Combo and Synergy - October and November

This month's Combo and Synergy highlights several key components of decks being played around the Magic Community. Hopefully, they will inspire you to create a combo deck of your own (and one that will hopefully pwn all the prevalent aggro decks out there). Enjoy!!!



This month's first combo is from Lad's Mill deck. The deck abuses Archive Trap and Path to Exile. On the turn immediately following his opponent's creature drop, Lad Path to Exiles it from the game. Most opponents will then search for a land. After doing this, Lad plays all the Archive Traps from his hand without paying their mana costs to begin milling anywhere from 13 to 42 cards.



These two cards are awesome together in a Grixis Combo deck. Use early Lightning Bolts, Burst Lightnings, Blightning, and other burn spells to trigger the Ascension. After the Ascension is ready, play Archive Trap to mill 13 cards and syphon 26 life from your opponent for the win.



This is an awesome combo for getting rid of pesky creatures. Play Journey to Nowhere, and when Journey enters play name the pesky creature to exile. While the exiled ability is on the stack, bounce Journey to Nowhere to your hand with Into the Roil. Journey will return to your hand and then the creature will be exiled. Since Journey reads, "When Journey to Nowhere leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card to the battlefield under its owner control," Journey will look to return its exiled card to the battlefield when it leaves; however, since the card has yet to be exiled it won't be returned...after Journey is bounced the triggered ability will then resolve and exile the pesky creature forever....And then you Journey something else.



This is an awesome 2 card combo that has seen some top 8 tournament play. Eldrazi Monument requires you to sacrifice a creature at each upkeep; Bloodghast returns to play each time you play a land. Sacrifice Bloodghast to the monument and return him at your land drop.



These two cards have seen some play and make for a crazy win condition. Warp World requires both players to shuffle all permanents they control into their library and then reveal that many cards from their library and put all revealed permanents into play under their control. Ob Nixilis is a 3/3 demon that has landfall (drains 3 life and gets +3/+3). When Ob Nixilis comes into play he sees how many lands also came into play and they trigger his landfall (ex. Ob Nixilis and 4 lands equals a 15/15 Ob Nixilis that drained 12 life). Also, if 2 or more Ob Nixilis are revealed, they are both put into play. Their legendary sacrifice rule is put on the stack and the landfall triggers and will resolve first (ex. 2 Ob Nixilis and 3 lands equals 2 12/12 Ob Nixilis that drained 18 life that will be sacrificed.)

The Rise and Fall of My Magic Greatness...

Like Lad mentioned before, we got back from Pro Tour Austin last weekend and it was an awesome experience. The weekend was full of awesomeness (if Colbert can coin a word, then so can I). While there, Lad and I participated in a few Standard side tournaments and I brought the new version of my Chandra Control deck. Here is my updated list (which will change as the new metagame develops).

Maindeck
3 Chandra Ablaze
2 Sphinx of the Lost Truth
4 Bloodghast
4 Sedraxis Specter
2 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Terminate
4 Blightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Burst Lightning
2 Swerve
2 Volcanic Fallout

Lands
4 Crumbling Necropolis
3 Dragonskull Summit
3 Drowned Catacomb
6 Mountain
4 Island
5 Swamp

Sideboard
4 Deathmark
1 Volcanic Fallout
3 Grixis Charm
1 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Countersquall
1 Swerve
2 Rites of Replication

There were 149 people signed up in the tournament; I sat down at my table to wait for my opponent. A few minutes later, I looked up as my opponent sat down. His name was Charles Gindy (last year's US National Champion). I was nervous. Here I am, a small fish trying out a new control deck versus last year's Cruel Control National Champion.

We played....I won the roll and went first. I dropped an early swamp and passed. He played a land and passed. I dropped a drowned catacomb and played Bloodghast. He played another land and played Howling Mine. I was excited...I wasn't playing Jund and my deck does well versus most control decks...I drew my 2 cards, attacked with Bloodghast and played Blightning and he discarded a Time Warp and another spell. He played another land and Pyromancer's Acension and lightning bolted my Bloodghast. My turn...I drew my 2 cards, played a land, Lightning Bolted him, Burst Lightninged him dropping his life to 10, and then attacked with my hasted Bloodghast dropping him to 8. He followed up by Lightning Bolting me and Pyroclasming the Bloodghast. Turn 5, I drew my 2 cards, played a land, and played a Sedraxis Specter. I attacked with my recursive Bloodghast and he bolted him. I passed the turn. He played 2 more burn spells which turned his Acension on and passed the turn. I drew my 2 cards and drew a land and a Lightning Bolt. I played the land, returning the Bloodghast and attacked with both creatures dropping him to 3 and then burned him for the win. Game 1....I Win!!!

Now for Game 2. I sideboarded worthless Terminates and Volcanic Fallouts for Grixis Charm and Countersquall. He played first. He dropped an Acension on turn 2. I played my Blightning on turn 3 causing him to discard 2 burn spells and played my Sedraxis Specter on turn 4. We both stalled out at 3 lands for 2 turns. He activated his Acension on turn 5 and I bounced it back to his hand on my next turn. He followed up by drawing another land and playing 2 more Acensions (which were quickly activated over the next 2 turns). Around turn 8, he was stalled at 4 lands and I drew my 6th. I decided to play Chandra Ablaze and removed 2 counters to activate her 2nd ability to cause both players to discard their hands and draw 3 cards. He discarded another Time Warp and a burn spell (if I did not do this and if his next card was a land he could have Acensioned for 2 extra Time Warp copies). He did not draw any relevant spells, and I ended up burning him with Chandra and attacking him with Bloodghasts and Specters for the win on the next turn.

I couldn't believe it...I beat the US National Champ in a Control Mirror...This makes me the new National Champ (right?). Well it made since in my mind so I quickly took my throne....

I happily moved on to the next round and sat down to play. I lost the roll and he went first. My opponent played the dreaded Savage Land and my heart slowed to a halt as I knew what would later taker place (a turn 2 Putrid Leech, Turn 3 Sprouting Thrinax, turn 4 Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Blightning, and turn 5 Bitumous Blast cascading into another Sprouting Thrinax.) Few decks have a chance against a draw like that.

Game 2, I sideboarded in Rites of Replication to copy his creatures expecially Broodmate Dragon and Bloodbraid Elf (to do a cascade of my own) and Grixis Charm to bounce his lands and help kill his 4/4 creatures. I drew my hand and felt pretty confidant about it (I drew 3 lands, 1 Lightning Bolt, 1 Bloodghast, and 2 Terminates.) I played my tap land and passed. He played a Duress and got rid of my Lightning Bolt. I drew another land and passed. He played a land and plassed. I drew another Terminate. He played the expected Blightning and I got rid of my Bloodghast and a land. I drew a Sedraxis Specter, played it, and passed. Then came turn 4's coup d'etat....He played a land and Thought Hemmorhage naming Terminate. I revealed the 3 in my hand loosing 9 life and the rest of cards in my hand. He finished the game over the next 2 turns with double Bloodbraid Elf cascading into a burn spell and a Great Sable Stag.

It was like the Rise and Fall of Rome. I had abdicated my throne as quickly as I secured it...I am no longer the reigning ruler of Magic greatness (Damn the Man!!! Damn the Electric Fence!!! and Damn the Jund!!!)

I ended the tournament at 5-3. I beat 2 Jund Decks, RWU control, Bant Aggro, Time Warp Acension and lost to 2 Jund decks and a Bant Lotus Cobra deck (lost game 1 due to getting stuck with 3 lands through turn 6; won game 2 by Rite of Replicating a Sphinx of Lost Truth to discard 2 Bloodhasts and draw more cards including a land to bring the Bloodghasts back on the next turn; and lost game 3 for my opponent's luck in drawing all 4 of his Path to Exiles by turn 7 and removing my double Rite of Replicationed Baneslayer blockers from the game for the win.) I ended at 26th place. It wasn't 1st but it was still a blast.

Pro Tour-Austin Part 2 (Elspeth Assault)

Well, the dust has settled and we've been back in town for a couple of days now. Austin was really a terrific trip. It seems we played MTG for about 36 hours over the three days we were there. Whether it was tournament action or testing out deck ideas we were totally focused on the task at hand... finding out what the meta-game is shaping up to be early in the Zendikar season. I can tell you that two decks dominated all three tourneys that I played in and they both happen to be Aggro. Jund Cascade and Red/White Boros were the boss decks all weekend. I had three decks that I brought with me... Esper Mill, Red/White Control, and my own version of Jund Cascade. I decided not to play the Esper Mill deck because I thought it would get eaten alive by Jund. I played my Red/White Control deck once and my Jund Cascade deck twice. My best finish was 6th place with my Red/White Control deck which turns out to be quite strong against Jund and does reasonably well against R/W Boros. If you're like me and you prefer more of a Control deck than I highly recommend my Red/White Control deck which I will title Elspeth Assault. I'll first give you the deck list and then I'll break down the strategy.

Elspeth Assault

Creature Spells:
Hellspark Elemental x4
Hell's Thunder x3

Non-Creature Spells:
Ajani Vengeant x4
Elspeth, Knight-Errant x2
Goblin Assault x4
Lightning Bolt x4
Burst Lightning x4
Day of Judgment x3
Scepter of Dominance x3
Banefire x2
Oblivion Ring x3

Lands:
Arid Mesa x4
Jungle Shrine x4
Gargoyle Castle x2
Plains x7
Mountain x7

Sideboard:
Celestial Purge x4
Goblin Ruinblaster x3
Baneslayer Angel x4
Intimidation Bolt x2
Volcanic Fallout x2

This deck has a very strong mid-game which means you'll need to withstand the onslaught of powerful early game decks like Boros and compete with the most dominate mid-game deck going right now, Jund. Against other control decks with a powerful late game you'll need to overwhelm them before they can establish their late-game dominance.





Early on the strategy is to hopefully get Hellspark Elemental out on turn 2. If you're playing Boros you may need to hold off and use Lightning Bolt and Burst Lightning to slow them down the first couple of turns. I saw Boros decks consistently win games on turn 4 if left unchallenged. Hell's Thunder is a good turn 3 play in the right game. Against other Control decks it might be better to play Scepter of Dominance on turn 3 if you have it available. That card really hurts Control decks.





These are our control spells in the deck. All four of these spells uniquely help establish board control so that we can get momentum on our side. I like Oblivion Ring over Path to Exile for this deck because of the versatility. There are many permanents out there that could present trouble besides just creatures. We don't need cards like Jace Beleren or Luminarch Ascension to stick around for very long if you know what I mean. Day of Judgment is self explanatory. The ability to wipe out the board is about as good as it gets for this deck. Ajani Vengeant is, in my opinion, the best Planeswalker out there right now. If you're able to get both him and a Scepter of Dominance to stick on the board at the same time it will be very hard for another control deck to beat you.



These two cards have such amazing synergy together. Goblin Assault produces a token with haste ever turn and Elspeth, Knight-Errant makes the token a 4/4 flyer every turn. This is absolutely the most explosively part of this deck. If you can set up the board and get this combo engine going than your opponent ends up under the gun very quickly. Combine this with the Unearth abilities of Hellspark Elemental and Hell's Thunder and you've got a very explosive mid-game indeed.



Banefire is in the deck just in case we need that final burn spell that can seal the game. I love Banefire because by the time you really need to use it you should have enough mana to make it unstoppable. I can't tell you how many games it has won me in a stalemate against another control deck. It is an amazing card.

My sideboard choices are pretty self-explanatory. The one that may confuse a few people is my decision to sideboard Baneslayer instead of maindecking it. Because my deck has so few creatures I decided that it's not a good choice for game 1 because of all the removal most decks are running. The strategy is to show my opponent that I have very few creatures in game 1 so that he'll hopefully side out most of his removal for game 2. That's when I surprise him with Baneslayer and hopefully it's enough to seal the deal. In the end it really just depends on the match-ups. Sometimes Baneslayer is a world beater and sometimes he's just an easy target for removal.

I'll be playing this deck for a while and hope you'll give it some consideration as well. If you're like me and you're always looking for ways to topple the big dogs than I think this has as good a chance as anything else out there right now. If you have any suggestions or questions please don't be afraid to leave a comment. That's it for today and good luck on your next coin flip!

Pro Tour-Austin Part 1

Hello friends, this is a big week for me as I will be traveling down to Austin with my blogging partner to participate in the Pro Tour-Austin festivities. We will both be playing in four separate Standard Constructed events, one on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday. I'm sure we'll both have plenty of stories, both good and bad, to tell when it's all said and done.

As you know there is always a lot of speculation as to which deck ideas will be strongest in the meta-game once a new block is released. I have decided to bring three decks with me. One of them is a creation of mine called Esper Mill which I will be discussing extensively in a bit. Another is a Red/White control deck I've seen before that uses Goblin Assault with Elspeth, Knight-Errant. I've made a lot of changes to the one Mark Hendrickson took to the Top 8 at Nationals earlier this year but the idea is the same. The last one is Jund Cascade. The only real difference between mine and the other current Jund decks is I use Sarkhan Vol in place of Garruk Wildspeaker.

Esper Mill is, you guessed it, a three color Mill deck using the Esper colors. I've always been a sucker for the decks that feature an alternate way to win. This deck will be my main play unless it proves to be too weak in the current meta-game. One big reason I will play this deck is the amount of really strong creatures in Standard. Because of this I feel there will be a lot of decks either featuring the really strong creatures or playing the spells that get rid of the really strong creatures. The reason this is important to me is that I don't have any creatures in my deck at all. So, all of those removal spells in the other decks become wasted spells. Sure, most good players will side in the necessary cards to deal with this in game two but if I can get that advantage and win game one it makes it much easier on me.



The early game cards in this deck are Duress and Esper Charm. I want to try my best to disable my opponent's hand first before I turn my attention to destroying his deck. Esper Charm is also great when your opponent has a pesky enchantment on the board or maybe you need to reload by drawing a little later in the game. This deck would not be as effective without the versatility of Esper Charm.



I will control the board with Day of Judgment and Path to Exile. These are both very efficient creature removal spells that should buy me enough time to destroy my opponent's deck. Path to Exile is also great when used as a combo piece with Archive Trap. I take out a creature, my opponent searches for a land, and boom I drop Archive Trap for zero mana cost. If I have two Traps in my hand and one Twincast then it's basically game over. This brings me to the meat of the deck...





These are the spells that eventually get us the win. Mind Funeral and Archive Trap are used to set up the big finishers, Jace Beleren and Haunting Echoes. If you're able to successfully cast Haunting Echoes after a Mind Funeral and an Archive Trap it virtually guarantees you the win as most decks carry three or four copies of each spell in their deck.



Last, but not least, our utility spells are Twincast and Negate. Twincast is very important in this deck as it allows you to copy Archive Trap or Mind Funeral at a cheap cost. I regularly mill ten to fifteen cards with Mind Funeral. Twincast lets you double that for a total of five mana. It's very similar to the Sanity Grinding / Twincast combo. Twincast is also useful in many other situations. Anytime your opponent plays a powerful sorcery or instant you can copy it and yours resolves first. Imagine if you are able to Twincast Cruel Ultimatum. It would be a nasty surprise for your opponent. Negate is in the deck as a spot counter against potential problem spells like Thought Hemorrhage or Blightning.

Here is the final decklist...

Instant Spells
Path to Exile x4
Archive Trap x4
Esper Charm x4
Negate x3
Twincast x4

Sorcery Spells
Day of Judgment x4
Haunting Echoes x3
Mind Funeral x4
Duress x2

Planeswalker Spells
Jace Beleren x3

Lands
Arcane Sanctum x4
Drowned Catacomb x4
Glacial Fortress x4
Marsh Flats x3
Plains x3
Swamp x3
Island x4

Sideboard
Telemin Performance x3
Pithing Needle x3
Celestial Purge x3
Mindbreak Trap x2
Identity Crisis x2
Negate x1
Duress x1

I'll let you guys know how this deck fares in Austin when I post Pro Tour-Austin Part 2 next week. I look forward to any comments you might have and good luck on your next coin flip!

Chandra Control

Chandra Control is a powerful control deck I created that centers around the powerful planeswalker Chandra Ablaze and the amazing sorcery Cruel Ultimatum.



Chandra Ablaze's 1st ability allows you to add a loyalty counter by discarding a red card to Flame Javelin, deal 4 direct damage to target creature or player. Her second ability is amazing against another control deck. Both players discard their hands and draw 3 cards which limits the options they have stored up till now. Chandra's final ability will win you the game...remove 7 counters to play any number of red instants or sorceries from your graveyard without paying their mana costs. This final ability leads me to the next card that wins the game and plays nicely with Chandra...Cruel Ultimatum.



Cruel Ultimatum is probably the most powerful sorcery Magic the Gathering has ever created. It changes the game dramatically. Your opponent has to sacrifice a creature, discard 3 cards, and lose 5 life while you return a creature from your graveyard to your hand, draw 3 cards, and gain 5 life (basically they lose 4 cards and 5 life and you gain 4 cards and 5 life...all this from playing 1 card is just crazy and overwhelming.) The goal of the deck is to play Cruel Ultimatum on turn 7 by casting it at full cost and recasting it and others through Chandra's final ability hopefully on turn 8.



This version of Chandra Control only runs 4 creatures maindeck. Sedraxis Specter is a 3/2 flyer with unearth that causes your opponent to discard a card whenever it deals combat damage to that opponent. It is a great early game threat, and, with its unearth ability, it is a great target to discard for Chandra's 1st ability. The deck also runs 3 Magma Phoenix in its sideboard. Magma Phoenix is a great creature to side in versus aggro decks. Magma Phoenix deals 3 damage to each creature and player when it is put in the graveyard and returns to your hand for 5 mana to do it all over again. The Phoenix is also a great target for Chandra since it can return to your hand after being discarded.

In addition to these threats, the deck is compiled of some the most powerful red spells in the current Standard.



These two burn spells are amazing and may be the most powerful red burn commons that Magic has ever made. When playing the deck, you should save these cards to kill your opponent's creatures early on and then begin punishing your opponent directly in later turns while waiting for Chandra final ability to trip them once more. (Key note about Burst Lightning: when playing it, you can kick the spell...so when Chandra's final ability trips, you can add the kicker cost when casting it through her ability for additional damage.)



These 2 spells are used to help control your opponent's hand size and threats while still dealing direct damage to him or her. Thought Hemorrage is a great sideboard card that can be sided in to further limit your opponent's options in control and combo deck matchups.



Bitumous Blast is an awesome instant creature burn that cascades into some of your other powerful burn or card draw spells. Grixis Charm is a sideboard card that helps bounce an annoying artifacts (such as Pithing Needle), planeswalkers, lands, or enchantments (especially if the Zendikar quest enchantments take off). It is also another excellent kill spell and can be pitched easily to Chandra.

Here is my final build:

Maindeck
4 Chandra Ablaze
4 Sedraxis Specter
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Divination
4 Terminate
4 Blightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Burst Lightning
3 Bitumous Blast
3 Volcanic Fallout

Sideboard
3 Magma Phoenix
3 Thought Hemorrhage
3 Grixis Charm
4 Countersquall
2 Swerve

The maindeck is designed to stall creature heavy, aggro decks. In more control or combo deck matchups, side out the unneeded kill spells for Countersquall to counter non-creature spells while still depleting his or her life total, Swerve to redirect spells (awesome against Time Warp decks...redirect the extra turn to yourself), Thought Hemorrhage to limit their hand size, and Grixis Charm to bounce their combo pieces.

Tonight will be my first run with it at our local FNM. I will post any changes I think will need to be made afterwards in the comments section...If any of you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. Enjoy.