Hello Folks!

I hope that you are having a great day today and that you are keeping yourself safe in our modern COVID - 19 world!

Today I want to build a Commander deck around a recently spoiled leader from Commander Legends. Which one?

This one!

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash in EDH

This is Yurlok of Scorch Thrash, a Viashino Shaman, which is a cool combination of creature types. It's a very on curve 4/4 for 4 mana which is pretty good, and it has vigilance so you can swing and then keep back, which is pertinent for its tap ability. Note that everyone that has unspent mana at the end of a phase will lose life equal to the lost mana. Basically, it says, "Bring Back Mana Burn." That's pretty exciting for me to build around. Do note that you'll take mana burn as well, it doesn't just work n your foes. So be ready!

I like using this on your main phase so your foes can only feed instants, flash cards, and activated abilities with the mana.

I will be looking for four main types of cards in my build.

1. Mana Making for Everyone. We don't have that many effects in the game that give every1 mana as opposed to giving everyone lands or something else. However, since we need to give folks mana, I want to run what I can.
2. Mana Sinks - Like I mentioned above, we need mana sinks for Yurlok since its ability impacts us as well. We won't take damage as long as we have a sink for that mana.
3. Destroying Mana Sinks - What happens if our foe is running a mana sink and thus won't take damage? I want to be to destroy their mana sink which means I need flexibility.
4. Win Cons - Given that we don't have that many mana making for everyone cards and they could have too many mana sinks for targeted removal, I'll want to add in cards that will win the game for us. We'll need player removal.

Building Midrange

With the removal added this deck should feel more like a Jund Midrange deck than anything else, with the ramp and mana making expected. Expect cards like Phyrexian Arena, Eternal Witness, and Flametongue Kavu.

The first cards I thought of when I saw Yurlok of Scorch Thrash in the spoiler were these two cards, and they are the first ones to head into his Commander deck. Like I said before, we don't have many of these mana makers for everyone, but what we do have are on color as these share the same Green that Yurlok has. Both make mana during the main phase of someone's turn so you can drop them on the 1st or 2nd turn and increase your mana by two on the next turn like a Sol Ring. Since they help everyone they will act as a sort of Veteran Explorer that accelerates the game for everyone.

Spectral Searchlight is the only other card that I know of that can give mana to another player. When this was printed you could use this during a foe's discard phase to mana burn them for one and this was the mana rock that was also a player killer. Then mana burn was removed, and it became a bad Manalith variant. In this build it regains its form! You can also just use it as a mana rock when you need it.

How about some mana sinks! I love Flameblast Dragon in a deck like this. It adds to your removal options of creatures, planeswalkers, and players. You'll love to swing with it overhead. You can burn down a blocker that might have blocked or killed it outright in combat. It's great. And it's a repeatable mana sink, which is what I really am looking for.

There are some expected mana sinks in here like Staff of Domination and Urza's Factory. But don't forget the value of Retrofitter Foundry as a useful mana sink as well. It'll tap for 2 mana to make a 1/1 dork, and for five more mana you can make another and another. You can also turn that Servo token into a flyer or sacrifice that and make a bigger 4/4 dork as you have more mana. This is a pretty solid mana sink.

There's a pretty good mana sink from Zendikar Rising that's pretty saucy. It's Crawling Barrens, and I have extolled its value as a mana sink in ramping decks in my articles already. The counters stay on the land over time, so it gets bigger and bigger as you have more mana and it's repeatable. You can turn this into a large game winning creature pretty easily. This is not the only Zendikar Rising card to make an appearance. I'm running Hagra Mauling as well.

And now, how about removal?

What happens when your foe's mana sink is a land? You'll want to take it out, and we have some lands that you can turn against your foe like Wasteland and Tectonic Edge. We have four lands total that can go after opposing lands and thus help you. They can also be turned against the most abused card type in Commander, the non-basic land. Hit their Maze of Ith, Volrath's Stronghold, and Academy Ruins.

Most of the targeted removal in the deck won't hit lands. But a few like Beast Within will. Lean on it if needed. I am running a little sweeping removal like Damnation and Oblivion Stone as emergency answers, but we are really pushing targeted removal instead because we need to keep our permanents out.

I am running 10 planeswalkers in this deck and almost all of them have an ability to destroy something on arrival. Ob Nixilis Reignited can destroy a creature, Garruk, Apex Predator can destroy a planeswalker, Vivien Reid can destroy an artifact, enchantment, or flyer, and so forth. They give you repeatable removal effects, and they usually also offer card advantage as well. Ob Nixilis Reignited can draw a card with it's +1, Chandra, Torch of Defiance can net a exiled card to cast with her first ability, Angrath, the Flame-Chained forces everyone else to discard, and so forth. These are your value over time cards and I find them quite useful here.

I was inspired by Flameblast Dragon so I dipped into beaters that can kill things as well so that we have win-cons and answers in equal measure. These two are great for the deck. They each are powerful four or five-drops that are on curve and give you a potential combat damage trigger than can hurt your foe's board position. They can push the board around. Your removal can take out any potential and annoying blockers and you can swing in and then hurt their tapped dorks. Or you can just make a 3/3 flyer with Wasitora, Nekoru Queen instead if you have taken out all of their dorks. These play really nicely here...

...as does Dragonlord Atarka! On arrival you can split up 5 mana among creatures and 'walkers. It has enough size to smash overhead with its double evasive ability to fly and trample and be a 8/8 presence on the board. There is nothing here that Atarka won't do for you.

Did you like that Elder Dragon?

How about this one? That's right, we are going with Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire! Did you swing with it? Great! Now each player sacrifices a permanent of your choice, you too. You can take out an extra land or a Servo token but destroy foes' key cards if you need too, including those annoying non-basics your foes lean on.

How about one more strong Dragon and we'll call it a deck? Welcome Darigaaz Reincarnated! It's on curve at 7/7 with three awesome abilities for 7 mana and it'll swing a turn earlier than your other beaters. Did some1 manage to kill it? Sad! However, unlike other creatures when they die, the Reincarnated Darigaaz will be exiled for three turns and then returns to the battlefield once more to wreak your fury! Nice right?

Let's look at the deck proper!

Winning with Yurlok

Yurlok EDH | Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Yurlok of Scorch Thrash

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Avalanche Riders
• 1 Ashling, the Extinguisher
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Broodmate Dragon
• 1 Burglar Rat
• 1 Darigaaz Reincarnated
• 1 Dragonlord Atarka
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Flameblast Dragon
• 1 Flametongue Kavu
• 1 Glorybringer
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Liliana's Specter
• 1 Magus of the Vineyard
• 1 Nekrataal
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire
• 1 Wasitora, Nekoru Queen
• 1 Xenagos, God of Revels

• Planeswalkers (10)
• 1 Angrath, the Flame-Chained
• 1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1 Garruk, Apex Predator
• 1 Garruk, Cursed Huntsman
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 1 Liliana Vess
• 1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Vivien Reid
• 1 Vraska, Relic Seeker

• Instants (9)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Bedevil
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Deathsprout
• 1 Hagra Mauling
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Vraska's Contempt
• 1 Windgrace's Judgment

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Decimate
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Mizzium Mortars
• 1 Peregrination
• 1 Regrowth

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Eladamri's Vineyard
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Underworld Connections
• 1 Vastwood Surge

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Oblivion Stone
• 1 Retrofitter Foundry
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spectral Searchlight
• 1 Staff of Domination

• Lands (33)
• 4 Mountain
• 4 Swamp
• 5 Forest
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crawling Barrens
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Rakdos Carnarium
• 1 Savage Lands
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Urza's Factory
• 1 Wasteland

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And there you go, 100 cards later! What did you think of my build? Anything in here that inspired you or that you want to mimic. Anything I forgot about? Just let me know!