Hello everyone. This is my Yawgmoth, Thran Physician mini primer. This is the first time I've written anything about a commander and for that, EDH.
I've been playing Yawgi since he was spoiled back in Modern Horizons. Black is my favorite color; it was the first color that really drew me in when I was younger and new to the game. This deck has been many things. It started out as a Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath pre-con. Arguably, the weakest deck from Commander 2014. This was my first ever EDH deck I bought and it was my introduction to the format and it holds a special place in my heart. Over the years, Ghoulcaller Gisa, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Geth, Lord of the Vault all had their turn being the commander for this deck, and I could never make any of them work. Defeated,I moved on to other colors and styles of play and kind of forgot about this deck. That was until I saw Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. It was love at first site. Everything about the card just spoke to me and I had to build him. I've been tuning this deck for awhile now. My goal is to make it as fast and compact as possible. I've created many iterations of the deck and I have found that the 'Aristocrat' style of play is best suited for what I want to achieve.
This deck aims to win between turns 4 - 8. And it is very consistent in doing so. With average CMC of 2.86 and with multiple ways to make a lot of mana when needed, this deck is reliable and strong. That's why I decided to go with a sacrificing theme because it is very difficult to interact with. The deck is very reslislent, offering many ways to win, re stabilize, recur or generally get ahead. Yawgi is card advantage on stick and we make good use of it.
Before we get into what the deck does, let me talk about the negatives of this deck. We use our graveyard a lot and we will use our life a lot. This deck will suffer from any sort of graveyard hate. Things like Leyline of the Void or Planar Void will kill us. We also rely on our commander to win us the game most of the time. So any effect that shuts off his ability, puts us in a tough spot. With that being said, this deck has to ability to work around a lot of those threats.
So what does the deck do? This creature combo deck that uses the undying mechanic to score us a win. How does it do it? There are few ways to go about it. The biggest thing about this deck is that it heavily relies on Yawgi to be out. We have a few sac outlets other than him but, the combo is much easier when he is on board. Below are some of the lines of play you can use to win. The deck runs almost a full tutor package, making it easy to find the pieces you need.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Butcher Ghoul or Endling or Geralf's Messenger + Ogre Slumlord or Pawn of Ulamog or Sifter of Skulls + Zulaport Cutthroat or Syr Konrad, the Grim or Falkenrath Noble or Blood Artist or Ayara, First of Lochtwain = Infinite Life Loss.
This is your basic undying combo. Sac one of the undying creatures to Yawgi and create a token. Creature comes back into play. Sac the token to put a -1/-1 on the creature. Repeat the process until you are victorious! With cards like Ayara, Falkenrath, etc, you gain life each time a creatures dies meaning you never have a net loss of life.
With Yawgi's ability, everytime you sac a creature, you draw a card. It's worth noting here, that you do not have to put a -1/-1 counter a creature. While this is great for card advantage, when you are going for the win be mindful of life totals. Sometimes you can find yourself with the combo on board but instead of Zulaport, you have Blood Artist as your finisher. Blood Artist is tricky because you have to target a player whereas Zulaport is everyone gets drained. If you are trying to drain the table with Blood Artist, make sure you have enough cards in the deck to win. (A future addition I've been thinking about adding is a
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Any 2 undying creature + Any of the Blood Artist type creatures = Infinite Life Loss
Similar to the combo above it, only this uses two undying creatures instead of a creature that creates tokens. Same rules apply, just a different way of doing it.
Now let's talk about Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Mikaeus makes all your creatures have undying. So if you find yourself in a spot where you have no undying creatures onboard, as long as you got two other creatures + Mikaeus + a finisher card, you can do the combo with anything.
The last bits I want to take about are Bastion of Remembrance and Bridge from Below. These enchantments really help put this deck over the top. Bastion is basically Zulaport Cutthroat but on an enchantment AND it give you the added bonus of a 1/1 soldier token. This is a really good card in this deck because, after awhile your group is going to pick up on what you are trying to do with it. Make no mistake, this deck aims for that Aristocrat style win and it is very easy for your opponents to spot what you are doing. Enchantment removal is little more difficult than creature removal. This card offers us a lot in this deck and it's another way we can win.
Finally, Bridge from Below. This is a weird card, I know but hear me out. This is a card you have to play smart with. You need to make sure your opponents do not have a way to put a creature from the battlefield into their graveyard because we will lose our token generator for us. How this works, have Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Undying creature + finisher. Pay to discard bridge. Sacrificing the undying creature will will trigger Bridge from Below and generate a Zombie token that you can use to sacrifice to put a -1/-1 on the undying creature and win the game. It's a little bit of jank but it works. I have won games with this. If you have Entomb in hand, you can tutor for Bridge.
What if Yawgmoth, Thran Physician isn't available? We got Viscera Seer, Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod's Altar that will work in his place.
This is just a mini primer, talking about how the basic combo works. There are some other fun interactions you can do with this deck. I just wanted to do a little write up on my favorite commander and deck. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope this helps. If you have any suggestions, leave me a comment. Happy Brewing!
