Yawgmoth's Bargain
{4}{B}{B} • Enchantment • Skip your draw step. Pay 1 life: Draw a card. • Urza's Destiny (UDS) #75 • Illustrated by Michael Sutfin • Magic:
Yawgmoth's Bargain is banned in commander and legacy. This would be a completely different conversation if this card was legal in those formats. The card is absurdly powerful, but is it good enough to banned alongside the power nine? Is yawgmoth's bargain as good as a mox or a black lotus? Most people would argue that while Yawgmoth's Bargain is an extremely broken card it is not quite in the same tier as many other cards banned in legacy or commander. I should note that while there are many cards on the reserved list that are banned, very few are banned because they are simply too good to be played. Some reserved list cards are banned because they reference ante while other cards have issues in tournament play. For instance, dexterity cards and cards that trigger a subgame are banned because they cause headaches and confusion in official tournaments. Yawgmoth's Bargain does not have this issue so why can't you play it? Surely, newer cards like dockside extortionist or jeska's will are just as powerful so why does the bargain sit on the banned list while my goblin makes me 20 treasures? Undoubtedly, yawgmoth's bargain is potent. One card for one life has always been an exchange that I would pay all day everyday. Yet many cards offer that rate. Necropotence is not banned in commander and even the new necrodominance offers a similar effect for modern. Both of those cards only cost 3 mana while Yawgmoth's bargain costs double that! Six mana is a huge investment and a player really needs to be able to cast the bargain early. You can not drop this on turn six and then just pass, even with a fresh grip of cards. However, this card has always benefited from combos and synergy. You can bury the opponents in card advantage but you are more likely to combo out using this reserved list card to find your combos. Getting access to the cards immediately is a major upside and should not be underestimated. The one life payment is negligible but ensures you can not just draw your entire deck without another combo piece. Otherwise, you could just play this, draw your deck, and cast thassa's oracle. Speaking of the oracle, is yawgmoth's bargain really stronger than the demonic consultation/oracle combo? I do think that yawgmoth's bargain has a legitimate chance of getting unbanned one day. The game has evolved since the card first landed on the ban list. The card would still see a tremendous amount of play but I do not see it warping formats. Black decks might run it as a generic staple draw spell but how much better is it than phrexian arena if you are using it purely as a draw engine. Even as a combo piece, this card is 6 mana. The skipping your draw step is also not really a drawback when you can draw at anytime for one life. In fact, the card gets around nekusar and sheoldred. Currently, the card is around ten dollars in price. That is actually quite a lot for a card that can not be played in most formats. There has always been speculation surrounding this card, though, as everyone always believes this card is about to get unbanned. The card was over 5 dollars even in 2017, so this card was not bulk even before the reserved list buyouts of 2018 and 2021. Even so, the card was below 2 bucks before 2017. Of course, the card has been banned long before significant price data was calculated. In 2021, the card did go to almost fifty dollars but a banned card just can not keep that price tag. What are you playing it in? Albeit, some reserved list cards have a high price due to scarcity and not playability but I can still put those cards in decks even if they are not very good. Today, you can get the card for about 10 dollars. I have a few copies that I got in 2015 for very little and I will hold those cards until the day the card finally is liberated off of the banned list. On that day, the price of this card will rocket to the moon. I should also note that this card is one of the few reserved list cards with a foil version. The foil version is about 150 dollars which is a big discrepancy between foil and nonfoil.





