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Miscellaneous Good Combos [cEDH]

Commander / EDH* GWUB

ToolmasterOfBrainerd

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Lands (29)

Control (10)

Ramp (19)

Tutors (14)

Counterspells (9)

Commanders (2)

Commander: foil Thrasios, Triton Hero
Commander: foil Tymna the Weaver

Card draw (13)

Combo (5)

Maybeboard

Own (24)

Don't own (5)

Turn 1 win: Play a land (which taps for blue or black) and two of Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, and Mox Diamond. We need 3 mana in total, with mana. Cast Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation. This only uses 6 or 7 cards, so you could have Pact of Negation in your hand as well.

This is kind of like a Flash Hulk deck except without the Flash Hulk combo, and with other combos instead.

When you have infinite mana, use Thrasios, Triton Hero's ability to draw your deck. Then play some combination of Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Carpet of Flowers, and Utopia Sprawl to make blue mana. You can also make a land drop if you haven't yet. Then play Thassa's Oracle to win.

If you can't make the blue mana, then draw your deck with Thrasios until you see Thassa's Oracle and Finale of Devastation. Be sure to scry Thassa's Oracle to the bottom (we don't want to draw it) and put Finale in your hand. Play Finale to put Oracle into play. With Thassa's Oracle's ETB on the stack, draw the rest of your library with Thrasios.

If you don't have access to any of Thassa's oracle, Jace, or Lab Man, then cast every creature in your deck and play Finale of Devastation for X = large. This will give your creatures haste and make them huge and you can kill everyone with combat damage.

You can also use Finale of Devastation to make blue mana. Play Bloom Tender, Faeburrow Elder, Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise, and Noble Hierarch and then cast Finale with X>10. This will give all of them haste and each of them can make blue mana. You would probably only do this if you needed to play Jace and can't make enough blue mana otherwise.

These combos are good because the only dead card in the deck is Dread Return, which is still sometimes really useful. Sure, if you're going for a win with Thassa's Oracle, then Vizier of Remedies and Freed from the Real are dead, but just think of them as your backup plans if your first attempt to win doesn't work.

These combos are also good because 3 of the combos are with mana dorks, and of them only Devoted Druid is a bad card. This means that your combo pieces are helpful before you go to combo and that you can threaten to win anytime as soon as you play one of these mana dorks.

These combos are bad because if your opponent knows your mana dorks are combo pieces, then they might kill the mana dorks, which leaves us behind on mana and makes players use their removal early, so that other decks get a window of opportunity. These combos are also bad because we need our mana dorks and Hermit Druid to be not summoning sick, which means they have to live through 3 opponent turns at a minimum. This is much more of a problem in competitive pods than in casual pods. In addition, this deck is extremely soft to sweepers. Even Pyroclasm can wreck our day. All of our mana dorks, combo pieces, and commanders die to most sweepers.

The only way this deck can win on an empty board is with the Thassa's Oracle combos (or Jace or lab man). Thus, if you face a lot of creature removal, then these are your avenues to victory.

Cards I'm not playing:

  • Pemmin's Aura: We don't want to draw this card or Freed from the Real. We would much rather tutor for them. This is because if we draw one of them, we aren't actually very close to winning. We still need to find the mana dork and then let it sit in play for a turn before we can win. We're much better off accidentally having one of the three mana dorks (or using an early Green Sun's Zenith or Worldly Tutor to find it) and then tutoring for this later so that we can win immediately.
  • Narcomoeba: It would make casting Dread Return easier after milling with Hermit Druid. But I don't win with Hermit Druid very often, I never mill myself otherwise, my commanders are cheap to cast, I play so many mana dorks, and above all else Narcomoeba is a super dead card if drawn. If drawn, it has 2 uses: I can pitch it to Force of Will, or I can use it as an evasive attacker to draw cards with Tymna.
This deck has access to a lot of awesome tutors. Almost all of them can tutor creatures, which is good because the majority of our combo pieces are creatures.

If you don't need a creature, you can use a creature tutor to find Spellseeker and then use Spellseeker to find what you need (which is usually Demonic Tutor to find what you actually need). It's inefficient, but if it's turn 6 and you have a lot of mana and just need a way to win, it works.

Sometimes it's best to use the creature tutor to find Hermit Druid and go for the win. Other times, if you expect creature removal, it's better to go for Thassa's Oracle and use the commanders to dig for the other combo piece.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the mana dorks and Hermit Druid need to live for a turn before they can win the game. Most combos take 2 cards, and thus 2 tutors to assemble. Tutoring for the mana dork after turn 3 with the expectation of using it to combo win is usually misguided. Especially with stuff like Eladamri's Call where the opponents get to see what you tutored for. In the mid game, you've likely lost your window to put mana dorks into play and should focus on Thassa's Oracle instead.

Lands are straightforward and the combo pieces have already been talked about, so they are omitted from this section.

Cards I'm not playing:

  • Mystical Tutor: Cyclonic Rift and Ad Nauseam are the only good targets. I can't efficiently assemble combos with it. It can get Tainted Pact / Demonic Consultation, but that's not enough to be worth playing.
  • Sylvan Tutor, Imperial Seal: Budget. Seal won't happen unless it drops to like $50 or less, and even then I'm not sure. Sylvan Tutor probably isn't good enough, but it's also too expensive.
  • Ad Nauseam: After an aggressive mulligan, this is the best thing you can tutor to get back into the game. It draws so many cards if it resolves.
  • Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Sensei's Divining TopIT, Gitaxian Probe: The cantrips smooth out the deck. They're great for finding the next land drop or for avoiding combo pieces that we don't want. Probe gets info on if an opponent is holding a counterspell.
  • Noxious Revival: Turns 1 tutor into 2 when we need it. Turns a 1-fetch-land hand into a 2-land hand. If they kill Hermit Druid you can pick him back up and try again. If you have your combo in hand already you can pick up a counterspell from your graveyard to have protection. The card disadvantage is bad, but the utility more than makes up for it.
  • Mystic Remora, Sylvan Library, Rhystic Study: Massive card advantage. Not too much to say here. Rhystic is a little mana-intensive, but still tends to draw a lot of cards.
  • Notion Thief: Preventing the opponent from drawing cards is amazing. Unfortunately, most EDH draw spells are 'may abilities'. Flashing this in response to an opponent's wheel is game-winning.
  • Oakhame Adversary: 2/3 eats opposing Tymnas. Deathtouch means nobody wants to block it. And it draws 2 cards if Tymna is in play. Absolute beast of a creature.

Cards I'm not playing:

  • Windfall: I found I never wanted to cast it because it interrupted whatever plan I could make with the tutors in my hand. It's also risky for me to discard cards because with some cards it's harder to win after I discard them.
  • Training Grounds: It makes Thrasios, Triton Hero draw cards for 2 mana. This is really good, but Thrasios is not really part of the primary gameplan. If we get a lot of mana but need to dig then we play Thrasios. But half the time we draw Training Grounds, we don't end up using it, which feels bad. It's a really good card and might make its way back in anyway. With it in play Thrasios can become the primary plan.
  • Narset, Parter of Veils: Too vulnerable to creatures attacking, and I already have so many 3-drops.
  • Necropotence: I don't own one. I'll pick it up when it drops in price. It was like $5 after its last reprint and now it's $20 and I'd rather wait for another reprint.
  • Yawgmoth's Will, Timetwister: Budget. Big LOL on the twister. I don't think Yawg Will is worth playing because we don't fill the yard. But getting a land drop and a tutor is still pretty good.
  • Storm Crow: Synergizes nicely with Tymna the Weaver. It has great evasion. And you can pitch it to Force of Will. I'm very tempted to play it.
  • Aven Mindcensor: Turning off tutors is devastating to other competitive decks. It's also an amazing attacker for Tymna because of flying. Playing this turn 2, Tymna turn 3, and attacking to draw a card immediately is a really good curve.
  • Cyclonic Rift: The only board wipe I think is worth running. I love that I can tutor it with Spellseeker.
  • Swords to Plowshares, Chain of Vapor, Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Nature's Claim: Cheap removal for relevant permanents. Best used on stax or tax pieces preventing us from winning.
  • Silence, Veil of Summer: The best combo protection available. While counterspells can protect me from one spell of the opponent's, these buy me an entire turn of safety if they resolve.

Cards I'm not playing:

  • Force of Vigor: I don't want to pitch green cards and I don't think it will be often that I need multiple artifacts and/or enchantments off the table. It is still 0 mana, so I may add it back in at some point.
  • Lightning Greaves: It's so close. In the early turns it means Tymna can attack right away and mana dorks pay for themselves. But it also lets me win instantly with Hermit Druid and Devoted Druid. The biggest problem is that I can't enchant Bloom Tender or Faeburrow Elder with Freed from the Real while they're equipped. Sure, I can move it to something else then move it back, but it doesn't protect them from removal spells.
  • Collector Ouphe, Stony Silence: I have too many artifacts that tap for mana. They shut down artifact combo decks, but hurting my own mana rocks isn't worth it in my opinion.
  • Rest in Peace: My only reason to not run it is Hermit Druid. It's almost worth it anyway.
  • Grand Abolisher: is too hard to make and I don't need more of this effect.
  • Teferi, Time Raveler: I used to love this card in EDH. Then I realized it protected my opponents from each other, meaning it's easy for someone else to combo off when I play this and pass the turn.
  • Gilded Drake: Budget. This card is sweet, so I'm trying to get one at some point.

All the counterspells are fairly standard. 2-mana counterspells that can counter anything and some one-mana counterspells that hit what's important. Drown in the Loch does double-duty as removal.

Cards I'm not playing:

  • Counterspell: I know it looks bad to not play it, but it's UU. It's difficult to leave up UU. Narset's Reversal is crazy enough that it's worth it.
  • Negate: not enough room for it and 2 mana counterspells are sub-par already
  • Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm: I don't like soft counters in EDH. I want my counterspells to work every time.
  • Mana Drain: Budget.
  • Force of Negation: Budget. I should pick one up at some point. It's good for preventing other people from comboing off.

Cards I'm not playing:

  • Boreal Druid: Colorless mana is so bad. It can't even cast another mana dork like Llanowar Elves.
  • Smothering Tithe: Costs too much mana. I'm already high on the curve.
  • Priest of Titania: Too slow. And I don't have any great use for a pile of green mana. Of course I can feed it into Thrasios, but there are more efficient ways to draw cards than that.

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Casual

93% Competitive

Revision 21 See all

(2 years ago)