(Mag)pie in Your Face

Commander / EDH GWU (Bant) Infinite Combo Mill

205cwood

Land (37)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Brushland
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Deserted Beach
• 1x Dreamroot Cascade
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 4x Forest
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 4x Island
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Overgrown Farmland
• 2x Plains
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Spara's Headquarters
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Yavimaya Coast
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Win the Game (4)

• 1x Merrow Witsniper
• 1x Manic Scribe
• 1x Suture Priest
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant

Utility (2)

• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Karmic Guide

Combo (12)

• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Werefox Bodyguard
• 1x Wormfang Drake
• 1x Felidar Guardian
• 1x Glorious Protector
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Phantom Steed
• 1x Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel
• 1x Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
• 1x Lumbering Battlement

Ramp (7)

• 1x Farseek
• 1x Simic Signet
• 1x Talisman of Curiosity
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Talisman of Unity
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x Topiary Stomper

Draw (5)

• 1x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Wall of Blossoms
• 1x Wall of Omens
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Beck / Call

Mana (5)

• 1x Cloud of Faeries
• 1x Prosperous Innkeeper
• 1x Quirion Sentinel
• 1x Sailor of Means
• 1x Peregrine Drake

Combat Save (2)

• 1x Selfless Squire
• 1x Haze Frog

End of Turn Blink (2)

• 1x Eerie Interlude
• 1x Semester's End

Commander (1)

Counter (7)

• 1x Intervene
• 1x Rebuff the Wicked
• 1x Silence
• 1x Turn Aside
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Negate

Creature Tutor (6)

• 1x Worldly Tutor
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Neoform
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Bring to Light

Instant Blink (5)

• 1x Cloudshift
• 1x Ephemerate
• 1x Essence Flux
• 1x Displace
• 1x Ghostly Flicker

Removal (5)

• 1x Knight of Autumn
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Skyclave Apparition
• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Soul of Emancipation

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Introduction

The idea for this deck came from my efforts of trying to something similar in Standard. It probably goes without saying but it did not end well. Combo decks usually can't find very good success in Standard because they rarely have all the right tools for them to even come close to competing. Not to mention that this combo isn't the greatest and is fairly easy to stop when you know what to look out for but maybe I just built the deck poorly, who knows. However, as a Commander player as well I saw my failure in one format as a potential success in another. Depending on how this deck performs IRL I may try to speed it up a bit and see how fast it can go. I'm not sure if it could ever be CEDH worthy but it can certainly pop off by turn 6 and that's without all the cards that could really speed it up.

Playing the Deck

Winning the Game

Okay, now into the brains of the deck. If you couldn't tell already the way we win the game is to use infinite ETB triggers by creating a loop with 3 creatures. This is done by using our Commander Lagrella, the Magpie and any two other "When X enters the battlefield exile target creature until X leaves the battlefield," creatures. We would prefer one of those other creatures to be either Lumbering Battlement or Glorious Protector because they exile multiple creatures at once and that opens up our win conditions.

In case you need it explained, here is how it works. Three creatures, 1 exiles 2, then 3 exiles 1, which causes 2 to enter the battlefield, 2 exiles 3, which causes 1 to enter, and your back to step one.

General Goals

Because this is a combo deck the general goals are pretty simple, play combo pieces, make sure I have the green light for my combo, and don't die before I get the chance to perform my combo.

As outlined in the previous section, the primary combo pieces are Oblivion Ring's on a stick. There are six creatures that are secondary combo pieces that actually win me the game but it can happen in three different ways. 1. By bouncing my own creatures and winning with their infinite ETB. Cards like Merrow Witsniper and can only be done if Lumbering Battlement or Glorious Protector are part of the loop or if Panharmonicon is on the battlefield. 2. By bouncing my opponents creatures and winning from their infinite ETB. This is done with Suture Priest and can only get me the win if each opponent has a good creature I can target with Lagrella for it. 3. By infinite ETB triggers of a creature that is not part of the loop. This creature is Sage's Row Denizen and several creatures that are can be used in the loop are blue. This is my win condition and everything in this deck helps make this happen in some way, without having to take out a loan in order to buy the deck.

The next general goal is to give the green light for my combo. This is done with with the cards in the "Counter" category. The most ideal card to play to make sure I can do everything I want is Silence but any of these cheap counters are good for any kill spells that would target a creature in the combo.

Finally, there are a few ways that I avoid dieing for when it gets later in the game and I'm still trying to put the combo together. This is basically done with removal of problem cards and using fog effects from a few of the creatures in the deck.

Specific Goals

1. Ramp
This is (or at least attempting to be) a low and fast combo deck and it is facilitated in a few different ways. There are ten 2-drop mana rocks, several creatures that either create a treasure token when it enters or fetch a basic land, and there are cheap fetch lands so we can avoid the possibility of getting land flooded. Each of these things help get us to a place where we have a lot of mana in a pretty short amount of time so we can get to playing combo pieces.
2. Enable the combo
The minimum amount of creatures that it takes to get this combo going is four, which can be a difficult task but there are many ways this burden is made easier. First of all one of the three creatures we need to make a loop is our Commander so that means I only need to find two other creatures to loop with. Also, it's not completely necessary to have one of the secondary creatures that actually win us the game to make use of the loop. If we have one creature that lets us draw a card when it enters and another creature that creates a treasure token when it enters then we have the capability to draw and play our whole deck. Not to mention the creature tutor spells in the deck that can help us get the last piece we need to perform the combo.
3. Abusing ETB Triggers
Outside of the core combo creatures are creatures that have useful ETB triggers like card draw, creating treasure tokens, searching for land, removal, and even a creature for reanimation and spell recursion. By using cards in the "End of Turn Blink" and "Instant Blink" categories we can take advantage of these abilities.

Date added	2 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.98
Tokens	Angel 3/3 W, Bird 1/1 W, Copy Clone, Foretell, Illusion X/X U, Treasure
Folders	Commander