People familiar with my decks will be aware of my original Yawgmoth list (here, if you haven't seen it before). It was a strong list, easily my strongest so far, but every time I played it I always felt like it could be even better, even more efficient, even more focused.
Part of the reason for this is that I brewed the deck virtually as soon as Yawgmoth was spoiled and the initial combo lines (discussed below) became clear. This meant I very much did my own thing with it, ending up with a mixture between Aristocrats and Reanimator which incidentally used the key combo lines to win.
For a while, I'd been considering changing that to focus more on one angle over the other, so as to make the deck more focused and to open up future deck-building avenues. However, it took a long time to get to it due to the sheer scale of changes required. Eventually, I decided to minimise both the Aristocrats and Reanimator sides to focus as much as possible on comboing off with Yawgmoth (not least because this opens up the angle of a future Reanimator deck).
I worked from the ground up and ended up with this build, taking some cues from a couple of cEDH Yawgmoth lists while also working within my budget constraints. This should mean that the deck is more focused than it was before, but it still has a way to go to be a fully competitive list, and it probably still has a few glaring flaws in places (I'll mention a few more planned upgrades I'll be making once this decklist is fully assembled).
Anyway, Yawgmoth has several distinct combo lines, as outlined below:
Core Undying Combo Show
The basic
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician combo line is a perpetual draw loop, utilising Yawgmoth's sacrifice ability with two creatures with the Undying ability (I'll list all the cards required after talking through the full combo). This works by sacrificing one of the creatures and having it return with a +1/+1 counter, then sacrificing the other Undying creature, having it return with a +1/+1 counter and placing a -1/-1 counter on the first Undying creature to nullify the +1/+1 counter. This allows you to keep drawing until you either run out of cards or run out of life.
There are two problems with this combo line, though, namely that you are limited by both your life total and library size. To offset the former and actually turn this perpetual draw/sac loop into a win, you want to get a Blood Artist effect onto the field so as to steadily drain your opponents and offset the lifeloss from Yawgmoth's ability.
To offset the latter, your only real option is to get Kozilek, Butcher of Truth into your graveyard to refill your library and keep going until your opponents are all dead. This is likely to be necessary against opponents playing lifegain strategies. The other option against those strategies, and one which probably also requires Kozilek to work, is to use Bitter Ordeal to empty your opponents' libraries once your Gravestorm count is high enough.
Undying Combo Pieces and Alternate Lines Show
The Undying combo lines described above have several different pieces, as well as several redundancies for the core loop (Yawgmoth + 2 Undying creatures).
The Undying creatures are as follows:
Butcher Ghoul
Evernight Shade
Geralf's Messenger
Sightless Ghoul
Ideally, you want Messenger to be one of the two Undying creatures you loop with, as that makes winning off the loop much quicker.
However, it should be noted that there is another way to get Undying creatures, in case you somehow cannot find any of those four or lose them all in one way or another. Using Mikaeus, the Unhallowed allows you to turn any of your other non-Human creatures into combo pieces for Yawgmoth's draw loop. Including the existing Undying creatures and Mikaeus himself, this means that 22 of the deck's 27 creatures can be potentially used to combo off with Yawgmoth. Of course, this does add another card to the combo, but it is a potential option for the time being.
Also, you do not necessarily need two Undying creatures to begin the perpetual draw loop. Instead, you can use a card which generates tokens on creature death to sub in for the second Undying creature. You can also use Nest of Scarabs for the same purpose, so long as there is something to place a -1/-1 counter on when the Undying creature is first sacrificed. The tokens created in these instances sub in for the second Undying creature by being sacced to place the -1/-1 counter on the Undying creature, before being recreated when the Undying creatures dies and returns.
These token generators are as follows:
Desecrated Tomb
Genesis Chamber
Nest of Scarabs
Open the Graves
Pawn of Ulamog
Sifter of Skulls
Naturally, these pieces work the same way in Mikaeus-induced Undying loops, subbing in for the 2nd non-Human creature.
Also, as mentioned previously, you need a Blood Artist effect to turn this loop into an actual victory. These cards are as follows:
Ayara, First of Locthwain
Blood Artist
Deathgreeter (only gains you life, but can be used in Kozilek + Bitter Ordeal wins)
Vindictive Vampire
Zulaport Cutthroat
Alternative Combo Lines Show
Yawgmoth's Undying combos all rely on the graveyard being available, meaning that they can be shut down by cards such as
Rest in Peace and
Grafdigger's Cage. Mono-Black's means of dealing with these sort of cards is limited, so I've added in a combo line which doesn't require the graveyard, so as to not get entirely shut out of the game by such effects:
Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top
This loop is fairly common in decks which have access to Black, but that is because it is so effective. Use Citadel to cast spells off of the top, offsetting the lifeloss with Reservoir. Use Sensei's to draw lands off the top of the deck and keep the chain going, before you have enough life to shoot everyone simultaneously. This requires at least thirteen spells to be cast to gain sufficient life to win, but that should be easy enough depending on how quickly you can get the loop going.
This loop, as well as the aforementioned Undying loops, is easy to set up with Insidious Dreams. For either combo line, discard three cards and either search for the Aetherflux Citadel pieces or for two Undying creatures and a Blood Artist effect. In the former case, place Citadel on top to free cast the other two and go from there. As for the latter, either use Yawgmoth's ability to draw into the pieces, or discard four cards and place Citadel on top again, using it to free-cast the three winning pieces.
Weaknesses Show
As alluded to above, this deck is weak to graveyard hate, with most of the primary combo lines requiring graveyard recursion to keep going and with graveyard hate pieces being difficult for mono-Black to deal with. Currently, the only ways this build has to get around such pieces are
Blast Zone,
Ratchet Bomb and
Meteor Golem, though I think I should try and include one or two more options in this area.
Furthermore, the main combo lines rely entirely on Yawgmoth, so there is the possibility of Yawgmoth constantly eating removal or being hit by a Pithing Needle effect. The latter can be dealt with as above, but I haven't really thought about what to do about the former. I perhaps want to work in something like Imp's Mischief, but I'm not really sure what to cut for that.
Also, the deck's reliance on Yawgmoth means that hitting four mana as quickly as possible is imperative. With a reduced land count, it is possible to get land-screwed, so keep that in mind. The deck perhaps needs a few more mana rocks to help with that (as well as some better ones than the current range), but I'm not sure which options to really pursue within budget limitations.
Any suggestions on how to work more and more towards cEDH level within budget constraints are much appreciated, as well as suggestions for any fundamental improvements that need to be made.
Planned upgrades once this phase is done (i.e. once I have all the cards in this current decklist):
Ancient Tomb for Myriad Landscape
Chrome Mox for Astral Cornucopia
Toxic Deluge for Mutilate
Vampiric Tutor for Beseech the Queen
Mana Vault for something
Foil Geralf's Messenger
Foil Gray Merchant of Asphodel (OG Theros)
