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Main » Articles » 100 Combo Decks, Part 8

100 Combo Decks, Part 8

Abe Sargent
Posted on March 27, 2012
 Reddit

If you don’t like building decks, can you even call yourself a Magic player? I don’t know, but I love the building of decks. That’s why I took on this crazy project to build, in real life, 100 combo decks in just 20 weeks. In each of these articles, I’ve showed you ten decks that I’ve made and played in real life. Are you interested in seeing some more decks?

Today, we’ll count down another ten decks, and we’ll only have thirty more to go! At the end of today’s article, you’ll have a chance to vote on your favorite deck. The top-rated decks from each column will face off at the end to see which deck is your uber-fave!

Here come the decks!

Deck 61 – A Boring Life-Gain Deck

"A Boring Life-Gain Deck"

Our first deck is a stereotypical Searing Meditation deck. It’s built around gaining life easily through various methods and then activating the various life-gain triggers in red, white, and green that power the deck. The ultimate combo is Searing Meditation—when you gain life, 2 mana allows you to deal 2 damage to something. You can blast a creature or just ebb your foe’s life. The Searing Meditation can trigger the Tamanoa, which triggers to gain you life, which you can spend 2 mana on to trigger the Meditation for 2 more damage which . . . well, you grok the idea. It’s a lot of obvious fun.

The other life triggers are Well of Lost Dreams’ ability to draw you cards and the growing ability of Ageless Entity and Ajani's Pridemate. These will enlarge to assist the beats. You can easily grow a creature to a size significant enough to be a threat while doing all of your life-gain tricks.

After that, most things gain life. I have a Disenchant effect that gains life: Solemn Offering. I have a burn spell that gains life, too: Lightning Helix. I have creatures that gain life when they enter the battlefield: Aven Riftwatcher and Kemba's Skyguard. We also have Brion with lifelink and flinging creatures for life and damage. Since we could grow a big creature with the Pridemates or Entities, this is a very powerful ability. Finally, I added a single copy of Behemoth Sledge to throw on any creature for life-gaining purposes. Everything gains life. The only place I skipped out on the theme was in my land base—I didn’t want too many cards that lose tempo in a three-colored deck.

The deck is very powerful and only a little interesting. It’s been built by many people through the years. It’s nice to have my own version, but it’s a bit too much by the numbers. Don’t worry, though; we are about to head into wacky street in a few decks.



Deck 62 – Kobolds of the World, Unite!

"Kobolds of the World, Unite!"

Believe it or not, this deck was actually built around Shrine of Burning Rage. I wondered about a way that I could play and replay red spells, and I thought of the Kobolds. I pulled them out and built this deck around them. Here’s how it goes.

You need a Skullclamp and Mortuary. Play a Kobold or a Memnite. Spend 1 mana to equip and draw two cards. The Kobold or Memnite goes on top of your library from Mortuary. You draw it and one other card from the Clamp. You can repeat this as many times as you have mana to draw a ton of cards. That’s nice right there, but let’s look deeper.

If you have a Shrine of Burning Rage and are abusing a Kobold, each time you reiterate this, you add a counter to it. It won’t be long until your Shrine has a lethal number of counters to blast someone. But that’s not all! I pushed even further. If you have a Genesis Chamber, in each go around, you make a 1/1 Myr artifact creature. So, each time around the barn, for just 1 mana, you can potentially make 1/1 dorks and put counters on Shrines in addition to drawing a card . . . for just 1 mana.

That’s how the deck works, and everything else is designed to find the cards, force an important discard, or make mana. You’ll have enough gas to go deep, with various combos in here as long as you have the two key cards. Anyway, the deck plays inconsistently because I only own two Mortuaries, but that’s the breaks! It’s fun when it manages to go off. It does draw a ton of cards with Clamps even without the Mortuary—you can make Clampable fodder with the Chambers, and you are drawing a lot of free creatures to Clamp as well. It’s not as bad as you think, but it would still benefit from more Mortuaries. Anyways, here it is:



Deck 63 – The Second Rite of Love

"The Second Rite of Love"

Let’s do a crazy-fun deck next! Here is how this deck is supposed to work: Get your foe to 10 life through a variety of methods, and then use the Second Rite to kill him! Does that sound like fun? (It is.) We have many methods to massage your foe’s life total. The best is to use Illicit Auction or Mages' Contest to bid 1 less life than your opponent requires to hit ten. For example, if he is at 16 life, Illicit Auction or Contest a creature or valuable spell and bid 5 life. He bids 6, and you make sure to look concerned. Allow it to happen, and sigh a little. Then, play the Hidetsugu's Second Rite to kill him.

We have other ways, though. Firebreathing creatures can deal just enough damage to knock someone to 10 life. The five X spells serve the same purpose. Then, we wrap it up with a few more creatures and call it a deck.

It’s very crazy, and it’s hard to win with the Second Rite. You win with burn and creatures more than the Second Rite. The beauty of the deck is that your foe doesn’t know what the deck does until a Second Rite is sprung on him. He just feels it’s a casual-oriented, but fairly typical red deck. That’s until you secretly force him to 10 life!



Deck 64 – Mono, Black, and You

"Mono, Black, and You"

Ah yes, the mono-black deck built around Cabal Coffers. I hope you are doing well. Come on out and put on a show with your mystic powers! We have four Coffers and a pair of Maps to find them. We also have a lot of ways to abuse Swamps and black mana all around the block. Let’s take a closer look under the hood.

The obvious place to start is Drain Life and friends. We have two each of Drain Life and Consume Spirit—plus Drana and two Exsanguinates. That’s a passel of life draining. It should be enough, but if it’s not, we can use Profane Command as an adjunct. My favorite use of the Command is to kill a creature and dole out life loss to the owner, but you can use it to recur something or even for the surprise attack of feared creatures.

The other way to abuse your Coffers is to look at black mana or Swamps. Mind Sludge and Corrupt loom at your Swamps to determine their power. In this deck, that should be a lot of oomph. Then, we have five various Shades to use all of that extra black mana you have floating around. They are happy to blast through defenses with a charge of blackness.

Finally, the deck has a few cards to round things out. We have the card-drawing and creature-making Promise of Power. It’s really good friends with Phyrexian Rager, which grabs you a card and fights in the red zone for you. Nekrataal will kill a foe that may be beyond your normal kill while the Nezumi Graverobber exiles cards and then flips into a house. With your extra mana, it can be used regularly for serious power.

This combination of fun things indicates that you play that combo-control-style deck often called MBC. There are a lot of fans of this sort of deck out there, and we have another version above. It’s always fun to blast through creatures and enemies by making a lot of mana. Anyway, the deck is below:



Deck 65 – I Imprison Thee

"I Imprison Thee"

Prison is one of the easier deck archetypes going all of the way back to the original decks. This uses the cards of that era in mono-green to make a deck with an old spine but a modern spin. The old spine is the Winter Orbs and Howling Mines—each of these has an old ability. Artifacts used to shut off when they were tapped, and this deck abused that rule to good effect. Only a handful of the artifacts from that era were erratad to continue to shut off when tapped—those that had a large tournament pedigree.

The old deck was built around tapping Winter Orb just before your turn. You untapped it and your lands at the same time. That way, you got to untap everything while your foes could not. You also tap the Howling Mine after drawing cards, so no one else benefits from it. For tapping these artifacts are Relic Barrier, Icy Manipulator, and Blinkmoth Well. The combination of drawing extra cards while locking off a lot of mana from your enemy leads to a powerful game state you usually win.

I wanted good, cheap creatures for the deck to use to win. I also needed cheap creatures so I could keep using cards like the Well or Manipulator, or in case I became caught by my own Worb—like if foes are killing my tappers. Finally, we needed powerful, cheap creatures that could outmuscle the cheap creatures others managed to drop. I looked to metalcraft to solve this issue. With sixteen artifacts already in the deck, I went up to twenty by adding Chrome Steed. Then, Ezuri's Brigade and Carapace Forger followed. They are all cheap, and with metalcraft, they should be able to handle smaller stuff. Then, I simply finished the Prison with a few other creatures and spells. Ritual of Subdual was sitting around, and I thought it would be a potent supplement to the tempo loss the deck already inflicted. In went my three copies. The rest are removal.

This deck shuts down the above deck in battles, by the way. Ouch! Tempo decks like this one often catch others unprepared. Will it catch your enemies unprepared as well? Let’s find out!



Deck 66 – The Shell Game

"The Shell Game"

I like following up serious decks with fun decks. The tempo deck is serious, and this isn’t. The goal of this deck is to drop a bunch of big creatures or utility triggers earlier, and then you should with Ixidron and Dermoplasm. The fun thing about this deck is that every single card—every one—is a creature. Of those, all but six have morph, and those involve morphing. Adding the four morph lands, we have thirty-two cards with morph, plus six cards that involve morph in one or more ways.

This deck was originally as U/G with Root Elemental as another engine, but it wasn’t fun enough, and the concept was too busy, so I backed off and just went with the blue craziness of morphing. This deck packs three types of creatures, so let’s look at them more closely.

Vital Triggers – We need some of these morph triggers. For example, Willbender and its ability to send something to another target, Chromeshell Crab and its ability to trade a dork for a good creature, and the Quanar for its forking are essential to a tricky deck. Lastly, drawing cards is important, so don’t ignore the Riptide Survivor.

Engine Triggers – Another group of creatures are those that have the essential ability to work the deck. The obvious ones are Weaver of Lies, Ixidron, and Master of the Veil. Each of these can turn one or more of your morph guys back over for another flip. I look at them as Momentary Blink or self-bounce—except that we unmorph the creature rather than pay for the Blink or have to recast the creature. The two major cards are also powerful engines: Ixidor, Reality Sculptor and Dermoplasm. When you unmorph the Dermoplasm, you can swap it for any morph creature in your hand. Since virtually every creature qualifies, we should have a surprise every time. Ixidor will pump your team and flip any creature for 3 mana a-go-go.

The Other Stuff – Finally, we have rounded out the deck with some other surprises. With all of this morph and unmorph action going on, it’s easy to hide creatures. Sneaking through a Raven Guild Master is quite easy. Unmorphing or Dermoplasming a Dragon for a surprise beat is quite powerful. We also added some cycling lands to help find the right cards when your mana is all set. I like using a Zoetic Cavern to accelerate my land development by a turn to accelerate to a good place mana-wise. Finally, don’t ignore the value of Echo Tracer. In a pinch, you can bounce an ummorphed creature and replay it for another go.

This deck is odd. The sheer number of creatures just crushes other decks, but it doesn’t have an aggro bend. It’s not chock full of Garruk's Companions and Branchsnap Lorians. As such, it can be out-aggroed sometimes, which is fun. The deck doth enter below:



Deck 67 – The Chalice of Scarecrows

"The Chalice of Scarecrows"

Do you like this infinite deck? Wait, you don’t see it? Okay, here it is:

You need Scarecrone, Dross Scorpion, Ashnod's Altar, Myr Sire, and Chalice of Life.

  1. Sacrifice Myr Sire and the token made when it dies to Ashnod's Altar for 4.

  2. This gives you two untap triggers with the Dross Scorpion. Use one on the Chalice of Life and the other on the Scarecrone.

  3. Tap Chalice of Life, untap with Dross Scorpion.

  4. Tap the Scarecrone and spend 4 to return target artifact creature card to play from your graveyard . . . choose Myr Sire. Untap this with the other Scorpion trigger.

Result: you gained 1 life with the Chalice of Life. You did a lot of stuff, but you used no mana or cards.

Repeat until you have enough life to transform the Chalice, then repeat until all foes are dead.

The bad thing about this is the sheer number of combo cards needed and the lack of four of each copy I own. Enter on real Tutor and three transmutable Dimir Machinations. You can rock a Chalice, Altar, or Scarecrone with one.

After that, I included creature removal and discard. Duress is a classic tool for combo decks everywhere and needs no introduction. Then, we have an Edict, Doom Blade, and Corrupt. Each is used to help you last long enough to assemble the Death Machine®. Finally, I tossed in a few ways of helping the deck out with more creatures and tokens. The Assemblies bounce and make five dudes, which can turn into 10 mana with an Altar, allowing you to replay the Assembly while having 4 mana left for stuff. Or just use the mana to go off in a major way, such as pumping mana into a Mass or Hatchery. You also pile five triggers on a Scorpion, and once, I went off enough times to transform the Chalice and win without having the full combo assembled. The deck is an attempt to have a wacky, crazy Johnny-tastic engine in one of my decks this week, and I hope you enjoy seeing it!



Deck 68 – The Emeria Puzzle

"The Emeria Puzzle"

This deck was built around the sheer power of Emeria, the Sky Ruin. It’s one of the most powerful lands ever printed in the modern age of Magic, but because it requires so many Plains out to activate, it just doesn’t have the presence that other lands of similar power have. I wanted to build a deck around it to show off the pure power it has. With four Expedition Maps as well, we have eight Emerias if we need them (and they aren’t legendary, so you can rock two at a time). To find a lot of Plains, say hello to Kor Cartographer. (I also like returning a Map with a Sun Titan over and over again.)

This deck has a ton of creatures to bring back from the graveyard for free. Since Emeria essentially duplicates Reya Dawnbringer, I tossed in a pair of the original Angel. I wanted creatures that worked well with Emeria. For example, Radiant's Dragoons can die if you don’t pay the echo cost. Then, you can bring back a creature for the turn and bring them back in a future turn if you want. Major Teroh will sacrifice to exile all black creatures. If you need to bring it back for another go, it’s there lingering. We even have a Claws of Gix, a Miren, and some Carnage Altars if you want to sacrifice a creature in order to bring it right back. Perhaps you want to trigger an Archon of Justice or Yosei. However, the major way of abusing Emeria is just to bring back creatures that your opponent worked very hard to kill. Did you manage to find a way to off Akroma? Well, here she is again! Sorry about Crovax shutting you down a second time.

I wanted Lightning Greaves in this deck to allow you to swing with a creature that was just brought back out. Bring out Jareth, and swing! It gives you some faster game, and you can use it to protect vital creatures—like Reya or the Sun Titan. This is a different deck built around a fun card that I hope you like! Would you be interested in seeing it?



Deck 69 – With Apologies to Goatllama

"With Apologies to Goatllama"

One of the major themes of this project has been the big-creatures-out-early archetype. I don’t have enough copies of things like Eureka, Show and Tell, or Sneak Attack to run those decks. I have plenty of second-level combos though. From reanimation to green ramp to abusing Mana Flare and Early Harvest, I’ve done a variety of decks that drop something quickly. Having a deck that tries to drop a quick Eldrazi was another natural deck for this subgenre of combo decks.

(The title of this deck is based on a comment by a reader last week who saw an Eldrazi deck built around Spawn and Hellriders and said: “I saw "Eldrazi" and thought, "Oh great, another boring ramp deck." I should have had more faith, that is a cool deck and it includes the awesomely cool Hellrider! Very nice.”)

This deck uses a variety of cheap mana-making plus some ramp and the Temples and Eyes to drop a fat Elrdrazi. Everything in the deck is a land or creature except for the four-set of Growth Spasm and the pair of Nature's Spiral (which makes the Spiral a virtual Regrowth). To play these giants, we are looking to make a lot of mana, so I want ramp that is more than Llanowar Elves. I began with Joraga Treespeaker, which can tap for 2 mana when we level it up. I then added Argothian Elder because he taps to untap two lands. That means you can use a Temple twice. Pre-threshold, the Krosan Restorer only untaps one land, but you have Temple abuse as well. Post-threshold, you have a mega-mana-maker. Finally, Growth Spasm not only finds a land, but it makes a Spawn token to sacrifice for a mana. Everything is suited to the long game.

We have thirteen various Eldrazi, from Emrakul down to the little guys. Alongside these giants, I also included a pair of Pelakka Wurms. They are playable early, and they net you life to keep you in the game until the big guns come online. I also have a quartet of Acidic Slime to act as both removal and a landmine.

Playing big creatures is always fun! We have a lot of options here, and you can serve with beats both powerful and interesting. Enjoy!



Deck 70 – Crawling My Way Back to You, Babe

"Crawling My Way Back to You, Babe"

I saw Psychosis Crawler and noticed that four of them were sitting in my deck stock. I decided that there had to be a deck to build around it, and this deck came from that decision. Each time I draw a card, all of my foes lose 1 life with the Crawler out—plus, it’s an artifact Maro. I built this deck around the Crawler, and it’s very lethal, so let’s look under the hood.

Since the Crawler triggers when you draw cards, I included a ton of ways to do so. A cycling land draws you a card, so here they are. Reckless Scholars and Merfolk Looters allow you to draw and discard a card, so there are here, too. Time Reversal allows everybody to draw a lot of cards, so it’s here, too. Jace's Archivist is here as well since you draw cards with it. We have a bounce spell that draws cards: Repulse. We have counters that draw you cards, too: Spell Contortion and Bone to Ash. Last, we have the broken Consecrated Sphinx that draws you a ton of cards.

I once had Jace's Erasure here, but it didn’t work with the Time Reversals. When the Sphinx is out, the math changes on stuff. For example, the Reckless Scholar can target anyone when you tap it. Target your foe, and she will draw and discard. Since she draws a card, you draw two. Instead of you drawing one and discarding one, your opponent does, and you draw two cards free. (And you trigger the Crawlers if any are in play.) That’s powerful stuff.

Anyway, this deck is powerful because it slides a combo into a potent control skeleton and produces a deck that usually wins against the other combo decks. It has a ton of card-drawing and sifting, so it can find Crawlers with ease. Let’s look at the final deck of the article!



What deck really sings to you? Is there one that jumps out calling your name? Vote on your favorite deck below, and we’ll look at all of the winners in a later article!

[poll id="145"]

Join us next week when we take another break from the combo deck project to do something else.

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

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

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