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Teval, the Balanced Scale is featured as one of the face commanders inMagic: The Gathering’sCommander precons released alongside Tarkir: Dragonstorm. This guide won’t be going over the pre-con, rather, a deck built exclusively with Teval, the Balanced Scale in mind.
This Sultai (black/green/blue) commander is all about moving cards from the graveyard to generate value. The main way this is done is through self mill to set up your graveyard, followed by various recursion effects to get the cards back while generating tokens. If you like graveyard strategies, Teval, the Balanced Scale is the perfect commander choice for you.
Steward of the Harvest
Afterlife from the Loam
Life from the Loam
Will of the Sultai
x5 Forest
x3 Island
x4 Swamp
Woodland Cemetery
Yavimaya Coast
The decklistcontains 28 creatures, 12 sorceries, seven instants, 12 artifacts, seven enchantments,and34 lands(one being on the backside of a sorcery). All the cards either mill yourself, remove cards from the graveyard, or create tokens from either of those happening.
Key Cards
Teval, The Balanced Scale
What the whole deck is built around, Teval, the Balanced Scale does everything you want the deck to be doing. Tevalmills you cards and removes any lands milled while giving you 2/2 Zombie tokens whenever cards leave the graveyard.
Since the cards are put into the graveyard first before leaving with Teval’s effect, when you return a land to the battlefield, you will also trigger Teval’s second effect to create a 2/2 Zombie.
Teval’s effectonly triggers for each instant of a card leaving your graveyard. However,this effect is not once per turn. This means you can keep utilizing Teval togenerate a ton of Zombie tokens, so long as you have ways to remove cards from your graveyard (which there are plenty of in the deck).
Muldrotha, The Gravetide
Muldrotha, the Gravetide is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you’re able to get cards out of your graveyard to trigger Teval and similar effects. Itallows you to cast a permanent spell from your graveyard and play lands, also allowing you to ensure you don’t lose any valuable permanents.
One thing Muldrothacan’t use from the graveyard are non-permanent spells. Luckily, the decklist only includes 19 in total, so odds are you’ll always be able to cast something from your graveyard to make sure all your effects are going off.
Gravecrawler
Gravecrawler isa card you can keep casting from your graveyard, so long as you control another Zombie. This makes it a great card to trigger Teval and alleffects that create tokenswhen a card leaves the graveyard. Gravecrawler isn’t once per turn, making it trivial to loop it.
There is an easy infinite combo withGravecrawler and Phyrexian Altarthat only requires one other Zombie. With Teval and similar effects, you may create an infinite number of creature tokens to easily run away with the game. This is how the combo works.
Prerequisites: Gravecrawler, Phyrexian Altar, and any permanent that creates a token when a card leaves the graveyard are on the battlefield. At least one Zombie creature is on the battlefield.
Step 1: Activate Phyrexian Altar, sacrificing Gravecrawler to add one black mana.
Step 2: Use that black mana to cast Gravecrawler from the graveyard, triggering your permanents to create tokens.
Step 3: Repeat steps 1-2.
Results: Infinite creature tokens, Infinite +1/+1 counters on Plants (Insidious Roots), Infinite Clues (Chalk Outline)
Tortured Existence
Tortured Existence is one of the easiest ways to trigger your Teval and similar effects. So long asyou have black mana and a creature in your hand and graveyard, you can keep using Tortured Existence to generate a ton of tokens at instant speed.
The biggest benefit of Tortured Existence is howeasy it makes getting your best creatures back from the graveyard. You don’t have to worry about any form of removal (outside of ones that exile) as you may return the card from the graveyard to the hand. All of this while triggering your primary permanents.
How To Play The Deck
A Teval, the Balanced Scale Commander deck wants tobe self-milling so that your graveyard always has creatures to take out of it, amassing a giant army of creature tokens. Teval, Chalk Outline, Insidious Roots, Desecrated Tomb, and Tormod, the Desecrator all share the effect to create a creature token when a creature leaves the graveyard, and all act as essential back-up commanders.
You need ways to mill yourself consistently, something best done with permanents. Skull Prophet, Molt Tender, and Hedron Crab are all excellent choices that offer some utility. Ripples of Undeath mills and returns cards from the graveyard, possessing both effects you want your deck to be doing.
Since the deck is so graveyard heavy, it isvital to get permanents onto the battlefield that allow you to use cards from your graveyard. In a Teval deck,your graveyard essentially acts as a second hand, as there are a ton of ways to get any card you want out of it.These cardsare the most important, so save your counterspells for protecting them.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. A Teval deck can make a lot of tokens fast, so you will be able to go wide with an army of tokens that just can’t all be blocked. TheGravecrawler infinite combo makes achieving a win even easier,since you’ll have an infinite number of tokens to swing out with on your next turn. Even without the infinite, your deck generates a ton of tokens easily with how often you move stuff in and out of the graveyard.
Thebiggest weakness of the deck is its reliance on card synergies. A lot of cards in the deck need another card to function to their maximum potential. As such,removal can be especially backbreaking if it cuts off your engine. Counterspells can help to stem to bleeding, as well as being able to recast permanents from your graveyard, but you still need to draw those cards to recover from removal.
