The Harem in a Kiosk by Jean-Leon Gerome (1870). Pristine Skywise promo by Adam Paquette.

Last week I dove into the decision-making process I go through when opening a box and hoping to build a winning deck. While I opened a variety of legendary creatures that might be able to lead a fairly powerful deck, I wound up sharing a more casual list built around Kaheera, the Orphanguard. While I think that list would be able to do okay and win its share of games in a casual meta, today's should takes things up a notch.

The commander I'll be building around is the single foil Legendary that I opened in my box of Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths.

The genesis of today's deck lies in the relatively huge pile of Drake creature cards I've slowly accumulated since starting to play back when Gatecrash came out. That may not be a long time compared to many players, but I've got a decent little collection of cards and at some point I began to notice how many Drakes had been printed. Building a Commander deck around Drakes is hardly a strong strategy, but I've always enjoyed a challenge. I just never found the right commander.

While Yorion isn't a Drake, the strategy I came up with for Yorion is strong enough that I think running a bunch of Drakes might just bring the deck's power level back down to where the final list can be played in a relatively casual meta. If I win and an opponent is upset, I can basically point to my big pile of Drakes and suggest that I wasn't exactly playing an overpowered list against them.

Meet Yorion, Sky Nomad

This legendary creature is yet another that could be a companion, but truth be told I really don't like the companion mechanic. I also can't run Yorion as a companion because it would force me to run a 120-card deck. The Commander Rules Committee has decided that 100 cards is a hill they're willing to die on. The companion mechanic effectively gives you a 101-card Commander deck, so 100 cards is a funny hill to die on, but that's an argument for another day - and one I'm unlikely to win.

I'm just going to run Yorion out of our command zone.

My first reaction to reading Yorion was that I was underwhelmed. I didn't see any obvious way to combo off, and I didn't see a great way to abuse its ability. All Yorion does is let you blink your stuff.

There is some disagreement about terminology, so it's worth noting that I think of "flicker" as the term to use when something is exiled and immediately returns and "blink" as the term to use when something is exiled and returns at the next end step. That's not a helpful habit on my part, as cards like Momentary Blink actually flicker a creature, making them leave and return immediately. Feel free to school me in what words I should be using in the comments below.

Any commander will want you to build around them in careful ways, and Yorion is no exception. If I'm going to want to blink my creatures, I will want to avoid certain strategies and lean towards other ones. I don't want to be making tokens, as those will go away when they are exiled. I'll also want to be careful about working with +1/+1 counters, as those and other types of counters also go away when a creature leaves the battlefield - even if the creature is returned later on.

What Yorion is absolutely begging for is for me to find is a strategy that will take advantage of being able to have my creatures leave the battlefield and come back. I think I've managed to do that, though if it works the way I'm hoping my opponents sure won't enjoy it very much.

Time to Wipe

Board wipe, that is. If there's one thing Yorion is setting us up for, it's boardwipes. When Yorion enters the battlefield, we get to exile any number of other nonland permanents we both own and control. We can play Yorion, blink our board, play a wrath to clear off the battlefield, and then have our stuff come back at the end of the turn.

I'm running eight boardwipes, from the two-color Time Wipe, which will let me save Yorion by bouncing it to my hand, to much more familiar wraths like Fumigate, Rout and Wrath of God. Cataclysmic Gearhulk is also in the list and will not only do a number on my opponents' boards, but it will also benefit from being bounced later on when I re-cast Yorion.

The key is to make sure I've been able to survive long enough in the game to have the mana to both cast Yorion and then cast my wrath in the same turn. Having many more wraths than a normal deck will make for a frustrating and uphill battle for my opponents, but with weaker creatures I should be able to look like I'm being defensive and just trying to survive. I'll be hoping to walk the fine line of being oppressive but not pulling so far out ahead that I've got a big target on my back. That's the goal, though if I'm able to pull off a blink and boardwipe and a few turns later re-cast (or flicker) Yorion and do it again, I wouldn't be surprised I draw more than a little hate from the rest of the table.

ETB Effects

While I'm not building a dedicated ETB deck, it makes a lot of sense to spend some time focusing on cards that have those kinds of effects. In white and blue there are plenty of them, and when I went through my card collection I was able to cobble together a decent assortment.

My first way to abuse ETB triggers is to use them to ramp. While Sad Robot (Solemn Simulacrum) is a staple and can help me get either an Island or a Plains, the other two creatures shown above only care about Plains. I need that white mana for my boardwipes, so that's not a huge problem. Most of my mana ramp is coming from artifacts, so having a way to get lands is going to be helpful. Kor Cartographer also found his way into my list, though I didn't wind up running Dreamscape Artist for some reason. I might revisit that decision if I find I'm pulling too many Plains into my hand when I play this deck.

Lifegain is another way white lets you get value out of ETB triggers. I'm running Suture Priest and Soul Warden for some general lifegain, but my real hope is to see significant bumps in my life total when a bunch of my creatures all return from exile.

Angelic Chorus will look at the toughness of any creature entering under my control and Angel of Renewal will look at the number of creatures under my control as it enters. If all that lifegain isn't sufficient, Resolute Archangel should break the spirit of anyone who has suffered through enough of my boardwipes. If they've managed to whittle me down to a reasonably low life total, Resolute Archangel will shoot me back up to 40. A robust meta will be prepared for these kinds of shenanigans, but a casual table might just be happy to concede the game so we can shuffle up with new decks that they'll have more fun playing against.

I did say the genesis of this deck was a huge pile of Drakes. Well, I didn't run all 30+ Drakes that I had lying around. Some are terrible, and they are Drakes, so there's an argument to be made that they're all pretty mediocre.

Some are playable, and in a deck like Yorion I could definitely see Angler Drake putting in a little work. If returning a creature to its owner's hand isn't exciting enough, Muse Drake will draw you a card and the well-known Peregrine Drake will untap five of your lands.

Before you get too excited - no, I'm not running Deadeye Navigator. If you wanted this deck to be more competitive, you'd run that combo. You could even use Viral Drake as an infinite mana outlet to kill anyone who had at least one poison counter by proliferating them until they're dead. There are better wincons to be sure, but I'm running Drakes, so Viral Drake comes to mind.

Card Draw From Flyers

One of the biggest things that any deck wants to do is draw cards. I'm running a lot of flyers and expect to play a lot of boardwipes, so it made sense to me to try to build around combat-oriented card draw triggers. My premise is that I'll usually have someone I can swing at without worrying about blockers, so it's relatively safe to tie my card draw to those attacks.

I'm running a handful of enchantments like Curiosity, Ophidian Eye and Tandem Lookout to allow me to attack with some little flyer and draw a card. Coastal Piracy gives me a card each time a creature I control does combat damage to a player, so the more creatures I can connect with, the more cards I'll get. If I can minimize the impact of these attacks because they'll likely be small creatures, I should be able to try to draw my way into a boardwipe.

My Yorion strategy will work great with Mulldrifter on the field. I'll have to cast it for its full cost, but that's not a problem if I've got future ETB triggers to look forward to. I'm also running Military Intelligence to let me draw when two or more of my creatures attack, alongside Windreader Sphinx, which lets me draw a card when a flyer I control attacks.

I could be running more card draw, but I'm comfortable with the ones I've got. I built this list in the "8x8" pattern, and committed a full slot of eight cards to card draw. There are more cards than that with "draw a card" inscribed into the text box, but the point in building with these patterns is more to keep you honest than to force you to hit a certain number. With card draw, more is usually better.

A Control Game

The ultimate goal for this deck isn't to avoid attention until I can combo off. It's an old-fashioned deck that wants to kill everyone by combat... with Drakes. I like this plan because it's just a little funny, and after enough boardwipes that I've managed to dodge thanks to Yorion, my friends should be happy I'm not running a more impressive assortment of creatures. Even Angel or Sphinx Tribal would probably be a much stronger approach, and I encourage you to build that if it sounds like more fun to you.

This deck's control strategy is primarily focused around boardwipes, but I'm also running staples like Cyclonic Rift and Swords to Plowshares along with some less popular answers like Aetherspouts, Imprisoned in the Moon and Cultural Exchange.

Aetherspouts is a nice way to push back on folks wanting to attack you, putting the creatures attacking you back into their owner's library. Imprisoned in the Moon allows you to cast creature boardwipes without any worry of freeing the card that's been tucked away for a bit of lunar safekeeping. Cultural Exchange is a fantastic answer to those pesky super-powered voltron commanders who have gotten out of hand. Indestructible, hexproof, and even protection won't save a creature from forcing its controller to swap it with one of your creatures. That's a nice Uril, the Miststalker you have there - let's swap it for... a Seacoast Drake. That seems like a fair trade, doesn't it?

What this list isn't running enough of is counterspells, so it's hard to really call this a control deck. My decision to run my silly Drakes does cut into my ability to run as many answers as I should probably be running.

The Decklist

I'm in the middle of a run of building decks and I'm using cards I've got on hand. That means this list isn't optimized and represents an actual list that I'll be playing someday when our LGS is open for gaming. You'll see a dozen questionable choices as you scroll down, and not all of them will be Drakes. Please take this as a starting point and if you like where I've been going with it, take the best parts and make it your own. Your Yorion list might have a Sphinx flavor, a focus on Angels, or maybe even Azorius "goodstuff."

The Artful Dodger | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Angel of Renewal
• 1 Angler Drake
• 1 Archetype of Imagination
• 1 Azure Drake
• 1 Boreas Charger
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
• 1 Cerulean Drake
• 1 Eyekite
• 1 Kor Cartographer
• 1 Loyal Drake
• 1 Messenger Drake
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Muse Drake
• 1 Oreskos Explorer
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Resolute Archangel
• 1 Seacoast Drake
• 1 Sephara, Sky's Blade
• 1 Shimmerscale Drake
• 1 Skyline Predator
• 1 Snapping Drake
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Soul Warden
• 1 Spire Monitor
• 1 Suture Priest
• 1 Tandem Lookout
• 1 Thunder Drake
• 1 Whitemane Lion
• 1 Wind Drake
• 1 Windreader Sphinx
• 1 Windstorm Drake

• Instants (7)
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Forsake the Worldly
• 1 Leadership Vacuum
• 1 Momentary Blink
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Cultural Exchange
• 1 End Hostilities
• 1 Fumigate
• 1 Hallowed Burial
• 1 Rout
• 1 Time Wipe
• 1 Wrath of God

• Enchantments (10)
• 1 Angelic Chorus
• 1 Call for Unity
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Curiosity
• 1 Favorable Winds
• 1 Gravitational Shift
• 1 Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1 Luminarch Ascension
• 1 Military Intelligence
• 1 Ophidian Eye

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Azorius Cluestone
• 1 Azorius Keyrune
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (35)
• 13 Island
• 13 Plains
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Irrigated Farmland
• 1 Isolated Watchtower
• 1 Labyrinth of Skophos
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Port Town

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Path to Exile, Arcane Signet, Consecrated Sphinx and a dozen other great cards could likely fit into today's list and make it better. I do think that as-is, this list will stand up fairly well in the more casual games I tend to play in, but I doubt it would stand up to real competitive play. Some decks need that extra breathing room of a casual meta and a longer game to be able to actually do its thing. I think this is one of those decks.

Note that I've definitely tried to take a "flying matters" approach. Gravitational Shift and Favorable Winds will pump our flyers. Sephara, Sky's Blade will cost a measly one white mana if I can tap four flying creatures as part of its alternate casting cost, making our flyers indestructible. Archetype of Imagination will make sure I'm the only one with flyers. If there are on-theme cards I would do well to add to the list, feel free to comment below and tell me about them.

Final Thoughts

I'd rather throw together something a little different like today's list than go down the easy path of high-powered combos. Yorion Drake Tribal? Sure, it's a silly idea, but it's not another rehash of tired, overused wincons. I play those sometimes, but I do love a deck I might imagine finding on the Island of Misfit Toys.

If calling this Drake tribal is inaccurate because the list has non-Drake creatures in it, you should know that I don't adhere to the philosophy that a deck can ONLY have tribe members if you're going to call it tribal. I should also note that this started out from a plan to build a tribal Drakes deck and evolved into something more. It's not quite a control deck. It's not quite a tribal deck. It's not really janky but it sure isn't competitive. It's just the kind of weird fun I like to get up to in a game of Commander, though I suspect the oppressiveness of boardwipes will keep this from ever being one of my favorites.

I've been struggling with finding a way to make Nethroi, Apex of Death interesting, but I haven't quite figured that out yet. I'm starting to think next week might be a look into how some of these Ikoria cards are going to fit into some of my decks, but I'm always open to suggestions.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!