Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Teval, Arbiter of Virtue!

Teval is a five mana 6/6 with flying and lifelink and gives spells we cast delve and whenever we cast aa spell, we lose life equal to its mana value.

People were mixed on this card when it was spoiled because it provided a really strong effect, delve, on every spell we control which given time people would have been able to break in half, but the downside of our spells having us lose life is what provided a strong limit from this being absolutely broken card.

There was a neat interaction with this card that people saw and it was that this had a neat synergy with another card that is currently legal in Standard, and in fact is the synergy I want to make a Commander deck.

In order to make a deck that can make the most use out of us delving cards away into exile we need the card that the deck will be built for.

Slime Against Humanity is a card of the Relentless variety, in that we can have any number of cards with the same name in our deck, and Slime Against Humanity is an excellent one to have because not only does it make an Ooze creature token with two +1/+1 counters and trample, but it adds additional counters equal to the number of Oozes or other Slime Against Humanity cards we own in our graveyard or in exile.

I think that 30-35 is a solid range of copies to have in the deck to allow for other cards for us to play, especially since we want to make sure to include ramp and removal.

As far as other Oozes go we can pack some utility Oozes like Biowaste Blob which gives other Oozes we control +1/+1 and at the beginning of our upkeep we make a copy of it if we control our Commander, Biogenic Ooze creates a 2/2 Ooze when it enters and for four mana and at the beginning of our end step we put a +1/+1 counter on each Ooze we control, and Scavenging Ooze for graveyard removal, life gain, and to threaten a blocker that can get bigger.

Uchuulon is an Ooze we have access to that gets bigger for each other Ooze, Crabs, and/or Horror we control and at the beginning of the end step we can exile a creature card from an opponents graveyard and we can then make a copy of Uchuulon.

More importantly in our colors we can use Necroplasm, which gets a +1/+1 counter at the beginning of our upkeep and at the beginning of our end step we destroy each creature with mana value equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on Necroplasm and more importantly has dredge 2, which means we can fuel our graveyard with more Slimes Against Humanity.

Now as far as ways for us to get further value from Teval, we need cards that can provide some value for cards leaving our graveyard and gain us some life to prevent us from dying.

Kheruu Goldkeeper is a way for us to get more mana to cast more spells whenever one or more cards leave our graveyard, which with delve is going to be anytime we cast a spell. It can also exile itself to put two +1/+1 counters and a flying counter on a creature, which we can use to put on an Ooze token to get a bit of extra damage in.

Gurmag Nightwatch can have us look at the top three cards of our library when it enter to put one on top of our library and the rest into the graveyard, Clamavus gives creatures we control +1/+1 for each +1/+1 counter on them, and Molt Tender can either mill us a card or allow us to exile a card from our graveyard to add a mana of any color.

In terms of gaining us life, there is Disciple of Freyalise which when it enters we can sacrifice a creature we control in order to draw X cards and gain X life where X is that creature’s power, which if we happen to have a large Ooze token then we can gain quite a bit of life and draw a ton to cast more Slime Against Humanity.

We can use Insidious Roots to help us cast a ton of spells by turning our Ooze tokens into mana dorks while also making a Plant token, Whip of Erebos to give our creature lifelink and to get a milled utility creature onto the battlefield that we can use for a turn, and Propagator Drone to give our creature tokens evolve.

Now this deck is going to get us dangerously close to losing the game, so we need ways we can mitigate that and use that to our advantage.

Lich’s Mastery has hexproof, prevents us from losing the game, whenever we gain life we draw that many cards, whenever we lose life for each 1 life we lost we either exile a permanent we control or card from our hand and graveyard and whenever it leaves the battlefield we lose the game.

This is a high risk high reward way for us to keep us alive while we assemble a strong board to win us the game, especially if we pair it with a sneaky card called Profane Transfusion when we have zero or less life since we exchange life totals with another player and makes a massive X/X Horror token where X is the difference of life totals and draw a ton of cards with Lich’s Mastery since it can count as life gain.

If we have the mana and are able to, we can use something like Gaea’s Will or Magus of the Will to grant us the ability to cast cards and play lands from our graveyard to cast a large number of Slimes Against Humanity and then end it with casting an Aeve, Progenitor Ooze for a massive Storm copies of it and huge Aeves in play to help us win.

Teval is a value Commander with a major downside in having us lose life whenever we cast any spell. The trick of Teval is to use it to cast cards of a low enough mana value that we gain a discount at the small cost of life. It’s a risky Commander that will potentially lose you more games than win, but has the potential to win.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual