In EDH, it can be a lot of fun building around themes that are out of the norm. While archetypes like Tokens and Enchantress are extremely popular, surprising your friends with something that they’ve never seen before has an unrivalled allure.
If you’re looking for a new, off-the-beaten-path Commander, Yedora, Grave Gardener, certainly has you covered. There are plenty of ways to maximize its abilities, including some infinite combos.
MTG Yedora, Grave Gardener
For a mono-green Commander, Yedora, Grave Gardener has a pretty distinctive triggered ability. While rewards for creatures dying are most often featured in black, this cool Treefolk pays you off with ramp. Being able to get a big mana advantage post-board wipe is already a huge luxury for green creature decks, but if you incorporate the right support elements, Yedora can provide so much more value.
Right away, any cards with powerful Landfall triggers like Rampaging Baloths or Sapling Nursery become strong inclusions. Anytime any of your non-token creatures die, you’ll get a face-down Forest land and a creature token to replace it. With a steady flow of bodies, sacrifice outlets like Evolutionary Leap become valuable sources, too.
Since Yedora returns your creatures as lands, bouncing them back to hand can effectively reset them. Both Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger let you return your face-down cards to your hand and replay them turn after turn. The new Earthbending mechanic does something similar, returning your fallen land face-up as a creature when it dies. Just make sure to stack your triggers so that the Earthing trigger resolves first instead of Yedora’s.
For maximum face-down shenanigans, you’re heavily incentivized to play strong Morph creatures like Den Protector and Ainok Survivalist. When Yedora returns these cards to the battlefield face down as Forests, you can still flip them back into creatures. These synergies make Yedora a potent addition to the 99 of Kaust, Eyes of the Glade or Zimone, Mystery Unraveler decks on top of being a strong Commander.
Infinite Combos
Beyond being a value-generating machine, Yedora also opens the door for numerous infinite combos with various Morph creatures. Proteus Machine paired with a sacrifice outlet, for example, can generate infinite mana and Landfall triggers. Once Proteus Machine dies with Yedora in play, it’ll come back to the battlefield face-down, allowing you to tap it for green. Then, you can turn it face-up without investing any mana and repeat this process. With mana-producing sacrifice outlets like Ashnod’s Altar, you can execute similar combos with a wider array of Morph creatures.
Sacrifice outlets also play an important role in combos centered around effects that turn all of your lands into creatures, such as Life and Limb or Ambush Commander. Thanks to Yedora’s trigger, you get to continuously sacrifice your face-down Forests over and over, getting infinite enters and death triggers.
You can even get infinite enters, death, Landfall, and Storm count with Primordial Mist and creatures like Ugin’s Conjurant that cost X mana to cast. Simply cast your Conjurant for zero, and have it come back as a land immediately. From there, you can recast Ugin’s Conjurant after exiling it with Primordial Mist’s final ability and complete the cycle all over again.
Flying Under the Radar
Despite Yedora’s potential, it continues to be underrated in Commander. In fact, the legend doesn’t even account for 3,000 Commander decks according to EDHREC. This is a bit surprising, especially given the new wave of Earthbending support from MTG Avatar.
Plus, after being reprinted in Commander Masters and Duskmourn Commander as an uncommon, Yedora has become extremely cheap. Players can pick up copies for under 15 cents, allowing you to try a new Commander on a budget.
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