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Top 25 Magic Combos of All Time
-Will McDermott and The Duelist Staff
At its heart, Magic is about money...no...card combinations, and discovering combos is both the thrill and the agony of the game (depending on which side of the table you're on when the combo goes off). So, feeling a little nostalgic after our "Five Year Anniversary" issue, we decided to take another trip down Magic memory lane. Herein, you'll find the most powerful or influential combos the game has ever seen (except for that upstart Tolarian Blue; it needs to prove itself yet).
This list is the result of minutes...no, hours...er...days of research and the best statistical analysis we could afford (Microsoft Excel - it came bundled with our machines). We even asked top men (really, top men) for their input; actually, I'm not joking about this. Our panel included Mark Rosewater and the Duelist editorial staff, Pro Tour judge Jeff Donais, Pro Tour player Alan Comer, and Wizards' AOL netrep (and creator of "The Mage's Workshop" database program) Edward Fewell.
25.
Land Tax & Library of Alexandria
You can't discuss card advantage without talking about Land Tax and Library of Alexandria. Land Tax may well be the best combo card ever created since it helps fuel so many other combos. It lets you dig land out of your library, thinning your deck and giving you ammo for effects that trigger off cards (or lands) in hand. Combined with Library of Alexandria, the top card-drawing card in the game, Land Tax nets you up to four cards per turn by using the lands drawn to ensure you can activate the Library.
24. Lure & Thicket Basilisk
In the old days (before R&D started hating green), green decks were extremely powerful. However, they still had trouble getting rid of creatures. White had Wrath of God. Red had Fireball. Black had Pestilence. But green only had Hurricane, which didn't take out ground-pounders. Green did have Lure and Thicket Basilisk, which could clear away your opponent's defenders, open a path for your horde, and leave the bulk of your creatures in good health to attack again next turn.
23. Stampeding Wildebeests & Wall of Blossoms
Stampeding Wildebeests was on the verge of fading away as a fun theme-deck card you could combine with Pyknite or Striped Bears to draw a card every turn. But these two creatures were expensive and too easily destroyed. Then came Wall of Blossoms and the Stupid Green deck. Stampeding Wildebeests instantly became a viable tournament card, mostly because Wall of Blossoms stood on its own as a great early defensive card that, when combined with Wildebeests, provided huge card advantage as well as beatdown.
22. Fallen Angel & Living Death
Fallen Angel has been used in a variety of decks because it combines so well with other cards (like Enduring Renewal). The Fallen Angel-Living Death combo works like this: Attack, and sacrifice any blocked creatures to Fallen Angel. After combat, sacrifice the rest of your creatures to the Angel and then sacrifice the Angel to itself. With all your creatures in the graveyard, cast Living Death to bring them all back out and destroy all of your opponent's creatures on the table.
21.
Living Plane & The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
This nasty combo provided mass land destruction to green (until Type II banished the Legends card set from the tournament scene). Living Plane turns all lands into 1/1 creatures that still count as lands. The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale then forces your opponent to tap all these newly created creatures or sacrifice them on his or her next upkeep. With all your opponent's creatures either tapped or destroyed, you can sacrifice the Tabernacle (instead of paying its upkeep) on your turn, thus saving the rest of your land/creatures to attack.
20. Animate Artifact, Instill Energy, & Time Vault
The combo that got Time Vault banned weighs in at number 20. When it was originally printed, you could tap Time Vault to gain an extra turn, but had to skip a turn to untap it. Some ingenious player figured out you could animate Time Vault and then enchant it with Instill Energy to untap it every turn (and thus keep taking turns until your opponent started screaming). Time Vault was banned, and later reinstated with errata that nullified this combo. (You now add a counter to Time Vault when you skip that turn. Hmm, how about Giant Fan?)
19. Awakening & Tradewind Rider
You don't often see two-color, eight-mana combos, but the power of this one made it work despite the double-green mana requirement in Awakening. Tradewind Rider had already made its presence known as a supreme control card by the time Stronghold brought Awakening to the scene. What Awakening added was the ability to use the Rider's bounce effect twice as often, which could wreak havoc on any deck that relied on permanents to win. And it's hard to win with nothing on the table.
18. Necropotence & Drain Life
Necropotence so dominated Magic that the 1996 summer tournament season was dubbed "Necro Summer." This card is so powerful it appears twice on this list, since the Necro deck contained multiple parts. Another premier card-drawing card, Necropotence lets you trade life for cards. Drain Life serves two purposes here: it's the kill-card for this deck, and it helps recoup life lost to cards drawn via Necropotence. Drain Life would reappear the next Spring as the kill-card of choice in the quick and deadly ProsBloom deck.
17.
Black Vise & Winter Orb
Black Vise has been called "three free Lightning Bolts" because
you can cast it on turn one and deal up to nine damage over the next three
turns. Backed up by land destruction or other control elements, Black Vise
is a sure killer. The classic resource denial card is, of course, Winter
Orb. After a Power Sink or Mana Short, Winter Orb and an Icy Manipulator
(see below) can keep your opponent in Black Vise range for the rest of his
or her (very short) life. Because of its power, Black Vise went the way
of Channel (and the Dodo) getting banned in Standard and Extended.
16. Bottle Gnomes & Corpse Dance
This combo was so good, the deck built around it bore the name "Dancing Gnomes." This recursion deck that appeared at Pro Tour-Los Angeles in 1997 used Corpse Dance with buyback to bring Bottle Gnomes (and other creatures you could sacrifice for an effect) back into play. The toughness of the 1/3 Gnomes made them great blockers. Plus you could sacrifice the Gnomes to gain 3 life and avoid having it removed from the game...and then do it all over again next turn, dancing them into and out of play as needed.
15. Necropotence & Ivory Tower
The second Necro combo to make the list, this was truly the cornerstone of the original Necro deck. You pay life to keep your hand-size as large as possible every turn, and then Ivory Tower rewards you with life for every card in your hand over four - effectively giving you back the life you paid the previous turn. Once you got the restricted Tower in your hand (perhaps via a Demonic Tutor or Vampiric Tutor), you were set. You could just keep drawing cards until you were ready to kill your opponent.
14. Icy Manipulator & Royal Assassin
Often dubbed the Royal "Pain in the" Assassin, this black creature could kill any creature your opponent was stupid enough to attack with, since you can tap it to destroy a tapped creature. But how do you get rid of Walls and Serra Angels? Why, with Icy Manipulator, of course. This extremely powerful artifact can tap any creature, land, or artifact. This two-card combo can destroy about 99 percent of the creatures in the game (only creatures with protection from black or that can't be targeted are immune).
13.
Berserk & Fork & Giant Growth
Probably the most damage you can deal for four mana (excluding mana generators like Cadaverous Bloom and Channel), this combo was a mainstay of the first generation of speed decks - the red/green monsters with eight Bolt spells, Blood Lusts, and the long-forgotten Kird Ape. With a Kird Ape and a forest in play (or better, a Taiga because it provided both mana colors you needed and counted as a forest), you could Giant Growth the now 2/3 Ape to make it a 5-power creature. Then just Berserk the Ape to 10 and Fork the Berserk to make your Kird Ape a 20-power mage killer. I loved that deck!
12. Armageddon & Erhnam Djinn
Shortly after "Ernie" was reprinted in Chronicles, Magic saw the rise of the "ErhnaGeddon" deck, named for the combo. These fast-mana decks could devastate most opponents by easily dropping the 4/5 monster Djinn on turn three and destroying all lands on turn four. By the time opponents recovered enough to handle the Djinn, it was too late. A nice byproduct was that Armageddon basically nullified Erhnam Djinn's drawback, since you no longer had any forests in play. Another trick to play with Ernie was to wait until your opponent attacked with his Forestwalker, and then sacrifice your forests to Zuran Orb and block the now forestless attacker.
11. Fastbond & Storm Cauldron
Another combo that got a card banned, Fastbond and Storm Cauldron almost
cracks the top 10 with its Channel-esque mana generator. Fastbond, banned
after this combo became popular, is an enchantment that lets you pay 1 life
each to put extra lands into play. Storm Cauldron bounces land back to your
hand after you tap them. Used together, you can play and tap the same lands
over and over until you run out of life. You can use that mana to pump up
the heat on a Fireball or suck your opponent's life away with a Drain Life.
What keeps this combo out of the Top 10 is the cost of Storm Cauldron. At
, you need to stay
alive too long to make this trick pay off very often.
10. Enduring Renewal, Goblin Bombardment, & Shield Sphere
Dubbed "Fruity Pebbles," the five-color Extended deck that surrounds this combo blasted onto the tournament scene at Pro Tour Qualifiers in late 1997 and early 1998. Tempest brought players Goblin Bombardment, which allows you to sacrifice creatures to deal 1 damage to a target creature or player. Bombardment appeared just as Enduring Renewal left the Standard environment. But in Extended, this powerful damage engine still shines. The zero-cost Shield Sphere provides early defense and then drives the engine as you sacrifice it to Bombardment and recast it for free over and over until your opponent is dead.
9.
Ivory Tower & Library of Alexandria
The second appearance for both of these cards, this combo does it all for you (as long as you remain at or near seven cards in hand), and was perfectly suited for control decks that held cards and tended to run low on life before gaining control. Ivory Tower provides 3 life per turn while Library of Alexandria gives you an extra draw every turn (to help you find more countermagic or that critical Wrath of God). With life and cards to spare, players using this combo usually had no trouble controlling and then dispatching opponents (sometimes with a single Serra Angel, as in Weismann's "The Deck"). It's no wonder both of these cards were restricted.
8. Stasis & Kismet
Stasis-Kismet was the cornerstone lock of the original Prison-style deck. Both Stasis decks and Turbo Stasis decks used Stasis to lock tapped cards into a perpetual tapped state, while Kismet forced opponents to put all permanents into play tapped. With all land, artifacts, and creatures tapped, opponents were helpless unless they could break the lock. But keeping the lock in play was also tough. Different versions of Stasis decks used Birds of Paradise and Instill Energy to pay the upkeep every turn; Time Elemental to bounce Stasis back to your hand so you could recast it, and Squandered Resources to find more land to help pay the upkeep cost once your lands were tapped.
7. Icy Manipulator & Winter Orb
Other Prison decks preferred our number seven combo to Stasis because it was easier to keep the lock in place. Winter Orb locked down most of your opponent's land because players can only untap one land per turn. You could then tap one land (or a Mox or a Diamond) and the Icy Manipulator during your opponent's upkeep phase to tap the one land he or she untapped that turn. A second Icy could then take care of any land your opponent played that turn. About the only key to this lock was Crumble. At least one very cruel player added Vodalian Mage to this mix to make sure opponents couldn't even cast crumble or other one-mana spells.
6. Land Tax & Sylvan Library
The most combo-able card on the list, Land Tax makes its second appearance along with the best green deck-manipulation card of all time, Sylvan Library. When ErhnaGeddon decks made green/white the colors to beat, this combo forged its way to the top. The Library lets you look at three cards per turn, while Land Tax allows you to pull lands from your deck and, more importantly, shuffle your deck every turn, so you see three new cards each turn with the Library. This combo probably accounted for Land Tax becoming restricted - and then banned - in both Standard and Extended play.
Sylvan Library is still around and finding new partners, like Abundance from Urza's Saga.
5.
Humility & Orim's Prayer
Our number-five combo is another control combo, this one geared toward shutting down creature damage. Tempest, the same set that gave us Tradewind Rider and Bottle Gnomes, provides both halves of this all-white combo. Humility turns all creatures into 1/1 creatures with no special abilities, while Orim's Prayer gains its controller 1 life for every attacking creature (thus totally negating all creature damage). After creature damage has been shut down with only two cards, the rest of the deck could focus on protecting the combo and beating the opponent. Humility proved so powerful (and confusing) it spawned pages of errata.
4.
Prosperity & Cadaverous Bloom
Although the deck Mike Long used to win Pro Tour-Paris (and which almost brought him a National Championship in 1998 before it slipped from his grasp) actually consisted of multiple card combos, ProsBloom always hinges on these two cards. With enough mana from sources such as Squandered Resources and Natural Balance, the ProsBloom player casts a large Prosperity and then sacrifices those cards to Cadaverous Bloom to power up a death-dealing Drain Life. The power of ProsBloom was its ability to consistently complete the combo and win on turn four, by using card-drawing cards such as Prosperity, Vampiric Tutor, Impulse, and Meditate.
3.
Recurring Nightmare & Survival of the Fittest
The number-three slot contains the most recent combo on the list. Nightmare Survival, a new breed of control deck, stormed into the 1998 World Championships. Survival of the Fittest searches your library for key creatures and fills up your graveyard with other key creatures. Recurring Nightmare then brings any creature you need directly into play from the graveyard. The creatures have "comes into play" effects that help control the board (Nekrataal and Uktabi Orangutan) or effects that reset when they reenter play (Spike Weaver and Spike Feeder). Nightmare Survival wins by using Survival to put a huge creature into the graveyard, followed by Recurring Nightmare to bring it into play.
2.
Balance & Zuran Orb
Balance was a "sleeper" card (an R&D term used to describe a power card players don't notice right away) that avoided players' notice for a while and then burst onto the tournament scene with a vengeance. Eventually restricted and then pulled from Fifth Edition, the true power of Balance was realized when Ice Age brought us Zuran Orb. With Zuran Orb in play, you could cast Balance and then sacrifice all your lands to the Orb, forcing your opponent to discard all of his or her lands. This effectively gave white an extra Armageddon and a super Stream of Life.
The trick was best performed with no cards in hand and only one creature (Serra Angel, natch) on the board.
Total control.
1.
Channel & Fireball
Probably the first combo ever discovered, this original first-turn kill combo produced the very first non-ante card ever banned - Channel. Is it any wonder it's the number-one Magic combo of all time? Its simplicity and its deadly nature made it the perfect combo. All you need is 19 life and four mana - two green mana to cast Channel, one red mana to cast Fireball, and one more mana to cap it off - to deal 20 damage on turn one. Of course in the "good ol' days," finding this mana was easy: One mountain and a Black Lotus fit the bill perfectly. In fact, one urban legend claims the finals of an early tournament came down to a long, drawn-out contest to see which finalist couldn't pull off the combo on turn one. Supposedly both decks contained 20 Black Lotuses, 20 Channels, and 20 Fireballs. Best of all, this two-card combo will defeat your opponent any time your life total plus your available mana exceeds your opponent's life by four. The first, the best, the only: Channel-Fireball.
If any one owning rights to this asks me to remove it I will immediately do so.
