Overview

Sultai Arisen is a graveyard deck built around Teval, the Balanced Scale. Teval is a 4/4 flyer that mills three cards whenever it attacks, then lets you return a land card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped, and whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard it creates a 2/2 black Zombie Druid token. The rest of the deck fills the graveyard, and then uses it.

The engine has three layers. Self-mill such as Teval's attack trigger, Grapple with the Past, Grisly Salvage and Forbidden Alchemy fills the graveyard. Payoffs such as Lord of Extinction, which gets power and toughness equal to the number of cards in all graveyards, and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, which gets +1/+1 for each creature card in your graveyard, count what is in it. Recursion like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Kotis, Sibsig Champion and Living Death brings it all back.

Key Cards

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Kotis, Sibsig Champion
Graveyard Casting · Growth
A three-mana 3/3. Once during each of your turns, you may cast a creature spell from your graveyard by exiling three other cards from your graveyard in addition to paying its other costs. Whenever one or more creatures you control enter from a graveyard or are cast from a graveyard, put two +1/+1 counters on Kotis.
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Junji, the Midnight Sky
Bomb · Death Trigger
A five-mana 5/5 flying menace Dragon. When it dies, choose one: each opponent discards two cards and loses 2 life, or put target non-Dragon creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control and lose 2 life. It is a threat that leaves value behind when it is removed.
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Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Delve Threat · Value
A legendary creature that costs six but is consistently cast for one or two mana by delving cards from the graveyard into exile. Its activated ability mills two cards, then lets an opponent choose a nonland card from your graveyard to hand back to you, trading graveyard bulk for a card of theirs picking and providing additional card advantage late in the game.
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Lord of Extinction
Graveyard Payoff · Big Threat
A five-mana Elemental whose power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards in all graveyards. In a deck that fills its own graveyard and the table's, it is usually enormous the turn it lands.

Playing the Deck

The early game involves ramping and filling your graveyard. Cultivate, Farseek, Rampant Growth and Harrow ramp you towards the top end, while cheap creatures and self-mill spells fill the graveyard and make the creatures with a high power in it larger. You want Teval on the battlefield early, since each attack mills three cards and returns a land.

The mid game begins when Teval is attacking every turn. Each attack mills three cards, returns a land from the graveyard and, whenever cards leave the graveyard, makes a 2/2 Zombie Druid. Kotis, Sibsig Champion lets you cast a creature from your graveyard once a turn by exiling three other cards from it, and Meren returns or recovers a creature at each end step based on her experience counters.

Late game, the deck transitions into a graveyard-based inevitability engine. Junji, the Midnight Sky is a 5/5 flying menace threat that gives you value even when it dies, Lord of Extinction is usually enormous, and Living Death can bring back every creature from every graveyard at once. The UBG removal and recursion keep the table under control while the graveyard does the work.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths: The deck is remarkably resilient to creature-focused disruption because death is a feature rather than a bug. Board wipes are setbacks, not endings, as Meren, Kotis and Living Death restore your board from the graveyard. Teval's tokens and land recursion also keep the mana and the board growing.

Weaknesses: Graveyard hate is genuinely devastating to this strategy, as it strips Teval's token trigger, Meren, Kotis and the payoff creatures all at once. The deck is also slow to close games against decks that win quickly, and Teval itself needs to survive and attack to run the engine.

Want to improve it? See the Sultai Arisen upgrade guide: ten cheap swaps with the data behind each one.

Verdict
Sultai Arisen is a value-oriented Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander precon, rewarding patient pilots who enjoy managing a complex graveyard state and sequencing threats across multiple turns. Teval is a flying engine that makes every attack more valuable, and the recursion package means few cards are ever truly lost.

Want to push the graveyard engine further? Build a fully synergy-optimised upgrade with the Oracle.

✦ Build with The Oracle

Frequently Asked Questions

What cards are in the Sultai Arisen decklist?
The Sultai Arisen precon is a 100-card Commander deck led by Teval, the Balanced Scale. The full Sultai Arisen decklist, with every card, current prices and a button to copy the list into your deck builder, is on this page.

Who is the commander of Sultai Arisen?
Sultai Arisen is led by Teval, the Balanced Scale, a blue, black and green commander.

Which set is Sultai Arisen from?
Sultai Arisen was released in 2025 as part of Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander.

How can I upgrade Sultai Arisen?
We have a step-by-step upgrade guide for Sultai Arisen that lists specific cards to cut and add, with the reason for each swap.

Full Decklist

All 100 cards from the out-of-the-box Sultai Arisen precon, enriched with current prices. Click any card to expand it.

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