Yasova Dragonclaw

Fate Reforged brings a nice injection of fun new cards for the kids of Casual Town to rock. Commander gets ten new legendary critters to build around in
multi-colored decks, so there’s a nice place to work from.

You already know what that means! It’s time to grab one of the new commanders and hack out a quick deck for y’all as a way to demonstrate just how many
directions you can take these cards.

After looking at the various clan leaders from Ye Olde Tarkir, I knew that I wanted to rock a deck around Yasova Dragonclaw for a few reasons:

1). She’s flavorful and fun, right?

2). I have some clear ideas of how to use Yasova. In particular, I want to use her ability to Act of Treason smaller stuff, and then sacrifice the creature
after you’ve used it all up.

3). Yasova is a cheaper sort of folk, and she has a nice power–big enough to trigger Temur’s ferocity trigger. That’s an interesting space to build
around.

4). Despite the fact that she shares some similarities with her fellow Temur friend, Surrak Dragonclaw, they are distinct enough that their decks will look
differently.

So Yasova is ready and waiting to send out some smash-ery for casual nights everywhere. How did I build her up?

Yasova Dragonclaw

Abe Sargent

Test deck on 01-12-2015

Commander

Creatures (29)

Planeswalkers (3)

Lands (39)

And there we have our Yasova deck!

The first place I wanted to investigate was sacrificial outlets. We have some that require no mana at all, which is useful because then we don’t have to
spend more mana after we’ve already used up three for activing Yasova. The obvious choice is Goblin Bombardment, which will sac for a damage. You can also
use Altar of Dementia for some milling if that’s your thing. Greater Good is commonly seen in a lot of Commander decks, and this Temur deck, with its high
powered stuff and sacrificial lambs is an obvious home for it. With so many uses in here, it’s almost the Greatest Good!

Magmaw takes a mana to use in order to do its best Goblin Bombardment impersonation. However, you’ll note that it’s a 4/4 creature (which triggers
ferocious) and sacrifices any nonland, so you can toss an about-to-die artifact, enchantment, or planeswalker into the furnace for a damage a pop. Ooze
Garden will sacrifice your stolen critter to make a new one of some size. If you look, I’m sure you’ll uncover some more sacrificing fun! I thought about
Furnace Celebration, but I didn’t want to make this deck too sacrifice-oriented.

Now, remember that Yasova just steals stuff that is smaller than her. Maybe she intimidates them into joining her crew. So, let’s add in some fun ways to
pump up Yasova to make her even more ferocious! My first was Loxodon Warhammer, which is generally useful, and can be used to steal anything from six power
on down. We also have Swords of Vengeance and Sword of Fire and Ice that give us some additional options in the equipment section of our deck while also
amping up Yasova’s already considerable power.

Take a look at Homura, Human Ascendant. Yes, that’s right, you’ve probably never heard of him before. You spend six mana and get a dopey 4/4 that can’t
block at all. Trust me, there is a lot here under the surface. When it dies, you flip it and all of your stuff gets +2/+2, flying, and
firebreathing. Once you drop him, you can swing freely; no one wants to kill him off. And, if there’s a sweeping removal spell, he’ll just switch to his
new, ascended form. Since this is a deck with a sacrifice trick built in, you can use this guy as a rattle to keep stuff off you. Everyone will assume that
you can sacrifice Homura any time you want to your Altar of Dementia. They have to treat your team as if you already had the bonuses before you are even
forced to do so! Post-death, Homura amps Yasova along with everyone else and can begin stealing some strong stuff.

Because we are in the Temur clan, I felt it was appropriate to focus on bigger creatures to give us useful triggers. Garruk’s Packleader is an honorary
member of the clan since I add it to virtually every Temur deck I run. Who doesn’t want to draw cards by playing big bodies? It’s an obvious way to reward
our inner Timmies! I also dip into the Naya-inspired Spellbreaker and Spearbreaker Behemoths, which can protect your bigger stuff, and the Paleoloth to
begin recurring as big dorks are played.

I don’t want to stop there either. There’s no reason to run smaller support creatures in this deck. Why run Reclamation Sage, Manic Vandal, or Acidic
Slime? Toss in Indrik Stomphowler. It’ll give you that bigger power to begin blowing stuff away. It’s more synergetic with the deck’s flow. The same is
true of Batterhorn and Woodfall Primus. I added in Krosan Tusker, so we can play it later if we have enough mana. If you are looking for other cards, what
about Silverglade Elemental or Seedguide Ash?

It’s easy enough to toss in some small support cards that care about creature size. Take Whisperer of the Wilds as a great example. Shaman of the Great
Hunt, also from Fate Reforged, is another really powerful tool for your deck, since you can draw a card for every four or more powered creature currently
under your control. (Note that it does not say, “for each other creature you control” so you can always draw a card off it by itself). You’ll note
the presence of cards like Drumhunter rocking the block.

In other ferocious news, See the Unwritten is a powerful addition because you can drop two creatures into play rather than just the one. Meanwhile,
fellow-Fate Reforged card Flamewake Phoenix can come into play quite easily since you’ll usually control your commander or one of the many beaters this
deck is rocking. Just trigger that ability to hop right on back for one red mana and swing for fun and profit. And damage.

Since we have a strong red-zone oriented creature base, let’s make sure we can hit more quickly. I added Temur Ascendancy, which gives us haste and
card-drawing fun. Hammer of Purphoros does the same with haste. I even have those Swiftfoot Boots and Sword of Vengeance for equipping and swinging. This
seems like the right place to add in Flamekin Village from Commander 2014. You could throw in Anger as well.

This deck needs tools to dig into the fallow Temur earth. Tools like countermagic, additional removal, and mana-fixing. I wanted to ensure that our deck
filled all of those sorts of requirements before I added my last few cards to the deck. Gilded Lotus can tap once and make the right mana for a full
activation of Yasova. Toss in junk like Cultivate and crap to give us some more lands.

I didn’t want this to turn into a huge counterspell deck, so Desertion is cute to steal a creature as it is being played, (or you can counter something
else), and then you can sacrifice it if needed to later. Toss in Dissipate and Hinder for a few extra emergency counters. Shoot, Temur Charm can play a
counter role, or a creature removal one instead.

In leapt Crater’s Claws due to the reliability of turning this into more than a Blaze. After all, who doesn’t want to deal two extra damage? Cards like
Decimate and Into the Core followed. I thought this would be a fun place to try out Reality Shift, since it exiles a creature. Temur doesn’t have black or
white, which can exile creatures and remove any shenanigans from them. Because it gives a manifested 2/2 morphed creature back, don’t use it unless you
have to. Shoot, you can use it on your own stuff if you want. You can even Shift a creature you stole with Yasova in order to get that 2/2 manifested star
yourself.

This deck could use a bit more creature stealing in case Yasova is indisposed. Molten Primordial and Conquering Manticore are here to grab some stuff as
they arrive, which can then be tossed into the oven after being used. Grab the Reins works too. After consideration, I chose to not include Insurrection,
because I felt you’d be taking all of their stuff during the course of the game, so there wouldn’t be a lot to Insurrect later on. After playing with the
deck, if you find that your metagame has a lot of creatures still in play later on, you definitely want to include a copy if you can.

Kiora, the Crashing Wave is useful to Explore and slap out some lands. You can also use her in a pseudo-control capacity to keep yourself from dying while
you set up post-mass removal or some other form of battlefield devastation. Garruk, Primal Hunter can draw you cards off your already-large creatures or
churn out 3/3 dorks while growing. Both are really strong synergetic elements. Finally, the Caller of Beasts version of Garruk can speed through your deck,
drawing you lots of creature cards and/or dropping a green one to the battlefield for free. Free creatures? Sign me up please!

This deck is beginning to look like it’s done. I’ll add in some more synergetic elements. There’s no reason not to add in stuff like Creeperhulk or
Kruphix, God of Horizons. Momentous Fall and Bident of Thassa will add more card drawing as well.

The result of this Yasova deck is a 100-card deck that includes a lot of different tricks. It has fun, flavor, beats, and feats, plus some tricks and
combos as well. It uses cards like Garruk’s Packleader and Paleoloth alongside the Temur big-stuff theme to give us a framework where a lot of bigger
smashers can find a true home.

Yasova is both a card that works with an allied color (red) and their enemy (blue). I suspect that the reason that we see one color adjacent to the leader
and one across from it is to play with the clans from Khans of Tarkir (with all three required colors) and to also offer an allied color pattern in the
next set.

I hope you found some fun ideas in here for your own Yasova Dragonclaw deck. What did you think? What are some cards you’d recommend?

Creatures (29)

Planeswalkers (3)

Lands (39)

Spells (29)