Hi, regarding WGD combo, what if i have Breya on table, do I still need another creature in graveyard?

heartofwolf i don't think you do because your opponents will die before the final trigger resolves. but it wouldn't be a bad idea to bin another creature before you try to go off with WGD so that you can for sure end the loop and let everything resolve.

heartofwolf if breya is out you sac the tokens each time she enters the battlefield.

Really interested in this deck but I'm personally not a fan of the Worldgorger combo. It's a bit too all in for my taste. Have you thought about what a deck without worldgorger would look like?

BigBooy check out Fast combo DD Breya. Basically its the same plan except you try to get infinite mana with Dramatic Reversal/Isochron Scepter and signets.

BigBooy and Sgtpopnfreash: I think Breya is a cool general because it supports a lot of different strategies and combos.

Like, I sort of think it'd be cool to take out ad naus, dark confidant, and doomsday and add Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, and Reanimate. I have a big section on the write up here discussing various combos, but, you know, tl:dr I sort of think the Doomsday, Laboratory Maniac, Worldgorger Dragon, Auriok Salvagers is the best combination. Every time I think about Dramatic Reversal, I just want to play Thrasios, Triton Hero. Breya doesn't go off with infinite colorless, unlike thrasios, and you don't get to play mana elves, so you end up having to play extra suboptimal mana rocks to hit the critical mass needed for Dramatic Scepter builds. Also Breya doesn't do anything with Paradox Engine, which is the natural closest synergy with a build heavy on rocks leaning on dramatic reversal combo.

Like, see this build : Dramatic Scepter and Paradox Engine Thrasios

Hi Sgtpopnfreash

Can you explain me more how wold it stop the endless loop of WGD? Thank you :)

heartofwolf I don't understand the question. mmcgeach your right. I stopped playing Breya because Kess, Dissident Mage came out and it seemed like if you wanted storm that was a better general and if you wanted infinite mana outlet then Thrasios, Triton Hero was a better option. Idk, Breya is great but its not the deck I was looking for at the time. I will probably play some non-DD breya builds soon. However I think that the only reason to play Isochron Scepter combo is because you dont have OG duals and because your meta is all control

Sgtpopnfreash I've asked on the beginning if I need a second creature in graveyard to stop Worldgorger Dragon loop if I have Breya on table. You sad that I can sac the tokens each time she enters the battlefield. This is the part I don't understand. I still can't see how the loop is stopped by this.

Tho loop isnt stopped but if breya is on the table and you have at least 2 colorless mana, every time she appears with 2 tokens you sac them to do 3 damage to a player and you just kill everyone

So I have been playing a lot of this deck recently at cEDH pods at my local lgs (my deck is below if you want more context or have nothing better to do) and I have been super underwhelmed with Bazaar of Baghdad. So I decided to try the "budget" option instead. I played Prophetic Prism for a while and liked it a lot because it has a sort of "synergy" with the busted artifact mana since our deck is rather color intensive. But someone in this comments section above suggested Sunscorched Desert and that card has been EXCELLENT. Being able to up the mana producing land count using a combo piece has felt great, and I have been able to win around things like: Iona on Blue, Nevermore effects on my commander, not having a second creature in yard and odd manabase constrictions that would require me to have to wait to actually combo. I highly recommend giving it a shot.

My list: Competitive Breya

I agree with Sunscorched Desert. Turn 1 entomb WGD turn two play the desert and cast animate dead and you win as long as nobody can stop it.

Hi Dake, thanks for the tip. I'm glad to hear you like Breya, and that it works for you in your meta. You must really be kicking ass for people to resort to playing Nevermore on your general. :) I haven't gotten around to trying Sunscorched Desert but I appreciate the report - I'll definitely try running it. Actually I didn't realize the desert ETB'd untapped. That's better than I thought. I think if I drop Bazaar I'd also drop Deep Analysis. And maybe Urborg.

But, demonicgrizzly, that scenario works with Bazaar of Baghdad, too. It's described above. (But, it mills your whole deck, then you can move the animate dead onto lab man, then you win off the last bazaar activation.)

mmcgeach I know, but it's just another combo peice and gives you an additional outlet to victory.

Have you thought about adding Altar of the Brood for yet another wincon with WGD? Still can happen on turn two.

I have also been experimenting with Whir of Invention as a way to search out Lion's Eye Diamond

Also, question of seriousness - what do you do when people realize you are playing infinite combos and try to hate you out super hard? I cast entomb tonight to set up WGD and proceeded to get my teeth kicked in the rest of the night. Like, nobody would even let me play anything. I was an immediate target from turn one.

demonicgrizzly: I don't think you want anymore combo pieces in the deck; there's already a fair number of marginally-useful, marginally-dead cards like the Animate Deads, the dragon, the labman, etc. Don't add more.

I don't think Whir of Invention is good enough - its a little expensive, and narrow... but let me know if it turns out to be better than it looks.

Re: Combos in the Meta. Usually, you don't want to play top-tier competitive decks against people with casual decks. And, this Breya list is a top-tier competitive deck. Ideally, your opponents will be playing other top-level competitive decks, like Zur, Tazri, Jeleva, Thrasios+Tymna, etc, and these decks run win cons like Ad Naus, Food Chain, Doomsday, Hulk-Flash, Boonweaver, etc. In these kinds of groups, you shouldn't get hated out ahead of the other decks. Rather the game becomes an intriguing contest of threat assessment and political jockeying to achieve a resource advantage you can then translate into a successful combo deployment. If your group isn't like this, its best to play a deck more in line with what the other players are playing.

Anyway, if that doesn't work, try playing very defensively. Just play lands for the first 4 turns, maybe play your general or counter something. Wait for someone else to be a bigger threat than you are, then combo out when people spend resources stopping that player.

mmcgeach sound advice. it's a pain though, the guy that gave me the most grief about playing WGD combo is a guy that plays an ultra-competitive deck. Oh well - i tried playing more defensively and had i pulled mana correctly i could have won when the guy was tapped out but..oh well. live and learn.

do you know of any other cards that function similarly to Lion's Eye Diamond? i can't find one to trade in my local area and don't want to blow 100 bucks (i need a new roof, gonna cost me $16k). i have instead inserted the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Restoration Angel combo in it's place as an alternate win-con, but getting triple red is very difficult.

demonicgrizzly Well, that sounds lame. If the guy is running his own competitive deck and giving you grief about your combo, he's probably jealous. At that point you've got more of an interpersonal problem than a strategic one.

No, nothing is really like Lion's Eye Diamond. It's on the reserved list and is one of very few mana-positive artifacts to ever be printed in magic. I think if you can't find one, I'd do two things: 1) try to sell some of your cards (that you would normally try to trade away) if the opportunity arises, then use that money to actually buy an LED; and 2) drop LED and Salvagers and replace with something else. For replacements, I think I'd try Krark-Clan Ironworks and Eldrazi Displacer before kiki jiki; but I'm tempted to go with Aetherflux Reservoir and Serra Ascendant. Aetherflux will give you a win with a big yawgwill turn; and serra ascendant on turn 1 will make it hard for people in your playgroup to hate you out too much.

This is going to be a really dumb question I'm sure, but how do you really use Ad Nauseam? I built a combo Breya deck (although with too many combos and not enough redundancy) and I've been really debating Ad Naus for maximum competitiveness.

I know it is a good card, but I don't know what you are supposed to ideally do after it resolves. Draw cards and pay life until you have all the needed combo pieces in hand? Is that it?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for such an obvious question, haha.

Yeah, pretty much. It's card advantage at instant speed. You can use things like Phyrexian Unlife so you can do it on an end step and draw your entire deck, and then conbo off on your turn.

freakingShane: Yeah, Ad Naus is basically good enough that you don't need to do anything special with it, just good deck construction lets you win after you draw 25 cards with it. In this list, you can't really tap out and cast it main phase, it's unlikely to draw into enough moxes and rituals to get a win from there; you need at least 1 mana left over and a land drop. The way to assure a win is to cast it on your opponent's end step before your turn, then you untap with 25 cards and 5 open mana.

When you do have 25 cards, try to set up one of the combos. Probably the easiest thing to set up is tutor -> entomb / faithless looting -> WGD -> animate dead, which is 5 mana. That's like, land drop, mox, ritual/mana vault, + 1 other mana thing. If you hit LED you can do a yawgwill->labman->tainted pact line (eg: land->ritual->tutor, crack LED, tutor for Yawg Will, cast with LED mana, recast ritual, recast LED, crack LED for blue, use rital mana to tutor for Lab Man, use blue from LED to cast Lab Man, use ritual mana for tainted pact, draw with preordain or sensei's top or probe.) Also, Chain of Vapor is a pretty huge component of the post-AdNaus lines, cause you usually use some kind of mana accel to cast the Ad Nauseam. Then you get to bounce your mana-positive rocks and replay them, which is huge.

Usually you don't have to worry about your opponents having counterspells because they would have countered the Ad Nauseam, but watch out for other interaction like Silence or Nature's Claim.

Thank you, demonicgrizzly and mmcgeach!

That's a great explanation and definitely makes a ton of sense. That's what I figured, and the fact that it is very likely to be able to combo off on your next turn after casting it makes it something I absolutely need to include.

Thanks again for the feedback!

If you build an Ad Nauseam deck try to get your average CMC below 2. Thats pretty much the only trick to playing Ad Nauseam combo. In regards to Phyrexian Unlife I would include Angel's Grace before the enchantment and I don't believe an Ad Nauseam deck wants 2 of those effects.

I really like this deck, man. It's super focused and well built, but I do have a three questions.

1. What is the main reason for Chain of Vapor/how is it best used?
2. Is Dack Fayden the better choice in this deck over Tezzeret the Seeker ? Is it a CMC thing, or overall usability?
3. How often is Pull from Eternity really needed/used? I feel like that is meta dependent, of course, but I'm curious about it from your perspective.

Thanks in advance, and again, super nice deck!

@Sgtpopnfreash

I'm definitely keeping the CMC in check. I don't know if I'll include a "lifesaver", but if I can manage to fit one it would probably be Angel's Grace for it's instant speed.

Thanks for the info, friend!

freakingShane: Glad you like it! Here's the answers:

1. Chain of Vapor is unconditional removal: it removes any card that's preventing you from winning (stuff like Torpor Orb, Stony Silence, Null Rod, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Arcane Laboratory, etc., etc. PLUS, it's also a mana trick, if you target your own Mana Crypt or Mana Vault or Mox Opal, or all three, you can really generate a lot of mana to fuel your combo.

2. Dack Fayden is probably one of the weaker cards in the list, but Tezzeret is a lot worse. Dack's really here for his +1 ability, which is awesome. It dramatically improves your card quality in hand, it helps you find mana when you need, helps you ditch too many lands when you don't need it, and it puts combo pieces in the graveyard, where they're needed. If you can activate Dack's +1 for 2 or three turns, it's really very powerful. The only downside is that it's sometimes hard to get blockers for Dack, but if you can cast Breya that really solves that problem.

3. Pull from Eternity is great if people are trying to exile your graveyard combo pieces. It's also great with Tainted Pact and sometimes Doomsday, Yawgmoth's Will, or Chrome Mox. Try it. I think you'll like it.