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Teneb, the Harvester

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Teneb, the Harvester

At a glance

  • Commander: Teneb, the Harvester
  • Colors: Abzan
  • Archetype: Abzan reanimator control
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

Commander

Teneb, the Harvester — , 6/6 Legendary Dragon.

Flying. Whenever Teneb deals combat damage to a player, you may pay . If you do, put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.

The printed text matches the scout’s paraphrase: a 6/6 flyer that, on a connect, pays to drag any creature out of any graveyard straight onto the battlefield under your control. No mill requirement, no restriction to your own yard — every creature an opponent loses to combat, an edict, or a wrath becomes a potential Teneb target. commander_oracle_ok = true.

Gameplan

Grindy Abzan attrition. Ramp and fix into Teneb on turn 5-6, then start swinging in the air. Each connect either steals back the best creature in any graveyard (often something an opponent paid full price for) or re-buys one of our own value bodies. We fill graveyards proactively with self-mill so there’s always a juicy target, trade resources early with the deepest common removal+edict suite black offers, and out-grind the table. Inevitability comes from three angles that opponents can’t permanently answer:

  1. Teneb itself — an evasive recurring engine; kill it and we reanimate it or just recast (it’s the commander).
  2. Crypt Rats — a Pestilence-on-a-stick; drains every creature and player. Repeatable board control and a mana-sink finisher once our manabase is online.
  3. Recursion loops — Gravedigger / Pit Keeper / Cadaver Imp / Dutiful Attendant + the reanimation spells mean our threats and value ETBs keep coming back.

Win condition

Evasive recursion grind: Teneb beats in the air every turn, each hit reanimating the biggest creature in any graveyard, while Crypt Rats and Gray Merchant of Asphodel close from life totals the attrition has already softened. The table runs out of answers before we run out of bodies.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 37. 28 nonbasic (Command Tower, Path of Ancestry, 3 guildgates, the WBG dual-tapland cycle, Witherbloom/Silverquill Campus, Subterranean Cavern, filter/any-color lands, fetch-taplands, plus Bojuka Bog & Mortuary Mire utility) + 9 basics (4 Swamp, 3 Forest, 2 Plains). Black-weighted because Teneb’s trigger and most removal are black.
  • Ramp — 10. Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Commander’s Sphere, Manalith, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth, Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, Sylvan Ranger, Diligent Farmhand. (That’s 11 counting Diligent Farmhand; the green ramp also fixes the three colors.)
  • Card advantage — 10. Read the Bones, Sign in Blood, Night’s Whisper, Phyrexian Rager, Phyrexian Gargantua, Costly Plunder, Deadly Dispute, Cache Grab, Corpse Churn, Grapple with the Past. (Several double as self-mill to feed Teneb.)
  • Spot removal / interaction — 11. Cruel Edict, Diabolic Edict, Geth’s Verdict, Fleshbag Marauder, Innocent Blood, Doom Blade, Murder, Eyeblight’s Ending, Last Gasp, Disfigure, Tragic Slip, Feed the Swarm, Vraska’s Finisher. (Edicts are gold here — they make opponents feed their own graveyards for Teneb.)
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe — 3. Crypt Rats (repeatable Pestilence), Drown in Sorrow (-2/-2 all), Mephitic Vapors (-1/-1 all + surveil). Black lets us run real sweepers, and every creature they kill becomes Teneb fuel.
  • Reanimation + recursion — ~13. Gravedigger, Pit Keeper, Cadaver Imp, Dutiful Attendant, Corpse Hauler, Cheerful Osteomancer, Macabre Waltz, Breath of Life, Dread Return, Resurrection, Rise Again, Summon Undead, Unearth, Pulse of Murasa.
  • Payoffs / bodies / self-mill enablers — the rest. Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Skeleton Archer, Mire Triton, Wailing Ghoul, Deathcap Marionette, Glowspore Shaman, Wakedancer, Twin-Silk Spider, Ainok Wayfarer, Vulturous Aven, Mortician Beetle, Nyxborn Colossus (the fattest reanimation target / Teneb finisher).

Manabase / fixing note

~18 fixing sources: 5 fixing rocks (Sol Ring is colorless ramp, the other four fix), 6 green land-ramp spells/dorks that fetch any basic, plus Command Tower / Path of Ancestry / Shimmering Grotto / Crystal Grotto / Painted Bluffs and the full WBG tapland+guildgate suite. Every nonbasic taps for at least one of W/B/G; the green ramp guarantees all three colors are castable by mid-game.

Key synergy lines

  • Edict + Teneb: force a sacrifice (Diabolic Edict, Fleshbag), then connect and reanimate the very creature they just buried — or any other corpse on the table.
  • Self-mill into reanimation: Cache Grab / Glowspore Shaman / Ainok Wayfarer load the yard, then Dread Return / Breath of Life / Teneb pulls the payoff back.
  • Crypt Rats lock: with enough black mana, repeatedly sweep small boards while our fat reanimated bodies survive; doubles as direct damage to finish.
  • Gravedigger loop: Gravedigger gets back another Gravedigger-style body or the last thing Teneb wants; Macabre Waltz / Pit Keeper refill the hand from the yard.

Pilot notes

  • Mulligan for fixing + an early ramp/self-mill piece. You want Teneb online turn 5.
  • Don’t overcommit into open mana; hold an edict for when an opponent taps out for their bomb, then steal it with Teneb.
  • Bojuka Bog is your hate-piece against rival graveyard decks — but remember Teneb wants full graveyards, so only pop it on someone whose yard threatens you.
  • Crypt Rats X-value is your reset button and your clock; sequence lands so you can fire it for lethal-to-small-boards in a pinch.

Weaknesses

  • Flyer/Teneb removal: the engine leans on the commander connecting. Mass exile or repeated removal taxes you, though reanimation softens it.
  • No countermagic at common: purely reactive on the stack; we answer threats after they resolve.
  • Graveyard hate: Bojuka Bog / Rest in Peace effects from opponents blank Teneb’s reanimation. We still have the beatdown body and Crypt Rats as a backup plan.
  • Speed: this is a grind deck; very fast aggro or combo can race us before inevitability comes online.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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