Yomiji, Who Bars the Way by Hideaki Takamura

"Haha what is that commander wait no it's only turn 5 and you're playing mono-white c'mon I have kids."

Alright folks, we've had some fun with goofy commanders in the past, but now I have a bone to pick.

How

In the hell

Does Yomiji, Who Bars the Way only have 18 decks on EDHREC?

They combo with everything. I get it, high mana value mono-white combo isn't the sexiest package in the room, but damn why am I the only person sizing them up?

Here's a list of Commanders that are more popular than this unique, totally viable one!

Sensei Golden-Tail oh yeah gotta get that sorcery speed Bushido 1.

Reveka, Wizard Savant 100% need to ping for 2 every other turn.

Soraya the Falconer mhmm Falcon Tribal yup sounds about right.

Niambi, Faithful Healer god yeah get that Planeswalker deck Teferi.

Stangg... really? Stangg?

While these beautiful creatures are all bright candidates for late-season episodes of Going Brokkos, come on, Yomiji is actually useful in the right deck! Let's throw money at them to try and prove it.

Yomiji returns any other legendary permanent that hits the bin to your hand instead. Originally after seeing this, my brain went into overdrive and I made a beautiful post for r/BadMTGCombos.

When I revisited the legend a few weeks ago, I read some comments and realized holy crap I can actually win with this.

Here let me introduce your new gods.

Pretty much the entire deck revolves around finding Mox Amber or Mox Opal, having an artifact sacrifice outlet on the board, then dropping Yomiji, Who Bars the Way for infinite mana since the Moxen just bounce back to your hand after sacrificing. That might seem limiting, but there are a ridiculous number of ways to go off in the deck. Maybe too many, but we'll get to that.

Lands

Ya spirit works really well with anything that sacs legendaries, including Lands!

While not infinite like our pretty gemstones, being able to Dust Bowl and increase our land count by losing Flagstones of Trokair is a godsend in mono-white. Similarly, why not get a Marit Lage token every turn? Thespian's Stage counts as legendary for the purpose of abusing Yomiji's ability, so once it copies Dark Depths and kicks the bucket, you can bounce it to your hand and get a pretty lil' 20/20 eldritch horror once per turn. It's probably worth running Zuran Orb, but I jammed so many Mox Combos into the deck that having another 0-drop artifact is gonna bend my cards like a prerelease deckbox.

Historic 

Dominaria gave this build a wonderful buffer by introducing Historic, aka. the closest we're going to get to decent card draw in white. Then they abandoned it completely, thanks guys.

Search for Glory is a new inclusion from Kaldheim that works wonders when half of our deck is legendaries. We also have a bunch of dorky creatures ready to crew that we really don't want to put in harms way or pressure into playing basketball just because they're tall jesus christ people I play Yugioh at lunch you really want me to try dunking that's illegal right now anyways...

Sorry, back to dorks.

Dorks

White has actually gotten some nice ramp and card advantage lately, and by nice I mean like three cards and not Hullbreacher because Wizards have a negative intelligence modifier. It's not much, but these fellas can keep the engine pumping alongside every half decent artifact draw engine ever made.

Wincons

I've already gone over the Mox Loops, now I'm just going to list off a handful of the Oops, All Combos! wincons that get dumber and clunkier as they go. God that cereal would be gross.

• Yomiji + Mindslaver
• Mox + Yomiji + Grinding Station
• Mox + Yomiji + Arcbound Ravager
• Mox + Yomiji + Aetherflux Reservoir
• Mox + Yomiji + Krark-Clan Ironworks + Walking Ballista
• Mox + Yomiji + Amulet of Vigor + Nyx Lotus + Artifact Sac Outlet + White Devotion + Walking Ballista
• Mox + Yomiji + Grinding Station (if opponent has an Eldrazi that prevents a mill kill) + Sevinne's Reclamation + Arcbound Ravager

There's probably more I forgot about, and trust me it's not an incredibly strong deck, but in a playtesting vacuum I've gone off pretty consistently on turn 6 or 7.

Weaknesses

Well... we're mono-white.

Playing a 7-CMC commander with no built-in protection or immediate board presence...

Trying to combo off with 3+ pieces in the color with the worst card draw...

Hmm why did I make this again...

There are a handful of combo protectors with Grand Abolisher and Lapse of Certainty, but if someone really wants to go to the afterlife it's not too hard to shut Yomiji up.

Conclusion

Yomiji, Who Drops the Bar may not be very strong, or easy to cast, or able to adapt to difficult circumstances.

There's no but coming. Objectively, the deck leaves a lot to be desired.

HOWEVER

It's incredibly fun to sit down at the table and try to jam out a stupid combo win with a goofy commander nobody's ever heard of. That whirlwind of chaos and confusion is what EDH is all about for me, and Yomiji deserves to be a part of that happy maelstrom. Also, please Wizards, bring back historic. I don't care how many creepy massages you need to give Richard Garfield, just make it happen.