Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - The Power to Proliferate

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

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The Father of Machines. The Ineffable. The Dark Lord. The Hidden One. The Lord of the Wastes

Yawgmoth has the ability to remove creatures AND put loyalty counters on planeswalkers, while drawing cards in the mean time. Sign...me...up.

The main idea is to ultimate some of the planeswalkers for their powerful abilities. By being able to pump consecutive bb each time for loyalty counters, you can easily get a planeswalker up to an ultimate within a turn or two.
Discarding cards shouldn't be too much of a problem, given Yawgmoth has a draw ability, and in fact we can use this to put some of our bigger creatures into the graveyard for some reanimation off our planeswalkers.

There is a high emphasis on producing lots of mana so that you can setup turns where you use the bb Proliferate ability as many times as you can in a single turn.
This includes a comprehensive lands package centered around Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Cabal Coffers, Cabal Stronghold, and then other lands that can copy them, untap them, or get back from graveyard if removed.
There is also the usual suspects of mana doublers, while also some number of creatures that produce token mana when creatures die to fuel off Yawgmoth ability when sacrificing creatures.
There is also a set of cards that work off getting mana from counters, and this works perfectly with Yawgmoth ability to proliferate. I explain all these further in the thread.

As always I post my deck lists to inspire, but also to get helpful feedback on how to improve them.
I would not have the success of my decks without the many posters guiding me to more optimized builds. We are the sum of our knowledge and imagination.

Behold, my power to imbue. Planeswalker ultimate's and emblems

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There are 12 planeswalkers in the deck and they all integrate for amazing accelerated levels of power with Yawgmoth proliferate ability.
Here is a quick summary of some of the more brutal combinations you can look for.

Liliana, Heretical Healer / Liliana, Defiant Necromancer
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[-8]: You get an emblem with "Whenever a creature dies, return it to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the next end step."

Image starting loyalty to Image emblem = 5 x bb proliferate.
With Yawgmoth ability to sacrifice creatures, it's easy to transform Liliana, Heretical Healer into Liliana, Defiant Necromancer.
A certain win condition combined with Yawgmoth creature removal.



Liliana, the Last Hope
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[-7]: You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your end step, create X 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens, where X is two plus the number of Zombies you control."

Image starting loyalty to Image emblem = 4 x bb proliferate.
The power of doubling will make sure that you accumulate enough power to kill your opponents. After five turns you'll have 30 Zombies in play (2,6,14,30).
Because it's an emblem, even mass creature removal just means that they'll have to deal with a new lot going forward. Great for providing protection to planewalkers for other abilities and ultimate's.


Liliana of the Dark Realms|Magic 2013
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[-6]: You get an emblem with "Swamps you control have 'Tap: Add bbbb.'"

Image starting loyalty to Image emblem = 3 x bb proliferate.
Once you get this emblem, then you can proliferate for two with each swamp. Meaning that you can put your planeswalkers onto ultimate's immediately and/or just get them to a loyalty count that is going to be too much for opponents to remove even with unblocked creatures.



Liliana Vess
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[-8]: Put all creature cards from all graveyards onto the battlefield under your control.

Image starting loyalty to Image ultimate = 3 x bb proliferate.
Perfect with Yawgmoth discard as you can place some of your more expensive creatures into your graveyard, or realistically all of them from your hand. Because you can sacrifice creatures, then you can look to get the value of the draw and ETB/LTB triggers, while potentially getting your opponents creatures board into their graveyard for even more value.


Liliana, Death's Majesty
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[-7]: Destroy all non-Zombie creatures.

Image starting loyalty to Image ultimate = 2 x bb proliferate.
Realistically one of the more short term rewards and least powerful overall, but her other abilities make her perfect for getting value, and combined with Yawgmoth discard you can return a creature to battlefield with the [-3].



Liliana, Dreadhorde General
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[-9]: Each opponent chooses a permanent they control of each permanent type and sacrifices the rest.

Image starting loyalty to Image ultimate = 3 x bb proliferate.
Opponents losing all but one of their lands is realistically going to put the game out of reach for them, especially considering obviously you already have a setup to get the ultimate in the first place.
Her static ability allows you to double up on draw with Yawgmoth sacrifice ability.


Sorin Markov
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[-7]: You control target player during that player's next turn.

Image starting loyalty to Image ultimate = 3 x bb proliferate.
Not a game ending type of ultimate all the time, but you can really disrupt opponents in unexpected ways. With the right setup you can keep doing this every turn, basically taking over the game completely.
Sorin Markov also has a very powerful [-3] for commander and you can just systematically do it to each opponent given Yawgmoth ability to proliferate.


Karn Liberated
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[-14]: Restart the game, leaving in exile all non-Aura permanent cards exiled with Karn Liberated. Then put those cards onto the battlefield under your control.

Image starting loyalty to Image ultimate = 8 x bb proliferate.
There is a big difference between starting loyalty and the ultimate, but Karn has his own [+4], so realistically you'll need to be using this anyway to have some sort of advantage if restarting the game. You could easily exile some of your own cards from hand to get this starting advantage. He is mainly in for the ability to remove other permanents that black struggles with.


Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
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[-10]: You gain 7 life, draw seven cards, then put up to seven permanent cards from your hand onto the battlefield.

Image starting loyalty to Image ultimate = 3 x bb proliferate.
Drawing 7 cards and putting 7 permanents into play is a really nice way of getting further planewalkers or your bigger creatures onto the battlefield.
His [-X] ability is great for mono-black in that there are not a lot of ways to deal with enchantments.



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Note that there is Karn, the Great Creator and Ugin, the Ineffable which both do not really have "ultimate's".
But Karn, the Great Creator can control artifacts, which mono-black is not known for.
Ugin, the Ineffable has relevant abilities, including one of the few ways to get rid of enchantments in mono-black.
Being able to proliferate means that ALL of your planeswalkers are going to get multiple uses, even potentially multiple emblems, so if it's able to be played in black and it's got good abilities, consider them lock-ins.

The planeswalkers that create creature tokens, can give additional value because you can sacrifice them to Yawgmoth sacrifice draw ability. These are; Liliana, Heretical Healer, Liliana, the Last Hope, Liliana, Death's Majesty, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Ugin, the Ineffable.

Kill them, kill them all! Creature removal

Combining Yawgmoth ability to put -1/-1 counters on creatures and being able to proliferate, meaning that you can give all your opponents creatures further counters, ultimately means that you can potentially keep the board clear of most creatures for keeping your planeswalkers safe from attacks.
Once you combine with the proliferate, then you have a certain inevitability of getting them to their ultimate's. Yawgmoth really is a double-edged sword when it comes to this game plan of using planeswalkers.

Nest of Scarabs will equate to essentially killing off all your opponents creatures and drawing as many cards as there is toughness of creatures on the board if you wanted.

Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos make sure that you can keep opponents creatures to a minimum.

The only other cards for mass creature removal are Toxic Deluge and Decree of Pain.
I've chosen these for the ability to potentially control what you remove, with the hope of keeping some of your creatures on-board. Given that you get to put -1/-1 counters on creatures already, you can even setup Decree of Pain for the cycle ability for -2/-2 to just remove mostly opponents creatures.

Feed me souls!! Token generators or graveyard recursion

Yawgmoth does need creatures to sacrifice for the draw and -1/-1 counters, so we do have some ways of producing multiple creature tokens with, Bitterblossom, Dreadhorde Invasion, Ophiomancer, Josu Vess, Lich Knight, Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder, From Under the Floorboards, Army of the Damned.

Pawn of Ulamog and Sifter of Skulls also create further tokens from your non-token creatures dying, meaning you get to double up on potential -1/-1 and draw down the line.

There is also Gravecrawler, Tenacious Dead, Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodsoaked Champion, that can be recurred from your graveyard for value.


Gravecrawler requires a Zombie and we have exactly four creature with that type?
But actually there is a ton of Zombie token generators in the deck, so you are never far away from a Zombie in play.
Note that Entomb in the deck can get any of these graveyard value creatures, and they are just simply amazing in this deck for getting the Yawgmoth engine going with killing creatures and drawing cards.

Bitterblossom and Dreadhorde Invasion in theory should be a cheaper Phyrexian Arena but with the additional upgrade of creating a creature for blocking or pressuring opposing planeswalkers.

From Under the Floorboards with the ability to use the madness cost means that you can use an x spell early to late game to scale up, and the gain life is relevant.

Army of the Damned is a nice big payoff card when you get tons of mana. You can discard it during the early stages with Yawgmoth ability, and then later on in the game use the flashback. It's good to have a backup plan like this when you are really wanting to top deck a card that can really put you back into a game if you've been out grinded.

The infinite beyond. Combos

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed ability to give your creatures Undying, means that with two non-human creatures you can keep sacrificing to draw to give another creature of yours a -1/-1 to offset the +1/+1 counter that it would have gotten.
It means that you can draw a card for a loss of life, indefinitely. This does indeed seem to be the clause of Yawgmoth's Bargain.

We have some other Undying creatures in Butcher Ghoul, Geralf's Messenger.
You can just get value from them as well if you sacrifice a creature (non-Undying) to give the Undying creature the -1/-1 counter to nullify the +1/+1 counter. In this respect you can just look to get more card draw value in the long term out of these creatures.
With Pawn of Ulamog or Sifter of Skulls you can just keep sacrificing the newly generated token off the undying creature to keep this up as many times as you want.

The "aristocrat" creatures in Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat allow you to win with infinite sacrifices with the above combinations.

Energy from Phyrexia. Mana generators

As I mentioned in the introduction, the deck does have a lot of focus on generating mana, as it can be essentially to not only functioning to cast out your spells in a timely manner, but to also use Yawgmoth proliferate ability as many times as you can in a short amount of turns.

There are exactly 5 mana doublers in the deck, Bubbling Muck, Crypt Ghast, Nirkana Revenant, Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun.

Because lands can really boost your ability to produce mana exponentially with Cabal Coffers, Cabal Stronghold, there are a few cards that let you ramp lands in mono-black with, Wayfarer's Bauble, Burnished Hart, Solemn Simulacrum, Myriad Landscape.

Cabal Coffers or Cabal Stronghold can be copied with Thespian's Stage, Vesuva, or even Mirage Mirror.

The fetch-lands are for giving the Bloodghast more value.


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Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - The Power to Proliferate

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If you've never seen Yawgmoth's Bargain, it might be because it's simply banned in commander. The reason? Just a little too good given the starting life total of 40. Sure there is Necropotence that does something similar, but it's not banned because the timing of waiting till end of turn really does make a difference when it comes to free flowing cards at the time that you might want it. Maybe it would be during your main phase, and this allows you to keep drawing cards like mana enablers, that allow you to keep casting more spells as you draw them. Or in response to a spell on the stack on opponents turns, allowing you to draw for particular cards to respond to it.
Necropotence distinctly forces you to wait a turn, and discard cards if you get too greedy.

At the heart of it the deck, it's really set up to behave like a Yawgmoth's Bargain, but the very relevant ability of also being a creature killing machine.
Yawgmoth really is a powerful engine and draw is one of the most sort after elements you can ask for in a commander.

Sure there is the planeswalker element I've included in the deck, but really these are just fun win conditions, and not really the main way you get ahead in games.

It's Yawgmoth distribution of -1/-1 counters with the draw, which eventually prove too much for opponents.

Flesh goes in one end, strength to conquer comes out the other. Setting up an engine

There are some cards that have an auto element of indefinite card draw like Nest of Scarabs or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, but on the whole you're looking to setting incremental value through the early and mid game.
These mainly come from graveyard recursion creatures with Bloodsoaked Champion, Gravecrawler, Tenacious Dead, Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, Nether Traitor.
In this respect the deck acts more like a Erebos, God of the Dead, where you are spending mana to draw cards. However you do get the extra bonus of distributing -1/-1 counters.
The more mana you have, the more times you get to use some of these recursion creatures.
Even if you have spells in hand, spending mana on Bloodsoaked Champion, Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, Nether Traitor to get them into play for more sacrifices is often better than committing resources from your hand, unless they can further your mana the way you want, or disrupt opponents in a meaningful way.
Patience can be the name of the game.

Butcher Ghoul and Geralf's Messenger are excellent value engines with their undying, as you can put a -1/-1 counter on them to negate the +1/+1 counter, meaning you can get indefinite uses out of them, given other creatures you have to sacrifice. Definitely look to use them in this way.

Some of the token generators, Bitterblossom, Dreadhorde Invasion, Ophiomancer are designed to give you incremental value as well without needing to invest more mana.
Ophiomancer really being the best as you can get a draw for each players turn.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder can provide multiple creatures each turn.

There are the bigger token generators in Josu Vess, Lich Knight, From Under the Floorboards, Army of the Damned, and you obviously need a lot of mana to cast them, so these are more like your end game setup, when you've managed to hold down your opponents for a good portion of the game.
These are excellent at giving you one card punches that allow to you to draw tons of cards and potentially control a bigger board with more -1/-1 counters you can distribute.

Use the spark at my bidding. How to play your planeswalkers?

It's not really a deck where you are looking to get out planeswalkers early and protect them. The secret to this deck is that they really are in there for some big setup turn where you have massive amounts of mana off your mana doublers and/or Cabal Coffers package, and simply ultimate a bunch at once.
Now don't get me wrong, if the opportunity presents itself, then you can play out a planeswalker or two you might have, given your ability to kill the board of opponents creatures, but this is quite hard to do.
I have cast out Liliana, the Last Hope on Turn 3 and then proceeded to protect her until I was able to get the emblem on Turn 6, using a single proliferate.
I will use some in a pinch, like the removal you can get from Karn Liberated, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Ugin, the Ineffable. Because it's a mono-black deck, often I'll need to cast one out to remove some sort of problematic card at the time, even if I don't think my planeswalker will stick around for long.
Liliana Vess can be used as a five mana tutor, when you really have a card you want.
But don't just cast them out because you can, be patient and wait till you have enough mana to cast them out and proliferate them to the desired loyalty you want.
Now the other thing is that you need a lot of cards in hand at the time you want to use the proliferate ability as you have to discard cards. So you've needed to setup a draw engine as well.
It's going to depend on the planeswalker(s) you have when you go for a big turn as well. Doing the math is important to see how many planeswalkers you can cast to get the benefits of the proliferation's. This does make it hard because obviously you want as many planeswalkers in play as you can, but because you have to keep spending bb on the proliferate, you're not always going to be able to do everything you want.

Advantages of planeswalkers against certain matchups
Sure you can build the deck to win by some infinite combos, but having a suite of planeswalkers does give you advantages against certain decks.
You might come up against an opposing planeswalker deck that has a lot of mass creature removal. Putting your own walkers into play does mean that you can also get bonuses of a clear board, while their cards are less effective against you.

Any heavy mass creature removal decks will have the problem of dealing with your planeswalkers if you get them into play without opponents being able to remove them.

Combo decks that don't run many creatures, means that your own creature removal cards will be significantly worse, so having cards that can effect the game on a different axis can help with this.
Also stax/prison decks that prevent permanents from untapping, doesn't effect planeswalkers once they get into play, so you can cause these decks problems.

Often combo decks have cards that are only good when you have the specific other cards that create loops. With these planeswalkers they can straight up provide value as individual cards, so they are never a "dead draw" like other win conditions can be.

Also planeswalkers are harder to interact with at instant speed than any other permanent types like creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and even lands. This means that once they hit the board and you're looking to proliferate them to an ultimate, it's hard for your opponents to stop you. Sure they can target Yawgmoth (as a creature), but because his abilities are at instant speed as well, you can normally just keep responding to anything on the stack to get your planeswalker to the desired loyalty given enough mana and cards in hand.

The ultimate turn
As I've mentioned, often you're looking to setup one or two big turns where you get to play out your planeswalkers and look to ultimate them.
In order to do this you require a reasonable mana setup. This normally comes off a good land base first. This is because the mana doublers in Bubbling Muck, Crypt Ghast, Nirkana Revenant, Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun, are better with more swamps in play.
There are some land ramp cards in Myriad Landscape, Wayfarer's Bauble, Burnished Hart, Solemn Simulacrum, but on the whole you're playing out a land drop per turn waiting to get enough mana to play out multiple cards.
Therefore you are looking to make the game longer, and Yawgmoth is great for doing this with his own creature removal, also combined with cards that synergies to kill opponents creatures more easily.

Cabal Coffers realistically combined with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is an easy way to get tons of mana, and the deck is really setup to not only get this combo, but to abuse it as well.
There are numerous tutors that can get both of them in, Expedition Map, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Beseech the Queen.
There is also ways to get further uses out of Cabal Coffers with Thespian's Stage, Vesuva, Deserted Temple. As an insurance policy against land removal, Petrified Field can get an important land back from your graveyard.
Cabal Stronghold is not nearly as good as Coffers, but you can still get additional mana out of it once you have 5 or more basic swamps in play.

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With something like 8 swamps in play and Cabal Coffers you can tap your lands for 14 mana. But often I'll get a mana doubler into play before or during that turn.
*For example let's say you cast Crypt Ghast during that same turn. Cabal Coffers taps for 8 mana, tapping it and two swamps. You cast Crypt Ghast allowing you to tap your 6 untapped swamps for 12 mana, leaving 16 mana all up. So now you do the math on what you can achieve?
If you were to cast out two planeswalkers for example then you probably won't have enough left to do too many proliferates.
This is where maybe a single walker to ultimate might suffice.
In the introduction section I showed the number of times to proliferate for each walker to get the loyalty to the ultimate's, but often I want to keep them in play even after an ult just to make sure I can get more value potentially.
So let's look at each one and how much mana you need to cast it AND ultimate AND remain in play on 1 loyalty.
Liliana, Defiant Necromancer needs 14 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Liliana, the Last Hope needs 13 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Liliana of the Dark Realms needs 12 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Liliana Vess needs 13 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Liliana, Death's Majesty needs 11 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Liliana, Dreadhorde General needs 14 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Sorin Markov needs 14 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Karn Liberated needs 25 mana to ultimate and remain in play.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon needs 16 mana to ultimate and remain in play.

Sometimes I will make the call to spread out the game win over a number of turns, so I might play out a number of planeswalkers and pass the turn, ready to try and ultimate them the following turn. I'll make this call if I feel like I can control the board with my setups already.
This way I can make sure that creature attacks won't threaten to kill my planeswalkers.

Realistically you also need a good amount of draw to fuel the discard and proliferate. Discarding like 4 to 6 cards (or more) to get them to the ultimate's. So you have already probably had a Yawgmoth draw engine going.

Liliana of the Dark Realms is a nice one to ultimate during a big turn, as it then allows you to work on smaller margins of untapped swamps during this process. She cost 2bb to get into play, but only needs an additional bbbbbb to proliferate and ultimate.
So let's take our example 16 mana turn*. If you cast Liliana of the Dark Realms then you'll have 12 mana left over. If you wanted to ultimate sinking 6 more mana. In this instance you could cast another cheap walker like Liliana, the Last Hope, leaving 9 mana. Now you can spend 6 mana to get the loyalty of Liliana of the Dark Realms to 6, and Liliana, the Last Hope to 6. Ultimate Liliana of the Dark Realms (killing her unfortunately), but now you can tap your swamps for bbbb. This means that you now have 12 mana (3 swamps), so can easily ultimate Liliana, the Last Hope and have her remain in play if you want, while even casting more cards.

With Ugin, the Spirit Dragon I'll often make the call to ultimate him alone, with the intention of getting more planeswalkers into play and even lands if a mana doubler(s) presents themselves.
As I pointed out to do everything in one turn would require 16 mana with Ugin.
But let's say you already have a mana doubler in play and then you draw 7 cards, you could then put 2 additional planeswalkers into play and 5 lands. Now you have 10 mana and can easily proliferate two other planeswalkers to ultimate's.

I've spent a lot of time giving you hypothetical examples, but honestly you don't have to worry about it too much, as I've pointed out it's the rest of the game that is really the bulk of what's going on, a finishing turn will come eventually if you play your cards right..ba-dum-tss.

They will come to us, and we will be ready. Patience and not over extending yourself

Because you can generate a lot of mana eventually and you can draw lots of cards, sometimes it's tempting to just show your full might by playing out as many cards as possible. However it's better to ask the question, "what happens if the board is wiped of non-land permanents". Would you have the ability to bounce back?
I'll often test the waters first, by playing out a reasonable board, but hold back on some bigger spells just in case. Spells which would allow me to have a dominate position again in the face of some big removal.

Another wise plan is to not play out big token generators unless you have Yawgmoth in play. If he has been removed several times, then sometimes you'll have to make a decision to either play out him OR a big token generator, but not both. It's tempting to play out the big token generator, as it gives you defense and offence, but the problem comes when they are removed before you get to untap, and you get no value out of them. So unless you are specifically under a lot of pressure on your life total, try and hold out and get out Yawgmoth first, so that in the face of removal you can sacrifice the tokens to get the draw and -1/-1 distributions.


Cards that have been tested but ended up average

I've played a lot of games with Yawgmoth now, so I'm on the other side of what worked and what didn't.
When I first put the list together I had a focus on mana generating cards that would make use of the proliferate ability.
However the thing is that in this deck, you're only using this ability in a big setup turn to ultimate a number of planeswalkers. This means that any other cards you might been hoping to use with the proliferate come at a time when your doing a game winning move anyway.
So the cards that I used to run, look like signature cards, but actually ended up being pretty average;
Black Market, Coalition Relic, Astral Cornucopia.

Crumbling Ashes, Necroskitter and Archfiend of Ifnir ended up being either too slow or too many hoops to jump through to make good.

Further brainstorming

There is also Ghoulcaller Gisa, Ogre Slumlord as potential token generators. I'm worried they might be just a bit slow, even if they have a bigger upside long term.

Animation Module looks like it could be used if you had some ways of getting +1/+1 counters in the first place. But spending a mana to get a servo for Yawgmoth fuel, could be used as half an activation for the proliferate instead. So it comes down to whether you have enough cards in hand in the first place, and this could certainly help with that.

I want to try out Bolas's Citadel for a mono-black deck, but then I'd feel compelled to play with Sensei's Divining Top and Aetherflux Reservoir at the very least, which if I'm being honest isn't really this decks forte with it's current configuration.
I'd realistically need to look for more life gain, but this isn't too off theme given Yawgmoth life loss.
The bottleneck for Bolas's Citadel is mainly lands on top, but with Yawgmoth draw ability, which require no mana is perfect for getting lands off the top. If it's creatures on top, then this will mean you'll have the fuel to draw and clear a land. At this stage it's more like the life-loss which is going to stop you.
Necropotence is in the deck and you can use this to clear cards off the top as well.

I'm a little unsure whether The Chain Veil adds significant advantages over Yawgmoth proliferate ability. If you spend bbbb you get to add two loyalty counters to your planesalkers, but of course you also get to potentially kill off your opponents creatures with the -1/-1 counters.
If you were to spend that same mana on the The Chain Veil then of course you get to actually use the planeswalker abilities, and some provide more than two loyalty, but on the flip-side some would only get a single additional loyalty. So I probably should test it at some stage, but I'm reluctant to give it a slot as it's more redundancy, plus you do need to cast it tying up another precious 4 that you could have used on the proliferate in the first place.

Although there is a lot of draw in the deck simply off Yawgmoth ability to sacrifice creatures, there is also a need to discard for the proliferate. So I'm not sure how well some of the mana accelerates like Mox Diamond or Chrome Mox would actually be given that they have card disadvantage.
Last edited by darrenhabib 3 years ago, edited 15 times in total.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

The most exciting addition from Commander 2019 for this particular version of Yawgmoth is the Bone Miser.

The ability to setup very quick ultimate by discarding land cards to Yawgmoth to get bb off the Bone Miser means that you can just keep doing it for as many land cards you have in hand and setting up loyalty counters or -1/-1 counters as need be.
The other thing is that you can discard non-creature, nonland cards and keep drawing, meaning that you are far more likely to have cards to discard for the proliferate ability. You can literally get emblems with Yawgmoth and Bone Miser with very little setup.



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benjameenbear
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Post by benjameenbear » 4 years ago

All praise Yawgmoth and The Grand Evolution!

Good to see your list here, darrenhabib. I agree that Bone Miser is exceptionally well-suited for your list. Do you think Thieving Amalgam makes the cut? It's basically a more expensive Ophiomancer but cheaper $$-wise.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

benjameenbear wrote:
4 years ago
All praise Yawgmoth and The Grand Evolution!

Good to see your list here, darrenhabib. I agree that Bone Miser is exceptionally well-suited for your list. Do you think Thieving Amalgam makes the cut? It's basically a more expensive Ophiomancer but cheaper $$-wise.
Hail the Dark Lord.

Thieving Amalgam is a surprisingly powerful creature, but competes with a lot of higher costing creatures you could slot in like K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, Abhorrent Overlord, Vilis, Broker of Blood, Razaketh, the Foulblooded.
I'm not playing reanimation so it's hard to get these creatures into play consistently.

I think with a reanimation version you'd easily be happy to play any of the above creatures, including Thieving Amalgam. There are a lot of ways to play Yawgmoth, but you could use the discard ability in conjunction with some usual suspects like Animate Dead, Reanimate, Victimize, etc.

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Post by Jackpuddy » 4 years ago

All Hail Yawgmoth!

Great deck! It's crazy that so many people presented him as underwhelming yet he seems like such a powerful and persistent commander (no pun intended).

One card that I don't think you've talked about is Liliana of the Veil. All 3 modes of that card seem relevant with the ultimate being backbreaking, and the +1 doing double duty if you're running Bone Miser and/or Archfiend of Ifnir .

I also noticed that your decklist looks a little too focused on it's own gameplan, and doesn't appear to have a lot of instant interaction. I know Yawgmoth himself can keep creatures in check as long as he's in play and as long as you have the resources, but how often does it come up where Yawgmoth isn't in play and the need to interact occurs? If this is ever an issue, may I suggest Faerie Macabre, Force of Despair, or Snuff Out? In any deck I can afford to play these in, I've never not used them for all their worth.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Jackpuddy wrote:
4 years ago
All Hail Yawgmoth!

Great deck! It's crazy that so many people presented him as underwhelming yet he seems like such a powerful and persistent commander (no pun intended).

One card that I don't think you've talked about is Liliana of the Veil. All 3 modes of that card seem relevant with the ultimate being backbreaking, and the +1 doing double duty if you're running Bone Miser and/or Archfiend of Ifnir .

I also noticed that your decklist looks a little too focused on it's own gameplan, and doesn't appear to have a lot of instant interaction. I know Yawgmoth himself can keep creatures in check as long as he's in play and as long as you have the resources, but how often does it come up where Yawgmoth isn't in play and the need to interact occurs? If this is ever an issue, may I suggest Faerie Macabre, Force of Despair, or Snuff Out? In any deck I can afford to play these in, I've never not used them for all their worth.
Hey. I'll admit that almost all my decks are based around interactions around the commander, and that I don't really make them to be "robust in all situations and games". The reason is that I just play so many games and different decks, that I'm not that interested in winning under commander shutouts.
The fewer decks people have, there is more of a tendency to make them more robust. Usually meaning cards that are effective on their own and especially without their commander in play.
So you are right, I could probably add more catch all cards for any given situation, but I tend go all-in on commander abilities. Plus I like to demonstrate card synergies and interactions within my threads, so that people can get the spectrum of ideas. If that makes sense it's about showing people certain cards rather than always building the most competitive.

Liliana of the Veil is a card that pops up on my radar for inclusion in decks every so often. Usually the tipping point for me is if I have a discard theme to support her. Most likely reanimation of dredge. But the ultimate can't be overlooked, it certainly can put the pinch on a single opponent.
So if I had a reanimation sub-theme I would include her for sure. Things like Reanimate, Victimize, etc.
But I'm probably underestimating her discard ability as a way to get a 3 for 1 in resources each turn (4 player). Like it doesn't seem like much the first time you use her, but the second time it might really pinch on the others players actual playable cards.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

I've never been one to shy away from additional draw and Erebos, Bleak-Hearted gives you that ability at the cost of life. Paying life does add up considering that Yawgmoth also loses life on his ability, but there are some Aristocrats that help with this in Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat.
The important thing is that you can get the draw for token creatures as well, which a lot of cards specifically don't allow you to do for obvious reasons of being overpowered.


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Post by Kelzam » 3 years ago

Kaldheim has some serious power for Black decks that make people sacrifice things a lot. I've been running Snow-Covered Swamps in my building and may try to run Draugr Necromancer and Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern in my build.
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Kelzam wrote:
3 years ago
Kaldheim has some serious power for Black decks that make people sacrifice things a lot. I've been running Snow-Covered Swamps in my building and may try to run Draugr Necromancer and Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern in my build.
Wow it has been a minute since I played good old Yawgy. I haven't updated the deck in ages. I just checked out bens Yawgmoth primer to see if there are any tech cards over the last year and I had a look at edhrec.

As far as planeswalkers I decided on Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools who is perfect for producing fodder and more draw. The ultimate is not game ending by any means but could prove annoying.

I want to try Command the Dreadhorde as a big play by discarding a bunch if drawn with Yawgmoth ability or discarding at end of turn due to hand size and then bring maybe like 3 into play at once. A big life hit but I feel like a setup play like that is probably going to make you favorite by a wide margin.

I've taken out all the high costing token generators as I found them a bit overkill. They were fun however when you pulled them off.

Kaldheim got some fun stuff.
Replicating Ring could actually be really good with proliferate. Imagine having it say on 4 counters and just before your turn you spend 6 mana and discard 3 cards to get the 8 Replicated Rings. In my deck that is setting up for a big planeswalker turn. I want to try it.

Draugr Necromancer still requires casting (their creatures) to get the benefits so is pretty mana intensive. I'm trying it out in my Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff snow deck.

Tergrid with Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos would probably do stupid things, but I can't help but feel it would be overkill in already winning positions once sacrifice enchantments hit the table.


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Post by Poecifer » 2 years ago

This list admittedly confuses me because you've got all the money in here to make it a super-strong list but it seems to be trying to do too many things at once. You have most of my build in here and yet I don't see this game being a strong finish exactly. I playtested your version a few times to try to understand it in Cockatrice but I'm honestly having some trouble on that front. The walkers seem entirely unnecessary and more gimmicky than practical and a lot of the creature choices are interesting to say the least.

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