This is an entry level guide for introducing someone to their first combo deck. As such this guide has been detailed with as many examples as possible to help point out the possible combinations. Many of these are classically known and my repetitiveness may appear unnecessary, and many interactions may be overly explained. This is simply for the benefit of helping educate those unfamiliar with the concept of running a combo deck.
While this is a simple combo to understand, it is neither the strongest nor easiest to understand, but hopefully my thoroughness will make this an easy to read and understand experience.
This may sound unbelievable to some, the words "combo" and "control" can often times elicit quite a few groans to many meta's. In some groups control and combo decks are hated so brutally that any player who tries to bring one to the table will be targeted. But in all honesty, those aggro / battle cruiser / voltron / creature beat heavy groups are missing an important archetype that is often times a necessary evil. A true control deck is often times needed to stop many otherwise repetitive plays and muddle up those bland environments, and a true combo deck is a great way to change up those 3+ hour games.
Also it is not necessary for those environments to include some control/combo at their table. Your meta may be perfect and everyone is happy playing their combat based designs. Just understand that by excluding control and combo from your table, you will never fully expose yourselves to these strategies. You are missing out on a large fraction of what this game has to offer.
Some people may consider this "baby's first combo deck" because the functionality of this design is easy to understand and, more importantly to your meta, easy to explain to your opponents. When the combo is about to go off, it only requires a brief explanation of how the combo will work - there are very few "motions" for resolving your combo. You don't have to fiddle around with your deck for more than a normal turn should last. If not disrupted, you create some interaction that just wins you the game.
The simplicity of this design is not to say that it is weak. In reality all designs have a weakness. That is the point of this guide - to "optimize" the combo. With enough draw and repetition in cards, the combo can become more reliable. With more experience the pilot can become more knowledgeable with decisions regarding threats, tutor targets, etc. With better cards the deck can become faster.
Do realize although that since the combo is exceptionally easy to understand, many will find it quite boring. More elaborate combo decks tend to be more akin to puzzle solving for the pilot. Finding that perfect stack of 5 cards for Doomsday? Interlocking those perfect trinkets for your Salvaging Station package? Finding that equilibrium of death cycling for Teysa, Orzhov Scion? Keeping track of you're mana on one dice and your storm count on another dice for that Grapeshot? These combo decks can all take an inordinate amount of time and thought power. These decks and designs can be fairly complicated to both pilot and very tedious to play against due to their own intricacies. Some people love the puzzle solving, and is absolutely true that the more complex the puzzle the sweeter the victory. These complex puzzles are not always welcome at every table. Circu and Vela combo's are nothing like this - you simply put together one of the many duplicate parts of your machine and set it in motion.
TLDR - this is a newbie friendly combo, but still strong enough to be a viable threat. It is simple and elegant and doesn't take much explanation. When the combo is capable of happening and if it is not disrupted, then the pilot of the deck simply explains how the combo is working, then everyone can proceed to the next game.
Circu stuff.. Circu, Dimir Lobotomist has always been an interesting card that since his printing I had always wanted to build around.
Opponents unfamiliar with your deck will not initially consider him to be a "combo" deck due to the requirement of "casting"
combo designed around interactions of creatures
actually including vela into a circu list
Understand now that any potential for optimizing a deck around Circu has, in many ways, been dwarfed by Planechase's Vela the Night-Clad.
end Circu stuff
Vela stuff..
There are many issues and strict stringent requirements for Circu's combo to work. But for Vela we can rely on a boarder spectrum of cards.
Flavorfully although the most Vela decks I've seen appear to rely on her Planechase origins and play a ninja theme'd deck, utilizing her Intimidate effect for small combat shenanigans and recycling creatures via ninjitus for some advantage.
end vela stuff
Every combo in the following decklist works with both Vela and Circu, but Vela's ability works upon a creature leaving play, and doesn't require it to be "cast." A common and nasty trick with Vela is kicking rite of replication on her, which bleeds every opponent for 30 life upon legendary rule resolution. This novelty, along with flicker effects, just doesn't work with Circu, so there are many additional mechanics that a Vela deck can deploy.
So we have a conundrum here. Arguments can be made for both, and Vela really does gives us more potential. But what it boils down to (for me) is that she has a higher casting cost. While Vela may be strictly better in some situations, Circu is cheaper. This is the primary reason why I choose Circu over Vela for combo. Granted some of the combo's generate infinite mana, but some do not, and having the lowest curve possible is ideal for any combo deck.
Personally I have a passion for UB control, and I actually already have a Vela deck that does something completely different. My love for Dimir has me wanting to keep Circu alive, thus the following deck is still being played.
A word on budget
Now that you have an idea of the essential combo elements of the deck, lets chat a bit about the actual price of constructing something like this.
The cards for the primary combo's listed above are all fairly cost efficient. The following parts of our combo design have the highest prices (prices in USD from SCG as of May 2015);
Omniscience - $20
Venser, Shaper Savant - $13
Palinchron - $12
Phantasmal Image - $7
Cloudstone Curio - $6
And then everything nose-dives to the $2 or less range. This is excluding Power Artifact and Grim Monolith as they are not used for Circu and only one possible combination with Vela.
So with the most expensive and arguably essential cards in our deck being approximately $55 USD, this makes a Circu or Vela combo design extremely budget friendly.
The question then becomes where do you dedicate your finances in a combo deck? The answer is an obvious on to most, but often times overlooked by newer players - optimization.
When compared to each other Demonic Tutor is better than Diabolic Tutor. The only time Diabolic would be better than Demonic is in some bizarre situation, like when a Chalice of the Void @2 is in play. This just doesn't happen. Due to just the manacost we would say that Demonic Tutor is strictly better than Diabolic Tutor. Likewise Counterspell is strictly better than Cancel.
The curve of a combo deck should be as low as possible, so optimization in speed is very important. The trend here is that the cheaper spells are (typically) more powerful. This is not necessary although, as it is dependent on the speed of your playgroup.
You really need to ask yourself if it is worth investing $20.00 for a Demonic Tutor over $0.50 for a Diabolic Tutor in a deck, especially if that deck would have a good success rate in your meta with just the Diabolic Tutor.
Politically speaking for the multiplayer environment, the person who has the most expensive cards in their deck often times finds themselves being targeted. Then there is the notion of quick-combo is not fun and breaks some sort of EDH spirit thing. For these reasons (and others) many people opt for a 70% optimization design for multiplayer EDH, where they purposefully degrade the quality of cards in their deck, deliberately making their deck worse, just for a more lax environment.
It all revolves around your playgroup and your opponents. There simply is no need to invest a large amount of resources in a deck if your opponents are not up to that tier yet. Instead of crushing them under your wallet, it would be wiser to help develop them into stronger players while you display your deck to them, improving it over time and allowing them to piggy-back learn.
Finding your combo parts from your 99 card deck Draw
One of the hardest parts of running a combo is simply finding the parts. With a simple draw-go strategy a combo design will often times fail, unless it is supplemented by an absurd amount of counter magic, and you enjoy playing very long games.
Alternatively we can dig deeper into our deck by utilizing effective card draw. By effective card draw I mean more than 1-card nets 2-cards in the case of Divination or Sign in Blood. Both are great effects, and with a nice mana cost, but we need to dig deep, and fast. A good example here is the new Dig Through Time - a card that literally digs deep for us. Some EDH classics like Fact or Fiction are also ideal as this one card digs 5 cards deep, although you don't get them all, and many people don't like that the opponent gets to see what it is that you choose to keep.
Below in the spoielers are many of the common card draw and tempo effects that you might see in EDH;
Tutor
And while drawing many cards is nice, often times trading one card for that one exact part we need to win with is just better. Tutoring in EDH many people feels breaks that spirit thing again, but in a combo design running a handful of tutors can be very important for making a consistent deck.
Below in the spoilers are some of the more common tutor effects, be it a hard tutor or semi-restricted effect.
Intuition is, financially speaking, a semi-expensive tutor, and many don't understand why. Here I will break down the potential that this card offers, and more importantly, how it can best be used in this design.
There are three effective ways to use Intuition;
1.) You tutor for 3 threats, and you just need one to win. For example, you use it to tutor up Æther Adept, Cavern Harpy, and Dream Stalker. It doesn't matter which the opponent chooses, because you get what you need.
2.) You tutor up one card you specifically need, but the means to get it from the 'yard. For example, you tutor up Damnation, Pull from the Deep, and Archaeomancer. The Damnation could be an answer you need, but you might be bluffing this so that you can recur something else from your graveyard.
3.) You tutor up 3 parts, but you have the ability to keep all of them. For example, you tutor up Palinchron, Phantasmal Image, and Venser, Shaper Savant, but unbeknownst to your opponent you have Phyrexian Reclamation in hand. Another example is tutoring up 3 lands while you have Crucible of Worlds.
In our design, optimization is key, so we should always shoot to use Intuition for #2 or #3 whenever possible.
Opponents with little experience will often times make poor choices when choosing what card you get with Intuition. Smart opponents will choose the card that makes you expend the most resources (mana and time) to get what you needed.
Creating a tutor "package" with Trinket, Muddle (getting the illusion & harpy), and Shred Memory.
Trinket Mage Toolbox Trinket Mage is essentially a restricted tutor, but often times is thought of as a minimal threat and after he resolves is dismissed by the opponents. In our design Trinket Mage serves a far greater purpose than he typically would, because our combo design focuses on looping creature-entry. We will quite often find some way of bouncing and re-using Trinket Mage, be it from a Shrieking Drake to Riptide Laboratory (yep hes a wizard!). This snazzy fellow usually has an accompanying "package" of targets he can tutor for. Below are just a few examples;
Casting our Cards - obtaining enough mana in Blue/Black Lands
With the obvious fact of requiring mana to cast our spells aside, picking which lands to run can really make or break a deck. Below is a selection of common lands you might see in EDH, broken to categories to consider. Expensive lands are not necessary to make a functional deck. It is best to invest in expensive lands only if you have a passion for a specific deck, or the color combination of that deck so you can recycle those lands in future decks. It is far more important to spend your trade and financial resources on the essential parts within the deck before investing in expensive lands.
The most important thing about crafting your land-base is to make sure you get your needed colors. Luckily we are in a two color deck. Three and five color decks have less space for utility lands that don't produce the color of mana we need for spells.
For the most part, an EDH deck will want somewhere between 42 and 47 sources of mana, from lands and acceleration (anything from your Sol Ring to a Elvish Mystic would be considered here). The variance depends on the curve of your deck. Someone running 30 dragons with Bladewing the Risen as a commander will want upwards to 50 mana sources, while the punisher deck running Zo-Zu the Punisher can skate away with 40 mana sources.
The "curve" of a combo should always be as low as possible. A lower curve means we can cast more spells, earlier in the game, and eventually more than one spell a turn. A converted mana curve below 3.5 is a nice average for most metas. From my personal experience while playing Circu and Vela, I prefer to have 37 lands + 6 artifact accelerants in Circu, and 38 lands + 6 artifact accelerants in Vela.
There is no exact number of color-producing lands you should include in your deck. The number of utility lands vs color producing lands entirely depends on what is in your deck. Including Necropotence and Mind Over Matter in the same deck means you should have fewer colorless producing lands, or have more fetch lands to guarantee your colors. But if you are also running all of the mana rocks that produce color as well as Burnished Hart and other ramp effects, then it may be safer to include more utility lands.
Below in the spoiler are some lands to consider while constructing a U/B EDH deck;
Here are a few basic utility lands you will most likely see in EDH:
After Riptide I feel that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is the second most important because it fixes 50% of your mana color issues. Close to this is Cabal Coffers that helps us generate a nice chunk of mana.
While not at all necessary for our design, many people love man-lands. The only one I would ever consider for this deck is Creeping Tar Pit as it does give us both of our colors.
Many combo's can work better with lands that produce more than one mana. While I have a personal hatred for bounce lands, many people swear by them, and they do serve a purpose in our design. While the benefit of these lands is obvious, there is always the possibility of being set back by having them destroyed. Weighting this chance is entirely dependent on your group's likelihood to run things like Strip Mine and Acidic Slime effects.
When it comes to fixing the colors in your deck, there are some lands that work just better than others. This is where you might end up spending more money than the deck is actually worth. Again these are not necessary to make the deck playable. These just help optimize it to run smoother, often times by a minor %.
Some of the above cards can command a hefty price tag. But for the price of just that Watery Grave you could actually afford the entire list of budget lands below and have excess. Some of these have a "CIPT" (comes into play tapped) effect, which is essentially setting you back one turn to guarantee your colors. If your meta is not full of incredibly fast and cut-throat decks, then these lands all work just fine.
Another budget alternative for that can be incorporated as a meta-hate is to run the other versions of "fetch lands." If you include Back to Basics in your deck, then the following all become very strong candidates. Do note that the Terminal Moraine and panorama's all produce colorless mana on the turn they come out. Using these also means a higher basic land count, which is great against those opponents running Ruination and Blood Moon effects.
A word of fetch lands, from Polluted Delta to Grixis Panorama. For those unfamiliar with why these are considered "good" there are several ways that these help past just fixing our colors. While technically they do "thin" your deck so you are less likely to draw more lands late-game, this "thinning" makes a very small %change to your deck. It is still a factor although. By using these they also cause a "shuffle" effect, which makes manipulating the top of your deck with Sensei's Divining Top a much stronger effect. Finally if you include something like Crucible of Worlds you have the potential to make a landfall every single turn without having to use cards from your hand. This benefit is further amplified if you have a Scroll Rack out so you can put the lands you have drawn on top your deck, and then shuffle them away when you break your fetch land.
If you do not want to include, or can not afford to include Crucible of Worlds, then the strongest benefit of using a fetch land is not in your deck. If you are on a specific budget, it is best to have the Crucible first and use the budget fetch lands before investing in expensive fetch lands.
Ramp
Now that you have an idea of which lands to include, the next step in getting our combo online is to get more mana faster than 1-land-per-turn. Acceleration in black/blue comes in the form of artifacts and a few spells. There are quite a few strong spell effects that can combine High Tide effects and mass untap effects like Turnabout. While these tricks can work exceptionally and produce a gross amount of mana, our design wins when we can create an infinite loop, so it is best to have reliable acceleration that we can use every turn.
Below in the spoiler are some ramp cards to consider while constructing a U/B EDH deck;
Here are some of the cheapest artifacts and spells that we can do as early as turn-1.
Any acceleration that costs more than 2 mana is most likely too slow. It would need to serve a very important purpose to warrant it's inclusion, like being able to replace it self later, or tapping for more than one mana.
There is another "budget" acceleration for multiplayer environments called Surveyor's Scope. It works best if you have 4 or more opponents. If your design runs a combination of bounce lands and fetch lands, you can activate the scope's ability after you sacrifice a land to drop your land count down. This is often times a whimsical and unreliable source for acceleration, and since it can not be recurred it is typically just forgotten about.
Non-ramp
While not technically acceleration, there are a few cards that help guarantee land drops or can act as a source for mana.
Expedition Map and Tolaria West are excellent tutors if you need specific lands, such as Urborg or Coffers to compliment the other.
Crucible of Worlds is a common site as it essentially means any earlier used fetch land can be reused every turn. Do note that it is more important to have this before investing in the expensive fetch lands like Polluted Delta as the effect can be granted with the budget versions like Terminal Moraine or Evolving Wilds.
Mind Over Matter often times ends up being a source of mana on the turn you are about to win. If you have a Gilded Lotus out essentially every card in your hand becomes a Black Lotus.
Many also consider Tezzeret the Seeker as a source for ramp, as he will often tutor for our artifact acceleration and later be used to untap those rocks. He can be used to tutor for critical needs, but our combo design does not rely on many artifacts.
Caged Sun is another potential inclusion because some of our combo's are made easier with having a land that taps for two mana. Gauntlet of Power is an alternative but this helps your opponents as well, and makes for sticky situations if you pick black and have an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out. Extraplanar Lens also is worth mentioning as it goes well with Snow-Covered Islands and Snow-Covered Swamps, but the potential setback of having the Lens removed or flickered is often times too much of a setback.
8.) Protecting the Machine (answers, control, and recursion)
Control and Recursion - Protecting the win-condition.
Relying on a few select cards to enable a combo win is not all sunshine and lollipops. Our "quick" combo's all heavily rely on Omniscience or Palinchron. The cards that we abuse Omniscience and Palinchron with we have duplicates of, but many of our combos rely on these core cards.
A timely Dissipate or Mindbreak Trap can really hurt us. While we can recover from a single card exiled from the likes of Praetor's Grasp, an early game Sadistic Sacrament from a smart opponent can wreck our plans for (easy) victory.
Then there is the entire issue of actually dealing with the opponent while we build our machine. Running Vela and Circu at the helm of a combo deck, while fun, is not the quickest nor the most efficient thing to do. We can sacrifice some of our combo's and tutors to dedicate space for answers, but finding that threshold of wincon vs answer is a difficult, very meta-specific, and very time consuming ploy.
Luckily we are in the best color of magic. With the über island on our side we have access to counter-magic. With swamps on our side we have access to hard tutors and recursion.
Counter Magic
Some combo decks go all-in on the combo, while others will heavily lean on a control shell. Many control decks simply deploy a small combo within their deck as the win-condtion.
Whichever route you choose it is highly advised to include a counter package to have an answer to a threat of your own board, or to the opponents win-condition.
When it comes to counter-magic, it is best to consider what the deck is doing. We are playing a combo deck that wants to win as fast as possible, so counters like Spelljack and Desertion, while fun, are way too slow for our needs. When it comes to any sort of "competitive" environment, the cheaper the spell's converted mana cost, the better. Below in the spoilers are just a few of the most common counterspells you will see while playing EDH.
It should be noted that if you enjoy using Deadeye Navigator, the Draining Whelk and Venser, Shaper Savant can be potential win-conditions as a spell lock. Venser is the optimal one here as he can also start bouncing the opponents permanents back to hand.
Elements of Control
Often times a single card can completely wreck an opponents plans. If you have a landbase in a multicolor deck that is over $100, then you most likely know the pains of that mono-red troll resolving Blood Moon.
We are in the colors where we have a few cards that can give us the breathing room we need to resolve our combo.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is an excellent example here. This design, as a combo deck that most likely will include elements of control, will have its hardest time against a strictly control style deck. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, if he resolves, has a tendency to really wreck those control decks.
The importance of Teferi!
Effects like Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery are very powerful to a combo player. Being that Circu and Vela combos work around interactions of creatures, something like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir becomes far more important than just a stall mechanic to mess with the opponent. A large chunk of creatures in our design do things when they enter the battlefield, so not only does he derp on the opponent, but he also acts as an enabler to both protect our combo and help push it online during the opponents turn. His ability extends to the command zone - he gives our general flash. If you can't keep him safe with one of the etb-bounce creatures, well he is a wizard so yet again Riptide Laboratory warrants an inclusion.
It is in my opinion that Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir needs to be one of the first cards sought after for this design, past the basic combo parts. He does nothing for our combo, but his impact is extremely tremendous.
Another style of control via "hosing" the opponent is tuning your land-base around something like Back to Basics. While this is not optimal for speedy wins since your land-base has become slightly less reliable, it is an excellent inclusion for a meta with an absence of non-basic land hate.
Answering the opponent (past counterspells)
duress package in protection, mindtwist in 1v1
The unexpected - Darkness & Howl from Beyond
Meta hate - shadow of doubt, mindlock orb w/ tutorless combo
threats to our deck - cards that nerf our combo like tomorrow, azami's familiar
timewalk effects like exhaustion & mana vapors
Recursion
We do have access to quite a bit of creature based recursion since we are also playing with swamps. While a large chunk of our combos rely on creatures, from my personal experience, it is not always best to spend valuable card slots for excessive recursion. If you have too much recursion, then the decks design is boarderline reanimator/attrition and looses out on speed.
The only cards I've had a fleeting passion for when it comes to recursion are;
Call to Mind and Pull from the Deep are unique inclusions here that many people will dismiss. Retrieving any earlier spent spell from the 'yard is an incredible ability, not for just getting back a tutor to re-use, but to even recur a Counterspell to skew the opponents next few plays. If you are running a design with R, then I would also highly recommend Mystic Retrieval.
Wake the Dead is also an odd inclusion, but in a deck possibly full of etb-bounce creatures and value creatures, this ends up netting quite a bit of advantage when used correctly. It is tutor-able with Muddle the Mixture and Shred Memory. Do note that while it does require to be used on an opponents combat step, even if that opponent chooses to skip combat, you can still request priority as they pass phases to use this card.
Yawgmoth's Will is card worth mentioning and well worth including. A combo deck wants to go off as soon as possible, but often times it will be stopped by timely answers. Eventually a large number of our cards will end up in the graveyard, and with just a few of them we could possibly win. Yawgmoth's Will can enable this... if you have the mana. For the newer players, understand that playing this card has a slight learning curve, so it is suggested to test it whenever possible. It takes a bit of practice as learning the priority of which cards can be recovered, are worth recovering, or if it is actually worth expending Yawgmoth's Will.
In a tutor-heavy design it is often viable to chain together your tutor's after each other in one turn, then follow that turn by Will'ing them all back. Say you Vampiric Tutor for a Demonic Tutor, them Demonic Tutor for a Grim Tutor, and then you use Grim Tutor to find your Yawgmoth's Will. If you know your opponent can't answer quickly, then you can use Yawgmoth's Will to effectively re-use the 3 tutors from your 'yard. You've just turned a Vampiric Tutor and two turns into finding whatever combo parts you need.
9.) Knowing the flaws (unique things that disrupt the plan)
Also the deck has a few ways of generating infinite mana, so might as well include some 1-card win-conditions like Exsanguinate, Capsize, or Blue Sun's Zenith. If the mana is coming from a Deadeye Navigator combo then also by repairing him with another value creature we could draw/tutor yourself via Baleful Strix or Rune-Scarred Demon, or bounce the opponents world with Venser, Shaper Savant. Staff of Domination is another possibility that was in an earlier design of this deck that has been replaced.
The deck has many generic UB combinations that are just good and can often times win the game, that have nothing to do with finding a combo for the general;
Rite of Replication kicked on Rune-Scarred Demon. Ideally you want to cast your own demon to tutor up the Rite's, then kick it the following turn, netting you 6 6/6 flyers and 5 tutors. Pretty snazzy.
Here is how the deck works, combo essentials and card selection/options
The following combinations are (mostly) ordered by the # of cards required to complete the combo. It is classically known that the fewer cards to enable a combo, the better the combo. The best combo's only require two cards. There are (currently) no single-card combo's that create a win-condition when combined with Circu or Vela that I am aware of. Currently the smallest number of cards required for any functional combo is 3, including either Circu or Vela.
Having a combo that requires fewer cards is ideal. This makes it quicker to tutor up the needed parts, space for creating duplicate cards that have the same effect (if possible) of essential parts, and gives us room for dedicating more cards to obtain and protecting the combo.
Recent change - due to the removal of commander tuck storm cards have been removed from this design. The combo's that work with Circu tend to generate an infinite storm count so cards like Tendrils of Agony used to be an alternate win-condition if Circu was not available.
Combo with Circu!
Primary Circu Combo! (requires Circu and as few as two additional cards)
The easiest and quickest 3-card combo that we can use with Circu involves Phantasmal Image copying a Palinchron.
The phantasmalichron can bounce itself and be cast again, re-cloning the Palinchron. Bounce and cast ad nauseam. This gives us infinite mana so we can cast our general and continue the phantasmalichron combo, giving us infinite blue creature "cast" triggers, allowing Circu to exile away the opponents deck(s).
Any 4-cmc Clone variant will work, assuming we have Circu and Palinchron in play with at least one land that produces two mana. Clone, Clever Impersonator, Phyrexian Metamorph, Evil Twin, Sakashima's Student, Sakashima the Impostor all work here. We can tap seven lands (including at least one that taps for 2 mana), which adds 8 mana to our pool. It only takes four mana to cast the clone, which untaps the seven lands when it enters and copies Palinchron. We can use the last four floating to bounce the clone back. Again bounce and cast the clone ad nauseam for the win.
Secondary Circu Combo! (requires Circu and as few as two additional cards)
The etb-bounce creature we can cast from our hand for free thanks to Omniscience, which upon entry we want it to bounce itself back. Repeat ad nauseam and Circu can exile away the opponents deck(s).
These are just few that I prefer running myself, although there are many others. Below in the spoilers are all possibilities;
Both Batterskull and Ancestral Statue does work if you are bleeding out with Vela, but not work with Circu. Suncrusher is excluded from Circu since it also requires infinite mana to spam-bounce.
It is important to note that while our combo typically revolves around infinite mana or Omniscience, the cmc on these creatures is still very relevant. Often times these will be used early game for disruption, defense, or to recycle our own value effects.
The specific reason why I prefer these etb-creatures
After extensively playing this combo I have found that approximately 5 to 6 maindeck etb-bounce creatures is an effective number to run. They do enable our combo, but are also generically good at reusing value from our side or slowing down the opponent. It was necessary for me to run more in more aggro metas, but less than 5 I was always annoyed at having to tutor for them more often than other required parts. The variance in # is dependent on your meta, and if it is for multiplayer or 1v1.
Shrieking Drake is my 4'th favorite simply due to the mana cost. Dream Stalker is a very close inclusion here as his butt is great against aggro, but the flying is often times more relevant in meta, and is tutorable with Muddle the Mixture.
The Planshift "gateing" creatures like Cavern Harpy and Doomsday Specter are at the tail end. The Harpy is a must due to again the mana cost and its self-bounce ability, but also being tutorable with Muddle the Mixture. The specter is very good as an annoying threat on its own. Marsh Crocodile can be used to dump the opponents hands (you can stack the triggers to your favor and discard before bouncing the croc), but there is no point in doing this if you are already capable of finishing the combo.
Per the possible targeting of Phantasmal Image - some of these etb-bounce creatures do and do not target. We must be mindful lest we kill our own Phantasmal Image!
Tertiary Circu Combo! (requires Circu and as few as three additional cards)
Due to the mana-cost on Great Whale it is typically not the best of ideas to run him. He does fit in some of our combo's, he is a strictly worse version of Palinchron, and keeping that curve low is ideal.
With infinite mana we can then land our general and proceed bounce-looping with one of the etb-bounce creatures.
Quaternary Circu Combo! (requires Circu and as few as three additional cards)
If you run a deck with a higher creature count, then having one of the etb-bounce creatures may not be necessary.
While we sadly can't run Aluren, Cloudstone Curio can still help us bounce without requiring something like Æther Adept. With infinite mana from one of the above combinations then we can continue with our Circu exile plan. I ran this for a while when my deck had approximately 30 creatures, but with less creatures it was less advantageous.
We can cast either Peregrine DrakeGreat Whale or Palinchron, untap whatever amount of lands you can, then follow up with a Clone to copy the previous creature. Our Clone will untap the desired lands again, and the curio we can bounce the first creature. Just recast the Peregrine Drake or Palinchron and bounce the clone to continue the cycle.
The curio combo above also works with Cloud of Faeries and Phantasmal Image. Again this is tight on the mana - you will need to have the general in play already, and these exact cards.
Equilibrium can be considered a backup for Cloudstone Curio, but the requirements to make this work are stringent. First it must be stated very clearly that, unlike the above Cloudstone Curio interactions, Equilibrium manipulation can only utilize a clone if there are three creatures in the equation. The Curio triggers when a creature enters play (so a clone can effectively become what is being bounced), but Equilibrium triggers upon casting. If you cast a Clone and activate Equilibrium, the Clonecan not enter as what you bounce.
It is in my opinion although that Equilibrium is still worth an inclusion as you can use it to keep the opponents creatures off the field while you develop your own presence.
Equilibrium does work with other parts of our deck. By using two of the following creatures
and any land that taps for two mana, such as one of the following;
we can start a bounce-loop similar to how the Curio combo works. Utilizing a land that taps for 2 mana and untapping it from the creature entry means we have the extra mana to continually pay for Equilibrium.
This combination does require 5 cards (our general, two land-untap creatures, Equilibrium, and a special land like Temple of the False God).
This combination can work with clones, but by increasing it to rely on 6 cards, which becomes even more unlikely. With the above example, simply have the land-untap creature (like Great Whale) in play, and use a pair of clones to keep copying the Great Whale and the special land to generate the extra mana to enable Equilibrium and bounce the previous clone. Do note that Equilibriumtargets the creature, so you can not use Phantasmal Image in this scenario.
Combinations with Vela!
Primary Vela Combo! (requires Vela and as few as two additional cards)
So all of the above combo's work with both Circu and Vela. But Vela's bleed ability works when a creature leaves play, not when a creature is cast. This is a much more relaxed requirement when it comes to assembling a combo. The Deadeye Navigator mana combo above is actually all it takes to win with Vela, but can be complimented by Cloud of Faeries.
Secondary Vela Combo! (requires Vela and as few as three additional cards)
Another easy one is to bleed everyone by activating Pentavus's first and second ability repeatedly. Infinite mana from the above combo helps, but this mana does not require any color, so alternative infinite mana combo's can work.
There is also Rings of Brighthearth with Basalt Monolith. The Rings do not work for mana abilities, but again that untap ability is the key. You can tap the monolith for 3, then pay 3 to untap it, spend 2 to double the untap ability via rings, then tap the monolith another time before the rings trigger re-untaps it. You will net 1 colorless mana per sequence.
Including a secondary infinite mana combo next to the Deadeye also means further redundancy of 1-card win-conditions could be more viable. ExsanguinateBlue Sun's Zenith and Staff of Domination all have the potential to end the game with all this colorless mana.
Tertiary Vela Combo!
With our general in play, we can create a series of creature leaves play effects also by abusing Ghostly Flicker targeting an Archeomancer.
The Archeomancer will re-enter and can return the Ghostly Flicker to our hand from the graveyard. With Omnescience in play we can continue to cast the Ghostly Flicker for free. The Ghostly Flicker also allows us to flicker a 2nd object, such as a land, so we can generate the mana to cast Vela from the command zone.
Quaternary Vela Combo! (requires Vela and as few as two additional cards, + one upkeep)
While the above Pentavus combo is quick win, another way of approaching this is with infinite turns.
If both Thopter Assembly and Time Sieve get to stay on your battlefield for your next upkeep you have the potential for infinite turns.
This works by bouncing the assembly due to its ability, and sacrificing the five tokens it generated to Time Sieve. Next recast and resolve Thopter Assembly in this same turn. You get a free turn to loop the assembly. With Vela in play this little combo incidentally bleeds each opponent out for 6 life every turn, so you won't even have to dig for a win-condition.
It should be noted although that this is a dated and delicate combo. A combo is strong if all of the effects can occur in the same turn. The Thopter Assembly and Time Sieve combo requires you keep both of these artifacts out for a full turn (or lots of mana to flash them out via Leyline of Anticipation for example). Because the opponent is typically given time to answer this is considered a suboptimal combo.
Graveyard Vela Combo(s)!
Not only does Vela the Night-Clad combo with everything listed above that works with Circu, but her leaves play effect also opens doors to another series of combinations using gravestorm (see Bitter Ordeal). This section will list a few examples of graveyard shenanigans that generate an infinite loop of creature entry and exit, allowing Vela to bleed out the opponents. This pathway is completely different from the Circu approach - the following cards do not always synergies with other combinations in the deck. Most of these combinations require precise cards, which means there is less duplicates with the same functionality. This pathway for combo would essentially dictate a completely different sort of deck, with different supporting cards and themes. Utilizing these combos is more for an attrition style deck instead of a combo/control style deck.
It is in my personal opinion that going with this route of combinations is less effective in a competitive design. The above combinations can be disrupted by counter-magic and removal, but relying on the graveyard makes us susceptible to even more disruption. The combinations also (typically) require more cards to complete. The following combinations are not necessarily bad, but just less competitive in design due to the speed of obtaining more parts for the combination to work, the lack of easy duplicate cards in required parts, and the extra vulnerability by utilizing another zone.
The following combinations all give the potential for an infinite gravestorm, which is a mechanic found on Bitter Ordeal, but also a means to win with Blood Artist and/or Falkenrath Noble effects. Before commander-tuck was removed from the rules, these cards were suitable to include if Vela was not available to us. With our commander being more reliably accessible now these would be a frivolous inclusion.
Sacrifice Su-Chi to whatever effect you have in play, and use the mana Su-Chi gives you to reanimate him to the Nim Deathmantle. With Vela out we can bleed out the opponents, while also enjoying whatever effect the sacrifice outlet gives us.
Sacrifice the auxiliary creature to the sacrifice effect, and allow Rotlung Reanimator to generate a token. The auxiliary creature and the tokens created by Rotlung Reanimator will always generate another token when they die thanks to Xenograft or Conspiracy.
Another version of the above Rotlung combo that also requires 5-cards is Xenograft or Conspiracy (calling "Human"), Avacyn's Collar and Ashnod's Altar, along with any creature and our general.
Equip and sacrifice an auxiliary creature to Ashnod's altar to gain two mana, which we can use to re-equip the token generated by Avacyn's Collar.
Brewing Combos! Dissipation Field seems like it might be able to enable some sort of chain. A close out-of-color inclusion would be Electric Eel and Paradise Plume + some blue mana generation (intruder alarm + silver myr for example). But alas there is no other etb-creature that triggers damage in our colors, and the mana mechanic requires too many cards. Not enough duplicate parts for reliance. Too many cards required to run!
Master Transmuter seems like there should be some combo. It honestly feels like it has been just waiting to be realized, lofting mockingly behind some comboy shadow. An inclusion could be Gilded Lotus as an easy artifact to keep bouncing with her to generate mana. An old classic mana combo with her and the lotus is just enchanting her with Freed from the Real. Aura of Domination might act as a backup since we might be bounce-looping a creature to help the untap. Sadly Deceiver Exarch is not an artifact at all times (in our hands) to keep abusing with her, and fatestitcher is a one-time use unless we have more intruder alarm nonsense. Dross Scorpion seems like it would help untap her if we added some sort of blasting station tech, but the # of cards is beginning to get too high.
Mirran Spy seems easy enough and might produce the blue-cast creature trigger we need.
Since transmuter is a human it seems like Captain of the Mists should be able to interact with her in some way.
But we would need an easier way to untap her, and a colorful artifact to add to the cycling. Courier's Capsule, Executioner's Capsule, hell even something cute like etherium astrolob could function here for the colorful trigger for Circu.
Here is how the deck works, combo essentials and card selection/options
The following combinations are (mostly) ordered by the # of cards required to complete the combo. It is classically known that the fewer cards to enable a combo, the better the combo. The best combo's only require two cards. There are (currently) no single-card combo's that create a win-condition when combined with Circu or Vela that I am aware of. Currently the smallest number of cards required for any functional combo is 3, including either Circu or Vela.
Having a combo that requires fewer cards is ideal. This makes it quicker to tutor up the needed parts, space for creating duplicate cards that have the same effect (if possible) of essential parts, and gives us room for dedicating more cards to obtain and protecting the combo.
Recent change - due to the removal of commander tuck storm cards have been removed from this design. The combo's that work with Circu tend to generate an infinite storm count so cards like Tendrils of Agony used to be an alternate win-condition if Circu was not available.
Secondary Circu Combo! (requires Circu and as few as two additional cards)
Tertiary Circu Combo! (requires Circu and as few as three additional cards)
Quaternary Circu Combo! (requires Circu and as few as three additional cards)
Combinations with Vela!
Secondary Vela Combo! (requires Vela and as few as three additional cards)
Tertiary Vela Combo!
Quaternary Vela Combo! (requires Vela and as few as two additional cards, + one upkeep)
Graveyard Vela Combo(s)!
Brewing Combos!
Dissipation Field seems like it might be able to enable some sort of chain. A close out-of-color inclusion would be Electric Eel and Paradise Plume + some blue mana generation (intruder alarm + silver myr for example). But alas there is no other etb-creature that triggers damage in our colors, and the mana mechanic requires too many cards. Not enough duplicate parts for reliance. Too many cards required to run!
Master Transmuter seems like there should be some combo. It honestly feels like it has been just waiting to be realized, lofting mockingly behind some comboy shadow. An inclusion could be Gilded Lotus as an easy artifact to keep bouncing with her to generate mana. An old classic mana combo with her and the lotus is just enchanting her with Freed from the Real. Aura of Domination might act as a backup since we might be bounce-looping a creature to help the untap. Sadly Deceiver Exarch is not an artifact at all times (in our hands) to keep abusing with her, and fatestitcher is a one-time use unless we have more intruder alarm nonsense. Dross Scorpion seems like it would help untap her if we added some sort of blasting station tech, but the # of cards is beginning to get too high.
Other pay-to-untap would be staff of domination and voltaic construct and Filigree Sages.
Mirran Spy seems easy enough and might produce the blue-cast creature trigger we need.
Since transmuter is a human it seems like Captain of the Mists should be able to interact with her in some way.
But we would need an easier way to untap her, and a colorful artifact to add to the cycling. Courier's Capsule, Executioner's Capsule, hell even something cute like etherium astrolob could function here for the colorful trigger for Circu.
Amulet of Vigor means we could keep bouncing a mistvein borderpost with the transmuter to generate mana.
If there were an easier way to untap her then she could easily go infinite with meteorite.
Another looping creature could be Triskelion.
A graveyard looping creature could function with Blasting Station again if we had mana.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!