Snackrifice - Ygra, Eater of All Deck
August 26, 2024 by
Nicholas Lucchesi 
(Ygra, Eater of All | Art by Ilse Gort)
Midnight Snack
For the longest time, artifacts were brown and inedible. This changed during the Throne of Eldraine expansion and its introduction of the Food token. From then on, it seems that all anyone wanted to do was eat more and more Food at every opportunity. Particularly one legendary creature more than another, and that's Ygra, Eater of All. This big cat wants to eat all of your creatures and all of everyone else's creatures. Ygra makes it very easy to do this by making every other creature on the board a Food artifact in addition to their other types. Ygra shares a distinct similarity with many Americans during the Thanksgiving holiday: the more they eat, the bigger they get. But instead of a bigger stomach, Ygra gets two +1/+1 counters for every turkey leg they consume. So, let's dig in.
Everyone Eats
It might seem like unimportant text, but turning your opponent's creatures into Food is the key to some of the cards found in this deck.
Commonly, these cards are used to pick off mana rocks like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, clear out the artifact deck player's board, or draw yourself a chunk of cards for the low cost of some life. But with Ygra, these cards become creature board wipes and an out-of-nowhere way to remove someone from the game. But the dish is not done.
Delicious payoffs offer life gain, a big body, and a source of card draw. The seasoned Golgari players know there is no shortage of ways to kill artifacts and creatures in this color combination, so what makes these so unique? Lifegain is underrated as something to pair with your deck. It is like a small dessert at the end of a meal. It might not be the best if you only had an entire cake to eat, but that one slice is Fangren Marauder. Viridian Revel has had more eyes put on it as the rise of cards that make treasures come to the game. More often than not, even if your strategy is shut down, this card should still get value just by being out. Fade from History and Pest Infestation do double duty by rewarding you for your destruction with tokens, and this deck loves tokens. Finally, Bane of Progress gets everything and is usually huge because of it. Sometimes, the simple things are the most delicious.
Upset Stomach
Giant creatures are an acceptable way to end games, but sometimes it won't be enough. And it's unlikely that we can kill an entire table with only one copy of Monumental Corruption. We might even have to use it to target ourselves because we need to draw cards. And sometimes, we need to find a way to keep ourselves alive. Luckily, Ygra shares no similarities with your cat at home (who only wishes for your downfall).
When all the creatures on the board suddenly become artifacts, the card Kill Switch becomes one of the best defensive tools. But the artifacts will all untap, I hear you say. Never fear because Powerleech and Burden of Greed turn the long-forgotten switch into part of a two-card combo.
Ingredients List
Everyone has a favorite snack, and this deck list is no different. This deck's snack might come from a new restaurant down the road, claiming they feature a "New age fusion of an American classic with a rustic farm-to-table twist." What does that mean in a Magic: The Gathering Commander deck? It means we run cards like:
New Food leads to new flavors, and new flavors lead to new cards.
Besides the ingredients being locally sourced, why did I pick those cards? A mix of them being some of the best cards of the bunch and cards that I wanted to play. Pitiless Plunderer is one of the most efficient and easy ways to go infinite in sacrifice-based combo decks. Marionette Apprentice gives extra synergy by counting creatures and artifacts and does even more work when we cannot get Ygra out but already have Biotransference on the board. Experimental Confectioner and Camellia, the Seedmiser keeps stirring the pot to help us win the game by turning food into tokens, which can be more food, and so on.
Food metaphors and jokes aside, the more I dove into the cards for this deck and the more I dug into Bloomburrow as a set, the more often I find that the legendary creatures of the set love to combo.
Wombo Combo
One of the most straightforward combos for this deck includes a portion that was the bane of many 60-card players' lives for a long time: a smaller but more annoying feline, Cauldron Familiar in conjunction with Witch's Oven.
Some parts of this deck take the word combo and stretch its definition heavily. Where else do you find the card Summoning Station card next to Krark-Clan Ironworks? Or how about the bonus synergy combos you get with Cauldron Familiar when you add Insidious Roots?
The weird cards in this deck might look like a stretch when we have something as tried and true as Cauldron Familiar and Witch's Oven. Truthfully, they are in the deck from a previous strategy I tried with Ygra, Golgari Modular. The whole modular playstyle was just not up to my taste, but it did lead to some fantastic reminders of cards to add to the deck, like Krark-Clan Ironworks, Summoning Station, and Arcbound Ravager.
Ygra, Eater of All, also takes advantage of the Background cards from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. Anything that can turn creatures dying into damage and/or more creatures Ygra will want.
Take a look at even more options in our Wombo Combo article on Golgari combos.
Why Golgari?
In the power rankings of color combinations and how well they interact with artifacts, black and green are possibly the weakest combinations of colors. Ygra gives an unexpected power boost that other colors cannot access: an easier way to destroy your opponents' board. Ygra, Eater of All's page contains cards that offer targeted and mass artifact destruction. Turning cards like Nature's Claim into aggressively efficient creature removal is not something every deck can do. Ygra is also, thankfully, hard to kill effectively. With Ward - Sacrifice a Food, some players would be unable to pay the cost. The trade-off is that they might be able to kill Ygra, but it could cost them the best creature they have on board.
Truthfully, my favorite part about this deck is some of the off-the-wall cards that only fit inside this deck with this commander. Cards like Manglehorn force every creature your opponent has to come in tapped and double as creature removal. Dross Scorpion is an additional combo piece thanks to its constant ability to untap when creatures die. We can also play two of the most underrated lands in the entire format, Witch's Clinic and Tower of the Magistrate.
Have Your Cake
The more you play this deck, the more your playgroup will want you out of the game. Ygra, Eater of All, might not seem like much initially, but this card is deceiving. It's hard to kill, grows to an outrageous size, and it's in one of the best two-color combinations if a theme does not restrict you. Tutors, land ramp, card draw, removal, and recursion are all at your fingertips. This deck tries to play a version that is easier to disrupt but not specifically "weaker." Many two- and three-card combos are stuffed within the commander deck / Turdunken.
For those interested in this commander or the underexplored Golgari Snackrifice theme, I would, for the health of your playgroup, think hard about the inclusion of Academy Manufactor. The card is powerful and immediately paints a big target on your back. Plus, it leads to some game states where the math gets so outrageous that instead of dealing with just numbers, the creators of math started using letters, too.
How would you build Ygra, Eater of All? However you decide to build your deck, grab a snack, and take a look at other things I've done. Be it my preaching of planeswalkers, my evaluation of new cards, or the other commanders from Bloomburrow that I've built a deck for, you can find it all under my name, Nick, and the Myth Realized article series on EDHREC.
Deck List
Midnight Snack
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View this decklist on Archidekt
Read more:
Myth Realized - What if Any Three-Color Planeswalker Could Be Your Commander?
Nicholas Lucchesi
Player and lover of all Magic the Gathering formats. Forged in the fires of Oath of the Gatewatch expeditions. Always down to jam games with anyone and everyone. When not playing Magic I am doing something else equally, if not more nerdy.
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