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Main » Articles » 100 Combo Decks, Part 11

100 Combo Decks, Part 11

Abe Sargent
Posted on April 24, 2012
 Reddit

Aaaaannnnnnddddddd we’re done! Today, we’ll count down the final ten decks in our challenge. Whew! Many of these decks were among the last decks built, and we’ll talk about that a bit in the decks. This is the final article in the 100 Decks countdown! Today, we have decks 91 through 100. At the end of the article, you can vote on your favorite one. In a later article, I’ll be discussing several things, including the deck challenge, and you will be able to choose your top deck overall from the winners from each week.

With ten decks to cover in this article, let’s stop playing footsies and start the article already!

Deck 91 – Of Oaths and Eldrazi

"Of Oaths and Eldrazi"

This was the last deck I built. I arrived at 96 decks completed, and then I hit a wall. For a week, I didn’t work on the project at all. Then, I forced myself back to the stone and grinded four more decks from a worn and beaten card collection. While I had three Oaths, I didn’t have some of the support cards (such as Forbidden Orchard or the good blue search cards). I also didn’t really want to do an Oath deck, so I built three other decks and then searched my cards for another deck. When one didn’t come up, I forced myself to build an Oath deck, and here is the result.

Any Oath deck has one major question to answer: How do I force my opponent to have a creature so that I can Oath? Many players may not play a creature once they know what they are facing, and some decks can win without. A mono-blue control deck could win with Faerie Conclave or Braingeyser. I didn’t have traditionally used cards with Oath such as Verdant Touch or Forbidden Orchard, so I pulled out Beast Within. Not only will this act as removal, but it also will give my foe a 3/3 token. Don’t worry; the creature we’ll retrieve is much bigger in comparison. Oath decks are usually forced to choose a big creature to retrieve from among many, but I didn’t have a lot of options left. I just tossed in a pair of Emrakuls and called it a day. They’ll suit the deck nicely!

For support cards, I found exactly one Gaea's Blessing in my card stock. I tossed in a Krosan Reclamation to support it. You don’t want to deck yourself with an Oath. Then, I added some graveyard recursion since we are often going to have a lot of juicy targets. They are also built in Oath savers in case an Oath is countered or destroyed before we are en-Emrakul-ed.

Once I had my support, card drawing began. I wanted Harmonize, but those had quickly gone to other decks. So, I added whatever was still around, and I had Crystal Balls, Tops, and a Folio to give me some sorting and drawing. Treetop Village was an elegant addition in case things don’t work out Oathwise.

Some mana artifacts and land searching was included, and a surprise Moment's Peace came in to assist. The one surprise this deck has is the City of Solitude and Hall of Gemstone. The Hall hoses for any deck with more than one color, and it doesn’t hurt this deck at all. The City prevents us from casting Beast Within and Naturalize as instants, and you can’t activate your artifacts on other turns, but you’ll learn to play around it easily. Many opposing decks are defeated by it, and it’s nice to know that no countermagic will stop your Oath or counter your crucial cards. Anyway, here’s the deck:

 

Deck 92 – The Draw Machine

"The Draw Machine"

This deck is not an uncommon deck. People often add cards such as Wheel and Deal or Kami of the Crescent Moon to it. I don’t have those. You want to drop Underworld Dreams and then force your foe(s) to draw cards until you win. While sowing victory sounds simple in concept, there are issues with harvesting it. Card advantage is precious, and this deck gives it up in a major way. It’s not likely to survive the onslaught of cards that comes its way, so I gave it a different style. This one is bent more for duels, and you destroy opposing lands. No matter how many cards your foe draws, he cannot play more than one land per turn, and that’s a weakness you will exploit. You can easily play Howling Mine on turn two, start destroying lands on turn three, and on turn six, drop the Dreams. Every time you draw one of the ten land-destruction spells, you can blow a land, and since you are drawing a bunch of cards each turn, you can find them more easily than one might think.

It’s not just Howling Mine that forces people to draw cards. You have both Prosperity and Skyscribing. Teferi's Puzzle Box will force a lot of card drawing, and it’s crazy here. With you drawing all of those cards, Venser's Journal seems like a match made in heaven. Then, I spiced the deck with some creature removal and a four-set of Mana Leaks, and I called it. I used both Doom Blade and the lethal Barter in Blood. It’s not as though we have any creatures to be caught by it. The deck plays unevenly without the combo cards, but Howling Mine will usually find everything for you. Hither it is:

 

Deck 93 – Diamonds Are a Salvager's Best Friend

"Diamonds Are a Salvager's Best Friend"

This is one of the most lethal combo decks in the countdown because it has so many tutors for all of the combo parts. Here’s how the combo works:

  1. Have a Lion's Eye Diamond, Auriok Salvagers, and either a Magma Mine or a Snake Basket.

  2. Sac the Diamond for www, and discard your hand.

  3. Spend 2 mana to return the Diamond to your hand with the Salvagers.

  4. Play it, and sac again. You have made w.

  5. Repeat as many times as you want, and then funnel all of that mana into a Magma Mine or Snake Basket.

Now, let’s look at why this deck runs like butter despite a small number of combo pieces not named Salvagers:

Trinket Mage, Artificer's Intuition, and Tezzeret the Seeker. All eight of these cards will search for a combo piece. The Trinket Mage is old hat, Tez puts it right into play, and the Intuition requires that you play it. Since two of these tutor effects can be reused, and since two of the combo pieces cost a combined total of 1 mana, you can easily grab them and go off on the same turn. You can even tutor up a Basket with Tez. You usually want the Mine. You can sacrifice it to kill one player and then recur it and play it again with the Salvagers. The Basket is a backup in case the Mine can’t be grabbed or someone has something like an Ivory Mask out.

With all of these artifact searchers in the deck, I also included other artifacts to grab. Steel Wall is happy to jump in front of attacks, Dispeller's Capsule will destroy any offending card, while Sol Ring and Traveler's Amulet help your mana. While it can’t be tutored for by anything other than Tez, the Courier's Capsule provides a nice card draw, and it also gives you more artifacts to discard to the Intuition. I especially love the Souleater here because when your mana is tight, you can still lock down a creature with life. It also gives you a bulk of artifact cards for Intuition usage. Soul Snare may look odd, but it’s perfect defense here. You can drop it when tight for mana, and having 2 open mana for activations can also play an important role as defense in case it’s needed. I ran out of Swords and similar effects, but it works fine. This deck purrs like a kitty, so let’s take a look:

 

Deck 94 – Elbrus for the Win

"Elbrus for the Win"

This deck wants to drop Quest early and then play many creatures, grabbing an Elbrus, equipping it to a beater, and having a 13/13 flying, trample, intimidate beater on the battlefield. This was built with the remnants of two other Equipment decks in the countdown, but none were as focused on Elbrus beats. So, we lack cards such as Stoneforge Mystic and friends. Instead, we are relying solely on the Quest, but that’s fine because we have a high creature count to compensate (there are twenty-three creatures).

Most Equipment decks have more than seven pieces, and they usually have more powerful ones. You’ll see Sword of Fire and Ice, Umezawa's Jitte, and other major greats from the last few years. We just have the ones available above, but that’s no slight. With Brass Squire as a four-of, you can often equip for free. That’s great with Heartseeker. This little sword adds to your removal options. The others all give you something nice as well. The Deathmantle grants you some defense against removal, the Greaves adds haste and shroud for free so it doesn’t interfere with playing creatures for the Quest or other equip costs. The Gusari adds another removal option to the deck, and the Mask gives you a card-sifting option. All of these have power in this deck.

Our creatures are powerful out of the gate. This deck can win without having a Quest. Sure, the Quest brings Elbrus or another artifact online, but with twenty-three creatures and all but the Squires right on curve and powerful, we are fine and dandy. Sure, we have creatures that improve with Equipment on them, but most of our creatures are just pure beaters. From Elite Vanguard to Accorder Paladin, there’s little to shy away from here. Then, we add a pair of Path to Exile to give us some removal, and the deck is built. Tempo is too important to mess with, so I didn’t want any lands that came into play tapped messing with things. I just added Plains, and the deck works. I’ve played it a few times, and the Quest is nice, and dropping Elbrus is powerful. But I’ve won games where it’s Naturalized, and everything still works. Interested is seeing it?

 

Deck 95 – Landsplosion

"Landsplosion"

This deck is built around playing extra Forests and triggering fun things. A lots of cards in here allow you to play extra lands. We don’t even need Explore. Then, we have a solid number of land triggers that make playing lands fun!

When you play a land, you can draw a card, gain a life, trigger Avenger of Zendikar, or make the Kudzu bigger. All of these are things that will blow up the deck. In order to play extra lands, we can play them off Azusa, Oracle of Mul Daya, Fastbond, Exploration, or Gaea's Touch. That’s a lot of built in redundancy. Since lands are drawing you cards, and with the Oracles’ way of essentially drawing cards by having lands on top of your library, you can blow through Forests quickly. This is an easy deck to set up with because we have so many land triggers and so many land accelerants.

Once we have a bunch of Forests in play, Dungrove Elder and Traproot Kami become great creatures for their cost. With all of that extra mana, I included a few ways of using it, including Protean Hydra and expensive creatures. Note some synergies, such as Tel-Jilad Justice and Cultivate with the Oracle and Vigor’s ability to protect your creatures from damage while also adding to their size.

Finally, with the deck manipulation of Oracle and the little bit of scry we added, Lost in the Woods is a guaranteed way to exile an attacker and also to move non-Forests off the top of your library. Who wants to attack into a Lost in the Woods with a Forest already revealed?

Like many big green creature decks, any deck that makes big creatures and smashes face is fun to play. It’s not the most consistent big creature deck because the focus is on lands. It’s nice, though. Wanna see?

 

Deck 96 – Pyroffinity

"Pyroffinity"

Ah, yes, the last deck to use Harmonizes. This deck wants to play Natural Affinity and turn all lands into 2/2 creatures. You have either a Gaea's Anthem or Spidersilk Armor, which makes your lands just a tad bigger. Then, you either cast Pyroclasm or sacrifice a Bloodfire Kavu and deal 2 damage to everything. Everybody’s lands are destroyed except for yours.

I wish I had more Callers because it’s your protection against your lands being wiped by a Wrath or something. I don’t want a Rout or a Volcanic Fallout killing off your lands and leaving you naked, so now you make a bunch of 2/2 Bears for your dead lands. You can keep going. The deck includes several nice creatures that lend aid. Valley Rannet can be cycled for the right land or it can be a beater later. Eternal Witness can recur a Natural Affinity. You always have the option to recur something else if you prefer, but I’ve grabbed Affinity every time save one. Finally, Indrik Stomphowler will give you both size and destruction in one card.

Rounding out the deck are Harmonize drawing you cards, Arc Trail destroying lands or other guys, and Rampant Growth putting a land right into play. These cards all work together to have a decent board position post-Pyroffinity. Like many combo decks, with no way of tutoring, this relies on drawing Natural Affinity, and with just three in the deck, it’s very inconsistent. I will mulligan at least once for Affinity if it’s not in my opening hand unless I have a perfect hand otherwise. The deck’s below.

 

Deck 97 – Eightpost

"Eightpost"

You can tell I was reaching the end of my deck stock when you look at how scattered the burn suite is. This deck wins by accumulating a lot of mana with the Posts and then looks to drop a big Wurmcalling or Disintegrate. Since the main element of the deck is the Posts, we have Reap and Sow and Expedition Map to fetch them. Once we have a few Posts, we are in mana heaven.

To back up our Post mana bonanza, we have Overgrown Battlement and Nest Invader adding a few mana options. We need early plays to enable us to make the later ones; these help. Wall of Tanglecord adds to our defender count for the Battlement while also jumping in the way of even flying attackers. Then, when we have the mana, I wanted some cards besides the four X cards. I included a Pentavus and Clockwork Dragon to the mix. Already coming into play as a 6/6, the sky’s the limit when you have extra mana sitting about unused.

Rounding out the deck is smattering of mixed burn, a pair of Hull Breaches, and the amazing Magus. When he’s in play, you can make a ton more mana with your Posts. He’s incredible. The deck is yonder:

 

Deck 98 – Green Sun’s Shaman

"Green Sun’s Shaman"

As I mentioned before a few articles ago, my last 30 decks or so contain several of these green tutor decks, each with a different take on the subject. We had Birthing Pod, Oath earlier, and Natural Order a while ago. This is the final one, and it’s built around the Zenith and Fauna Shaman. While it shares some cards with the other decks (Woodfall Primus, Vengevine, Eternal Witness, Acidic Slime, etc.) it’s still different.

We also have the powerful Regal Force as a massive card-drawing freak later in the game. From Bellowing Tanglewurm sneaking your team through many defenses to Acid Web Spider blowing up artifacts, we have a lot of options here. My favorite trick is to use the Shaman a lot and then find the other shaman: Loaming Shaman. Play it and restock all of those goodies back to your graveyard. Maybe a card you discarded early is good now (such as an expensive creature), or perhaps you just want to find another use out of a valuable creature, but there’s a lot of value in a reshuffle.

I included a lot of cards, from tricks such as Dryad Arbor and Deadwod Treefolk to mana acceleration of Llanowar Elves and Leaf Gilder. The one card I miss most from this deck is Elvish Champion. We randomly have a nice set of Elves, and it would be nice to drop it as a surprise to pump the team and give some of my guys forestwalk. Voici!

 

Deck 99 – Let’s Go, Artifacts!

"Let’s Go, Artifacts!"

Ah, the penultimate deck has arrived. Can you feel it?

This is an artifact-heavy deck with serious love for all things artificial. From the Arcbound creatures to Cranial Plating, this deck features a lot of pro-artifact artifacts. Not every combo deck has a key combo card, and this one doesn’t. Instead, it has a lot of powerful, synergistic, and combo-istic elements. Let’s look under the hood.

Golem Artisan is a perfect example of the pro-artifact feel of the deck. It pumps and grants abilities to your artifact dudes. I mentioned the Arcbound guys, and their modular ability pumps others when they die, and the Overseer pumps all Arcbound dudes every upkeep. Shimmer Myr doesn’t do much besides grant more than half of your deck flash. Karn can turn any artifact into a dude to swing for a lot of damage. Cards from Mirrorworks to Dreamstone Hedron would love to join the fray. Speaking of Mirrorworks, duplicating your artifacts is grand. Myr Incubator is an instant army.

Then, we have good artifacts to enhance. Solemn Simulacrum is always a fine choice. Planar Portal taps to tutor each turn. It may require a major investment, but it also has major proceeds. Sundering Titan levels landscapes and swings for game. Sol Ring and the Hedrons provide nice mana, Dispeller's Capsule gives you some removal, and Pentavus is a flying with substance. Good artifacts abound.

Finally, we have a few non-artifacts joining the fray. The only two cards in the deck that are neither artifacts nor lands are a pair of Razor Hippogriffs. I wanted the artifact Sanctum Gargoyles, but I was all out. Despite purchasing two boxes of Shards, I ran out during the project, so the Hippogriffs have to do. Returning artifacts is important, and they join Buried Ruin as a way to regather a spent resource. Finally, Eye of Ugin can tutor for a colorless creature. That includes twenty-three of the cards in the deck—a fine tutor for us indeed! I hope you can see the matrix aspect of this deck and its power. Here’s the ninety-ninth deck in our countdown:

 

Deck 100 – The Horse’s Mantle

"The Horse’s Mantle"

I promised earlier that I would have as second combo built around Workhorse in the project, and here it is! The final deck has arrived, and it’s with a bittersweet feeling that I discuss it.

The deck is built around the combo of Workhorse and Nim Deathmantle. When you play a Workhorse, you can remove it’s 4 +1/+1 counters for 1 colorless mana each. When the last one comes off, it dies. Then, you put that 4 mana into the Deathmantle and return your Workhorse to play, remove 4 counters, and repeat. Sounds great, right?

Now that we have a Workhorse bopping in and out of play, the combo pieces fall into place. Glaze Fiend can be pumped to a degree not seen by mortal man. Similarly, the Scavenger Drake grows massively (and permanently!). Deathgreeter looks at this dance and gives you 1 life for every iteration. It won’t be long before you have more life than a mountain and be impossible to bring down with just attacks.

After the combos, the rest of the challenge is to flesh out the deck. Night's Whisper not only draws us some cards, but Deathgreeter’s, Sever Soul’s, and Suffer the Past’s life-gain should easily outweigh any minor life losses to the Whispers . Suffer is both great graveyard removal and a Drain Life in one easy instant. We have Sever Soul and Sudden Death as creature-removal options for when a creature really needs to go.

I wanted some more creatures with the last eight spots in the deck. Leaden Myr is a nice accelerant and fits snugly into this deck. Black Cat was my last four spots because you are never afraid of blocking with it. In fact, I’ve noticed that it can have a bit of a Mogg Maniac effect on reducing attacks. When someone has a card in hand he doesn’t want to lose, he holds off or attacks elsewhere. Having one in play is quite useful.

And that’s the cool stuff my final deck can do. Are you ready for the last deck of the challenge? It is with a sad heart that I show you . . .

 

100 decks! Which deck of the final ten was your favorite? Vote now!

[poll id="153"]

Thus we finish the project. Man, that was something! Next week, we’ll probably be looking at some Avacyn Restored goodness, so tune in. Let me know what you thought about the project! What other ideas do you have?

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

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

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