Turbo Yawgmoth Culls the Weak
Justqroughsketch emerged victorious with a Yawgmoth Midrange deck that didn’t drop a single game. While it isn’t news for this archetype to do well, the explosive potential of this version could leave you dead on turn three! Posing as a fair midrange beatdown strategy, the deck can still consistently and quickly combo out of nowhere.
Today I’ll break down Turbo Yawgmoth.
The Combo
While Yawgmoth can play a Midrange game, its potential to combo off adds an extra level of pressure to its games. The combo requires two undying creatures (such as Young Wolf), Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Falkenrath Noble to all be on the battlefield. One of the undying creatures needs to have a +1/+1 counter on it. Now, sacrifice the undying creature without the +1/+1 counter to Yawgmoth and put the -1/-1 counter on the other undying creature (with the +1/+1 counter). Due to state-based actions, the -1/-1 counter and the +1/+1 counter will cancel out, leaving you back where you started. With Falkenrath Noble out, you’ll drain your opponent for one with every loop until they die.
Finding the Pieces
Getting to the combo can be quite tricky since it requires four creatures to stay on the battlefield. Redundant effects and tutors help you not only find the pieces more reliably, but even find multiple copies to fight through interaction. The deck runs seven undying creatures, including Geralf’s Messenger, which also acts like the third copy of Falkenrath Noble in some lines of play. Green Sun’s Zenith puts most of the undying creatures directly into play, while Survival of the Fittest lets you pitch your redundant pieces to find Yawgmoth and Falkenrath Noble. Additionally, these tutor effects help the deck more reliably find “silver bullets” and some sideboard cards.
Speed is Key
Playing ahead of curve helps the deck race other combo decks, try to close the game early against control decks, more quickly stabilize versus aggressive strategies and gain the upper hand in a mirror match. Dryad Arbor turns Green Sun’s Zenith into a turn one mana dork. Lotus Cobra turns each fetch land into a color-fixing ritual. Most exciting of all, Culling the Weak can get Yawgmoth out on turn two! The extra mana makes tutor costs negligible, allowing you to get the combo out at a reasonable pace even if you have to play and activate Survival of the Fittest along the way.
Mana Sinks
Sometimes the deck will have fast mana but no combo pieces to cheat out. In that case, the deck has mana sinks as a back-up plan to still take gain an advantage with the fast mana. Hexdrinker can single-handedly win games, especially if it levels up early. Scavenging Ooze can more easily keep graveyard-based decks in check, and Plaguebearer can stabilize against some aggressive strategies.
Interaction Suite
Because Turbo Yawgmoth is a creature-based strategy, the deck fears Oath of Druids. Therefore, this deck is running four Abrupt Decay in the mainboard to interact with the enchantment. In the sideboard, Bitter Ordeal can remove all Oath targets so the undying combo can be executed safely. Because Turbo Yawgmoth is playing many tutor effects, it may be slower than other combo decks. Abrupt Decay hits their combo permanents in Altar of Dementia and Aria of Flame while Scavenging Ooze disrupts the graveyard, slowing these decks down.
Culling the Weak
An early Yawgmoth dominates the board. It snipes creatures with low toughness in the early game while drowning your opponent in card advantage. The extra cards and controlled sacrifice keep your options open, allowing you the flexibility to press hard against slower decks or play defense against faster ones. Culling the Weak’s inclusion feels perfectly at home in Turbo Yawgmoth, and it’s as if its flavor text was trying to tell us all along.
