Yarok's Vannifar Cauldron Experiment 

Yarok's cooking up another feast for us, and this time we're going to explore a more color-focused build of yesterday's Kenrith Vannifar Pod deck. The idea is pretty much the same, but laser-focused on doubling up on all of our ETBs through our commander Yarok, the Desecrated. We have a lot of creatures to mill ourselves, give us extreme value, and impact the board in entering the battlefield. Let's have a taste of what Yarok has in store for us.

Oh yeah, baby! Yesterday's deck get me real excited about Prime Speaker Vannifar again, particularly with her synergies with The Cauldron of Eternity, with Vannifar filling our graveyard to make it cheaper by sacrificing creatures and the Cauldron then putting cards back into our deck if sacrificed by Vannifar when both are in play. It's a little slow, but it can generate insane value, particularly when in combination with our commander. This deck is less all-in on the reanimation strategies from before in that it only runs the Cauldron as a full-on reanimation spell, and more into having a toolbox of creatures that do powerful or synergistic things when entering the battlefield. I'll be talking a lot about the cards in relation to the Vannifar-Cauldron value engine in the deck because I feel it's already pretty obvious why most of these cards are good with our commander in the first place.

The Ramp:

The secondary aim of this deck (other than exploring the Vannifar+Cauldron combo) is to figure out how few ramp creatures I can run in the deck without losing its edge. We run the two classic 1-drop rampers in Arboreal Grazer and Gilded Goose to give us access to some early mana to build up our board, and Arcane Signet to get us playing our commander as early as possible. Risen Reef is an excellent value card to pod into or reanimate for more ramp and value, and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner has multiple synergies with the deck, untapping either Vannifar or the Cauldron, or any of our mana-producing permanents for some extra ramp.

The Self-Mill and Discard:

We are once again trying to get cards in our graveyard to get some reanimation action going, as well as lowering the cost of our Cauldron. We run Glowspore Shaman to mill ourselves while searching for a specific land we might need early on, and Emry, Lurker of the Loch to mill ourselves but also return any of the artifacts we might need to reuse from our graveyard, like the Cauldron, the Signet, or Corridor Monitor. Tomebound Lich can be easily podded into for an easy loot, as well as providing a decent blocker body if necessary. Gorging Vulture allows us to mill ourselves while gaining life for every creature put in the graveyard this way, and Cavalier of Thorns offers the more powerful version of this effect by allowing us to put a land in play, while being a remarkable body that lets us recur any card on death. Finally, this deck runs Underrealm Lich to really boost up that graveyard fast, letting us put 2 cards of our choice from the top 3 in our deck in there any time we would draw a card.

The Graveyard Value:

These cards provide the deck with some of the redundancy necessary in case we don't draw the pieces to our value engine together. Mausoleum Secrets is the tutor this deck runs, and though it can only really find black cards, most of the cards we want to be fetching are black anyways. If we have 12 creatures in our graveyard we can just go for the Cauldron, since playing it would cost BB to play and 2B to activate, or we can just search up one of our pieces of black interaction. Lazav, the Multifarious is once again spectacular in decks like these. He surveils on ETB, and can become a copy of any of the powerful creatures we might have in a graveyard at the moment, for a cost. Order of Midnight is a decent 2 drop to be podded away, but its adventure side lets us bring something back from the graveyard to our hand in case we need to reuse any creatures that got milled or killed before we could bring them back. Golgari Findbroker does the same, but for any permanent, and is a 4 drop to fill out that part of our chain. On the top end we run Izoni, Thousand-Eyed to reap the benefits from having so many creatures in our graveyard, providing us with bodies and card draw late in the game. Finale of Devastation is just another way to bring a creature back from the graveyard, or search up our Vannifar or any creature we might need at the moment from our library. This deck could possibly run Finale of Eternity as well, I just coulnd't figure out what I would remove for its place, maybe it could replace Foulmire Knight.

The Interactive Creatures:

While Foulmire Knight doesn't do anything when it enters the battlefield, it has a pretty useful Adventure, is a 1 drop, and has deathtouch to stop early aggressive strategies. I had originally tried a food package with this deck, but I felt it would warp the deck too much for it to work. Murderous Rider comes in at 3 mana, not really doing anything on ETB, but its Adventure is a kill spell and the creature side can easily be podded away later. At 4 mana, Rankle, Master of Pranks is a huge threat, giving us a discard outlet for our big creatures in hand, drawing us cards and even serving as soft removal at times. Cavalier of Night is a big beefy creature with lifelink, and we are interested in both its ETB and death triggers, as they provide a lot of value for a pod-style deck. At 6 mana we have Dream Eater, an excellent bouncer that surveils and threatens for 4 damage in the air, as well as being a 6 drop to sacrifice to get our 7 mana finishers in play.

Value Pod Synergies:

We run the classics cards that just beg to be in a pod deck here. Corridor Monitor lets us untap Vannifar to skip the 2 cmc craetures if we want to, and can be podded into Emry, Lurker of the Loch who can then bring it back to activate Vannifar two more times. Fblthp, the Lost, gets us 2 cards if podded into, though I gotta be honest I've only done that once. Neoform lets us get a one-shot pod effect to grab a creature we might need (like Vannifar if we don't have her yet), and Spark Double lets us go all DJ Khaled on them with our powerful creatures. Cavalier of Gales is here because it has amazing synergies with most of our cards, from shuffling himself back into the deck when sacrificed to the amazing card draw. These are mostly win-more or synergy cards we want to be putting into play without paying their mana cost, with Neoform being the only strong one to keep in your opening hand.

Win Cons:

This deck has 3 big bombs we want to be podding into. The earliest one is Etrata, the Silencer, who I cannot believe I got to work in a deck. We can get her by sacrificing a 3 drop, and if she connects with our opponent (which isn't hard given she's unblockable) she will both exile a creature and shuffle herself back into the deck. From then on it's just a matter of podding into her and connecting two more times to win the game (so long as the creatures we put in exile aren't their commander, if it is, it's still kind of removal). Remember that she is also unblockable, so if we get enough mana for a big Finale of Devastation (above 10), she is a prime target to fetch out of the deck for as a big hasty unblockable monster. Our other big cards are Agent of Treachery, an amazing reanimation and pod target to keep recurring onto the battlefield, and Lotleth Giant as our much less sophisticated way of winning the game, by trying to double up on its ETB and nug our opponent for a ton of damage.

Lands: 

This deck runs 26 lands, which is actually on the low end. If you find any creatures underperforming for you in the deck, I'd recommend cutting them for another land. I probably should slot one in to replace Lotleth Giant, but I'm a coward. The deck runs Field of the Dead to combo up with our commander, the blue and black Castles to make sure we don't brick on our draws. We run both Scry lands available to us and all three gain lands for that extra land value, and Witch's Cottage as yet another way to possibly bring a creature back from our graveyard into our library to either draw soon or just fetch with Vannifar.

So yeah, I ended up talking a lot about Vannifar and the Cauldron and not a lot about Yarok, but you know Yarok by now! He's an insane value creature that does awesome stuff with ETBs, this deck is trying to make use of his colors and his passive ability to make a Vannifar deck even better!