One-trick pony, to combat a friend's "bear hug" deck that forces tons of draws with hurt. This deck is about preventing him from forcing draws (via Maralen of the Mornsong) and then hitting a combo on turn 5 that wins if no one counters any parts of it... or possibly earlier, with a lucky draw. The idea for this deck is from someone else, but I swapped out a lot of the swamps for various kinds of mana ramp to give us a better chance of comboing early. None of the stuff added in is very expensive, though, because I literally had to buy all of this just to build a deck to try and counter my friend... and I didn't want to spend much. If you have no budget, or already own the more expensive 0 CMC ramp artifacts, this could be improved even more to increase the chances of comboing early.
Inspiration: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/turn-5-win-edh/
Wins by turn 5 every time, if nothing is countered / destroyed / returned to hand. Wins anywhere from turn 4 to as fast as turn 1 depending on how lucky your starting draw is. Here is how it works:
Requirements to Combo
1) Ad Nauseam in hand
2) Enough mana to cast Ad Nauseam
That's it! If you can cast Ad Nauseam, even if you have no mana left over after doing so, there is enough stuff in the deck to provide the rest of the mana you'll need.
Steps to Combo
After casting Ad Nauseam, you want to basically draw your entire library. It is okay to leave a few cards in, so long as you ensure that you end up with the following in your hand (or already in play):
1) Sickening Dreams - This is what will kill your opponents, as you have a hand of as many as 90 cards and can discard a ton of swamps (and other stuff, if necessary) to deal damage
2) Dark Sphere - This is what keeps you from dying, so cast it before Sickening Dreams and then crack it in response to take only half the damage everyone else takes
3) Mana sources to cover the cost of Sickening Dreams - It just takes two mana, one black and one of anything, so it isn't hard to get to. If you haven't yet used Lotus Petal, then you are free to use all available mana just to cast Ad Nauseam and then bringing most of your library to your hand will give you Lotus Petal, providing one black mana, and from there you've got several options to get to two mana for Sickening Dreams:
- Dark Ritual
- 0 CMC creature + Cull the Weak
- Sol Ring + Prismatic Mantle (attach it to your commander or any other creature that you've already got in play from a prior turn)
If you have used Lotus Petal already, then just make sure you will have one black mana left available after casting Ad Nauseam and you can still use the tricks above to get the rest. Or, in a pinch, you can pull your library to hand, use Spellbook to remove your hand size limit, and then wait till the following turn to cast Sickening Dreams... but holding such a big hand is asking for trouble, and tips opponents off that something is going on.
There are a number of other 0 CMC artifacts in this deck that you can cast beforehand as well, if you think someone might be holding onto a counterspell and you want to try and get them to play it early, but it may require some bluffing to make opponents think they are threats.
The main reason for having Maralen as the commander here is to tutor for Ad Nauseam without having to stock the library with expensive (both in $$ and CMC) tutor cards. Get her out as soon as you can, tutor for Ad Nauseam on the next turn, and if you still don't have enough mana to cast it then tutor for Dark Ritual or Cull the Weak on the following turn - at which point you will definitely have enough mana to combo.
In my playtesting, this deck almost always combos by turn 4. Only Swamps in hand will make it turn 5, but if you get that then mulligan. Almost any form of mana ramp will let you hit the combo on turn 4 or 3, which in my experience each happen about half the time... with turn 2 or 1 being very, very rare. Here are some example hands that will let you combo out early, though these are by no means the only ones:
3 Turn Combo Hand: 3 Swamps and Sol Ring
The three Swamps plus Sol Ring give enough mana to combo, so if you happen to have Ad Nauseam in hand as well you just get to turn 3 and go off without ever casting your commander. If you don't have Ad Nauseam, you can get Maralen on turn 2 (via two Swamps plus the Sol Ring) and then use her to tutor for Ad Nauseam on turn 3, by which point you have sufficient mana as well.
2 Turn Combo Hand: 2 Swamps, Dark Ritual, Culling the Weak, Sol Ring
This lets you get Maralen on turn 1, via a Swamp and Dark Ritual. Then tutor for Ad Nauseam on turn 2, play the second Swamp, cast Culling the Weak, cast Sol Ring, use most of the mana for Ad Nauseam but hold onto the one extra and pair it with Lotus Petal later on to be able to cast Sickening Dreams
Another 2 Turn Combo Hand: 2 Swamps, Ad Nauseam, 0 CMC creature and Cull the Weak OR Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal
Swamp on turn 1, then second Swamp on turn 2 followed by either pair that nets you three more mana (a free creature that you can kill with Cull the Weak or simply Dark Ritual plus the Lotus Petal)
Perfect Draws - 1 Turn Combo Hand: Swamp, Ad Nauseam, 0 CMC creature, Cull the Weak, Dark Ritual OR Cabal Ritual OR Sol Ring
You can probably figure out how those would work by now! :) But seriously, if you happen to draw one of these hands then you've basically won... unless someone drew a "free" counterspell, like Pact of Negation, or goes before you on the first turn and left open a blue mana for Dispel. The odds of that are pretty low, but the odds of drawing this hand are even lower :/
