Yawgmoth's Will

Premodern-legal editions of Yawgmoth's Will — old-border printings plus any period-appropriate foil promos (Arena/Judge, through Scourge). Hover to preview an edition on the card; click to select it.

Urza's Saga

1998·usgrare

Selected

Old-border editions + pre-Scourge promo foils (Arena/Judge). Modern-frame reprints (8th Edition onward) exist but are not period-appropriate printings.

Why It's Banned

Known as 'Yawgmoth's Win', this card allows a player to replay their entire graveyard. In a format with Dark Ritual and Lion's Eye Diamond, it enables degenerate combo turns that are impossible to interact with for most decks.

A staple of the Urza block, Will was quickly identified as one of the strongest cards ever printed. It was banned early in Premodern's lifecycle to prevent the format from becoming 'Combo-or-Bust'.

Trivia & Lore

• Yawgmoth's Will was first printed in Urza's Saga (released October 12, 1998) as a Rare illustrated by Ron Spencer, with mana cost {2}{B}. It is on the Reserved List, so its only premium reprint came in Vintage Masters (2014), where it was bumped up to Mythic Rare.
• Despite being on the Reserved List, the card legally appeared in several non-tournament-legal forms before Vintage Masters: gold-bordered reprints in the World Championship Decks 1999 and 2000, a Judge Gift Cards 2007 promo, and Magic Online promos.
• In French the card is named 'Volonte de Yaugzebul' -- Wizards historically renders Yawgmoth as 'Yaugzebul' in French printings (evoking the demon Beelzebub/Belzebuth), so the whole Yawgmoth cycle reads as Yaugzebul cards; e.g. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is 'Yaugzebul, medecin thran' in French.
• Yawgmoth's Will was restricted in Vintage (then Type 1) on October 1, 1999 -- not in the earlier January 1, 1999 Urza's Saga restriction wave, which hit Tolarian Academy, Windfall, and Stroke of Genius. It has never been outright banned in Vintage, only restricted.
• Yawgmoth's Will was the engine of the Vintage combo deck 'Long.dec' (inspired by Mike Krzywicki and Mike Long, then tuned by Stephen Menendian), whose power led the DCI to restrict Lion's Eye Diamond and Burning Wish (alongside Chrome Mox) effective January 1, 2004 -- the announcement framed Burning Wish as an efficient tutor and LED as fast mana.
• Stephen Menendian documented that the Long.dec core of Burning Wish + Yawgmoth's Will + Lion's Eye Diamond cost only five mana total -- two of it from non-LED sources -- because LED paid for Will and then replayed itself for free from the graveyard to restart the chain toward a lethal Tendrils of Agony.
• An official ruling spells out a Buyback interaction: if you cast a Buyback spell off Yawgmoth's Will, two replacement effects fight over where the card goes, and you (the controller) choose whether Buyback returns it to your hand or Will exiles it.
• Yawgmoth's Will exiles itself: a ruling notes it reaches the graveyard only after its own effect has started applying, so its 'exile instead' replacement catches its own trip to the graveyard and removes it from the game.
• A 2006 ruling clarifies you cannot Suspend a card from your graveyard with Yawgmoth's Will -- Suspend works only from your hand. Related rulings add that graveyard cards aren't in your hand, so you can't discard them or activate cycling, and 'cast from hand' triggers won't fire.
• Yawgmoth's Will has an enchantment counterpart, Yawgmoth's Agenda (Invasion, released October 2, 2000, {3}{B}{B}), with nearly identical graveyard-play wording -- but Agenda caps you at one spell per turn. In French it likewise reads 'Programme de Yaugzebul'.
• A ruling defines that with Yawgmoth's Will, to 'play a card' means either casting a spell or putting a land onto the battlefield as a main-phase special action; the Oracle text was later templated to 'you may play lands and cast spells from your graveyard' to match modern play/cast wording.
• The card is named for Yawgmoth, the human Thran physician who became the god-tyrant of Phyrexia -- the same villain later given his own card, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, in Modern Horizons (2019).

Critical Rulings