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Main » Articles » CasualNation #29 – Combos from Long Ago

CasualNation #29 – Combos from Long Ago

Abe Sargent
Posted on April 26, 2011
 Reddit

Hello, Nation! I hope your week has been pleasant and Magic-filled. Today's article sees me build decks and give some ideas about old-school combos that used to get a lot of play in the early days of Magic. Talking about these old ideas with a modern spin seems like a cool way to introduce people to some of these cards and combos from Ye Olde Magic Days.

I've regularly recurred ideas from the old times in the past, but I was recently inspired after seeing Noel deCordova's article in which he brought back the classic Phyrexian Processor and Angelic Chorus combo for a new generation.

I read five columns on the mothership every week, and then others as I see interesting things in them. Luckily, one is published each day, so I read every day—Mark Rosewater (everybody reads Rosewater), "Serious Fun," "Savor the Flavor," the Friday development column, and "From the Lab." If I were to choose any column to write at WotC, I'd volunteer for "From the Lab." For a while, there were few casual writers of quality on the ’net, so I would have taken "Serious Fun," but now there are a lot of good ones, and certainly enough to fill the "Serious Fun" slot, but few pure Johnny writers out there making quality Johnny articles week in and out, so I'd want "From the Lab."

Anyway, giving some old combos another day in the shade rocks the block. I'll take a massively old combo, one that got a ton of play in the Way Back Machine, and then give it a spin. Ready? Alons-y!

"Of Merfolk and Barges"

This deck is built around a combo from The Dark: Merfolk Assassin and War Barge. Both saw a new era as timeshifted cards in Time Spiral, so you can easily find them for a deck. I decided to begin the deck as an engine that wanted to give Islandwalk to as many enemy creatures as possible, and then Flicker out the Barge to kill all of those creatures. You can use Flickerwisp or Venser to do this.

Since I knew I would be giving Islandwalk to my opposing creatures while playing Blue, I felt it was important to have a safety valve in Gosta Dirk. This is likely one of the few times you'll see Gosta Dirk in a deck where it actually fits.

I then tossed in Sygg for protection of my Assassins, and it continued with Lord of Atlantis giving opposing Merfolk Islandwalk to kill them, and then Amoeboid Changeling to make sure that they had Merfolk, and so forth. (The Changeling can also make Flickerwisp or Gosta Dirk a Merfolk so they can get big or protected by Sygg).

Then I needed them to have Islands, so in went Streambed Aquitects. Know what works really well with those? Thada Adel! Since I had a decent number of Merfolk, I wanted a bit of defense, so I found space for a pair of Harpoon Snipers.

I suddenly realized that I only had space for four more cards. I needed some artifact/enchantment removal as an emergency method, so in went Dismantling Blow. It helps with the paucity of card-drawing. Also helping is Distant Melody as a card-drawer that can be massive (don't forget to use Amoeboid Changeling to make Flickerwisp or Gosta Dirk a Merfolk prior to Distant Melody's resolving). I also went with New Benalia and Halimar Depths in the land department to aid with some card-sifting as well.

Our first deck is pretty simple but pretty interesting. Don't forget that you can easily give an opponent an Island with Aquitects and then swing with all of your Islandwalking creatures.

"Sleight Knight 2011"

The original Sleight Knight played cards like White Knight and Sleight of Mind. It would Sleight of Mind the White Knight to have protection from the color your foe was using. Today's Sleight Knight uses Knights with that protection element as well.

Stillmoon Cavalier has protection from White and Black, plus it pumps, can fly, and can get First Strike. In this deck, it's perfect. White Shield Crusader is the only 2-drop around, plus it has pro Black naturally. It can pump and fly as well. Both Mirran Crusader and Paladin en-Vec have protection from two colors as well as another ability tacked on. With these four creatures, you have protection from Black on twelve creatures, Green on four, Red on four, and White on four (no Blue, sorry). That's a good spread.

Another trick the Sleight Knight deck ran was Northern Paladin. You would Sleight it, and then start destroying your foe's permanents. We've got Pentarch Paladin. You can use it to hose any color you want.

Finally, another trick the Sleight Knight deck had was to use a Circle of Protection, and then Sleight it to the color your foe was using. We have the improved version—Story Circle—in here.

While the original deck used the one-shot Sleight of Mind, we are using something different. Say hello to Distorting Lens. You can make any permanent the color of your choice until the end of the turn. Therefore, you can work with a ton of the cards in the deck. For example, you can play Pentarch Paladin naming Green, and then turn any permanent your foe has Green with a simple tap of the Lens and destroy it with the Paladin. You can even destroy artifacts, enchantments, lands, and planeswalkers with the Paladin.

Attack with a Mirran Crusader, and then make that opposing creature Green, in order to prevent the damage or swing through the defenses of a monocolored deck. Story Circle plus Distorting Lens is nasty.

Because there is always a card or two you want to take out permanently, I added Swords to Plowshares and Return to Dust to exile those issues away. Story Circle will protect you from one color of spells thrown at you, but just in case, I tossed in a pair of Invulnerability to keep you alive. Similarly, a surprise pair of Evangelize for the late game can start changing the board position quickly.

The lands built themselves. Sejiri Steppe was obvious. The cycling lands were also deemed useful. Never forget a Kor Haven in a White deck.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this version of Sleight Knight. And the next old-school combo will be . . .

"Abe's Big Zoo Vintage Deck"

I decided to do something a little different with this deck. As I entered college, I started to get some spare cash from loans, various jobs, graduation, and such. I picked up the cards for a Type 1 deck and built this. This was my deck just before Tempest was released. I was actively going to T1 tournaments anywhere from Pennsylvania to West Virginia, and doing fairly well. (I often lost in the finals to Bill, who had a Prosperity deck, but I would win regularly enough.)

I have never published this deck, and this seemed like a suitable article to do it in. I had always wondered why aggro decks in T1 were about Savannah Lions and Kird Apes when you could easily have a first-turn 3/4 flyer or more. Serendib Efreet, Juggernaut, and Erhnam Djinn ruled the roost, and all had advantages in the T1 environment at the time (Serendib Efreet flew over Moat, Juggernaut survived The Abyss, and Erhnam Djinn did neither—oh well. (No one played Lightning Bolt much at the time.)

Then I would do everything to ride my creatures to victory. I had all of the power cards in the format in my deck. Obviously, some are bad choices in retrospect (Library of Alexandria, Force of Will with few Blue cards, etc.).

Abeyance was ruled to be more of a Time Walk because, at the time, the ruling was that it would stop mana abilities from being used. It was a super-desirable card. It was basically a limited Time Walk (it drew you a card, stopped mana from being made—except for the whole you-cannot-attack thing, it's basically a Time Walk).

I had incorporated several cards from MirVLight block: Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Abeyance, and Impulse. They were all great cards! These cards enabled me to find the powerful stuff, and I would regularly be dropping Time Walk and Regrowth for another Time Walk. Tempest would see my deck change to add a pair each of Ancient Tombs and Time Warps. Eventually my mana base would shift as Wasteland became a major issue, and I'd add Land Tax and basics and pull out of Green except for Regrowth.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing my actual deck from this era! My first T1 deck!

About Combos

Okay, let's talk about some combos now that you've seen a few deck lists. Just because the card pool was limited does not mean there weren't combos. I remember my first lock-deck experience. I was playing casually in my second or third month of playing Magic. I shuffled and played this guy with Stasis, Birds of Paradise, and Instill Energy on the Birds. He could keep up the Stasis indefinitely, so I conceded. That was my first lock deck.

Of course, I had been introduced to combos earlier. The classic Lure + Thicket Basilisk was super-common. A later version would add Lure and Regeneration to The Wretched. Verduran Enchantress + auras on a Rabid Wombat was another common deck. Add in Fastbond and it could get crazy fast. I remember Rabid Wombat was one of the most hotly desired cards in trades at the time.

One of my favorite combos that I never played, but would regularly run into, was the Hurricane + Circle of Protection: Green. I think that may be why one of the themes you see me use regularly is Earthquakes with a way to prevent the damage to me and my creatures. Maybe I felt it should have gotten play in the old days, and I don't ever recall seeing it once. (I do remember an Earthquake + Gravity Sphere deck, though.) But Hurricane + COP: Green? It was everywhere! Add in Elven Riders and you are getting nasty.

You had a lot of cards trying to get mileage out of Colossus of Sardia. Instill Energy and Twiddle were the two biggies.

Talking about the tapping of creatures, there was Icy Manipulator and Meekstone. It would stop your opposing creatures from untapping, but then you would tap the Manipulator to untap yours. One spin I added to the deck was using it in Red instead of White, and playing Orgg. You could also use the Manipulator to lock down a creature. Icies were also used with Howling Mines and Winter Orbs to do similar tricks in decks.

Another Prison-ish combo was adding Mystic Decree to your Island Sanctuary deck. It was like they were made for each other.

I got a lot of traction from Psychic Allergy and Skull of Orm. Instead of paying the upkeep for Psychic Allergy, I'd just let it go, recur it, and play it again, and deal damage with it a bunch.

Once Ice Age block hit, it brought a large number of cards to the table, and in many cases, it came with combos. For example, there were now enough creatures to run Ashen Ghoul and Nether Shadow in a deck using the graveyard (and when Buried Alive hit, it was crazy good).

Another combo from the era was Jokulhaups and Ivory Gargoyle. The Gargoyle came back post-Jokulhaups and began the beats. Another Ice Age combo was Hecatomb + Sengir Autocrat. The Autocrat made the creatures for the sacrifice to the Hecatomb.

For my final deck today, I'm going to update one of my decks from the era, built around a card called Thelonite Monk.

"Thelonite Green"

This may sound crazy, but for a long while after it was released, we thought Fallen Empires was good. It seemed like it had the power of The Dark at least, with cards like Goblin Grenade, Goblin War Drums, High Tide, Night Soil, Seasinger, Orcish Spy, Order of Leitbur, Order of the Ebon Hand, Breeding Pit, and Hymn to Tourach in it. We eventually realized that the U1s in the set were very poor quality, which led to the set having a low value. All of the power was in the commons. All sets have some poor cards, but Fallen Empires had a massive amount of crap at the top—Delif's Cube? Spirit Shield? Ebon Praetor? Draconian Cylix? Icatian Town? Rainbow Vale? Elvish Lyrist? Balm of Restoration? Conch Horn? Tourach's Gate? Icatian Skirmishers? Dwarven Armorer? Let's be honest, Thelonite Monk is crap, too. Once we realized that the storage lands were not good (it took a month of playing with them), there was little left at the rarest level that had any quality at all—Zeylon Sword, Derelor in the right deck, Hand of Justice, Aeolipile in a non-Red deck, Vodalian Knights and River Merfolk in a Merfolk deck, Thrull Champion in the no-one-plays-it Thrull deck, Fungal Bloom in the rarely played Thallid deck, and Goblin Warrens in a Goblin deck. Once we realized how bottom-heavy the set was, you didn't need to buy any more cards. Just pick up the commons and a few U3s, and you have what you need, unless you were building a Merfolk or Goblin tribal or a mono-White control deck.

This deck originally ran Thallids to make creatures to fuel the Monk. Now I can use a much more reliable source of tokens. I ran Thelonite Monk with Instill Energy to sacrifice creatures as quickly as possible to turn all of my foes' lands to Forests permanently. Even if they wiped the board or killed the Monk, the lands were permanently Forests.

If they weren't playing Green, this would shut them down. If they were playing Green and something else, this would completely shut off one or two colors. On the other hand, if they were playing mono-Green, all this did was turn off their special lands. Not that powerful.

Since I'm planning on en-Foresting them, my next plan was to swing with Gaea's Liege, which would be really big. Rawr! So Gaea's Liege, Thelonite Monk, and token creatures team up to Gaea-ify your opponents and have fun!

In order to rat-a-tat-tat your foes, I have included both Instill Energy and Seeker of Skybreak to get the machine going at a full clip. If you are in a duel, and you can just make one Forest a turn, you may take too long to lock your opponent down since he can still play a land a turn. If your Monk is tap-untap-tapping away with help, things become much different.

By the way, this was the first deck I ever played where my intention was to sacrifice my creatures—a very common theme in my decks today. As an homage to how common it is today, I tossed in Mortarpod. Feel free to equip it and start sacrificing the extra tokens to deal damage to folks and their creatures.

I didn't feel that Gaea's Liege was enough beating, so I added two Living Hive. Always support your theme! I even included a full slate of Saber Ants for defense and offense and tokens. Night Soil attacks graveyards and makes tokens! (Plus it was in my original deck, too.) Ant Queen can be both beater and token-maker too. I don't think it gets enough respect and play—but it's strong in a normal deck.

Your removal is solely Mortarpod, so use it. It's not just creature removal; it's player removal. This deck doesn't have those cards dedicated to handling severe problems. Normally, an Ivory Mask would be a problem, but just outcreature your opponent with tokens and swing in for a ton of damage and kill them. Or stomp through their defense with Gaea's Liege, Ant Queen, and Living Hive. There are enough routes to victory plus the combo engine, so I felt that a couple of Rootgrapples or Krosan Grips would be superfluous.

Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed today's article and found something useful.

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

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