Chelsea Riverside by James Webb (1880s). Dragon Mage by Matthew D. Wilson.

Welcome to the third entry in my new "Winning Ways" series!

On the first Monday of every month I'm going to be writing about a different way to win the game in Commander. Many of us build decks with good synergy, strong cards and a general plan to "hope for the best" and try to play, charm or politic our way to the finish line. There's nothing wrong with playing casual decks and not focusing too much on your wins and losses. In Commander, we often focus on the experience more than the result and that's great. It's also OK to want to win games. If you're feeling like you lose way too often, my hope is to help you find some ways to put a few notches on your belt and get some wincons mixed into the 99 of some of your favorite decks.

My first two installments of Winning Ways covered cards that actually have the words "win the game" on them. While that makes my job easier, my intention was never to take the easy path in every one of these columns.

There are decks where winning the game happens with one final card. There are also decks where a single card becomes the spark for a series of plays that eventually - if uninterrupted - will result in a win. That means these wincons are "fragile" and can be interrupted. The best players run lots of answers and are judicious about how and when they use their removal and interaction.

Today's column is about this second kind of wincon. It's the first domino. If it falls and nobody is able to jump in and stop the resultant cascade, it will probably leave you as the only player left alive.

Minotaurs All Around

The card that sparks the fire in today's list is an over-costed Minotaur tutor that I'm sure can be converted into a win with a little creativity.

Deathbellow War Cry.

Yes. Deathbellow War Cry.

This eight mana Red Sorcery will let you search your library for up to four Minotaur cards with different names and put them onto the battlefield.

My first step in solving this puzzle is to take a search through all the Minotaur cards in the history of Magic. Is there a set of four that will win us the game when they all hit the field at once? Of course not. At least, I didn't think there was, though A.E. Marling wrote a fantastic column last Tuesday about an Oathbreaker Minotaurs deck that sure packs a punch. It won't deal 120 damage to three opponents in a multiplayer Commander game, but it uses Fanatic of Mogis, so that's a big plus. I love Fanatic of Mogis and have long wanted to find an EDH deck to throw him into, but this isn't that deck.

Minotaurs may be more powerful than I initially realized, but today I'm not really interested in winning the game with just Minotaurs. The three cards shown below may be Minotaurs, but they are also much more.

Changelings have all creature types, so these Minotaurs are Kithkin, Elves, Goblins, Dwarves, Humans, and every other creature type you can think of. They're the key to this wincon not because of their creature types but because of their "Champion" ability. When each one enters the battlefield, you have to sacrifice it if you don't exile another creature. When a Champion leaves the battlefield, the exiled creature is returned to play.

With one Champion, you simply swap it in for another creature - say Birds of Paradise (so I can just call it "BoP"). With two Champions you can have the first one exile the BoP and then the second one can exile the first one - causing the BoP to return to the field. That's not very exciting, but when you get THREE Champions, you can really have some fun.

Berserker exiles BoP.

Hero exiles Berserker, causing BoP to return.

Titan exiles Hero, causing Berserker to return.

Berserker returning forces you to exile a creature again, but instead of exiling Birds of Paradise, you exile Changeling Titan, causing Hero to return. Now you've got a merry-go-round of Champions, each entering, exiling the next one in the cycle and causing the previous one to return. To break the loop you simply have one of the Champions exile a non-Champion and it stops.

I'm not a Magic judge, but I think you could run this cycle without even having a BoP or another creature on the field with which to start your combo. You could target one of your Minotaurs for that initial sacrifice. My example felt easier to explain with that initial target being outside of the cycle of Champions.

If you recall, Deathbellow War Cry lets you get FOUR Minotaurs, not three. The fourth one could be a changeling, but there are a couple of Minotaurs we could get that might help us out.

Whenever Kazuul Warlord or another Ally enters the battlefield under our control we may put a +1/+1 counter on each Ally creature we control. Since our Changelings have every creature type that means each of them is an Ally. If we have any other Allies on the field we can give them as many +1/+1 counters as we like. We'd still need to find a way to kill our opponents, but having arbitrarily large creatures is a pretty good step in that direction.

Having those arbitrarily large creatures get blocked by some 1/1 tokens isn't going to make us happy so Ondu Champion is another great option. Whenever Ondu Champion or another Ally enters the battlefield our creatures will gain trample.

Choosing between Kazuul Warlord and Ondu Champion won't be that hard.

If we've got evasive threats that simply need to get huge, we'll choose Kazuul Warlord.

If we've got huge threats that need trample, we'll choose Ondu Champion.

If you're not sure how we'd possibly have huge threats without tutoring up Kazuul Warlord, let me introduce you to some Allies.

A Lotta Allies

We've found a way to take an eight mana sorcery and turn it into an arbitrary number of enter-the-battlefield triggers. We could also have one arbitrarily large Kazuul Warlord and any other allies on the field might also be arbitrarily large. That on its own does not win the game, but there are lots of ways to convert ETB triggers into victory.

Taking a page from my Grumgully, the Generous persist combo deck, there are some obvious includes.

Killing our opponents is old hat for anyone who has played, or played against, a Purphoros, God of the Forge deck. Any of these enchantments, or even the overcosted Warstorm Surge, will solve the problem of ending the Champion ETB loop by just killing our opponents. Our Champions are every creature type so even Dragon Tempest will do the trick.

There are other options for us that are more in the spirit of Kazuul Warlord.

Hagra Diabolist will turn your Champion Changeling ETBs into a table of dead opponents as quickly as any of your Red damage-based enchantments. Kalastria Healer will also drain your opponents lives down to zero and you'll gain a little life as well. Halimar Excavator will let you mill your opponents' entire libraries so they'll lose on their draw steps if they don't have a way to deal with that.

Bojuka Brigand will only pump himself, but if we can make him arbitrarily large our opponents had better have blockers or someone's going to die. If he has trample he'll be an even better option. He also has plenty of company. Graypelt Hunter, Hada Freeblade, Kazandu Blademaster, Makindi Shieldmate, Nimana Sell-Sword, Oran-Rief Survivalist, Tuktuk Grunts, and Umara Raptor are all Allies and will each get +1/+1 counters when an Ally enters the battlefield under our control.

There are even a few that come with extra benefits. Talus Paladin will get a +1/+1 counter and will give your creatures lifelink until end of turn. Turntimber Ranger will get a +1/+1 counter and you'll get a 2/2 Green Wolf creature token. If you play an enchantment that can turn all of our creatures into Allies, Turntimber Ranger will get Ally ETB triggers when those Wolf tokens hit the table, giving us as many Wolves as we want.

Akoum Battlesinger will pump the power of all of your allies each time an Ally enters the battlefield. Tajuru Beastmaster will pump your allies +1/+1 until end of turn and Tajuru Warcaller will pump them +2/+2 for what that's worth.

Getting even a few of these guys out before we combo off will go a long way toward getting the win if we aren't able to work the damage / loss of life angle. Giving them trample is key to winning by combat, right? Well, maybe not. Let's look at our options who will lead today's deck.

Choosing a Commander

It goes without saying that we'll want to run a lot of tutors if we're serious about getting to play this combo. It's unlikely we'd draw into all three Champions, and if we can tutor up Deathbellow War Cry with even a meager board of Allies we should be able to close out the game. If we've got one of our ETB enchantments, that will make it even easier.

Since we seem to be leaning toward five colors, we've got a couple of good options to lead this deck.

General Tazri has led a lot of Ally decks over the years and was long considered the best Food Chain commander in the format. While Tazri can tutor up an Ally when she enters the battlefield, setting you up pretty well to swing for the win when you combo off, her second ability doesn't do much in this deck. The ability to tutor up Turntimber Ranger is a pretty big deal in a traditional Tazri deck and we can certainly build this one with that combo in the mix, but my main focus is the Champion combo.

Tazri is also very well-trodden territory in Commander. I like to research my deck-building projects, but I don't want to just copy and tweak existing, well-tuned, proven lists, so it's worth looking at another option - Reaper King. This Legendary Scarecrow will allow us to destroy a permanent every time a Scarecrow enters the battlefield. Those Changeling Champions we're tutoring for because they happen to be Minotaurs - they also happen to be Scarecrows. That means if we hit our combo, our opponents probably won't have any blockers... or artifacts... or enchantments... or LANDS. If things go right, we'll have at least one arbitrarily large threat for each opponent and when we go to combat they'll have nothing but their salty tears to protect them.

There are other plausible choices like Horde of Notions, Morophon, the Boundless, and Karona, False God, but I don't think any other 5-color Legendary creatures pack quite the punch as General Tazri and Reaper King.

While Tazri might be the best choice, our combo hits harder with Reaper King so for the sake of working on something new I'm going to go with Reaper King.

Hail to the King

If we're going to run Reaper King as our Commander it makes sense to take advantage of him as much as possible. Reaper King is unique in a lot of ways and one of the most distinctive is his casting cost. You can pay for Reaper King but for any of those colors you can choose to pay generic mana instead. Not only does that give him some flexibility, it also gives him a 10 converted mana cost.

Drawing 10 cards if we happen to have our commander on the field will probably pull us into a tutor if we don't just draw our wincon. There are other toys that we might also be happy to draw into.

Hedron Matrix is a cute little artifact that gives the equipped creature +X/+X where X is its converted mana cost. For Reaper King that's a cool +10/+10. At 8 mana to cast and equip this little trinket, it's fair to ask why I don't just run Eldrazi Conscription, but you can chalk this up to being a pet card. I love that it takes advantage of Reaper King's unique CMC and you can (and probably should) feel free to swap it out for something responsible like Swan Song, another land, or... virtually anything else.

What you won't want to swap out are Blade of Selves and Rite of Replication. If you attack someone with Blade of Selves attached to Reaper King at a four player table, two token copies of RK will enter the battlefield and then die because of the legend rule. When those copies of Reaper King enter the battlefield, all three copies (the 2 tokens and the original) will see the two token Reaper Kings enter the battlefield and you will get 6 triggers to destroy target permanents.

If you think that's pretty good - and it is - a kicked Rite of Replication is better.

Kicking this expensive sorcery will result in five Reaper Kings entering the battlefield. There will be six Reaper Kings that will see those five ETBs, giving you 30 triggers to destroy target permanents. Anyone familiar with Reaper King is familiar with this interaction, but it's worth including and explaining in some detail because it's a great way to set your opponents' land bases back to the stone age.

The Decklist

If you're a regular reader you should be familiar with my weekly caveat. This is a first draft, and definitely should see changes as it sees play. Some decks come out of the gate fast and win more games than you expect, but I'm not guessing this would be one of those decks. Before I dive into what you might change, let's take a look through the list.

Deathbellow Combo | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Reaper King

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Akoum Battlesinger
• 1 Bojuka Brigand
• 1 Changeling Berserker
• 1 Changeling Hero
• 1 Changeling Titan
• 1 Corpse Knight
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Graypelt Hunter
• 1 Hada Freeblade
• 1 Hagra Diabolist
• 1 Halimar Excavator
• 1 Joiner Adept
• 1 Kalastria Healer
• 1 Kazuul Warlord
• 1 Makindi Shieldmate
• 1 Nimana Sell-Sword
• 1 Ondu Champion
• 1 Oran-Rief Survivalist
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Scourge of Valkas
• 1 Sea Gate Loremaster
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Tajuru Beastmaster
• 1 Tajuru Warcaller
• 1 Talus Paladin
• 1 Tuktuk Grunts
• 1 Turntimber Ranger
• 1 Umara Raptor

• Instants (3)
• 1 Inspiring Call
• 1 Mystical Tutor
• 1 Vampiric Tutor

• Sorceries (16)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Deathbellow War Cry
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Diabolic Intent
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Distant Melody
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Merchant Scroll
• 1 One with the Machine
• 1 Personal Tutor
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Rush of Knowledge
• 1 Shamanic Revelation

• Enchantments (9)
• 1 Arcane Adaptation
• 1 Conspiracy
• 1 Dragon Tempest
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Impact Tremors
• 1 Outpost Siege
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Smothering Tithe
• 1 Xenograft

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Altar of the Brood
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Blade of Selves
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Hedron Matrix
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (36)
• 3 Island
• 3 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 5 Forest
• 5 Mountain
• 1 Ally Encampment
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cascading Cataracts
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crystal Quarry
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Forbidden Orchard
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sea of Clouds
• 1 Spire Garden

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This may be a combo deck, but it sure isn't a cEDH deck. If you wanted to make it more competitive, you'd likely want to drop a lot of those +1/+1 Allies and add more responsible card choices. A Conqueror's Flail, some counterspells and a handful of removal spells would go a long way towards stopping faster decks from winning before you even get to imagine casting your Deathbellow War Cry.

My first drafts often wind up being light on answers because I generally run the same answers in most of my decks. I hate having to parade out the same list of Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Swan Song and so on every single week so I lean toward theme and jank more than I should. That doesn't mean this is a bad deck, but it does mean that if you want to play this deck in a meta where you'll be dealing with a lot of control and removal you will want to prepare for that and drop a few cards in favor of answers and counterspells.

Final Thoughts

Combo isn't the only way to win a game, but I've always really enjoyed building decks that have weird and convoluted combos that can kill a table out of nowhere. The Changeling Champion combo is one that you're unlikely to hit without starting off with a Deathbellow War Cry, but it's certainly not impossible. With a little luck, a tutor and one of those "draw 10" cards you might find yourself looking down at the win without ever having to let loose a death bellow or a war cry.

My hope is that with the other Reaper King shenanigans you can get up to with this deck, it will be fun and powerful even if you don't hit Deathbellow War Cry you'll be able to have a good time at semi-competitive tables.

I'm not well versed in playing Allies or Reaper King, and Changeling Champion combo isn't exactly a new thing, so this is where I turn to you, dear readers. How did I do? Would you have chosen a different commander for Deathbellow War Cry? Did I miss anything obvious? Would you have taken it in a different direction or used a more efficient way to turn this costly tutor into a victory?

Not every "Winning Ways" will be about some weird, convoluted series of plays that start off with a single domino, but I will probably always love those ones the most. I might even revisit that Conflux wincon I built around Ramos, Dragon Engine in some future installment of Winning Ways.

That's all I've got for you today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!