Summary

• Modern format offers a variety of powerful combo decks for players who prefer to focus on their own deck's strength rather than their opponents' strategies.
• Combo decks like Hardened Scales and Copy Cat are widely regarded as some of the best decks in the format and can dominate the competition.
• The deck called Oops All Spells is capable of winning games on turn three or four with its one-card win condition that mills the entire deck and places lethal attackers on the board for a game-winning finish.

Modern has long been 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering's home of powerful combo decks. Back when Splinter Twin was still around, the format was often more about whose deck could achieve their combo first, rather than actually interactive gameplay. Thankfully, things have changed quite a bit since then. However, there's still no shortage of powerful combo decks available for players who prefer to focus on making their own deck unbeatably powerful, rather than thinking about what their opponents are playing.

In fact, at least two of these combos are widely regarded as some of the best decks available in the format, and will 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:trample over the competition. Needless to say,🧸 you could do a lot worse than sleeving up a combo deck for a local Modern♒ event.

Updated on January 1, 2024, by Ryan Hay: Combos are a staple in Magic: The Gathering, providing a clear path to victory with a little bit of setup and a healthy amount of equal parts luck and skill. Among some of the most powerful decks in Magic, you can bet there are a few combo decks waiting to pop off and snag victory through consistency. Two fairly consistent decks are being added to the list, the tried and true Hardened Scales deck, which takes your +1/+1 counters and puts them to deadly use. The other deck is Copy Cat, a deck once so powerful in Standard that it needed a ban in order to stabilize the format.

10 🎶 Hardened Scales 🌸

Key Cards: Walking Ballista, Arcbound Ravager, and Hardened Scales

A long-time favorite for decks that manipulate +1/+1 counters, the artifact♒ creature Walking Ballista sits at the center of this counter combo deck. The way the deck works is by generating lethal damage through redundant ways to add multiple counters to Walking Ballista so you can activate its ability to remove those +1/+1 counters to deal one damage for each onꦏe removed.

The deck uses cards like the titular Hardened Scales, which adds an additional +1/+1 counter to a creature when you add one to it, The Ozolith to move counters from one permanent to another, and then Arcbound Ravager to t💝urn your artifacts into even more +1/+1 counters, you can quicky multiply the number of counters on Walking Ballisꦺta to deal lethal damage to an opponent.

9 Copy Cat

Key Cards: Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai

A little more suspectibel to disruption since there are fewer pieces to this combo but no less deadly to your opponents, the Copy Cat deck utilizes the planeswalker Saheeli Rai and the blinking cat Felidar Guardian to create an infinite number of creatures to attack with. The way this combo works is by using Saheeli's -2 ability to create a copy of Felidar Guardian, giving that token haste and triggering its enter the battlefield ability. With the token's ability, you target Saheeli Rai, blinking it and resetting its loyalty counters, letting you target the original Felidar Guardian again, creating another copy, and letting you repeat for as many copies as you like.

Since all the copies have haste you can attack with an arbitrary number of Cats, say 500, easily swinging around any board presence your opponent might have been able to assembl🅺e with ease and winning through combat damage. Since its a two-ꦛcard combo, it is relatively easy to assemble but also leaves it open to disruption from cards like Thoughtsieze.

8 ⛎ Asmo Portal

Key Cards: Portal to Phyrexia, The Underworld Cookbook, and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar

This combo deck makes use of a couple of artifacts printed in The Brothers' War to present two separate combo angles. The first angle involves the use of The Underworld Cookbook and Ovalchase Daredevil to provide you with a Food token every turn at no cost. Using these endless tokens, you can activate the deck's namesake: Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar. Good luck properly pronouncing that card.

Asmo is a well-costed threat that also acts as the deck's only source of removal. However, the deck's true power comes in the form of reanimating a Portal to Phyrexia or Sundering Titan for only three mana using Trash for Treasure. Deck pilots can reliably find these artifacts and place them into their graveyard thanks to cards including Scrapwork Mutt, Voldaren Epicure, Goblin Engineer, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. Once Portal or Sundering Titan hit the battlefield, it will quickly be game over from there.

7 Dredge

Key Cards: Prized Amalgam, Narcomeba, and Stinkweed Imp

Dredge has long been 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a contender in the Modern format, but it's only due to recent iterations of the deck that players have begun regarding Dredge as a true combo deck. Usually, combo decks almost assuredly claim victory when they manage to properly enact their combo. In the past, Dredge presented aggressive threats from the graveyard repeatedly, but it never managed to kill its opponent over the course of one or two turns. Now, the deck features enough enabler cards between Cathartic Reunion, Thrilling Discovery, and Otherworldy Gaze to be properly considered a combo deck. With all of these discard effects, Dredge is capable of filling its graveyard with enough creatures to reliably present turn four or five kills.

The basic idea here is to get a creature with dredge in your✱ graveyard, dredge every draw step instead of drawing, and𝕴 then cast even more spells like the ones mentioned above. This will allow you to further fill your graveyard with creatures that have abilities that allow them to enter the battlefield from your graveyard, bypassing the need to cast them.

The creatures you're looking to hit include Prized Amalgam, Silversmote Ghoul, and Narcomoeba. Narcomoeba enters the battlefield immediately when it's placed into your graveyard, and Prized Amalgam comes back whenever a creature is cast from your graveyard. As a result, these two cards combo together nicely to ensure you've always got a board state. Silversmote Ghoul alongside Creeping Chill is the icing on top, as Creeping Chills placed into your graveyard are cast for free which drains your opponent for three life and summons all of the Silversmote Ghouls from your graveyard to the battlefield.

For players looking to throw a Zombie party, this is the deck to do it. If you're wondering about the Gemstone Caverns in the sideboard of lists you find, know that it's an absolute necessity due to its aid in speeding up the combo when you're on the draw.

6 Belcher

Key Cards: Goblin Charbelcher, Pyretic Ritual​​​​​, And Irencrag Feat

Anyone who likes the idea of shooting their opponent for upwards of fifty damage in a single instance need look no further than the Belcher combo. However, this deck has some truly strange lines, and requires a lot of forethought and insight to be able to pilot properly. While some combo decks don't entirely rely on enacting their combo to win, Belcher is an all-in strategy that necessitates you triggering the combo in order to claim victory.

As a result, you need to know how to trigger this combo with the familiarity of the back of your hand if you want it to serve you well. The combo works thanks to the deck's manabase being constructed entirely of Zendikar Rising's double-faced cards, which are spells on one side and lands on the other. These don't count as true lands for the purposes of Goblin Charbelcher's trigger. Consequently, once the Charbelcher goes off, your opponent is hit for damage equal to the number of cards remaining in your library (usually over 50 by the time the combo goes off), as you won't ever hit a land and reveal every card in your deck.

The combo works by chaining ritual effects (spells that produce mana on their own), including Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, and Manamorphose, in order to get to four mana and cast an Irencrag Feat. Then, using the seven mana you have available from casting Irencrag Feat, you're able to cast and activate your Goblin Charbelcher for instant victory.

5 ⛎ 🔜 Indomitable Creativity

Key Cards: Indomitable Creativity, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and Treasure Tokens

This is a relatively new addition to the ranks of Modern's combo decks, and time has yet to tell whether it will prove itself as a true meta contender. Nonetheless, it bears mentioning here due to its ability to place an Archon of Cruelty or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on the battlefield as early as turn four. Furthermore, this combo deck is one of few that actually allows you to still interact with your opponent's strategy. This is due to the combo itself only relying on a handful of cards, some of which are lands.

Reliably casting Indomitable Creativity on turn four to summon the creatures mentioned above requires playing Hard Evidence, Prismari Command, and Dwarven Mine. Each of these cards generates a token that you can target and destroy once you cast Indomitable Creativity. Once Creativity resolves, you will reveal cards from your library until you reach an Arc♏hon of Cruelty or an Emrakul, since those are the only artifact or creature cards in the whole deck.

Expressive Iteration deserves a shout out as well, for helping the deck find an Indomitable Creativity. In other words, once you've got four mana and a token creature or artifact to sacrifice, you can say hello to your game-winning threat.

4 Oops All Spe♐lls

Key Cards: Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer

This deck makes use of a one-card win condition that mills y✨our entire deck before placing a lethal number of attackers on the board and💮 swinging in for a game-winning finish. Oops All Spells is capable of winning games on turn three or four fairly consistently, and players experienced with this deck will mulligan aggressively to find a hand that achieves this. In some cases, you may even mulligan down to four.

Like Belcher, the deck's combo works thanks to the Zendikar Rising's double-faced lands technically counting as spells for the purposes of cards like Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer. This allows you to mill your entire deck once you successfully cast or activate one of these creatures. Milling your entire deck will place the four Creeping Chills from your deck into your graveyard, dealing 12 damage to the opponent.

Then, you will put your two Narcomoebas onto the battlefield. This triggers your Swoꦺrd of the Meek equipment cards, allowing you to attach them to one or both of your Narcomoebas. You then sacrifice your Swords of the Meek to cast Salvage Titan. This finally causes your Vengevines to trigger from your graveyard, placing them onto the battlefield and allowing you to attack for an additional 16 damage.

Despite being a one-card combo, Oops All Spells has a lot going on. In addition to its regular win condition, you can also fight opponent hate cards by stealing wins through either Goblin Charbelcher or Thassa's Oracle.

3 🎃 Blue Living End

Key Cards: Living End, Shardless Agent And Violent Outburst

Living End used to be a card that was never played inside of a blue shell. Nowadays, it's incredibly rare to see it outside of a blue deck. This deck's combo works through the use of cycling creatures and cascade spells. The first two turns of the game are spent cycling creatures from your hand in order to fill your graveyard with powerful threats like Striped Riverwinder, Architects of Will, and Curator of Mysteries. This also helps to draw you towards a much-needed cascade spell.

Then, you resolve either Shardless Agent or Violent Outburst on turn three, which allows you to cast Living End from your library, since it's the only card in your deck that costs less than three mana. This not only fills your own battlefield with ridiculously huge creatures, but also clears all the creatures from your opponent's side of the field. In case your opponent attempts to interact with this game-ending combo, you've got access to free counterspells in the form of Pact of Negation. That's why we play blue.

2 Amulet Titan ൩ 🐻

Key Cards: Amulet Of Vigor, Primeval Titan, And Azusa, Lost But Seeking

As one of Modern's oldest combo decks, it's somewhat surprising that Amulet Titan remains a powerful metagame option that can still take down tournaments despite the printing of sets like Modern Horizons and Modern Horizons 2. Amulet Titan works thanks to the combination of its namesake card Amulet of Vigor and the bouncelands printed in Ravnica block.

Amulet allows you to immediately untap your bouncelands,🍷 giving you access to the two mana these lands tap for as soon as they enter the battlefield. You can increase the effectiveness of this combo when either Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is in play, as both of these creatures allow you to play even more lands. Needless to say, Amulet Titan is capable of producing a lot of mana.

You use this mana to cast the deck's other namesake card: Primeval Titan. While the Titan may not seem like a game-winning card at first glance, its ability to fetch lands from your deck is what makes it so good. One of the more common ways this deck closes games is by fetching up a Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle or two and using your lands to deal direct damage to your opponent until they're dead.

Notably, you must have a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove in play for this method to work. Another way the deck wins games is through the use of the activated abilities on the lands Slayers' Stronghold and Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion to turn your Primeval Titan into an 8/6 or 10/6 attacker with haste, trample, and double strike.

The deck's consistency comes from the cards Summoner's Pact and Urza's Saga which both offer ways for you to tutor up Primeval Titan and Amulet of Vigor respectively. Amulet Titan is arguably the most difficult combo deck to pilot in Modern. Suffice to say, it requires very intricate play patterns and should only be piloted by Magic players who are either looking for a challenge or very confident in their ability.

1 Yawgmoth

Key Cards: Blood Artist, Young Wolf, And Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

The currently most popular combo deck to grace Modern is Yawgmoth. Named for its central combo card, this is a great combo deck because it doesn't need to enact its combo in order to win. In fact, the deck is perfectly happy with winning by the much fairer means of going to combat repeatedly. However, the deck also presents opponents with the need to interact with its key combo creature if they don't want to instantly lose on the spot.

This has the effect of clearing the way for the deck's more regular win-condition creatures, forcing opponents to try and fight you on two fronts. Furthermore, you can tutor up your combo pieces using Chord of Calling or Eldritch Evolution, to find exactly the creature card you need at the perfect time. No wonder it's one of the most popular decks in Modern.

The simplest way the combo works is by assembling a Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Blood Artist, and two Young Wolves on the battlefield. Then, you can use Yawgmoth's activated ability to sacrifice a Wolf. Choose to target nothing with the -1/-1 counter. The Wolf returns to the battlefield with its undying counter. At this point, you can then use Yawgmoth's ability again to sacrifice the other Wolf and put the -1/-1 counter on the undying wolf, canceling out its undying counter.

The second Wolf you just sacrificed returns to the battlefield with its own undying counter, and you can rinse and repeat this process until your opponent runs out of life points from your Blood Artist triggers. It bears mentioning that the deck features a number of other possible combo kills using Strangleroot Geist or Geralf's Messenger instead. That being said, who would have guessed that puppies would be the perfect sacrificial fodder for a combo kill? Rest in puppies, opponent.