Illuminatus Combo

Modern* Combo Theme/Gimmick UR (Izzet)

curtmack

Creature (6)

• 3x Djinn Illuminatus
• 3x Simian Spirit Guide

Land (22)

• 18x Mountain
• 4x Steam Vents

Instant (22)

• 2x Crimson Wisps
• 4x Desperate Ritual
• 3x Dispel
• 2x Evermind
• 4x Lightning Bolt
• 4x Manamorphose
• 3x Pyretic Ritual

Sorcery (10)

• 3x Geosurge
• 3x Gitaxian Probe
• 4x Lava Spike

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Kaho, Minamo Historian

Land (1)

• 1x Cavern of Souls

Instant (4)

• 1x Counterflux
• 1x Gifts Ungiven
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Remand

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Crack the Earth

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Strategy

TL;DR: Djinn Illuminatus is good and does crazy things.

Step 1: Get Djinn Illuminatus onto the field. Preferable starting hands include some combination of Djinn Illuminatus, Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual, Geosurge , and Simian Spirit Guide (and some lands, of course). Geosurge generates exactly enough mana to cast Djinn. Under ideal conditions we can hard-cast Djinn on turn two, but that's fairly high on the Magical Christmasland scale; very often it can take until turn 4 or 5. Preferably keep up Dispel mana to protect the Djinn, as we'll probably need to wait until next turn to combo off and it will be a target.

Step 2: Once we have Djinn, try to combo off. The replicate ability given to all our spells has the spell's mana cost. That includes Phyrexian mana. Thus, with Gitaxian Probe we can potentially draw up to nine cards (by paying 2 life for the initial cast and 16 life to replicate it 8 more times). Crimson Wisps and Manamorphose can also be replicated for mass card draw. Any of our rituals (apart from Geosurge , which is now useless to us because of the type restriction) can be replicated for incremental mana gains. We can also splice Desperate Ritual and/or Evermind onto a Lava Spike and then replicate the Lava Spike for apiece; splicing is a text-changing effect, and text-changing effects are copied, so the replicated Lava Spikes will have the spliced text as well. This gives us a huge source of damage, cards, and mana, and at this point we can just keep replicating Lava Spikes and Lightning Bolts for the win.

Rejected cards

• Needle Drop: Crimson Wisps is just better for the card draw. It doesn't need setup if we already have Djinn Illuminatus and we don't need additional damage effects.
• Through the Breach: It's just too rare that you'll have the exact cards and setup you need to be able to cast it, put Djinn on the table, and then combo off for the win, all in the same turn. You'll almost always have to wait for the next untap step.
• Gut Shot: Gitaxian Probe is better for the "Just got out my Djinn, time to shock myself down to 1" slot.
• Grapeshot: Replicate doesn't increment storm count. But even it did, casting a million Lightning Bolts is much better.
• Banefire: Being uncounterable sounds great, until you realize that your opponent can't really counter 50 Lightning Bolts either. I might put one in the sideboard if I happen to see a Counterflux, but even then I might just prefer to play around it.

Other ideas

• Djinn Illuminatus + Pact of the Titan goes infinite. I could possibly board into a strategy that abuses this with Pandemonium or a haste effect, but I'm not sure why I would.

Date added	9 years
Last updated	9 years
Key combos	Djinn Illuminatus + Pact of the Titan
Legality	This deck is not Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.22