The Casual Planeswalker

Category: Killer Combos

Killer Combo: Doing the (un)Tap Dance

Hey Planeswalkers,

I was playing around with some cool ideas in Theros drafting, and I came across this little gem of a drafting combo. I haven’t decided where the color-power lies completely in Theros yet, and I’ve started some ideas. I’ll let you guys know when I’m ready to come out and make them public!

Until then, I think you’ll get a kick out of this:

Just saw a Prophet of Kruphix in your pack 1 or 2? Of course you’re going to windmill slam that guy down, if not for your current draft, for the commander deck that you just saw a great fit in (hey, I know rare drafting gets poo poo-ed, but we all do it sometimes so take a breath and sit back down). Now you have a question going through your mind- what are the best ways to optimize this card?

Of course, untapping the lands every turn is insanely powerful, and being able to play anything from your hand is good (don’t forget, play a creature in response to them trying to kill the prophet), but what’s the BEST way to optimize this?

Well, my brother in drafting, the answer to that question is common. Literally, it’s a common. Thassa’s Bounty. These cards are very expensive card draw, and hard to justify normally, but now that you’re untapping on your opponents’ turns, rock on! Spend that mana safely, knowing that you can just play out any necessary creatures on HIS turn! Now, I’ll buy that for a dollar.

Of course, you’re going to have to watch out for any removal from your opponents when you play the bounties, but it’s okay. If they want to play a slow game, you’ve got them there too because you’ll just play out creatures on their turn as well thanks to the prophet.

Obviously, any card draw is going to be powerful, but the Prophet of Kruphix actually turns marginal card draw (Thassa’s Bounty) into viable strategy!

I don’t know about you, but I’m always up for some extra card advantage a-la previously-unplayable common. How about you?

October 9, 2013
Killer Combo–“Fresh Eldrazi”

Eldrazi decks are always fun to play. It’s great to have one of the greatest threats to the multiverse under your control, allowing you to annihilate your opponents field merely by attacking. The Eldrazi are expensive but handy little Eldrazi Spawn tokens can make themselves useful by sacrificing themselves to give you some extra mana. These little guys are only 0/1s, but with so many cards that create them it’s very easy to end up with five or six of them within a couple turns. You can get out your big Eldrazi with these spawn, but some may have gotten wind of your plans and have a simple Doom Blade
Doom Blade or Go for the Throat
Go for the Throat to cut down your 8/8 annihilator 2 as soon as you spend your 8 mana to play him. An Eldrazi deck needs options and a solution comes from another scourge of the Multiverse: The Phyrexians.

Fresh Meat is a great card that can replace your lost army with some beasts after your opponent wipes the board with Day of Judgement
Day of Judgement or any of the many other mass removal spells in Magic. Really though, it doesn’t need to be your opponent that sent your creatures to the graveyard. You can sacrifice all your creatures if you feel that some 3/3 beasts would serve you better. This works great with the Eldrazi Spawn that usually aren’t doing anything but waiting for you to sacrifice them.

Eldrazi Spawn, like any creature in Magic, will go to the graveyard when they die. The rule that is different for tokens is that once they hit the graveyard they cease to exist. They still count for a creature being put into the graveyard for fresh meat though. Any Eldrazi Spawn you sacrifice that turn will get you a 3/3 beast if you use Fresh Meat.

Combined with even a few Eldrazi Spawn this can be devastating. An army of hungry beasts is pretty good. An army of hungry beasts with a huge Eldrazi to back them up is great.

August 24, 2011
Killer Combo – “Clear Your Mind… and Your Library”

Do you, like myself, wish for the day when you could slap a Glimpse the Unthinkable
Glimpse the Unthinkable down on the table and watch your opponent wince slightly at the thought of having to throw 10 cards straight into the graveyard?

I longed for those days until I saw this new little diddy that we have to play with in M12. All you have to do is add equal parts Jace’s Archivist to Jace’s Erasure.

Most people recognize that the erasure is annoying, but it doesn’t really give you too great of an edge over your opponent as your library is dropped by the same cards that they lose.

What if you could get a little edge, and speed the whole thing up? Well that’s exactly what Jace’s Archivist does for you.

You get a fresh 7 cards, and your opponent gets a fresh 7 cards, but your opponent also has to mill 7 more cards. Now, you’ve just turned Jace’s Erasure into something of an annoyance.

You just put your opponent on a 3-4 turn clock, and, as a blue mage, you have nothing but answers in your hand every turn thanks to Jace’s Archivist.

Building a deck around this gem is all too easy since it just takes 4 Mana Leaks
Mana Leak, 4 Unsummons
Unsummon, and 4 Negates
Negate to ensure that you won’t have to worry about too many things.

The Unsummon works like an effective counter since they are discarding their hands. For added fun, throw in Phantasmal Image
Phantasmal Image to ensure that any creature coming out finds itself staring down its own barrel.

Also worth mentioning, if you happen to have any merfolk mesmerists, you could put those in just for some added color. It will also help when you didn’t have to do anything defensive and have some extra mana to burn at the end of your opponent’s turn. I know two isn’t a huge gain, but it will put their clock down to three turns if you’re playing with the combo out.

See what kind of fun things you can do with these guys, and let us know what you think!

August 10, 2011
Killer Combos – “A Zombie in the Hand”

…isn’t nearly as good as one in the graveyard. But what is the quickest way to get him there?

This week we’ll be looking at a couple of fun combos to try while M11 and M12 are both in Standard. When the rotation occurs with the arrival of Innistrad (check out spoilers here), these fun combos will be gone as well.

First, please keep in mind that all of our combos are meant for casual play, not made to be tournament winners. They are fun little mechanics to build a casual deck around, and while they may not stand up to Caw-Blade at FNM, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be a kitchen-table hit.

This combo in particular is one that will please players who like to win big. There aren’t many good reasons (other than some psychological troubles that we’re not going to get into) to hit yourself hard enough to induce memory loss, but that’s exactly what we’re asking you to do in this combo.

The procedure here is simple, use Traumatize to dump (hopefully) two or three Vengeful Pharoahs into your graveyard. Then, sit back and just see if your opponents are willing to attack.

Once half your library is in your graveyard, Visions of Beyond becomes Ancestral Vision
Ancestral Vision allowing you to draw (and discard) more Pharaohs, hit your land drops and draw into Sorin’s Vengeance
Sorin’s Vengeance, or to refill your hand with Mana Leaks
Mana Leak.

Reassembling Skeleton
Reassembling Skeleton would love to find his way into the dustheap this way as well.

Throw in a few Tormented Souls
Tormented Soul and you’ll have your opponent on a clock. Or, to ensure that you’ll be bringing your Pharoahs back from the dead, play R/U instead of U/B and let Rage Nimbus force your opponent’s creatures to attack.

Untap, Swing, Fling, repeat.

All this combo brainstorming makes me want to brew this thing up myself… Any thoughts about what else to include? Leave us a comment.

July 18, 2011
Killer Combo – “Ring Around the Rosy”

If you haven’t already heard the historical interpretation of that children’s rhyme, make your day a little cloudier and read up.

We’re really excited about M12 here at The Casual Planeswalker. We’ve been preparing for the release of the Core Set for quite some time and we’ll have a big announcement pertaining to M12 later this week. Stay tuned!

Core Sets are a great way for new and inexperienced players to play with classic cards and play in a Limited environment which is easier to learn and understand than standard expansions.

White, in M12, has some great enchantment support, so a red/white enchantment build make for a really fun casual deck. Consider making this combo a fun centerpiece of that deck.

First of all, let me just say that I love the flavor text on Manabarbs. As much as I admire the sentiments of Kamahl, pit fighter, a central character from the Odyssey block, I’d rather have a way to turn that double-edged sword into a strictly offensive weapon.

Personal Sanctuary is a great way to do just that. It allows you to tap your lands without feeling the burn during your turn.

Unless your opponent is packing green/white enchantment removal, this is going to be a hard combo to break up. Add in an Aegis Angel
Aegis Angel to protect one of them and you’ll test just how tolerant your opponents really are.

If you continue to build around this combo, feel free to throw in a few Auramancers
Auramancer for extra insurance, a Mesa Enchantress
Mesa Enchantress for card draw, and you’ve got a fun, casual enchantment-based deck.
We’ll keep the M12 combos coming this week, along with some addition discussion of the newest core set and what’s coming next!

Look for Innistrad spoilers to start later this week!!!

July 11, 2011
Killer Combo – “Infinite Regress”

Commander, for those of you who are new to the game, is a casual format that used to be called by its player-given name: Elder Dragon Highlander. Anyone who isn’t up on the old-school terms should learn that Elder Dragons were a series of tri-color legendary dragons in the creatively titled MTG expansion, Legends. The “Highlander” part of the name refers to the movies and TV series about Connor and Duncan MacLeod, two immortals engaged in a time-and-space spanning competition to be the last (immortal) man standing. A major “catch-phrase” from the Highlander storyline was “There can be only one!”, which is how it came to be associated with what is now the Commander format.

What’s really impressive about Riku of Two Reflections is the fact that his ability violates the spirit of the format in a pretty major way. He allows you to copy spells and creatures, providing you with a way to have “multiples” of cards in a format that fundamentally forbids it.

I’m sure that most people who played “Mirror Mastery” this weekend realized that there is almost no “bad way” to use Riku’s ability. If you’re casting a spell, you would rather have two of it than one – though in same cases the second would be redundant. However, as the decklist suggests, Riku’s ability is best employed when you can copy a creature with a great “comes into play” (now, “enters the battlefield”) ability.

While I won’t claim that any one sorcery, instant, or creature is the “best” to copy with Riku, I’ve got a couple ideas about cards that would be especially fun for him to multiply.

First, if I could copy any non-mythic rare creature in Standard, I think it would be Chancellor of the Forge. The Chancellors were sort of a lackluster cycle for New Phyrexia, but I think his comes into play ability would be killer in this particular setting. The triple red in his casting cost makes him difficult to play in a more mana-limited setting, but part of the beauty of this combo is the fact that once you’ve paid his RRR, you only need GU to pay for Riku’s ability.

Chancellor of the Forge will give you a fistful of Goblins (according to the number of creatures you have in play), doubling the number of creatures you control. His token-copy will then hit the battlefield and will double that number again. Because most Commander decks contain multiple board wipes, an army of tokens isn’t likely to live long, but the Chancellor’s little buddies have haste so you’re much more likely to get in one good attack.
I also think that Riku would make a great addition to a Legacy or Commander deck designed to mill your opponent. While it may not be entirely consistent with the strategy of “Mirror Mastery” out of the box, his ability to copy cards like Archive Trap, Traumatize
Traumatize, and other mill staples would greatly accelerate the process of eliminating your opponents library.

That’s all for today’s Killer Combo. Let me know what other ideas you have and look forward to our post on Kaalia of the Vast
Kaalia of the Vast tomorrow.

June 22, 2011
Killer Combo – “Saproling Salad”

This weekend was the big Commander Event and man did we have a blast! Be sure you check out our podcast on our experiences at Hall of Heroes this weekend, and look on our blog for Commander decklists and reviews.

Because I know you’re all excited to improve on your Commander decks, or to employ cards from them in other decks you’ve been brewing, throughout this week I’ll be posting Killer Combos involving the five primary commanders from the pre-cons that went on sale last weekend.

We’ll start with the commander of the deck I played, Ghave, Guru of Spores. Because I know some of your are new to the game, I’m going to keep these combos in Standard (despite the fact that the Commander cards themselves are NOT legal in standard). I want to be sure to share combos involving cards that most of you will have access to.

I call this one “Saproling Salad”:

Probably my biggest complaint with “Counterpunch” was the fact that it was split between a couple of different (sometimes competing) strategies. Ghave does a good job synergizing the dual theme of saproling tokens and +1/+1 counters, and if I was going to seriously rebuild the deck I would concentrate on what Ghave does best.

One card in particular that would be a BOMB in “Counterpunch” is Blade of the Bloodchief. While this equipment seems to be heavily vampire-aligned, it isn’t necessarily so, and Ghave provides a way to both turn those +1/+1 counters into saprolings and then to send them to the graveyard. Each time a saproling bites the dust this way Ghave hands out a counter and the Blade adds another.

How you use those counters is up to you. They can make for some chaotic combat in which your opponent has no real chance of blocking the right creature. They can be filtered through Spike Feeder for lives aplenty (even more if the Feeder is the one holding the Blade). They can even be a great way to pump up Skullbriar, the Walking Grave who should find a home in “Counterpunch” rather than “Devour for Power”.

There’s a lot you can do to make these Commander decks better, and you don’t need to spend a ton of money or go rooting around for old cards to do it. I think the one card that I was really disappointed about not seeing in “Counterpunch” was Doubling Season. As expensive as that card is now, it would have been really nice for Wizards to put a few more of them into circulation.

Rules Tip: Note that tokens DO hit the graveyard, but after they do this rule comes into play:

216.3. A token in a zone other than the in-play zone ceases to exist. This is a state-based effect.

This means that every effect triggered by a creature entering a graveyard happens, but there is no way to bring tokens back from a graveyard and they do not “count” for cards that check the number of creatures in your graveyard.

What additions are you making to “Counterpunch”? What cards are you rotating out? Let me know how this combo treats you, and, as always, keep it casual.

June 21, 2011
Killer Combo – “Lather, Lash, Repeat”

Spellskite is one of the most exciting cards to enter Standard with the release of New Phyrexia. You’ll see it included in plenty of competitive maindecks and even more sideboards.

What’s great about Spellskite is that he acts as a spell-absorbing wall around you and your creatures. The fact that his ability can be activated not only by paying one blue mana, but by paying two life gives him the flexibility necessary to be a truly powerful card.

By attaching a Livewire Lash to your Spellskite, you’ll be able to add injury to insult when your opponents spells bounce off you and stick to Spellskite. Remember though, Spellskite must be a legal target of any spells you send his way.

If you really want this combo to be lethal, get a couple of Spellskites on the battlefield and use their ability to switch the target of a spell back and forth between the two, every time a Spellskite equipped with Livewire Lash becomes the target, the Lash will deal the two damage.

If your opponent doesn’t have an answer, you’ll be able to spend blue mana and your own life to switch the target as many times as you need to. Keep in mind also that you could be the one to initially target the Spellskite which is carying the Lash, you don’t need to wait around for your opponent to cast the right spell.

Let me know how this one works out for you! Have fun, and keep it casual.

June 15, 2011
Killer Combo – “Hide and Seek”

We spent Game Day at Hall of Heroes – a great little shop in Mt. Pleasant, MI, and we had a lot of fun despite the fact that we were rather poorly equipped. Having just got in from Colorado all I had was a Pre-Con combined with cards from a couple drafts. Brad, my TCP compatriot, decided to play with the “Rot From Within” Event Deck.

While I did win a few games, Brad actually made it to the final four with “Rot From Within” which is a testament to that deck’s out-of-the-box power.

Today’s combo is one we came up against a couple times at Game Day. Using Gitaxian Probe to prepare the ground for Inquisition/Duress is something that came to our minds when we first started looking over the New Phyrexia spoilers, but we yesterday was the first time we really saw the power of this combo.

Not only does a first-turn Gitaxian Probe allow you to prepare for everything your opponent has in store in the coming turns, but it allows you to most effectively play a discard spell, and when followed by Inquisition of Kozilek in particular, can ensure that your opponent’s start is slow.

Gitaxian Probe’s second effect of drawing a card to replace itself leaves you with a card advantage where you would have otherwise had to do a one-to-one card trade.

This combo, which we like to call “Hide and Seek”, is one of the best first turns in Standard, in my opinion. It gives you much-needed data about your opponents hand and the often-crucial card advantage at the outset of the game.

June 13, 2011
Killer Combo – “Word of the Day”

Phylactery

Today’s word, children, is “phylactery”. A phylactery is an amulet or charm. More specifically a phylactery is that thing that your opponent uses to clean himself up after you play an indestructible 5/5 on the first turn – or at least that’s what it sounds like…

Dark Ritual will help to ensure that Phylactery Lich is your game-opener, but, as you can all see, the Lich won’t be surviving very long unless his phylactery – in this case a stone or vial from D&D lore – isn’t attached to artifact in the vicinity. So, in order to actually pull off a first turn play you’re going to have to have an artifact on the board before the Lich hits.

Luckily we’ve got a number of ways to do that in Standard today without the inconvenience of actually paying for it. In the case of Darksteel Relic, you can even ensure that the Lich is more or less in it for the long haul. However, don’t get too cocky or a Hex Parasite might end the Lich’s run by eating his soul…

June 8, 2011