This is the original version of the deck, to see the updated list Lands Are Permanents Too! Lord Windgrace Combo
Lord Windgrace infinite combo deck. Surprisingly there are a lot of infinite combos that we can execute using lands as a primary engine. This deck may suffer in removal, (which after more playtesting might change) but makes up for it in round about interesting ways to kill our opponents.
When designing this deck I tried to avoid land destruction. Partly because I personally hate playing EDH against decks that are constantly taking out my lands; but primarily because this deck doesn't want to be hated off the table early, or even noticed for that matter. We don't want to be the threat at the table until we have amassed enough lands to kill our opponents in quick order.
We have the typical "lands matter" package Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds, and The Gitrog Monster with plenty of ways of powering out multiple lands a turn: Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Exploration. However, this deck provides several different ways of comboing out and killing our opponents. If combo kills aren't your thing this deck still has a lot to offer. There is a lot of synergy with lands that will enable us to do lots of fun things without ever needing to demonstrate an infinite loop. Prismatic Omen makes every land a mountain for our Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and a swamp for our Cabal Coffers. Just the thing we need when trying to cast a large Genesis Wave. Also let's throw in Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage, because why not? Did I mention that Scapeshift also sets up whatever combos or shenanigans we want to inflict upon our opponents? We can dredge throughout the game and cast Creeping Renaissance to pick up all our lands and discard them using Seismic Assault to kill a player. Then flashback and do it again to kill another player. There are lots of options available to us, and I wasn't able to fit everything in. I've tried to keep the list so that there is consistency and multiple ways of performing the various combos.
Combos:
The first combo on the list requires The Gitrog Monster and Dakmor Salvage and any of the discard a land to deal damage effects to be in play: Borborygmos Enraged, Seismic Assault, or Land's Edge. Simply pitch Dakmor Salvage to deal damage to a target, this will trigger The Gitrog Moster's ability to draw a card. Instead of drawing just use Dakmor Salvage's dredge 2 ability and bring back the Dakmor Salvage to hand. Since we have Worldspine Wurm and Dread in our deck this always gives us 2 cards that will shuffle back and allow us to dredge 2 infinite amount of times. Thus an infinite damage loop.
These next few combos are similar but have different engine pieces that effectively do the same things with varying lines of play. Each variation will be spelled out to the best of my ability but there is a chance I may have missed other ways of performing a similar combo. Now bear with me this requires some convoluted explanations.
Janky Engines:
The main goal these engines is to loop lands from the battlefield to the graveyard and then back on to the battlefield. The first of two primary ways of performing this is by using Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder with Splendid Reclamation. Because Skullwinder targets an opponent I would suggest targeting a player that is tapped out, has no graveyard, or doesn't have any counterspells or relevant removal in their graveyard. The second loop uses World Shaper which is significantly easier than the former. In either case the creature being used needs to either be sacrificed or destroyed somewhere in the loop in order to be used again. Ways of doing so will be explained later.
The first engine piece requires a way of producing mana from the lands, I know sounds stupid because that's what lands do, but it will all make sense in a moment. Since World Shaper and Splendid Reclamation put lands from the graveyard back on to the battlefield tapped, this means that those lands are unable to produce mana in the traditional sense. This can be ratified using Amulet of Vigor or with Stone-Seeder Hierophant which will untap those lands and be ready to produce the mana necessary to create the loop. Otherwise, we will need Lotus Cobra or Squandered Resources to generate the mana necessary. When using the Lotus Cobra, Amulet of Vigor, or Stone-Seeder Hierophant pathway we will need to have Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper in order to sacrifice the lands so that they are able to be used again. Squandered Resources is perhaps the easier way to set up this combo since it produces mana and dispatches the land to the graveyard all in one card.
Now that we have an efficient way of producing mana and sacrificing lands we now care about what lands we are going to loop with. This drastically changes how we are able to kill our opponents and loop our creature.
When performing the loop with
Amulet of Vigor or with
Stone-Seeder Hierophant there are 4 different ways of getting the creature into the graveyard:
Phyrexian Tower,
High Market,
Dimir House Guard or destroying the creature using
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. For sake of conversation we will just assume that we don't have
Dimir House Guard on the battlefield when explaining the loop.
Retreat to Hagra works with any of these loops. Doesn't require anything new or fancy just needs to have lands enter the battlefield to drain our opponents.
This requires 5 mountains to be in the loop in order to work. There are 11 lands that are mountains in the deck, and
Prismatic Omen makes all of our lands mountains which means we never run out of Valakut triggers. Since all 5 or more mountains entering the battlefield see each other we will get a trigger for each mountain entering the battlefield. Spread the damage around to any opponent or creature but at least one trigger is needed to target and destroy the
Eternal Witness or
Skullwinder (or 2 for
Greenwarden of Murasa) putting the creature into the graveyard. Because
World Shaper is an on death triggered ability there isn't a way to do it with
World Shaper unless it had flash, which in the current build isn't available.
When performing the loop with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle this provides the damage needed to kill opponents so we don't need to have a Retreat to Hagra, Shivan Gorge, or bounce land + cycle land + discard to do damage effect combo out.
Using
Volrath's Stronghold is a little trickier and requires a little more set up. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle target Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, bounce land return a cycle land to our hand (remember to add mana with the cycle land before this resolves), Amulet of Vigor or Stone-Seeder Hierophant untap lands that entered the battlefield tapped.
The triggers will resolve from last to first, so float mana with all of our lands except Volrath's Stronghold before the triggers resolve. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies activate Volrath's Stronghold to return the creature to the top of our library. Sacrifice all of our lands using Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
Using
Mortuary Mire is similar to using
Volrath's Stronghold except we will need both 2 of the 3 return a card creatures in order to perform the loop. This is because a target must be declared when
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield so we can't use the same creature over and over. They will need to alternate between the two for each loop. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle target Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, put the other creature from our graveyard on to the top of our library using Mortuary Mire, bounce land returns a cycle land to our hand (remember to add mana with the cycle land before this resolves), Amulet of Vigor or Stone-Seeder Hierophant untap lands that entered the battlefield tapped.
The triggers will resolve from last to first, so float mana with all of our lands before the triggers resolve. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies sacrifice all of our lands using Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
So when using
Squandered Resources we don't need
Zuran Orb or
Sylvan Safekeeper and we are limited to only using
Mortuary Mire (to bring back our creature) and
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle (to destroy our creature) loop strategies.
Using
Mortuary Mire is similar to using
Volrath's Stronghold except we will need both 2 of the 3 return a card creautes in order to perform the loop. This is because a target must be declared when
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield so we can't use the same creature over and over. They will need to alternate between the two for each loop. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle target Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, put the other creature from our graveyard on to the top of our library using Mortuary Mire, bounce land returns a cycle land to our hand.
The triggers will resolve from last to first, so float mana with all of our lands before the triggers resolve. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies sacrifice all of our lands to float mana using Squandered Resources. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
When using
Lotus Cobra we will need
Zuran Orb or
Sylvan Safekeeper in order to sacrifice our lands and we are limited to only using
Mortuary Mire (to bring back our creature) and
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle (to destroy our creature) loop strategies.
Using
Mortuary Mire is similar to using
Volrath's Stronghold except we will need 2 of the 3 return card creatures in order to perform the loop. This is because a target must be declared when
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield so we can't use the same creature over and over. They will need to alternate between the two for each loop. We will need a bounce land (
Gruul Turf,
Rakdos Carnarium, or
Golgari Rot Farm) and a cycle land (
Barren Moor,
Canyon Slough,
Sheltered Thicket, or
Tranquil Thicket).
When the lands enter the battlefield stack the triggers like so: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle targets Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder, target opponents or creatures with remaining Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers, put the other creature from our graveyard on to the top of our library using Mortuary Mire, bounce land returns a cycle land to our hand. Remember our mana is coming from Lotus Cobra's landfall ability.
The triggers will resolve from last to first. Let everything resolve and after the Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, or Skullwinder dies sacrifice all of our lands using Zuran Orb or Sylvan Safekeeper. Cycle the cycle land to draw the creature we put on top of our library, recast said creature and return Splendid Reclamation from our graveyard to our hand. Cast Splendid Reclamation rinse and repeat. Kill everyone and everything.
Of course with any of these loops we get infinite landfall triggers and infinite lands going to the graveyard. If The Gitrog Monster is on the battlefield we will deck ourselves (it is a must ability) so I would advise sacrificing or killing him before going infinite. We can make infinite creatures with Titania, Protector of Argoth, Turntimber Sower, Omnath, Locus of Rage (which if we have both Phyrexian Tower and High Market is another way of making infinite damage, just sacrifice the tokens) and make all our plants infinitely big with Avenger of Zendikar. We can go infinite life if using High Market in the loop or if we have Courser of Kruphix out on the battlefield. Another convoluted way is where if we have two of the bounce lands, we can use one of them to bounce the cycle land for the loop, and the second to bounce any other land. We can then pitch that land using Borborygmos the enraged, Land's Edge, or Seismic Assault in order to deal damage. We can also bounce a land and cast/retrace Worm Harvest infinite amount of times with the loop as well (retracing is part of the cost so there will be at least one land in the graveyard).
Another important note is that if Dimir House Guard is on the battlefield we can use his sacrifice ability to loop the creatures. Although, what is really handy is that we can transmute him for a variety of different combo pieces such as: Splendid Reclamation, World Shaper, Stone-Seeder Hierophant, and Scapeshift. Add this with the ability to effectively return him from our graveyard to hand with Volrath's Stronghold, and we should be able to get a combo set up in no time.
Thanks!
Well thank you for taking a look at my deck, I hope that the explanations of the combos were helpful. Please leave comments or suggestions, I would love to hear them!
