Lord Windgrace infinite combo deck. Surprisingly there are a lot of infinite combos that we can execute using lands as our primary engine.
When designing this deck I tried to avoid land destruction. Partly because I personally hate playing EDH against decks that are constantly taking out my lands; but primarily because this deck doesn't want to be hated off the table early. We don't want to be the threat at the table until we have amassed enough lands to kill our opponents in quick order.
We have the typical "lands matter" package with plenty of ways of powering out multiple lands a turn. However, this deck provides several different ways of comboing out and killing our opponents. There are lots of options available to us, and I wasn't able to fit everything in. I've tried to keep the list so that there is consistency and multiple ways of performing the various combos while being able to protect the ourselves and the combo with some interaction.
Combos:
The first combo on the list requires
The Gitrog Monster and
Dakmor Salvage and any of the discard a land to deal damage effects to be in play:
Seismic Assault. Simply pitch
Dakmor Salvage to deal damage to a target, this will trigger The Gitrog Moster's ability to draw a card. Instead of drawing just use
Dakmor Salvage's dredge 2 ability and bring back the
Dakmor Salvage to hand. Since we have
Worldspine Wurm and
Dread in our deck this always gives us 2 cards that will shuffle back and allow us to dredge 2 infinite amount of times. It is important to stack triggers and discards so that we kill everyone and not just draw ourselves out. This will create an infinite damage loop. If we wanted we can run any of the eldrazi (e.g
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth) but I find that shuffling the entire graveyard when we are dredging and setting up the graveyard is obnoxious. It puts us back to square one and is less than ideal.
These next few combos are similar but have different engine pieces that effectively do the same things with varying lines of play. Each variation will be listed out to the best of my ability but there is a chance I may have missed other ways of performing a similar combo. Now bear with me this requires some convoluted explanations.
Janky Engines:
The main goal these engines is to loop lands from the battlefield to the graveyard and then back on to the battlefield. The first of two primary ways of performing this is by using Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder with Splendid Reclamation. Because Skullwinder targets an opponent I would suggest targeting a player that is tapped out, has no graveyard, or doesn't have any counterspells or relevant removal in their graveyard. The second loop uses World Shaper which is significantly easier than the former. In either case the creature being used needs to either be sacrificed or destroyed somewhere in the loop in order to be used again. Ways of doing so will be explained later.
The first engine piece requires a way of producing mana from the lands, I know sounds stupid because that's what lands do, but it will all make sense in a moment. Since World Shaper and Splendid Reclamation put lands from the graveyard back on to the battlefield tapped, this means that those lands are unable to produce mana in the traditional sense. This can be ratified using Amulet of Vigor or with Stone-Seeder Hierophant which will untap those lands and be ready to produce the mana necessary to create the loop. Otherwise, we will need Lotus Cobra or Squandered Resources to generate the mana necessary. When using the Lotus Cobra, Amulet of Vigor, or Stone-Seeder Hierophant pathway we will need to have Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper in order to sacrifice the lands so that they are able to be used again. Squandered Resources is perhaps the easier way to set up this combo since it produces mana and dispatches the land to the graveyard all in one card.
Now that we have an efficient way of producing mana and sacrificing lands we now care about what lands we are going to loop with. This drastically changes how we are able to kill our opponents and loop our creature.
When performing the loop with
Amulet of Vigor or with
Stone-Seeder Hierophant there are 4 different ways of getting the creature into the graveyard:
Phyrexian Tower,
High Market,
Dimir House Guard or destroying the creature using
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. For sake of conversation we will just assume that we don't have
Dimir House Guard on the battlefield when explaining the loop.
As stated earlier
Amulet of Vigor or
Stone-Seeder Hierophant untaps the lands when they enter the battlefield which allows the use of
Phyrexian Tower or
High Market. This combo can be used with
Eternal Witness,
Skullwinder,
Greenwarden of Murasa, or
World Shaper. However, we will need a way to kill our opponents, of which we have several:
Shivan Gorge,
Retreat to Hagra, or
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
Unless of course we are using Keldon Necropolis in which case it will sacrifice our creature and deal the desired damage all in one card.
Simply activate
Shivan Gorge to deal 1 damage to each opponent. Then based on which creatures we are using to loop the lands there are different options.
Retreat to Hagra works with any of these loops. Doesn't require anything new or fancy just needs to have lands enter the battlefield to drain our opponents.
This requires 5 mountains to be in the loop in order to work. There are 11 lands that are mountains in the deck, and
Prismatic Omen makes all of our lands mountains which means we never run out of Valakut triggers. Since all 5 or more mountains entering the battlefield see each other we will get a trigger for each mountain entering the battlefield. Spread the damage around to any opponent or creature but at least one trigger is needed to target and destroy the
Eternal Witness or
Skullwinder (or 2 for
Greenwarden of Murasa) putting the creature into the graveyard. Because
World Shaper is an on death triggered ability there isn't a way to do it with
World Shaper unless it had flash, which in the current build isn't available.
When performing the loop with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle this provides the damage needed to kill opponents so we don't need to have a Retreat to Hagra, Shivan Gorge, or bounce land + cycle land + discard to do damage effect combo out.
Using
Volrath's Stronghold is a little trickier and requires a little more set up. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle target Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, bounce land return a cycle land to our hand (remember to add mana with the cycle land before this resolves), Amulet of Vigor or Stone-Seeder Hierophant untap lands that entered the battlefield tapped.
The triggers will resolve from last to first, so float mana with all of our lands except Volrath's Stronghold before the triggers resolve. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies activate Volrath's Stronghold to return the creature to the top of our library. Sacrifice all of our lands using Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
Using
Mortuary Mire is similar to using
Volrath's Stronghold except we will need both 2 of the 3 return a card creatures in order to perform the loop. This is because a target must be declared when
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield so we can't use the same creature over and over. They will need to alternate between the two for each loop. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle target Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, put the other creature from our graveyard on to the top of our library using Mortuary Mire, bounce land returns a cycle land to our hand (remember to add mana with the cycle land before this resolves), Amulet of Vigor or Stone-Seeder Hierophant untap lands that entered the battlefield tapped.
The triggers will resolve from last to first, so float mana with all of our lands before the triggers resolve. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies sacrifice all of our lands using Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
So when using
Squandered Resources we don't need
Zuran Orb or
Sylvan Safekeeper and we are limited to only using
Mortuary Mire (to bring back our creature) and
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle (to destroy our creature) loop strategies.
Using
Mortuary Mire is similar to using
Volrath's Stronghold except we will need both 2 of the 3 return a card creautes in order to perform the loop. This is because a target must be declared when
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield so we can't use the same creature over and over. They will need to alternate between the two for each loop. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle target Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, put the other creature from our graveyard on to the top of our library using Mortuary Mire, bounce land returns a cycle land to our hand.
The triggers will resolve from last to first, so float mana with all of our lands before the triggers resolve. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies sacrifice all of our lands to float mana using Squandered Resources. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
When using
Lotus Cobra we will need
Zuran Orb or
Sylvan Safekeeper in order to sacrifice our lands and we are limited to only using
Mortuary Mire (to bring back our creature) and
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle (to destroy our creature) loop strategies.
Using
Mortuary Mire is similar to using
Volrath's Stronghold except we will need 2 of the 3 return card creatures in order to perform the loop. This is because a target must be declared when
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield so we can't use the same creature over and over. They will need to alternate between the two for each loop. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle targets Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, put the other creature from our graveyard on to the top of our library using Mortuary Mire, bounce land returns a cycle land to our hand. Remember our mana is coming from Lotus Cobra's landfall ability.
The triggers will resolve from last to first. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies sacrifice all of our lands using Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
Thanks!
Well thank you for taking a look at my deck, I hope that the explanations of the combos were helpful. Please leave comments or suggestions, I would love to hear them!
This is an updated list, to see the original list check out Lands Are Permanents Too! Lord Windgrace Combo v1
