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20 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers
1 Miren, the Moaning Well

Dead of Knight.

Description of deck by it's author (quoted):
Most of the mail suggested that Haakon should be paired with Saviors of Kamigawa Reject Rare Extraordinaire, Ashes of the Fallen. If someone had told me six months ago that I would already have used Ashes of the Fallen in four decks, I would've called that person a filthy liar. Then I would've apologized, because, alas, it is true. Two of the decks used Ashes (naming Samurai) to enable Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho to return any creature that it was equipping. The other two decks used Ashes (naming Bird or Cleric) to take advantage of Celestial Gatekeeper's double-Zombify ability. In Haakon's case, you'll obviously want to name “Knight” with Ashes of the Fallen. Haakon, scourge though he is, seems to have a soft spot for his slain comrades in the knighthood. As long as he's in play, you can play Knights directly from your graveyard, and with Ashes of the Fallen turning all of your graveyard-dwelling critters into Knights, this means you can play any creature directly from your graveyard. If Elton John can be knight, why can't an Ornithopter?

Using the combo, Jesper Wikström built a deck that featured Mindslicer (who needs a hand when you can play your creature spells from the graveyard?) and Kami of False Hope to prevent your opponent from doing key things, like “have a hand” and “deal damage to you.” In response to my article about Sanguine Praetor, Dustin Lesperance mentioned that the combo would work nicely alongside the Praetor, allowing you to cherry-pick the creature with the most relevant mana-cost from your graveyard. I suspect that it wouldn't be quite as consistent as, say, the Dredge-heavy version of the deck, but you wouldn't have to restrict yourself to Dredge creatures and that opens up a lot of possibilities. Patrick O., meanwhile, took the Haakon + Ashes of the Fallen combo, and added the aforementioned Ornithopter and Nantuko Husk to the equation. Since you can play Ornithopter for zero-mana from your graveyard, you can play it, sacrifice it to Nantuko Husk, and replay it, as many times as you like. This will make your Husk arbitrarily large, as big as, say, the CN Tower. If you don't like Nantuko Husk, you could make some other creature arbitrarily large. Fallen Angel or Carrion Feeder, for instance. You could make them as big as Yankee Stadium or the Pacific Ocean. While we're doing things arbitrarily, we might as well make a preposterous amount of mana (say, six bushels of it) by sacrificing the poor Thopter on a Phyrexian Altar. What can we do with all this mana? Well, Stromgald Crusader surely wouldn't mind if you used some of that Black mana to give him the ol' “Pump and Jump.” The other option would be to perform some serious spirit-consuming with, uh, Consume Spirit.

Haakon does his best work when he wakes up on the right side of the grumper, so to make sure that he arrives there safely, I've included a set of Buried Alives, and, just in case he gets stuck in your hand, a pair of Last Rites. The Buried Alives allow you to put Haakon where he needs to be, but it can also fetch other parts of the combo, namely Ornithopter and Nantuko Husk. So while it might seem like the deck uses a four-card combo (Haakon, Ashes, Ornithopter, and Nantuko Husk), you can get the job done with just two cards, Buried Alive and Ashes of the Fallen.

Each time I reanimate Haakon, or one of his freshly be-knighted minions, I like to say, “Wise fwom your gwaves!” as a tribute to the Sega Genesis> “Classic,” Altered Beast. This is an incredibly fun thing to do, although your opponent might find it a touch annoying when you say it thirty-five times in the middle of your “infinite” loop.

As always, this is just one possible way to build the deck. It's a little less dependent on Ashes of the Fallen than a purer combo version. If need be, the deck like a cross between a watered-down aggro deck and a watered-down control deck. Haakon and Stromgald Crusader will ensure that you don't run out of threats, even if your opponent destroys your Ashes, and you can always just send a huge Cabal Coffers-fueled Consume Spirit to the dome if the game goes long enough.

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by Chris Millar @ www.wizards.com

INFINITY: Haakon - Ashes of the Fallen / Ornithopter / Phyrexian Altar