Yawgmoth's Bargain *Primer*

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Infinite Combo Mono-Black Primer Tokens

Enral

Creature (20)

• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Butcher Ghoul
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Evernight Shade
• 1x Geralf's Messenger
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Ichor Rats
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1x Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Sightless Ghoul
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Cruel Tutor
• 1x Dead of Winter
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Artifact (19)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Astral Cornucopia
• 1x Charcoal Diamond
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Coldsteel Heart
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Genesis Chamber
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Dreadhorde Invasion
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Nest of Scarabs
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation

Instant (4)

• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Defile
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Commander (1)

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 24x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Terrain Generator
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
• 1x Liliana, the Last Hope
• 1x Ugin, the Ineffable

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Yawgmoth's Bargain

The Deck

This is an aristocrat/tokens Yawgmoth, Thran Physician build that aims to abuse undying creatures to gain an insurmountable advantage over the course of the game by recreating a Yawgmoth's Bargain effect. There is also a planeswalkers subtheme as they synergizes so well with the direction of the deck and Yawgmoth's proliferate ability. The undying mechanic works extremely well with token producers like Genesis Chamber to provide more fodder to draw extra cards. As long as there are two undying creatures or one undying creature and a token producer in play, I can draw as many cards as I want with Yawgmoth that's only limited by my life total. Blood Artist effects are what sustain the card advantage engine and prevent me from killing myself.

Notable Synergies

The following are synergies that works really well in the deck and can put me ahead if undisrupted:

• Nest of Scarabs + Yawgmoth, Thran Physician forms a mini boardwipe and card draw engine where I sacrifice a creature to start the loop. I basically put a -1/-1 counter on an opponent's creature to create an insect token, sac the token to draw a card and put another -1/-1 counter on an opponent's creature. Repeat till opponents run out of creatures.
• Reassembling Skeleton + Skullclamp is just gross with the number of card draw it can generate.
• Phyrexian Reclamation + Phyrexian Tower/Phyrexian Altar + Gray Merchant of Asphodel is basically a repeatable massive life drain effect that can be repeated every turn.

Winning at all Costs

Yawgmoth's Bargain

The main win condition is to create an infinite sacrifice loop with a drain effect like Blood Artist to win with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician's sacrifice/draw ability with either of the following combination:

• Two undying creatures
• One undying creature + one token producer like Pawn of Ulamog
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + two creatures
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + one creature + a token producer like Pawn of Ulamog

How this works is essentially putting the -1/-1 counters on the creature that has a +1/+1 counter on it while sacrificing the other alternatively. This will let me draw my entire library without losing any life while draining my opponents' life with Blood Artist. If this doesn't kill everyone, all I need to do is to play Dark Ritual (play any 0 cmc mana rocks first to pay for ritual) and activate Yawgmoth to discard Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre when I have my entire library in hand which will shuffle only Dark Ritual back in my library and allow me to repeat the ritual-ulamog loop infinite times to finish off the table.

Phyrexian Altar

My secondary win condition involves Phyrexian Altar + token maker like Pawn of Ulamog + Reassembling Skeleton/Nether Traitor which will produce an infinite sacrifice loop to win with a Blood Artist effect. How this works is basically sacrificing Reassembling Skeleton to Phyrexian Altar to generate and one creature token from Pawn of Ulamog. Sacrifice the creature token to Phyrexian Altar to generate another which will be able to activate Reassembling Skeleton's ability to bring it back to play. Repeat ad infinitum.

Infect Proliferation

The alternative win condition is infect kill with Ichor Rats and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician's proliferate ability. This is usually an attrition-based win condition as it is mana and card extensive. The best way to win quickly is to have Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and another creature in play. This will allow me to get 9 poison counters on everyone and proliferate to kill the table.

Planeswalker Ultimate

Getting planeswalkers' ultimate/emblem is relatively easy to achieve with Yawgmoth's proliferate ability. All of the planeswalkers have potentially game ending emblems/ultimates.

Footnotes

Notable Exclusions

There are several cards (that appear on many lists) that I've chose not to include after playtesting...

• Grave Titan: I find him too slow and I already have more efficient token generators in this deck.
• Inkmoth Nexus: With the number of draws and tutors in this deck, the only infect I need is Ichor Rats. Excluding this land allows me to have a more stable and reliable mana base by including more swamps.
• Dreadhorde Invasion: Too slow and goes tall instead of wide which isn't a desired effect. Bitterblossom is more than enough.
• Gate to Phyrexia: The ability to answer artifact is great but it has proved to be either immediately removed or too slow to answer an immediate threat. Karn, Silver Golem is a better anti-artifact tech.
• Font of Agonies: Needs to get an engine going to start working. Seems great in paper but mediocre in practice.
• Contamination: Requires some setup to get going and it fits better in a stax build.

Considerations

The following are cards I'm considering...

• All Is Dust: Black's weakness is the inability to deal with enchantments and this card deals with every problematic unanswerable card in one-fell swoop.
• Vindictive Vampire: Another drain effect is always welcome.
• Awaken the Erstwhile: Discard everyone's hand, create a bunch of zombies, and sacrifice a bunch of zombies to refill hand with Yawgmoth while killing off everyone else's zombies with -1/-1 counters. This card can be a potential great inclusion.
• Karn, Silver Golem: Karn + Yawgmoth, Thran Physician allows me to destroy basically any non-creature artifacts in play by turning artifacts into creatures and then putting -1/-1 counters on them with Yawgmoth.

Rules Interaction

• Plus and Minus counters cancel each other out:

121.2. If a permanent has both a +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N -1/-1 counters are removed from it as a state-based action, where N is the smaller of the number of +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters on it. See rule 704.

• You can target a creature that you want to sacrifice with Yawgmoth's ability if you want to deny yourself card draw because targets are declared before costs are paid in the process of activating the ability:

602.2. To activate an ability is to put it onto the stack and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Only an object's controller (or its owner, if it doesn't have a controller) can activate its activated ability unless the object specifically says otherwise.

1. Announce the spell or ability.
2. Choose mode, if any. This is when you also decide on buyback, entwine, splice, and the like.
3. Choose targets.
4. Determine how each target will be affected, for spells with multiple targets.
5. Divide/distribute counters and damage.
6. Pay all costs in any order.

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Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Nest of Scarabs + Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 27 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.48
Tokens	Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Insect 1/1 B, Myr 1/1 C, Snake 1/1 B, Spirit 2/2 C, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders	My EDH Brews, Cool ideas, Great Ideas, EDH decks, Cool decks I can never afford, Great deck ideas, References, COMMANDER, Decks, cEDH