2012)

Hello and welcome to the Chaos Theory. My name is Jonnie Cain, and before I get into the meat of the article here is a quick introduction. I have been playing Magic since the release of Conflux, which by most standards makes me a fairly new player. I play primarily 60 card free-for-all "chaos" magic, I try to avoid EDH whenever possible, and I also maintain a 450-card cube, and I am working on developing a tribal cube. In my play group I would consider myself the "creative deck builder" and that is why I will try to gear my articles towards deck-building for multi-player, whether it is specific deck lists or general theory.

When I want to build a new deck one of the first things I do is search through cards that contain the word "token", as I have something of an unnatural love for tokens, and inevitably tokens will end up in most of my decks. In doing one such search I came across Teysa, Orzhov Scion.

Teysa is a card that is brimming with potential for multiplayer. Her first ability is premium removal, especially for my playgroup where graveyard shenanigans are commonplace. Her second ability gives us two options: we could aggro it up as opponents will be unwilling to kill our black creatures with a Teysa on board, or we could look at sacrificing black to something for profit with no net loss of dudes. As a fan of profit I will focus more on the second option.

After picking Teysa as the focal point for the deck, I noticed another card that happened to be sitting just below Teysa in my search: Twilight Drover. This guy has amazing synergy with Teysa as he allows us to rebuy tokens we sacrifice to exile creatures, or he can act as a win condition due to the +1/+1 counters he gets whenever a token leaves the battlefield. Also if the black creatures we sacrifice are tokens then for each one we sacrifice we have the potential to gain 3 white creature tokens, which is enough to activate Teysa's first ability.

The next step was to look for ways to generate black creature tokens for us to sacrifice. As I am sure most of you are aware Dark Ascension spoilers are going on at the moment and many of you will have seen our sparkly new planeswalking friend: Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. As it turns out he is perfect for this deck. His +1 ability generates a black creature token, while his -2 permanently pumps our creatures’ power. With this incredible synergy it is safe to say that I am firmly Team Sorin.

As Sorin is likely to be the hot new planeswalker on the block, and people still live in fear of the "Jace effect" I don't expect him to be affordable for most casual players anytime soon, so some other options for token making can be found in the form of Bloodline Keeper//Lord of Lineage or Moan of the Unhallowed. Both of these cards have the ability to produce a decent number of reasonably sized tokens. Bloodline Keeper allows for more consistent token production but runs the risk of eating removal as he is a very powerful card, especially if you get close to flipping him. Moan gives you an instant benefit with the potential for a few more dorks to show up should you have some spare mana late game, and can be very useful in recovering from a board wipe.

Another interesting option is Belfry Spirit. For five mana the Belfry Spirit has a very unimpressive body however its ability to generate a large number of black tokens warrants at least a mention in this article. I envision the best way to use Belfry Spirit will be to sacrifice it to Teysa's first ability then to haunt one of your own tokens that you intend to sacrifice soon.

Grave Titan is another way of generating a number of tokens, and also has the potential to beat down for a decent amount as well. However if Grave Titans are not available to you Necromancer's Covenant is a more than adequate replacement. Necromancer's Covenant may actually be better than Grave Titan, as it not only provides some graveyard hate but in the late game of a multiplayer game could easily generate ~10 tokens!

I have decided to focus quite heavily on the creation of black tokens for this deck, however I would be remiss if I did not give a nod to the black creatures that jump back from the graveyard at a moment’s notice like Bloodghast and Nether Traitor as potential inclusions for this deck.

Now that we have an abundance of tokens we need a way to kill them for profit. If I am going to be making a bunch of tokens and I want to encourage them to die, Skullclamp always seems like a great place to start. The situation is no different here.

Since we intend for more creatures to come into play as we sacrifice our tokens, Blasting Station will act as an additional form of removal, and a potential win condition, especially if we include Nether Traitor. I also expect that as this deck will have a mass of creatures on board it will be very susceptible to board wiping effects. Spawning Pit, while not generating relevant colored tokens, will give the ability for a quick recharge after a board wipe and the tokens still interact with Twilight Drover. I am keeping the number of sacrifice outlets relatively low as I want to actually encourage attacking people as an alternative means of causing tokens to die.

To fill out the deck I would include some artifact and enchantment removal as well as some tutors, so I can find a specific sacrifice outlet or a Teysa/Twilight Drover.

Teysa's Tokens

Black (11):
1: Bitterblossom
1: Demonic Tutor
4: Nether Traitor
2: Beseech the Queen
1: Bloodline Keeper//Lord of Lineage
1: Moan of the Unhallowed
1: Grave Titan

White (9):
3: Crib Swap
3: Twilight Drover
2: Return to Dust
1: Belfry Spirit

Multi (10):
4: Teysa, Orzhov Scion
1: Ghost Council of Orzhova
3: Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
2: Necromancer's Covenant

Artifact (6):
2: Skullclamp
2: Spawning Pit
2: Blasting Station

Land (24):
4: Isolated Chapel
4: Marsh Flats
7: Plains
8: Swamp
1: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

That's all I've got for this week, leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the article/deck, did I miss any cards? Also let me know if there is a deck you would like me to build/look at. Follow me on Twitter: @DelverofSecrets.

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