YawgWin

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo Mono-Black

ICSM

Creature (29)

• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Butcher Ghoul
• 1x Carrier Thrall
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Deathgreeter
• 1x Doomed Dissenter
• 1x Dread Presence
• 1x Dross Harvester
• 1x Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
• 1x Evernight Shade
• 1x Geralf's Messenger
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Myr Sire
• 1x Necroskitter
• 1x Orzhov Enforcer
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Sengir Autocrat
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Sightless Ghoul
• 1x Tenacious Dead
• 1x Weaponcraft Enthusiast
• 1x Xathrid Necromancer
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Artifact (12)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Desecrated Tomb
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Jeweled Amulet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

Instant (9)

• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Defile
• 1x Force of Despair
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Malicious Affliction
• 1x Mausoleum Secrets
• 1x Pharika's Libation
• 1x Tragic Slip

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Bastion of Remembrance
• 1x Dreadhorde Invasion
• 1x Nest of Scarabs
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Rite of Belzenlok
• 1x Shadows of the Past

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms

Commander (1)

Land (35)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 27x Swamp
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Witch's Cottage

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Mutilate
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Toxic Deluge

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Maybeboard

Creature (6)

• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Gutterbones
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Font of Agonies
• 1x Kaya's Ghostform
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x No Rest for the Wicked

Artifact (6)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Genesis Chamber
• 1x Skullclamp

Instant (5)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Songs of the Damned
• 1x Thrilling Encore

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Awaken the Erstwhile
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Dead of Winter
• 1x Delirium Skeins
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Reanimate

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana, Death's Majesty
• 1x Liliana Vess

Land (1)

• 1x Emergence Zone

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Have you ever wanted to play with Yawgmoth's Bargain, but can't because it is banned everywhere? Do you like to draw unreasonable amounts of cards? Do you want to be a evil monster and sacrifice legions of minions for personal gain?

Then you've come to the right place!

This is mono-black combo control deck that aims to produce tons of tokens, sac them, draw a unreasonable amounts of cards and win by looping undying creatures with a Blood Artist effect on the table.

Combos Show

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The main combo requires Yawgmoth, at least one creature with the keyword Undying, and either another undying creature or something that produces tokens when you sac the first creature to Yawgmoth. I'll call the latter "Undying outlets" from here on. Here is the Loop:

1. Sac the undying creature to Yawgmoth to draw a card. Put a -1/-1 counter into another undying creature if you have one, or into a enemy creature if not.
2. Resolve the Undying trigger. It goes back into the battlefield with a +1/+1 Counter.
3. Either sac the token made by the undying outlet or the second undying creature to put a -1/-1 counter in the undying creature.
4. Go back to step 1.

Once you have the loop assembled, you can draw until you find a Blood artist effect, to drain the whole table for as much life as you have cards on your library. Each repetition of the loop draws you two cards and loses you two life. Notice that you don't have to put a -1/-1 counter anywhere if you don't want to, so you can combo even if you only have one undying creature and the opponents don't have any.

We run all viable Undying creatures, namely Butcher Ghoul, Evernight Shade, Sightless Ghoul and Geralf's Messenger. Vengeful Vampire is too expensive, Treacherous Pit-Dweller just doesn't work, Demonlord of Ashmouth is detrimental to our combo, and other Undying creatures are off-color. No, Endling doesn't work, because it comes back from the GY without Undying, so you have to play B every time you want to sac it. We also run Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, who doesn't have undying, but gives it to all our creatures, so he opens all sort of paths, like comboing with him and any creature that creates a token on ETB or LTB.

Our Undying outlets: Desecrated Tomb, Sifter of Skulls and Pawn of Ulamog create tokens every time we kill a undying creature, while Nest of Scarabs creates a token whenever we put a -1/-1 counter somewhere.

Special attention should be given to Nest of Scarabs. Whereas it is the least flexible of our combo pieces, since it is the only one that requires you to put -1/-1 counters, it is also the strongest one outside of the combo. Yawg + Nest + Any creature is a combo by itself that kills all creatures the enemy has in the board and draws cards equal to the sum of the toughness. Resolving a nest usually results in a win, because the card advantage you can is unsurmountable. Do it in somebody else's turn and you get to untap with 20+ cards. You can even hold the entire table hostage, and only clear in response to somebody else doing something detrimental to you if you are into politics.

Archfiend of Ifnir is a much tamer combo, this time with Yawg's proliferate ability. Whenever you proliferate with the Archfiend on the table, you discard the card as a cost first, triggering Archie's ability, and then you Proliferate. It essentially turns Yawg's third ability into "BB, discard a card: Dead Weight all enemy creatures, proliferate"

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The deck is composed of:

1. Ramp. This deck is mana hungry because it usually requires you to play Yawg and and untap with it before you can combo out. Our most common play pattern is to play T2 rock, T3 yawg, T4 token maker, or some variation on this. We need mana, and we need it fast. Don't forget to pump Jeweled Amulet and Everflowing Chalice with proliferate whenever you think you need to go late.

2. Protection. We need Yawg on the table, so people will want to kill it. Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Imp's Mischief and Thrilling Encore are stopgaps to that.

3. Efficient token creators, like Weaponcraft Enthusiast and Dreadhorde Invasion and creatures that come back easily from the GY, like Reassembling Skeleton and Tenacious Dead, to draw into answers, interaction, and combo pieces. Ideally we want either cheap bodies at a 1:1 mana cost with upside, like Orzhov Enforcer, or huge token factories, like Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

4. Combo pieces. That means Undying creatures and "Undying outlets". See the combo explanation for complete list.

5. Blood Artist effects so you can actually kill the enemies;

6. Lifegain. We lose a lot of life incidentally with this deck, and we can't really risk your precious blood artists before the combo turn so cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Dross Harvester and Deathgreeter are extremely welcome.

7. Tutors. We are a combo deck in black. D'uh.

8. Standard monoblack cards, like Crypt Ghast, and Dread Presence and metric bucketloads of removal. Some weirder cards cards that have synergy with Yawg, like Necroskitter and Shadows of the Past are sprinkled on top.

The maybeboard actually contains cards I want to buy/test eventually.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 29 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.62
Tokens	Bat 1/1 B, Cleric 0/1 B, Demon 6/6 B, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Insect 1/1 B, On an Adventure, Phyrexian Myr 1/1 C, Serf 0/1 B, Servo 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 WB, Thrull 1/1 B, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B