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Main » Articles » 100 Combo Decks, Part 7

100 Combo Decks, Part 7

Abe Sargent
Posted on March 20, 2012
 Reddit

Welcome back to the series that stays on the casual side of life. For the last few months, we’ve been doing a fun project to make 100 combo decks in real life out of the card stock I have. Two weeks ago, we crossed the halfway mark with the fiftieth deck officially out and done. Today, we are going to look at the next ten decks built as part of this quest.

Deck 51 – Infinity of Attacks

"Infinity of Attacks"

This is a fun little combo deck I brainstormed while trying to uncover some fun interactions with the cards I had laying around. Here’s how the deck works: You need out Aggravated Assault and either Nature's Will or Bear Umbra on a creature. Then, you need at least five lands and enough beef to smash through defenses. Tap five lands and activate Aggravated Assault, and you have an additional attack phase and combat step this turn (plus, your creatures untap). Then swing. Activate either Nature's Will or Bear Umbra and untap your lands. Hit for some damage. During your main phase, activate the Assault again with your refreshed lands and repeat. Continue until you smash-kill all of your enemies.

In order to smash well, we have a lot of fast, green beef. I decided to go with the faster, but harder-on-the-mana guys due to the nature of the deck. In order to go off, I knew I wanted as many green creatures as possible so I could toss in Bellowing Tanglewurm. If you can’t smash through defenses, you can drop it and slip through them. Or, you can Lash Out a vital creature or two in order to make a path on that crucial turn. I wanted to include something like Falter, but I didn’t want to use too much mana on the turn you go off, and it was hard to force in the space. For the same reason, Smoldering Spires is not here—I want to potentially go off on turn five, not drop it on turn six to keep something from blocking. Tempo was important here.

Since the creatures are big anyway, I added Hunter's Insight to find the right cards and redundant combo pieces in case some are smashed. The deck is pretty even, and it plays very well. It’s one of a few decks that are so aggro-heavy that they can just steamroll unprepared combo decks in the pool. Here’s the deck in all of its glory!

 

Deck 52 – There’s No Place Like the Armory

"There’s No Place Like the Armory"

You knew that we would have to have at least one Equipment deck before it was all over, right? I took some of the artifact enablers, creatures, and Equipment I had lying around and tossed them all in one, big deck. Then we had Equipment magic! (As in sorcery and spells; not as in the name of the game.) With nineteen creatures and twelve items to go on them, we have a powerful assortment of cards to really mix ‘n’ match. It’s like those paper dolls that you affix different clothes to. This deck has a lot of malleability to it.

Except for Dispense Justice and Sol Ring, every nonland is either a piece of Equipment or a creature for it. Many of our creatures tutor up a useful piece of Equipment. After that, I wanted some cheaper guys to equip and then some things that work well with Equipment. The Sanctum Gargoyle’s presence increases my artifact count for metalcraft and the Plating while also returning a dead artifact my your hand. When someone kills your Skullclamp, you have an answer! The Brass Squire also pumps the things that care about artifacts while tapping to send any Equipment to another wielder. You can hop items from one attacker to another or equip for free rather than using up precious mana. You can even move pieces of Equipment to protect your guys, such as bouncing Swiftfoot Boots to a creature being targeted by removal.

The Equipment chosen represents a variety of needs. We have broken, high-end Equipment to fetch with the Mystic and Giant. Take a look at things like Argentum Armor and Sword of Light and Shadow. We have cheaper pieces to gather for early playing and equipping, such as Basilisk Collar and Lightning Greaves. Finally, I included various artifacts for your army to wield in battle that add a number of interesting abilities, such as haste, hexproof, indestructible, first strike, and more. We also have several ways to pump creatures and make any into a threat.

When I play this deck, its major issue is not having enough creatures to equip. I wish I had some Kjeldoran Outposts to add to the deck or something. A deck with a decent amount of creature removal can take out the creatures when you draw a critter-light hand, and all you are doing is dropping Equipment into play. Anyway, here’s the deck you ordered:

 

Deck 53 – Trading Lands for Glory

"Trading Lands for Glory"

This deck is built around the interaction between landfall and Trade Routes. I love Trade Routes and have a ton in my collection. I was looking for more Zendikar-block-inspired decks because I felt I had too many Scars block decks. Landfall was a natural friend to Trade Routes, so I combined them in this deck. Every single card in the deck either has landfall, is Trade Routes, is a land, or is a Cartographer or Walking Atlas. There are no extra cards like Naturalize or Cancel messing things up.

With such a simple plan, which every card directly supports, we can begin to realize the power this deck has. This is not one of those decks with massive card advantage through Wrath of God or Stroke of Genius. This deck is steady, growing slowly over time until it has enough triggers and power that it wins the game. The creatures are very powerful when you have reliable landfall every single turn. Since Trade Routes is able to return a land to my hand for just 1 mana, having lands with abilities that trigger when they enter the battlefield (ETB) is very important. Halimar Depths and Khalni Garden both meet my approval. I can do this twice with an Atlas out and force two triggers with landfall. Spending 2 mana to trigger Khalni Garden twice is hot. (Tideforce Elemental really explodes with landfall triggers and Walking Atlas.) Then, add in the landfall triggers, and you have some power.

The creatures are built for smashing through opposing defenses. Sure, we have tricky landfall triggers, such as Roil Elemental and the Tideforce, but mostly, we just have creatures that smash and break. Our little combo is with the Grazing Gladehart. With all of this landfall trigger madness, you have almost a little combo engine going. For example, with Khalni Garden, Trade Routes, Walking Atlas, Gladehart, and a Tideforce Elemental in play, you can bounce and play the Garden for 1 mana, play it by tapping an Atlas, untap it with an Elemental for another mana, make 2 life and a 0/1 chump-blocking dork, and then repeat for as many times as you have 2 mana available. This deck can go “blar” in the late game. Hither it shall be:

 

Deck 54 – Megrims on the House

"Megrims on the House"

Before this project began, there were a few decks you should have been able to predict would make an appearance. We needed things like reanimation decks, prison decks, and classic cards to build around, such as Sneak Attack, Lifeline, Oath of Druids, Aluren, Dream Halls, and Birthing Pod. I don’t have extra copies of many of those cards sitting around, but you grok the idea. One thing you should have written down was a discard deck built around Megrim and friends. Here is that deck, but I wanted to make it a bit different. Unlike the normal level of Megrim decks, I decided to push this at a multiplayer table. Most discard effects work on multiple opponents. Sure, a duel deck would rather play Hymn to Tourach as opposed to Unnerve, but a multiplayer deck loves the Unnerve. We spread the love all over!

I included all of the copies that I could of the cards that force all opponents to discard: Scythe Specter, Cackling Fiend, Liliana's Specter, Unnerve, and Syphon Mind are the cards typically worth playing. As many copies as I had went into the deck with alacrity. Then, you add the seven Megrims and clones I have, and most of the deck is built right there!

I wanted to draw cards, so I tossed in Geth's Grimoire. I also wanted some more discard and creatures for the right times. Mind Sludge is a virtual Mind Twist for a hundred, so I included a pair. Guul Draz Specter is nice here, and a full set of Racklings are good—not only do they increase my creature count, but they hit everyone for damage. When we play this deck in duels, it fares not that great because the mana costs are much higher for things. It’s still a Megrim deck, though!

 

Deck 55 – Horsing Around

"Horsing Around"

Okay, this is a craaaaazy combo deck. Ready? You need Workhorse and Cradle of Vitality in play. Use your many token makers to massively increase the number of creatures in play, and then Congregate. Activate the Cradle to put a ton of +1/+1 counters on the Workhorse. Now you have something like a 22/22 Workhorse out, and you have three options to win:

  1. Equip it with a Surestrike Trident. Tap it to deal around 22 damage to someone’s face.

  2. Attack with it.

  3. Pull off all of the counters to fuel a giant Decree of Justice, which should make you about twenty 1/1 dorks . . . enough for a victory. (Or alternatively, you could make ten 4/4 flyers.)

Any of these plans should result in death to one or more opponents. The result is a combo deck that makes a big creature, and then has three ways to win with it, giving it some versatility. You should be able to rock a win through anything, like a Cho-Manno, Revolutionary, Moat, or Ivory Mask.

To support the deck, we have one of the two or three token-making spells in white that are better than Lingering Souls: Battle Screech. For 4 mana, you can play and flash back this token maker and produce four flyers! (Another one is probably Spectral Procession, but I don’t have any extras of those.) Our removal leaves a 1/1 dude in play to help the Congregate.

After that, Wall of Omens will give you something to do early, a body to tap to flash back the Battle Screech, a nice blocker, and a card-drawing spell. That’s a good addition to this deck, no question. Finally, I wanted the shutdown ability of Aven Mindcensor. With so many ways that an opponent can disrupt this combo, I didn’t want him tutoring for his creature removal, artifact removal, enchantment removal, Day of Judgment, or whatever else. The deck is fun, but with so many pieces, it’s a bit hard to go off . . . but that’s fine. It’s another crazy combo for your love! (Super secret: This is the first of two Workhorse decks in the list. Look forward to another in a future article.)

 

Deck 56 – Look Ma, I’ve Got Slivers!

"Look Ma, I’ve Got Slivers!"

This deck needs Donate badly, but guess what I never acquired? That’s right, the Donate! I didn’t want to add a third color for something like Bazaar Trader. Oh, and I ran out of Islands with this deck, but I had already pulled some for later decks; I just built this one in a few days. This deck wants to give an opponent Hivestone so all of his creatures are Slivers. Then, Plague Sliver will force him to take damage for each Sliver he controls during his upkeep. Pretty soon, he should die from his own “Slivers!”

Clearly, you expect people who now have Hivestones to attack you. If they can kill you before you kill them, the combo is not that efficient, right? In order to slow them down, we have creatures and spells designed to give you the turns you need to stay alive. First, we have walls. Wall of Frost is an amazing 0/7 Wall, and no one is breaking through that easily. Any creature that runs into it is slowed down for a turn and can’t untap, which gives you even more turns. Then, we have the flying Guard Gomazoa. All combat damage dealt to the 1/3 flying Jellyfish is prevented. This gives you another blocker and a way to keep off creatures.

It’s not just walls that keep you alive, but spells. Sleep will tap all opposing creatures and keep them tapped for a turn. Feel free to swing in with Plague Sliver to hasten opponents’ deaths! Exhaustion will steal an untap step from an opponent as well, giving you an extra turn. Between the spells and walls, plus the emergency Doom Blades, we should have enough to keep us running. Since I ran out of Islands, I tossed in Faerie Conclaves, which do give you another attacker to deal some damage if the route is open. Anyway, here is the deck!

 

Deck 57 – We’ve Got Spirit, Let’s Hear It! Go Team!

"We’ve Got Spirit, Let’s Hear It! Go Team!"

I don’t know what aspect of spiritcraft decks from Kamigawa block makes me love them so, but I truly do. More than other decks or tribes, these just resonate with me to a massive degree. Anyway, this deck is built around several concepts that abuse combo elements. The first is the Hana Kami engine. You play one of your great Arcane spells and trigger all your spiritcraft abilities, such as Thief of Hope or Kodama of the South Tree. Then, you sacrifice Hana Kami to return the spell to your hand so you can play it again, netting another trigger. You recur Hana Kami by losing a creature with spiritcraft, such as Elder Pine of Jukai. Then, you replay the Hana Kami (spirit trigger) and sacrifice it to recur your spell and play it again (spirit trigger)! Now lose your Forked-Branch Garami and return both the Elder Pine or whatever and Hana Kami to your hand and keep going (many more triggers). The deck has a lot of redundancy with triggers and fun.

It also has the game-ending Devouring Greed. Just sacrifice some Spirits to drain the life right out of a player. If you need Spirits, you can abuse the Inames to tutor and recur Spirits to overwhelm the table. One Devouring Greed can easily dole out enough life loss to kill a player if you’ve been attacking for a while (or Thief of Hoping for a while). You can kill with a Thief, Greed, or just an onslaught of versatile Spirits and triggers.

I love these decks! I hope you do too, and here’s one now:

 

Deck 58 – Shadows on the Loose

"Shadows on the Loose"

Did I hear someone discuss a reanimation deck? Here’s another! This deck wants to blast a bunch of these cheap creatures into the graveyard and then recur them a-go-go. You can recur many of these treats—from Bloodghast to Krovikan Horror to Nether Traitor. All are quite valuable.

To abuse these creatures, we have several valuable sacrifice outlets. We can sacrifice them to a Sadistic Hypnotist to force a discard or to Attrition to trade with an opposing creature. Necrosavant will sacrifice one to enter the battlefield, and Phyrexian Vault turns them into cards. Victimize will bring back two creatures in a trade for one, and the Horror deals out damage. We can even discard them to Tortured Existence to Raise Dead something good and bring the discarded creature right back onto the battlefield. I love to discard a Bloodghast to return something important, and then play my land for the turn!

Since we need creatures in the graveyard, in addition to discarding and sacrificing, we have two other methods. Buried Alive grabs any three creatures to fill up your ’yard. Not only do we have the self-recurring guys, but we have bodies like Vengeful Pharaoh and Carrionette that just want to sit in your graveyard and break things. The other engine is a Stinkweed Imp. The dredge is nice, and it gives us some defense and flying to shore up the stuff. This deck is a killer, and it’s built very tight. Many decks have problems facing it and its city of card advantage. Here I am below, playing my heart out! It’s turn four, and I just dropped a land and brought into play the three Bloodghasts I Buried Alive for on turn three. Then, I swung for 1 with Mr. N. Shadow and played the Phyrexian Vault.

 

Deck 59 – Eldrazi Go Rawr!

"Eldrazi Go Rawr!"

This deck began because I wanted to build a deck around Raid Bombardment. I figured it would work well with Eldrazi Drones, which is probably why it was included in Rise of the Eldrazi. I decided to add green for Broodwarden, and then Dark Ascension was released. I saw several cards that would well in this deck, led by Hellrider. I liked it a ton because it increase the value of my Spawns even more.

Making Spawns, we have Growth Spasm to sift our lands and Brood Birthing to spit out three for 2 mana (as long as I have one out already). In addition, I included several red and green creatures that make Spawns, such as Nest Invader and Rapacious One. With so many Spawn makers or abusers, I tossed in just a few other cards. Pyreheart Wolf is nice because it’s basically a Goblin War Drums on a creature that can come back once after dying. Since you are attacking with a horde, this allows for some serious hits. Crushing Vines performs two roles: It takes out flyers this deck may otherwise have a difficult time with, and it blasts any artifacts that are in the way. In a deck with no creatures, I figured trading a card that would take out enchantments for one that takes out flyers was a good deal.

It’s a simple deck, and it plays that way. It easily overwhelms some decks with its high creature content, and when you add the ability to make a quick creature horde and tear through defenses, it can really stand out. I even included a pair of Hand of Emrakuls in case those Spawns aren’t good enough at slipping through a defense. Enjoy!

 

Deck 60 – Mo’ Mana, Mo’ Problems

"Mo’ Mana, Mo’ Problems"

This deck wants to use those six core artifacts to enable my lands to tap for a metric ton of mana. I thought about including this with each color. Green didn’t add anything the deck didn’t already have, white seemed unable to truly take advantage of it, black could do it more easily with Cabal Coffers, and so it came down to blue and red. I decided on red to let me play x burn spells. No matter how advanced you are as a player or how long you’ve played the game, there is something truly gratifying about making 13 and playing Fireball or Disintegrate.

The original idea was to play x spells and firebreathing. Of my creatures, seven have firebreathing. Adding to that, we have a full set of Demonfires, plus Cinder Elemental and Flameblast Dragon. I wanted some more burn, so I supplement my damage with some powerful flashback and kicker burn. Lightning Surge is great but a bit pricey, and Urza's Rage is an old, reliable standard. Then, I rounded out the deck with a variety of cards that work well with mana.

For example, Jayemdae Tome taps for 4 mana and draws a card. With a Caged Sun out, that’s just two lands tapping. Lavafume Invoker can pump the whole team. Gorilla Shaman gives you something to play early, and its xx ability is more feasible when you make double the mana. Necropouncer is a bit pricey as well, but it’s quite powerful since it pumps the creature by 3 power as it swings with haste out of nowhere. Finally, I added Pierce Strider to deal that last damage to someone and to add a body to the table that doesn’t need or require anything more—so you can focus your mana elsewhere.

This deck is fun to play, but it only goes as far as the mana-making artifacts take it. Blow out one of those, and the deck stalls quickly. Would you like to see the final deck in today’s list?

 

Now it’s time to vote! Of these ten decks, which one was your personal favorite? Vote now. The winners of each of the articles will be entered in another ten-way vote in the final article to see which deck’s your ultimate favorite!

[poll id=144]

I hope you enjoyed looking at another ten combo decks from my table! Next week, we’ll look at another ten.

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

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

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