Vamos a la Yarok (Yarok ETBs)

Commander / EDH* BUG (Sultai) Casual Multiplayer Value Engine

Slicor01

Creature (38)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Agent of Treachery
• 1x Amphin Mutineer
• 1x Araumi of the Dead Tide
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bramble Sovereign
• 1x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Dream Eater
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x God-Eternal Rhonas
• 1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1x Hornet Queen
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Ice-Fang Coatl
• 1x Kodama of the East Tree
• 1x Llanowar Visionary
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Muldrotha, the Gravetide
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer  ^Flip
• 1x Progenitor Mimic
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Risen Reef
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1x Wood Elves

Land (35)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Crumbling Vestige
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 7x Snow-Covered Forest
• 4x Snow-Covered Island
• 3x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Artifact (7)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Cloudstone Curio
• 1x Conjurer's Closet
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x The Great Henge

Commander (1)

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Casualties of War
• 1x Command the Dreadhorde
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Villainous Wealth

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x Court of Bounty
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Pernicious Deed

Instant (3)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Shared Summons

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner

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Maybeboard

Creature (2)

• 1x Dragonlord Silumgar
• 1x Massacre Wurm

Artifact (1)

• 1x Blade of Selves

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Nissa of Shadowed Boughs

Instant (1)

• 1x Heroic Intervention

Land (1)

• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip

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Yarok, the Desecrated does things with ETB triggers! Use crazy cards to generate insane value, and win with your Yarok value engine womp-ing people in the face. If you'd like an in-depth breakdown of just about every card in the deck, read everything below. If not, have fun buying and tweaking my deck to your liking! I'd love it if you could drop an upvote or a comment with some cards you'd like to be added in or taken out. This deck is a casual deck, and as such, we don't run any immediately obvious infinite combos. If you like generating tons of value, and winning with massive creatures or an army of small creatures, then this deck is for you!

As of 11/2/20 I have switched pretty much every decklist over to moxfield. This list will be updated from time to time but sometimes more minor edits and maybeboard suggestions will only be done on moxfield.

Note: The Maybeboard functions both as an acquireboard and as a board with cards I'm considering from recent sets.

Why Yarok, and Why Should You Listen to Me?

The question many people ask me is, why do you play Yarok? Can't you just play Muldrotha, or Roon, or Chulane? Well, yes, you could play those archetypes, but I just love the way Yarok gives us extra triggers. It's just so satisfying getting extra value from all of the cards we play. As of February 2020, I've played this deck for over 6 months, and trust me, any questions I ever had about playing Yarok are gone. This deck is so fun, and I decided to make my list into a primer because I feel as if I'm qualified to create this primer due to my experience in an optimized playgroup. I seriously enjoy Yarok, and I hope you will too!

Ramp

Ramp: In this deck, ramp is definitely useful due to our large amount of high-cost creatures. There's actually a good amount of ramp in this deck, some of it even in the forms of usually unplayable cards.

• Arbor Elf is our standard one-drop mana dork, but I decided to use it instead of Llanowar Elves due to its ability to untap our shock lands.

• Birds of Paradise does take a decent chunk out of the wallet for a mana dork, but it's worth it, as we're playing a 3-color deck. It's helpful because it can turn our green mana into mana of other colors, seeing as we're running more forests than islands and swamps.

• Lotus Cobra is always a great card in commander decks, but in this deck it is absolutely wonderful. We get 2 mana of any color any time a land enters the battlefield. As you'll see, landfall triggers are really powerful in this deck. Combo this card with Solemn Simulacrum , and it can pay for itself!

• Nissa, Vastwood Seer   is great in this deck. It gives us two forests when it enters the battlefield (if we have Yarok out) and also in its transformed version, Nissa, Sage Animist , can ramp us more while also putting out tokens and making our lands huge.

• Risen Reef is a broken magic card. That's already been established after a week of Arena Standard Legality, in which its run rampant across all manner of decks, from elemental tribal to sultai midrange. The thing is, it's seriously strong in this deck. It has double triggers when it enters the battlefield with Yarok, drawing us a card or putting a land directly on the battlefield, but it also triggers when Yarok itself enters the battlefield. That's insane value for 3 mana!

• Solemn Simulacrum , with Yarok, grabs 2 lands when it enters the battlefield and provides value on death, giving us a bit of card advantage.

• Chromatic Lantern is a great way to fix our mana, by making all our lands tap for any color. It also ramps us by itself tapping for a mana of any color.

• Commander's Sphere gives us a mana of any color while also in the late game being sacrificed to give us a card.

• Dimir Signet , Golgari Signet , and Simic Signet all can fix our mana by paying one and tapping for their guild's respective colors.

• Sol Ring is the commander staple, which means of course its in the deck. You pay one mana and tap for two, there's literally no downside.

• The Great Henge is another value engine that I couldn't really place in any other category. It draws us a ton of cards off of it's enter-the-battlefield trigger, while also providing an ever-important 2 mana and 2 life per turn. This thing has only been in the deck for a little, and it's already proving to be an MVP.

• Cultivate is a great card to ramp us, putting one basic land onto the battlefield tapped and another into our hand, which is great for landfall triggers.

• Nature's Lore is generally an amazing card, basically being a Rampant Growth with only forests, but with the upside of having them come in untapped. This can also grab us a fetch land which is very helpful.

• Burgeoning is great ramp for this deck. It comes down on turn one, and in a best-case scenario, that can give us a turn 2 Yarok. However, it's better in this deck than just ramp. Since we have a pretty good amount of landfall triggers, we can often trigger them many times due to burgeoning, and that means we get more value, what this deck is all about.

• Growing Rites of Itlimoc   is another wonderful piece of ramp. It has an enter-the-battlefield trigger that often nets us value when it first hits the field, and then flips into a Gaea's Cradle which generates us a huge amount of mana. Often it becomes a prime removal target which our opponents can't deal with.

Card Draw

Card Draw: A lot of the utility creatures in this deck allow us to draw a lot of cards, and Yarok often helps us draw more than the usual. Many creatures and even some other permanents have abilities that draw cards when they enter the battlefield, and we take advantage of a lot of them here.

Baleful Strix is a great utility creature that not only draws cards when it enters the battlefield, but also does great on defense, as a body with flying and deathtouch can do amazing work blocking.

Coiling Oracle , as previously mentioned, gives us card draw on steroids, seeing as if we draw a land we can put it directly onto the battlefield. It's also given to us at a low cost attached to a small creature.

Ice-Fang Coatl is like a Baleful Strix part two. It's a small body that draws us a card when it enters the battlefield, with the added bonus of the flash ability. It's the main reason that we run snow-covered lands in the deck, so it's deathtouch ability can be used. Oh, and also because they look cool.

Mulldrifter is a great card, which is even better when it's used in this deck. With Yarok, we can evoke it for 3 mana and draw 4 cards, which is some absolutely insane value. It's also attached to a decent body if we cast it normally.

Tatyova, Benthic Druid is a great way to give us some life and some cards in a renewable way, due to its pseudo-landfall ability. It's a great way to turn some of our ramp into lots of card advantage.

Tireless Tracker is another way to turn our lands into card advantage, giving us a clue each time we play a land. It's a great early game play that isn't hampered by not having Yarok out quite yet, but also does really well in the late game, buffing itself with its clues.

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is a great piece that we've gotten from Theros:Beyond Death. It gets us card draw, lands, and life gain, which is doubled with Yarok. Plus, if we have the cards for it, we can just escape Uro from our graveyard to get another ETB trigger and some attack triggers.

Guardian Project basically draws two cards every time we get a creature out, which is a great value engine with Yarok out. It, like the Tracker, also gives us a great play the turn before we play Yarok.

Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner works as a great way to give us card draw while also untapping our permanents, working as a pseudo-ramp while also giving you a way to get vigilance on select creatures. It also can work as a secondary target for your opponents, due to the fact that planeswalkers usually have bull's-eyes on their backs in commander games, although many opponents won't feel too threatened by it.

Blink/Bounce

Blink/Bounce: In this deck, we have a lot of creatures that want to enter the battlefield multiple times. For this reason, we have multiple ways to blink (exile a creature and then return it to the battlefield) and bounce (return to hand) our own creatures.

• Deadeye Navigator is probably the best card ever printed in terms of blinking things. Since this is a casual deck, we don't have the Peregrine Drake combo, but we still use the Navigator to generate extreme value. It can soulbond to creatures of all types and pay only two mana to repeatedly blink, getting us more triggers while also avoiding targeted spells.

• Temur Sabertooth is a really underplayed card in decks like this one. Paying only two mana can bounce a creature back to our hand for added value, while also allowing the sabertooth to be extremely hard to deal with, as it gains indestructible. This also makes it a good chump blocker if needed. Overall, an extremely versatile and useful card for this deck.

• Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is a wonderful new card from Theros: Beyond Death. We get a discounted Conjurer's Closet but we also get a 6/5 indestructible that can tap things down. This card is seriously good and I'm glad we get a second Closet for this deck.

• Venser, Shaper Savant is a very interesting card. It doesn't look all that powerful on its own, but with Yarok, it gets seriously insane. We can cast it, bounce a spell or permanent an opponent controls, then bounce itself back to hand with the second trigger so we can keep bouncing stuff. It's seriously great in this deck, and in my opinion it is one of the best cards in the deck.

• Cloudstone Curio gives us a free bounce engine, allowing us to bounce creatures whenever we play other ones. This works also with our other nonartifact permanents, which can also be useful. I really enjoy having this because it doesn't require mana to bounce our creatures, which allows us to replay multiple creatures per turn.

• Conjurer's Closet , or the Wardrobe of Narnia, is one of the best blink pieces in the game. Although it's only one per turn, it consistently gets extra value from our creatures. Working with some of our bigger threats, this can be game breaking.

Petty Theft

Petty Theft: A lot of times, your opponents will have big threats or combos in their library that threaten you. Why not just flip the script and kill your opponents with their own cards?

Agent of Treachery is a really fun card. Seven mana to snag two creatures from your opponents sounds like a wonderful deal to me. Plus, if we can bounce or blink the Agent to get more triggers, we end up drawing 3 cards a turn. People say this card is overcosted, but I just like to call it fun.

Altered Ego , whenever I play it, comes along with one very simple sentence; "I like your (big threat), I'll take one, please!" This is pretty great in the deck. We get a four-mana copy of any creature on board, plus we can pay extra mana to make it even bigger. This is definitely the card I like running as the deck's copy effect.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury is a really fun card in this deck. You get to exile 2 cards from the top of your opponent's library, and you get to cast those if you want to. It's really good to hate out any combo decks (if you play against any) and you get to also take your opponents' win cons. That can be pretty fun.

Hostage Taker is a nice card, it exiles 2 creatures or artifacts, and we get to cast them again. If we manage to exile something like a Craterhoof Behemoth , then we pretty much win the game. This card is super underrated in Yarok decks, but it's honestly a great card.

Progenitor Mimic is a fun card, that's for sure. We get to copy either one of our creatures or one of our opponent's creatures. To be fair, we are usually copying our own creatures, but it's still fun to take an opponent's creature. We also get one more of that creature each turn, which gets seriously out of hand. Just imagine if you've mimicked a Craterhoof!

Villainous Wealth has an effect that's very similar to that of Gonti. This card can exile a ton of cards from an opponent's library, and we get to play a lot of them for free. A lot of times, this card can outright win the game for us.

Flooding the Board

Flooding the Board: In this deck, we often want to establish a powerful board state after we use all of our ETB triggers, as this will allow us to close out the game. The cards in this category all allow us to make a ton of creatures to stop our opponents from doing anything at all.

Avenger of Zendikar makes a ton of plants when it enters the battlefield, and this allows us to gum up the board with blockers. However, its real power comes from the ability to put +1/+1 counters on the plants with its landfall ability, which is an ETB trigger by the way. This can close out the game really quickly if left unchecked and it allows us to have a commanding board state if it even just hits the field.

Bramble Sovereign lets us create token copies of any creature that ETBs on our side for the minuscule investment of two mana. This allows us to make copies of our card draw creatures, our ramp, our removal-based creatures, and more importantly, our finishers. If this card stays on the field, it's likely GG for your opponents.

Hornet Queen is a very strong card in this deck. It makes our opponent's basically have no way of swinging into us, because we create tons of flying and deathtouch insects, but we also basically get free attacks in the air each turn while still leaving behind some blockers. This just generally puts opponent's in difficult positions.

Graveyard Recursion

Graveyard Recursion: The fact of the matter is that our opponents will counter and kill our creatures. Don't fret, because we can just get them back from the 'yard! That'll really put a wrench in our opponents' plans.

Eternal Witness is the gold standard of recursion. 3 mana for a 2/1 body that gets us any card from our graveyard is very strong. However, it's even stronger in Yarok, because we can get 2 things back from the 'yard due to its ETB trigger. EWitt is always a helpful card.

Muldrotha, the Gravetide , although a strong commander in its own right, is also very strong in this deck because of its ability to have us constantly reuse our ETB effects. We get one permanent of each type back each turn, which effectively can turn our graveyard into our hand, which is awesome.

Nissa, Vastwood Seer   is a card that's hard to place in any category, but I feel like its best put in this category due to its -3. We get a planeswalker with an EWitt effect the turn it comes down, but it also can untap lands for ramp, and get us a ton of draws with its emblems. Overall, its a pretty versatile card that I enjoy having.

Command the Dreadhorde is a really fun card. If we have a lot of life, we can basically get a Rise of the Dark Realms -esque effect from this card, but we can also use it to recur a couple game-breaking creatures. This card is super underrated and it often will swing the game in our favor.

Finishers

Finishers: In a deck like this, we have our ramp out, we've drawn cards, and we've flooded the board, now how do we win? Well never fear; the finishers are here. These are the cards that can close out the game for us and eliminate our opponents.

Craterhoof Behemoth is the real big bopper of this deck. If we can resolve a Craterhoof with creatures on board, we basically win the game. This card is definitely the deck's biggest win condition and if we can stick a Behemoth, it's game over for the opponents.

God-Eternal Rhonas is another Craterhoof-esque effect that the deck has. It allows us to crack in with our army without any fear of a return shot, because it gives vigilance, and it gives us the ability to just swing in and murder our opponents. He's a great backup Craterhoof and he can win us the game easily.

Removal and Control

Removal and Control: Often, our opponents will also play scary stuff. It's no issue for this deck because we can kill, counter, and bounce any huge threats that they play.

Acidic Slime is a nice piece of removal because it can get rid of many types of problems. We get a 2/2 deathtouch that's hard for our opponents to attack into but we also get to blow up an artifact, land, or enchantment that may be causing us problems.

Dream Eater is in this category because it can only bounce our opponents' stuff, but it is extremely good because we don't have to choose targets to bounce until after we surveil. It generates nice card selection and also gets to stop problem creatures and set opponents back a turn.

Ravenous Chupacabra is a pretty cheap creature that can blow up two things with Yarok in play. In general, it's just really good to have a creature that's consistently great, even if Yarok isn't out.

Assassin's Trophy is a really nice removal spell because it consistently hits any permanent for two mana. Although it gives an opponent a land, its often a really good trade because it kills their best permanent on board.

Counterspell is everyone's favorite basic, two-mana counterspell that does its job efficiently. We get to counter anything an opponent plays for just two mana, sounds like a nice deal to me.

Curtains' Call is a good piece of removal, especially in a normal, four-player game of commander, where we can pay 3 to remove 2 creatures on opponents' boards. It's overall a great spell, and it gets even better if you're playing with more than four people.

Casualties of War is a very versatile removal spell. We can kill a permanent of each type for just 6 mana, and it often can remove problem permanents that we usually have a hard time directly killing, like planeswalkers and lands. Generally, this card is good in any situation.

Maelstrom Pulse is a nice piece of removal because it hits any type of nonland permanent, and this allows us to have a versatile removal spell for any opponent. It's worth mentioning that Maelstrom Pulse is also great at getting rid of tokens. It's generally a good card, no matter when you draw it.

Tutors

Tutors: In this deck,you will sometimes need to search for a card in any situation, whether it be removal, a finisher, or just some good old fashioned value. That's why this deck plays a good amount of tutors.

Rune-Scarred Demon is a demonic tutor on a stick, but it's really good in this deck because we get two ETB triggers, meaning we're tutoring for two cards.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.91
Tokens	Ashaya, the Awoken World, Clue, Copy Clone, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Plant 0/1 G, Monarch Emblem
Folders	Cool Decks