commander · Teval, the Balanced Scale
Sultai Arisen (TDC).
A Sultai graveyard recursion deck led by Teval, the Balanced Scale, fill your graveyard, recur your best threats, and grind opponents out with creatures that get better the second time around.
The Commanders
Sultai Arisen is a Tarkir: Dragonstorm deck built around grinding opponents into dust through recursive graveyard value. You fill your graveyard with powerful creatures, bring them back bigger than before, and use mass recursion spells to deploy your entire dead zone at once. The Sultai philosophy: nothing in Magic is truly gone if you control the graveyard.
Teval, the Balanced Scale rewards filling your graveyard and spending it. Teval pays you off as creatures die and come back, which is exactly the sacrifice-and-recur loop the deck is built on. With Teval out, every creature that enters or leaves the graveyard pushes you further ahead.
Kotis, Sibsig Champion is the aggressive graveyard alternative. Kotis draws power straight from the creatures in your graveyard, so pick him when you want your dead zone to be a board presence rather than a value engine. Against faster pods, Kotis closes quicker than Teval's grind.
Key Cards
Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Meren is the most consistent recursion engine in Sultai Commander decks. She accumulates experience counters every time a creature you control dies, and at your end step she returns a creature from your graveyard to play or hand depending on your counter count. In a deck that sacrifices creatures constantly, Meren quickly reaches the threshold to reanimate your most powerful threats for free every single turn. She is the backbone of the grind plan.
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Jarad is a win condition that doesn't need combat. He sacrifices a creature and deals damage equal to that creature's power to each opponent. If Avenger of Zendikar has made twelve 6/6 Plant tokens after a few land drops, one Jarad activation deals 24 to the table. He also gets +1/+1 for each creature in your graveyard, so he turns into a huge attacker as the game goes long. Sacrifice him to himself and bring him back with Meren.
Living Death
The deck's nuclear option. Living Death makes every player exile their graveyard and return all of those creatures to the battlefield at once. You spend the first half of the game stuffing your graveyard with the best creatures in Magic. When you cast Living Death, you get all of them while opponents usually get back far less. Use it when your graveyard is packed and you need to reset a bad board or win a stalled game outright.
Victimize
Sacrifice one creature to return two from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. This is exactly the engine the deck wants: a creature dies, Meren gets an experience counter, and two better creatures come back. Sacrifice a token or a small utility creature and return Meren plus Avenger of Zendikar. Or Jarad and Avenger. The math almost always favors Victimize, and it jumps your graveyard plan ahead by several turns for one three-mana spell.
Avenger of Zendikar
The biggest single-card board in the deck. Avenger of Zendikar enters and makes a 0/1 Plant token for every land you control, usually six to eight by the time you cast it. Every land drop after that pumps all those Plants. When you reanimate Avenger with Meren or Victimize, you get a fresh set of Plants. Sacrifice them to Jarad for a lethal drain, or swing with a 6/7 Plant army after a couple more land drops.
How to Play
The early game is ramp and setup: cast mana dorks, fill your graveyard with value creatures, and get Meren down before turn five. The mid-game is about piling up value. Sacrifice mediocre creatures for experience counters, let Meren return your best threats every end step, and build a graveyard full of options. Once you have Meren, Teval, and five or more creatures in the graveyard, you can win from almost any board. Drop Living Death or Victimize at the right moment to swing the game. The deck is methodical and hard to shake because everything you lose comes back.
