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Main » Articles » 100 Combo Decks, Part 3

100 Combo Decks, Part 3

Abe Sargent
Posted on February 7, 2012
 Reddit

Hello, Nation! I hope your week has been rife with Magic goodness of the top order! Today, we are going to look at the next ten decks in my project to have built a hundred combo decks by early May. We have decks both fun and wild to show you. Some have elements of craziness, tempo, aggro, and control, but all use essential elements in combination to try to win the game. Are you ready for combo goodness?

With ten decks in today’s article, I think we might want to skip the normal preliminaries and just move to the heart of the article: decks, decks, decks!

"Deck 11 – Shifting to White"

This deck aims to drop Shifting Sky and change the color of everything to white. Once you’ve done that, just abuse the game. The protection-from-white creatures have an obvious level of power against a deck that is now sporting all white dudes. You can swing through any defense or block any attacker in perpetuity. Unfortunately, opposing spells are still whatever colors your opponents brought with them, so they can still Lightning Bolt a Black Knight. Note that if an opponent can Mind Control a Hand of Cruelty, that’s fine, but once it comes into play, it’s white and falls off. Mua-a-ha-ha!

I figured that fear would totally rock the block, too. How are your opponents blocking fear with all white creatures out? They’d better have some artifact dudes to jump in front of your feared attackers. There’re only six fear cards in the deck, but I liked the addition.

Since opposing creatures are no longer black, Doom Blade cannot be stopped. It’s perfect here. I also wanted Execute for the cute removal and card drawing that came with it. Shriekmaw’s enters-the-battlefield ability is even stronger when facing a horde of white creatures.

To acquire Shifting Sky, we have whatever card sifting and drawing I could find that wasn’t already used somewhere else. Say hello to some Dream Caches, Impulses, and a single copy of Foresee. Finally, I tossed in a four-set of a hard counter in order to give you the ability to protect the Shifting Sky in emergencies.

This deck tends to be weak against the other combo decks because it relies on attacking creatures, and most of those decks don’t lean on creatures too much. When you have the right matchup, it is money. Here’s the deck:

 

"Deck 12 – Mr. Forest, Say Hello to Ms. Saproling"

I really feel that this is a kitchen sink Life and Limb deck. Let’s take one or two of whatever random cards I have that fit this deck and toss them in. This deck turns all Forests into 1/1 Saprolings and all 1/1 Saprolings into Forests. Cards that search for Forests will search for 1/1 dudes as well. Any card that makes Saprolings makes Forests as well. Both effects are very powerful with a Life and Limb out.

The goal of this deck is to use Life and Limb to create a horde of Saproling Forests—or other tokens and creatures that work—to overpower someone in just one or two attacks. The first section of cards is those that make Saprolings. Jade Mage can spit out a Saproling for 3 mana. Using previous Saprolings made in earlier turns to make more is tasty and fun! (Remember: They don’t have haste). Scatter the Seeds can be evoked for very little mana in this deck, and it makes three tasty Saprolings. Night Soil can exile creatures from a graveyard for little mana while also making a Saproling dork. Thelonite Hermit can morph for Saprolings as well. Don’t forget big daddy. Save up a bunch of mana and spit out 10 or 15 Saprolings with Verdeloth the Awesome.

When you have that many creature-lands in play, some cards greatly increase in value. Uktabi Wildcats, Allosaurus Rider, and Molimo are all huge. Doubling Season and Parallel Lives will increase your token making. Avenger of Zendikar and Beacon of Creation are just sick in this deck. Take a look . . .  Budoka Gardener can tap to put a land into play, flip, and start churning out huge tokens.

Beastmaster Ascension is powerful here. You can easily have enough counters for a mega-pump to all of your dudes. It just takes the deck and pushes even more toward a level of extreme! Garruk Wildspeaker can untap your land-creatures, Overrun, and make 3/3 dues. With all of the other things in this deck, he’s perfect.

After that, it’s just a simple matter to add Harmonize, Cultivate, and Kodama's Reach and call it a day. This is a deck that is hurt by the addition of nonbasic lands, so we add twenty-six Forests to make a deck of perfect love.

This deck is among the most powerful I’ve built, because despite the quirky numbers of cards, every piece fits together so well. It doesn’t matter if I steamroll with an Avenger and a horde of tokens or just one giant Allosaurus Rider smashing through—it works. Anyway, here is the deck:

 

"Deck 13 – The Firebird of Death, Magma, and Stalling"

Of all of the decks I’ve built so far, I think I’m fondest of this one—I fit in like a thousand combos. Combo 1 is to blast the entire board, but to leave behind Molten Firebirds, Sentinels, Reactors, Ingots, and Citadels. You should have enough left to swing and beat for game before a foe can recover.

Combo 2 is to use Ensnaring Bridge to keep yourself from being attacked both before the sweeping death and afterward, when you have few cards left. Supporting it, we have Null Brooch and Fool's Tome. Note that post-death, the Firebird replaces your draw, so with you drawing few cards, this is a great option.

Combo 3 is to run a Darksteel Reactor for the game, just doing everything you can to hide behind indestructible creatures, an Ensnaring Bridge, Volt Charge, and the sweeping removal until you win.

Combo 4 is to sacrifice the Firebird over and over again, skipping all of your draws, safely tucked in with a Bridge and no cards in hand, winning by decking your foe (Culling Dais is your sacrifice outlet here).

It’s a sexy deck. I’ve already explained most of the cards in the deck by now. A dead Anger enables you to swing with your Firebird after bringing it back to play. Volt Charge is the obligatory burn that also adds counters to Culling Dais and Darksteel Reactor.

Because this deck has so many ways of winning against so many different decks, it’s really strong. However, it takes a bit to get going. I’ve lost with it before it set up . . . but once it’s going? You are not stopping this from finding an avenue of attack and winning. Want to see the deck?

 

"Deck 14 – Zombie Clerics!"

This deck is built around the interaction between Clerics and Zombies in the blackest of black. We begin by playing as many Zombie Clerics as we can without sucking. Those are Shepherd of Rot, Moonglove Changeling, Boneknitter, Withered Wretch, and Skeletal Changeling. That’s eighteen creatures to work with. Boneknitter already regenerates any Zombie, and Shepherd of Rot already can tap to drop everybody’s life by a ton.

Then, we add Zombies and Clerics around this core. Ghoulraiser will grab a random Zombie for more carnage. Cabal Archon will sacrifice Clerics for a ton of damage. Deathmark Prelate will sacrifice a Zombie to kill something good. The Disciple of Griselbrand can sacrifice for life-gain, while the Blind Zealot swings in and tries to Necrite something if it can. Finally, Vile Deacon is pumped massively when it swings.

With all of these ways to make serious noise at the table, we add the powerful Profane Prayers, Cruel Revival, and Starlit Sanctum. How does this deck win? It grabs enough Zombies and Clerics to drop life quickly with Shepherds while slamming with Profane Prayers and giant creatures, followed by flinging creatures at the foe for additional life loss to Cabal Archon and Starlit Sanctum. With all of that damage and life loss, any foe should quickly die.

This combo deck has a definite aggro element to it, and I would properly call it aggro/combo. Due to the nature of the deck, the creature count is very high. Some decks can handle that, and others are overwhelmed.

This is among those creature-oriented combo decks that are blasted by the previous entry Chainquake or today’s Shifting to White. Because of this, it doesn’t have the power in this format that you might expect. However, it is among the faster decks, and any combo deck that can’t slow down the creature onslaught falls. Here’s a pic of the deck in action.

 

"Deck 15 – Not Another Stasis Deck"

Yeah, I know. I’m a bad Abe. I had the cards for it, so I figured I should just do it and move on. Stasis decks are fun for several reasons, but I understand the sheer boredom often encountered by those who play against them. We’ve all tried to fight Stasis unsuccessfully.

The deck works by dropping Stasis, Chronatog, and Frozen Aether. The Aether forces opposing lands and other things to come into play tapped, the Stasis keeps anything from untapping, and the Chronatog skips your turn in order to avoid paying the upkeep on Stasis. The result is a deck that should lock your foe down, preventing mana from being played, and winning the game by decking your foe. Even opponents who have ways around being decked will find themselves unable to cast the spells that would do so. Usually, once the deck is set up, your foe will concede if he has no answer—or he’ll take a bunch of turns in a row until he finds the answer he does have. There are a few answers, like pitch spells (such as Fireblast or Pyrokinesis) or using the remaining mana you had untapped before the combo hit, or a few corner cases (such as Amulet of Vigor). This is a great reason to play Seal of Cleansing or Seal of Primordium in your decks—you can sacrifice after the combo hits, take out the right card, and keep going. (The right card to destroy is Frozen Aether if the Stasis player has just 2 available mana. You might think Stasis, but it’s usually not. If you blast a Stasis, he can just untap and play another. If you blast Aether, if he has another, he will have to not pay the upkeep of the Stasis because it keeps his permanents tapped. If he has just two lands in play untapped, even if he plays a third, he cannot pay for the Aether. You have that opportunity to untap everything first.)

Anyway, the support cards are counters (including the pitch counters, Foil, in order to counter with a Stasis up and no mana), search, bounce, and tap. Each of these should be obvious. With a tempo-tastic combo, bouncing and tapping is very powerful. If you have an Aether and Stasis, but not a ’Tog, you can play both, upkeep for a while, and then bounce your Stasis back to your hand at the end of a turn, untap, play it again, and keep going.

Energy Flux is just a nasty way to end any artifact shenanigans on your foe’s part. Play it and enjoy yourself. Since he can attack you with untapped creatures (and vigilance can be rough), I tossed in a pair of Propagandas. That will end attacking very quickly.

It’s a deck you need to have, but its combo pieces are a four-of, three-of, and a two-of. It’s very inconsistent, but it’s also fun to have these classic tempo decks in my combo metagame. I usually pack some artifact and enchantment removal in decks that can handle it, and these are no exceptions, so in this metagame, it often finds a key card taken out before it can set up. I’ve only won with it once. But it is fun!

 

"Deck 16 – Nature’s Druid"

I love Hermit Druid, and I knew that I wanted to build a deck around him. I grabbed four and looked at other possible cards. Innistrad was going to give me a few ideas. I loved Spider Spawning and Boneyard Wurm in this deck. After that, I found Nature's Resurgence, and there was my deck.

The goal is to dump a bunch of cards in your library a few times with Hermit Druid. You might dump Brawn, which will be quite valuable with big beaters that lack trample. Maro is strong here, especially post-Resurgence. Krosan Tusker can be cycled away for land and a card or milled for another creature in the ’yard. After building that core of my deck, I wanted to add more creatures, so I just searched and found some solid additions. We have some artifact and Equipment removal with a few of them and graveyard removal in the form of Scavenging Ooze to fight others (and strip out creatures for Nature's Resurgence). Finally, Cudgel Troll was added as a nice beater. Four Doom Blades gave me the emergency removal I wanted and rounded out the cards.

A pair of Svogthos slid in perfectly. I needed to keep the basic-land count down to increase the Druid’s effectiveness. The fewer basics you have, the more you are likely to mill each time. I want at least six or seven creatures in the bin by the second activation. I tried to keep away lands that came into play tapped in order to fight against too much tempo loss. I still have six ETB-tapped lands and two Karoos.

This deck is fun, but a bit one-note. With just one way to mill the deck, I mulligan aggressively to find the Hermit Druid. I’ve won a game after dropping to four cards that included two lands and a Druid. I activated it, dumped a bunch of cards into the ’yard, then in three turns, I had a Boneyard Wurm killing someone. Here is your deck!

 

"Deck 17 – Phyrexian Rage"

As I began to look at cards that were possible combos, I noticed some great uncommons that suggested deck ideas. You saw one in the first article built around Lust for War, and here we have Rage Extractor. Knowing you are building a deck around it gives you some obvious card choices. Clearly, any deck with Rage Extractor will start with a full set of Moltensteel Dragons, Slash Panthers, and at least two Act of Aggression. After that, decisions need to be made. What other colors do you play? Do you add Phyrexian-mana cards that are not in your colors? I went with green because I wanted a real creature (Thundering Tanadon is better than Vault Skirge) and I loved Corrosive Gale in this deck. When you play Corrosive Gale, Rage Extractor deals damage equal to the converted casting cost. That makes it a Blaze to any creature or player in addition to its ability to clear the skies.

Once I knew what Phyrexian-mana cards I wanted, I knew that I didn’t really have enough card slots for things like Gitaxian Probe. Plus, these cards were so cheap that they didn’t do much even with an Extractor out (I also realized that I’d play it long before it was dropped, and with me perhaps paying 2 or 4 life for cards already in the deck to speed things up, I didn’t want to overload the life loss).

Galvanic Blast is fine in a deck with eighteen artifacts. Vulshok Replica fit in as another artifact, another red zone threat, and a way to finish someone off after being attacked and Raged. I needed an early creature that could threaten, and Garruk's Companion was perfect. A 3/2 for 2 mana in my color can be played before other things in the deck and either adds pressure or threatens to keep back potential attackers. Finally, I added a pair of Concussive Bolt. If you have metalcraft when it resolves, you might win that game. Adding a free attack in addition to damage from the Rage Extractor, removal, and previous attacks is likely game.

This deck plays the best when I go whole hog and just drop everything as soon as I can. You always want Rage Extractor first, and then everything else is just cleaning up. It doesn’t always win, but it’s always fun to play and just go all out game in and game out.

 

"Deck 18 – Just in the Tick of Time"

The goal of this deck is to give your foe an artifact and then swing with the now-unblockable Scrapdiver Serpent and tap down the gifted artifact with a Rust Tick. Our stars of the deck are the ten cards that turn something of yours into an artifact. Say, “Hello,” to Memnarch, Liquimetal Coating, and Neurok Transmuter! Come on down!

Next up, we have cards that play havoc with your artifacts. Memnarch steals them, Rust Tick locks them down, Blinkmoth Well taps them, and finally, Scrapdiver Serpent uses them to attack through! (Unfortunately, I do not have any Bouncing Beebles. Sad face.) You guys come on down as well!

Finally, we have those cards that help us find and protect the first two groups. Ponder, Preordain, and Divination will find our friends, Mana Leak will try to keep them alive, and Claustrophobia will keep any unwanted guests off the lawn. Never forget the little people. They make your deck work!

This is the second weakest of the decks in today’s article. I like these random decks that aren’t even that good when they work. I only won when an opposing deck failed to combo off. It’s fun to lose!

 

"Deck 19 – Berfect Strangers"

While I spent some time in my first article discussing what makes a deck a combo deck, I suspect that this deck, among all of them, is the one most likely not to be thought of as a combo deck. I get that. After all, this is just an infect deck, right? It can’t be combo . . .

For more than a decade, the deck with Swamp Mosquito, Tawnos's Wand, and Pit Scorpion was generally considered a combo deck. Just because it’s become good doesn’t mean it suddenly stops being a combo deck.

If I built a deck around making a giant creature and swinging for game in one or two turns, is that a combo deck? Take another look at my Hermit Druid deck above. I have won in two hits with a Boneyard Wurm. Isn’t that the same as hitting with an infect creature with pump? I think this is an aggro/combo deck because of those elements. I built this deck for two reasons. First, to demonstrate that point, and second, because I play on a regular basis against one built by a friend, and I thought it would be fun to build my own. Now we can duel with our infect decks. Rawr!

We played, and I swept him in three games because this deck is tight. Not only is it among the fastest decks I have, but it’s also very consistent. You have to fear that first hit from an infect creature because we are one Invigorate and Fatal Frenzy/Berserk away from game.

 

"Deck 20 – Five-Color Green Victory"

If I hadn’t built a Coalition Victory deck at some point during this project, you should fire me and replace me with another writer. I have four sitting and collecting dust. The abject failure to turn that into a deck would reveal me as a sinister tournament writer trying to confuse the casual masses. Now my secret is safe for at least another week!

I looked for a lot of cards that would work really well with Coalition Victory. Did I have Transguild Courier? Nope. What about Shyft? Nope. Reaper King? None there either. Hmm. What about five-colored legends like Cromat or others? Nope—just Progenitus and two Fusion Elementals. What about cards that change colors, like Kavu Chameleon? Nope, just two Spiritmongers. Sigh. We’ll have to do this the hard way.

I included the base level of support for any Coalition Victory deck. Cultivate and Shard Convergence peek their heads in. We have Supply // Demand to tutor for gold cards (Conflux or Coalition Victory are the usual targets). Ordered Migration can make four or five Birds to stave off the beats for a while. I have City of Brass, my only copy of Boseiju that’s not in another deck to guarantee a Victory, Glaciers, and Vivid Grove. We are good with support.

Then, I needed creatures. I wanted to emphasize hybrid cards as much as possible, preferably with a green cost. They count as more colors, but they are easier to play. Take Marisi's Twinclaws for example. To play it, I need one green mana, two colorless, and either red or white—whichever I have lying around. It counts as three of my five colors. One fear when playing a Victory is that some idiot will drop Rend Flesh or Terminate and blast my single black creature that’s out. Then, the Victory does not work. Having one copy each of all of these different hybrid cards with different costs and colors is a way to build in backup creatures. I tried to include creatures that would be good, such as Minister of Impediments for its ability to tap down an attacker. I included creatures with persist and even Sapling’s indestructibility to have some built-in game against removal. A couple of other choices are the Messenger Falcons to draw you a vital card, and the Hushblades (who are just are brutal in this deck.)

The deck is very inconsistent and an absolute blast to play. It might be the worst deck of the lot, and yet one of the most fun to play! Odd, I know.

 

Congratulations to the deck Chainquake from my first ten decks. It won a poll for the top deck from that article. Today, we have another poll, with each of these ten options appearing. Pick whatever deck you like the most. At the end of this series, we will pit each of the winners against each other to see which deck you like the best!

[poll id="134"]

Next week, we’ll have the next ten decks. I skipped a week to write the Innistrad preview, and now it’s catching-up time. I’ve been in a flurry of deck-building love, and I have the decks, so I might as well show them to you.

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

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

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