Anybody got any ideas as to how to make Yidaro work in EDH?

[Dunadain]

So my internet persona is literally the "I like turtles" meme. I don't even remember why, at this point, but I remember coming up with the abbreviation trtl when playing super smash bros melee as a kid with friends because SSBM only gave you 4 characters for some reason, and that's been my go-to username ever since (I made my username Dunadain here because I had just finished rereading all the LOTR books when I made this account, I'd honestly change it if I could, but it doesn't really matter).

Therefore, the fact that I don't have any turtle themed deck is a travesty. Unfortunately, all the options I can come up with for turtle-themed deck aren't actually that interesting to me.

I have arbitrarily decided that playing a pillow fort deck and "turtling up" doesn't count.

I don't find brewing tribal decks terribly interesting, especially under-supported tribes where you are basically forced to play every creature of the type ever printed just to hit a critical mass, and all your lords are just generic lords that work for every tribe.

There are 4 commanders that are also turtles, but none of them make interesting commanders in my eyes:

1. Kogla and Yidaro: First of all, you can barely see the turtle in the art, which is bad enough, but also, wtf am I supposed to do with this? It has haste and 7 power, so it's a functional voltron commander, but it's just that, functional. Doesn't exactly get my creative juices flowing, especially when I already have a really cool voltron deck in Ebondeath, Dracolich. The other option is to build around the second option, the fight effect. but in gruul we don't have access to much in the way of flicker or bounce. Finally the discard ability is awfully tricky to make work when he starts in the CZ, we could make a deck with him as a "secret commander" in the 99, but the pay off is a cantriping removal spell.
2. Archelos, Lagoon Mystic: This is probably the "best" option, just make it the EDH version of prime time (a modern deck that uses Amulet of Vigor + the Karoo lands to ramp out Primeval Titan). But it doesn't really map out well in EDH. You're much better off just ramping like a normal deck.
3. Gorex, the Tombshell: I actually really like the design of this card, but I'm at a loss as to how to build him, do you discard creatures as fast as possible to get him out, so that you can... *checks notes* get back the cards you discarded? I suppose he'd be fine at the helm of a mono-black suicide list, where you just used him as a way to refuel if/when you run out of gas. If he had better stats you could probably go the voltron route and use the cost reduction to never pay more than for your commander, but at a 4/4 that's not worth it.
4. Yidaro, Wandering Monster: I LOVE the design on this card, but using the cycling ability is just as clunky as using the discard effect of Kogla and Yidaro

So I've been stewing on a deck with Yidaro, Wandering Monster as a "secret commander" Basically, you play some sort of control deck with instant speed graveyard recursion. everytime you cycle Yidaro, Wandering Monster, you respond to the "shuffle into library trigger" by returning him to your hand, it's a clunky, but hopefully functional card advantage engine. Then, once you've done this 4 times, you also get a 8/8 trampler which can be your wincon + a blocker at instant speed. If you ever want more cards, or if Yidaro, Wandering Monster is about to be removed, just sacrifice him, return him to your hand with those same graveyard recursion effects, then cycle him again. Seeing War of the Last Alliance show up in the random card of the day discussion prompted me to finally make a post about it.

To be clear, I fully understand that this is going to be B-A-D, the deck will need to run a critical mass of tutors for Yidaro, Wandering Monster, ways to recur him, and sacrifice outlets, on top of just having enough removal spells to still function as a control deck, and an 8/8 with trample and haste isn't even that good of a wincon, he's not actually our commander so we have to actually get all of our opponents to 0, we can't rely on commander damage.

However, unlike all of the other turtle-themed deck ideas I've come up with, this one DOES at least sound interesting.

So, I went on a pretty extensive search for commander options (I literally looks through all 694 commanders with red and black in their color identity) and here are the options as I see them:

1. Valki, God of Lies // Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor/Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen: No real synergy with Yidaro, Wandering Monster, but they are relevant colors while dodging board wipes.
2. Adun Oakenshield: probably the simplest option: : draw a card. Having acess to green cards also makes tutoring up Yidaro, Wandering Monster pretty trivial.
3. Extus, Oriq Overlord // Awaken the Blood Avatar: You can cycle Yidaro, Wandering Monster whenever you are about to cast a spell in order to draw a card. Adds a lot of awkwardness in timing, but is much more mana efficient than Adun Oakenshield, while also giving us access to white, the best control color out there, plus the color of Astral Slide + Astral Drift.
4. Gavi, Nest Warden: I don't think it's a good option but thought I'd bring it up. No black means that any recursion engines are going to be pretty bad. but we get to cycle Yidaro, Wandering Monster for free once per turn, and we get a couple tokens as well.
5. Syrix, Carrier of the Flame: gives us a Lightning Bolt everytime we recur Yidaro, Wandering Monster, which isn't very good, but also isn't literally nothing.
6. Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge: This would be a bit different than the other decks, the idea is that you would cast The Prismatic Bridge it would always grab Yidaro, Wandering Monster since that is the only creature in your deck, then once per turn you can bounce + cycle Yidaro, Wandering Monster and get it back again with Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge. I feel like Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge is (rightfully) hated, and your commander becomes useless after you've cycled Yidaro, Wandering Monster 4 times, but repeatable bounce engines are a fair bit cheaper than repeatable recursion engines, so you've got some things working in your favor.

As I said, all of these look pretty bad, but maybe I'll manage to pull off a win or two with one of these ideas (or of course, I could just shelve this whole thing until wizards prints a turtle that does pique my interest). I'm also still willing too look into a Gorex, the Tombshell deck, or if anybody has a different take on Archelos, Lagoon Mystic, I'd be listening.

What do y'all think? What's the least bad option of the options I've presented to you today?

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I say go with Extus and play a %$#% ton of cycling creatures into some massive living deaths. Mardu gives you Yidaro, Gorex, and everything else your heart could desire except blue cards. Getting the balance of spells to creatures might be kinda tricky though.

[PrimevalCommander]

Extus returns non-legendary creatures, so you can't nab Yadaro from the GY in response to shuffle trigger
Esika looks like the most consistent way of getting Yadora in play if you don't insist on jumping through the cycling hoop.
Adun Oakenshield is just a cool dude and has green for creature tutors, but is probably the slowest engine. Easier to just cheat it into play with Tooth and Nail at that point.
If I had to have a turtle deck I would probably bite the bullet and start brewing the Tap/Untap turtle looking for something interesting to do with it. It is low mana cost and in the command zone. Or just play Yadora in the command zone, ignore the cycling ability and play damage-based wipes that Yadora will survive and play off his large P/T.

Esika is probably what I would do. Players will learn not to hate if you tell them the sole purpose of Esika is to tutor turtles. You could play EVERY somewhat decent turtle creature instead of just one. Synergy would be weak, but flavor would be stronger than simply playing a single Turtle. Gatherer says there are 34 turtles and maybe 1/2 of those have enough power and toughness to not be useless in the deck.

[Dunadain]

Extus returns non-legendary creatures, so you can't nab Yadaro from the GY in response to shuffle trigger

I am the big dumb

Idk, might just have to sit tight until WOTC prints a turtle I like, or I find something cool to do with Archelos, Lagoon Mystic

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Ah, my bad. Play Adun then! Sure, it's more expensive, but you get two great turtles and Jund is a way better color combo than Mardu, not even close.

[Moxnix]

I kind of Like kogla and Yidaro simply because I liked plain kogla out of the command zone as control card that fights. I have no idea how to make the the cycle ability good tutoring a card just to cycle it 4 times to get an 8/8 just feels terrible. The best option is probably the bug commander there are lots of legitimately good ways to make use of the ability in the landfall intruder alarm type strategies.

[darrenhabib]

Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer can setup engines for Yidaro, Wandering Monster.
Search for Fauna Shaman to get Squee, Goblin Nabob and Yidaro, Wandering Monster. Yidaro gets shuffle back in when cycled but you discard the Squee to search for Yidaro each time. Or instead of Fauna Shaman get Moon-Blessed Cleric for Survival of the Fittest.
The initial setup is to get Wirewood Symbiote first so that you can return Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer at any time to recast. You can use him to ramp for Dryad Arbor and that gives you a nice target to untap with Wirewood Symbiote.
Once you get to the stage that Yidaro goes onto the battlefield you'll want to make good use of that.
Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer can get Mirror Entity and make Yidaro an Elf to return to hand with Wirewood Symbiote.
You can also search for Terror of the Peaks or Flayer of the Hatebound as control cards.

[darrenhabib]

Also there is Astral Slide/Astral Drift to give you incentive to create an engine around Yidaro, Wandering Monster.
Moon-Blessed Cleric can be used to search one of these and if you have a cycler you can get another trigger from Moon-Blessed Cleric to get Survival of the Fittest.
Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer gives you a tool box of creatures you can ETB for Astral Slide. For example Dockside Extortionist, Wood Elves, Skyclave Apparition, Eternal Witness. Solitude, Endurance, Fury can be evoked to be used with Astral Slide/Astral Drift.

[onering]

Gorex is neat. Don't think of it as discarding cards just so you can get them back again, think of it as discarding cards for value and then having that also happen to accelerate out your commander that happens to then get your cards back. It's not super strong or anything, but it's a self discard deck that doesn't just immediately become yet another reanimator deck. You could build it as a grindy, low to the ground deck that runs a bunch of cheaper value creatures (so you can get extra value when you actually do cast them) and discard for value effects.