MTG Salvation

Reaper King: an Angel of Glory's Rise combo deck

About the deck

This deck is a combo deck. It has the ability to infinitely mill your opponent, infinitely exile your opponents' library, gain infinite life, make infinite creatures, deal infinite damage, destroy infinite permanents, exile infinite creatures. But you don't have to feel guilty as it is a (set of) 4 card combo(s).

You might like playing Angel of Glory's Rise in EDH if:

• You like to win the same way every time. Yes, I know above I told you that it can do all these things infinitely. In fact, in most games you will probably be free to choose which of them of you do. Unfortunately, when you can go off your opponents will probably scoop.
• You like not interacting with others in the game. This gives you plenty of time to socialize while you play as you don't need to keep tabs on what others are doing, there is nothing you can do about them really.
• You like not having to play your general to win.
• You want to punish your group for not playing disruption.

You might not like playing Angel of Glory's Rise in EDH if:

• You firmly believe that humans should not emerge from the grave unless they come back as zombies.

I can't think of any other reasons.

The decklist. Sorted by function and then CMC

Breakdown of the combo:

This deck has a couple of key card types; THE ENGINE, THE RECURSION, THE OUTLET and the THE MANA (or the THE ENGINE.

The first key card type is THE ENGINE. It is currently a single card: Angel of Glory's Rise. Without this card the deck does not work. In fact, the deck is so all in on Angel of Glory's Rise that you will probably play Pull from Eternity just to make sure you can win if the Angel gets exiled. Awkward. The combo works by abusing the Angel's ETB battlefield ability.

The second key card type is THE RECURSION. The recursion is designed to allow for abuse the ETB ability of Angel of Glory's Rise. If you played post-DKA pre-Theros standard, the classic example of a card in this category is Fiend Hunter. Five options currently exist for this role.

The third key card type is THE OUTLET. The outlet allows you to sacrifice the creature exiling the Angel, or, if Saffi Eriksdotter is in play sacrifice the Angel directly after sacrificing Saffi to recur the Angel. Now, the Angel will ETB and will cause all of the humans to rise from their graves. Four human outlets currently exist for this role when using the criteria that the sacrifice must cost 1 or less and not require tapping:

Note 1: Disciple of Griselbrand probably isn't good enough to play as infinite life isn't great.
Note 2: Plenty of non-human outlets exist, but Angel doesn't pull them back into play.

The fourth key card type technically has 2 subtypes THE EFFECT and THE MANA. The effect is for when you have a Cartel Aristocrat in play as your outlet, and human with an enter the battlefield effect will go infinite and Kamahl, Pit Fighter should win you the game there and then. The mana is for when you have any other outlet in play, and involves a human creature with an ETB float mana ability. You can use this creature's mana to sacrifice itself (or Wild Cantor sacrifices itself to generate the mana) and the recursion. The various options for the mana are below:

Mash the card types together and say "I win".

A 4 card combo, eh? How do I assemble it?:

• Ranger of Eos can tutor for an outlet (Thoughtpicker Witch) and a mana piece (Wild Cantor).
• Intuition can grab any combo piece (3 variants of the part), but you'll probably be grabbing unburial rites, faithless looting and the Angel, or if you have the Angel grab all 3 combo pieces. It is a very flexible card.
• Survival of the Fittest chain through each card type.
• Defense of the Heart grabs any two combo pieces; most likely Angel and a recursion piece.
• Congregation at Dawn grabs any 3 pieces. Often you'll place Undercity Informer on top of the library to mill the next two pieces on your next turn.
• Buried Alive bins three pieces. I think because it bins 3 out of 4 components it is better here than Entomb.
• Jarad's Orders grabs 1 piece, bins 1 piece.
• Birthing Pod chain pieces. See below.
• Insidious Dreams is probably the best tutor. Got all the pieces except for Angel? Why not go for X=3 and grab Faithless Looting/Thought Scour, Unburial Rites, and Angel, in that order, and win next turn? Need two more combo pieces too, why not go for X=6, grab Thought Scour, combo piece 1, combo piece 2, Faithless Looting, angel, and unburial rites? (I currently don't have this option available, but its reasonable if you build toward it).

What do I grab with Birthing Pod?

Your first point of call for Birthing Pod is to get your combo pieces accessible. They exist in the chain at CMCs of 1-5 and 7. Prioritize getting THE RECURSION and Ranger of Eos - as the Ranger will get you the other non-Angel components.

1 CMC: Heap Doll
2 CMC: War Priest of Thune, Snapcaster Mage
3 CMC: Blade Splicer, Borderland Ranger, Eternal Witness, Manic Vandal
4 CMC: Nekrataal, Notion Thief, Huntmaster of the Fells, Ranger of Eos
5 CMC: Zealous Conscriptsl
6 CMC: Kamahl, Pit Fighter, Captain of the Watch
7 CMC: Rune-Scarred Demon

Across these creatures you have answers to most types of permanents.

I am currently trying to fit in an Academy Rector to tutor for the array of useful enchantments for plan A and plan C (see below!)

How do you get a big hand for insidious dreams?

A couple of things that are in the deck for this purpose.

• Mulch and Life from the Loam can stock you up on lands (Yes, I need to fix up the mana base for this to really be the case!)
• Whispering Madness (Which is pretty darn awesome with Notion Thief - especially when everyone locally loves drawing cards.
• Memory Jar

But you are all in on one card, what happens when they exile it?

Then we Pull from Eternity. In fact, we have ways to pull angel back multiple times. Including Regrowth and Noxious Revival, Eternal Witness and even Snapcaster Mage on Pull From Eternity.

Oh, and the bonus of running this package is that...

Intuition becomes search a tutor for any single card.

Is there a plan B?

Yep.

Reaper King (I knew there was a reason for this general) blows **** up.

We only run 1 scarecrow in here, Heap Doll (tutorable with Ranger of Eos), but 3 creatures with changeling.

Additionally we run Conspiracyand Xenograft. You want to be really bloody careful with Conspiracy as it can turn off your combo, but with enough creatures in hand you should be able to blow it up after letting it do some work.

Changes

Wanted to add

• Academy Rector
  
• Pernicious Deed

Wanted to remove

• Priest of Urabrask
  
• Changeling Titan

Does anyone have thoughts, comments or suggestions?

Needs more cowbell and Goblin Bombardment.

Quote from trancer99

Needs more cowbell and Goblin Bombardment.

Cowbell?

I'd consider Goblin Bombardment if I added in Academy Rector, but otherwise, it isn't quite as easy to resolve as the creature based pieces.

The cowbell part is a joke...

Quote from KoolMaqe

The cowbell part is a joke...

Okay, I didn't get the reference. Looked it up, but I still don't understand its relevance to the post. What's the link?

why Repear king?.. I'd of thought Karona, the false good would be the choice. I guess you have changlings...


Well you could cut the basic lands and play Hermit Druid and Insta win. Cutting borderland ranger obviously.

more tutors that put it straight in the graveyard.
Entomb
Buried alive


reanimation
living end

How do you deal with Jester's cap or Sadistic sacrament ?

Quote from Narvuntien

why Repear king?.. I'd of thought Karona, the false good would be the choice. I guess you have changlings...

That's my current thinking, but Karona may be a reasonable choice.

Quote from Narvuntien

Well you could cut the basic lands and play Hermit Druid and Insta win. Cutting borderland ranger obviously.

I feel like Hermit Druid would make the deck too fast and consistent for local play. This deck, while consistent, is a fair bit slower than if Hermit Druid was added. Also, being known as someone who plays Hermit Druid puts a big target on your back.

Quote from Narvuntien

more tutors that put it straight in the graveyard.
Entomb
Buried alive

Already running buried alive. I am not sure if grabbing one piece is sufficient to warrent Entomb, but I may be wrong.

Quote from Narvuntien

reanimation
living end

That's a good idea, I'll see if I can test it out.

Quote from Narvuntien

How do you deal with Jester's cap or Sadistic sacrament ?

Hope that they can only use it once. Each combo piece has at least 4 versions, meaning that they'd need to cap/sacrament me twice to remove my ability to combo. Also, even if they do, I can pull from eternity, until they remove it.

Consider Riptide Shapeshifter. It may be a little slow, but it does have the benefit of grabbing your angel directly from your deck and dodging the graveyard entirely, in case people have something like Leyline of the Void or a Relic of Progenitus out.

Also, from the looks of it, it isn't necessary for the sacrifice outlet to be human. I suppose it does have the benefit that you can tutor it into your graveyard and then reanimate it along with the rest with the angel, but for the combo to work, all you really need is a free sac outlet, the angel itself and one of the five recursion pieces.

Altar of Dementia is a good inclusion, since it can both help to fill your graveyard and acts as a win condition by itself, requiring only the first two combo pieces. Goblin Bombardment does the same, as was pointed out earlier. Greater Good will keep dumping things in your graveyard until you assemble the rest of the combo and is just a good draw engine period.

Quote from Marelt Ekiran

Consider Riptide Shapeshifter. It may be a little slow, but it does have the benefit of grabbing your angel directly from your deck and dodging the graveyard entirely, in case people have something like Leyline of the Void or a Relic of Progenitus out.

I like this suggestion, the main issue is that those hate pieces would turn off the combo anyway. But I like the card because it can also tutor a scarecrow or shapeshifter with reaper king out to blow up a hate piece.

Quote from Marelt Ekiran

Also, from the looks of it, it isn't necessary for the sacrifice outlet to be human. I suppose it does have the benefit that you can tutor it into your graveyard and then reanimate it along with the rest with the angel, but for the combo to work, all you really need is a free sac outlet, the angel itself and one of the five recursion pieces.

Spot on.

Altar of Dementia is a good inclusion, since it can both help to fill your graveyard and acts as a win condition by itself, requiring only the first two combo pieces. Goblin Bombardment does the same, as was pointed out earlier. Greater Good will keep dumping things in your graveyard until you assemble the rest of the combo and is just a good draw engine period.[/QUOTE]

I really like Altar and Greater Good. I'm still not sold in Goblin Bombardment as it doesn't do much until the combo is online and isn't a human.


--

Thanks for the suggestions.

Oh, and another suggestion. Perhaps a bit weird, but potentially very effective.

Artificial Evolution

Hit your commander with it and change his wording from "Scarecrow" to "Human". Suddenly, all your little utility humans have a vindicate attached to them, to get you out of tricky situations (like the aforementioned Leyline of the Void) and even a single resolution of the angel will in all likelihood blow up half your opponent's boards, even if you don't have the other combo pieces yet.

As a minor additional benefit, you can sometimes ruin opponent's tribal strategies with it. Changing Azami to make her tap Beebles might buy you a few turns.

Isn't reaper king mandatory?

Quote from KoolMaqe

Isn't reaper king mandatory?

Yes? So don't play any more guys once you've blown up all of every ones permanents?