The Commander
At the beginning of your end step, exile target creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control. Then if it's the first end step of the turn, there is an additional end step after this step.
Guide
Gameplan
Y'shtola turns your end step into a blink engine—each turn you get two end steps, exiling and returning a creature to retrigger enter-the-battlefield effects twice. Build a mono-blue value engine loaded with ETB creatures (card draw, bounce, counters, mill, tutors), grind out advantage every turn, and snowball into a dominating board or a combo. You play a controlling early game, deploy a few key value creatures, then let the doubled end steps bury opponents in incremental advantage.
Strengths
- Free, repeatable double blink every turn for ETB value without spending mana
- Resets summoning sickness and protects a creature from sorcery-speed removal at end step
- Mono-blue gives access to the best card draw, counterspells, and tutors in the format
- Enables hard combos with ETB creatures (e.g. infinite untaps, mill, or bounce loops)
Weaknesses
- Painfully slow without ETB payloads—she does nothing on her own
- Mono-color limits removal and ramp diversity
- Relies on creatures sticking; sweepers and spot removal on Y'shtola gut the engine
- High commander cost (6 mana) and easy to disrupt before she gets going
Key Cards
- Peregrine Drake — Untaps five lands on each blink—two end steps means infinite mana with a free blink outlet like Deadeye Navigator or simply massive ramp.
- Archaeomancer — Recurs an instant or sorcery from your graveyard every blink, looping counterspells or bounce for control lockouts.
- Mulldrifter — Draws two cards on each blink, turning Y'shtola's doubled end step into four cards a turn.
- Deadeye Navigator — Adds a mana-efficient blink outlet so you aren't limited to one end-step blink, and pairs with Peregrine Drake for infinite mana.
- Snapcaster Mage — Repeatedly flashes back spells from your yard via blink, providing recurring interaction and value.
- Frilled Mystic — A counterspell on a stick that you can rebuy each end step for soft-lock interaction.
Upgrade Path
Add free or cheap blink outlets (Deadeye Navigator, Ghostly Flicker, Eldrazi Displacer) so you aren't bottlenecked on one end-step trigger, and slot in untapper-combo pieces like Peregrine Drake and Palinchron for a fast infinite-mana win. Tighten the manabase with fast mana (Mana Crypt, Sol Ring) and add strong protection/interaction like Cyclonic Rift, Force of Will, and Pact of Negation. Replace marginal ETB filler with high-impact tutors (Mystical Tutor, Tinker targets) and a compact win package so the engine converts to victory rather than just value.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Infinite mana via Peregrine Drake/Palinchron + Deadeye Navigator funneled into an X-spell or Aetherflux-style outlet
- ▸Grinding overwhelming card advantage with Mulldrifter/Archaeomancer until you out-resource the table
- ▸Repeatable mill engines (Hedron Crab, Sphinx of the Final Word draw) decking opponents
- ▸Beatdown with value creatures protected and reset by end-step blinks
Archetypes
- Blink/Flicker Value — Her end-step ability is a built-in, repeatable flicker engine that doubles ETB triggers each turn.
- Control — Mono-blue counters and bounce plus recurring Archaeomancer/Snapcaster effects let you lock the board while grinding value.
- Combo — Untapper creatures like Peregrine Drake or Palinchron with a free blink and outlet produce infinite mana for game-ending payoffs.
- Mill — Blinking creatures like Hedron Crab and Riptide Crab effects, or recurring mill spells, can grind libraries to zero across doubled end steps.
Combos
- The Legend of Kuruk // Avatar Kuruk + Y'shtola Rhul + Spark Double
→ Infinite turns, Lock
- The Legend of Kuruk // Avatar Kuruk + Y'shtola Rhul + Chameleon, Master of Disguise
→ Infinite turns, Lock
- The Legend of Kuruk // Avatar Kuruk + Y'shtola Rhul + Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
→ Infinite turns, Lock
- The Legend of Kuruk // Avatar Kuruk + Y'shtola Rhul + Sakashima the Impostor
→ Infinite turns, Lock
- The Legend of Kuruk // Avatar Kuruk + Y'shtola Rhul + Auton Soldier
→ Infinite turns, Lock
Combos via Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (U), by popularity.
