This is a BIG Mana or not quite infinite combo deck based on winning the game by playing your entire deck in one turn!
Well, except for lands which you won't need!
You use the combination of
Nyxbloom Ancient
,
Phylath, World Sculptor
, and
Mystic Reflection
to win the game explosively with an insanely-pumped
Niko Aris
.
How it works:
Start a turn with the following cards in hand;
Phylath, World Sculptor
and
Niko Aris
.
Start the same turn with a forecast copy of
Mystic Reflection
in exile.
Have a copy of
Nyxbloom Ancient
in play. You can have any combination of mana dorks, mana rocks and basic lands in play you want but you need at least 4 basic lands. I am using
Lotus Cobra
and
Cultivate
in this deck but you really can ramp using any combination of cards you like.
Cast your
Phylath, World Sculptor
, leaving any three permanents that can tap for white and blue open. For this example, let's say we leave a
Plains
and two
Island
s untapped.
After
Phylath, World Sculptor
's ETB ability goes on the stack, cast
Mystic Reflection
from exile using one of your untapped
Island
s and targeting
Nyxbloom Ancient
. Because of the Ancient you got 3 Blue mana for tapping your
Island
and only used 1 to cast the spell so you have 2 unspent blue in your pool.
When the
Mystic Reflection
resolves, "The next time one or more creatures or planeswalkers enter the battlefield this turn, they enter as copies of the chosen creature." happens and when your
Phylath, World Sculptor
's ETB ability resolves, instead of getting 0/1 plant tokens you get copies of your
Nyxbloom Ancient
! Let's assume you have 5 basic lands when this resolves. You put into play 5 copies of your
Nyxbloom Ancient
.
Now you tap your
Plains
for mana. Normally it would tap for 1 White mana. Because of your original
Nyxbloom Ancient
it taps for a total of 3 White mana. Then, because of your 5 new copies of your
Nyxbloom Ancient
it taps for a total of 729 White mana! Adding in the 2 Blue mana that then becomes a total of 731 mana!
Because of the
Nyxbloom Ancient
's ability, any time you tap a permanent for mana, it taps for triple the normal mana amount instead. So instead of tapping your
Plains
for 1 White mana, it tapped for 1 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 instead! And 3 to the 6th power is 729! Imagine how high this could go depending on how many copies you made of your
Nyxbloom Ancient
. If you had made 10 total copies, each land or single mana producing permanent you have would tap for 59,049 mana instead of 1! Which is insane!
Here is where the crazy begins! Tap your last untapped
Island
for 729 Blue mana. You now have a total of 1460 mana in a combination of White and Blue. Count the total number of remaining cards in your library. Let's assume it is 61 for some reason. Then cast the copy of
Niko Aris
you have in your hand, calling X of 60. This costs 1 White, 2 Blue, and 60 colorless mana to play
Niko Aris
. Spending 63 of your available mana leaves you with 1397 available White and Blue mana. When it comes into play, you get 60 Shard tokens.
Now you immediately activate every Shard token. Activating 60 Shard tokens costs 120 colorless mana leaving you with 1277 White and Blue mana. Then you get 60 activations of "sacrifice this enchantment: Scry 1, then draw a card." This lets you draw your entire library except for 1 card. This avoids losing the game for being unable to draw and leaves a card there in case you don't win this turn. Now that you have drawn the rest of your library, you can use the 1277 unspent White and Blue mana to cast everything you drew that is not land!
Let's assume you have at least 1 card in the deck that will let you win immediately with your unspent mana. You could say, cast
Volcanic Geyser
, and just shoot your opponent in the face for 1000 points of damage! You could use any other spell your ability you want that would take advantage of such a giant mana pool.
So that is how it works! The rest of the deck is there just to help you get to your combo or win the game! Here is the card breakdown:
Archon of Sun's Grace
: This card is in the deck to either serve as an alt win condition with a flying beater or to go wide with shard triggers whenever you cast
Niko Aris
. Remember, the Shards created by
Niko Aris
are enchantments and will trigger your Archon creating as many pegasus tokens as your number of Shards.
Binding the Old Gods
: This card removes threats on the table and helps mana fix. Those are the main reasons it is in the deck. The last ability can sometimes remove threats if you have creatures on the battlefield to send into the combat zone. It will trigger your
Archon of Sun's Grace
when it comes into play as well.
Cultivate
: This card will help ramp you into your combo. Especially to meet the cost of your
Nyxbloom Ancient
.
Epitaph Golem
: This card may seem like a strange inclusion in the deck. But what this card provides is infinite recursion for your entire deck! With it in play, you can keep shoving cards from your graveyard into the bottom of your library. Because you can have hundreds or even thousands of Shards created every time you cast
Niko Aris
, you can keep drawing through your entire library, casting your entire library, putting everything from your graveyard back in your library, then doing it all again! This could go one forever!
Evolving Wilds
: Thins your deck and fixes your mana. Hurts your overall basic land count a little bit but that disadvantage is way overcome by what this card provides.
Fabled Passage
: A better
Evolving Wilds
to improve your chances of getting your mana base set up as soon as possible.
Ilysian Caryatid
: The main mana dork in the deck. I started with using
Lotus Cobra
s instead which ramp you a little faster getting to your combo. But I found myself many times wishing that if I could just tap them for mana I would be able to combo off! There are 9 creatures with power high enough to double your mana from the caryatids. And if a
Nyxbloom Ancient
is the 4 power or better creature in play, they can tap for 6 mana each!
Leafkin Avenger
: Another source of removal in the deck. Getting to 8 mana to activate it's ability is not that hard to do in this deck. Then when you combo off, you will be able to just destroy any number of players and planeswalkers you want. At only a single copy, you only ever want to see this when you are drawing through your deck with Shard activations. Since you will need a lot of mana for this to pay off for you.
Mystic Reflection
: This is one of the main combo pieces in the deck. Using it targeting your
Nyxbloom Ancient
while resolving your
Phylath, World Sculptor
ETB ability. Aside from this reason, it is also a good way to get rid of something your opponent plays that may slow your game down. You can use it "defensively" to wreck an opposing player. Any time they cast a giant bomb of a creature or planeswalker you can respond by casting
Mystic Reflection
targeting the weakest/least dangerous creature in play! This is certain to ruin their day. So don't be afraid to foretell every copy of this you draw because it can always be relevent.
Niko Aris
: This is the combo piece that allows you to draw through your entire deck. Once you use your
Phylath, World Sculptor
to make a ton of copies of your
Nyxbloom Ancient
you then create an insane amount of mana and then cast
Niko Aris
with a crazy number. This will create Shards that will let you sacrifice them to scry and draw your way through your deck to win the game. Niko's activated abilities also help move your win condition along. You can use their +1 ability to get combat damage in if you need to. You can always use this on your
Phylath, World Sculptor
to put it back in your hand and recast it for more
Nyxbloom Ancient
copies! You can use Niko's first -1 ability as spot removal during the game. And their last -1 ability will get you a Shard which can be useful with bad or slow starts.
Nyxbloom Ancient
: This is the centerpiece of the combo in the deck. It will provide the insane mana you need to win. Even without the combo, it turns your lands and
Ilysian Caryatid
into mana monsters. Also, something that may be overlooked because of the combo, it will trigger your
Archon of Sun's Grace
when it comes into play!
Phylath, World Sculptor
: The last card in your combo. This is the creature that creates the copies of the
Nyxbloom Ancient
when you use
Mystic Reflection
to change what the tokens it creates come into play as. Its in the deck to combo off with the other cards so everything else printed on it either does not matter at all or is just added gravy.
Stonework Packbeast
: This card is like the
Epitaph Golem
. It is only in the deck for when you combo off and its only in the deck to let you funnel your available mana into any colors you want or need to play every card in your deck. That's it! So feel free to put any other cards you want to win the game with into the deck because this card will let you get the mana you need if nothing else does.
Volcanic Geyser
: This is the deck's kill card. Sure you can use it as expensive removal during the course of the game but the real reason it is in the deck is to finish your opponent off. Once your combo happens, you will be able to scry and draw your way to this card and then have an absurd amount of mana to cast it with. This should just win you the game. The extra copies are to make sure you get your damage through in case the first one is countered or in case you have more opponents or in case you need to use it early in the game to remove something obnoxious. Feel free to replace this with anything else that can win the game for you!
That is it for the deck!
Another good win condition you could replace the geyser with is
Tergrid's Lantern
. With nearly endless mana, this becomes a brutal and oppressive way to win games. I am a little more light-hearted and just went with the
Volcanic Geyser
to keep things simple and have some early game utility.
