Commander

$60 Yedora Combo

23 Jun 2022 - 10 min read

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Yedora is one of those cards that makes you feel like it could combo off if you so much as look at it funny…

..aaaaand you’d be right. Yedora’s ability to recur all nontoken creatures as forests means if your nontoken creatures ARE forests - they’ll just keep coming back. Which is where a sac outlet or two can come in handy:

It’s always artifacts that lead to the most broken things. Whether you’re milling everyone with Altar of Dementia triggers, or gaining infinite life with Zuran Orb, things get juicy real quickly. And when you want to take it to the next level, bring in the big guns.

With infinite LTB and ETB thanks to Yedora, creature lands, and a sacrifice outlet, any ability that triggers off of those can be a wincon. Landfall, Alliance, or even something like Titania, Protector of Argoth ’s ability can be enough to close out a game.

And that’s it! We’re running the above 8 cards, Yedora, and 81 Forests!

Kidding

Okay so that’s not quite true. In fact, there are quite a few extra synergies going into this deck to make it function. While we plan to win through combo, it’s going to take us a little while to get all of our ducks in a row. We’re a mono green budget deck so there’s no tutoring, no control, and minimal removal. We’re going to have to hold our own the old fashioned way, which brings me to the first group of cards to highlight…

Mighty Morphers

That’s right, it’s morbin’ time. When Yedora returns a creature “face-down” as a forest, creatures with a morph ability can activate and turn face up, giving most of your board pseudo-regeneration. Unfortunately, this hack doesn’t work the way you want it to on creatures with transform. If your Deathbonnet Sprout gets killed, it won’t come back as Deathbonnet Hulk - it’ll just be a card back with the forest type. Physical cards are weird. Anyway, back to the Morphers:

Ainok Survivalist - Having a repeatable Naturalize is amazing, having a repeatable Naturalize tied to an ability that doesn’t even use the stack is priceless. That’s right kids, when you morph a creature - your opponents can’t respond to the flip!

Proteus Machine/Temur Charger - Who needs a Life and Limb when you have a horse (donkey?)? Combined with Yedora and a sac outlet, both Proteus Machine and Temur Charger can utilize their free morph abilities to flip every time they’re brought onto the battlefield as forests. These are a key part in our cleanest combo line: Yedora + Altar of Dementia + Proteus Machine = Win

Trail of Mystery - Really morph adjacent, but since Trail of Mystery is worded as a “face-down creature” that means whenever a wounded soldier returns to the battlefield as a forest - it’s still a “face-down creature” and we still get to search for a land.

There are plenty more morphs in here, don’t you worry - we’ve got everything from card draw to trap cards (Editor’s note: that’s a different card game, Yugi)! But let’s move on.

What is a land, really?

While the recursion itself would be good enough, Yedora just has to out-do themselves by making all the creatures come back as Forests - an incredibly relevant card type as it turns out:

Quirion Ranger - I haven’t been able to successfully loop this with a Spore Frog but I really, really want to. The ability to bounce one of your creatures back to hand for another go-around every turn is amazing, and probably one of the best recursion techniques you can find in this strategy outside of Den Protector . In fact, it’s such a great ability that we’re running around four copies of it - between Quirion, Scryb Ranger , Jungle Basin , and Guildless Commons . The lands aren’t repeatable, but they’re nice to save for a rainy day.

Boseiju Reaches Skyward - While the category of tech labeled “Big Beatsticks with Power Equal to Lands” could be championed by Blanchwood Armor , Beanstalk Giant , or Kalonian Twingrove , none of them have ever won me a game like Boseiju has. Right after Neon Dynasty when I did my first round of updates to this deck, we were playing a budget match and between Timeless Witness and Quirion Ranger-esque effects, the Branch of Boseiju just would not stay down. Needless to say, smacking everyone turn after turn until it finally bit a Path to Exile put in a great deal of work. Absolute legend.

Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar - Yes, Multani is also a big beefstick BUT Multani gets special recognition for the ability to just bounce allll of your creature-lands back to hand. Since the return to hand clause is part of Multani’s ability’s activation cost, you can just keep activating with previous activations on the stack!

So now we’ve got our combo, we’ve got our backup squad, what more could we want?

Control that will make Julian Blush

Mono green budget doesn’t have a ton of great options when it comes to controlling the board. Yes we’ve got Beast Within and Return to Nature but when the chips are down a little spot removal ain’t gonna cut it.

Hurricane/Squall Line - Mono Green burn is underloved, but a damn fine way to close out a game. Or kill a bunch of pesky Dragons. Or both. Yes, this effect hits all players but hopefully between Retreat to Kazandu and Courser of Kruphix you’re ahead of the pack by the time you need to resort to methods like these.

Oblivion Stone - And when all else doesn’t work, we have our boom boom rock. Hopefully you can knock one of these when Yedora is on the field so it can “see” the rest of your creatures die and give them the chance to come back as trees.

Grab Bag

The best of the rest, these cards help move our game plan along but not in a way I could think of with the headers.

Nissa, Who Shakes the World - I’m truly astounded by what you can fit into a $60 deck these days. A mana doubler for $5?! Insane. Also, one of the first things to cut for budget, but if you got one…turning any land into a creature is tight. God forbid you can ultimate and protect your creature-lands forever… game over.

Evolutionary Leap - Not quite a combo piece without a haste enabler, but can help you dig through your deck for minimal loss once your lands are creatures.

Snakeskin Veil - Perhaps the Achilles heel of the deck, Yedora is a requirement for success. As much fun as consistently having them on the battlefield for maximum value would be, they’re a major target and will be treated as such. We’re running Swiftfoot Boots for protection and Road of Return for recursion, but having a Snakeskin Veil or Tamiyo’s Safekeeping up your sleeve is a very good idea.

Budget Considerations

$60 might be a bit much to spend on a single deck, especially since $20 of that is due to three cards ( Nissa, Who shakes the World , Altar of Dementia , and Nissa, Vastwood Seer ) So here’s three easy switches to cut costs:

Greater Good - There are very few cheap “free” sac outlets, and Greater Good definitely needs to include a warning label. While you should be able to generate enough resources to kill everyone with repeated activations, it is at the cost of your own deck and cannot go infinite or you will deck yourself. Use wisely.

Glorious Sunrise - No it’s not a $5 Nissa but it’s incredibly versatile and can give you a little mana boost when you need it. Or when you want to swing for lethal with Molimo, a trample enabler is very welcome.

Rude Awakening - I mostly avoided cards that turn all your lands into creatures for a single turn in this build, but between this, Sylvan Awakening , and Kamahl’s Will there’s plenty of tech to go in that direction.

Conclusion

So there you have it! Some truly diabolical combo shenanigans wrapped in a morph tribal shell. I can almost guarantee you’ll surprise your pod once, but they’ll have pitchforks in the rematch. Check out the whole list below, or on Moxfield!

Mods are Asleep

And how might one upgrade into something truly sinister? Well…

Giving creatures you control haste upgrades both Evolutionary Leap (repeatable sac outlet) and Orochi Eggwatcher (can be a finisher and sac outlet), Ashaya will be insanely large, and another Altar that mills everyone! Amazing!

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Commander EDH