Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Ygra, Eater of All!

Ygra is a five mana 6/6 with a ward of sacrificing a Food, turns other creatures in to Food artifacts in addition to their other types and have “2, tap, Sacrifice this permanent: You gain 3 life.” and whenever a Food is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put two +1/+1 counters on Ygra.

Ygra is in the constant search for Food, and any way to have our opponents get rid of their creatures that become Food when Ygra is in play makes Ygra a bigger and bigger threat, and what’s more is that we also make our things into Food and can use them as fodder to also help get Ygra bigger and bigger.

The plan is to have things that play well with Food, make a ton of Food in actual Food tokens or tokens that become Food when Ygra is in play, find ways to gain benefits from us and our opponents getting rid of their creatures that are now Food, and ways to get Ygra in to deal the final strike.

The first thing we need are ways to get more Food in play as well as benefits to playing with more Food.

Savvy Hunter is great because whenever they attack or block we make a Food token, making it great for offense or defense, and we can sacrifice two Foods to draw a card, which is also great because it becomes a sacrifice outlet when Ygra is in play to give them four +1/+1 counters and draw a card.

When playing with Food Peregrin Took is always a solid option because whenever one or more tokens would be created we make those tokens plus an additional Food token and we can also sacrifice three Foods to draw card, which again benefits Ygra in making them bigger.

Night of the Sweets’ Revenge makes a Food token and turns our Food tokens in mana rocks that can tap for a green mana, and if we need a way to get some extra damage in then we can pay seven mana and sacrifice it to give creatures we control +X/+X where X is the number of Foods we control, which becomes much better when Ygra is in play.

Tireless Provisioner has a Landfall trigger that makes a Food or a Treasure token, Vinereap Mentor makes a Food token when it enters or dies, and Heaped Harvest is a Food that when it enters and when we sacrifice it we can put a basic land from our library onto the battlefield tapped while it can sacrifice itself to gain us 3 life.

Some other benefits that come with playing Food are things like Trail of Crumbs, which enters with a Food token, and whenever we sacrifice a Food we can pay one mana to look at the top two cards and reveal a permanent from among them and put it into our hand, putting the rest on the bottom of our library in any order.

This leads to the various ways that we can have our opponents get rid of their own creatures that are Foods or us sacrificing our own Foods and reap the rewards.

Taste of Death is normally a decent edict effect in having every player sacrifice three creatures and we make three Food tokens, but in an Ygra deck where those creatures make Ygra bigger, then all of the sudden this reads put twelve +1/+1 counters on Ygra and have six more on standby.

Thornvault Forager can tap to add a green mana or can tap and Forage to add two mana in any combination of colors, and Forage is we either exile three cards from our graveyard or sacrifice a Food, and in a deck that is based on making things Food, this is an easy choice. We can also pay four mana and tap it to look for a Squirrel and put it into our hand.

Some Squirrels we can look for can include Ravenous Squirrel which gets a +1/+1 counter whenever we sacrifice an artifact or creature and can sacrifice one of them to gain us a life and draw a card, Corpseberry Cultivator to let us Forage at the beginning of each combat on our turn and if we did we put a +1/+1 counter on it, and Osteomancer Adept which lets us cast creature spells from our graveyard by Foraging in addition to their other costs and putting a finality counter on them.

We can also make use of traditional aristocrat strategies like Zulaport Cutthroat to have each opponent lose 1 life and we gain 1 life whenever they or another creature we control dies, Blood Artist to do that but for every creature, and Pitiless Plunderer to make a Treasure token whenever a creature we control dies.

There are also plenty of sacrifice outlets we can make use of, with one of the better ones when concerning Food is Witch’s Oven, which can sacrifice a creature to make a Food token, making two Food tokens if its power was 4 or greater. Combine this with Cauldron Familiar, which has each opponent lose 1 life and we gain 1 life when it enters and we can sacrifice a Food to have it come back onto the battlefield from the graveyard, and we have a classic win condition.

However, the way we win is by making Ygra massive, and the best way to do that is to get rid of as many Food creatures as possible.

Since all other creatures happen to become artifacts when Ygra is in play and Ygra themselves doesn’t, then Bane of Progress entering and destroying all artifacts and enchantments is the best way to get rid of almost every creature, problematic artifacts and enchantments, and juice up Ygra in a massive, game winning way. If we can make Bane of Progress indestructible as well, then we have two massive threats since it gets a +1/+1 counter for each permanent destroyed this way.

Fade from History also does something similar in that it has it so that each player that controls an artifact or enchantment makes a 2/2 Bear creature token and then destroys all artifacts and enchantments, which is great for us since it makes up to four more Food tokens that get destroyed and make Ygra bigger.

We can also gain a benefit for all of the artifacts getting destroyed with something like Viridian Revel, which has it so whenever and artifact an opponent goes to the graveyard from the battlefield, we draw a card.

Another way we can make use of an opponent having a wide board of now artifact creatures is Curious Herd, which has us choose an opponent and let’s us make X 3/3 Beast tokens where X is the number of artifacts they control, which become more fodder for Ygra or let’s us get super wide to attack multiple opponents.

If we want to get some more damage in, then Magnetic Mine is perfect because whenever an artifact goes from the battlefield to the graveyard, then Magnetic Mine deals 2 damage to that artifacts controller. If we play any of our artifact board wipes and then something like Heroic Intervention, then we can win the game off of the back of Magnetic Mine dealing a mass amount of damage and Ygra and the rest of our creatures cleaning up what’s left.

If you wanted to be especially cruel, yet very accirate to Ygra’s lore in Bloomburrow and fulfilling the Eater of All in their name, you can also play Nature’s Revolt which turns all lands into 2/2 creatures, which then makes them into prime targets for our mass artifact removal and prevent our opponents from making a comeback, but again this would be better for higher brackets and not to be used for lower brackets.

Ygra is an example of value Commander with a massive payoff in being able to get bigger and bigger for our opponents sacrificing their now Food creatures while we sacrifice our Foods and Food creatures to gain a ton of benefits.

The issues come with Ygra’s protection only working on targeted removal that is not that difficult if an opponent has a creature in play that can be sacrificed, and does not do well against board wipes. While mana isn’t our biggest troubles considering our colors so Ygra can afford being removed a couple of times, Ygra is a popular Commander and people may be prepared to deal with Ygra as soon as you reveal it to be your Commander.

Still, Ygra presents a fun build around Commander in the truest sense in that the whole deck revolves around making sure Ygra is fed and can swing to win us the game.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual