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Teysa Karlov

Legendary Creature — Human Advisor

If a creature dying causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.
Creature tokens you control have vigilance and lifelink.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{W}{B}
Color identity
BW
Rarity
rare
Set
Ravnica Allegiance
Price
$2.68
EDHREC rank
#1241
Buy on TCGplayer
Teysa Karlov card art
Teysa Karlov doubles every death trigger on the board and staples lifelink and vigilance onto your other Spirit and Soldier tokens — that's two major effects on a four-mana legendary. Engines like Pitiless Plunderer become absurd under her, and pairing her with Ratadrabik of Urborg means your legends die twice for every copy Ratadrabik makes.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Ratadrabik of Urborg

Ratadrabik of Urborg

78.9% of decks · synergy 0.64

Ratadrabik of Urborg creates token copies of legends when they die, and Teysa Karlov makes those deaths trigger twice — the combination turns any legend dying into a cascade of enter- and leave-the-battlefield effects that's nearly impossible to contain.

02
Felisa, Fang of Silverquill

Felisa, Fang of Silverquill

70.6% of decks · synergy 0.55

Felisa, Fang of Silverquill generates Inkling tokens when creatures with +1/+1 counters die, and Teysa Karlov doubles that death trigger, so each death produces twice the tokens and fuels recursive go-wide pressure.

03
Elenda, the Dusk Rose

Elenda, the Dusk Rose

67.0% of decks · synergy 0.52

Elenda, the Dusk Rose gets a +1/+1 counter whenever another creature dies, and Teysa Karlov doubles that trigger — each creature death counts twice toward Elenda's size, making her a faster, more threatening clock before she herself dies to spawn a vampire army.

04
Teysa, Orzhov Scion

Teysa, Orzhov Scion

66.5% of decks · synergy 0.51

Teysa, Orzhov Scion exiles creatures and generates Spirit tokens on White creature deaths, and Teysa Karlov doubles those Spirit-generation triggers, flooding the board faster and feeding the sacrifice loop Teysa, Orzhov Scion needs to function.

05
Bane, Lord of Darkness

Bane, Lord of Darkness

46.4% of decks · synergy 0.45

Bane, Lord of Darkness forces opponents to sacrifice creatures on your end step and cares about creature deaths across the table, and Teysa Karlov's doubling effect amplifies every death-based payoff in the deck into a board-control and value engine.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Teysa Karlov is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is where she actually lives. In 60-card formats she's a four-mana do-nothing until creatures start dying, which is too slow and too conditional against the interaction density of Legacy and Modern. Commander's longer games, larger boards, and token-heavy archetypes give her the repeated death triggers she needs to justify the mana investment. In Oathbreaker she's a viable signature-spell-adjacent commander choice for aristocrats shells, though the 20-life starting total compresses timelines in ways that can cut into her value.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$2.68 cheap tier

At $2.68, Teysa Karlov sits in the budget-staple tier — cheap enough to include without a second thought in any Orzhov aristocrats build. For a card with this much combo and synergy density, that price is a genuine bargain and reflects print volume more than demand.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.