You could run a Doomsday combo for a good game closer. One that I like is Bolas's Citadel , Aetherflux Reservoir , Carrion Feeder , Phyrexian Altar and Gravecrawler .

Pretty much the combo uses doomsday to put the cards roughly in that order with Citadel being the first card you need to draw using Yawgmoth to get it to your hand. Then use the citadel to cast the rest of the cards and then start a loop of sacrificing gravecrawler to the altar to get the black mana to cast him again and building up the Artherflux reservoir until you can kill your opponents.

Joe_Ken_ That's a pretty neat combo; the cards you listed aren't too expensive, but I'm admittedly not a fan of Phyrexian Altar's price. I'll definitely jot these cards down, though, so thanks for the suggestion! Is there anything you think I should cut to make room for them?

You should probably play test with proxies to see what works and doesn't work then work on buying cards. Also, look at cards like Animate Dead or Reanimate that are clear upgrades to Blood for Bones . You have Buried Alive so I'm assuming you want to capitalize on graveyard sheniaghans if you can afford it put the best reanimator spells in ;) if not blood for bones is okay.

RNR_Gaming I immediately thought of proxying right after I posted my previous comment lol. I'll start doing that once I find a group to settle down in, that way it can be tuned according to the meta there.

I chose to use Blood for Bones because I already owned the card and because I thought it would work well in the deck by acting as a kind of pseudo- Victimize . Since I'll be sacrificing a lot of creatures and occasionally discarding to proliferate or using Buried Alive , I can revive a higher costed creature and then retrieve a cheaper one to cast. It's something I think would also work great with Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder or even just a Genesis Chamber on the field.

I'd definitely determine a power level 1st. A focused version of this commander teeters of being between high power and competitive and if you're including Doomsday and Buried Alive with the intent to win off them in a casual play group you won't make many friends.

Power level is the reason why I decided to run those creature stealing effects along with a couple of other beatsticks like Bontu the Glorified and Ob Nixilis, Unshackled . None of those cards are dedicated to combo'ing out and are there to interact with the rest of the board.

The place I plan on playing at had people running stuff like Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  ^Flip and Niv-Mizzet Reborn . There was also one guy who said he wanted to build a Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves deck. I don't really know how powerful and competitive these commanders are, but regardless, how do you think the deck looks as of now? TappedOut says it's basically half and half between being competitive and casual, but I have no idea how it determines that and if it's reliable.

I'd check out the cedh teir list put out by the lab maniacs. Niv reborn was teir 1 before the 1st sliver came out and the rest are high to mid power. It all depends on how people build the deck though. If the bolas deck is an ad nauseam lab man deck; it's competitive. If its just a dragon beats deck its casual. Edh is a little weird because theres little tournment data and the data available is just the same decks playing each other. My best advice would be just to sit down and play and gauge for yourself and adjust accordingly.

I really like Viscera Seer in aristocrats, I love the scry. And imo every aristocrats deck should have Reassembling Skeleton , it's just such an easy target to sacrifice over and over. Open the Graves is another way to always have sacrifice fodder handy.

I don't love Peat Bog personally. it's okay ramp short term, but long term I'd rather have Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx . And I'm not a fan of Meteor Golem , it's just so expensive compared to, say, Ravenous Chupacabra .

I never felt too inclined to include Viscera Seer since if I'm sacrificing a creature, I would rather it be to Yawgmoth to draw. I think Warteye Witch or Shadows of the Past would work better in the deck since their scry would work in conjunction with Yawgmoth's draw.

Now, I did think about having other sacrifice outlets other than Yawgmoth, but he is ultimately the centerpiece of the deck. I don't think that sacrificing to other things will produce the right kind of value for me. Unfortunately, that means the deck can be easily hampered by constantly removing Yawgmoth from the equation, so that's something I've worried about.

Reassembling Skeleton was in earlier list ideas, but I preferred to just include creatures that provide immediate value/reuseability like Myr Sire or Weaponcraft Enthusiast .

Peat Bog's counters can be replenished with Yawgmoth's proliferate ability, and Meteor Golem is there to provide removal for more than just creatures (artifacts and enchantments), something Black unfortunately lacks in.

I highly recommend Chainer, Dementia Master for some of the reanimator abilities and then u can start looping stuff like Meteor Golem and just absolutely destroy the opponents board state.

Hey, I like your budget version of Yawgmoth, but I think you're relying too much on Yawgmoth.

Yawgmoth is the only consistent repeatable sac outlet/draw engine here which is a problem if he's disrupted or stuck in the Command Zone because of Commander tax. Without Yawgmoth this deck will have a hard time functioning and he will have a target on him when on the battlefield. Consider more sac outlets and other creatures that don't have undying that can reanimate themselves?

Cards that are within the budget to consider adding:

• Viscera Seer : one drop creature no mana cost sac outlet.
• Ashnod's Altar and/or Altar of Dementia
• Reassembling Skeleton
• Skullclamp : busted draw with sacrifice strategies.
• Bloodsoaked Champion
• Living Death : mass sac and mass reanimation.

Cards to consider cutting:

• Unstable Obelisk
• Blood for Bones
• Lazotep Reaver
• Myr Sire
• Doomed Dissenter
• Ritual of the Machine

Buckshot11 I do like that idea, especially with other cool stuff like Wurmcoil Engine or Sengir Autocrat. If Chainer's ever in danger of being removed, then I can just sacrifice every "nightmare" before he dies. However, I don't really have a lot of ways to offset the life payment cost; Yawgmoth's is manageable because it's only one life and essentially becomes free with an Artist on field.

It'll be something I'll think about and play around with now and then to see how it works, though, so thanks for the suggestion!

multimedia I'm glad you like it! Let's me know I did something right lol.

I've also felt that the deck heavily relies on Yawgmoth and would therefore be vulnerable to his absence. The deck was specifically built around him, after all, mostly because virtually every significant combo and interaction in the deck only really functions with him.

I can see I could still get some value with other sacrifice outlets like the one you and LadyZ mentioned with something like Pawn of Ulamog out, so I'll see about squeezing them in. I could part with at least one Doomed Dissenter style card and I don't think the deck will lose too much with Ritual of the Machine and Blood for Bones gone, but I'll see once I playtest some more. I got a couple of games in last night and found Yawgmoth was often overlooked, and if he was killed then it didn't take too much effort to bring him back.

As for Unstable Obelisk, other than mana ramp it's there to provide removal for things Black can't interact with like artifacts and enchanctments (mostly the latter).

Thanks for your post!

LadyZ multimedia

Been doing some thinking and am a little bit more convinced that I should try out some of the cards y'all mentioned.

I had several games today and got some pretty good results. I won a good portion of them, and even when I didn't the deck still performed well. I bet a decent contributing factor was the fact that Yawgmoth hardly ever got so much as threatened with removal; unsure if the people there just don't run removal or never drew into them in all the games we played, but either way it's likely that they'll eventually wisen up to my gameplan and start doing a little bit more to disrupt me aside from constantly swinging at me.

I'm thinking of adding Viscera Seer , Phyrexian Ghoul , Flesh-Eater Imp , Reassembling Skeleton , and Skullclamp . Other than Doomed Dissenter , Dread Presence (iffy tbh), and Blood for Bones , though, I'm not sure what else would be a bearable cut.

Unstable Obelisk provides some ramp early game and can eventually be used to remove some threatening noncreature permanent.

Ritual of the Machine did some surprisingly decent work in protecting me by placing threats on my side of the field and then using them to win (Atarka with Phyresis lmao).

Cards like Myr Sire and Lazotep Reaver are hard to let go of because they do provide some good immediate value.

Any other suggestions for what could be some likely candidates for replacement?

I'm always bad at cutting cards, but I'll give you my best suggestions.

Definitely Doomed Dissenter and Blood for Bones , I agree with you that cutting Dread Presence is a bit iffy

Undying Evil is one I'd cut. Like sure its either protection or a decent way to give you more sacrifice fodder, but it's only one extra use of a card unlike Reassembling Skeleton .

I see why you're running Deathgreeter , but to me it feels like there are much better death payoffs.

And I don't think you need Fleshwrither , you already have two perfectly good tutors in Diabolic Tutor and Scheming Symmetry

LadyZ

Undying Evil is actually meant to be used more as a combo piece than as one time protection or recursion effect; it essentially functions as a one drop creature with undying since it can make any creature in the deck gain undying. It's especially fun with something like Wurmcoil Engine, though at that point it'd just be overkill lol.

Fleshwrither is a great card to have since it puts creatures directly onto the field. Good for searching out things like Endling , Sengir Autocrat , or Vindictive Vampire for value or to close games out. It actually technically won me a game today by placing Vindictive Vampire on the field, after which I gave it Phyresis and finished an excessively long game out of nowhere.

I think that my cuts will be Deathgreeter and Bontu's Monument . I'm really kind of iffy about cutting them, but I have three other Artist effects that actually ping opponents. The cost reduction from the artifact is nice, but most of my creatures aren't terribly expensive and I haven't really had many issues in having sufficient mana for my turns.

I'd definitely welcome more cut suggestions, though, from you or anyone else who wants to comment. Anyway, thanks for your advice!

Oh man I really need to read cards haha. I just assumed Fleshwrither had transmute and not transfigure, totally my bad. I would be very hesitant to cut the monument because it's ramp, but I'm still awful at cutting cards lol

Several cards for you to consider from my own Yawg decklist:

1. Coffin Queen . It doesn't survive Demon of Dark Schemes , unfortunately, so it may be a one or the other kind of thing there. But it scales well with your opponents. I run both.

2. Aetherworks Marvel . Uses the same energy counters you'll be getting for Demon of the Dark Schemes, and provides some slower card advantage for doing what you're going to be doing anyway: sacrificing stuff. It's easy to fill up on counters and the activation is instant speed, allowing you to pull off surprising, wonky stuff sometimes.

3. Liliana, Death's Majesty is a versatile planeswalkers for a reanimator build of Yawgmoth: she creates fodder, she reanimates, and she mills you cards to potentially reanimate. In a pinch you could resolve her and proliferate twice to wipe the board.

For cuts, I'm not huge on the following:

• Carrier Thrall : not a huge impact
• Doomed Dissenter : same as above
• Fleshwrither : I love Fleshwrither, but it doesn't seem like it gets the value here that it needs to
• Myr Sire : definitely first to cut here--least impact overall

I really like Coffin Queen and will definitely be putting her into the deck. I honestly don't really think I'll be using Aetherworks Marvel (mostly because I'm having a hard time cutting cards as it is), but I'll keep one around in case I ever get the urge to try it. Liliana is... well, not bad and I can see the value she'd potentially provide, but not a card I think I really need.

Of your cut suggestions, I'm only going to be cutting Doomed Dissenter. Fleshwrither has several targets that will give me value or even close out a game, and if I cut Myr Sire or Carrier Thrall I'm not really going to have as much sacrifice fodder as I'd like.

I like the list. I'd consider some Planeswalkers to take advantage of proliferate but it looks like it combos off pretty quickly so maybe not.

I love my Yawgmoth deck, it’s a blast to play with..

Some Undying creatures for looping with Yawg-daddy to consider are Sightless Ghoul , Vengeful Vampire , and then depending on your budget, there’s the Shock -trooper Geralf's Messenger , and the (non-Human) Undying Lord himself: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed ..

More importantly, there’s two other Blood Artist -effects in his big brother Falkenrath Noble , and the new & even more ridiculous Syr Konrad, the Grim ..

Metroid_Hybrid Hey there, thanks for the upvote.

Geralf's Messenger and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed are both already in the deck. I don't think it's worth it to run Vengeful Vampire due to its mana cost; I obviously have Mikaeus taking up that slot, though even if I didn't, it's better to treat things such as Pawn of Ulamog or Genesis Chamber as pseudo-Undying creatures since you can sacrifice the tokens they produce to remove the -1/-1 counter from the actual Undying creature.

For your Blood Artist effect recommendations, Vindictive Vampire is, in my opinion, a better option than Falkenrath Noble or Syr Konrad, the Grim . Vindictive Vampire hits all opponents for damage as opposed to just one and is one mana cheaper than Konrad (unfortunate since I actually think he's cool).

Even better than Vindictive Vampire is Ayara, First of Locthwain , who replaces him. While she isn't a true "Artist", her abilities still make Yawgmoth's life payment go neutral, make all opponents lose life, and can act as another sac/draw outlet if Yawgmoth isn't around.

Whoops, I totally overlooked the Mike & GM.. In that case, you may also want to consider Kokusho, the Evening Star , and to a lesser extent Sling-Gang Lieutenant ..

You make some fair points, however I just run all of the above (minus the Genesis Chamber ) for the sake of sheer redundancy.. That way digging out Yawgmoth a pair of Undying creatures & an “Artist”-effect to kill the table with becomes a matter of consistent inevitability..