Matchup Analysis - GB Yawgmoth

Key Cards:
Pre-board: Kaldra, Kaldra, and KALDRA, or Shadowspear + Hammer beats G1. 

Postboard: STILL Kaldra, Hushbringer, Blacksmith’s Skill, and Pithing Needle

Problem Cards:

Pre-board: Yawgmoth, Grist, Boseiju

Postboard: Force of Vigor, Outland Liberator, Crime//Punishment, and Magus of the Moon

Objectives:

• Game 1 revolves around getting a hammer onto a creature and protecting that creature. Once Yawgmoth hits the board, it is very unlikely that you will be able to attach a hammer to a creature since Yawg will kill it in response.
• Keep in mind that their only way to remove a hammered creature game 1 is Grist (though they do play ~12 copies between the 4 grist, 4 Eldritch Evolution, and 4 Chord of Calling). That said, if you are able to connect with a hammered creature once, you probably buy the time you need in order to get there.
• Kaldra is absolutely insane in the matchup for 3 reasons
  • 1. They have no ways to kill the big germ.
  • 2. Trample. Often times the hard part can be getting through their chump blockers, and trample is a fantastic way to do that.
  • 3. It pressures their life total for reason 2. It is often correct to ignore the grist and instead pressure their life total.
• Pressure their life total as much as possible. In order to fully combo kill you, they generally need 3 (4) things:
  • 1. Yawgmoth (duh)
  • 2. 2 Undying creatures
  • 3. A blood artist effect
• Try to find a fast hand that can get under their Yawgmoth. While they can sometimes combo on turn 3, it is much more common for them to kill on turn 4 or 5. That means that Hammer is the faster deck, and we should act accordingly. Kill em dead, buddy.
• Gingerbrute can OFTEN be unblockable so it can be nice to fetch off of the saga. Just remember to watch out for untapped Strangleroot Geists, since those stupid things also have haste.
• Giver of Runes can also play a key role at pushing your creature through blockers. Though it isn’t incredibly common, it is something to keep in mind.

SB Strategy and highlights:

• Blacksmith’s Skill: Turns out this card is still excellent. Not only does it allow you to pick something to save from a Force of Vigor or Crime//Punishment, but it also protects SFM to get Kaldra online, Shadowspear to make sure you can keep trampling, Saga to grab a needle, or even the Needle itself. Additionally, this protects Hushbringer from a Grist activation. Since they often don’t have much removal, between Giver and Skill, you can often overwhelm what little they do have.
• Hushbringer: While this little faerie’s ETB mitigation doesn’t really matter, her second line of text does prevent undying triggers to happen, meaning that their Yawgmoths have a much harder time “going off” since their strangleroot geists and young wolves say dead. Additionally, it also stops Blood Artist from triggering.
  • The Flying can be relevant text as well, as they generally only have Birds of Paradise and SOMETIMES endurance to block it.
  • The Lifelink is a nice bonus when you are racing in those strange games where neither you nor your OP’s decks are functioning.
• Pithing Needle: This will name Yawgmoth 80-90% of the time, but it CAN be correct to name Grist if you need 1 turn to kill them and you’ve already equipped a hammer.
  • One thing to note is that it can sometimes be correct to play Saga on turn 1 even if you can’t get any constructs out of it, since getting a turn 3 needle can turn the tide.
• Force of Vigor and Crime//Punishment: Both of these can be absolute blowouts, given the right circumstances. Your job is to mitigate their impact by setting up the correct boardstates.
  • This means that against FoV, you only expose yourself to the double disenchant when you either:
    • Have answers to the important part (say, a Blacksmith’s Skill when you flash in a hammer)
    • Don’t care about it. This means that you can follow up the play where you force them to have FoV with another powerful play (either another hammer connection, a kaldra coming down, or a protected needle).
  • Against Punishment:
    • Remember that Punishment only destroys artifacts, creatures, and enchantments with mana cost “EQUAL TO X”, not “equal to or less than”. This means that if you diversify your threats to 0, 1, and 2, you really mitigate how much impact this can have on a given board state. Ideally, you have a construct or 2, a hammer/spear, and a Puresteel/SFM all sitting in play.
  • That all being said, sometimes you can’t afford to play around these cards, and you need to make them have it or die. Sometimes they have it, and you die, but oftentimes they will not.
• Outland Liberator: Yeah, this is a tutorable disenchant bear that can flip and disenchant every turn. Card can be rough, but it is often a little slow and inefficient for what it does. Something to be aware of to name with pithing needle on RARE occasion, but good to keep in mind regardless.
• Sometimes Magus of the Moon: Magus of the Moon usually sits in their SB, but keep in mind it is reasonable for them to have 1-2 in their main, depending on their expected metagame.
  • The best way to play around Magus is to aggressively fetch at least 1-2 Basic Plains, and not leave yourself with Paladin’s stranded in hand.
  • This should be easy to do, because Lavinia, Chip, and Spell Pierce should all be out of your deck game 2 and 3, since they are all pretty bad vs Yawg.
  • It can vary from player to player, but I don’t think it is generally correct for them to bring Magus(es) in vs us, despite it sometimes stealing games.

Cards I DON’T bring in: I don’t usually include this, but I have seen a variety of different strategies, so I wanted to address why I don’t or wouldn’t bring in specific cards (though some of these aren’t in my specific configuration).

• Removal Spells (Path to Exile, March of Otherworldly Light, Prismatic Ending, etc):
  • March: it is simply because you often only get to snag a manadork. I generally find you are better off just executing your own gameplan. If you ever get to March a Yawg, they likely get to just draw between 4-10 cards in response and you lose anyway.
  • Path: if I played this card in my board I would probably bring it in simply because of how efficient it is, but even then it feels bad to ramp your opponent. There’s a reason it isn’t in my 75.
  • Ending: While it is the most efficient against manadorks, the combination it being a sorcery alongside it never killing a Yawg means that this will sit in the sidelines.
• Lavinia: Now you know I love me a Lavinia, but she will realistically only ever shut off Chord of Calling and sometimes FoV. That just doesn’t do enough to warrant her coming in off the bench.
• Soft Graveyard hate (Relic, Soul-Guide Lantern, etc): They don’t do enough to disrupt the combo, and also don’t progress your gameplan. If you’re wanting a tutorable hate piece, both Needle and Grafdigger’s Cage are better options.

TL;DR: Keep a fast hand G1 where you Kaldra or Hammer + Spear a creature to push through blockers. Post-board, rely on Kaldra plus things like Hushy-B.