Bloomburrow has fully released everywhere, and rotation has taken place. We are now immersed into the new meta that is anything but solved. It's kind of a glorious time because it allows us to test out all kinds of different stuff and truly have a time where creativity can shine and many different archetypes get showcased. Right now, it feels like Ygra, Eater of All simply isn't getting enough love. I think this creature is awesome, and that it absolutely houses control decks. It punishes our opponents for not having anything on the board, and it gets so big that they have to remove her - otherwise they will lose in three turns of her being on the board. I initially posted a Golgari Deck with Ygra, and I did have fun playing that one, but the biggest issue that I had was that the deck seemed a bit slow. The current aggro meta does not allow for much set up. We have to be doing something where we can either win the game by turn five, or establish such a board presence and get so far ahead that our advantage appears insurmountable. What I've done for today's deck has hopefully done our new favorite kitty some more justice, and can present a list that is both more competitive, and still a lot of fun.
This deck deck looks to take advantage of Rakdos Joins Up like a previous build we've done, but this time it's Jund. The addition of green in this list is to help us fill up the graveyard. Of course, we also want to include Ygra! The final reason for adding green is also to take advantage of the combat champion, Glissa, Sunslayer. There are some other new additions from Bloomburrow in this list that optimize it in my opinion, and we'll take a look at all of the relevant cards below.
Key Cards in the Deck
Ygra is especially good in creature decks right now. There is so much removal going around in the format that she is able to get two counters every time a creature dies and simply becomes huge. She will end the game in a few swings if she goes unchecked. The fact that she has ward is also relevant, because it forces the opponent to either have a creature, or a food token. This is great against control decks who do virtually nothing to advance board state. She is the main reason that I wanted to revisit this archetype, and I'm glad that I did.
Cruelclaw is an absolute bomb in this deck. It allows us to cast spells for free as early as turn four. The fact that it has menace allows us to increase the likelihood that we get a free spell after connecting for three damage. We also don't mind discarding cards to Cruelclaw, because we want creatures in the grave. This allows us to take advantage of something that would otherwise be considered a loss of resources. In my experience, things like that are what help contribute to a deck being able to out-value opponents. In the video shown below, we are going to discard an Etali to the Cruelclaw trigger, and cast Rakdos Joins Up for free. We then reanimate the Etali and promptly win the game after flinging the Etali at our opponent's face. We didn't get to do the combo as early as we wanted to, but it turned out to be the perfect time, as we cleared the opponent's board, and also ended up havign the Rakdos Joins Up on the top of our library. One might call it fate.
This card really lets the deck do it's thing. We often use the double fling effect from this as our win condition. It absolutely rocks and allows for us to win as early as turn four, and fairly consistently on turn five. The counters that it adds to the creatures that it reanimates also help a bit, especially when we get Ygra or Etali, as they come out as 8/8 and 9/9 respectively. As long as we have legendaries in the graveyard, this card is ready to put in work.
This was a card I decided to add to the list as another discard outlet. It acts as removal, and allows us to benefit from the discard ability that she has. It also allows us to be a little bit more versatile when attempting to convert to a low-resource game. As long as we have five mana, a legendary in the grave, and Rakdos Joins Up, Liliana can control the rest for us. She also demands removal, which is a nice distraction from the shenanigans that we are attempting for our actual combo.
Here is a video where we are able to create a low resource game, while also allowing ourselves to reanimate the Etali after discarding it with Liliana. Like I said, we just need five mana, and a few other things to go right.
I think it was also noteworthy that we were able to do this against a bat deck. Those often can fly over the top of us, but we were able to keep the board clear, and not even give up a game in a best of three match. In game two, our opponent decided it would be a good idea to bring out their own Liliana, and that allowed us to accelerate our combo. Since we also had one, we were able to keep their board clear, and their hand relatively empty. Although we didn't outright win off of resolving the Etali, the opponent had no choice but to remove a creature, and that effectively signaled the end for them.
Overall, this deck is sweet. I think it is possible to do without the Goyfs, and we will have to see what to add. It is entirely possible that we just play something like Lively Dirge instead of that, or maybe some simple ramp cards. I hope that you enjoyed this one, I sure enjoyed playing it!
