but in reality those infinites sometimes use dead cards. Teysa makes that way easier with reducing the number of pings to 20 and by allowing the use of infinite combos that work with the deck and where each individual card is useful without having the combo pieces ready.
Like I mentioned above the conditions I made for this deck are that none of the cards are dead and used only for a combo so I didnt include things like the mike and trike combo even though mike is useful on his own to recur key pieces and double up on sac fodder.
Tormod and Sidar also solves this problem of getting to 40 pings by getting in chip damage with unblockable attacks.
All the other commanders are great as well because for aristocrats its all about the really streamlined 99 but I picked teysa for these reasons.

> Card Choices

On to the card choices for the deck that is presented here.

Ill go for the main engine cards first then ill get into the card draw and other staple categories for this deck. Aristocrats is a tight strategy so the core will be very streamlined. there is room to experiment here and ill include some cool cards to try out at the end but the engine is large and needs to be efficient.

> Sac Outlets:

The way we want to pick sac outlets is by giving outlets that are infinite and free the highest priority. We also want to go for the cheapest outlets unless they provide another benefit that is relevant to us.
Even given that I said that we want infinite sac outlets, I think the 2 land sac outlets are non-negotiable, high market and phyrexian tower because in a two color deck the high market and tower don't really hurt the mana base much at all and the once a turn sac if we really need it is great. On top of all that, they come in untapped and tap for mana.
I also think the two 1 drops are mandatory as well so in go viscera seer and carrion feeder.
I also think the altars are mandatory so in go ashnod's altar and phyrexian altar because of the mana for payoffs and infinite combos that are associated with these cards.

We have 6 cards here that are mandatory in my opinion. Usually I have about 7-8 sac outlets depending on the amount of removal in your play group. There is a lot of removal in my play group so I go for 8. The 2 extra slots can house a bunch of cards depending on your play style. If you want more sac fodder because you are lacking in that department, go with woe strider. If you are lacking in damage or want a sac outlet that can protect itself a little bit, go for Yahenni, Undying Partisan. In this deck currently im going for a group of what im calling wincon sac outlets in altar of dementia and blasting station. the reason I chose these two is because for the altar, if you arent going for the combo win, its not good to incidentally mill other players but I can definitely mill myself because I have lots of recursion in this deck and it fuels a favorite card of mine, tombstone stairwell as well as fueling hallowed spiritkeeper. The reason I am keeping blasting station in is because it also can win with its pings. That however is not the primary reason. While it is true we can win with the infinite ping using a compact 3 card combo like [[sun titan]] kaya's ghostform and blasting station, I like using the station for its utility in removing small utility creatures off the board. The small pings will be annoying for random mana dorks and random incidental creatures as well as for bigger creatures if you have enough fodder and can layer the triggers correctly. You can use cartel aristocrat as it can maybe protect itself so thats not too bad.

in summary for the sac outlets, choose between 7-8 from the following list:
high market, phyrexian tower, carrion feeder, viscera seer, ashnod's altar, phyrexian altar, Yahenni Undying Partisan, woe strider, altar of dementia, and blasting station, cartel aristocrat.

Some sac outlets that I think aren't good enough to make the cut are as follows:
priest of the forgotten gods - because this is not infinite and its slow because you have to play it and wait to untap with it.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist - because of the same reason as above.
Krav, the Unredeemed - mainly because it costs mana. thats a big blow for a color combo that struggles to make mana and needs to mass sacrifice.

> Sac payoffs:

For sac payoffs we want to include a bunch of pingers here. One thing I might experiment with is having more pingers like including falkenrath noble which isn't included. I also dropped grave pact because I felt like there were too many payoffs and not enough fodder. This may be something to experiment with because while I like to use anywhere from 7-9 sac payoffs, I opted for the lower end because I wanted more space for things like recursion, which include 3 of my easier infinite combos and more sac fodder because in my play testing I felt like the more bodies we had ready the more threatening we can be by exploding with damage while saccing a bunch of things.

The pingers are mandatory and I included the most compact and most efficient ones here which are blood artist, cruel celebrant, zulaport cutthroat. The other 2 pingers I have here, Syr Konrad, the Grim and bastion of remembrance are also mandatory in my opinion. Syr Konrad is so good as a pinger and is our curve topper must answer bomb. He triggers twice with teysa out and triggers on recursion, mill, and death. This makes him really scary and takes some heat off our commander. bastion of remembrance is probably the best pinger in this deck because its an enchantment so its hard to remove, it comes with a body, and it is pretty cheap at 3cmc.

I also included dictate of erebos here because it can be very oppressive in the right boards and against the right decks. It is also well costed and falshable.

This brings us to nightmare shephard which I love in this deck. A lot of people have asked me, "isn't he directly going against what your deck wants to do with the reanimation package?", and I've thought that a lot while slotting him in and out of the deck a lot of times but he is a fucking house in this deck. I think of it like this, he reanimates things without me having to pay for the reanimation spell and he does it over and over again as he isnt a one shot effect. Sure they get exiled after but we've already gotten 2 uses out of the creature already so its totally worth it in my opinion and its going to be hard to reanimate something 2 times or more. So far he has been a house in my deck and is really worth the spot when I was paly testing but Ill keep monitoring his performance as I did have reservations about him before.

This brings me to the main 2 sac payoffs I excluded from my deck which are grave pact and falkenrath noble. I excluded grave pact because I felt that another one of those effects was too much and the 3 black pips is hard to cast sometimes. Its also a card that paints a huge target on my back but its a great card if you want to include it.
The falkenrath noble I excluded because its really high costed at 4. It also is the one of the weaker of the pinger effects because it triggers on only 1 person at a time whereas we really like the "each" clause in EDH.

Some of the other sac payoffs that you can use are the following:
the grave pact and falkenrath noble i mentioned before, Athreos, God of Passage(although in my play testing, it was rather underwhelming because we are mainly saccing tokens), Elenda, the Dusk Rose, vindictive lich, and Kokosho, the Evening Star
There are many more so experiment with which ones you like the most and which ones are good for your meta.

There are a few that I dont recommend however, such as, butcher of malakir because he is just way too high costed for the effect, just use grave pact and dictate of erebos, and corpse knight because while he is a pinger, he triggers on etb not ltb which is just enough for me to not use him in favor of the noble if you need more pingers despite it costing 2 more mana than the corpse knight and not being "each".

> Sac fodder:

Sac fodder is a dime a dozen so feel free to pick your favorites here. Ill explain which ones are my favorites, which ones are absolute houses, and why here.
I love love, fucking love tombstone stairwell and it is my favorite card in the game right now. let me paint you a picture of how great this card is. Imagine you have only 2 creatures in your graveyard which is really easy to do, you get 2 zombies each upkeep which represents 2 death triggers(4 with teysa) each upkeep for a total of 16 before you even draw your next card for your next turn. It does give your opponents zombies but you likely are better at graveyard stuff, there is a political way you can unite with the graveyard player in your pod and have him not attack you, chump their zombies, etc. its now your turn again and youve gotten 16 death triggers and all the payoffs associated with that while only paying 4 mana. you only need 20 pings to win and you can pay 2 mana on upkeep and do it all again. This card is amazing and I can't recommend it enough.
I like ministrant of obligation because it represents 5 bodies on a 3cmc creature when teysa is out and as ive been referencing throughout the primer, 20 pings all we need. a simple reanimation and we are half way to winning already.
I also really like [[secure the wastes]] because its efficient, instant, and a place to put extra mana while being easy to cast, pip wise. It is good rate, as we are looking for something as close to 1cmc per token body as we can. ophiomancer is great because its each upkeep and it makes deathtouch blockers if we need that. 1 round at the table and it blows the 1 body per cmc rule out of the water.
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder is fantastic because all we will be doing is casting creature spells so as long as we keep saccing the thrulls before we hit 7, we are getting tons of bodies for something we already want to do. This is what makes simic land stuff so good because they get rewarded for things they already want to do and we can get something similar here.
Ill also mention Teysa, Orzhov Scion here because she is amazing as both a removal piece, sac outlet, and a token generator. when we need to sac, we will likely be saccing black things so we get more things to sac. This ripple effect makes it so we always have bodies.

I would generally avoid the creatures that make things on etb because they dont double with teysa.

I like going for 10+ token generators and in this deck list i have 11 in the category but there are other cards that contribute in other categories like bastion of remembrance and keeper of the accord.

> Reanimation:

One other major part of this deck is mass reanimation along with reanimation of value creatures. For the mass reanimation portion I kept in the following cards: rally the ancestors and living death. I also have agadeem's awakening but i mostly use that as a land that comes in untapped. These are the best reanimation spells because they bring everything back for a relatively low cost. These could be finishers in most cases later in the game.

for other reanimation I use combo based pieces. You can take out each combo if you want and increase the numbers in other aspects of the deck. The combo packages are: sun titan, and kaya's ghostform and the karmic guide, reveillark package

I included luminous broodmoth as well because it is a second copy of nightmare shepard but better in this deck.

You can take out these packages but doing so changes way you use the deck. For example, if im taking out the lurrus, sun titan, kaya's ghostform package, i would also take out blasting station and put in something like woe strider for a better sac outlet.

I included these combo packages because sometimes we need to end the game, sometimes a player is gaining too much life and its hard to drain fast enough, and they also force removal on things that you dont mind dying. These pieces all have function aside from their use in the combo and they all are useful in things the deck wants to do anyway.

Add or subtract from this section as you please depending on your meta and preferences. I like having the recursion because my meta has tons of removal and I like having the option of using my graveyard.

Now we can get to the staple parts of this decklist which are: card advantage, ramp, removal, and board wipes. Ill be quick on these sections because the number of things in each section are variable depending on preference and meta.

> Card Advantage:

for card advantage i usually like to have at least 10 and in this case i included 11 of the best in my opinion because silent clearing is only in this section when you crack it for the draw. Ill list the ones that I would not take out and leave the rest up to you. For card advantage, the best options are skullclamp, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician because he is also a sac outlet and somewhat removal, necropotence because it is just the best draw card, dark prophecy because its on any creature that dies, and smothering abomination because it has been a good card every time I have played it.

One card I want to try out is Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools because he gives fodder, draw, and a sac outlet.

> Ramp:

For this section I go for around 8 ramp pieces but I do not really count pitiless plunderer or pawn of ulamog as full ramp pieces because they are conditional. For the last 8 slots, I go for the cheap under 2 mana rocks to help get my commander out earlier one of which is ancient tomb because its a free ramp slot that counts as a land.
I really like jet medallion here because we can use it to reduce costs multiple times a turn, our deck is a majority black so there are a lot of cards it discounts, if we discount 1 card a turn, its more than paid for itself, and sometimes it really helps turbo out cards and plays turns in advance.

> Removal:

for removal I prioritize cheap and effective. I really like deadly rollick and snuff out here because they are free 90% of the time. For the rest I use cheap stuff and stuff that will help get rid of enchantments specifically. I have reliquary monk here because it doubles up with teysa. I recently found leave no trace which looks to be great. usually we dont have many enchantments out and when we destroy one for 2 cmc, that is a good deal but we can sometimes get more than 1 enchantment which is awesome. Its also instant so that is crazy interaction

> Counter spells:

I keep these to protect my combos and pieces, specifically teysa. Sometimes they have other uses but its to keep my pieces safe mainly.

> Board wipes:

I usually have a few board wipes and these are I find the best ones. Toxic deluge is a no brainer. I like dusk//dawn because it doesnt kill most of your creatures and it gets them back later.
One board wipe I want to try here is massacre wurm but I havent gotten around to putting it in

> Combos

Here ill go over the combos in this deck whether infinite or not. I wont include infinite combos that give you infinite mana because we dont really have a good way to win with that but there are a lot of them that exist in the deck. There are more combos than what im listing here but we arent too focused on combo so ill only include a few here

> Non Infinite Combos

1. The bread and butter combo in this deck is having a pinger out, having teysa out, a sac outlet out, and having a mass token generator like ministrant of obligation or tombstone stairwell out. This combo with ministrant can get you 5 pings which is 1/4th of everyones life total and if you have other payoffs like dark prophecy youll draw a bunch. You can also do it again if something like nightmare shepard out or something like a kaya's ghostform or malakir rebirth.

2. Another cool combo is having ophiomancer and having something like yawgmoth and a sac outlet. This lets you sac a token every turn and get a payoff every turn before the token comes back and youll always have a death touch blocker. This combo will definitely get you noticed and targeted hard.

> Winning Infinite Combos w/Commander Spellbook Links

1. karmic guide + reveillark + sac outlet + pinger(you can replace the sac outlet and pinger for a single win condition sac outlet)
   This results in a win on the spot
   https://CommanderSpellbook.com/?id=1643

2. sun titan + kaya's ghostform + sac outlet + pinger(again a wincon sac outlet will substitute both)
   This also results in a win on the spot
   https://CommanderSpellbook.com/?id=1659

> Other

> Mulligans

When I look at opening hands it widely varies but I generally look for 3 lands, 1 ramp piece, and 3 spells that I can play early with them hopefully having a token generator and a payoff amongst them. I like having the early sac outlet but sometimes it does nothing and you can always sacrifice by attacking or blocking and having them die. Usually I try to look at the decks at the table, for example if there is a forced combat general around like thantis, the warweaver i wont look so hard for a sac outlet and if there is a "group hug" deck I dont look for card draw as much and I can get my pieces from them drawing cards. Other than that I just look for 3 lands and stuff to do early because this deck has a lot of ways to replace the effects I need. The one thing that I like is having a card draw engine set up in the mid game to get things that matter like pingers and payoffs into my hand for the mid game and recursion for the late game.
Mulligans are really context dependent so its a bit hard to give advice on this topic as much.

> Strengths and weaknesses

This deck excels at winning within a few turns of setting up. This deck is really explosive and if you can just get the engine online and get a few tokens sacked, youll get so much value from those payoffs that youll cascade into more fuel and more damage. There have been times where I had almost nothing and it looked like I would durdle for turns on end but then I get some kind of engine online and my deck explodes and ill be in the lead after. This deck is also really good at being the second best at any time if you learn to not commit as hard to the board and slowly get a few bits of value at a time. That makes it a deck that people dont worry about until youve already benefitted. This is something Im still working on though as I have a problem with committing too hard to the board sometimes but I can see the potential for this deck against a lot of the decks I go against.

The weaknesses of this comes mostly from a table that runs a lot of counter spells and removal to consistently keep your pieces down. This deck relies on a set of cogs working together so if your pieces or individual cogs keep getting removed, even with recursion you will assemble the engine too slowly or have it stick for actual value too late. The recursion is great for getting pieces of the engine back but you really want to use it to get the token generators back to create the explosive turns that this deck is really good at doing. If you waste your turns getting all the pieces back over and over again, you wont have the time to keep getting tokens and using them for gain.
This deck also struggles when graveyard replacement effects are present but you can get around that by killing those pieces and its likely that other people will hate these stax like effects so youll likely have friends that will help you get rid of these effects.

> Aren't there too many rigid slots in this deck? wheres the flexibility?

This deck, the way I constructed it is for a specific meta where there is lots of removal and lots of ways my opponents like to mess with my stuff. I also like having the recursion and removal package be pretty large. You can definitely slim down the recursion package and the removal package depending on your meta. I like the recursion package the way I built it because I like having the infinite combos in case there is a situation where I have no other avenue to win or if I need to win now before things get too crazy. You can take things like sun titan and kaya's ghostform out for more token generators or payoffs to have the main plan be much more reliable. Maybe sneak another pinger like falkenrath noble in or maybe sneak in more token makers to sac more things without having to recur them. Maybe sneak in more outlets so you dont mind if yours get killed or maybe get more interaction and counterspells like rebuff the wicked or something like lapse of certainty in there. Maybe a light stax piece like tithe taker as it also provides more sac fodder when it dies. This deck kinda has like 6-10 flex spots that you can make into what is needed for your meta. This is just what im currently using and im open to more ideas for changes as well. I want to test more and more things to make this deck the best it can be with the requirements I outlined that I was following.

> Jet medallion

I want to take about the medallion here for a little bit. I have always been a fan of this card but a lot of people have mentioned that I should just take it out for another mana rock. The reason I like it here is that in this deck it always has 25+ targets and since I mostly play more than 1 spell a turn from the midgame and on, it might discount 2 spells a turn netting me 2 mana rather than just the 1 that a regular mana rock would. Feel free to include another 2 mana rock if you arent willing to play the odds for this card.

> Skullclamp targets

I love this card as a card draw engine and currently I have 16 things that can be clamped or make something that can be clamped and that seems like a really low number but since that is the entire premise of the deck, if we arent consistently killing our stuff we are not playing the deck to its fullest so I keep this card because it ties into everything we want to do.

> why not cabal coffers and urborg, tomb of yawgmoth

I tried these cards a lot of times and I just didnt find them activating enough times for it to matter. Usually I end with around 3-4 swamps on the field and it is hard to have cabal come in and not do anything until I have 3 swamps on the field. On the off chance that we get urborg out as well, its great but even then we dont always have things to do with all of that mana so I decided to exclude them but I may try it again another time.

> Summary

This deck is an explosive deck that doesnt really rely on combos but has combos that it can fall back on easily to finish the game quickly. The curve for this deck is relatively low and we can have huge turns from out of no where even if we are behind on the board. I love how this deck plays and honestly I feel like I'll be hard pressed to find another aristocrats commander that does what teysa karlov does for this archetype. She is so damn powerful and it shows because even by adding more commanders we cant get more powerful easily without drawing a lot of hate and a lot of people wanting to remove our stuff. This deck lets me fly a bit under the radar and even if she gets removed, our engine is untouched. She represents speed and an enhancement for our core strategy but even without her, we are in an ok spot. Don't get me wrong though, she is very powerful and I would rather have her on the field but we have tons of recursion and ways to get her to stick on the field. Try out this deck and let me know about other cards that can go in here to either improve the deck or provide alternative cards whether it be for the sake of spice or budget. Thanks for reading this aristocrats/teysa karlov primer.