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Main » Articles » 100 Combo Decks, Part 2

100 Combo Decks, Part 2

Abe Sargent
Posted on January 17, 2012
 Reddit

Hello, Nation! Do you like building decks? Are you the sort of person who always has a ton of decks at beck and call?

Decks are fun! Everybody likes decks. A couple of weeks ago, I began a challenge to build one hundred decks at an average of five decks per week. Unlike normal decks, I would build all of these decks in real life with my actual card stock. That means the ideas are limited by what I actually own. Over the course of the next few months, expect an update with new decks roughly every other week. We’ll also have pictures of the decks in real life.

Today, we have the first ten decks of this challenge. I’ve been in a ball of deck-building ferocity and have actually built a few more, but we’ll hold off. Doing ten combo-ish decks in one article is already stretching it. Adding in another five would push too far. Are you ready for decks?

Deck 1 – Tombstrad Stairwell

"Tombstrad Stairwell"

With the advent of Innistrad’s powerful milling strategies, I felt that this was a perfect time to dust off my Tombstone Stairwells for my first deck. This deck wants to mill as many cards to its own graveyard as possible in order to build up a huge Tombstone Stairwell. Cards from Innistrad that were automatic inclusions are Forbidden Alchemy and Armored Skaab. One is a creature that suits the deck perfectly, and the other will find the cards, will set up the deck, and can still be used when milled. I liked that idea of flashback so much I tossed in a pair of Think Twice as well.

Mesmeric Orb does the heavy lifting here. Anytime someone untaps anything, he mills a card. With this out, expect persistent milling the entire game. It will mill a ton of cards and can be dropped as early as turn two. Your foe will also mill a lot of cards. Due to the symmetry of Tombstone Stairwell, I needed ways of nuking opposing graveyards. Enter Bojuka Bog and Tormod's Crypt. Both of these will help to keep opposing Tombspawn tokens to a minimum.

With a lot of Zombies going on, the rest of the deck filled out quite nicely. Since the Zombie tokens are destroyed, Vengeful Dead picks up a lot of steam. Undead Warchief will pump them, and Gempalm Polluter will cycle for a lot of life loss. I like attacking with the horde and a Husk, then sacrificing all of those that are blocked and going to die in order to make the Husk super-huge. Fleshbag Marauder provides some creature-kill while adding to the Zombies and creature count. This deck needs to have a lot of creatures in the bin, so it requires creature forms of removal, cycling, and more. Please mill your copy of Wonder. Finally, we have two Gravediggers to reset everything and grab important creatures (such as Undead Warchief or Vengeful Dead) that were killed or milled.

This deck is a lot of fun on the occasions I’ve played it. When it starts going, it just vomits Zombies everywhere. Here is a picture of it:

 

Deck 2 – Lust for Tapping

"Lust for Tapping"

This deck is a little more scattered than the first one. The goal is to cast Lust for War on an opposing creature and keep tapping and untapping it. Each time it’s tapped, the player takes 3 damage, so hope to do it a few times each turn, and in just two or three turns, you will have killed the person. That’s the goal.

To tap the creature, we have Icy Manipulator and Crown of Empires. To untap it, we have a ton of stuff that might work, plus Seeker of Skybreak, the Rangers, the Stones, Elixir, Lodge, and Saddlebags. I was looking hard for Puppet Strings for this deck, because it would be perfect, but I couldn’t find any. Anyway, we have a core of cards that both tap and untap. The idea is to do something like tap the Icy to tap a creature. Then, untap the Icy with Voltaic Key and untap the creature with Seeker of Skybreak, then tap again. We hope to be playing havoc with both life and the creatures involved.

The deck has enough craziness to also play with creatures that tap for abilities. With all of those cards that untap stuff, this seemed to be a good place to slide in creatures that tap for damage or mana. Enter Palladium Myr, Cunning Sparkmage, and Prodigal Pyromancer. This adds a crucial backdoor combo element as well. If you can’t kill with Lust for War—because the creature is killed before you can do stuff or you don’t have the right cards—maybe you can kill by shooting off a Sparkmage five or six times a turn.

Sure, the deck isn’t perfect, and it could use some fine-tuning, but it has two plans for victory—in case the first is stymied—and you have to respect that. After playing it, it’s the deck least likely to go off with the first plan, but I have Sparkmaged or Pyromancered someone twice. Anyway, here is the deck in all of its real-life glory:

 

Deck 3 – Tether Dreams

"Tether Dreams"

This deck is designed around twelve different Auras. It wants to play them and abuse them. It has Auras of a variety of different styles and casting costs. There are a lot of cheaper ones, then a few for later. We also have some creatures designed to be the targets of those Auras: Thran Golem and Kor Spiritdancer.

Knowing that we’ll lose Auras when the creature dies, I loaded the deck with nine different recursion cards, including the powerful Retether. I also made sure that two Auras were good removal cards, so we can use these tricks to knock out something if needed.

The big kick is Armored Ascension. It will turn any creature into a powerful creature of destruction. It’s a great tutor target for a Hartebeest or Three Dreams. The deck does not have as many enchantresses as I would like (I only own two that aren’t being used elsewhere), so I had to make do with other cards. This works very well, though.

Below is the picture of ye olde deck. It plays just how you would expect. It takes a while to build up steam, but when it does, whoo hoo!

 

Deck 4 – The Great Fangren Artifact Banquet

"The Great Fangren Artifact Banquet"

This deck wants to destroy a bunch of artifacts while big, green beaters are in play. Molder Beast will grow to super heights, and a certain Marauder will make a ton of life for you. Between Fangren Marauder, Phyrexia's Core, and Claws of Gix, you will be making a lot of life. I skipped on normal defense as a result. We can focus more on the combos.

Most cards have sacrifice triggers. Kill a Myr Sire and make another artifact dude for more killing. Kill a Perilous Myr and shoot something for damage. Blast that Ichor Wellspring for cards, the Mycosynth Wellspring for lands, and so forth. We also have a Sylvok Replica that wants to sacrifice to Naturalize something when needed. (Or you can just pop it to destroy something minor in order to trigger a Beast or Marauder).

For winning, we have Maul Splicer and your assigned beaters. Watch out for a Hunter's Insight on a big Molder Beast! Note that Grinding Station will just mill two cards, but it untaps when artifacts enter the battlefield. Considering the cheap cost of most of your artifacts, that’s pretty powerful. Don’t forget to sacrifice an artifact engine when you need an extra trigger. Claws of Gix and Grinding Stations are happy to be binned in order to make Molder Beast lethal.

Normally, decks chock full of artifacts and friends are in other colors, so I thought it would be fun to build this mono-green artifact deck. It plays them and blows them up at the same time. When you play it, you’ll find that it lacks the consistency that the other decks have, but it goes off just as much as they can. Here it is in action!

 

Deck 5 – Giving You Islands Since 1994

"Giving You Islands Since 1994"

I’ve played decks that gave someone an Island and then abused them since December 1994. Then, I had Phantasmal Terrain along with cards like War Barge, Dandan, Seasinger, and Sea Serpent. I’ve always had a fondness in my heart for similar decks through the years. This gives you a lot of ways to give your foe an Island or three, then swing with cards like Harbor Serpent, Pirate Ship, and such. We have creatures with Islandhome, Islandwalk, and the ability to attack. This deck has the beats!

Since there was a strong Merfolk theme already in, I added my three copies of Lord of Atlantis here. They are granted Islandwalk from him, so it’s on-theme. It also gives you a chance at a quick aggro kill if you have the right draws.

For later in the game, we have guys like Quicksilver Fountain, powerful creatures, and a few tricks. I tossed in the expected quartet of counters and a duet of creature removal. In blue, that means creature stealing. I thought about Vedalken Shackles, but I went elsewhere for this deck so I could have the Shackles for another deck later—in case they fit better. Since Harbor Serpent needs a lot of Islands in play to attack, I kept the mana base simple.

With the Island theme, this deck can really hurt the tempo of non-blue decks by turning a lot of lands into Islands. A first-turn Tidal Warrior, second-turn Spreading Seas, and third-turn Streambed Aquitects will be very rough to deal with. (Note that Tidal Warrior is better than Tideshaper Mystic because you can use it on an opponent’s turn—such as his upkeep—to lock off a color of mana or special land by turning something into an Island). It can really help if he has something like a Karoo land out. Ouch!

Because of its aggro nature, it’s the second-strongest deck out of the gate of these ten, and it can just win when you play it. But it has the backup to follow with the big guys later if you manage to hold off the fish beats. For this picture, I pulled out the Islands a lot and did little with the deck. Since that’s the focus!

 

Deck 6 – Chainquake

"Chainquake"

When I was pulling out cards for deck ideas, I grabbed both Pyrohemia and Pestilence. However, having two decks that similar was just not a good idea. I pulled the Pyrohemia and focused instead on a different sort of removal-plus-protection deck. This deck plays a ton of creatures with protection from red, and it wants to use sweeping removal in the form of Chain Reaction and Earthquake.

The major restriction on Chain Reaction is that it needs a solid number of dudes in play to really sweep the board. Since you’ll already have many pro-red creatures out, that restriction is reduced. You can reliably sweep opposing creatures with the damage you’ll be dropping.

The pro-red guys selected include your normal stuff. We also have the shadowy duo of Soltari Priests to slip past any defense. Kor Firewalker is a hit in the head when playing a bunch of red yourself. You will regularly be gaining life to counter the damage taken from Earthquakes. I like the flashing Defenders, and the Beasts give you some beef.

Once I had the deck built, I realized that Powerstone Minefield would fit in here perfectly. I grabbed the spare two I had sitting around and tossed them in. Perfect. Then, I tossed in some Orim's Thunder for both creature removal and general Disenchanting. Finally, with my last two spots, I found a single Freewind Falcon and a single Energy Bolt. With the Energy Bolt and Earthquakes, you can burn someone to death if your guys are taken out. Energy Bolt can also be used as a Stream of Life to counter the life lost to Earthquake if it’s needed.

I hope that you enjoy this recent version of a Sweep-and-Keep deck (my name for the deck archetype that uses mass removal and creatures that survive and dodge that removal). It plays very well against decks such as the previous one, and it just annihilates the last one. A lot of these decks don’t care as much about losing creatures. Take the next one, for example. Anyway, here it is:

 

Deck 7 – Izzet Mirror

"Izzet Mirror"

I thought about playing a wacky Izzet deck, but it just felt like a synergetic control deck to me. When looking for cards for other decks, I came across Panoptic Mirror in my collection, and there was my combo staring me in the face. I can Panoptic Mirror a bunch of these cool spells in order to blast people. I also grabbed my single Sphinx-Bone Wand for the deck, too. In addition to Kiln Fiend, these would be the combo elements that worked in the deck.

While many instants and sorceries don’t want the Mirror, enough do to make this deck awesome. Imagine putting Prophetic Bolt on it. Ouch! Compulsive Research wants to draw you a ton of cards every turn, so yes, please. Even a simple Sleight of Hand is good at first—until you find something better to put on it.

I included a ton of bounce—we have Jilt and Repeal. One draws you a card, and the other can be kicked to blast a creature. Both give the deck additional value since they replace themselves. I would have preferred Repulse—it’s better on the Mirror than Repeal—but I couldn’t find any.

I also wanted burn. We have a single surprise Pyromatics, a pair of late-game-kill Rolling Thunders, plus burn in card-drawing form (Prophetic Bolt), counterspell form (Suffocating Blast), in the combo itself (Sphinx-Bone Wand) and in bounce form (Jilt). This deck originally had Lightning Bolt, but it was pulled because of numbers. It still kills stuff very well, so don’t worry about that!

We can return key instants and sorceries with Mr. Chronarch. The Kiln Fiend wants to jump to giant size, and your Delver should have no problem transforming into a beater. The result is your typical fun and crazy Izzet deck.

Here it is in all of its Izzet glory. I just tossed all of the spells in one big clump, representing the chaos of Izzet decks.

 

Deck 8 – Counter-pocalypse

"Counter-pocalypse"

While the Tombstone Stairwell deck was the first idea I had, this was the first fully completed deck. It’s built around a lot of artifacts that need charge counters. Then, we have things to add charge counters (Surge Node) and proliferate.

The only reason this deck is blue—rather than some other color, like black—is for the countermagic and Trigon of Thought. It could just as easily have Spread the Sickness and Grim Affliction instead of the counterspells. I could have found other defensive cards besides the Certarch. Blue gives me some protection and synergy, but nothing is essential to the deck.

With such a large number of charge counters, the idea is that you have out three or four artifacts that all use charge counters differently. This turn, you’ll mill some cards and lose 2 life, and I’ll spit out a 3/3 Golem and draw a card from the Trigon. You keep repeating these over and over again, turn after turn, and you grind your way into the front. They add up.

The idea is simple, and the route it takes is easy to see. There’s nothing particularly tricky about it—just make cards and counters and proliferate and have fun! It plays fine, and slow, but it can build up a good amount of momentum without ever comboing off. Here’s the deck being played in my office.

 

Deck 9 – Blink-a-thon

"Blink-a-thon"

My first name for this deck was Equinaut Jr. I’m not sure how many people would have gotten that . . . plus, it plays a bit differently. The goal of this deck is to play and replay or blink creature with enters-the-battlefield triggers. By using those triggers, it wants to amass card advantage over your foe. It also has a few small engines, such as Suture Priest and Stormfront Riders.

We have enters-the-battlefield triggers that bounce stuff, draw cards, gain life, or even destroy an enchantment. With a variety of ways to have creatures bounce themselves or flicker in and/or out, you can reliably find several uses from whichever enters-the-battlefield creature you have that will work.

The deck features only ten cards that are neither lands nor creatures. Of those, six work with the theme of the deck, and the final four are just a humble quartet of counters for emergency purposes. Between the card advantage and tempo, you should be able to out-combo a lot of people quickly while gaining life from Suture Priest and making token critters with the Riders. Remember that you can use cards such as Man-o'-War and Crystal Shard against your foe to slow her down.

This deck is a blast to play, so let’s look at it . . .

 

Deck 10 – Sacrificial Celebrations

"Sacrificial Celebrations"

After working on The Great Fangren Artifact Banquet, I knew that I wanted another deck with a sacrifice theme. Furnace Celebration was an obvious card to build around, and thus this deck emerged. With only four cards that are neither lands nor creatures, the deck packs the highest number of creatures in any combo deck I’ve created thus far. Of course, they are not long for this world. Whenever I sacrifice a creature, I can activate the Furnace Celebration for 2 damage to someone’s face. I don’t have to activate that very often in order to win. I tried to keep my sacrifice effects cheap so I could afford the mana for the enchantment.

Rage Thrower is expensive, so there are only two in the deck. Whenever any creature dies, someone is taking 2 to the face. Hissing Iguanar will punish for 1 damage any time a creature dies as well. In addition, Skirsdag Cultist is deadly. You can make a r and tap to sac any creature for a Shock. If you combine that with activating a Furnace Celebration, Rage Thrower, or Hissing Iguanar, people will fall quickly. As these creatures die, Rockslide Elemental pumps to bigger and nastier levels.

I have some self-sacrificing creatures. Pain Kami can sac to Blaze a creature. Mogg Fanatic and Ember Hauler sac for damage to someone’s face, and Hearth Kami can sac to take out an artifact. I also tossed in some more bodies for the Furnace: Ghitu Slinger and its 2 damage, Goblin Arsonist and its 1 damage, and Manic Vandal to destroy more artifacts. I rounded out the deck with a pair of Keldon Necropolises in case I needed another sacrifice outlet.

Between all of the engines and damage-dealing and creatures, this is the most powerful deck I built in the first ten. It can drop creatures early and swing, then follow up with many damage-dealing spells. Every deck has rock, paper, or scissors to counter it, and this one posts winning records against most of the others, but it rolls to Chainquake. There’s just too much protection from red to stop the creatures and removal to stop the combo.

Chainquake plays great against some decks and is baked by others. Against any deck with countermagic, it has only a few cards worth countering. For example, the only cards the Tombstrad Stairwell deck cares about are Powerstone Minefields (and if the Zombies are pumped by Undead Warchief, it doesn’t even care about that). It can steamroll the pro-red creatures, and its main creatures don’t care about sorcery removal such as Earthquake and Chain Reaction. Blink-a-thon just saves the creatures it cares about and keeps the effects coming. The ten counters of Counter-pocalypse and the small number of creatures can be difficult to deal with, but we have six artifact removal effects, so it’s more competitive than you would think. But it seems that it was designed to destroy Sacrificial Celebrations. Anyway, here’s the deck!

 

Today, we have a super surprise for you. What I would like to do is begin a poll. Each of these polls will allow you to vote on the ten decks in that article. Whichever decks win will go to a final article at the end, in which we will have another vote to determine the ultimate fan favorite of these 100 decks!

[poll id="133"]

(In the case of ties, the winning deck with the fewest votes does not move on. So for example, let’s say Decks 45 and 49 from one article have 27 votes each. In another article, our best is 19 votes for deck 81. 81 would drop down, and from the runoff, and both 45 and 49 would advance. If there is a tie for the last spot, I will cast the deciding factor.)

Anyway, I hope you found today to be fun. I know I’m enjoying this project so far!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

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

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