All of the following card combinations can win the game by turn one. While turn one wins are extremely rare even for this deck, turn two wins are often achieved. A high concentration of early game enablers gives this deck the ability to win at any stage of the game with a minimal to nonexistant board presence. These lines to victory include:
1) Ad Nauseam+Fast Mana: This is the easiest path to victory. While any number of card combinations can get us to 5 mana the simplest involves Land+Dark Ritual+Mana Crypt/Mana Vault.
2) Dramatic Reversal+Isochron Scepter+3 mana worth nonland based permanent ramp. The turn 1 victory requires something like Mana Crypt/Mana Vault+Mox Opal in addition to the two combo pieces. This is our most mana efficient combo 4 mana (or two mana with LED in hand), but unlike ad naus or engine it requires two specific combo pieces to go off.
3) Paradox Engine+Self Replacing Card+Fast Mana Rocks: This is harder to come by with more initial points of failure. To realistically get engine to the point where it is self sustaining you will usually need at least 3 mana worth of rocks in total with 1 that can tap for all colors (i.e Fellwar Stone; Mox Diamond; Mox Opal). You also will need a cantrip or tutor that replaces itself after the initial untap to start producing mana and to (hopefully) draw into fuel. If we get stuck with nothing but interaction after the first few spells (which is relatively common scenario) a great way to get ahead on mana is to cast a removal spell (i.e nature's claim), then counter it (i.e. mental misstep) and then counter that spell (i.e pact of negation). Since engine untaps everything on CAST, not resolution, you will get to untap everything 3 times for one mana total. This will often allow you to activate Thrasios' draw ability until you get to the spell that will end the game. The engine win condition snowballs very quickly so if you manage to untap after casting it on an ad nauseam turn, its almost impossible to fizzle.
4) Waste Not+Wheel of Fortune/Windfall/Whispering Madness: This combo is a nice enabler for many wheel based decks, but this deck is designed to consistently win the turn it is assembled. While the results of this pairing can vary widely, one can often expect to at least draw 10-12 cards, produce 8-10 black mana, and have a couple of zombies for good measure. If we are fortunate enough to draw directly into an Ad Nauseam or Paradox Engine or the means to assemble Dramatic Reversal+Isochron Scepter its often gg. However it is more often the case that we have to continue to dig by playing rocks that produce blue or red mana for more wheels or tutors for ad naus or engine. This line often requires numerous decisions along the way that will make or break our ability to get there.
5) Yawgmoth's Will, Lion's Eye Diamond and stuff: The turn 1 win will require a minimum of Dark Ritual, Ad Naus or a card like Demonic Tutor/Grim Tutor, and LED+Yawgwin. Turn 2-3 wins are vastly more common. This line is fairly difficult to describe in typical situations so I will simply describe the first game where I realized the potential of yawgwin and LED. I was playing in a 4 player pod and I drew my second seven after using my free mulligan:
Lion's Eye Diamond, Mystical Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will, Pact of Negation, Nature's Claim, and two fetchlands. My initial thought was "Damn this is a shit hand." I did not want to go down to 6 and I had something to play on turn one and two so I kept the hand. I went first and drew my first card Tainted Pact. At first I was a bit irritated, and then in a flash of insight I came to the realization "shit I could win on my next turn." I played my fetchland and passed turn. Each of my opponents played a land and tapped out for a 1 drop spell (2 dorks and a mystic remora), so with the coast likely clear and a free counterspell to boot, I crack my fetchland for an Underground Sea and use Mystical Tutor to topdeck Dark Ritual.
Turn 2: Play my second fetchland, Play LED, Tap Sea to play ritual. Use my BBB to cast Yawgmoth's Will hold priority crack LED before yawgwin resolves, put BBB in my mana pool. From my graveyard I cast ritual from my graveyard to go to BBBBB then play and crack LED to go to BBBBBUUU and one untapped land. Yeah thats 9 mana...I then proceed to topdeck Ad Nauseam with Mystical Tutor, "draw" it with Tainted Pact then cast it with one untapped land available. Now this deck is built to win off a main phase ad nauseam, but luck was not with me. Despite drawing into enough cards to produce 7 mana post ad naus I never did get the cards necessary to play engine or dramatic scepter. I ended up fizzling and rewarded my Mystic Remora opponent with 19 cards of a first turn U spell.
While that particular attempt did not produce a turn 2 win it opened my eyes to the possible lines within my deck. The beauty of yawgwin & LED is that a number of different combinations of tutors and rituals can produce a similarly explosive start. As the game goes on, this path to victory gets much stronger. Worst case scenario you pay for 2 Black Lotus and the ability to play every card from your hand and graveyard for the rest of the turn.
