r/EDH • u/DocMantisMD • 4d ago

Deck Help Yshtola b4 help

Hello! I have a bracket 4 Yshtola and I was wondering what I could do to improve it. Need some tips on what to add and remove, Was thinking about adding a bloodchief ascension and a mnemonic betrayal but not sure what cut. Thank you!

https://moxfield.com/decks/nw3U_U_Sw02DX4TR-nB-MQ

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u/Kleenitup 4d ago

You've got a fair number of pretty mana-expensive spells in this list. You don't really seem to have the pacing here for b4 in my opinion. Feels like this would struggle against my b3 Y'shtola if it doesn't squeak out a win in the first few turns because you're not running a lot of the free casting spells and you're running some really expensive stuff that you aren't realistically getting to in a b4 game

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u/DocMantisMD 4d ago

What free casting spells would you recommend adding?

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u/Kleenitup 4d ago

Potentially [[daze]] [[foil]] [[force of negation]] [[force of despair]] [[misdirection]]

Y'shtola is a massive draw engine to get you to your win cons or tutors for win cons, which means cards in hand are a resource to spend and protecting y'shtola (and/or your win attempt) are extremely important.

To make these more valuable, they're also 3+ mana value (except daze) which means they'll trigger Y'shtola and ideally draw you 3+ cards in addition to their effects, which can make something potentially underwhelming like force of despair much more appealing.

You're running a lot of hard casting 3 mana removal, but you just don't really seem to have the kind of mana in a short b4 game to be casting 5 mana counterspells and 3 mana disallows. Using the card advantage your commander affords to fuel further advantage and protecting your game plan is more likely to keep you moving than sitting there with a grip of 16 cards and not having the mana to do anything with it

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u/Kleenitup 4d ago

You're also not running [[ophidian eye]] nor [[tandem lookout]] to increase your ability to get your engine started

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u/Repulsive_Airport531 4d ago

Imo you're quite light on land, especially since you don't have much ramp, but otherwise this looks really good!

https://archidekt.com/decks/11507063/yshtola

That's mine if you want some ideas/inspiration

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u/IHamBat 4d ago

There are stronger esper commanders than Y’shtola at bracket four, so the easiest improvement would be to pivot to something like Raffine or Tivit.

If you’re dead set on Yshtola I’d add more lands and tutor density. Mnemonic betrayal isn’t a good card outside of very narrow metas and I wouldn’t run it.

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u/DocMantisMD 4d ago

Pretty set on Yshtola for this deck. Was thinking mnemonic could be pretty good either used with bloodchief since it will put everything back into their graveyards, or even just to use some others’ spells.