Drawharmonicon | Yarok & Keruga

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Goodstuff Infinite Combo Keruga, the Macrosage Multiplayer Value Engine

Enral

Land (42)

• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 4x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 3x Island
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 3x Snow-Covered Forest
• 2x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Omen of the Hunt
• 1x Pernicious Deed

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

Creature (32)

• 1x Agent of Treachery
• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1x Elvish Rejuvenator
• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Frilled Mystic
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1x Greenwarden of Murasa
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer  ^Flip
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Palinchron
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Risen Reef
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1x Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1x Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1x Wood Elves

Artifact (3)

• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x Trinisphere

Commander (1)

Companion (1)

Instant (11)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Incubation / Incongruity
• 1x Mystical Dispute
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Submerge

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Search for Tomorrow
• 1x Seeds of Innocence
• 1x Temporal Manipulation
• 1x Toxic Deluge

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Sideboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Keruga, the Macrosage

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The Deck

Introduction

This is my Yarok, the Desecrated goodstuff/valuetown deck with its companion Keruga, the Macrosage. It's all about ramping and making big explosive plays that generate crazy value and threat density on the table. I would go on a limb and say that these two are a match made in heaven and are probably the best combination of the bunch. This is because catching up rapidly to the rest of the table's first couple of turns is paramount for a deck restriction of only having cards 3cmc or greater. Yarok is perfect with Keruga because it essentially doubles everything that enters the battlefield, thus having the ability to get us past the initial drawback significantly. Keruga is not only straight gas, but also a key synergy engine with the rest of the deck including drawing out the deck with a flicker outlet with infinite mana. Its card draw ETB is pretty nutty with Yarok in play.

"Having such a deck restriction doesn't mean the deck has to be slow and low powered, it can be just as explosive and powerful if you think out of the box and build it creatively."

But Why?

You must be asking why I'm willing to make such a huge sacrifice of forfeiting format defining staples like Cyclonic Rift and Sol Ring. I'm even giving up Lotus Cobra which is amazing in this deck! There are several reasons for this:

• The companion mechanic presents a good opportunity to see if a deck can perform just as well without those staples if constructed creatively (restrictions breed creativity).
• There are thousands of cards printed that can help mitigate the restrictions and you'll be surprised how well the deck can make early turn plays and even answer threats on turn 0 creatively.
• Having a readily available draw and infinite combo payoff is invaluable.
• Regular multiplayer games with highlander decks are high variant which balances out the restriction (players can have a turn 1 sol ring into signet as well as just "draw-land-go" turns).
• This variance is exactly what gives this deck an edge over other decks since I've constructed the deck in a way of capitalizing on "free" mana acceleration and spells which other regular decks don't.

Power Level

You'd be surprised to hear this but the power level of the deck is at least a 7 and can compete in high powered pods without breaking a sweat. Don't let the high average cmc fool you into thinking this deck is slow because it is actually a lot lower and can have explosive early turns due to the alternate ways of paying for a couple of the spells. The deck goldfishes an average turn 8 win uninterrupted which is normal for a mid to late game type of deck. The deck does have glaring weaknesses and shortcomings of not having the luxury of playing cheap premium interactions and ramp but those are somewhat mitigated because of the following:

• Free interactions (e.g. Force of Will)
• Free mana accelerants (e.g. Elvish Spirit Guide)
• Free accelerator lands (e.g. City of Traitors)
• Playing field equalizer (e.g. Trinisphere)

Deck Construction

Deck Anatomy

Brewing the deck with a restriction is exciting and fun for me. Staples like Cyclonic Rift and Sol Ring can no longer be included which forces me to rethink how I can make up for it with such a restriction. I've come up with the following deck construction philosophy to help reduce the deckbuilding restriction disadvantage dramatically and give the deck a chance to play at a more level playing field:

• Lands like Ancient Tomb/Gaea's Cradle/City of Traitors are essentially the "Sol Ring" of the deck that allows me to jump ahead of my mana curve and catch up to the rest of the table.
• "Free" mana accelerators like Gemstone Caverns and Elvish Spirit Guide lets me make early turn plays.
• "Free" protection spells like Force of Will/Fierce Guardianship are ways for me capitalize on my mana curve disadvantage.
• Cheap suspension mechanic like Search for Tomorrow which lets you spend your mana early and reap the harvest later.
• Creatures with the evoke mechanic like Shriekmaw that can be played early as a spell for a lower cmc or later as a permanent.
• Fused/Split cards like Incubation / Incongruity are great at bypassing the lower cmc restriction as the card counts all of the cmc together even though one side is lower than three.
• A higher number of land count (due to an above average cmc) with Exploration effects like Azusa, Lost but Seeking to make up for lost turns early game and also helps later when I draw a bunch of lands off of Keruga.
• Cards put everyone on the same playing field like Trinisphere/Seeds of Innocence.

Cards for Consideration

• Massacre
• Submerge
• Reverent Silence
• Misdirection
• Hush
• Find / Finality/Discovery / Dispersal
• Havenwood Battleground/Svyelunite Temple/Ebon Stronghold
• Dreadship Reef

Piloting the Deck

This is first and foremost a Sultai goodstuff/valuetown deck with an extensive ramping element to be able to excel in the mid to late game. The following are general guidelines when piloting the deck:

• Mulligan decisions are paramount to having a great start to the game. Always have some form of ramp or mana accelerant in the starting hand. Do not ever keep a greedy but slow hand.

• Play sequencing is extremely important especially for this deck. This is because we cannot afford to have our plays disrupted too many times as we are already starting out with a higher mana curve disadvantage. All of our plays need to net immediate value to forward our boardstate.

• Cavern of Souls almost exclusively names Keruga, the Macrosage because it is a bigger problem to have our card draw engine disrupted than to have Yarok, the Desecrated countered.

• Cavern of Souls/Prowling Serpopard helps reduce the chance of interaction to allow us to stay tempo neutral or positive. It is almost always better to have them in play before making any big plays.

Notable Synergies

I am going to break down the notable synergies into a two engines. The first engine revolves around Eternal Witness + Ghostly Flicker to be able to abuse landfall and ETB triggers:

• Yarok, the Desecrated/Panharmonicon = Recursion engine.
• Mystic Sanctuary = Sorcery/Instant spell recursion engine.
• Frilled Mystic = Counterspell.
• Massacre Wurm = Instant speed boardwipe.
• Agent of Treachery = Steal a permanent.
• Peregrine Drake/Palinchron = Infinite mana.

The other engine involves Thassa, Deep-Dwelling which enables some neat synergies:

• Peregrine Drake/Palinchron = Wilderness Reclamation.
• Eternal Witness = Recursion engine.
• Ulvenwald Hydra = Ramp/land tutor engine.
• Rune-Scarred Demon = Demonic Tutor every turn.
• Glen Elendra Archmage = Resets the persist counters for a Negate on the bettlefield.

Win Conditions

Yarok with its companion Keruga made winning a lot easier since infinite mana with any flicker effect can just straight up win the game through drawing our entire deck. There are a couple of ways of generating infinite mana including Yarok, the Desecrated/Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron/Peregrine Drake. After drawing our deck, we can win with the following:

• Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• Gonti, Lord of Luxury + Temur Sabertooth/Deadeye Navigator

The following are miscellaneous combos that can also outright win the game:

• Thassa, Deep-Dwelling + Eternal Witness + Temporal Manipulation = Infinite turns.

• Ghostly Flicker + Eternal Witness + Yarok, the Desecrated/Panharmonicon + Temporal Manipulation = Infinite turns.

Don't forget to +1 if you like the deck!

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	14 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 1 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.03
Tokens	Ashaya, the Awoken World, Beast 3/3 G, Elk 3/3 G, Food, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	My EDH Brews, Cool ideas, EDH, Interesting Ideas, Great deck ideas, Cool Ideas, Great Ideas, EDH, Favorite Decks, TTS Decklists