[Re:Commanders] Yorion, the Aegis Zero

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Yatsufusa
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Post by Yatsufusa » 2 years ago

"Avantheim, home to keepers of the world's archives, captial of all that is arcane.
But purpose eludes its citizens and now they seek the answers to what mere knowledge cannot solve."

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Introduction


Welcome to Yorion, the Aegis Zero. This a control-combo deck. It's more niche theme revolves around the Commander's blink abilities to attempt to create a "phasing" mode for the deck, supported by traditional control tools and combo finishers (as is a requirement for each one my decks to have).

This deck also serves to fulfill my wants for a superfriends deck, although due to the squeezing of themes as well as color selection, this might not meet the quantity of planeswalkers and typical combos (like Doubling Season) to feel like one for some people looking for an actual deck revolving around the theme.

If you have the luxury of listening to music whilst reading this thread, enjoy the appointed official song for Yorion, the Aegis Zero: EGOIST.


Disclaimers

Same across all threads, skip ahead if you've read it elsewhere before)
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Yorion, the Aegis Zero is part of Re:Commanders, a suite of eight decks I've established since 2015 with the intent to "retire" from the game/format, with its stability permitting me to bling my own decks out as my own vanity project. I've written out these guides roughly with the primer style guide, but they are not meant to be primers. In fact, my updates will be sporadic as in recent years I've had less and less time to play the game due to commitments.

Generally, Re:Commander decks / guides follow these rules:

High-Powered Cards – When I started Re:Commanders in 2015 I was already sitting on 11 years' of collection, including 4 years within the format that already assembled a structural skeleton for most of my decks. My decklists often contain a lot of high-powered, cEDH-worthy cards that can be easily deemed unaffordable to the random viewer seeing the guide at any given time, but I do not feel the need to feature budget options as those change with the times, as my focus on presenting the guide is to establish an understanding of what role does a card play in the deck, and the discerning player with the understanding should be able to find their own substitutes for that role within their own budget/collection/time. I merely used my own high-powered examples because I have it, nothing more. The game is just way too big (and getting bigger faster every year now) for me to cite random alternatives nowadays, especially with prices also randomizing on their own scales.

Personal Quirks - I have some small aesthetic quirks, the most common easy example being I don't play off-color fetchlands and I don't play ABUR duals because they can't be foiled. A lot of these small factors go a ways to lower the power level of my decks in small doses. I also try to diversify card options across decks, so while there are staples I play across all decks (mostly colorless artifacts and lands), I try to keep a variety of colored cards (and for those I don't I even try to get different art/frames to compensate) across my decks. If some colored staple feels missing, that's likely because it's housed in another deck in the suite I felt was just better for it (or I just lack it in my collection, I don't have everything, after all).

Personal Definition of "75%" – My personal definition on a "75%" deck is essentially a singular deck is flexible enough to perform on both casual and competitive tables. They aren't completely "just built to win" like cEDH decks, they're first built thematically, and then built with two distinct functions – first, a way to win within context of the theme, then secondly all decks usually have an infinite outlet (or at least a substantially huge wincon) or combo or some sort because I believe that a deck should always have a way to close the game when the primary plan/theme fails. Even a bland infinite combo used as a last resort is a better game-closer than you durdling an entire game playing Kingmaker/trying to lose last.

I don't shy away from tutors. This combined with the combo aspect does really ramp it up to feel close to cEDH levels (and almost certainly pubstomping in the wrong cases), but ultimately I built the deck for me, myself as the pilot. The Commander RC has a policy of "build casually, play competitively", but due to my wide-range meta (that can contain anywhere from new players to cEDH players depending on time), I adopted a custom formula – "Build enough to face competitive opponents but without abandoning the theme, then play accordingly to the table in question".

I'm aware some people feel like it's an insult to not "play at maximum" at a table, but I just don't see that way, I have a thematic way to (attempt to) win that's not too far above the casual table and my combos are now my last resort game-closers, something I actively want to avoid having seen purely-casual tables lack it and end up playing a game of too-much-politics-and-kingmaking-trying-to-lose-last compared to actual Magic played when thematic plans fall apart.

Deck History


For a full-blown history of the establishment of Re:Commanders as a whole, as well as anything the deck might have within its context, please refer to the central hub of the Re:Commanders here.
Deck History
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This deck wasn't always in its current form, in fact it arguably had the weakest ideological skeletal structure. I wanted a control deck, but I wasn't good at traditional control (and traditional control arguably wasn't as good in a multiplayer format back in the day, newer tools certainly helped somewhat). I fancied the idea of a pillowfort deck working well as a control shell/theme because of how it affected all opponents (and coming from the early battlecruiser era it was easy to see why).

My memories of the earliest incarnation of the deck are sort of hazy, but it was basically a pillowfort deck built around Isperia, Supreme Judge. I also liked how the newer pillowfort cards protected planeswalkers and modified it to be my "superfriends" deck (it was an idea I was neutral on, but if I built one I didn't want to go the easy Doubling Season route, but pillowfort just sounded right and fun given how planeswalkers are the easy acceptable attack targets in my meta). But given my inept control skills plus the nature of both pillowfort and superfriends being clunky, the deck was quite the clunky mess in its earliest days.

Then Tarkir came out in 2014 and with it came Narset, Enlightened Master. That ability certainly helped ease the clunkiness of the deck I was trying to go for, with the benefit of allowing an additional color (R does have punisher-style effects like War's Toll) and more planeswalkers without G. But Narset's reputation (rightfully) precedes my deck's intentions and it became frustrating to maintain her as a Commander (especially in a LGS setting, even with knowledge the deck isn't the typical endless turns build). When Narset fails, the deck reverts back to its clunky state (and was worse for it since I spent resources around Narset).

At one short detour point I decided to see whether it was bad control skills and built a Sen Triplets traditional control deck, only to see a couple of games and conclude, yes my control skills are bad but even with the Triplet's not-so-great reputation, Narset was just too much of an assessed threat by others to be worth it.

So I went back to WU (duing the planning of Re:Commanders), having Isperia lead the charge again, but this later incarnation gained the benefits of better cards and lessons learnt from Narset and Triplets and was notably running smoother than before, although it was still pretty clunky compared to many other decks. It didn't help I toyed heavily with the idea of alternate win conditions to be the deck's schtick, with cards like Azor's Elocutors, Felidar Sovereign and Approach of the Second Sun in different incarnations, but they sorta slowed down or even undid the trimming/streamlining process the deck needed, honestly. I'll be honest, the deck was probably quite the unfavorite of mine when I overloaded it, especially as I said, I wasn't great with control to begin with.

Come 2020, Ikoria came out and I saw Yorion, Sky Nomad. Sure, it got shafted hard as a companion in the format (basically unusable as one), but it was the straightforward ability that caught me, an ETB mass-blink effect. I loved pillowfort, but it already didn't carry its weight back then (at this point I basically trimmed it to be sort of auxiliary), but combo-ing with Yorion allows for a pseudo-phasing effect, which is a great form of protection I initially looked at pillowfort for. Sure, such a plan has its weaknesses as well (which I'll explain in further gameplay sections), but is at least less prone to removal (and value-loss) compared to pillowfort, which in turns opens more space for traditional control support to cover its weaknesses.

I also always wanted a Legendary Serpent to play with (Taniwha being the only actual Serpent and it's severely lacking, to say the least) and while Yorion is more of a mutation than an actual Serpent, it was good enough for me with its good functionality (I didn't want to just play giant sea creatures deck since Animar essentially conquered that entire sea-space and much more). More Legendary (actual) Serpents (Aesi, Koma and Verazol) would come later, but they felt way too much "simic goodstuff I could squeeze into Animar" for me to consider. I'm okay with my awkward-yet-elegant Bird Serpent.

At this point I also decided that the alternative win-conditions just didn't make the cut (and those I had didn't really gel well with the new blink-phasing plan I had), so I dropped it for more streamlined combos. I tried to keep the initial spirit of the alternative win-conditions of not winning with life-loss effects, so that meant yes, Thassa's Oracle is here, but hey at least it's not with the usual B suspects, but in the end I did leave Blasting Station in for a damage end. At least it isn't combat damage, I say as I move the goalposts.

Commander Analysis


Through Magic's history, there are plenty of WU commanders, some niche, many of them that are either great Commanders for general control strategies or are niche but can contribute to a control strategy (and like three Vanilla Legendaries of ages past). I'm not here to give a tour of the multitude of WU commanders and explain the myriad of ways they contribute to the various control strategies.

To cut it short, there's only two Commanders that directly interact with a blink strategy, Brago, King Eternal and Yorion. I'll explain why Brago doesn't make my cut despite being a great Commander in his own right, but first let's go through what Yorion does.


Creation of Heaven and Earth,
all in a state of flux.

Companion – Your starting deck contains at least twenty more than the minimum deck size.

Doesn't work in EDH due to our 100-card limitation that's not a minimum limitation, but to entertain a hypothetical experiment, would I run Yorion as a companion should the rule be changed to a minimum limitation? Probably not, because as part of a 8-deck suite, I do enjoy the uniformity they share and I think a 120-card deck would stick out like a sore thumb.

However I wouldn't be adverse to attempt it for a while (considering how much history the deck itself has had) if the time was right. At the same time though, companions don't enjoy the same luxuries as a Commander (even before they were nerfed) and since the deck is built around Yorion as Commander, I would likely find the transit uncomfortable enough to revert back, if I were to hazard a guess.


When Yorion ETBs, exile any number of other nonland permanents you own and control. Return those cards to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.

The meaty ability, but let's cross-check the requirements first. Blinking by nature means all equipment and auras fall off, so the deck should not contain too many of those. Yorion doesn't allow you to blink permanents you don't own, so theft strategies don't synergize well with the deck (lucky I have another deck for that). Lastly, you can't blink lands. That's a footnote because it's obvious how much more powerful Yorion could be if lands could be blinked, but at the same time, EDH is a format full of mana rocks, WU is a color combination that could use a lot of those in its ramping strategies and that makes it pretty advantageous for Yorion.

But the most important thing is that Yorion's ability is an ETB ability. One of the easiest ways to take advantage of blinks is with ETB abilities. Yes, Yorion's ability excludes itself for obvious reasons, but a deck built around a strategy always has redundancy copies for backup and Yorion itself being synergistic with its own strategy is a very strong point in its favor.

Another notable part is that Yorion doesn't exactly "blink" because the permanents only come back at the beginning of the end-step, not instantly, so it's more of a "slow blink" or "rescuer" than an actual "blink" card, but that extended time-out provides the exact protection we want.

Here's where the "phasing" part of the plan comes into play, with the likes of other ETB creatures that actually blink instantly, like Restoration Angel and Icewind Stalwart. Yorion ETBs, exiles them until the beginning of the end step, in which they ETB, instantly blinks Yorion, which in turns allow you to exile them to the following end step (usually the next opponent's), then the process repeats itself again for every end step, effectively keeping everything chosen by Yorion "phased out" until you decide otherwise.

That forms the basis of the Yorion "phasing" plan, which can be augmented to even make your opponents' end steps your own mini "extra turns" with the correct tools, but I'll leave that to their own sections.

The weakness if that Yorion itself is essentially left exposed while all your other permanents are phased out and while a 4/5 flier is a pretty good blocker, it's basically vulnerable to every removal out there alongside not protecting you against a multitude of attackers, which is where traditional control tools come into play to protect it and you.


Alternate Commanders
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Alternate Commanders
Brago, King Eternal – As I mentioned, Brago is the only alternate Commander I would discuss because of the blink archetype I've narrowed down to, even if there are a myriad of WU Commanders out there that are good or even better than either Bargo or Yorion for control.

Unlike Yorion, Brago performs an actual blink effect, instantly returning all the exiled cards upon trigger. No question, that makes it an unquestionably powerful effect, but it's not what I'm looking for in my quest to look for a control deck/Commander that emulates a "pillowfort" strategy. Brago is more orientated for high-value/game-winning combos revolving around his trigger almost instantaneously, making him more of a combo choice than the control option Yorion offers. Brago's effect is also only triggered upon combat damage to a player, which essentially locks building around his ability to your turn, whereas Yorion being an ETB trigger opens a lot of possibilities, especially around an ability that amplifies it.

I would say because of this restriction demanding more focus, Brago is generally the more competitive commander for a blink deck (and that he actually blinks) and the amount of support control the color combination can provide will still qualify it as a control deck, I'll still prefer that my Commander revolves around the control aspect of the deck rather than the win-con-combo portion because the purpose of the deck is to let me exercise my out-of-shape control muscles.

All my decks already have insant-win/infinite combos embedded because of my policy of always been able to close games (and not resort to kingmaking), but they're not the focus and the Commander must always have focus/synergy to the initial "casual wincon/style", any synergy with winning combos is just a bonus, otherwise it will make all my decks in the suite feel "samey" if they all were chosen because of their ability to combo-close the game.

There are exceptions, of course (Najeela was chosen specifically for combo finisher because I found the 99 capable of retaining the deck's land-matters theme strongly and 5C being what it is had literally every combo available with none really synergistic with the theme I liked, so I let the Commander actually be that focus because that's what that deck needed), but this deck in particular is the standout example of this principle amongst all of them.

Theme Analysis

Is Yorion, the Aegis Zero a deck for you?
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With the knowledge of what Yorion is capable of, now we explore what my build for the deck features in its themes to support the Commander (and vice versa). If the following themes (combined preferably) appeal to you, then this deck might be for you!

"Phasing" – The primary objective of the deck, set up a blink-combo with the Commander to create a pseudo-phasing mode for your board, then augment support with traditional control tools.

Superfriends – Not completely devoted to the theme, but if the main theme gets online, you'd have a smaller suite of planeswalkers that are pretty much well-protected to utilize their smaller abilities more constantly.

Attempting to win without combat damage – I've dropped the clunkier alternate win-conditions in favor of combo-ing out, but for Yorion, it's still the primary method for winning the game. Usually, my decks have a more timmy-esque way of trying to win, only resorting to combos when that has failed to close the game, but for Yorion, simply managing to establish control is the goal. The idea is that a successful control deck should have a much lower margin of failure to close the game with its combos than the typical other decks.


However, no deck can cover everything the game can offer and Yorion does lack in multiple departments. Also, no deck comes completely without weaknesses. If missing any of these themes or having to deal with any of these weaknesses if a big red flag for you, this deck might not be for you.

Superfriends – As mentioned, my superfriends is a subtheme tacked on because it stands to gain from the main theme of "phasing" your board, as palneswalkers are often acceptable attack/removal targets. This deck by no means is a "mainstream" superfriends deck (or even actually considered one).

Creatures – I love my creatures (especially battlecruisers), but this deck was deliberately built in the opposite direction for the purpose of archetype diversity. Excluding the Commander, there's only 13 creatures in the deck, and they're there mostly for straightforward support/utility purposes, not as the centerpiece of the deck, even if they do benefit from the protections the main theme provides.

Combat Damage – In the same line of creatures, combat damage isn't too much of a thing the deck features. Yorion can potentially end a game via Commander Damage and is a decent blocker because of its stats, but it's not a driving force of the deck as a whole.

Assembly-Required - The idea of the deck is to minimize weaknesses/vulnerabilities, but the journey to achieve that often isn't easy, especially in multiplayer (and the fact I'm a bad traditional control player). It's likely even the main theme of the deck doesn't set-up if you got hit at the wrong times by your opponents and what was supposed to be a secured combo to close a game you've established control over becomes a last resort comb just to try to win (like most of my other decks). For me, this is one of the most difficult decks to pilot correctly, and honestly the only reason it gets a guide is because it's part of an entire suite of decks I've had for years already.

Decklist


Now you've had a solid idea of whether you would enjoy the Commander/deck, I present you the decklist of Yorion, the Aegis Zero.

Yorion, the Aegis Zero
Approximate Total Cost:

Card Choices


My deckbuilding process goes in this sequence: Ramp → Draw → Removal → PRO (Protection, Recursion, Others) → Manafixing Lands. There are some specific processes that are done within/in-between, but I'll get into detail when as I move through this guide.

Ramp
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Magic games are fun because you can cast things, and the ability to be able to cast more things as the game progresses is vital. It's tremendously less fun to watch someone cast a huge spell a couple of turns earlier or cast 2 more spells than you did in your turn in the same cycle, or you to exhaust all your mana getting something out while everyone else could afford to leave mana open so they could interact with the game and turn it in their favor. Ramp is the backbone that solves all that, the cornerstone of decks everywhere.

In general, I recommend at least 15 ramp sources, around 10 of which are fast, early-game options and the remainder could be slower or conditional ramp sources that hopefully synergize with the themes of the deck.

The Big Three
I don't even think I need to introduce/explain these three cards. As much as I love my diversity, I had to admit these three cards are also dubbed the "ubiquitous three" for me and exist in every one of my decks (and yes, you will see this exact section in every thread). They obviously account for 3 of the early ramp options of every deck hence.
I usually don't mention prices, but Mana Crypt is a standout I have to state due to my personal declaration of ubiquity here. As long as your meta isn't as high-powered as mine, you don't need Mana Crypt, you can replace it with a (basic) land. In fact, the overall land count in my decks could be said to be 1 below-average solely because Mana Crypt is powerful enough to justify it and you should put a land in-lieu of Crypt to get healthier numbers for a deck without one.

Fast Ramp
Fast ramp is defined by the ability to drop on turn 2 or earlier and have an immediate effect on casting spells.


For those with Jeweled Lotus, it can replaced Lotus Petal (and honestly it's pretty good in this deck since Yorion is pretty costly).

Mid Ramp
Mid-ramp refers to a specific group that essentially come online by turn 3 or later in a vacuum.


It clashes with the Commander's CMC, but considering the deck's color intensity, I decided in the end that Gilded Lotus was the best "huge" mana rock for blinking because it can produce color. While in theory, "huge" mana rocks are great for the strategy, reality is that you can't always successfully pull it off, which would put a slight damper on the larger mana rocks being clunkier, while because of how Yorion works, it can blink multiple smaller rocks anyway and those are more vital in early-game (and also still easier to cast later).

Conditional Ramp

Archaeomancer's Map is pretty effective land-ramp for the deck's colors, since almost all games certainly have someone who land-ramped ahead, and even if it doesn't it still nets you two basic Plains to smooth your land drops/draws.


Cost Reducers

As an extended backup plan should there be a lack of 0-mana artifacts to combo with, I've employed a suite of cards that reduce the mana costs of artifacts, but most of them can also reduce the costs of other card types as well (Cloud Key in particular synergizing with blinks to "reset"). An extended benefit is 3 of them being artifacts themselves, so they also have internal synergy. Usually I'd hesitate on so much redundancy copies, but the nature of their inclusion (cost reduction) deemed that they could all be in.
Card Draw
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Ramp may be the cornerstone of a deck, but there's no point in having mana if there's nothing to cast. Card draw is the axle-grease that keeps the deck capable of building upon itself in a game.

Like with ramp, I recommend at least 15 sources of card draw. It may sound excessive, but I personally classify a huge range of card effects under its umbrella, including cantrips, discard-draw effects and wheel effects. To me, the filtering provided by such effects to get to the correct cards you want to be casting at any given time qualifies them under the primary objective of drawing.

That being said, card advantage is an important factor, especially in a multiplayer game and as such between all sources of draws I recommend at the very least about 8 (preferably 10) of your draws are capable of generating card advantage, be it directly (one-shot draw multiples, or strong straightforward draw engines) or indirectly (can be cast multiple times by itself, or generates synergy with the deck's theme to do so like an on-theme conditional engine).
As most cards primarily placed for their drawing abilities are pretty straightforward, I will not be explaining each of the common sections and the choices that fall under them.

Single-Use
Repeatable Draw

Some of these cards are not quite draw, but these cards can potentially help smooth out hands/draws so I classified them as such, only to fill out the back-end of the sections to compensate for quantity.

Tutors
Though thou'rt dizzy, stained with greed,
drowning in sly plots and in despair,
thou can do naught but console thyself,
thou pitiful egoist.

Not quite card advantage, but I like to categorize tutors under the branch of card draw as it surrenders advantage for precision. Due to said precision I will explain my choices briefly.

Tolaria West can fetch a 0-mana artifact for combo use, or Pact of Negation.
Enlightened Tutor is good for searching out combo piece reliably.
Land Tax explains itself in a deck without G.
Removal
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EDH games are not played in vacuum – as much as you're ramping, drawing cards and presenting threats, so are your opponents. Someone has to be faster than someone else in most games and it's unlikely you're always the fastest on board. The ability to dispose of threats that would otherwise end the game (or you from the game) should never be underestimated.

At the same time, there's only so much space you can afford for removal, especially having spent space for ramp and card draw and needing some for other utilities. I cannot you teach you the specifics as it differs game-to-game, but threat assessment is key skill in any EDH game, as it can easily seem that there are more threats than you have answers for, as there are three opponents. You need to identify which threats are the most dangerous to you, preferably as early as possible, but only dispose of them in a timely fashion, not necessarily as early as possible. If a threat has a chance to pose a bigger threat to another opponent, then it may be beneficial to either let it weaken said opponent first or let them notice the threat (even if it's blatant verbal politics) and spend their removal to get rid of a problem for you.

Removal is divided into two main catergories, Spot Removal, which are cards that remove usually one, but can be up to a few targets (and usually do use a targeting mechanic). The other is board-wipes, which refer to cards capable of removing an entire subset of cards (or almost) from every player (or opponent, but those usually cost more) in the game.

Counterspells for most part are almost always considered single-target removals, as the bulk of them are usually used to negate a singular threat before it manifests. There's some debate because there's an array of cards that exile entire graveyards, but I personally classify all grave hate to be single-target removal on the concept that most decks that don't rely on the graveyard as theme still do have some limited recursion options, and the reason one utilizes an entire graveyard exile is simply because the cards that perform them tend to be more cost-effective, and the real objective is usually a specific card. Sure, sometimes you hit a graveyard-reliant opponent and it feels like a boardwipe, but I don't feel that means I have to classify all cards that entire exile graveyards as wipes because they're opponent-dependent.

I recommend at least a minimum of 8 spot removals, with a reinforcement of 10-minimum if you're unsure about your threat assessment skills. Unless you have really good synergy with your removal options, generically around a cap of 12 spot removals should be ceiling, otherwise it'll pressure too little space for your utilities. Cover all your bases, make sure you have at least a way to get rid of graveyards and lands, as removals for those two are often overlooked while threats they present are no less dangerous than your usual culprits.

With board wipes my minimum recommendation is at least 3 and preferably 2 of those are capable of removing creatures, the most common permanent threat-type by nature of damage, but there should also be at least one option capable of handling artifacts and enchantments. Generally speaking mass land removal is socially frowned upon (especially if you're just going for walk-in games), so pay extra attention back to your spot removal to handle the notorious few problem-lands in the game.

Like with draw, the removal effects themselves are straightforward, with my emphasis already done on ensuring you have the diversity to deal with threats of varying natures being the actual important factor. Hence, I'm not explaining my specific choices in each deck and substitutes for this section are arguably the easiest to look for with any collection.

Spot Removal



Counterspells

Board Wipes
PRO (Protection, Recusion & Others)
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With three pillars of any EDH deck settled, we move on to slightly less important parts (no part can be considered unimportant because an EDH deck is supposed to be a machine with all its part working in sync ideally). Protection & Recursion can be said to be two sides of a same coin, under a function of keeping other parts of deck intact so those could perform their duties. Basically the opposite of removal, the attempt to keep your threats intact (or returning/reusing them after they got disposed).

Protection & Recusion

Protection is pro-active and prevents a card of yours from either be removed, or at least it helps by hindering your opponents from doing so (so effects that grant shroud or hexproof qualify). This prevents the card from leaving the battlefield or get countered, so it's less vulnerable to grave hate options, but in exchange, protection requires timing and mana left open and can be tricky to maneuver, even more so than threat assessment. Some counterspells can function as protection, but for simplicity's sake I just classified them under removal due to my processing order, but take note if you already run counterspells they might be pulling double-duty as Protection.

Recursion, as I said, is the opposite of the same coin. It doesn't prevent the destruction, but bringing something back from the graveyard to the hand, deck or battlefield means there's no real timing restriction outside your own personal urgency. Likewise, it's vulnerable to gravehate, which is arguably the #1 factor that would provide a sense of timing urgency.

While they're distinct enough that I have to provide paragraphs establishing their roles, Protection and Recursion could be said to be one tier below the three pillars of deckbuilding (ramp, card draw & removal), as it's theoretically possible for a deck to just ignore it altogether and operate on "If it's gone, it's gone" principle) and still reasonably perform well if it's other components are settled well. This cannot be said for the three pillars (which would visibly affect performance significantly more if they were missing).

That being said, it definitely never hurts to have some countermeasures of your own against removals, especially if your deck's themes and/or combos are heavily reliant on one card with poor redundancies/substitutes. There's no real "guide number", but I'd recommend around 5 in total, divided any way you want between the two sub-types. Most preferably your choices have synergy with your Commander of deck theme, even if it means going all-in with one and ignoring another.

Protection

Glitterflitter and Aerialephant are under testing, for their primary purpose is to provide a permanent hexproof (and indestructible if possible) on Yorion, as their ETB triggers are easy to trigger in the deck and the stickers do not fall off when Yorion blinks or returns to the Command Zone.

Recursion
Others
Actually more accurately referred to as Utility (but PRO sounded much better than PRU), this is the "last" section you fill in. But wait, isn't mana-fixing lands after this? Yes, which is why you need to do one thing before you starting filling this "last" section, which is to clarify your numbers.
Walls of Text, but Critical to Deckbuilding
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At this point you need to tabulate the total number of cards already in your deck. Then you need to determine the number of lands you need in your deck. It may feel like a contradiction to think how many lands you need before you got all your non-lands in to determine your mana curve/intensity, but blindly going in more-often results in people loving to stuff it to the gills only to find out they only have space left for 20 lands (which is a big NO-NO), which is why this guide even focuses on establishing numbers for all your three pillars and PR before moving to this Utility section, which is probably the most "fun" part of deckbuilding.

If you completely have no idea of what your mana curve/intensity would look like, the general recommendation for total land count is to be at 38 lands. If it's not your first time building a deck and you could sort of mentally preview your curve to be much lower than the average, there's an argument for cutting down up to 2 lands, and if you're running Mana Crypt like me, you could safely reduce the count by 1. That makes the absolute minimum land count 35 and even then you really must anticipate/know your mana curve accurately.

On the opposite path, if you know you're putting too much weight, you might want to up to count by a couple at most, and even then 40 lands does put you at a risk of land-bloating that I would whether recommend you keep a tight rein on both the 38 land count and the "calorie intake" of your card choices instead. The only exception is if your deck is a lands-matter deck, and assuming it's a main theme of the deck, the numbers are skewed to around 40-minimum-to-45-maximum with no real average. There are some other decks out there that really delve deep into the theme with 50+ lands that do work, but I don't specialize in that and will not elaborate further (and 99-land decks are their own thing).

Let's say you took the 38-land assumption (no Crypt) and booted up on the minimum/average recommended suggestions I made (15 ramp, 15 draw, 13 removal and 5 PRs). That brings the total to 86 cards. Not counting the Commander (and I'm assuming no Partners), that leaves a whooping total of 13 spaces left for your utility, "fun" stuff. Sounds incredibly small, sad and not enough space for all the awesome ideas you had for your deck but now can't fit in.

It'll be tempting to start trimming cards from the prior sections, but please do not, for that is the most common temptation newer/casual players fall for, only to find out their deck doesn't churn along because the pillars that keep the deck (including the "fun" parts) running just aren't up to the task.

But, now is the time to restore a bit of hope. It's time to check back on the cards already in the deck and see how many lands are already residing there. Did you use Ancient Tomb as ramp? Did you let War Room smooth out your draws? Did you file Buried Ruin under recursion because you didn't want to waste a spell slot to get back one important but not numerous artifact in the deck? Everyone land you already used counts under the land total, which means you free one more space for your utility fun.

But what happens if you found out you didn't have that many lands that helped you free up space? Then I'd recommend you start looking up for those lands to take over some of your nonland choices in these categories to create that space. The secret to a well-oiled EDH deck that has space for its luxury plays is the one that finds the most land openings to fill in the pillars of its own oiling, not just cutting the pillars off for luxuries that no pillars are around left to support.

When it's done you should have around 15 to 20 open spaces for your utilities/fun (I actually have less because I usually go a couple above the recommended minimum for my pillars). It can still feel "little", especially for newer players, but at this point I just have to say that's the sacrifice it takes to be able to get what you consider fun up-and-running in a 99-card deck format with so much variance, it certainly isn't just 60+ cards of fun and lands. That's why like how you find lands in your pillar card-choices to make space, it's in your best interests to find nonland cards in those sections as well that synergize better with your themes, so that your pillars are also fun to play with as well.
Another small beacon of light to look forward to, there are lands that are utility and/or fun, and like with all lands before them, they fall under the land total quota, so they don't eat up your remaining spaces. That Treetop Village that isn't really protection but just small utility? Doesn't eat up your remaining establish space.

One very important thing to note when distinguishing if a land actually falls under the land total. I do not consider lands that are incapable of producing mana by themselves in a vacuum to one, if they're in for a non mana-fixing reason (which is why I count those last) and can't produce mana on their own, they're functionally like 0-mana "non-land" cards in a way. Maze of Ith strikes as the most common example (and no, even if you run Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in the deck it doesn't just reverse this classification in the deckbuilding process, which usually favor in-a-vacuum status.
With the importance of juggling numbers in this section finally out of the way, let's briefly go through my miscellaneous card choices.
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Core/Combo

As I said, Re:Commanders decks are almost always built with combo-ways to close the games in case the primary win condition style is rendered unachievable, hence the pieces for these combos are usually my first priority in filling out my utility spaces. As I have a section dedicated to explaining the combos, I'll leave this part as short as possible.

Blink Support

The cards that help support the Commander in particular to help assemble the primary "phasing" combo. With Icewind Stalwart/Restoration Angel it basically boils down to being able to "blink" Yorion at the end of each turn, so that it triggers Yorion's ETB to "phase" out selected permanents until the next end-of-turn, effectively keeping them protected from all sorcery-speed removal.

Teleportation Circle only triggers at the end of your turn, but it permits you to "phase in" Guardian/Angel during the end step of the opponent before your turn without breaking the combo (subject to the Circle still being around at your EOT of course), allowing them to attack if necessary. Conjurer's Closest is an acceptable substitute, but is significantly weaker (it clashes with Yorion CMC-wise instead of curving and it can't exile artifacts when not in a combo). There's no need for both because strictly speaking even the Circle is an auxiliary luxury.

Planeswalker (Support)

Planeswalkers serve many functions, but I will briefly go through what I consider to their primary functions.
Narset, Parter of Veils and Teferi, Time Raveler primarily serve as card draw. Their static abilities are annoying, but "phasing" them out would make it much more tolerable for opponents.
Serra the Benevolent is a token generator, as she essentially generates Serra Angel tokens.
Venser, the Sojourner primarily functions to blink Yorion during your turn (basically a Teleportation Circle)
Teferi, Temporal Archmage serves as card-draw. It's unlikely to pull off, but his ultimate literally turns the superfriends "phasing" into overdrive.
Ugin, the Ineffable is cost reducer for artifacts, while also functioning as either card draw or removal.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is removal, both single-target or a wipe,
Oath of Teferi has blink applications and while not as brutal as other planesawalker support cards, is still pretty handy.

Other Utility

Long gone are the days I would shove Reliquary Tower in almost every deck, but as this deck is a deck liable to draw many cards, want them and not particularly synergistic with the graveyard, the Tower definitely has a high-utility home here. Yes, there is Thought Vessel, but it's subject to being "phased" out as a mana rock and hence it's utility is redundancy for the Tower, not the other way around.
Color-Fixing Lands
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At this point you should be done with all your nonland cards, and with some lands slots already taken up, you should roughly have about 30 land slots left in a multicolored deck, or substantially less (around 25) for a monocolored deck. Mono-colored decks pretty much don't need color fixing, so it's basically all basic lands filling the remainder. For multicolored decks though, now is the time to get your color-fixing options in, so you can reasonably produce the colored mana for your needs at any stage of the game.

I seldom talk about budget alternatives (be it high or low), but lands are among one of the more-commonly spoken of topics when discussing about budgets, so I'm supplying some alternatives here.

"Fetchlands" Package

I don't run off-color fetches solely for aesthetic purposes and also don't run duals because of price reasons (and also aesthetic reasons of they can't be foiled), so that leaves me with a simple fetch-shock combination.

I have a strict policy for as little mana-fixing lands that only enter the battlefield tapped as possible for my decks, so Irrigated Farmland[/cards], while fetchable and has cycling applications simply does not make the cut. If you are more lenient with your mana-fixing base, it is not an unreasonable addition objectively speaking. In a 2-colored deck with 14 basic lands, I deemed that [card]Prairie Stream was an acceptable conditional land that could be fetched.

Unconditional Lands

Comes into play untapped unconditionally and generally fixes your mana. Command Tower is the obvious best, Adarkar Wastes costs a life each use to fix colors while Hengegate Pathway locks you into one color (I considered categorizing the Pathway differently, but at the end of the day in a two-colored deck the chances of the locked-in color being detrimental is a minimal case, especially with so many other mana-fixing lands).

Conditional Lands

Well, considering the deck/thread was designed with multiplayer in mind, in practice Sea of Clouds should be better than everything except Command Tower most of the time, but in a vacuum it does fall in this category. Glacial Fortress and Port Town are relatively straightforward, needing a land with the basic land types (duals included) either on the battlefield or revealed from hand to enter the battlefield untapped themselves, relatively easy conditions to meet.

Dependent Lands

Alone, these cards are pretty bad or don't perform at all. Mystic Gate is at least a colorless land alone and while is extra-flexible when filtering while Skycloud Expanse is unusable alone and only filters for a straight wu, but it's a singleton format and a 2-color deck can get by. Nimus Maze is terrible alone, but once functions for one color of mana as long as the other land type is present and effectively becomes peak-optimal when both are present. Azorius Chancery enters the battlefield tapped and needs another land to function here, but the slight potential of being a double-producing land that bounces another land (which guarantees a land drop next turn) gives it the unique niche that has me putting it over the typical enters-the-battlefield-tapped duals.

Others

In these defenseless days, wasteful of life,
I shalt entertain the salvation impetus.

Calciform Pools is very slow and terrible at mana-fixing as a result, but it has a unique aspect of being able to hoard mana and I have more lenient slots in 2-colored decks to give (especially when I don't run off-color fetches and ABUR duals) so it gets in as the niche/gimmicky slot (even moreso than Azorius Chancery at least that still consistently fixes color nicely one turn later).

These are my choices for color-fixing lands, and we'll round the rest of the deck with Basic Lands. Every deck should always run some Basic Lands to "passively" combat nonbasic land-hate, especially the stax ones. As a general rule of thumb I calculate the mana symbols in all casting costs and non-mana abilities to have a rough gauge to determine how to divide the colors among my Basic Lands, with a cap that I should at least run 2 of each land type for coverage even if one color is played so little the formula results in recommending only 1 Basic.

Piloting the Deck

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I'm not going in-depth into this section (partially because I haven't had many actual games myself), but if you've established an understanding of how each card in the deck works, I don't think I need to overtly dictate specifically how any of my decks should play out in a game. Bluntly speaking, you need to ramp and set up draws as early as possible, and your starting hand should revolve around that set-up. General threat assessment usually means don't waste your removal on early "threats" that aren't lethal or overtly crippling (unless someone's super-aggro), you'll need to juggle around the mid-game and if you've resourcefully saved them could afford to be a little trigger happy nearer to the end-game.

Mulligan & Early Game (T1-T4)

Yorion is a control deck, so the early game mostly consists of ramping and setting up for the deck's main control plans. Like most typical decks, settle for 3 or so lands with ramp and draw options to ensure a smooth set-up. Fortunately the nature of the format generally means most other decks have to do the same, so you should have time. Of course there are cases of early-aggro decks gunning for you, or someone who set up exceptionally fast in a game doing the same, you may have to divert some attention to protecting yourself. Redundancy effects exists for such times so you don't outright lose your plans down the road, just take a bit of crippling to not just lose early.

Mid-Game (T5-7/8)

At this point most decks should have finished setting up to a certain extent, but there's a solid chance you aren't quite up-to-speed due to the slightly more costs of the "phasing" model. But as mentioned in the early game, you could afford to shield yourself with some redundancy options, or play some politics that the other opponents are also more-or-less more established than you are (especially if you spent resources dealing with earlier threats).

Sometimes you're lucky and assembled the combo already, but even then the nature of the combo is defensive for most of your nonland permanents, but not you or the Commander, so what can I say besides "yep, play the control political game", especially if someone tries to point out why your semi-invulnerable board is a potential huge threat. I know in my meta planeswalkers are the "acceptable targets" of attacks and I use it to precisely justify why I had this game plan, so my planeswalkers don't just kneel over in one turn cycle and that they can't ultimate if I have to reset them every turn (plus in addition I'm not in G, so no Doubling Season foolery). Of course sometimes it just doesn't work out, but them's the breaks.

Whether you manage to assemble a semi-invulnerable state of planeswalker control, or are still fighting tooth-and-nail just to keep yourself alive, it's time to look forward to the late-game and whether you still want to gun for a board-control state, or it's too late and it's better to head down for a game-finisher combo.

Late-Game (T8+)

Hopefully by now you've established the start of the board-control/card advantage, if you hadn't already reaped the rewards from getting it online earlier. Either way, this is supposedly the phase where the control deck strives, although the multiplayer nature of the game means it isn't as predictable an outcome as it would in 1v1 formats.

Honestly, at this point, it's do-more-of-the-same, except if done right, you should be gaining more and more control in the later game of attrition. You could try for a complete exhaustion of enemy resources, but as mentioned due to the multiplayer nature of format (and folks not liking games too long), plus the high probability of something going wrong (if it hadn't already), chances are you should just assemble a game-closing combo. It's mostly a game of opportunity-finding for most decks, but unlike most (of my own other decks), the nature of control usually means you have a slightly better chance of succeeding (again, not as great due to the nature of the format).

Remember, ultimately in a typical 4-player game where there can only be 1 winner, the odds are stacked against each player individually and the war of attrition is just a matter of who's the lucky one who managed to get his beatdown/combo down at the right moment when the other three exhausted all their immediate resources.

Combo Strategies


Teshar Loop
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The straightforward combo, sacrifice the Hawk/Skyfisher for a beneficial effect, cast an artifact to return them to the battlefield, then bounce the artifact and repeat. The artifact in question doesn't matter and the deck has a myriad of options, including cost reducers to enable more artifacts as options.

Blasting Station is the straightforward sacrifice option here, allowing you to just ping your opponents. It sort of goes against the deck's theme of trying not win with damage, but sometimes you just gotta go "so I just started blasting".

Altar of Dementia provides you a mill win-con, but in the case an opponent has a counter to mill strategies, you could mill yourself and then pull a Thassa's Oracle/Laboratory Maniac to finish the job.

Not in the deck, but Ashnod's Altar (or Phyrexian Arena) can be a source of infinite mana for cards like Sphinx's Revelation or other combos, but I've chosen not to opt for this line of play because there's only so much space in the deck.
Sensei's Future Sight
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Not so much game-winning by itself, but a 0-cost Sensei's Divining Top essentially turns Future Sight into "draw as many cards as you want", which pretty much enables the other combos easily. Draw until you assemble the Teshar combo, then use the Top as the 0-cost artifact for it.
It does leave the plan pretty exposed, so it's advisable to only kick-start this if you can assemble the other combo within a turn, or if you really need it to save yourself.
Or… you could just draw your entire deck and play Thassa's Oracle, that works too.

Closing


We've reached the end of the guide for Yorion, the Aegis Zero, which is my attempt at a control deck (alongside as my superfriends deck, somewhat). Traditional control is not a flavor I particularly enjoy nor am I good at (and I'm not even sure if this guide would work as intended), but I know I had to have a deck of its archetype, lest I let it leak into some other deck and dilute it, because I feel like it's one of the most basic fundamental archetypes out there, as opposed to other archetypes (like all spell-slinging, which I also don't enjoy, but I feel isn't as fundamental as control as a whole is).

Flavor

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Well, this is no primer, so instead of giving credits, I'm just going to the customized flavortown for the deck. (Actually the real reason is I sort of just absorbed random tidbits over the decades and can't remember all the specific sources I got, some I simply kept/forgot in my brain until years later, only randomly recalling the tidbit when I come up or have to refine my ideas/decks).

While this deck was assigned the "control" template, its primary driving force was "alternate win conditions" combined with "superfriends", because I imagined a deck based on what Nicol Bolas told Jace: "We were gods, once". I enjoyed the idea of a superfriends deck with alternate win condition as the flavor of the arrogance/hubris of the planeswalkers when they were godlike beings that didn't need to win via damage, as it was "above" others (which in this case, were the opponents). Of course, realistically in the game it's never like that (quite the opposite), so the point was the arrogance is built from trying to build the best defensive board-state. Initially it was pillowfort, but it eventually became this phasing plan because pillowfort often worked poorly in practice.

Yes, I diluted the flavor with the game-closing combos, but as I quickly discovered, purely defensive plans that dragged games were just impractical and made people upset. I could just flavor those combos as the "gods" lashing out to "win" because they can.

The external flavor references were just taken from other media that I felt portrayed the "feel" I was going for. "Aegis Zero" refers to the intelligence unit protecting the arrogant rulers of the World Government in the manga One Piece, while "Avantheim" (means "First Home") was referenced from the home of the Flugels of No Game No Life, an artificial angelic species desperate to seek new purpose in existence after their original programming (destruction) was outright banned, and hence they started to seek knowledge in finding the answer. The thematic quote was of my own design, but inspired directly by the flugels.

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"EGOIST" serves as the deck's theme song, alongside the 7 other songs (Each Re:Commander deck is assigned 8 songs, one as its own theme song and one that it shares with each of the other 7 decks of the suite). Links to each song are below, and disclaimer that it's safer to assume every link is NSFW than vice-versa so make sure you're in your safest environment before pressing any links.

(Theme Song) EGOIST
(Song with Najeela) Kuusou Mesorogiwi
(Song with Freyalise) X4B the Guardian
(Song with Extus) This Life is Mine
(Song with Ryusei) Among the Clouds
(Song with Karador) Silent Solitude
(Song with Animar) Don't Stop
(Song with Grimgrin) Utsukushiki Zankoku na Sekai
If you enjoyed this [Re:Commanders] thread and would like to see another one, feel free to visit either the main [Re:Commanders] hub or any of the other [Re:Commanders] threads linked below

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