Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - Power Through Blood and Suffering
—Stronghold architect, journal - here
Introduction
I'll be the first to admit, I am not traditionally familiar with mono black control. I've had a Chainer reanimator list in the past which didn't quite gel, but like many of us sadistic fiends, upon the release of Modern Horizons I knew I had to do something with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. The flavour is too good - he looks like an angel of death and a genius of disease, and his abilities are not only strong, but fit his pre-god lore remarkably well.
To be fair, I am fairly new to this deck. I've taken some inspiration from benjameenbear's primer and darrenhabib's Superfriends walker-focussed list, and hopefully walk a line somewhere between the two. I am, as a deck builder, very much not the sort of person who puts all of my eggs in one basket. So in that respect, I've tried to lean into some big mana, some bleeder/lifegain, and include some of the stronger walkers as utility and/or finishers, and included some options for control and removal.
I've not leaned too far into phyrexian flavour - it's totally doable, but flavourfully I see this iteration of Yawgmoth as somewhere between a sadistic butcher surgeon and a traditional vampire. He doesn't care who dies or who he kills, every drop of blood is succour to him and feeds his power. The attrition in the deck lends to this, and there's a heavy reliance on life as a resource to be harvested and used for success in the deck naturally, which is why my imagination goes there instead.
The Decklist
Strategy
I'm going to preface this by saying that at present the deck is pretty new and I've not had the opportunity to do a ton of testing.
That being said, holy Phyrexia, Yawgmoth is nuts. His second ability being a way to keep card advantage going while removing creatures from the battlefield is crazy, and honestly, things can move pretty damn quick with Yawgmoth in play. In general, the long term goal is to use his second ability and as many tokens or dross creatures as possible to dig deep for a way to win the game, whether that be via a big mana X-spell, massive life haemorrhages, beating face, alternate win conditions, or just pure resilience in the face of opposition.
At the start of the game, we're looking to hit the straps early and land Yawgmoth with some sacrifice fodder as soon as possible. We want a hand with some token generators or reusable creatures, some lands and either burst mana or rocks to get our commander out as soon as we can. Once we have some fodder and Yawgmoth, we want to start churning out some advantage. Sacrifice creatures as needed to keep your hand full and dig for key pieces. Early in the game, the more we can swarm the better. If we can set ourselves up with optimal draw options, great. If we can start filling our graveyard with bodies that's fine too.
This is the point at which ideally we want to have established some board presence and a grip full of options, be they walkers, mana doublers, removal or end game spells. At this point, you are going to be a target - while we don't have the option of protecting our things with counter magic or a great deal of protection, we do have plenty of ways to keep the board clean. So if your creatures start to get removed, make sure you use Yawgmoth's ability to sacrifice in response for further advantage and removal of presence. Use some of the reanimation here in Cavalier of Night, Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Dawn of the Dead, Living Death to keep your momentum.
Here's the point where we close the game out. What this looks like will depend on a lot of variables obviously, but there's plenty we can do to make this happen:
- Life loss triggers with Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Crypt Ghast and Kokusho, the Evening Star
- Beating face with Ormendahl, Profane Prince, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Nirkana Revenant, and the like
- Alternate win condition with Revel in Riches and your choice of creature killers - Force of Despair, Living Death, Black Sun's Zenith, Vona's Hunger et al.
- Locking the table into an unwinnable position with control pieces like Dictate of Erebos, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Smokestack, Liliana, Dreadhorde General's ultimate ability.
- Combo - ordinarily I don't, and I probably won't moving forward, but there is at least one flexible combo piece that I'm aware of, which is Liliana, Defiant Necromancer's emblem along with death triggers, life loss triggers, and a sac outlet (altars or Yawgmoth would be fine)
- X-spells - we run a pretty good number of mana doublers here, so getting the resources together for a game ending Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire shouldn't be hard. We also have the swarm required to feed creatures to our Altars for an enormous amount of mana to fuel this plan, too - we can always save some resource for Thrilling Encore if needed.
Control Elements
This sort of covers most of what we can use to stop derailment, or to inflict it upon the board. Ideally, because this deck moves at a pretty rapid rate of knots, we want to make be proactive, seek the victory, and break down the board if and when we can at the earliest opportunity.
This should be relatively easy enough - Yawgmoth can wreck creatures easy enough, and we have plenty of removal in our instants, sorceries, and even to some degree our walkers. Traditionally the things that black has struggled with are artifacts and enchantments, and that's still the case to some degree, but we do have some options. Karn, the Great Creator can make artifacts into creatures, which we can then target. Ugin, the Ineffable can exile anything that has a color, which covers enchantments nicely (excepting Eldrazi Conscription). Smokestack covers both of these, and with enough in hand we can ramp up the counters on this to force a pinch - we have mana doublers to make sure our resources survive, plenty of token makers, and some reanimation to make sure we survive this global effect relatively unscathed.
If you're struggling with removal for hexproof, shroud or indestructible pieces, Dictate of Erebos can help for creatures. It's non optional and doesn't target, and if we need to bring it in as a surprise, we can do so. Karn, the Great Creator can turn off most relevant artifacts in that respect although we don't have a lot of options aside from Smokestack if we have protected enchantments to deal with. It's a consideration to run Mire in Misery, but there's far too much room for opponents to be lenient on themselves with this for me to be excited about it.
We've got at least a small degree of reanimation in the deck - most of it is auto-reanimation with pieces like Nether Traitor, Gravecrawler, Reassembling Skeleton and Bloodsoaked Champion, but we also have option reanimation in Cavalier of Night, Dawn of the Dead, Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, and Living Death. These are different tools and should be used selectively as the case fits, as they all have some degree of restriction; Cavalier of Night can only get weenies back, but it still makes sense to choose carefully. Don't choose something you can reanimate anyway, grab a Burnished Hart, Dross Harvester, Pawn of Ulamog or the like. Dawn of the Dead will exile anything you reanimate with it at end of turn, so play it when you can sacrifice the creature otherwise, and choose something you can benefit from dying - Solemn Simulacrum, Cavalier of Night, Kokusho, the Evening Star. Liliana, Defiant Necromancer should probably only be used in the case where you can't possibly hit Lili's ultimate. And Living Death should really be saved for a point at which you have ample enters the battlefield' or 'leaves the battlefield' triggers to abuse; Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Solemn Simulacrum, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Dross Harvester. It's also worth mentioning that it's a symmetrical effect, so there's every chance you could put someone into a good position with casting Living Death, so some grave hate with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet or Bojuka Bog could be advisable.
The planeswalkers present here are potentially game ending for the most part. That being said, most of them are to be used when you can make the biggest impact with them. The most recent walkers (that is, Karn, Lili the General, and Ugin) are a little different in that their static abilities contribute to our acceleration, or controlling the board in the case of Karn. In terms of using ultimates though, it's important to make sure that a)you can protect them, or b) you can ultimate them immediately. This is where Yawgmoth, Thran Physician's last ability comes in. Make sure you have a large grip, enough mana to use his ability to make the ability work, and cards you have no problem discarding (ideally these could be things we could reanimate later on, or just things we don't need at this point in the game). Ultimately, after resolving Liliana, Dreadhorde General's last ability, Liliana Vess' last ability or attaining Liliana, Defiant Necromancer's emblem, by rights you should win the game, either on the spot or shortly afterwards.
Further Developments
There are a few bits I could add or haven't added which I could:
- Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is a super strong add in particular. As far as it goes, I really just can't afford a copy at present. He'd be just sickeningly good here, though.
- Reanimate seems like it could lead to strong early wins I guess. It didn't seem crucial, so I haven't pursued it.
- Aetherflux Reservoir is an absolute beast. This deck sort of storms off in many cases, and the lifegain wouldn't be unwelcome, because life is fleeting and disappears quickly in this deck. I won't be adding it, purely because I just don't feel any degree of satisfaction from winning with it.
- Bolas's Citadel - it seems like suicide to add it, but I know precisely how strong it is. I'm not going to for now, but there's every chance it could be a beast here. I'm not looking to make the deck overly competitive, so I'm steering away from it for now. Maybe in the future, but I feel like hitting that 75-85% sweet spot I want I don't overly need it.
- Demonic Tutor et al - If I don't have the money for Mike, I sure don't have it for these. I have a couple of tutor options already in Diabolic Intent, Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Buried Alive and Entomb (which is hugely more than I usually would think of adding), so these would really just filter down the fun stuff into 'what do I directly need to win', and I don't enjoy that, so these won't be added.
- Rise of the Dark Realms - It's a cool reanimation spell that ends games. It's pretty expensive, but also I feel like it experiences diminishing returns when I also run Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to deny resources. You can't have it both ways.
This list is very much a work in progress - as mentioned, I am newly starting to play the deck, so a lot of this is learning curve stuff. If you as a reader have any suggestions to contribute, comments to make or criticisms, feel free to share.
Enjoy!
Toc