He's as competitive as a monocolored deck can be in this format. I call him the best mono-black commander by a mile, but the lack of diverse answers to enemy strategies might hurt. But I really need to reiterate: what I feel holds him back is the color identity, NOT the abilities: those are perfectly viable in even 100% cEDH.
Yawgmoth went from being an exiled physician to controlling then subverting an entire civilization and becoming a dark godlike entity. I’d call that rather competitive.
Strictly speaking card however, it is no Urza, Atrificer Prodigy and personally I find my Ghalta, Primal Hunger deck wipes the floor with it, but Ghalta does that with my other 10+ commander decks typically.
My issue is that green/white are the prime token colors and black is the third, making it hard to find token generation support. I haven’t given up on my Yawgmoth deck yet, but currently I would consider mine a casual deck and not viable for cEDH, but again, that is my build.
He's as competitive as a monocolored deck can be in this format. I call him the best mono-black commander by a mile, but the lack of diverse answers to enemy strategies might hurt. But I really need to reiterate: what I feel holds him back is the color identity, NOT the abilities: those are perfectly viable in even 100% cEDH.
Urza? Yisan? Teferi? Selvala? Sidisi? There are several mono-colored commanders that range from very competitive to somewhat competitive. Yawgmoth's problems are exacerbated by his color identity, but the fundamental issue is his clunkiness and speed.
Urza, Yisan, Teferi and Selvala are all decks made great by the fact that their playstyle allows them to circumvent the inherent problem of their color identity. Like, they still suffer from lack of diverse answers to enemy strategies, but in their case it doesn't matter because they don't care about answering in the first place: they just want to power out a combo as quickly as possible. They all fall under what would be called a "turbo" deck in Yugioh jargon which, yes, makes them more competitive than Yawgmoth, but that doesn't change the fact that Yawgmoth is still as competitive as a mono black is going to be (I.E. not as much as those other guys you mentioned, but still decent).
As for Sidisi, I frankly don't get why you included her: if you're going to amass recurring creatures for her to exploit, then she's just as clunky as Yawgmoth because, as others mentioned, black by itself is not the best color for consistently providing fodder. And if you're going to sac herself to her own ability, then she's literally a Razaketh's Rite in the command zone: if the goal is doubling up on tutors so as to bring out a combo as quickly as possible, then I'd rather have her in the 99 and a combo piece, such as Mikaeus, the Unhallowed or, yes, Yawgmoth himself as the commander.
Urza, Yisan, Teferi and Selvala are all decks made great by the fact that their playstyle allows them to circumvent the inherent problem of their color identity. Like, they still suffer from lack of diverse answers to enemy strategies, but in their case it doesn't matter because they don't care about answering in the first place: they just want to power out a combo as quickly as possible. They all fall under what would be called a "turbo" deck in Yugioh jargon which, yes, makes them more competitive than Yawgmoth, but that doesn't change the fact that Yawgmoth is still as competitive as a mono black is going to be (I.E. not as much as those other guys you mentioned, but still decent).
That's not what your claim was, though. Your claim was that he's as competitive as any mono-colored commander can be in the format, which is demonstrably false. As for those decks being combo decks, I mean, that's the name of the game, innit? Literally every top tier cEDH deck is a combo deck, be it breakneck fast like Yisan or slow and stax-y like Urza. Saying that a deck lacks answers is kind of irrelevant if your opponents are already dead.
As for Sidisi, I frankly don't get why you included her: if you're going to amass recurring creatures for her to exploit, then she's just as clunky as Yawgmoth because, as others mentioned, black by itself is not the best color for consistently providing fodder. And if you're going to sac herself to her own ability, then she's literally a Razaketh's Rite in the command zone: if the goal is doubling up on tutors so as to bring out a combo as quickly as possible, then I'd rather have her in the 99 and a combo piece, such as Mikaeus, the Unhallowed or, yes, Yawgmoth himself as the commander.
I mean, you just grab Ad Nauseam, which is a one card combo in the deck. I included her as an easter egg since she's not particularly competitive but is still probably more competitive than Yawgmoth despite being a glass cannon one-trick pony.
First of all yeah, my mistake: when I said Yawgmoth is as competitive as a monocolored deck can be, I meant a mono BLACK deck. That said, to answer this question: not as fast as those other guys, that's for sure. But he's still an instant-speed sac outlet with no mana cost, so there ARE things you can do with him: with Mike and Filigree Familiar/Peace Strider you can draw your entire deck, and then you can drop something like Ichor Rats and proliferate everyone to death. It takes a lot of mana to pull off, but black does have plenty of big mana options. Alternatively, since the idea is to use the ETB of fox/strider to gain life so as to offset Yawgmoth's life cost, you could use Sanguine Bond as a finisher for that combo, which overall costs a hell of a lot less mana to pull off: the issue in this case is running out of cards to draw before the enemy runs out of life. Heck, fox/strider are going to gain you so much life that Aetherflux Reservoir could MAYBE be a viable finisher.
So yeah, in a 75% environment where creatures are still relevant, Yawgmoth is exceptional on the account of being able to kill enemy creatures while drawing you cards to set up a combo like the one I mentioned above. And in a full 100% cEDH environment Yawgmoth is still decent, but he cannot match the speed and efficiency of those blue and green combo commanders you mentioned: given that his main gimmick cannot be fueled as efficiently in mono black, I dare say that's the most you can expect a mono black commander to do. Thus I repeat: Yawgmoth is the best mono black commander, and is as competitive as a mono black deck is going to be... Which, sadly, means not as much as other color identities are capable of
EDIT: I SOMEHOW forgot the most obvious solution... Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Yawgmoth + Mike + Gray Merchant should be the easiest and most efficient way of winning, because even if you control no other black permanents you're still looking at a minimum of 7 damage to all opponents per iteration of the combo, which should be enough to kill everyone before you run out of cards to draw.
So yeah, in a 75% environment where creatures are still relevant, Yawgmoth is exceptional on the account of being able to kill enemy creatures while drawing you cards to set up a combo like the one I mentioned above. And in a full 100% cEDH environment Yawgmoth is still decent, but he cannot match the speed and efficiency of those blue and green combo commanders you mentioned: given that his main gimmick cannot be fueled as efficiently in mono black, I dare say that's the most you can expect a mono black commander to do.
Besides utility dorks, what creatures are you killing with Yawgmoth? How are you generating the creatures to fuel his ability? How do you define "decent" since the deck is glacially slow and lacks meaningful interaction in cEDH? How is Yawgmoth better than, say, Sidisi (who finds a one card combo), Xiahou-Dun (who more efficiently combos out and has greater utility), Chainer (who has more raw power for loops), or Erebos (who converts excess life and mana into cards)? Yawgmoth is an interesting and powerful 75% commander to be sure, but:
Thus I repeat: Yawgmoth is the best mono black commander, and is as competitive as a mono black deck is going to be... Which, sadly, means not as much as other color identities are capable of
This is a bold claim for a new commander that's only been out a month. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and you can rightly expect the old guard to be skeptical.
1) Depends on the situation. Unlike in cEDH (where the only creatures that matter are mana dorks and combo pieces), in 75% there are plenty of targets to take care of, depending on the kind of deck the opponent is using. And I specifically stated that line about killing creatures was only relevant for 75%, NOT for 100% cEDH.
2) You answered your own question further down in your post. Black also has access to a plethora of other options for fueling Yawgmoth which are, however, quite inefficient. I did mention that being one of the main issues with mono black, but it is a problem that lies in the color identity, not in the abilities of the card.
3) He's decent because he enables combos, meaning that combos involving him require one less tutor to be found, given that one of the pieces is in your command zone. And black is the best color for tutoring to begin with, so assembling one of those combos is going to be reasonably easy, albeit not as fast as the guys you mentioned for mono blue/green (simply because blue has better draw/utility, and green has faster mana ramp: that's just how the color pi works). As for the lack of meaningful interaction I'm sorry, I thought at some point a guy by the name of GloriousGoose had mentioned interaction not being as important when you're just trying to power out a combo as fast as possible? I was working under that same assumption. Besides, the lack of interaction beyond killing creatures is a problem shared by all black decks, so we're back to my original point: that Yawgmoth's weakness lies in his color identity, not in his ability.
4) On Sidisi: again, she either faces the same issues as Yawgmoth, or she's literally a command zone tutor. Which don't get me wrong, is decently cool, but if all you want to do is tutor up Ad Nauseam then you might as well pay literally any other commander, put all existing tutors in your deck, and mulligan until you open with one in your hand. Many tutors available to black are actually cheaper than Sidisi, letting you go off one turn earlier.
5) On Xiahou: does he really combo out "more efficiently" than Yawgmoth? The latter can actively contribute to your search for combo pieces by drawing you cards. Do not underestimate the ability to draw at instant speed for no mana cost. Xiahou cannot consistently give you that utility and combo potential unti his engine is online, while Yawgmoth can, in a pinch, help you draw into his own engine. The only counter-argument to this is pointing out, once again, that supplying fuel for Yawgmoth's ability to draw us cards is not that easy, and can in fact be as problematic as Xiahou's own need for an engine in order to function... And thus we're once again back to my original point: that what really holds back this card is its color identity, rather than its abilities.
6) On Chainer: his loop-enabling activated ability costs mana, Yawgmoth's doesn't. Again, do not underestimate the power of an instant-speed sac outlet/draw engine with no mana cost.
7) On Erebos: his activated ability also costs mana... And as you said, he's all about finding an use for "surplus" resources. I thought we had agreed that our goal in cEDH was to combo off BEFORE getting to the point where we'd even have "surplus" resources?
Mine was a simple consideration based on a simple fact: in cEDH you win via combo, and a combo is easier/faster to assemble if one of its key pieces is sitting in your command zone, because that essentially means that one less tutor is necessary in order to win. Now, Yawgomth is a sac outlet that needs Mikaeus in order to explode, and Mikaeus needs a sac outlet in order to explode, so you could run one or the other in the command zone and the rest of the 99 would remain essentially the same... And since Mikaeus also has the option of pulling a 2-cards combo with Triskelion, one could argue that Mikaeus is actually superior to Yawgmoth as a commander. And while that would be a fair point, I still maintain that using Mikaeus in the 99 is better for two reasons: firstly, going Buried Alive+Victimize is a far more efficient way of putting Mikaeus and Triskelion on the field, compared to casting them, and secondly I once again must reiterate that Yawgmoth's ability to draw cards makes him automatically better not only because he actually has something to do before the combo is assembled (as opposed to Xiahou/Mikaeus, who will just sit in the command zone until their respective engines are online), but especially because he can actually HELP you actively search for the pieces you still need. In a card game, no actions is more powerful or more important than drawing cards.
That is, of course, provided that we can actually keep Yawgmoth supplied with creatures to sac, which in mono black is not the easiest thing to do compared to bicolor or tricolor decks... And thus we're back to my original point, once again: Yawgmoth's main issue lies in his color identity, it lies in the fact that his color of choice is not the best when it comes to supporting his own gimmick. Compare to Urza: his gimmick is artifacts, and blue IS the best color for supporting artifacts, so it's much easier for a mono blue Urza deck to be effective in cEDH, compared to a mono black Yawgmoth deck. But this doesn't change the fact that Yawgmoth's abilities as printed are in themselves more powerful than those seen on any other mono black commander so far: they draw you cards, enable infinite combos AND provide a potential alternate wincon. No other mono black commander can claim to have all three these aspects rolled into its abilities: Sidisi doesn't enable combos (she merely searches them), Xiahou doesn't draw cards, Chainer cannot actively set up his own combos and also costs mana to use, Erebos is not a combo piece, neither is Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Mikaeus doesn't contribute anything to the deck until it's time to come into play and get the combo going, Volrath and Drana are voltron finishers (which is arguably a lesser way of winning in cEDH), and so on so forth.
Yawgmoth's abilities do 3 things. This is a fact. No other mono black commander has abilities that do 3 things. This is also a fact. Theses 3 things Yawgmoth's abilities do cannot glue a deck together and get it to explode as quickly or as efficiently as the abilities of other commanders of other colors, simply because those other commanders are better supported by their respective color identities: this is also a fact, but the problem lies in the color identity, not in the abilities themselves.
I therefore repeat: Yawgmoth is as competitive as a mono black deck is ever going to be. Which means decently competitive, but not as competitive as other, better, color identities.
1) Depends on the situation. Unlike in cEDH (where the only creatures that matter are mana dorks and combo pieces), in 75% there are plenty of targets to take care of, depending on the kind of deck the opponent is using. And I specifically stated that line about killing creatures was only relevant for 75%, NOT for 100% cEDH.
2) You answered your own question further down in your post. Black also has access to a plethora of other options for fueling Yawgmoth which are, however, quite inefficient. I did mention that being one of the main issues with mono black, but it is a problem that lies in the color identity, not in the abilities of the card.
This is my point. Without lots of food to feed Yawgmoth, he isn't killing much besides utility dorks. Isn't this more efficiently accomplished by just blowing everything up? I would rather cast Damnation or some other board wipe than have to invest a ton of mana into taking out one or two creatures just because you get to draw some cards in the process. There are much more efficient ways to accomplish everything you want to do in this scenario. You are jumping through hoops to not do a whole hell of a lot; in other words, durdling.
3) He's decent because he enables combos, meaning that combos involving him require one less tutor to be found, given that one of the pieces is in your command zone. And black is the best color for tutoring to begin with, so assembling one of those combos is going to be reasonably easy, albeit not as fast as the guys you mentioned for mono blue/green (simply because blue has better draw/utility, and green has faster mana ramp: that's just how the color pi works). As for the lack of meaningful interaction I'm sorry, I thought at some point a guy by the name of GloriousGoose had mentioned interaction not being as important when you're just trying to power out a combo as fast as possible? I was working under that same assumption. Besides, the lack of interaction beyond killing creatures is a problem shared by all black decks, so we're back to my original point: that Yawgmoth's weakness lies in his color identity, not in his ability.
Let's revisit what I actually said:
Saying that a deck lacks answers is kind of irrelevant if your opponents are already dead.
If you're dead because your deck lacks the speed to kill other players before they win, which Yawgmoth does in a cEDH environment, then interaction becomes much more important. As you said, mono-black has serious limitations here (though people tend to overlook the power of Thoughtseize et al.) so that's a problem endemic to all mono-black decks. Since this question was in regards to Yawgmoth's cEDH capabilities, we're going to talk about that now since you failed to actually answer the question. Lots of commanders enable combos. The question then becomes: are those combos relevant in a competitive environment? I would argue that none of the combos Yawgmoth enables are particularly competitive. Even Nest of Scarabs has its own limitations since you could, again, just cast Sidisi, find Ad Nauseam, draw your whole deck, and win. Mike and Trike/Gary have too many weak points (counterspells, graveyard hate, creature removal, artifact removal for Trike) and are generally too mana intensive outside of reanimation. Two undying creatures with Blood Artist or something is too many cards to be efficient. The list goes on. Yawgmoth doesn't really bring much to the table.
4) On Sidisi: again, she either faces the same issues as Yawgmoth, or she's literally a command zone tutor. Which don't get me wrong, is decently cool, but if all you want to do is tutor up Ad Nauseam then you might as well pay literally any other commander, put all existing tutors in your deck, and mulligan until you open with one in your hand. Many tutors available to black are actually cheaper than Sidisi, letting you go off one turn earlier.
5) On Xiahou: does he really combo out "more efficiently" than Yawgmoth? The latter can actively contribute to your search for combo pieces by drawing you cards. Do not underestimate the ability to draw at instant speed for no mana cost. Xiahou cannot consistently give you that utility and combo potential unti his engine is online, while Yawgmoth can, in a pinch, help you draw into his own engine. The only counter-argument to this is pointing out, once again, that supplying fuel for Yawgmoth's ability to draw us cards is not that easy, and can in fact be as problematic as Xiahou's own need for an engine in order to function... And thus we're once again back to my original point: that what really holds back this card is its color identity, rather than its abilities.
6) On Chainer: his loop-enabling activated ability costs mana, Yawgmoth's doesn't. Again, do not underestimate the power of an instant-speed sac outlet/draw engine with no mana cost.
7) On Erebos: his activated ability also costs mana... And as you said, he's all about finding an use for "surplus" resources. I thought we had agreed that our goal in cEDH was to combo off BEFORE getting to the point where we'd even have "surplus" resources?
Spoilers: none of them are really cEDH viable. If you take any of these decks to a fully powered cEDH pod, you're going to have a bad time. When you acknowledge that fact, and analyze them in their proper tier (75%, or whatever you want to call it) the hierarchy muddles a bit. I'm certainly not arguing that Yawgmoth is bad, because he's obviously a very powerful commander for his weight class. I simply disagree with the ideas that he's even remotely cEDH viable and that he's the best mono-black commander. I think it's fair to say that a reasonable metric for "best" is "what wins most," right? In cEDH, with an established hierarchy and metagame, that's much easier to analyze, but when you get into lower tiers and the number of decks vastly increases, then what is best becomes much more difficult to answer. I would say it's fair to place Yawgmoth in the pantheon of top tier mono-black commanders but flat out asserting that he's the best or that he's even remotely cEDH viable is wrong.
But this doesn't change the fact that Yawgmoth's abilities as printed are in themselves more powerful than those seen on any other mono black commander so far: they draw you cards, enable infinite combos AND provide a potential alternate wincon. No other mono black commander can claim to have all three these aspects rolled into its abilities: Sidisi doesn't enable combos (she merely searches them), Xiahou doesn't draw cards, Chainer cannot actively set up his own combos and also costs mana to use, Erebos is not a combo piece, neither is Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Mikaeus doesn't contribute anything to the deck until it's time to come into play and get the combo going, Volrath and Drana are voltron finishers (which is arguably a lesser way of winning in cEDH), and so on so forth.
Okay. And? You could put a thousand abilities in his rules text and if they're all terrible it doesn't matter. This is a superfluous argument. Just... focus on how his abilities translate directly into game wins, not how fancy they are. Drawing cards is obviously great, but if you're having to spend cards to draw cards you're arriving at card parity, not card advantage. Or, if you're relying on something like Reassembling Skeleton, it's inefficient. As you've admitted multiple times, it's difficult to feed him, so how many cards are you realistically drawing off of him? Infinite combos are good, and Proliferate is powerful in the right deck, but making the argument that because he has three abilities of various usability this makes him powerful is flawed.
Theses 3 things Yawgmoth's abilities do cannot glue a deck together and get it to explode as quickly or as efficiently as the abilities of other commanders of other colors, simply because those other commanders are better supported by their respective color identities: this is also a fact, but the problem lies in the color identity, not in the abilities themselves.
Saying he would be better with a different color identity is a hypothetical that has no bearing on the conversation of whether or not a) he's a competitive commander or b) the best mono-black commander.
I therefore repeat: Yawgmoth is as competitive as a mono black deck is ever going to be. Which means decently competitive, but not as competitive as other, better, color identities.
Assert whatever you want. That doesn't make it true. Who knows, though,B maybe someone will break Yawgmoth and this post will have aged like milk in the summer heat.
How many games with Yawgmoth do you have under your belt in a semi-competitive and above EDH environment?
How many games with Yawgmoth do you have under your belt in a semi-competitive and above EDH environment?
About 15. All my games are semi-competitive and above, because I play with the kind of people who would sooner get a cheap proxy of an original dual land than play a Tarkir triple land. The kind of people who spend hours calculating the chances of each possible hand. You know when people post in this forum lamenting that their LGS was taken over by insufferable tryhards who suck the fun out of the game? Yeah, that's the people I play with.
And as a lover of all things black, I've played all manners of commanders that had black in their color identity, including most of the mono black commanders discussed here so far, and yes, I've done so at this kind of table. And on the basis of this experience I reiterate my argument: that Yawgmoth performs a lot better than his mono-black ilk when faced with 75% decks, and can even hold his own in the face of more powerful. cEDH-level decks (mostly by making use of Contamination, the one card black has to slow down the more powerful decks). That said, the gulf in power between him and commanders with more favorable color identities was evident: I've actually tried him in the 99 of various Sultai and Abzan decks, and the couple times I actually drew into him he proved a game changer, accomplishing a lot more than he was doing by himself... Which brings me back to the one thing I've been repeating in this whole topic: that his abilities are both powerful and capable of impacting any table, even ones with cEDH-level decks, but he's held back by the fact that his color by itself is just not good enough.
You seem bent on winning this crusade about the evil ToT who dared to say that Yawgmoth is a great competitive commander... But I never said that. All I said is that he's stronger than his mono-black ilk and that he's very good in 75% environments while still being able to hold his own in more competitive environments. HOLD HIS OWN, not OMG THIS IS THE BEST COMMANDER EVER HE WINS EVERY GAME PLAY THIS DECK NEW META or whatever youtubers say in the titles of their videos.
It is a fact that a deck headed by Yawgmoth can do anything a deck headed by any other mono-black commander can do, and that he can do things those other guys cannot do: this simple fact makes it easier for him to win games, which in turn makes him better than the other mono-black commanders, simply because he offers you more. Is this "more" he offers enough to dominate the competitive meta, or even to do great/good in it? Of course not, because mono-black is still an inferior color identity, and the lack of ways to stop enemy combos mans that your sole realistic chance of winning against optimized, cEDH-viable combo decks is to pray to get your own combo before they do... Which, thanks to the good things a deck like this has to offer, you might SOMETIMES be able to pull off. And "sometimes" is still better than "absolutely never".
Imagine an italian guy ranking 47th in a chess world cup, with the other italian players being placed much lower: is that guy a world-class player and a tournament winner? Absolutely not. But he's still the best among the italian players. That's kind of my argument in regards to Yawgmoth: I never claimed that he was a top-tier competitive pick, but still it's a fact that, in an environment where all mono-black decks perform poorly, he performs a bit better than his ilk, which makes him the best of his ilk. If this offends you to the point of starting a crusade over it, it's frankly not my problem.
It seems to me that the issue here is that you and I have a very different definition of the word "viable". I could write an entire essay on the topic of the "top tier fallacy" (long story short, the definition most people have of what constitutes a "top tier" is based on a textbook case of circular logic), but it seems to me that such a debate would derail this topic even more than it already has.
OP has asked a question. I have provided my answer, and you've provided yours: I have no interest in changing mine, and it seems to me that the same goes to you, so this conversation is over. OP will try some things based on our answers and see for themselves who they agree with.
Well, he's card draw, removal, and a discard and sac outlet, all for four mana. How is the Lord of Wastes not competitive again?
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
About 15. All my games are semi-competitive and above, because I play with the kind of people who would sooner get a cheap proxy of an original dual land than play a Tarkir triple land. The kind of people who spend hours calculating the chances of each possible hand. You know when people post in this forum lamenting that their LGS was taken over by insufferable tryhards who suck the fun out of the game? Yeah, that's the people I play with.
And those people that spend hours calculating the chance of each possible hand consider 15 a reasonable sample size?
You seem bent on winning this crusade about the evil ToT who dared to say that Yawgmoth is a great competitive commander... But I never said that. All I said is that he's stronger than his mono-black ilk and that he's very good in 75% environments while still being able to hold his own in more competitive environments. HOLD HIS OWN, not OMG THIS IS THE BEST COMMANDER EVER HE WINS EVERY GAME PLAY THIS DECK NEW META or whatever youtubers say in the titles of their videos.
Keep your shirt on, pal. The argument you're making that I've misrepresented your argument is interesting when you're the one misrepresenting mine. I explicitly stated it twice in my previous post, so I'll try again, with some minor explanations added on: a) Yawgmoth is not cEDH viable and it is a disservice to readers to claim otherwise and b) he is not the clear cut best mono-black commander. I'm sorry I disagree with your assessment but there's no need to get upset.
Imagine an italian guy ranking 47th in a chess world cup, with the other italian players being placed much lower: is that guy a world-class player and a tournament winner? Absolutely not. But he's still the best among the italian players. That's kind of my argument in regards to Yawgmoth: I never claimed that he was a top-tier competitive pick, but still it's a fact that, in an environment where all mono-black decks perform poorly, he performs a bit better than his ilk, which makes him the best of his ilk. If this offends you to the point of starting a crusade over it, it's frankly not my problem.
It seems to me that the issue here is that you and I have a very different definition of the word "viable". I could write an entire essay on the topic of the "top tier fallacy" (long story short, the definition most people have of what constitutes a "top tier" is based on a textbook case of circular logic), but it seems to me that such a debate would derail this topic even more than it already has.
Two uses of crusade. Just a few more and we'll get to my favorite.
How is discussing the viability of Yawgmoth as a commander derailing a thread about the viability of Yagwmoth as a commander?
I disagree with your "fact" that "all mono-black decks perform poorly" in a cEDH environment. So does the greater cEDH community, actually, since Sidisi is still listed at tier 2.
Since in your estimation this is a semantic quibble over "viable" let's try to find a shared usage. To me, a commander is viable if it is able to win greater than 12.5% of the pods they're in with like-powered decks. How did I come to this number? If an obviously competitive deck wins 25% of the pods it's in, as is expected in a four player pod, then winning half of that still puts a given deck in reasonable contention. I don't see Yawgie beating a random selection of tier 1 cEDH decks greater than 12.5% of the time. Therefore, I don't think Yagwmoth is cEDH viable. Of course, you're free to dispute that definition as well as Yawgmoth's ability to achieve that win percentage.
I don't have a dog in this fight but I'm curious, of those 15 or so games at a semi-competitive or above level, how many of those 15 games did you win or were in a position to win? Also, are all these games at one LGS or is it a variety of different people/places played?
I ask the second question because my playgroup is considered to be among the "above semi-competitive" level at one shop 2 hours away that we go to for EDH tournaments but our decks are pretty much on par power wise (by design) with the rest of the shop that we live by.
First of all, I would like to thank you and goose for giving me all this info to ponder, I appreciate it. One question I still have is how exactly are the bloodghast(recurrable)/(undying) like effects inefficient? also, could I see your decklist for Yawgmoth?
I don't see Yawgie beating a random selection of tier 1 cEDH decks greater than 12.5% of the time. Therefore, I don't think Yagwmoth is cEDH viable. Of course, you're free to dispute that definition as well as Yawgmoth's ability to achieve that win percentage.
I'm not sure Yawgmoth could reliably defeat my Gravetide deck (in signature) 12.5% of the time. And that is very much not a competitive deck.
First of all, I would like to thank you and goose for giving me all this info to ponder, I appreciate it. One question I still have is how exactly are the bloodghast(recurrable)/(undying) like effects inefficient? also, could I see your decklist for Yawgmoth?
I do not have a list for Yawgmoth, but Gravecrawler & Nether Traitor are the only ones I would truly consider 'efficient', and they are conditional.
I would still play Reassembling Skeleton personally, but it gets expensive fast. I would not play Bloodghast, as I consider land drops too unreliable after the first few turns. It is also strongly hampered by the 'once per turn' limiter on lands. Not truly repeatable in the sense we are looking at. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed allows you to loop two other creatures with Yawgmoth effectively, so should probably be included. I am uncertain what other Undying creatures would be worth playing. Maybe Geralf's Messenger.
Nest of Scarabs, as mentioned previously, is probably the single most important card for a Yawgmoth deck. Archfiend of Ifnir is a bit more expensive, but is another that has particularly strong synergy with the Thran Physician. Blood Artist & Zulaport Cutthroat both offset the cost of Yawgmoth, and provide a means to simply win the game. I would not advise the other, more expensive versions of these.
I am uncertain on the value of Alhammarret's Archive, but it is something I would certainly at least test with.
Because Yawgmoth himself provides a means of discarding cards, I would strongly consider looking at what options you have for including a Reanimate shell.
I've been working on a list for a while now and I would say it's pretty competitive. Not going to race flash hulk anytime soon but that's what stax pieces are for. When you don't need the stax you can fast combo as early as turn 3 and turn 4 or 5 pretty easily.
As a mono black player myself, I was rather disappointed when I first saw Yawgmoth. Especially after we saw Urza revealed. After all of the build up in the story and the powerful cards made in his name, I was expecting more. That being said, he has grown on me.
I agree that it is not viable in cEDH, but in Kitchen table Commander, it can be one of the more oppressive decks around.
Remember that the -1/-1 counter is on UP TO one creature, which means that you are not forced to put them on your own creatures and Yawgmoth does not have to kill himself if you fail to have other valid targets. You can just pay the life to draw cards for each creature you sacrifice.
The thing is, the less competitive the group is, the more oppressive mono black becomes.
Assuming you want to play in a group without fast mana rocks and fast/cheap tutors, MBC just gets even stronger. MBC has access to the best graveyard hate, some of the best removal, explosive mana which can outrace green after the opening turns, card which rivals blue, and staying power by way of life draining effects. I cannot tell you how often I have won over the years off the backs of non-infinite synergistic loops.
I played Kagemaro, First to Suffer for years. That deck quickly became Ghoulcaller Gisa good stuff. If I ever get my hands on Yawgmoth, he will likely become my new MBC commander.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
I played against a Yawgmoth deck last week. The guy kept bringing back Reassembling Skeleton to kill our creatures and draw cards.
He also used Smokestack and Tangle Wire to slow down the other players, with Karn's Bastion for extra proliferates. I saw the ol' infect angle in there too, with Skitheryx and Ichor Rats but we piled on him before that got off the ground.
As a commander I can't say but Yawgmoth has accelerated my Hapatra deck by a considerable measure. With the snake output she provides plus very quickly finding anything like Zulaport Cutthroat, Obelisk Spider, Blood Artist, etc it ends games very quickly.
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Strictly speaking card however, it is no Urza, Atrificer Prodigy and personally I find my Ghalta, Primal Hunger deck wipes the floor with it, but Ghalta does that with my other 10+ commander decks typically.
My issue is that green/white are the prime token colors and black is the third, making it hard to find token generation support. I haven’t given up on my Yawgmoth deck yet, but currently I would consider mine a casual deck and not viable for cEDH, but again, that is my build.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
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-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Urza? Yisan? Teferi? Selvala? Sidisi? There are several mono-colored commanders that range from very competitive to somewhat competitive. Yawgmoth's problems are exacerbated by his color identity, but the fundamental issue is his clunkiness and speed.
I can think of another mono-black commander that is 5/7.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
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Urza, Yisan, Teferi and Selvala are all decks made great by the fact that their playstyle allows them to circumvent the inherent problem of their color identity. Like, they still suffer from lack of diverse answers to enemy strategies, but in their case it doesn't matter because they don't care about answering in the first place: they just want to power out a combo as quickly as possible. They all fall under what would be called a "turbo" deck in Yugioh jargon which, yes, makes them more competitive than Yawgmoth, but that doesn't change the fact that Yawgmoth is still as competitive as a mono black is going to be (I.E. not as much as those other guys you mentioned, but still decent).
As for Sidisi, I frankly don't get why you included her: if you're going to amass recurring creatures for her to exploit, then she's just as clunky as Yawgmoth because, as others mentioned, black by itself is not the best color for consistently providing fodder. And if you're going to sac herself to her own ability, then she's literally a Razaketh's Rite in the command zone: if the goal is doubling up on tutors so as to bring out a combo as quickly as possible, then I'd rather have her in the 99 and a combo piece, such as Mikaeus, the Unhallowed or, yes, Yawgmoth himself as the commander.
I mean, you just grab Ad Nauseam, which is a one card combo in the deck. I included her as an easter egg since she's not particularly competitive but is still probably more competitive than Yawgmoth despite being a glass cannon one-trick pony.
How do you envision Yawgmoth winning?
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
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First of all yeah, my mistake: when I said Yawgmoth is as competitive as a monocolored deck can be, I meant a mono BLACK deck. That said, to answer this question: not as fast as those other guys, that's for sure. But he's still an instant-speed sac outlet with no mana cost, so there ARE things you can do with him: with Mike and Filigree Familiar/Peace Strider you can draw your entire deck, and then you can drop something like Ichor Rats and proliferate everyone to death. It takes a lot of mana to pull off, but black does have plenty of big mana options. Alternatively, since the idea is to use the ETB of fox/strider to gain life so as to offset Yawgmoth's life cost, you could use Sanguine Bond as a finisher for that combo, which overall costs a hell of a lot less mana to pull off: the issue in this case is running out of cards to draw before the enemy runs out of life. Heck, fox/strider are going to gain you so much life that Aetherflux Reservoir could MAYBE be a viable finisher.
So yeah, in a 75% environment where creatures are still relevant, Yawgmoth is exceptional on the account of being able to kill enemy creatures while drawing you cards to set up a combo like the one I mentioned above. And in a full 100% cEDH environment Yawgmoth is still decent, but he cannot match the speed and efficiency of those blue and green combo commanders you mentioned: given that his main gimmick cannot be fueled as efficiently in mono black, I dare say that's the most you can expect a mono black commander to do. Thus I repeat: Yawgmoth is the best mono black commander, and is as competitive as a mono black deck is going to be... Which, sadly, means not as much as other color identities are capable of
EDIT: I SOMEHOW forgot the most obvious solution... Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Yawgmoth + Mike + Gray Merchant should be the easiest and most efficient way of winning, because even if you control no other black permanents you're still looking at a minimum of 7 damage to all opponents per iteration of the combo, which should be enough to kill everyone before you run out of cards to draw.
This is a bold claim for a new commander that's only been out a month. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and you can rightly expect the old guard to be skeptical.
Also, you seem to have overlooked Nest of Scarabs, which is his single strongest enabler. Yawgmoth's Bargain, indeed.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
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2) You answered your own question further down in your post. Black also has access to a plethora of other options for fueling Yawgmoth which are, however, quite inefficient. I did mention that being one of the main issues with mono black, but it is a problem that lies in the color identity, not in the abilities of the card.
3) He's decent because he enables combos, meaning that combos involving him require one less tutor to be found, given that one of the pieces is in your command zone. And black is the best color for tutoring to begin with, so assembling one of those combos is going to be reasonably easy, albeit not as fast as the guys you mentioned for mono blue/green (simply because blue has better draw/utility, and green has faster mana ramp: that's just how the color pi works). As for the lack of meaningful interaction I'm sorry, I thought at some point a guy by the name of GloriousGoose had mentioned interaction not being as important when you're just trying to power out a combo as fast as possible? I was working under that same assumption. Besides, the lack of interaction beyond killing creatures is a problem shared by all black decks, so we're back to my original point: that Yawgmoth's weakness lies in his color identity, not in his ability.
4) On Sidisi: again, she either faces the same issues as Yawgmoth, or she's literally a command zone tutor. Which don't get me wrong, is decently cool, but if all you want to do is tutor up Ad Nauseam then you might as well pay literally any other commander, put all existing tutors in your deck, and mulligan until you open with one in your hand. Many tutors available to black are actually cheaper than Sidisi, letting you go off one turn earlier.
5) On Xiahou: does he really combo out "more efficiently" than Yawgmoth? The latter can actively contribute to your search for combo pieces by drawing you cards. Do not underestimate the ability to draw at instant speed for no mana cost. Xiahou cannot consistently give you that utility and combo potential unti his engine is online, while Yawgmoth can, in a pinch, help you draw into his own engine. The only counter-argument to this is pointing out, once again, that supplying fuel for Yawgmoth's ability to draw us cards is not that easy, and can in fact be as problematic as Xiahou's own need for an engine in order to function... And thus we're once again back to my original point: that what really holds back this card is its color identity, rather than its abilities.
6) On Chainer: his loop-enabling activated ability costs mana, Yawgmoth's doesn't. Again, do not underestimate the power of an instant-speed sac outlet/draw engine with no mana cost.
7) On Erebos: his activated ability also costs mana... And as you said, he's all about finding an use for "surplus" resources. I thought we had agreed that our goal in cEDH was to combo off BEFORE getting to the point where we'd even have "surplus" resources?
Mine was a simple consideration based on a simple fact: in cEDH you win via combo, and a combo is easier/faster to assemble if one of its key pieces is sitting in your command zone, because that essentially means that one less tutor is necessary in order to win. Now, Yawgomth is a sac outlet that needs Mikaeus in order to explode, and Mikaeus needs a sac outlet in order to explode, so you could run one or the other in the command zone and the rest of the 99 would remain essentially the same... And since Mikaeus also has the option of pulling a 2-cards combo with Triskelion, one could argue that Mikaeus is actually superior to Yawgmoth as a commander. And while that would be a fair point, I still maintain that using Mikaeus in the 99 is better for two reasons: firstly, going Buried Alive+Victimize is a far more efficient way of putting Mikaeus and Triskelion on the field, compared to casting them, and secondly I once again must reiterate that Yawgmoth's ability to draw cards makes him automatically better not only because he actually has something to do before the combo is assembled (as opposed to Xiahou/Mikaeus, who will just sit in the command zone until their respective engines are online), but especially because he can actually HELP you actively search for the pieces you still need. In a card game, no actions is more powerful or more important than drawing cards.
That is, of course, provided that we can actually keep Yawgmoth supplied with creatures to sac, which in mono black is not the easiest thing to do compared to bicolor or tricolor decks... And thus we're back to my original point, once again: Yawgmoth's main issue lies in his color identity, it lies in the fact that his color of choice is not the best when it comes to supporting his own gimmick. Compare to Urza: his gimmick is artifacts, and blue IS the best color for supporting artifacts, so it's much easier for a mono blue Urza deck to be effective in cEDH, compared to a mono black Yawgmoth deck. But this doesn't change the fact that Yawgmoth's abilities as printed are in themselves more powerful than those seen on any other mono black commander so far: they draw you cards, enable infinite combos AND provide a potential alternate wincon. No other mono black commander can claim to have all three these aspects rolled into its abilities: Sidisi doesn't enable combos (she merely searches them), Xiahou doesn't draw cards, Chainer cannot actively set up his own combos and also costs mana to use, Erebos is not a combo piece, neither is Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Mikaeus doesn't contribute anything to the deck until it's time to come into play and get the combo going, Volrath and Drana are voltron finishers (which is arguably a lesser way of winning in cEDH), and so on so forth.
Yawgmoth's abilities do 3 things. This is a fact. No other mono black commander has abilities that do 3 things. This is also a fact. Theses 3 things Yawgmoth's abilities do cannot glue a deck together and get it to explode as quickly or as efficiently as the abilities of other commanders of other colors, simply because those other commanders are better supported by their respective color identities: this is also a fact, but the problem lies in the color identity, not in the abilities themselves.
I therefore repeat: Yawgmoth is as competitive as a mono black deck is ever going to be. Which means decently competitive, but not as competitive as other, better, color identities.
Let's revisit what I actually said:
If you're dead because your deck lacks the speed to kill other players before they win, which Yawgmoth does in a cEDH environment, then interaction becomes much more important. As you said, mono-black has serious limitations here (though people tend to overlook the power of Thoughtseize et al.) so that's a problem endemic to all mono-black decks. Since this question was in regards to Yawgmoth's cEDH capabilities, we're going to talk about that now since you failed to actually answer the question. Lots of commanders enable combos. The question then becomes: are those combos relevant in a competitive environment? I would argue that none of the combos Yawgmoth enables are particularly competitive. Even Nest of Scarabs has its own limitations since you could, again, just cast Sidisi, find Ad Nauseam, draw your whole deck, and win. Mike and Trike/Gary have too many weak points (counterspells, graveyard hate, creature removal, artifact removal for Trike) and are generally too mana intensive outside of reanimation. Two undying creatures with Blood Artist or something is too many cards to be efficient. The list goes on. Yawgmoth doesn't really bring much to the table.
Spoilers: none of them are really cEDH viable. If you take any of these decks to a fully powered cEDH pod, you're going to have a bad time. When you acknowledge that fact, and analyze them in their proper tier (75%, or whatever you want to call it) the hierarchy muddles a bit. I'm certainly not arguing that Yawgmoth is bad, because he's obviously a very powerful commander for his weight class. I simply disagree with the ideas that he's even remotely cEDH viable and that he's the best mono-black commander. I think it's fair to say that a reasonable metric for "best" is "what wins most," right? In cEDH, with an established hierarchy and metagame, that's much easier to analyze, but when you get into lower tiers and the number of decks vastly increases, then what is best becomes much more difficult to answer. I would say it's fair to place Yawgmoth in the pantheon of top tier mono-black commanders but flat out asserting that he's the best or that he's even remotely cEDH viable is wrong.
Okay. And? You could put a thousand abilities in his rules text and if they're all terrible it doesn't matter. This is a superfluous argument. Just... focus on how his abilities translate directly into game wins, not how fancy they are. Drawing cards is obviously great, but if you're having to spend cards to draw cards you're arriving at card parity, not card advantage. Or, if you're relying on something like Reassembling Skeleton, it's inefficient. As you've admitted multiple times, it's difficult to feed him, so how many cards are you realistically drawing off of him? Infinite combos are good, and Proliferate is powerful in the right deck, but making the argument that because he has three abilities of various usability this makes him powerful is flawed.
Saying he would be better with a different color identity is a hypothetical that has no bearing on the conversation of whether or not a) he's a competitive commander or b) the best mono-black commander.
Assert whatever you want. That doesn't make it true. Who knows, though,B maybe someone will break Yawgmoth and this post will have aged like milk in the summer heat.
How many games with Yawgmoth do you have under your belt in a semi-competitive and above EDH environment?
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
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About 15. All my games are semi-competitive and above, because I play with the kind of people who would sooner get a cheap proxy of an original dual land than play a Tarkir triple land. The kind of people who spend hours calculating the chances of each possible hand. You know when people post in this forum lamenting that their LGS was taken over by insufferable tryhards who suck the fun out of the game? Yeah, that's the people I play with.
And as a lover of all things black, I've played all manners of commanders that had black in their color identity, including most of the mono black commanders discussed here so far, and yes, I've done so at this kind of table. And on the basis of this experience I reiterate my argument: that Yawgmoth performs a lot better than his mono-black ilk when faced with 75% decks, and can even hold his own in the face of more powerful. cEDH-level decks (mostly by making use of Contamination, the one card black has to slow down the more powerful decks). That said, the gulf in power between him and commanders with more favorable color identities was evident: I've actually tried him in the 99 of various Sultai and Abzan decks, and the couple times I actually drew into him he proved a game changer, accomplishing a lot more than he was doing by himself... Which brings me back to the one thing I've been repeating in this whole topic: that his abilities are both powerful and capable of impacting any table, even ones with cEDH-level decks, but he's held back by the fact that his color by itself is just not good enough.
You seem bent on winning this crusade about the evil ToT who dared to say that Yawgmoth is a great competitive commander... But I never said that. All I said is that he's stronger than his mono-black ilk and that he's very good in 75% environments while still being able to hold his own in more competitive environments. HOLD HIS OWN, not OMG THIS IS THE BEST COMMANDER EVER HE WINS EVERY GAME PLAY THIS DECK NEW META or whatever youtubers say in the titles of their videos.
It is a fact that a deck headed by Yawgmoth can do anything a deck headed by any other mono-black commander can do, and that he can do things those other guys cannot do: this simple fact makes it easier for him to win games, which in turn makes him better than the other mono-black commanders, simply because he offers you more. Is this "more" he offers enough to dominate the competitive meta, or even to do great/good in it? Of course not, because mono-black is still an inferior color identity, and the lack of ways to stop enemy combos mans that your sole realistic chance of winning against optimized, cEDH-viable combo decks is to pray to get your own combo before they do... Which, thanks to the good things a deck like this has to offer, you might SOMETIMES be able to pull off. And "sometimes" is still better than "absolutely never".
Imagine an italian guy ranking 47th in a chess world cup, with the other italian players being placed much lower: is that guy a world-class player and a tournament winner? Absolutely not. But he's still the best among the italian players. That's kind of my argument in regards to Yawgmoth: I never claimed that he was a top-tier competitive pick, but still it's a fact that, in an environment where all mono-black decks perform poorly, he performs a bit better than his ilk, which makes him the best of his ilk. If this offends you to the point of starting a crusade over it, it's frankly not my problem.
It seems to me that the issue here is that you and I have a very different definition of the word "viable". I could write an entire essay on the topic of the "top tier fallacy" (long story short, the definition most people have of what constitutes a "top tier" is based on a textbook case of circular logic), but it seems to me that such a debate would derail this topic even more than it already has.
OP has asked a question. I have provided my answer, and you've provided yours: I have no interest in changing mine, and it seems to me that the same goes to you, so this conversation is over. OP will try some things based on our answers and see for themselves who they agree with.
On phasing:
Keep your shirt on, pal. The argument you're making that I've misrepresented your argument is interesting when you're the one misrepresenting mine. I explicitly stated it twice in my previous post, so I'll try again, with some minor explanations added on: a) Yawgmoth is not cEDH viable and it is a disservice to readers to claim otherwise and b) he is not the clear cut best mono-black commander. I'm sorry I disagree with your assessment but there's no need to get upset.
Two uses of crusade. Just a few more and we'll get to my favorite.
How is discussing the viability of Yawgmoth as a commander derailing a thread about the viability of Yagwmoth as a commander?
I disagree with your "fact" that "all mono-black decks perform poorly" in a cEDH environment. So does the greater cEDH community, actually, since Sidisi is still listed at tier 2.
Since in your estimation this is a semantic quibble over "viable" let's try to find a shared usage. To me, a commander is viable if it is able to win greater than 12.5% of the pods they're in with like-powered decks. How did I come to this number? If an obviously competitive deck wins 25% of the pods it's in, as is expected in a four player pod, then winning half of that still puts a given deck in reasonable contention. I don't see Yawgie beating a random selection of tier 1 cEDH decks greater than 12.5% of the time. Therefore, I don't think Yagwmoth is cEDH viable. Of course, you're free to dispute that definition as well as Yawgmoth's ability to achieve that win percentage.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
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I ask the second question because my playgroup is considered to be among the "above semi-competitive" level at one shop 2 hours away that we go to for EDH tournaments but our decks are pretty much on par power wise (by design) with the rest of the shop that we live by.
Building: Varina
I'm not sure Yawgmoth could reliably defeat my Gravetide deck (in signature) 12.5% of the time. And that is very much not a competitive deck.
I do not have a list for Yawgmoth, but Gravecrawler & Nether Traitor are the only ones I would truly consider 'efficient', and they are conditional.
I would still play Reassembling Skeleton personally, but it gets expensive fast. I would not play Bloodghast, as I consider land drops too unreliable after the first few turns. It is also strongly hampered by the 'once per turn' limiter on lands. Not truly repeatable in the sense we are looking at.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed allows you to loop two other creatures with Yawgmoth effectively, so should probably be included. I am uncertain what other Undying creatures would be worth playing. Maybe Geralf's Messenger.
Nest of Scarabs, as mentioned previously, is probably the single most important card for a Yawgmoth deck. Archfiend of Ifnir is a bit more expensive, but is another that has particularly strong synergy with the Thran Physician.
Blood Artist & Zulaport Cutthroat both offset the cost of Yawgmoth, and provide a means to simply win the game. I would not advise the other, more expensive versions of these.
I am uncertain on the value of Alhammarret's Archive, but it is something I would certainly at least test with.
Because Yawgmoth himself provides a means of discarding cards, I would strongly consider looking at what options you have for including a Reanimate shell.
A Dying Wish
To Rise Again
Chainer, Dementia Master
Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/yawgmoth-father-of-combo-cedh/
I agree that it is not viable in cEDH, but in Kitchen table Commander, it can be one of the more oppressive decks around.
Wedge has a great video about Yawgmoth which you might enjoy.
(apparently we still cannot embed videos here)
Deck list can be found by clicking here.
Remember that the -1/-1 counter is on UP TO one creature, which means that you are not forced to put them on your own creatures and Yawgmoth does not have to kill himself if you fail to have other valid targets. You can just pay the life to draw cards for each creature you sacrifice.
The thing is, the less competitive the group is, the more oppressive mono black becomes.
Assuming you want to play in a group without fast mana rocks and fast/cheap tutors, MBC just gets even stronger. MBC has access to the best graveyard hate, some of the best removal, explosive mana which can outrace green after the opening turns, card which rivals blue, and staying power by way of life draining effects. I cannot tell you how often I have won over the years off the backs of non-infinite synergistic loops.
I played Kagemaro, First to Suffer for years. That deck quickly became Ghoulcaller Gisa good stuff. If I ever get my hands on Yawgmoth, he will likely become my new MBC commander.
He also used Smokestack and Tangle Wire to slow down the other players, with Karn's Bastion for extra proliferates. I saw the ol' infect angle in there too, with Skitheryx and Ichor Rats but we piled on him before that got off the ground.