Recently, Commander has been my format of choice. An Esper mage at heart, I've enjoyed building around Y'shtola, Night's Blessed, aiming to incorporate some of my favorite Esper cards I've played in past Standard formats. From Search for Azcanta to Approach of the Second Sun, I've had a blast introducing my casual playgroup to some of the best ways to go over the top of your opponents in Esper.

Top SOS Cards for Y'shtola, Night's Blessed

Secrets of Strixhaven includes a variety of new cards that fit perfectly into the Y'shtola, Night's Blessed Commander archetype. Whether you're playing more competitively or more casually, there are a lot of fun and exciting cards to include in a Y'shtola build, and today I want to talk about my favorites.

Decorum Dissertation

Decorum Dissertation is probably the easiest inclusion into a Y'shtola, Night's Blessed deck. Due to the fact that it triggers Y'shtola on cast every turn, Decorum Dissertation nets you two cards each turn at the cost of zero life with Y'shtola in play, all while pinging each of your opponents for two free damage each. It's also worth noting you can target your opponents with this card if you want to have them take a bit of extra damage.

Overall, this is a great way to draw through your deck at a pretty minor cost. Since you have 40 starting life in Commander, this card has more practical use in EDH, compared to Standard.

The other mythic lessons in this cycle, Echocasting Symposium and Restoration Seminar are definitely consideration for a Y'shtola deck. However, if your build is more Instant and Sorcery-focused than I think these cards have diminishing returns, even though you can cast a copy of them every turn. Since you don't usually have big threats to reanimate and you play a lot of Legendary Creatures on average, these spells are way less enticing to me than Decorum Dissertation, which plays more into your lifedrain gameplan.

Defacing Duskmage

A card from the Silverquill precon, Defacing Duskmage is another nice value engine that notably can have your opponent's lose two life each off casting its Prepared spell, Vandal Edit. However, it's worth noting that this Creature does not enter Prepared, meaning one of your opponents will have to draw an extra card during their turn to even have Vandal Edit available to cast. However, if your opponent has some sort of draw engine, or if you even target them with a copy of Decorum Dissertation, you'll be able to cast this Prepared spell every turn. At the very least, this card is a 2/2 Deathtouch.

Scheming Silvertongue

Were we just talking about finding a way to have your opponents draw extra cards? Scheming Silvertongue is another Creature with the new Prepared mechanic that plays perfectly into Y'shtola, Night's Blessed. Since your Commander's main ability is to have your opponents lose two or more life a turn, you can easily keep Preparing this Creature, and repeatedly cast Sign in Blood.

While this Creature's stats are not super impressive, the fact that it can be reset fairly easily with Y'shtola in play earns it a spot in any Y'shtola, Night's Blessed EDH deck.

Foolish Fate

While not the most impressive removal spell in the world, Foolish Fate is another spell that synergizes perfectly with Y'shtola. Since you gain life from Y'shtola upon casting this card, and Y'shtola will have your opponents lose two life, the extra three points of damage from Foolish Fate will mean you'll draw a card at the end step with Y'shtola.

Withering Curse

Similar to Foolish Fate, with Y'shtola, Night's Blessed in play you can easily turn on Withering Curse to be a wrath for only three mana, as long as you're okay resetting your Y'shtola to the command zone.

Mana Sculpt

With a variety of wizards in the average Y'shtola deck, primarily Papalymo Totolymo, Emet-Selch of the Third Seat, and partners Alphinaud Leveilleur and Alisaie Leveilleur, you'll have lots of chances to cast Mana Sculpt as a Mana Drain. This can help power out your big spells like Torrential Gearhulk or a kicked Rite of Replication. Sadly, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed is just a warlock.

Social Snub

Social Snub is another interesting inclusion, but I think this card's usefulness will depend on how many ways you have to make cheap tokens. With cards like Cornered by Black Mages and Lingering Souls as fodder, you can deal a serious blow to your opponents if you can make them sacrifice two nontoken Creatures each for only three mana. I do like that this spell costs three mana as it will trigger Y'shtola, but I would be a bit wary of casting this card so you don't accidentally end up sacrificing your own Commander.

Turbulent Moor

Turbulent Moor is a new Orzhov Land that's part of a mini cycle in Secrets of Strixhaven Commander. While this Land requires your opponents to control a total of eight or more Lands, this Land will come into play untapped much faster in multiplayer games. The big reason this card is so important to an Esper strategy like Y'shtola, is that it's another Land that can come into play untapped that shares the Plains and Swamp Land types. This means you have another fetchable untapped multicolored source at your disposal, which is definitely of high value to any three-color deck trying to cast their spells on time.

Great Hall of the Biblioplex

Lastly is Great Hall of the Biblioplex. This is probably one of my favorite cards in the entire set. A City of Brass for your Instants and Sorceries, Great Hall of the Biblioplex is the perfect dual Land for a Y'shtola deck, since it's a dual Land dedicated to your inherent strategy. While I don't think you'll have the time to be animating this Land for its five mana cost, I do think just having a City of Brass or Mana Confluence-type card with upside makes it a very easy inclusion for this type of EDH deck.

Conclusion

Overall Secrets of Strixhaven offers a variety of new fun and interesting cards to include to your Y'shtola, Night's Blessed EDH deck. Ultimately a lot of these cards are some sort of Sign in Blood effect, so you can swap out other forms of card draw to make room for these new spells.