Upgrading Commander Precon: Sultai Arisen (Teval, the Balanced Scale)

Sultain Arisen, with Teval, the Balanced Scale, definitely stands out. In this article, we'll show you how to upgrade it. At the very end, we'll also show you a list with Kotis, Sibsig Champion.

[quote]{To escape Teval’s justice, one must have a better plan than "run away".{Kotis, the Fangkeeper}

Teval is a Sultai Dragon released in the last Tarkir set. Teval's primary role is not to lead the Sultai but to arbitrate the clan, acting as a check on the power of the Fangkeeper and other leaders as a balancing force. She is pragmatic and brutally honest. She seeks to find and know the weaknesses in others, to manipulate them to her advantage or guide individuals toward improvement.

Teval cares little for individual conflicts and struggles, meaning she rarely hesitates to sacrifice the few in favor of the many.

As a commander, she is a 4/4 flying creature. Her effect triggers when she attacks and lets you mill three cards in your deck and return a land from the graveyard into play, tapped.

Her passive effect gives you a 2/2 Zombie Druid creature token when one or more cards leave your graveyard.

This deck's sub-commander is Kotis, Sibsig Champion, a 3/3 creature that lets you, once per turn on your turn, cast a creature from the graveyard if you pay for its cost and exile three other cards as well.

Its passive effect states that, when one or more creatures you control come into play from the graveyard, Kotis gets two +1/+1 counters.

This is what you get straight from the box:

Card Draw

This precon comes with VERY consistent card draw.

Cards with Flashback, like Welcome the Dead, help you create tokens, considering they're exiled from the graveyard after you use Flashback to cast them. With this one in particular, you'll draw two cards, discard one, lose 2 HP, and create X tapped Zombie Druid tokens, where X is the number of cards that entered your graveyard this turn from your hand or deck.

Teval's Judgment first appeared in this deck and definitely stands out. With it in play, whenever one or two cards leave your graveyard, you may draw a card and create a treasure token or a 2/2 Zombie Druid token. You can only use these effects once per turn each.

What We Added

As this deck creates lots of tokens, we added Plumb the Forbidden. With this card, you'll be able to sacrifice them and draw more cards.

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath's ETB effect is excellent, even if you have to sacrifice it right afterward, and its Escape will help you exile cards from the graveyard. With it, you'll draw cards, gain life, and might even be able to put a land from your hand in play.

The Gitrog Monster will help us send lands to the graveyard and also play another land each turn. When one or more lands enter the graveyard, it also draws cards.

What We Removed

Treasure Cruise's Delve fits this deck, but, if you get it early, it will be dead in your hand for a long time.

Tokens

Besides the commander, other cards in this list create tokens.

One card that stands out in this section is Essence Anchor. It lets you Surveil 1 at the beginning of your upkeep.

Cards We Added

We brought Insidious Roots to create tokens and make them even more useful, considering we'll be able to use this card to tap them and create mana of any color.

When creatures leave your graveyard, Desecrated Tomb creates 1/1 Bat tokens with flying, and Chalk Outline creates a 2/2 Detective and lets you investigate. It also creates a clue.

What We Removed

Lord of Extinction is big, but that's it. As for Dauthi Voidwalker, it is a great card, but it doesn't really fit this list.

Ramp

If you enjoy decks that create mana consistently, rejoice! This one comes with many ramp spells!

Recursion

We don't want our precious cards to rot in our graveyard. Some cards the original list plays are:

Conduit of Worlds comes with a drawback, but it's too cool not to use. With it, you'll be able to access the lands in your graveyard. You may also tap it to cast a permanent from there.

As for Colossal Grave-Reaver, it is a 7/6 Dragon that mills cards when it comes in or attacks. If one or more creature cards enter your graveyard straight from your deck, it lets you put one of them on the board.

Diviner of Mist gets instants and sorceries for you. It lets you cast them from your graveyard for free if they cost 4 or less when it attacks.

When you cast a spell this way, it will be exiled after it resolves.

What We Added

One of the things Sultai is known for is using recursion to be consistent. It can easily come back into the game after taking any global removal.

Our dear Six will help us put cards in the graveyard. It also lets us access permanents in our graveyard because of its retrace.

As for Muldrotha, the Gravetide, it is an iconic Avatar as well as an incredibly strong commander that lets you play each type of permanent from your graveyard directly. You can do this once per turn and also play any lands from there.

As usual, spells that can act as lands are great in Commander. We chose Agadeem's Awakening, which can return many creatures at once from the graveyard.

What We Removed

Our beloved Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar grows according to the lands in your graveyard and battlefield. Its activated ability also lets you bring it back from the graveyard and put it in your hand.

It's incredibly powerful and has reach and trample, so it's welcome in any list. Nonetheless, we decided to remove it to add cards that interact better with Teval.

After all, why play just a really big creature if we can play something that lets us cast spells from the graveyard or even return creatures into play?

Board Wipe

The original list includes:

What We Added

Casting a global removal is a lot more fun when it gets you ahead.

In this deck, Singularity Rupture can do a lot more for you than just clear the board. It lets you pick any number of players and mill half their deck. As this effect doesn't say "opponents", you may target yourself with it!

What We Removed

As we mentioned before, Delve is interesting in this deck, but if you get Necropolis Fiend too early, it stays dead in your hand for a long time. Furthermore, its other ability, which lets you exile cards in your graveyard to debuff another card, only lasts until the end of the turn.

As we added recursion, this card makes less sense in this list. It removes resources from play that you could simply reuse.

Here's our upgraded list:

Unlike Teval, Kotis, Sibsig Champion doesn't care about tokens or returning lands into play. With this card as your commander, you'll focus on bringing creatures from the graveyard into play and growing Kotis as much as possible.

Kotis itself lets you cast creatures from your graveyard if you pay for their cost and exile three cards.

Because of Kotis, this list plays the following spells:

This might not be the simplest deck if you have just started out playing MTG, but, without a question, Sultai Arisen is a strong and quite interesting list.

It's very decent even straight out of the box. It introduces beginners to reanimate and self-mill safely, without forcing them to be too risky and lose lands in the process. It proves everything that goes around comes back around. It often comes back even worse.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!