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Yawgmoth Combo (with guide)

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo Mono-Black

Zarvan

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Creature (35)

Artifact (10)

Sorcery (10)

Enchantment (6)

Planeswalker (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Land (31)

Instant (6)

I AM WORKING ON A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THIS DECK, IT WILL TAKE A WHILE. PLEASE BE PATIENT

Bolas's Citadel + Aetherflux Reservoir + Sensei's Divining Top

Once you have all three in play (easy with the Citadel) just loop the Top to increasing lifegain thanks to the Reservoir. Once you are satisfied, just kill your opponents with your 50-life laser beam

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Walking Ballista

Play/reanimate Mikaeus, then play/reanimate Ballista. Ballista will die because of 0 toughness but will come back with one counter because it now has undying. Shot your dart at an opponent then repeat the loop until you win.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Undying creature + Undying creature + Payoff

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Undying creature + Creature token generator + Payoff

You must have everything on the battlefield. Sacrifice an undying creature to Yawgmoth: draw a card, Payoff triggers, Creature Token Generator triggers (if played). The creature comes back with a +1/+1 counter. Sacrifice the other undying creature or the creature token: Put a -1/-1 on the other creature so that the +1/+1 counter is removed, draw a card, Payoff triggers, Creature Token Generator triggers (if played). You are in the initial situation but you net two draws, two death triggers and two payoffs. Repeat until you win.

Undying Creatures:

Butcher Ghoul - Cheapest, easiest to tutor. Also a Zombie

Geralf's Messenger - Lets you win in less loops. Also a Zombie

Sightless Ghoul - Also a Zombie

card:Evernight Shadow - The activated ability can be useful if an opponent has low life and no creatures

Creature Token Generators

Pawn of Ulamog - Tokens also provide colorless mana

Sifter of Skulls - Tokens also provide colorless mana

Tormod, the Desecrator - The token is generated after undying triggers

Nest of Scarabs - Only works with Yawgmoths -1/-1 ability

Blight Mound - Best one. The life you gain when you sacrifice the Pest is also a half-payoff (see below)

Payoffs

Blood Artist - Best one. Triggers when every creature dies and make every opponent lose life

Zulaport Cutthroat - Triggers when your creatures die and make every opponent lose life

Bastion of Remembrance - Same as Zulaport Cutthroat, but harder to remove

Ayara, First of Locthwain - Triggers when your black creatures enter the battlefield

Nadier's Nightblade - Only triggers if you are comboing with Tokens (Creatures or Treasures)

Half-Payoffs

Deathgreeter and Blight Mound let you continue the loop without losing life. Draw until you find an actual payoff, play it, restart the loop and kill your opponents.

Trivia

If you have Mikaeus, the Unhallowed you can combo with any two non-Human creatures

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Pitiless Plunderer + Gravecrawler + Payoff

Sacrifice Gravecrawler to Yawgmoth: draw a card, get a death trigger, create a Treasure token. Sacrifice the Treasure and play Gravecrawler from your Graveyard. You are back at the starting point netting a card, a death trigger, an etb trigger and a payoff. Rinse and repeat until you are satisfied.

Payoffs

Blood Artist - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Zulaport Cutthroat - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Bastion of Remembrance - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Ayara, First of Locthwain - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Deathgreeter payoffs

If you have Deathgreeter on the battlefield, you donày lose life to Yawgmoth's ability, so a number of cards suddenly become payoffs.

Pawn of Ulamog - Generate any amount of tokens

Sifter of Skulls - Generate any amount of tokens

Tormod, the Desecrator - Generate any amount of tokens. Also a zombie

Blight Mound - Generate any amount of tokens

Grim Haruspex - Draw any amount of cards

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - Draw any amount of cards

Deathgreeter - Gain any amount of life

Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + Another Zombie + Payoff

Sacrifice Gravecrawler to the Altar, adding B. Since you have another zombie, you can play the Gravecrawler from the graveyard spending the B you generated. Loop as many times as you want, getting any number of death triggers and payoffs.

Payoffs

Blood Artist - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Zulaport Cutthroat - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Bastion of Remembrance - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Ayara, First of Locthwain - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Aetherflux Reservoir - Gain increasing amounts of life then kill everybody with laser beamz

Half-Payoffs

Pawn of Ulamog - Generate any amount of tokens

Sifter of Skulls - Generate any amount of tokens

Tormod, the Desecrator - Generate any amount of tokens. Also a zombie

Blight Mound - Generate any amount of tokens

Grim Haruspex - Draw any amount of cards

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - Draw any amount of cards

Deathgreeter - Gain any amount of life

Trivia

If you generate creature tokens this way, you can sacrifice them to the Altar and generate any amount of black mana. In that case, you can win the game with either Nadier's Nightblade or Walking Ballista .

Phyrexian Altar + Token Generator + Recurrer + Payoff Sac outlet + Pitiless Plunderer + Eldrazi Token Generator + Recurrer + Payoff

Sacrifice the Recurrer to the Altar, adding B. A token is generated, the payoff triggers. Sac the token, pay 1B to reanimate the Recurrer. You are in the original situation netting a death trigger, an etb and a payoff. Repeat until you have enough.

Sacrifice the Recurrer to the sac outlet. A Treasure and an Eldrazi token are generated, the payoff triggers. Sac the tokens, pay 1B to reanimate the Recurrer. You are in the original situation netting a death trigger, an etb and a payoff. Repeat until you have enough.

Recurrers

Creatures you can return from the graveyard to the battlefield paying 1B

Reassembling Skeleton - Best one. You can recur it for 1B anytime

Bloodsoaked Champion - You need to attack before it can recur

Tenacious Dead - You can recur it only the moment it dies

Sac outlets

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - Easiest to find, let you draw cards but you lose life if your payoff doesn't let you gain any

Carrion Feeder - Gets infinitely big, if an opponent has no blockers counts as a half-payoff

Viscera Seer - Lets you scry but it has no additional upsides

Token Generators

Pitiless Plunderer - You can sacrifice the token for B

Pawn of Ulamog - You can sac the token for C or to the Altar for B

Sifter of Skulls - You can sac the token for C or to the Altar for B

Tormod, the Desecrator - You need to sacrifice it to the Altar for B

Blight Mound - You need to sacrifice it to the Altar for B

Payoffs

Blood Artist - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Zulaport Cutthroat - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

user:Nadier's Nightblade - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Bastion of Remembrance - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Ayara, First of Locthwain - Every opponent lose any amount of life, you gain any amount of life

Half-Payoffs

Grim Haruspex - Draw any amount of cards

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - Draw any amount of cards

Deathgreeter - Gain any amount of life

Blight Mound - Gain any amount of life

Carrion Feeder - Put any number of +1/+1 counters on it, can kill an opponent if they have no blockers

Extra Token Generator

If you have an additional Token Generator in play you also get infinite tokens:

You can sacrifice any amount of extra creature tokens generated this way to the Altar and generate any amount of B. Creature tokens can be sacrificed to any sac outlet too.

If they are Eldrazis or treasures you can use them to add any amount of B. If they are Pests, you will gain any amount of life

If you add infinite mana, you can win the game with Walking Ballista

  • You can start any Yawgmoth combo with no payoffs and hope to find one before running out of lives
  • You can start any Yawgmoth combo with a half-payoff and play an actual payoff as soon as you draw it
  • Once you start an incomplete combo, you can play additional pieces using Chrome Mox and/or Dark Ritual
  • If you draw your entire deck before killing your opponents, just pass making sure to discard Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre so that your deck will be restored. Just win on the stack as soon as you get priority again.

Vilis, Broker of Blood + Reanimate

If you reanimate Vilis this way, you will immediately lose 8 and draw 8. This means that you can have one of the best Black creatures and 8 cards for just a and 8 life. You can do this extremely consistently using Entomb or Buried Alive , as early as turn 2 (turn one if you also have Dark Ritual )

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Ophiomancer

If you make sure to sacrifice the Snake token during each opponent0s turn, a new one will be generated at the beginning of the next upkeep. This means that Ophiomancer can get you four Yawgmoth triggers per turn rotation.

Shriekmaw + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

With Mikaeus in play, you can play Shriekmaw for 1B and get two Terror s, a death trigger, an etb and a 4/3 evasive body. Not bad. You can also play Malakir Rebirth   on Shriekmaw after evoking it and have a similar effect. This synergy is way worse, but it can help in difficult situations

Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top

If you have these two pieces in play, you just need to find Aetherflux Reservoir to win the game. Therefore, being able to dig deep with the Citadel is crucial. Using the Top's second ability, you can just draw any unwanted card from the top of your library. At that point just cast the Top from the library paying 1 life and continue digging.

Artifacts:

Sol Ring - Premium, no explanation needed

Jet Medallion - Premium in mono-

Chrome Mox - Allows for fast starts, useful when you start a loop looking for combo pieces

Mana Vault - Very useful for big turns and combo acceleration. You will rarely untap it

Everflowing Chalice - Scalable mana rock, but you usually play it for 2 so it can add . If you happen ho use Yawgmoth's Proliferate ability, you can grow it

Spells:

Dark Ritual - Add one. Useful for big turns and combo acceleration. Use it with Chrom Mox when you start a loop looking for combo pieces

Lands

Ancient Tomb - Premium, no explanations needed

Phyrexian Tower - Strong mana acceleration, consistently usable in this deck

Crystal Vein - Sacrifice if you are short of a game-changing play

Cabal Coffers - Very strong, but constrains deckbuilding a bit. Dangerous if you drawn many non-Swamp lands, dead card if you have less than three Swamps in play. Outrageously good if you have Urborg in play.

Cabal Stronghold - Slower than Cabal Coffers, but it is never a dead card since it can always generate

MDFCs

You can exchange any MDFCs for a land in this deck, they will add versatility. I picked two of them:

Agadeem's Awakening   - Premium versatility since you can play it untapped. A strong spell in the late game, you can reanimate a full combo in some very favorable cases

Malakir Rebirth   - If somebody tries to destroy one of your key creatures you can save it for just B and 2 life. Tapped land if played on the other side, slower but crucial if you would miss a land drop otherwise.

Other MDFCs are not good enough to justify another land that will enter the battlefield tapped, the deck needs to be quite fast. The only very viable one is Hagra Mauling   if your metagame is heavy in creature deck.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - Your commander is your main draw engine. Once you play it you almost always win the card advantage war in a few turns

Ayara, First of Locthwain - You play it as a combo payoff, but every once in a while you will use it to trade a creature for a fresh card

Grim Haruspex - Whenever you sacrifice or lose a nontoken creature you get a fresh card. Very useful in any Aristocrat-style deck. Remember that it doesn't trigger on its death.

Midnight Reaper - Similar to the Haruspex, but it deals you 1 damage whenever it draws you a card. It triggers on its own death too

Vilis, Broker of Blood - CRAZY card draw engine on its own, even crazier with Ancient Tomb, Reanimate, Yawgmoth, or Bolas's Citadel

Demonic Tutor - One of the best cards ever printed. Just search for the card you need the most and win the game.

Vampiric Tutor - Another one of the best cards ever printed. Just search for the card you need the most at instant speed and draw it as soon as you can. Sweet interaction if topdecked with Bolas's Citadel

Mausoleum Secrets - Fringe but I like it because it is an instant. You will always have creatures in your graveyard and your premium cards have relatively low mana costs. Don't forget it can only get you Black cards.

Entomb - Astonishingly versatile. Just get anything you would like to have in your graveyard and put it exactly there (more on the target guide below)

Buried Alive - Just get up to three creatures you would like to have in your graveyard and put them exactly there (more on the target guide below)

You can play even more tutors but TBH, apart from cEDH, I believe that abusing them can make games way less funny. Less funny for you because you will end up playing the same game every time and get bored. Less funny for your opponents because the game will get slower anytime it's your turn, you will always use the same few cards and be unfairly advantaged. If you only care about winning you miss out so much on EDH and your playgroup.

Mausoleum Secrets is strong but not universally strong. It is conditional and it works because of how your deck is built, so it's interesting for both you and your friends. Graveyard tutors are very strong, but they are balanced by the HUGE amount of graveyard hate played in Commander. Demonic and Vampiric Tutor are bonkers, but they are so iconic I just need to play them.

Creatures & Planeswalkers

Shriekmaw - Terror on a stick. If you play it for you can also get a death trigger from most of the deck's combo pieces

Opposition Agent - Extremely strong effect. Played in response to a tutor spell or ability is a 2 for 1: you deny their advantage AND get the most useful card their deck can offer you. Once in play, it's a strong stax piece that will need somebody to spend an interaction piece on it.

Fleshbag Marauder - Useful against voltron Commanders or decks that only play a few creatures, totally ineffective in any other situation. Very useful if you need to sacrifice Yawgmoth (ex. Darksteel Mutation ). Also a zombie.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - Mostly used as a combo piece, but can kill small creatures too. You can use the proliferate ability to kill creatures with -1/-1 counters. Useful against indestructible creatures

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - The second ability is usually overlooked, but it will prevent opponents from attacking you with Humans

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - The second ability can be very useful against voltron Commanders or decks that only play a few creatures. You can also use it if you desperately need to trade two creatures for two draws

Vilis, Broker of Blood - Mostly used as a draw engine, but can kill small creatures too. Useful against indestructible creatures

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - TBH, you only play this card not to deck yourself if your combos don't work perfectly. However, in some extremely rare late-game situations you may need to play it and remove a threat. You can always use a sac outlet anytime if you need to reshuffle your graveyard, but in the meantime it hits hard on the battlefield.

Instants and Sorceries

Baleful Mastery - Premium creature removal in mono-, where is difficult to find exile effects. Use it against creatures you don't want to see again or to deny death triggers. Treat it as a spell: you decide who draws a card, so it can give that advantage to the less scary player (damage control), the one lagging behind (group hug), or to anyone that can offers you something in exchange (politics)

Malakir Rebirth   - Mechanically a counterspell against creature destruction. Use it to save a key creature or a combo piece for a bargain cost. In this deck, you can also get additional death triggers or etb triggers when saving a creature. Play it as a land if nobody threatens your creatures or if you are about to miss a land drop

Feed the Swarm - I believe this should be an auto-include in mono-, as it's the only fast and convenient enchantment removal in this identity. Life is not that valuable in commander, so the downside is manageable

Toxic Deluge - Arguably the best Black board wipe. Cheap and versatile, you can pay enough life to obliterate the board (including indestructible creatures) or pay just a few life to remove some menace and keep your larger creatures. You need a board wipe in this deck even if it's creature-intensive: there is plenty of other decks that win with creature-based combos or critical mass, so you need to be able to stop them if they gets ahead of you. Moreover, you can reanimate your creatures quite easily.

Lands

Strip Mine - Premium land destruction, auto-include in any optimized deck. You need land destruction in every deck as there are scarily strong lands in Commander. Having it on a land lets you include land destruction without sacrificing a spell. A spell is worth more than having land destruction, but Strip Mine has just the small downside of being colorless, so it's definitely worth it.

Blast Zone - Untapped land, so the only downside is that it's colorless. Slower if used as removal but lets you interact with enchantments and artifacts, which is premium in . The best-case scenario is when you need to remove a 1-mana threat

Zero costed creatures like Memnite / Ornithopter / Phyrexian Walker / Shield Sphere have some sweet interactions.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - They enable Yawgmothàs ability for zero, so you can count them as free cantrips when you have it in play. Since you want to play your commander as soon as possible, you can count them as deck thinners too.

Yawgmoth's Will - Return them for free once you are in god mode using the Will.

Bolas's Citadel - Free drops that let you dig deeper with the Citadel

Skullclamp - Memnite is a nice target for Skullclamp too

This deck goes quite heavy with reanimation effects. You can use it to recur a key combo piece or a strong creature you or your opponents have in the graveyard. They synergize well with graveyard tutors and creature removal, and they are funny AF

Reanimate - Possibly the best reanimation spell in the deck. Premium mana cost, can get any creature in any graveyard. It has a slight downside, but life is less valuable in Commander than a strong creature

Animate Dead - Can get any creature in any graveyard. Conveniently costed but since it is an Aura you will lose the creature if it gets removed, so watch out. The creature gets -1/-0 but this doesn't usually matter.

Necromancy - Another Aura spell that can get any creature in any graveyard. It costs more but has an upside: you can cast it with flash, but you will need to sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step. Useful for an emergency block or a surprise interaction if you want to use a dead creature's ETB or death trigger. You can also "steal" a creature while it's being reanimated if you want people to hate you.

Yawgmoth's Will - Not a proper reanimation spell but you can get some creatures if you desperately need them. Just remember not to sacrifice them before you pass.

Dread Return - Four mana is a lot, but the Flashback cost is very easy to pay in this deck. Zero-mana spells are always strong, and this one makes no exceptions. Sadly, you can only use it on your creatures.

Living Death - Premium as in every creature-heavy deck. It's both a board wipe and a mass reanimation spell, and even if you give some value to your opponents you will usually gain way more than them from it. Sometimes you can just reanimate all the combo pieces you need and win instantly. Don't forget to exploit every single death trigger you have on the board before casting it and get your creatures back.

Rise of the Dark Realms - Alternate win condition in long and staxed games. It can get you a full combo from your graveyard or enough value to win on the spot. If drawn too early you can always pitch it to Chrome Mox or discard it to Yawgmoth's second ability.

-- other deck guide piece--- Accordion with deckbuilding tips

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Casual

91% Competitive