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Main » Articles » 100 Combo Decks, Part 5

100 Combo Decks, Part 5

Abe Sargent
Posted on February 28, 2012
 Reddit

To deck or not to deck, that is the question. For any Magic player, a self-examination is necessary at some point early in his or her Magic life. How many decks is he or she going to have available? Some people only have one or three decks, and others seem to have boxes teeming with dozens. I used to be the first, with very few decks running around. Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy (a twenty-five-hundred-plus-card Highlander deck) had enough play variety that it met most of my needs for diverse decks. This project changes things massively, and after we are done, I’m going to have one hundred combo decks built. What will I do then? Will I just break them back apart? Will I keep them together and keep playing combo games against other decks among the one hundred? I have no clue!

One of the interesting things about this project so far is seeing how you feel about the decks I made. Often, we have very divergent views. There are decks that I feel are uninspired, but they have positive comments or many votes. It’s interesting to see how we view these decks differently.

Anyway, let’s look at ten new decks from the project. I’ll be giving you the decklists, talking about the deck and how it plays, and showing you a pic of the actual deck. Let’s go!

Deck 31 – Look Ma, No Mana!

"Look Ma, No Mana!"

This deck is designed to cast a really powerful spell by stacking it on top of your library with Sensei's Divining Top and then revealing it with a Galvanoth. You play it with no mana! I then added the big spells, smaller spells, a handful of creatures to make things worse for your foe, and called it a day.

Searing Wind is the obvious choice for a deck like this. I was lucky to have three just sitting around and doing nothing. If you happen to have out a Fire Servant when you reveal Searing Wind to go off, you torch a person for 20 damage instantly. Ouch! Even an Incinerate with a Fire Servant out doles 6 damage to someone. Then, add in the two Pyromancer Ascensions I had. Since this deck is blowing through instants and sorceries, it seemed like a logical choice. A simple Incinerate revealed with a Galvanoth with one in the graveyard means you are dealing 3 damage at two targets, and if the Fire Servant is out, that’s 12 damage from a simple Incinerate. Imagine what this would do with a both the Ascension and a Fire Servant activating for a free Searing Wind—you could off a Commander player still at his starting life total!

Kiln Fiend and Chandra's Spitfire both like seeing spells hitting players. They are pumped incidentally while you do all of the things you already want to do, and they can add some serious firepower to your roster. After I included Searing Wind, I went with Elemental Appeal and Insurrection. You can hardcast Elemental Appeal if you want, but it’s a fine flip off a Galvanoth. You can pay its kicker if flipped. Insurrection is a game-ender in multiplayer games, and I wanted some nonburn to keep the deck from being too predictable and easily hosed. How else could you defeat a humble Story Circle naming red, for example? Magma Jet has obvious uses in a deck like this because it can take cards you don’t like off the top of your deck so you can dig more with your Top; or, absent a Top, it can set up a Galvanoth trigger. The rest is cheap burn that helps you out quite nicely, thank you very much.

The deck plays smoothly as long as a Galvanoth is in play. Like many combo decks that rely on creatures, it can be disrupted by a simple Lightning Bolt to your creature. It’s a fun deck to play, though. Interested in seeing it?

Deck 32 – I Can’t See You, You Can’t See Me

"I Can’t See You, You Can’t See Me"

This deck has two combos built into it. The first is the Worship/Pariah/ Pariah's Shield with an indestructible creature on the battlefield. You will not be dying. With eleven such creatures in the deck, it’s quite formidable. If you deal damage to me, Worship or the Pariahs will simply prevent it, and I will remain alive and happy. Then, I can swing with my creatures at my leisure and nip in for an occasional hit.

In fact, Swell of Courage is meant to be this deck’s late-game Fireball. Swing with a creature, and pump the crap, permanently, into whoever goes unblocked. Then, swing and keep swinging, forcing bad blocks and such until you break through. It’s fun!

The other combo is the powerful Worldslayer on an indestructible creature. All you have to do is sneak in one hit, and you blow up everything except for Worldslayer and anything that can’t be destroyed. Then, just hit again and again, and blow up whatever your foe plays, winning the game a few turns later. It’s a powerful combo.

Helping you achieve these combo wins, we have some exiling fun. Swords to Plowshares will exile opposing creatures with no hope of return. Return to Dust is similarly nasty against artifacts or enchantments. Finally, Exclusion Ritual will exile whatever you need. All have value. Tithe rounds out the deck, and it is particularly good post-Worldslayer to fetch lands and reset.

When I play this, I like to use instant removal to take out flying blockers so I can fly over with a Worldslayer or Swelled creature. Watch out for Manor Gargoyle. Don’t leave just them out after a Worldslayer because they require mana to attack. If you don’t have that mana, you are stuck. Anyway, here is the deck:

Deck 33 – A Different Sort of Oath

"A Different Sort of Oath"

I don’t have a lot of four-ofs among my rares. I used to, but then I went through and added one of each card to Abedraft (A box we draft out of with a copy of every legal card in Magic). When I saw that I had four Oath of Scholars in my deck stock, I pulled them for a future deck idea. Eventually, I decided to combine it with white for discarding and fun! The idea is to always have fewer cards in your upkeep by blowing through them—either by discarding them or by playing them for cheap. The most expensive card in here is the actual Oath . . . and the Automaton.

With me blowing through my deck so quickly, I knew stuff such as Runechanter's Pike would have value. Throw it on a Waterfront Bouncer or 1/1 Soldier token, and you have a serious beater. You can also discard cards en masse to a certain Automaton and swing with a giant artifact dude. Other discard outlets include the powerful Waterfront Bouncer, Peace of Mind’s life-gain, the single Witness I had, and the trio of Criers. To help ensure any foes will have enough cards, I tossed in some Vision Skeins so everybody can draw cards. Finally, I added a single Thran Foundry to restock my library if we burned through it too quickly, some Walls for defense while we are playing around, and a few other spells, including one more Disenchant effect and a pair of Divinations.

The result is a very wacky deck that plays very smoothly. The Oaths and many discard outlets and cheap cards allow for explosive mid-games that just vomit cards and effects everywhere. If the opposing deck is one with a quick and powerful path to victory, you will fall down, but otherwise, it’s quite possible to overwhelm an opponent and nab that all-important 20 damage. The deck is below:

Deck 34 – Your Death Is Assured

"Your Death Is Assured"

This is a very simple deck. You want to drop Fluctuator on the second turn and then cycle all of these cards with cycling for free. Over the next few turns, stock your graveyard. You’ll draw a ton of lands by cycling because they stop you, so you’ll easily ensure that you can drop Living Death on the fifth turn. Kill anything in play, and bring back all of these cycling goodies. Then, on the next turn, swing for game.

The only card in here that does not follow the plan is Expunge. You can cycle it if you don’t need it, but I wanted some emergency removal in case a foe brought out an early and powerful beater. There are decks in these that have very quick beats, and Expunge is your answer. You can also try to play a creature (your only option is Viscera Dragger, since it’s in-color) to block for a turn.

The deck needs to mulligan aggressively for the Fluctuator. If you can drop it on the second turn, your ability to go off is very strong. Most decks running around in this environment have Disenchant or Naturalize effects if they are in the right color, but you can just cycle in response to them and still squeeze maximum value from it before it goes. It is a nasty, nasty card. The picture of this deck is right here:

Deck 35 – Wallball

"Wallball"

I don’t know if you remember the old Elfball decks that used Elf mana, lands, and Priest of Titania to fuel a giant Fireball. I figured that a modern version with Walls instead of Elves would be cool. This deck wants to hold the fort, literally, until it has assembled enough mana to blow through opposing life totals with X spells. With this many creatures with defender, Overgrown Battlement is nasty. Vine Trellis and Wall of Roots also make the mana.

As an adjunct to that, Vent Sentinel can do its thing and blast a life total for some serious damage. If you are facing a creature that’s particularly annoying, you can feel free to use an X spell on it. We have eight in the deck. The best for killing people is Fanning the Flames. With its buyback, you can keep playing it again and again. Fireball can clean out several targets if needed, and Blaze is just a simple X spell with no bells or whistles. They all will kill a foe with impunity.

After all of those Walls and X spells, I only had room for four more cards. Say, “Hello,” to Harmonize. This deck really needed card-draw, so in it went.

This deck is a later-game deck because it needs a few turns to build up the mana reserves. It usually dies to faster decks. The innate nature of Walls gives it a lot more defense than an Elf deck, but it has no offense at all. If it can’t kill with either Vent Sentinel or an X spell, it loses. A deck with counters and creature removal steamrolls it. Well, here is yonder Wallball:

Deck 36 – It’s a Mad, Mad World

"It’s a Mad, Mad World"

Since I already had one deck today with discard outlets and Spellshapers, I thought another deck would work quite nicely. This deck is built around the madness cards in black and red that I had copies of and a bunch of discard outlets to trigger them. The only card in the deck that is neither a madness card nor a discard outlet is Anger.

Let’s begin with the madness cards. I have burn removal from Torment. Fiery Temper and Violent Eruption are nice and nasty. Adding to that is are the trio of enters-the-battlefield- (ETB) trigger removal creatures from black: Big Game Hunter and Nightshade Assassin. They give you a little extra gas. We also have some creatures, with six copies of dudes that madness out for 3 mana. Finally, I have the crazy Gibbering Descent, which is a bit nasty against unprepared decks.

My discard outlets are powerful. To begin, we are rocking the Avatar of Discard . . . er . . . Discord! You can play it early, drop a powerful beater, and madness some cheap things or discard Anger to the ’yard. For our Spellshapers, we have Jaya Ballard, Task Mage with three useful abilities, Arc Mage with its nice burn, madness outlet, Notorious Assassin’s ability to kill stuff, Hammer Mage and its hatred of artifacts, Undertaker to bring back the dead, and Urborg Syphon-Mage to drain enemies’ life. After that, the rest of the outlets are obvious. Firestorm and Sickening Dreams discard cards for powerful effects. The Undead Gladiator cycles and wants you to discard a card to bring it back for more cycling. The Phantasmagorian can be a nasty beater, and when dead, you can return it by discarding three cards for no mana. When you’ve gotten a triple madness trigger on it, you’ll understand its sheer power.

And that’s the deck. Because my madness cards lack the consistency of numbers (we need another Reckless Wurm and two more Fiery Tempers, for example), the deck is a bit uneven. It’s fun to play, but it loses more than it wins. Here I am playing it on the fifth turn.

Deck 37 – Training to Combo Off

"Training to Combo Off"

Not all of my combo decks go off in one turn, but this one does. Let’s explain how.

You have out a Training Grounds and a Pili-Pala. Equip a Paradise Mantle to it. Tap it for 1 mana with the Paradise Mantle. Use that mana to untap it, paying just 1 mana since the Grounds is out, and making 1 mana. Tap it for mana again. The net result is any amount of mana of any color. Then, pump that mana into a Blue Sun's Zenith and force someone to draw his deck, and you win. Or, you could use that infinite mana to pump a Feral Hydra to, say, a 100,000/100,000 creature and swing. You can also draw most of your deck with Azure Mage and Sphinx of Magosi until you find the Zenith and Hydra.

That looks great, right? Another way to abuse this deck is with Presence of Gond. For example, suppose you placed it on your combod Pili-Pala. Tap it for a mana, untap for a mana, and you made a mana. Now tap it to make a creature, untap it with the mana you made last round, and do the first round again, making mana. You can make roughly 15,000 1/1 dudes. That gives you a lot of ways of winning once your combo is out, and you can win through whatever defense your foe may have.

The rest of the deck is built around Training Grounds synergies and tapping and untapping creatures. For example, with a Grounds and Mantle out, a Silkbind Faerie locks down every creature your opponent has out every turn for no mana. (You tap the Faerie to make 1 mana with the Mantle, and then you untap it with its ability now costing just 1 mana to lock something down. Repeat until every opposing creature is tapped). You can also abuse the untappers to make a bunch of dorks (not infinitely) for 1 mana each cycle. Presence of Gond on a Safehold Sentry means you can tap it to make a 1/1 dude, then untap it for w with a Grounds out and repeat.

Building a few decks that just go off was important to me for this challenge. We have all sorts of combo decks! Since it relies on a card that we only have three copies of, it can be a bit inconsistent. The combos take up so much room that we have little left to draw, counter, and more. That leaves us with a three-colored deck with little in the way of support. Luckily, the Pili-Pala can also be used to make mana of the right color so that you can play stuff. Here’s the deck in action:

Deck 38 – Opal Wave

"Opal Wave"

This is a powerful combo deck from Ye Olde Tyme™. Here’s how it works. You have out Opalescence. Play Parallax Wave. Remove four counters to exile opposing creatures. While they are on the stack, remove the final counter to exile the Wave itself. The Wave leaves play, and its triggers to bring back everything exiled go the stack. It returns. The four exiled creatures are exiled permanently because their triggers to return go off before they are gone. Nasty, right?

Scars block gave us another way to abuse this. You need a Parallax Wave out, and then play the Leonin Relic-Warder. It comes into play, and it exiles an opposing artifact or enchantment with it. Then, use your Wave on the Relic-Warder. It leaves play and triggers the go-away clause. Then, the opponent’s artifact or enchantment is exiled permanently. Just blow off the counters normally, and your guy will come back for more abuse.

Another ETB trigger to abuse is Auramancer’s. Play it to return a Wave, and then exile it. When that Wave goes away later on, your Auramancer returns and grabs your Wave back to your hand for more action if it’s now in the graveyard. It has great synergy with the key combo cards.

With so much love already in the deck, I added a few other enchantments. Ghostly Prison helps you to stay alive. Marshal's Anthem can return your dudes to play. You really want to bring it back after it dies by playing Auramancer. Then, I finished the deck by adding some late-game beaters and calling it a day. You spend your early- and midgame time setting up and blowing out opposing cards, so dropping a simple dude and swinging is your final answer.

This deck uses an old dog with a lot of new tricks, and it proves the adage wrong. I like the combination of old and new here. I hope you do as well!

Deck 39 – Allies ’R’ Us

"Allies ’R’ Us"

Do you know what’s really good with Allies? Eldrazi drones. A simple Xenograft makes all drones Allies to the cause as well. Now when you play Essence Feed, Corpsehatch or Dread Drone, you’ll harvest many Ally triggers. Even something simple such as Umara Raptor will grow faster than the Hulk on jungle juice.

The real combo engine here is Hagra Diabolist. Whenever any Ally enters the battlefield, you can have target player lose life equal to the number of Allies you control. Let suppose you have out just three Allies and a Xenograft. You play Corpsehatch on an opposing creature, and it dies. You net two Eldrazi Spawn for your trouble, and your foe just lost 10 life. You will easily win the game from that point.

You can imagine just how nasty cards like Sea Gate Loremaster are with the Spawns added to your Ally count. I wish I had more than one copy—or two Occultists—and more of the other nasty ones as well. The decks is fine, but a few more of the broken Allies would just put it over the top.

This deck can win from nowhere, and you have to respect it. The tribal nature tends to allow it to build over time, but then it explodes, and the manageable 4/4 Umara Raptor and 5/5 Nimana Sell-Sword are now massively larger, and other threats have jumped to the board as well. It fun! Wanna see it?

Deck 40 – I Miss My Cemetery Gates

"I Miss My Cemetery Gates"

In the first ten decks, I mentioned that I had initially wanted to build both a Pyrohemia deck and a Pestilence deck. I decided to move Pyrohemia to a different pro-red deck, but I kept the Pestilence deck, and here it is. This deck wants to use Pestilence as a means to control and sweep the board of creatures and to kill your foe. It includes many cards to keep yourself and your creatures alive, so let’s look under the hood.

The obvious additions are protection-from-black creatures. I’m disappointed that my deck stock no longer includes copes of Cemetery Gate—it’s been a great friend of Pestilence decks ever since it saw print waaaay back in Homelands. Since I didn’t have it, I had to look to white for the creatures I needed. Mirran Crusader was a great addition. We also had the various 2-drop pro-black creatures you would expect. I also had a pair of Voice of Grace to give me flyers with the ability to survive. I included a pair of Indomitable Ancients. I’ll never be able to kill them, so they are good here as well. I also wanted creatures with a bit more staying power in the red zone.

I felt the deck needed more Pestilences, so in went three of the recently printed Demons and the only copy of Thrashing Wumpus I have that’s not in Abedraft or my real-life Momir Vig box and so forth. Once I added them, I needed a way to stay alive. In went a pair of Sphere of Grace to prevent black-sourced damage to me. Now I can Pestilence with impunity and not have to worry about losing life. That enabled me to add card-draw in the form of Sign in Blood. I rounded the deck with a Death Grasp (I wish I had two for the deck, but I had just one copy that was not being used elsewhere) and a Tower of Fortunes for late-game card-drawing extraordinaire.

With ways of keeping my creatures and myself immune to the Pestilence, it won’t leave play from a lack of creatures on the battlefield. As it is staying around, I can activate it over and over to sweep and kill. This is a powerful deck against other creature decks (just like Opal Wave is), but it’s weaker against decks that kill in other ways. Anyway, here is our final deck of the day:

[poll id=”140”]

I hope that you enjoyed another ten of these decks. We still have sixty more to go! Now you can vote on your favorite. Which of these decks do you like the best? Vote now, and the winner from each article will be voted on in the last article to see which is your ultimate favorite!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

TAGS articles, casual, deck lists, kitchen table, abe sargent, 100 combo decks, kitt, kitchen table tuesday

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