Durdling in EDH: A Deck Tech for Yukora, the Prisoner

Deck Tech #2: Yukora, the Prisoner

For today's deck tech, we're going to explore the options available to us from one of black's most underplayed, underrated, and overlooked commanders - a commander who creates a one-sided board wipe every single time he leaves the battlefield! I am, of course, speaking of the totally, insanely broken rare from Betrayers of Kamigawa, the almighty Yukora, the Prisoner!

What? You don't think he's insanely broken? I didn't say the one-sided board wipe was for your opponents! Being able to wipe your own board any time Yukora dies, is exiled, is returned to hand, or is returned to your library is, in fact, a very powerful ability under the right circumstances. While most may gloss over his massive amounts of unlocked potential, seeing him as a 5/5 vanilla creature with a huge downside who is, perhaps, "unplayable," here at Durdling in EDH we are going to try to exploit every aspect and implication of his "bad" ability. So, let's get started!

By far the most obvious way to make Yukora "better" would be to play an Ogre tribal deck, thus ignoring his ability and leaving you with a simple 5/5 vanilla commander. However, that's obviously not what we're going to be doing today. As far as exploiting his ability, there are, of course, many ways to make use of death triggers, as well as scary engines like Mikaeus, the Unhallowed plus Cauldron of Souls, essentially letting your team return to the battlefield twice per turn after being wiped (and more than that if you can untap the Cauldron). However, that is far too Spiky for my taste, so we'll be looking at some more obscure, more janky, but infinitely more fun combos today. (Although Cauldron of Souls is still included as a very solid card in its own right.)

There are plenty of black decks that look to return creatures from the graveyard, sacrifice them, rinse, repeat, etc. However, today we're going to explore another option--what if the creatures didn't actually go to the graveyard (well, actually, they will very briefly), but instead went somewhere else? No, not Planar Void! I'm talking about the incredibly janky enchantment, Mortuary!

With Mortuary out, any time Yukora leaves the battlefield, we essentially get to Footbottom Feast! (Or any of the other functionally equivalent versions of the card, that's just my favorite.) Okay, so it's actually only creatures that died to Yukora, not our entire graveyard, but still, pretty great. So what possibilities does this open us up to? Well, for starters, there's the wacky, non-competitive Little Eldrazi that Could, Deceiver of Forms! If we stack the top of our deck correctly, we can allow our team (once it's rebuilt) to be a copy of any chain of creatures during our subsequent turns, which can lead to some crazy shenanigans. Then there's Qarsi High Priest, who allows us to sacrifice creatures to bring our creatures back in the form of Manifested 2/2's, which we can later flip up, either by paying their mana cost or with other weird combos in the deck! There's also Treasure Keeper and Matter Reshaper, which can let us get our smaller utility creatures back for free.

Another route we certainly don't mind taking is stealing our opponent's creatures, then sacrificing them! There's no better black card for this than the recent Commander 2019 card, Thieving Amalgam! Not only does it give us creatures from our opponents' deck, it also lets us drain our opponents whenever one of their stolen creatures dies, even if we didn't get it from the Amalgam. This works with the few Control Magic-style effects available to us (these being Enslave, New Blood, Piper of the Swarm, and Ritual of the Machine). Techincally Captivating Vampire is available as well, but we won't be running enough Vampires to make him useful. There's also The Wretched, but it's kind of bad, even for us, as the opponent will almost always choose to take the 2 damage, and we aren't really running any forced blocking cards.

However, this also applies to cards we pilfer from our opponents' graveyard, such as with Puppeteer Clique, who also happens to have Persist, allowing him to stick around for another go after the first time he dies to Yukora's trigger. It even works on cards we steal from our opponents' hands, as is the case with the pretty much unique ability of Treacherous Urge. These "temporary" creatures can be kept permanently with the power of Conjurer's Closet, which also lets us clear our board at the end of each of our turns as long as Yukora is out. Voyager Staff works similarly, though sadly it's only a one-shot effect. Wait...what's that? There's a card that can tap to return Voyager Staff to the battlefield, and even untaps whenever one of our creatures die? Enter, Salvaging Station!

Since we're playing the Station, what other artifacts with CMC 1 or less, AKA Cogs, can we run? Wait, we need more? Isn't Voyager Staff enough on its own? Well, in case we get Station without the Staff, we will put in a few other options. Wayfarer's Bauble is an eternally solid choice, and we'll also grab the not-so-ubiquitously-played Despotic Scepter, which can kill any of our creatures at instant speed, including Yukora! Broken! Executioner's Capsule, Library of Leng (which allows us to stack our deck with discards as well!), and Myr Moonvessel round out the suite. Oh, wait, I almost forgot! There's also one of the all-stars of the deck, Pyxis of Pandemonium! This can send our board state from 0 to 60 immediately...and then right back to 0 again! And then..maybe back to 60? Ehh, whatever. It just creates some fun, explosive plays that seem well-suited to the deck. An obvious choice to the suite that I did not forget is Skullclamp - again, just a bit Spiky for my tastes. Card advantage is for the weak! I'm a durdle man for life!

That being said, we will still be running some cards that benefit us from our death triggers, although not as many as other decks likely would. To start, we probably want three of the same effect, because of how powerful it is, in Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, and Butcher of Malakir, which should wipe our opponents' boards whenever we wipe our own. We'll also throw in Black Market to make sure we always have enough mana. Ogre Slumlord also slots in quite nicely, making rats for Piper of the Swarm while also happening to be an Ogre, thus surviving all of our self-board wipes to make more rats! And Flesh Allergy is a fantastic spot removal spell that can sometimes end games by itself, capable of dealing upwards of 20 damage in many situations.

Not enough chaos for you? Don't worry! We're not done just yet! For my touch on a weird, chaos black deck, there's another key card in Endless Whispers. This does often provide our opponents with our creatures, but occasionally we will be able to break the symmetry. With Mortuary out, we can stack the death triggers so that the Mortuary trigger resolves before the Endless Whispers trigger, putting the creature safely on top of our library by the time we have to give up our creatures, while our opponents still have to give theirs up normally!

There are also a few cards in here to help fill our graveyard with reanimation targets--namely, Extractor Demon and the very underplayed Morality Shift, which, once our graveyard gets big enough so that we're not likely to deck ourselves, exchanges our graveyard with our library! Extractor Demon could also theoretically mill one of our opponents out if we get enough triggers.

Finally, there's just some good old-fashioned ways to recur and reanimate our creatures, from creatures that can bring themselves back (Bloodghast, Nether Traitor) to effects that do it for us (Balthor the Defiled, Dawn of the Dead). That gives us a decklist that looks a little something like this:


Commander

Yukora, the Prisoner

Creatures

Puppeteer Clique

Piper of the Swarm

Treasure Keeper

Matter Reshaper

Deceiver of Forms

Qarsi High Priest

Thieving Amalgam

Myr Moonvessel Butcher of Malakir

Ogre Slumlord

Balthor the Defiled

Bloodghast

Nether Traitor

Pawn of Ulamog

Sifter of Skulls

Demon of Dark Schemes

Clone Shell

Sultai Emissary

Extractor Demon

Corpse Augur

Solemn Simulacrum

Graveshifter

Coffin Queen

Demonlord of Ashmouth

Golgari Thug

Warteye Witch

Burnished Hart

Skull Collector

Enchantments

Endless Whispers

Mortuary

Enslave

Black Market

Dictate of Erebos

Grave Pact

Dawn of the Dead

Open the Graves

Dark Prophecy

No Rest for the Wicked

Shadows of the Past

Infernal Genesis

Artifacts

Salvaging Station

Conjurer’s Closet

Voyager’s Staff

Wayfarer’s Bauble

Library of Leng

Executioner’s Capsule

Pyxis of Pandemonium

Despotic Scepter

Cauldron of Souls

Sorceries

New Blood

Ritual of the Machine

Gruesome Encore

Flesh Allergy

Ghastly Conscription

Beacon of Unrest

Morality Shift

Instants

Treacherous Urge

Wake the Dead

Thrilling Encore

Lands

Myriad Landscape

Field of Ruin

Shizo, Death’s Storehouse

Witch’s Cottage

Mortuary Mire

Phyrexian Tower

Barren Moor

Crypt of Agadeem

Dakmor Salvage

Everglades

High Market

Mutavault

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Polluted Mire

Sanctum of Eternity

Spawning Pool

Temple of the False God

Westvale Abbey

Warped Landscape

Evolving Wilds

Terramorphic Expanse

Memorial to Folly

Desert of the Glorified

Ash Barrens

Swamp x16

So now that we have a decklist, let's break down the deck by strategy, highlighting which cards help us, primarily, with which of our different strategies in the deck (some may help more than one strategy).

Build-around cards (which create strategies):

Mortuary

Endless Whispers

Salvaging Station

Reset after a self-board wipe:

Ogre Slumlord (sort of)

Balthor the Defiled

No Rest for the Wicked

Cauldron of Souls

Pyxis of Pandemonium (sort of)

Ghastly Conscription

Wake the Dead

Thrilling Encore

Flicker or otherwise cause Yukora to leave the battlefield:

Demonlord of Ashmouth

Skull Collector

Conjurer's Closet

Voyager's Staff

Despotic Scepter

Flesh Allergy

Cards that accrue value from death triggers:

Treasure Keeper

Matter Reshaper

Thieving Amalgam

Myr Moonvessel

Butcher of Malakir

Ogre Slumlord

Pawn of Ulamog

Sifter of Skulls

Demon of Dark Schemes

Clone Shell

Sultai Emissary

Extractor Demon

Corpse Augur

Solemn Simulacrum

Golgari Thug

Warteye Witch

Black Market

Dictate of Erebos

Grave Pact

Open the Graves

Dark Prophecy

Shadows of the Past

Salvaging Station

Flesh Allergy

Cards that reanimate individual creatures (sometimes themselves):

Puppeteer Clique

Bloodghast

Nether Traitor

Demon of Dark Schemes

Coffin Queen

Dawn of the Dead

Beacon of Unrest

Treacherous Urge

Cards that steal opponents' stuff:

Thieving Amalgam

Piper of the Swarm

Endless Whispers (sometimes)

Enslave

New Blood

Ritual of the Machine

Cards that play with the top of your library:

Treasure Keeper

Matter Reshaper

Deceiver of Forms

Qarsi High Priest

Clone Shell

Sultai Emissary

Golgari Thug

Warteye Witch

Shadows of the Past

Infernal Genesis

Library of Leng

Pyxis of Pandemonium

Misc. Graveyard-related cards:

Extractor Demon

Graveshifter

Morality Shift

Ramp:

Wayfarer's Bauble

Burnished Hart

Solemn Simulacrum

Black Market

Misc. Value:

Executioner's Capsule

As far as lands are concerned, I'll explain a few of my more "specific to this deck" choices. Sanctum of Eternity is absolutely essential here, as it bounces Yukora to our hand if we have no other way to make him leave the battlefield, thus enabling our main strategy. Additionally, there are a lot of lands that tap for colorless to make sure we can cast Matter Reshaper and Deceiver of Forms when we need to. Other utility lands are looking to cycle themselves, ramp, sacrifice our creatures, and recur creatures. Shizo, Death's Storehouse lets us get our commander or our other legendary creature, Balthor the Defiled (yes, that's the only one in the 99, somehow) in for damage. Dakmor Salvage helps fill our graveyard, and Mutavault, notably, can become a Vampire for us to sacrifice to New Blood, since we actually only have four other vampires (including Graveshifter). Of course, as Mutavault is a tad expensive, on a budget you could easily cut both Mutavault and New Blood.

That's it for today's deck tech, please let me know what you think of it and what ideas you might have for a deck helmed by Yukora!

For my next deck tech, I'd like you to help me pick a "bad" commander to build around! In the comments, let me know which of the following Legendary Creatures you'd like me to choose for the next deck tech:

Daughter of Autumn

Taniwha

Shimatsu the Bloodcloaked

Rashida Scalebane

Rohgahh of Kher Keep

Thanks for reading! Can't wait to see you next time!

Durdling in EDH: A Deck Tech for Mishra, Artificer's Prodigy

DURDLING IN EDH: A SERIES DEVOTED TO WEIRD, COUNTERINTUITIVE, AND HIGHLY INEFFICIENT INTERACTIONS IN THE COMMANDER FORMAT


Deck Tech # 1: Mishra, Artificer's Prodigy

One of the hats I like to wear in my spare time is Magic: the Gathering player and deck builder, most commonly in the form of the EDH/Commander format. The format's slower, more casual nature (no, I do not play cEDH) opens it up to tons of wacky combos and strange interactions, especially with its inclusivity of nearly the entire Magic: the Gathering card pool. In fact, something I personally enjoy probably even more than playing is the deck building process itself! Sifting through thousands and thousands of cards to find the ones that fit the strange, narrow theme of a deck whose archetype doesn't really even exist elsewhere is a little bit like mining for gold, and with the specificity of search criteria available in WotC's official Gatherer database makes it a lot quicker and less frustrating. So, for my first strange, off-kilter deck idea, let's take a look at a commander with a very unusual set of abilities, especially in this particular format - Mishra, Artificer Prodigy. 

Taking a look at the card, it seems like its abilities are a total non-bo in a singleton card format. How can you fetch a card from your graveyard, hand, or library, when the only copy in your deck is currently on the stack? Welcome to the world of Johnny EDH deckbuilding!

The most (and only) famous combo with Mishra in Commander is to play Possibility Storm, allowing you to cast an artifact, replace the cast with the next artifact on top of your library, and subsequently search for the originally cast artifact after shuffling it in following the resolution of the first artifact to resolve (which is the second one cast). Already, my brain hurts! I love that feeling!

So how else can we exploit Mishra's ability to actually...you know...do things? Well, it turns out the options are pretty limited, but there are a few. The first is a set of cards that return spells on the stack to their owner's hand. Venser, Shaper Savant was the first card to do this, from the very odd Time Spiral block, and would eventually be joined by Unsubtantiate and Brutal Expulsion, as well as two cards that go a step further and actually move the spell directly to its owner's library, the Commit half of Commit // Memory and Aether Gust just recently in the Magic 2020 Core Set! The Failure half of Failure // Comply also has this effect, but since the Comply half is white, that unfortunately means that this will not be legal for our Mishra deck.

Whether the artifact spell we cast is put into our hand or our library, we can conveniently put it onto the battlefield once Mishra's triggered ability resolves. However, the question you're probably asking is: "Yes, this is technically a 'combo' that 'works,' but why waste a card to return a spell to our hand or library only to have the same effect we would have gotten if we had just cast it normally?" Well, you, my friend, obviously don't know me very well if you think things like 'card advantage' or 'mana efficiency' or 'not durdling for no good reason' are important in games of EDH!

All kidding aside, the one obvious effect durdling with Mishra's ability has is that it allows us to search, and subsequently shuffle, our library. Are there much, much easier ways to do this? Of course there are! Do we care? Nope! So what are some cards we can use that take advantage of us shuffling and/or searching our libraries?

Well, within our commander's colors, I only know of two cards that care directly about searching and shuffling our own libraries. The first is the EDH staple printed in Commander 2013, Widespread Panic! OK, so maybe it's not a staple, but it was printed specifically for Commander, so that has to be something, right? Widespread Panic allows us to put a card from our hand on top of our library whenever we shuffle our library. Is there a way we can use this as a benefit? Absolutely! In fact, there are quite a few ways, even within our already established artifact theme!

The first one is Bolas's Citadel. This will allow us to take an expensive card from our hand and, instead of paying for it with mana, pay for it with life! Cool, huh? Another is Druidic Satchel, which can let us gain life, make a blocker, or get an extra land onto the battlefield, depending on what we need for the situation. Then there's Etherium-Horn Sorcerer, whose Cascade ability lets us grab the best 5-CMC-or-less spell in our hand and get it for free when we play the Sorcerer! What other artifacts have synergy with this ability, exactly? Well, let's see. Gate to the Aether? Check! Omen Machine? Check! Oracle's Vault? Check!! These cards (although only once it has three counters, in the case of Oracle's Vault) allow us to take the most expensive card from our hand and play it for free! While the first two also apply to our opponents, we should be able to stack the top of our library consistently enough to get more value and break parity here.

So, besides Widespread Panic, the other card that cares if we shuffle our library also happens to be an artifact itself! How cool is that? So what is this awesome, awesome card? Why, Psychogenic Probe, of course!

What? You're not excited anymore? Hey, I never said it gave us something good when we shuffle our library, I just said it cared about it! I'm not a miracle worker here! Luckily, there's another weird, borderline-nonplayable artifact card that actually has a pretty cool interaction with the Probe! After we shock ourselves six or seven times with the Probe, we can pay the low, low cost of twelve generic mana to play Soul Conduit and tap it to trade life totals with one of our opponents! Hah, take that, Oloro! But wait, it gets better! For only six mana, we can play the totally-unheard-of, $300 artifact from Legends, Mirror Universe! Okay, well, in reality, I don't have remotely close to the budget required to acquire that card, and most of you probably don't, either, but if we did, it would be even better than Soul Conduit in our deck! Same effect, half the mana cost, and the fact that we can only do it during our upkeep is irrelevant when our opponents have ceased seeing us as a threat due to our ludicrously inefficient durdling, thus nearly guaranteeing it'll survive until our next upkeep, when we can actually activate it! (There's also the way less cool, Actual EDH Card Platinum Emperion to keep us from actually worrying about Probe's damage, if you want to go down that route. I won't be.)

Another major strategy for our deck is, rather than return our artifact spells to our hand or library, simply countering them! Since we can search our graveyard for the artifact as well, it's just as effective! Plus, having our spells countered is a situation we're prepared to take full advantage of! Unfortunately, we don't have access to the green Multani's Presence, which would draw us tons of cards to put on top of our library with Widespread Panic. So what else can we do? I guess we'll have to go with the much, much worse card, Baral, Chief of Compliance, which only allows us to loot rather than draw, and doesn't work if our opponents counter our spells. Well, I guess we'll take what we can get.

Next, we need to make sure our artifact spells are countered as often as possible! Let's see what cards we can use to best achieve this. Blood Funnel makes our noncreature artifacts cost 2 mana less while still putting them on the battlefield with Mishra's ability, Chalice of the Void counters everyone's spells of a given CMC while also being an artifact, Nullstone Gargoyle counters everyone's first noncreature spell of the turn, and Nether Void ensures all spells are countered unless their controller pays 3 mana! (Ooh, that one's $350, so maybe not.)

So what is the deck missing? More really, really weird artifacts, of course! Like Lich's Mirror, which combos with Rain of Gore to make our deck try to gain, then lose 20 life in an infinite loop, creating a draw which our opponents are probably relieved for by now after the hilariously non-impactful shenanigans we've spent well over an hour pulling at this point! But wait! Before continuing, there's another card that benefits from us countering our own artifacts, albeit nondirectly! It's the beloved River Kelpie! This will let us draw all those cards without having to discard afterward! Fantastic!

The rest of the deck is devoted to artifacts that have strange interactions with other pieces of our deck's engine. Not sure what some of these interactions are? That's why you'll need to play the deck a few dozen times to eventually find out! Good luck, though, as it certainly requires the presence of a Level 1 Judge at all times and will make your opponents absolutely miserable while you figure out what in the hell you were trying to achieve with your combos in the first place! Happy durdling!

Decklist:

Commander
Mishra, Artificer’s Prodigy

Artifacts

Soul Conduit

Psychogenic Probe

Painter’s Servant

Lich’s Mirror

Gate to the Aether

Omen Machine

Oracle’s Vault

Chalice of the Void

Bolas’s Citadel

Etherium-Horn Sorcerer

Druidic Satchel

Sensei’s Divining Top

Scroll Rack

Solemn Simulacrum

Strionic Resonator

Shimmer Myr

Golem Foundry

Nullstone Gargoyle

Skill Borrower

Cryptolith Fragment

Wayfarer’s Bauble

Burnished Hart

Gem of Becoming

Myr Mindservant

Charmed Pendant

Explorer’s Scope

Mystic Forge

Timesifter

Wand of Denial

Clock of Omens

Mishra’s Self-Replicator

Vantress Gargoyle

Blinkmoth Urn

Silas Renn, Seeker Adept

Millikin

Creatures:

Baral, Chief of Compliance

Venser, Shaper Savant

Magus of the Mirror

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

Vedalken Archmage

Sai, Master Thopterist

Emry, Lurker of the Loch

River Kelpie

Urza, Lord High Artificer

Trinket Mage

Contraband Kingpin

Quicksmith Genius

Enchantments

Possibility Storm

Widespread Panic

Rain of Gore

Blood Funnel

Mirrodin Besieged

Instants

Unsubstantiate

Commit // Memory

Brutal Expulsion

Aether Gust

Fold into Aether

Sorceries

Repay in Kind

Molten Psyche

Planeswalkers

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

Lands

Academy Ruins

Command Tower

Path of Ancestry

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Great Furnace

Vault of Whispers

Seat of the Synod

Crumbling Necropolis

Evolving Wilds

Terramorphic Expanse

Dimir Aqueduct

Rakdos Carnarium

Izzet Boilerworks

Duskmantle, House of Shadows

Field of Ruin

Fiery Islet

Glimmervoid

Spire of Industry

Grand Coliseum

Myriad Landscape

Minamo, School at Water’s Edge

Madblind Mountain

Rocky Tar Pit

Bad River

Temple of Malice

Temple of Deceit

Temple of Epiphany

Bojuka Bog

Cephalid Coliseum

Witch’s Cottage

Swamp x3

Island x3

Mountain x3

To recap, let's go over our primary lines of play in the deck and break the cards down into what strategies they help enable (some cards may play a part in more than one strategy).

Putting our own artifact spells into our hand or on top of our library:

Unsubtantiate

Commit // Memory

Venser, Shaper Savant

Aether Gust

Brutal Expulsion

Possibility Storm (sort of)

Countering our own spells:

Chalice of the Void

Blood Funnel

Nullstone Gargoyle

Fold into Aether

"Benefiting" from our shuffle triggers:

Widespread Panic

Psychogenic Probe

Manipulating the top of our library:

Sensei's Divining Top

Scroll Rack

Wand of Denial

Millikin

Contraband Kingpin

Charmed Pendant

Utilizing the top card of our library:

Gate to the Aether

Omen Machine

Oracle's Vault

Bolas's Citadel

Etherium-Horn Sorcerer

Druidic Satchel

Skill Borrower

Charmed Pendant (does both!)

Explorer's Scope

Mystic Forge

Timesifter

Extra deck shuffling:

Myr Mindservant

Trinket Mage

Molten Psyche

Gem of Becoming

Wayfarer's Bauble

Burnished Hart

Solemn Simulacrum

"Benefiting" from Psychogenic Probe's damage (as well as other life loss):

Soul Conduit

Mirror Universe

Lich's Mirror

Magus of the Mirror

Repay in Kind

"Artifacts matter" cards:

Clock of Omens

Mirrodin Besieged

Quicksmith Genius

Molten Psyche

Mystic Forge

Shimmer Myr

Golem Foundry

Contraband Kingpin

Vedalken Archmage

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

Sai, Master Thopterist

Blinkmoth Urn

Emry, Lurker of the Loch

Silas Renn, Seeker Adept

Urza, Lord High Artificer

Trinket Mage

Cards that have specific interactions or simply provide value:

Baral, Chief of Compliance

Painter's Servant

Rain of Gore

Strionic Resonator

Vantress Gargoyle

River Kelpie

Of course, this is by no means a budget deck, especially with the grossly overpriced Mirror Universe, but I tried to find relatively "budget" alternatives to some cards when they were available. In the case of cards like Mirror Universe, Chalice of the Void, or Urza, they provide abilities that are unique or very uncommon elsewhere in Magic. The majority of the cards in the deck, however, aren't terribly expensive, and while I didn't price check every card, I think that, barring those three aforementioned cards (and maybe Painter's Servant?) the total deck price is on the low end of most player's EDH deck costs. Plus, some of the pricier lands like Urborg, Glimmervoid, Fiery Islet, and Path of Ancestry can easily be subbed out for cheaper options.

If you enjoyed this deck tech, keep your eyes peeled for the next in the series, where I'll be building around another classically bad/unplayable commander! Which one? You'll have to wait and see! And please let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas on improvements or the direction of the column moving forward!