This deck was the first Commander deck I built in paper, and boy have I had a good time playing it. It's proven to be as efficient and resilient as I hoped it would be, and I consider it to be my strongest deck so far. Recently, I tried to power it down a bit by introducing a theft subtheme with cards like Dauthi Voidwalker, Gisa, Glorious Resurrector, and Helm of Possession. These cards don't specifically help in powering out a combo or killing creatures and instead give me a few more interesting ways to interact with my opponents, though technically speaking, I can still sacrifice whatever I steal for value anyway lol. They're pretty fun, and I'm glad I made the changes since I also feel it differentiates my deck from most of the other Yawgmoth combo lists out there.

The deck's gameplay is obviously "aristocratic": sacrifice creatures to Yawgmoth for value, preferably with a Blood Artist style effect on board to prevent life loss and whittle down opponents' lives. In doing this, you not only accrue an impressive amount of card advantage over the course of a game, but you also become an incredible source of board presence control. Those -1/-1 counters rack up fast, and the amount of repeatable sacrifice fodder and reanimation in the deck is plentiful enough that you can usually comfortably protect yourself and even dictate how your opponent plans to attack and what they get to keep on their field, making it surprisingly great at politics. Yawgmoth's ability to sacrifice creatures at instant speed also makes the deck quite hard to interact with, as anything your opponent targets for removal or theft can easily be sacrificed, replaced with a draw, and brought back at a later time with cards like Mimic Vat or Animate Dead.

As for how the deck wins, this is primarily done by creating an infinite combo consisting of one of the following formulas:

  1. Two creatures with Undying such as Butcher Ghoul and Geralf's Messenger and preferably Zulaport Cutthroat or Vindictive Vampire. Blood Artist can be used as well, but this will likely only end up killing two opponents at most since he only targets one person.

  2. One creature with Undying, one source of token generation triggered by death such as Pawn of Ulamog or Blight Mound, and Zulaport Cutthroat.

The combo works by sacrificing one Undying creature first. After it has returned to the field with its +1/+1 counter, you must sacrifice the other Undying creature or death-generated token to give a -1/-1 counter to the previous Undying creature, thereby canceling those counters out and allowing it to return again. Rinse and repeat. With an "Artist" on the field, you will drain an opponent's life up to the number of cards left in your deck (which is typically enough to kill them off). This is why you need Zulaport Cutthroat or Vindictive Vampire on the field so that you're able to kill everyone at once.

If someone happens to have waaayyy more life than you have cards, though... you no longer need to tell them that your dog's on fire and quit lol. Instead, bring out Vindictive Vampire and enchant her with Phyresis. Since she specifically deals damage instead of strictly causing life loss, the damage will be dealt as poison counters, and once everyone has 10, they automatically lose. Also Elixir of Immortality can be used to restock your deck in case it's too small for comfort or you've lost a few important pieces.

That should be all there is to it! I feel good about where the deck is now, but I would still welcome any suggestions and advice! Thanks for reading!

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99% Casual

Competitive

Top Ranked
Date added 5 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

6 - 0 Mythic Rares

27 - 0 Rares

27 - 0 Uncommons

17 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.79
Tokens Copy Clone, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Insect 1/1 B, Pest 1/1 BG, Rat 1/1 B, Serf 0/1 B, Servo 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 WB, Spirit 2/2 C, Thrull 0/1 B, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Decayed, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders fav edh, References, See Later
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