Golgari Yawgmoth has been a decent strategy in Modern for years. Abusing the power of Yawgmoth, Thran Physician alongside Undying creatures like Young Wolf, these decks could create an insurmountable advantage out of nowhere.
Well, what if I said that in a Magic Online Modern Challenge yesterday, one player made it to the top four with a Golgari Young Wolf deck featuring zero copies of Yawgmoth? That’s right. Golgari Yawgmoth enthusiast Wojciech Kowalczuk took a sweet Yawgless brew to the semifinals.
This deck is capable of some sweet alternative combo lines, utilizing multiple cards that have made very little noise in Constructed up to this point. Let’s dive in and see how this deck operates.
Yawgless Yawgmoth
Much like Golgari Yawgmoth, this combo deck is centered around the power of Young Wolf. Young Wolf is a rather unassuming card, but with the right supporting cast, a one-mana Undying creature goes a long way.
With Yawgmoth out of the picture, this deck relies on some different combo lines. In order to execute the most common combos, you need access to two other cards besides Young Wolf: Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and Walking Ballista.
The goal is to get Walking Ballista into your graveyard and exile it with Cauldron. From there, you want to use Cauldron to put a +1/+1 counter on Young Wolf. Once you’ve accomplished this task, you can use the following steps to create a loop:
- Use Walking Ballista’s ability to remove a +1/+1 counter from Young Wolf. Target your own Young Wolf with the ability.
- Young Wolf takes one damage, which will kill it and trigger its Undying ability
- Young Wolf will come back to play with a +1/+1 counter on it. Repeat the first two steps over and over.
Obviously, by itself, this loop doesn’t really get you anywhere. However, there are a number of different ways to take advantage of Young Wolf dying and reentering repeatedly. The first is to use Spymaster’s Vault.
After killing your own Young Wolf a bunch of times, you can use Spymaster’s Vault’s ability to Connive through the rest of your deck, putting tons of +1/’+1 counters on Young Wolf in the process. Young Wolf still has Walking Ballista’s ability, so you can remove those counters to deal a lot of damage to the opponent.
Notably, you won’t be able to deal infinite damage this way, since you only have a finite number of nonland cards in your deck. Still, this line will be lethal a good percentage of the time.
In the cases where it’s not, if you can find a copy of Willow Geist before executing the loop, you can set up an infinite damage kill. Each time Young Wolf leaves your graveyard and comes back to play, Willow Geist grows. Thus, you can make Willow Geist infinitely large, then ping your opponent for infinite damage by removing +1/+1 counters from Willow Geist via Walking Ballista’s ability.
You can even use Prosperous Innkeeper instead of Willow Geist to gain infinite life. This deck has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, and it’s cool to see cards like Willow Geist and Spymaster’s Vault that have had limited success in any Constructed environment shine in this archetype.
Redundancy
For a deck reliant on finding this many combo pieces to close games, it’s essential to have some tutors and effects that dig for specific cards. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to grab your requisite win conditions.
At the top of the list, we have Green Sun’s Zenith. Green Sun’s Zenith may not be able to find Yawgmoth for traditional Golgari combo shells, but in this deck, Green Sun’s Zenith does everything you want.
Not only can you grab Young Wolf, but you can also search for your one-of Willow Geist at your leisure for only two mana. Of course, finding Dryad Arbor or Grist, the Hunger Tide can be useful, too, depending on the situation.
As for Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and Walking Ballista, Karn, the Great Creator can tutor up either from the sideboard. Once again, Karn also doubles as a decent toolbox element. Karn is a little inefficient, but Delighted Halfling or Green Sun’s Zenith tutoring up Dryad Arbor will set up Karn ahead of schedule. Delighted Halfling even makes Cauldron and Karn uncounterable, which is a huge deal.
Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Malevolent Rumble. Malevolent Rumble ramps you towards Karn, digs for your combo pieces, and fuels your graveyard for Cauldron all at once. Between Zenith, Karn, and Rumble, you have a lot of redundancy and plenty of ways to rebuild if your combo gets disrupted.
Advantages and Disadvantages
The idea of eschewing Yawgmoth from this strategy is certainly a revolutionary idea, and it doesn’t come without a series of tradeoffs. On one hand, giving up Yawgmoth to make room for Karn means you’ll find Agatha’s Soul Cauldron more consistently, which is the main engine for Golgari combo at this point. There are a variety of matchups where Karn shines bright, especially in a field where Mox Opal shells are prevalent.
However, without Yawgmoth, it can be tougher to win an attrition battle. Yawgmoth gave Golgari combo decks a way to generate card advantage alongside Young Wolf and other expendable creatures without having a full combo kill lined up.
As such, if the opponent is able to both apply pressure and consistently interact with your combo in meaningful ways, you may be in trouble. Decks like Orzhov midrange (which the pilot of this Golgari combo shell notably lost to twice in the Swiss rounds) that have access to Thoughtseize, Solitude, Witch Enchanter, and plenty of blink effects aren’t easy to fight through.
Regardless, the sheer efficiency of all the combo pieces in this version of the deck does make this build pretty appealing in a format as fast as Modern. It’s unclear if Yawgless combo will become the new norm, but a performance like this is impossible to ignore. It’s nice to see an innovative archetype make a big splash in Modern. Don’t be surprised if the deck gets more popular over time.
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