Magic Deck Vortex: July 2006 Combos

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July's (2006) Featured Combos. Last updated 7/9/06 (20/20 Combos, 20 Deck Links, 1 Infinite Combos)
Protean Hulk - Greater Good - Gleancrawler
This combo was submitted by Matthew Jackson - and many thanks to him else I would have been completely oblivious to the "The End" deck that was in standard (and may still be). With these three cards in play you can sacrifice your Hulk to Greater Good and draw net three cards, search our your library or creatures cards with total converted mana cost of 6 or less and put them into play... THEN! At end of turn, return the Hulk to play thanks to Gleancrawler. That's just wrong. That's also a great combo! Thanks, Matthew!
Dark Depths - Æther Snap
OH SNAP! I know I just didn't sneak a Coldsnap combo into this page! Well, I did. Dark Depths has cool artwork and an even meaner Avatar waiting below it. What sucks though is paying a total of thirty mana to get the 20/20 flying avatar named "Marit Lage" into play. If you don't want to wait ten turns to get Marit Lage into play, just Æther Snap it. It removes all of those crazy ice counters from Dark Depths and propels your flying avatar into play. With a dark ritual or two, you could accomplish this in two turns or less. Note: I never pictured Marit Lage as a giant flying serpent Avatar indestructible thing. Double-note: If you're up against a blue player, be sure to have some Whispersilk Cloaks and/or Lightning Greaves around. Oh, and Einsteinmonkey and I have put together a deck around this combo...just for you!
Peace of Mind - Ensnaring Bridge
Back in the day there was this deck called "Iron Phoenix" that abused the interaction of Peace of Mind, Ensnaring Bridge, Cursed Scroll and Shard Phoenix. With Peace of Mind you can have a little control over how your Ensnaring Bridge affects the board all the while gaining life. With Shard Phoenix you have a repeating discard engine that can gain you life and with an empty hand you can take full advantage of Cursed Scroll. It was quite the evil deck. And a nice combo too!
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - Triskelion
Who doesn't love Triskelion? Who cares. I know I love Triskelion. This two card combo makes use of Kamahl's first ability. You know, the turn a land into a 1/1 creature for one green mana. Once you do that, just use Triskelion to ping that animated land and kill it. Suddenly, Triskelion is turned into a land destruction machine. Mind you, normally you could only kill three lands with Triskelion and Kamahl, but I have faith in you. You can find ways to replenish those counters on 'ol Skelly. Oh, and make sure to target your opponent's lands...
Reins of Power - Spawning Pit
Some of you, if you've been visiting Magic Deck Vortex since the beginning, may recall a combo I pushed using Reins of Power and Claws of Gix to basically kill all of your opponent's creatures. This combo, while good, had flaws. In order to sacrifice your opponent's creatures after you 'rein of power'ed' them you had to pay 1 mana for each. Thanks for Einsteinmonkey's comments during an article I wrote earlier this year, this combo has been perfected. That is, you won't have to pay 1 mana to sacrifice your opponent's creatures while you control them. You can just use Spawning Pit to do the dirty work for you, all the while building a nice army of 2/2 Spawn artifact creatures too.
Doubling Season - Saproling Burst
It's a good think Doubling Season came out in Ravnica and not back during the Masques Era. If it did, I think we would have had another Ice Age Necropotence disaster. [See Chris Newton's articles if you don't know what I'm talking about.] Anyway, with Saproling Burst, by itself, you can amass a hoard of large Saproling creatures fast. Just removing 3 counters the turn it comes into play will net you three 4/4 creatures. Now let us add Doubling Season to the mix! Burst will come into play with 14 Fading counters. Remove one fading counter for a 13/13, or remove four fading counters for four 10/10 Saproling token creatures. Oh, and this combo is mono-green. You go, beatdown combo mages.
Leyline of Singularity - Hatching Plans
Imagine playing a card for two mana (1U) and netting six cards from it? Almost like an Ancestral Recall on steroids. Well, it's not quite that; there's a little planning involved. Note to all blue players: If you are playing a deck with Leyline of Singularity you must play a full set of Hatching Plans. If this Leyline is in play and you already have Hatching Plans in play too, when you cast another Hatching Plans they both go to the graveyard, netting you six cards. This is all thanks to the new 'Legendary' rule.
Blood Moon - Goblin King
This combo was submitted by Benjamin Wolvansky quite some time ago. But that doesn't make this any less of a potent combo. Goblin King is nice; a +1/+1 to all goblins and mountainwalk to them all as well. However, when your opponent isn't playing with any mountains the mountainwalk ability is wasted. Not so true, though, if you pack a Blood Moon or four in your deck. Big goblins are nice, but big unblockable goblins is better. That's what this combo makes - unblockable, big goblins.
Spike Cannibal - Aku Djinn
This is a nice old-school combo for you. Using Aku Djinn to beef up your opponent's creatures with lots and lots of +1/+1 counters you can then use Spike Cannibal to steal them all and end up with a very large Spike! It's that simple. The tricky part will be keeping your opponent's creatures from attacking and killing you before you can set off your combo. At least I have a deck list for you on this one.
Floodgate - Helm of Possession
Floodgate is a cool card from Mirage that offered blue mages of that time with mass removal. Mind you, bad mass removal, but removal nonetheless. For each two islands you control, when Floodgate leaves play, it deals 1 damage to each nonblue creature without flying. Yes, I'm paraphrasing... Anyway, there are many good ways to make your floodgate leave play but Helm of Possession is an interesting and controlling one. Just sacrifice your Floodgate to the Helm, control one of your opponent's nice big creatures and then watch all of your opponents' weenies die (depending on how many islands you control of course, and also assuming they aren't blue and they don't have flying)... [sigh]
Limited Resources - Annex
Limited Resources is a fun little white control card from Exodus that when paired with land destruction or land control cards, makes for a vicious combo. Want to lock down you opponent to four, three or (gasp) two lands.. this is the way to go. Limited Resources makes players sacrifice down to five lands and then won't allow new land drops if there are ten or more lands in play. Thus, if you control on your opponent's five lands you now have six and them four. Thanks Annex. I love your art too.
Sprouting Phytohydra - Goblin Sharpshooter - Goblin Bombardment
I'm going to quote Greyfell here: "If a token hits the graveyard, it actually stays there just long enough to set off affects that check for things hitting the graveyard. Hence, when a Phytohydra goes to the graveyard, it untaps Sharpshooter. Sharpshooter then can ‘ping’ the new hydra, which makes a copy. Sacrifice the old one with the damage on it to Bombardment. This deals your opponent a point of damage and untaps Sharpshooter for another go."
Merfolk Assassin - War Barge
I can't believe I never posted this combo before.. I mean it's "The Dark" and all. I must have just overlooked it. Anyway, this is an oldie and an annoying combo too. Not to mention it's COMPLETELY out of the color pie for blue. Let's see, I'll use War Barge to give your biggest creature islandwalk. Then, just to be spiteful, I'll let you attack. Before damage is ever dealt, I'll tap my cute little Assassin Merfolk and destroy your creature. Mind you, you don't have to do this during combat, but I think it's more annoyingly fun to do so. If only Merfolk Assassin had Morph.
Standstill - Hanna, Ship's Navigator
For a lady who's a maker and not a destroyer, Standstill is right up her ally. Standstill will net you three cards if your opponent plays a spell and then you can just spend a little mana and a tap of Hanna and return Standstill to your hand to be played again. Lots of card advantage and, as Hanna would like it, you aren't destroying anything with it. Leave that to the cards you actually draw.
Nightcreep - Crusading Knight or White Knight
Nightcreep is the spawn of Darkest Hour, Blanket of Night and Evermind (minus the blue and draw a card part). Nightcreep is weaker at long term affects and greater at the fast-effect-combo-you-till-you-die-kills. With that said, despite me mentioning just two creatures with Protection from Black, there are actually over forty of them (cards) with the phrase in their rules text. And there are around forty cards that have "swampwalk" in their rules text. Furthermore, Nightcreep likes creatures with Protection from black and Swampwalk. I'll leave the rest up to you.
Yet Another Æther Vortex - Hua Tuo, Honored Physician
I would have never known this combo existed had it not been for Chris Newton's Shifting Lineaments article a while back. That and despite running a casual website and all, I'm not a big fan of UN sets. With Yet Another Æther Vortex, all noninstant, nonsorcery cards on the top of your library are in play in additional to being in that library. Note: Your top card is reveal. With Hua Tuo, you can take any fun artifact, creature or enchantment from your graveyard and put it on top of your library... technically putting it into play.. or not so technically. Interestingly confusing stuff here - I like it.
Heed the Mists - Congregation at Dawn
While this is a clunky combo I had to post it. Not because it is majorly awesome because, wouldn't you know it, Chris Millar over @ WotC's site made a deck around it. Loaded with lots of fat creatures like Myojins, The Unspeakable and Maro's from Kamigawa you can make that five mana work REAL well for you. However, Congregation at Dawn is what does the trick. Stack your deck with those big creatures thanks to Congregation and then follow up with a Heed the Mists drawing maybe eight, nine or eleven cards. All for five mana! Fun combo.
Dark Suspicions - Bottled Cloister
Let's begin with Dark Suspicions, you know, one of those dollar or less rares. At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player loses 1 life for each card in his or her hand more than you have in your hand. OK, I'm quoting. BUT! What better way to empty your hand temporarily than with Bottled Cloister. You get all of your cards back at the beginning of your upkeep and while having an empty hand during your opponent's turn, you successfully deal damage to your opponent(s) with Dark Suspicions (assuming they have any cards in hand at all).
Equilibrium - Pandemonium - Imaginary Pet
Pandemonium is a fun card all by itself, but when paired with Equilibrium, it becomes a killer card. Play a creature, deal damage in the amount of its power to an opponent, then pay 1 and return it to your hand to cast again, dealing more damage. The trick is finding big creatures for cheap, like Familiar Pet or even Okk. The bigger the creature for less the mana, the more damage you can deal to your opponent thanks to Pandemonium. Seems combolicious to me.
Memory Jar - Megrim
Ahhh.. good old Memory Jar. A card that went from 'Huh?' to 'Broken' in a very short time. If you want to take full advantage of Memory Jar in a way that can deal damage to your opponent, try Megrim. The deck link to the left was a deck created by Randy Buehler called 'Jar'. With lots of mana from Lion's Eye Diamond, Dark Ritual and Mana Vault, churning out two memory jars and a Megrim wasn't a problem. Discarding 14 cards in one turn with a Megrim in play meant 28 damage to your opponents' heads. Too bad this deck isn't very legal anymore...
Your Combo Here!
You could have your combo featured in this spot right here (not literally, but on a future combo page). Email the webmaster with any combos you'd like to submit. Try to make sure your combo works and that there isn't already that combo on any other MDV combo page. You can always Search Magic Deck Vortex with the new search tool to make sure before submitting it. I greatly appreciate your efforts to make these combo pages better. Every once in a while I have a page chock-full of your submitted combos... although I will admit about 75% of all submitted combos are duplicates.
Did you know...?
To the right and left of this text is something called the MDV Deck Link. You will only find these link buttons on the combo pages. When you click on a MDV Deck Link it will take you to a deck related to the combo where you found it. If the button is to the left of the combo text, this means there is a deck already linked. If the link is to the right, there is a deck found or that is going to be posted. Or it is a combo I am currently looking for a deck using it. Mind you, not all decks links are going to center around that particular combo, although most do. Remember, I strongly encourage you to not copy any deck on MDV, but to use it as a reference or inspiration for your own. Enjoy the combo pages! ~John Streetz~