This "What's Up" series is a biweekly exploration of various topics in Commander. I started with a look at Power Levels and then did a piece on Stax. Today I'm going to dig into the topic of Combo. None of these are meant to be exhaustive. They are aimed at newer players but may give you a better understanding of the subject matter even if you're an experienced Magic player. I don't have all the answers, and my take on any topic is just my take - not some definitive final word on the subject.

What is Combo?

I used to think that a "combo" was a very distinct and specific thing.

I thought of it as any boardstate or interaction that you could continue indefinitely. It might take some mana or certain permanents to kick off the process, but once a combo gets going you can do it forever, or more likely until the rest of the table is dead, their libraries are gone, or some other objective is achieved.

If a combination of cards could win you the game, but it did not involve a loop of some sort, I would call it "synergy" rather than a "combo". By my logic, playing Avenger of Zendikar to make a dozen or more Plant creature tokens and then following it up with Craterhoof Behemoth to let you swing for the win would not technically be a combo.

I kept seeing people online talking about combos in ways that didn't match my own understanding of it, so I eventually reached out for a second opinion. I'd name drop the luminary that I reached out to on Twitter, but I deleted my account when Elon Musk bought the company, so I can't double check who I chatted with. The long and short of it is that the current Commander Rules Committee member I asked insisted that a combo doesn't have to be a "loop" and is just a combination (hence the term "combo") of cards that can win you the game.

I am still skeptical that my original definition wasn't correct, but these things are complicated.

The key takeaway is that the combo wins you the game. That's the whole point - you don't "play fair". You generate infinite mana. You make your creatures arbitrarily large. You create an incredible number of creature tokens. You do something powerful and unexpected. Something that other players' decks might not be capable of doing even with a perfect hand and nobody trying to stop them.

I'm going to talk about combo as if they are of the "looping" variety but know that there are players who also lump other two card synergies into the same category. I won't tell you they're wrong, but for the purposes of this column my main focus is on those delightful interactions that, like the Energizer Bunny, keep going... and going... and going... and going.

How Combo Fits Into EDH Power Levels

You might think that combo decks must be the most powerful decks in the format. They're just circumventing that annoying combat part of the game and essentially using a shortcut to kill their opponents. How is that not just the most competitive strategy ever?

When I wrote that these things are complicated, I wasn't kidding.

Not all combos are equal, and in a format where we're able to play cards from the entire history of Magic, hoo boy are there a lot of combos! There are so many powerful interactions that can create loops that players sometimes just stumble into combos when playing decks they've thrown together without any intention of winning that way. I've lost games because another player stole a permanent of mine and then realized that they could set up a loop and combo off.

Some combos only require two cards, while others involve a long interaction with four, five or more different cards playing a part in the process. The more cards that are involved, the harder the combo is going to be to assemble. Combos that involve the deck's commander are always going to be easier to hit than combos where every single piece of the puzzle is in the 99 of your deck. The question of how compact and efficient your combo is has a big impact on how competitive it is.

Another facet to look at is the mana investment required to pull off a combo. The more mana you have to invest in your wincon, the more turns it will probably take to get your board to the point where you can pay all of those mana costs. Unsurprisingly, the less mana you have to spend, the more viable it will be in high powered and competitive play.

A combo is going to win the game or threaten to win the game, but it's worth considering how it will actually do that.

If you're going to mill the table out so they lose by drawing from an empty library, you might get tripped up by an opponent who is running an Eldrazi Titan or has some other card that automatically shuffles their graveyard into their library when it gets milled.

If you're going to go to combat with an arbitrarily large army, you're going to need a way to keep your opponents from messing with your combat. A single Teferi's Protection will buy an opponent another turn to look for answers. A fog will buy the entire table a turn to find an answer and if it can be recurred, like Constant Mists or Moment's Peace, you may have a problem on your hands. A single Aetherspouts, Aetherize or Cyclonic Rift will put your army back in your hand.

Some of the most reliable combo finishes are cards that have "you win the game" written on them, but even those aren't all equal. Thassa's Oracle has become a staple in competitive EDH, but Azor's Elocutors sees very little play. The devil is in the details, and the harder a wincon is to interfere with, the more it will be played in high powered and competitive circles.

I'd suggest something like the following as a guide to how you might fit combo into your games based upon the power levels you like to play. Rather than work from a numeric scale, I'll be talking about low-powered, mid-powered, high-powered and cEDH metas.

• Low-Power: Combos are rarely played in low powered metas, and when they show up they are hard to assemble and involve lots of pieces. They shouldn't happen early in the game, shouldn't be a deck's main wincon, and probably shouldn't be tutored for.
• Mid-Power: You can play combos here, but they probably shouldn't directly involve the commander as a combo piece and shouldn't happen too early. A mid-powered deck might have a complicated combo wincon, but it shouldn't be the deck's only path to victory.
• High-Power: Combo is common in high-powered play, as it is a very effective way to nail down a win. More powerful decks may have the commander as part of the combo, might run tutors to fetch up combo pieces and should run interaction to protect the combo.
• cEDH: Combo wins in the early game are what many cEDH decks are aiming for. Expect tutors to search out combo pieces and interaction to protect the combo. If a wincon or a commander is not the most efficient path to victory, it will usually be set aside in favor of better cards or a more competitive commander.

One last thing to consider when evaluating a combo deck is the level of redundancy in your list. If a list has a four-card combo, but each of the key pieces to the combo has four or five possible replacements in the 99, you're going to have a much easier time assembling your wincon. Simply put, a deck that can only combo off with Ashnod's Altar is more limited than a deck that can use any of a half dozen sacrifice outlets.

Tutors and recursion can make up for a lack of redundancy, but your options will be limited by the colors you're in. Black decks can run all of the best tutors, while other colors will usually be limited to only searching up certain types of cards. When a tutor is type specific you'll always have to reveal the card you searched for, in order to prove that you did actually tutor up the correct card type.

Variance is another major factor to consider when trying to figure out where a combo deck belongs. A deck that can combo off regularly in early turns is much more powerful than a combo deck that can pop off before turn 5 once in a blue moon. If you happen to play against a deck and it wins on or before turn 5, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a cEDH deck. It might be, but it might also be a high-powered deck or an incredibly lucky mid-powered deck that had a once-in-a-lifetime great start. If that deck never does it again, was it really "cEDH" or even high powered?

I said this was a complicated topic and I meant it. If nothing else, I would urge you to not cast judgment on a table mate who plays and wins with a combo. You might not love it, but it doesn't necessarily mean they were pubstomping or even playing a high-powered deck.

Combo Hate

Not everyone likes combo.

That might be an understatement. Combo elicits a wide range of reactions for some very understandable reasons. As you play EDH and get more familiar with the landscape of the format, you start to learn what you need to watch out for and how to stop various combos. You learn the value of playing lots of interaction and the importance of saving your interaction for actual game-ending threats. You may even look at cards with split second or morph cards as ways to stop an interaction that really, really needs to be stopped.

If you don't learn about combos and you don't bother to run the right kinds of interaction, you'll lose more games. You might lose a lot more games. Not only do you lose more games, but it feels like you are losing out of nowhere. Everything is fine and then BLAMMO, the game is over because the dude who loves combos got the right three or four cards out and now you have to shuffle up and play again.

The reality is that combos don't usually come out of nowhere.

There are cards to look out for and permanents you should remove on sight. The problem is that it takes work to get up to speed on all of those pesky combo pieces and you'll still lose in frustrating ways. The other problem is that you have to make room in your 100-card deck for all of the interaction that casual players don't always want to bother with.

This realization is a bit of a shock and it doesn't feel good to find out that you've got to drop out cards you love just so you can stop some jerk from winning the game.

There are other options than adjusting your decks and your playstyle to be able to deal with combo, but I don't recommend them.

You could refuse to play against combo decks. You could tell the combo player they won and the table could keep playing "for second place." You could set arbitrary limits on how many iterations of a loop a combo is allowed to perform. While you're at it, you could also "house rule" your poison count to kill a player to 50, outlaw all abilities on all creatures and no longer require anyone to pay mana to play spells. In short - you could stop playing Magic by the rules because you don't like one particularly challenging part of the game.

I don't think any of these options will make you a better deckbuilder, or a better player.

I also don't think any of them honor the game which, whether you like it or not, is full of amazing, crazy interactions that can do amazing, crazy things - including winning the game through combo.

If you do choose to deal with combo rather than outlawing it, you'll thank me later.

You'll thank me when you've got that artifact removal in hand, the Voltron player is swinging at you, and you can blow up a key piece of equipment they're using to make their commander unblockable.

You'll thank me when you've got enchantment removal in hand and you can blow up a Ghostly Prison to let everyone swing freely at the pillowfort player.

Interaction is a key to dealing with combo decks but it's also a key to positioning yourself to be able to survive and even win games of commander.

You probably won't thank me, because this column will be a distant memory and you were the one who did the work to upgrade your decks with all the removal, counterspells and interaction that you need to compete (at any level) in Commander. That's OK - you'll still be a better deckbuilder and a better player.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Combo

I didn't always love combo.

There was a point where I was stuck regularly playing against someone who had built a Mikaeus, the Unhallowed deck that ran every Mike combo you could fit into the list. When that deck came out, we'd all just be waiting for him to hit one of what felt like a dozen different combos. We ran interaction, but probably not enough, and we didn't do a great job of talking about power levels and expectations.

I still have a dislike for that commander, but I eventually came around to appreciating that style of play. I always loved weird interactions and had done all kinds of weird combos but had never built a deck that was just stacked with combos until I built Grumgully the Generous. Where Mikaeus plays with the undying mechanic, Grumgully plays with the persist mechanic.

The details of how these decks work doesn't matter, but both are loaded up with redundant combo pieces so that it would be easy to assemble a boardstate that would let me win or at least threaten a win. With so many replacement combo pieces, my Grumgully deck didn't really need its commander on the field, as I'd usually draw into something that would do what Grumgully does. I could lose key pieces and not lose hope because if the game kept going there was a decent chance that I'd dig into a replacement for the lost combo piece.

After building the deck, I wasn't sure how well it would play. I didn't know if it would have enough redundancy to be able to win games. I wasn't sure how well it would stand up to more aggressive decks. I didn't know whether it would be fun to play a deck that didn't really bother going to combat. I wasn't sure if anyone else would enjoy it but me.

To my surprise, the deck won games at a pretty good clip right out of the gate.

I ended up winning a month of our EDH League with Grumgully and have tuned it up over time. It has so much redundancy that if a game goes long enough it's got a very good chance of winning. It can't out-race cEDH decks but if a game goes on for a while, I always feel like I've got a shot.

This deck, along with my Muldrotha, the Gravetide deck, have both given me moments that made me realize the real draw of combo beyond just winning games.

A lot of the fun comes from the tension that builds between when you realize you have the game in hand and the moment that you are able to actually land the win.

That might sound strange, but you usually know a turn or two before anyone else that you're going to be able to make an attempt to win the game. You draw into a key card or two, but you may not have the mana to play everything out at once and go for it. That means you have to pick and choose what combo pieces you expose by playing them out early.

I specifically remember a game where I played out Conqueror's Flail, a piece of equipment that could prevent my opponents from casting spells on my turn. After equipping it, I had a turn cycle where I knew that if they didn't remove that one artifact, I would surely have the win on my turn.

The moments of watching your tablemates play out their turns, knowing you're about to win and that they could possibly stop you if only they do one thing, is a really unique and fun experience. Winning feels good, but the tension of waiting to see if your opponents will remove key pieces is the best part.

Muldrotha, the Gravetide has also given me some wonderful combo moments. My Muldrotha list is chock full of nasty stuff, but my favorite combo in that deck might be Hermit Druid. The deck has no basic lands so you play Hermit Druid, tap it and put your entire library into your graveyard. In the process you put Narcomoeba onto the battlefield. Then you use Dread Return to bring Thassa's Oracle back onto the graveyard to win you the game.

This is another high-powered finisher and I've had a few games where it was down to the last two players and I was able to draw into a way to save myself by hitting a combo to win the game. My Muldrotha list isn't designed to put up much of a fight on the battlefield at all, so if it is faced with too much aggro it has a hard time. I might be able to play and recur a Spore Frog, but that only works until an opponent can remove it on my turn.

I've been faced with a lethal boardstate and had my life in the low single digits and been able to figure out a path to victory thanks to a lucky topdeck, counterspells to protect my play, and a good knowledge of how my deck is able to get to the win. It's exhilarating to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and it's no more "unfair" for me to win outside of combat than for an aggro deck to win via combat.

That doesn't mean people don't get salty.

I get it. They feel like they were playing Magic and it's frustrating to feel like you were safe behind your army of creatures or maybe even had the win and suddenly out of nowhere someone played some cheeky combo pieces and won the game. To some extent the real salt flows when you lose to the same combo again and again.

Get better, but also be wiling to talk about power levels and expectations. A combo player doesn't deserve to be sat in the corner with nobody willing to play with them, but you also have the right to ask for some of your group's games to be lower powered if that's something you enjoy more than high-powered, combo-focused gameplay.

The magic in Magic

I like to kid that some players like to play Magic like a bunch of cavemen, just smashing their game pieces against each other again and again. Casual Commander is definitely a lot of fun, but it does tend to be more combat-focused. Combat is one of the first things you learn about when you learn how to play the game. Most of us spend our early days in the game playing decks that are largely just smashing our creatures into each other. It's fun, but it's far from the only way to play Magic: the Gathering.

The term "magic" implies something mystical and supernatural. Playing out creatures and swinging them at each other is fun, but it's much more like playing a battle simulation or a wargame than anything that might deserve to be called "Magic."

Most of us appreciate the combat side of our shared hobby, but it's hard to deny that there is a real excitement that comes from discovering and playing out a new, unexpected, powerful interaction for the first time. That powerful new gambit might involve combat, but what makes it feel magical is that it makes you feel like you're in uncharted territory. You're doing something amazing and dangerous and if your tablemates don't stop you, you might just win the game!

To me, that thrill of discovery and that moment when you ascend beyond just simple game mechanics and leap into the realms of ridiculous interactions and powerful, game-winning plays is what really puts the "magic" in Magic: the Gathering.

Not every game needs to have a combo deck in it. Not every player has to fall in love with combo. It's not for everyone, but it's not just a part of the game - it's an amazing part of the game. It's exciting to play and it can be exhilarating to stop a combo deck on the verge of winning. It can provide tension and intrigue in a way that simple combat mechanics sometimes fail to bring to a game. If I can't sell you on combo, I hope I can at least sell you on stopping combo and building decks that are more responsive and resilient as a result.

Final Thoughts

As I wrap up this column, I don't want to leave you thinking that I believe every deck should have a combo in it, and that winning through combat is for suckers. Every playgroup and every meta is different, and you should do your best to explore this amazing format and develop an understanding for what kinds of games you and your friends enjoy. I would urge you learn about combos, but also to learn how to stop combos because you will become better deckbuilders and players as a result. Commander is a very deep well with so much to explore that you could play for years and still find yourself discovering new things to do with your decks and new ways to try to win games.

You should have real pre-game conversations and you should talk about what kind of game you are hoping to have. Let the combo player play his combo deck. If you have players who abhor combo as a playstyle then you should also have games where there's little risk of someone winning out of nowhere with a combo. Your game nights should be fun for everyone, and that means being willing to let everyone get a chance to do what they love.

I would urge you to play Commander by the rules and not set up arbitrary restrictions.

Play with 10 poison counters. Play with 21 commander damage. Let a combo go infinite.

A baseball team that lost a game because another team hit five triples wouldn't start arguing that triples shouldn't be allowed. A football team that was weak to the run game wouldn't suggest that you only be able to pass the ball. There is nothing more pathetic than trying to change the rules because you're losing, you don't like losing, and you don't want to bother trying to improve your own game. You can do it. You can get better.

That said - we have a flexible format where you can adjust your game to try to achieve the experience you want to have but... the more you stray from the actual rules of the game and the format, the less you're actually playing Commander. At some point, you aren't playing EDH any more - you're playing singleton patty-cakes, or highlander wargames, or something else that vaguely resembles Commander but isn't actually Commander.

Rather than setting up arbitrary rules for your playgroup, just govern your games with power level discussions.

Low power might mean no combos, no winning out of nowhere, and longer, more combat focused games. High power might mean anything goes, but don't be reliably threatening a win before a certain turn, as everyone still wants to be able to have a chance to build up a bit of a board and be ready to interact and play. Power levels are like gentlemen's agreements where you shape the kind of game you are trying to play without just outlawing things you don't enjoy playing against. Just make sure your playgroup is all on the same page or you may run into trouble with mismatched expectations.

Ultimately, my thoughts on the matter are no more important than any other yahoo on the internet spouting their opinions and casting judgment on those who don't play the game the way I play the game. Some of my thoughts might have struck a nerve. Some may have struck a chord. Hopefully they left you thinking about this amazing part of our game in a new way.

If you've got someone in your playgroup who doesn't appreciate or "get" combo and would love to just house-rule your favorite playstyle out of existence, talk to them. Forward this article to them and see if you can open their eyes to the fun of engaging in this unique part of the commander experience.

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