Delina pre-errata was a rules nightmare, as a non-deterministic loop composed solely of mandatory actions is effectively not resolvable. If it was *truly* infinite, the rules say that it's a draw. If any of the actions composing the loop are *not* mandatory, then you have to eventually do something else that will end the loop. But with Delina, since the rules don't allow the use of calculus and other math to help determine the results of loops, rhe game just breaks.
I reckon that if you can prove that a loop will deterministically do something but not how long it would take then we should be able to set an end point for example, I do this until I have dealt X damage. If a loop could take an arbitrarily long time to complete the opponent should be able to respond and say I will gain whatever damage you deal +20 or whatever life. I think it wouldn't break anything in paper magic and if it did we could deal with that by banning cards
Judges always had the right to propose resolutions that both players could agree on, such as assuming that exactly one billion faeries are generated if the loop doesn't stop after ten. Judges could also penalize whatever player caused the non-deterministic combo to happen.
I think the fairly easy solution to non-deterministic loops would be to cut them at some big but not infinite number of loops, like, maybe 20 (because if your loop actually does something and it helps you to kill your opponent, 20 loops should be enough to achieve that.) If after resolving 20 loops of your silly combo you still don't get what you want, you just lose.
@@OMGitshimitisThat runs into a problem with the "possible with probability 0" sequences of outcomes that go on forever without any progress being made. When infinity gets involved, a 100% *chance* of winning is not necessarily a guaranteed win.
I actually built and played a super friend deck with "Ichormoon Gauntlet" a few months ago, it's quite easy to keep taking turns after turns with 4 or 5 walkers. Remember that when you play a noncreature spell (which means every spell in a super friend deck), you also proliferate one of the walker, I also played "Urza assembles the titans", with which you can go off as soon as it hit the field most of the time. BTW, you don't need to go infinite to win, just take a few turns then tokens created with "Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim" or "The Wandering Emperor" will be big enough for lethal, or ultimating "Liliana of the Veil" to lock down the board, or ultimating "Sorin the Mirthless" and "Vraska, Betrayal's Sting" for the kill. It's not that impractical.
The Stuffy Doll combo is extra egregious because for a third of the cost of Pariah in the same colour, you could play Guilty Conscience and immediately infinite your opponent.
Caged sun is interesting because it is templated differently. Most cards like it say "whenever you tap a land for mana", but this says "whenever a land's ability adds mana". Subtle but huge difference.
Btw I absolutely love this episode- combo engines that exploit the game rules so badly that they make it crash- absolute gold; I wish to see more of those in the future!
One of the most annoying Infinites drawbacks combos i have seeing, was my brother casting an Archon of Sun's Grace with an Enchanted Evening in-game in our commander games. Since Enchanted Evening make all permanents into enchantments, casting the Archon of Sun's grace will create a Pegasus when getting into the battlefield triggering itself to their own ability, making a Pegasus token wich would adquire the enchantment type and triggering the Archon once more time. The Archon trigger is Mandatory, it doesn't have a stop clause, Bricking the game. Usually, In most of my commander games the enchantment removal have being Board Wipes, wich make Enchanted Evening a bit of hard card to remove.
@@damo9961 the archon enters as an enchantment and therefore when it enters sees an enchantment entering the battlefield (see C.R. 603.6a-b). Another card who does the same (only for artifacts) would be Kappa Cannoneer.
Xzibiti: yo dawg I heard you like copying spells, so we copied your spell while it was copying a spell so you can now copy a spell while you copy a spell
how is number 1 an infinite loop ? i dont understand. ensoul and ashaya are there to make caged sun a forest, ok. but then of you tap it, it would produce two green like any other forest... can someone explain what im missing ? edit : i got it ! the last ability of caged sun is a mana ability ! i thought of it as a replacement effect
Caged sun is a triggered mana ability meaning it is triggering whenever a land makes mana. When you turn caged sun into a land it will trigger to make the 1 extra when you tap it, then because it is a land the trigger of caged sun sees the 1st triggered ability of caged sun that made 1 green mana and will trigger again(because caged sun is a land and just made mana). The ability to make mana is part of caged sun, when you turn it into a land the mana it makes off the ability is now mana made from a land which would in turn trigger it again. Hope that helps
I find the combo of Transcendence and Rain of Gore to be the funniest, because you could also put a Platinum Angel on your side of the field, or your opponent could have an Abyssal Persecutor, and now, even if you stop the loop by removing Rain of Gore, now you get stuck in a state based loop similar to the Bog Serpent/Assault Suit combo, literally trading one game breaking loop for yet another game breaking loop!
How can you leave out Polyraptor / Marauding Raptor? Marauding Raptor deals damage to the Polyraptor, which makes a copy of Polyraptor, which takes a damage, etc, forcing the game into a draw of infinite mandatory actions. I think It's worse than any other bad infinite because those are two cards that actually want to be in the same deck together, they are meant to be in the same deck, they synergize with the same cards, and with something like Gishath, you can and will lock out the game and force a draw completely by accident.
For the ichormoon gauntlet part For having testing it in my super friend deck It goes infinite very quickly Because technically it's infinite with just 4 walkers (but the loop gonna take time to start) (Also I expect that you don't juge edh for this video but I wanted to had precision with my playthrough)
Technically it can also go infinite if you have something like Oath of Teferi (one extra loyalty activation per turn) and Gideon, Champion of Justice (+1: Put a number of loyalty counters on Gideon equal to the number of creatures your opponents control) while your opponent(s) have 11 or more creatures on the field. Who needs the proliferate ability when you can just double up on a single good loyalty ability, with the strangest fuel source known to mankind: your enemies' (enemy's) living, breathing army! 😂
To be fair, if a commander superfriends deck sticks 13 planeswalkers to the battlefield, it doesn't need Ichormoon Gauntlet to win the game.13 uncontested planeswalkers is a win condition in of itself.
I'm so glad someone pointed this out. Like you don't realize how the math plays out when you first read it. Also, note to help you with testing: the planeswalkers need 10, 7, 4, and 1 loyalty to start the infinite loop. Just always ultimate the highest loyalty dude, and AFTER you proliferate. If you play karn liberated (+4 loyalty), that's probably not a difficult boardstate to make.
It's kinda lame that the game is forced into a draw if someone goes into an infinite combo that doesn't change the game state. Must suck to be winning a game and then be forced into a draw because your opponent played a shitty infinite combo. Much prefer how in Yugioh you simply aren't allowed to start any infinite combos that don't have a net change, and if started by a mandatory effect, the offending card is removed.
I have a Delina deck myself, it’s probably my nastiest deck. I use Wyll, Blade of Frontiers instead of Pixie Guide because a) Pixie Guide isn’t red, and b) they get bigger as well
Pre-errata Delina, the Wild Mage can also do the same thing with Wyll, Blade of Frontiers if you get lucky the first time but it's obviously easier with Pixie Guide
If you're going for a "fairly well known" combo for Chain of Smog, please don't choose the awful 6 mana planeswalker version over Witherbloom Apprentice, which is a 2 drop and so makes the combo actually viable in Legacy.
I was under the impression that the Bog Serpent/Assault Suit combo was a textbook example if the "Can't beats can" rule: if 2 effects are on the board, one saying "do X" and the other saying "You can't do X", the one that says you can't takes precedence.
And that's exactly what happens. The problem is that the sac trigger is a staye-based action, so that happens over and over again without the game being allowed to progress to the next step or phase.
depends on how its worded, it might make it so you cant cast a spell, meaning if you had one on board already it would stay. it might counter said abilty, so it still activates. it could disallow the abilty from being ativated. ward, shroud, hexproof, protection from x, cant activate, extra cost, pay x: counter (does any card have these?), cant make tokens, cant put x counters about, x-walk. can all do a "you cant do x". some things are better then others for certain things.
maybe MTG needs an anti-infinite ruling like yugioh that states you can break an infinite at any point by forcefully destroying the card(s) that triggered the infinite
for Faceless Butcher I have a similar interaction with 3x Lightning Crafter (or other creatures with "Champion a Goblin/Shaman/Creature" effect) + Goblin Warchief to give haste: you take advantage of Haste to tap the L.C. to deal 3 damage to anyone
Ichor moon gauntlet doesn’t actually need 13 plane walkers to pop off. It needs 4 or 5, including one that can reach the -12 without dying. If all but one of your n planeswalkers proliferate you generate n(n-1) counters, 12 with four walkers, and 20 with 5. You can cycle through which planeswalker caches out on the extra turn, and utilize all of these counters
from the infinites i can't believe this one wasn't mentioned and its Polyraptor plus Marauding Raptor basically polyraptors make clones of themselves when dealt damage and the marauding Raptor deals damage to creatures that enter basically the clones will endlessly enter to cause a draw unless you can get rid of the marauding raptor (or something that deals damage to opponents when a creature enters.)
The state triggered ability reminds me of one of my favorite bizarre rules interactions. For this to work, you need to be playing an Emperor game. Emperor is a multiplayer format with six players, in two teams of three, that uses the "limited range of influence" rules in an unusual way. Each team sits together, with the center player being the Emperor. The Emperors have a range of influence of two players (meaning they can reach/see/target everyone except the opposing Emperor initially) and the other players have a range of influence of one (meaning they can initially see only their own Emperor and the immediately adjacent opponent.) Gameplay normally consists of taking out at least one of the players on the side of a team and then that team's Emperor, after the range of influence readjusts to include them. The interaction involves the card Darksteel Reactor, which has the ability "When Darksteel Reactor has twenty or more charge counters on it, you win the game." If all players are still in the game and an Emperor controls a Darksteel Reactor with twenty counters on it, a bunch of rules interact in a way that causes the game to be a *draw* for their team and a *win* for the other team. How? Well, first we have to apply a rule that affects multiplayer games. In any multiplayer game, an effect that would cause a player to win the game instead causes all of that player's opponents to lose the game. If the limited range of influence rules are in effect, a "you win the game" effect causes only the opponents who are in your range of influence to lose the game. So Darksteel Reactor triggers, and the two players on the other team within the Emperor's range of influence lose the game. Here's where things get really weird. The game doesn't adjust who is in a player's range of influence immediately when a player leaves the game; it waits until the next turn starts to do that. So after the first instance of Darksteel Reactor's ability resolves, the two opponents that the Emperor can see lose the game, and then the game continues. Darksteel Reactor triggers again. When the ability resolves, it attempts to make all of its controller's opponents within range of influence lose the game - but there aren't any, so nothing happens. Then Darksteel Reactor triggers again. We've hit the point where there is an unavoidable loop of mandatory actions, so the game is forced to be a draw - *for all players within the Emperor's range of influence.* This means the game is now a draw for that Emperor's team, and no one else. They all leave the game. The opposing Emperor, by virtue of being the only player still in the game, thus wins the game.
Having 4 different planeswalkers with ichormoon gauntlet is enough to go infinite since you can just use them after each other and with 3 activations each putting a total of 4 loyalty on planeswalkers, you get the needed 12 esch turn
Planeswalker uniqueness was removed with Ixalan, meaning it's not actually a factor to the Ichormoon one. 13 walkers is still a huge hurdle, but uniqueness isn't standing in the way anymore.
the faceless butcher thing is a legit commander deck idea, this is what we call "a fiend hunter effect" and the deck plays all the creatures that do this. the commander does this too, but he has an ETB that makes a soldier token, so if you loop him infinitely, you get infinite 1/1 solders, then all you need is a sac outlet and your opponents die, because the background he's paired with which drains people when things die. Abdel Adrian, Gorion's ward and the background you want is "Agent of the Iron Throne"
When the dungeons and dragons set first launched on arena I remember winning a limited match because my opponent timed out from the delina pixie combo.
Stuffy Doll + Guilty Conscience (Enchant creature, Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, Guilty Conscience deals that much damage to that creature.) was always my favorite Stuffy Doll combo, would be a guarantee kill of any player.... Pariah just speeds up the loop
Enduring Renewal from Ice Age is apparently fully legal in Modern, Commander, Legacy, and Vintage. It has a couple of effects, but the combo one is when a creature card goes to the graveyard from the battlefield, it goes back to your hand. Any zero cost creature can be sacrificed over and over for some benefit.
I'd like to nominate a very dumb way to die, which I once blundered into: Teferi's Ageless Insight and Alhammaret's Archive. Instant loss. (Unless you control a Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries - in which case it becomes an instant win.)
That's not actually how replacement effects work. Each event can only be effected be a replacement effect once. In this case, TAI sees a "draw 1" and instead makes it say "draw 2", then AA sees "draw 2" and replaces that with "draw 4." Technically you can reverse these two effects, but it doesn't change anything, this time. If they worked your way, people would just die from any damage if two damage doublers were in play, for example.
I ran a Delina deck in Arena for shenanigans when the Baldurs Gate sets were new. It had Delina, Pixie Guide and Barbarian Class to stack dice rolls, and Brazen Dwarf and Feywild Trickster to capitalise on the dice buckets. It only went off about 25% of the time but it was hilarious every time. I have a Commander version deck on the backburner, which also includes an Attractions deck (because attraction dice also benefit from Pixie Guide and Barbarian Class...)
Another forced draw is any 'when X, you win/lose the game' state based effect + 'you can't win the game/you can't lose the game'. Like Platinum Angel/Darksteel Reactor or Platinum Angel/Transcendence
I'm trying desperately to understand how turning Caged Sun into a land itself makes the combo happen but just having a forest tap with Caged Sun on the battlefield doesn't. They are both lands, they both tap for a single green, caged sun adds another. If caged sun goes infinite it seems like forests would as well. What am i missing?
OK I get it now. So nyxbloom ancient does a similar thing, but it changes the lands to add more mana on their own. Caged sun meanwhile adds mana by itself, when you use your lands. So when you make it into a land and tap it, it adds more mana in response. And that's a new triggered ability, so it triggers again in response. This doesn't work with nyxbloom ancient because it says the word "instead." There's no new ability triggering with that one.
@josephwodarczyk977 I’m still so confused by this. So why would itself being the source of the extra mana cause itself to trigger infinitely. It’s still just a land being tapped for mana just like any other land that meets its criteria, isn’t it? I feel like I’m missing something from all the explanations that I’ve read, like the way it’s being said just isn’t registering with me.
@@Keizerbunz you could use a normal forest to start the combo. What matters is that the caged sun says it's a land. So that when the triggered ability to make more mana happens, it counts as a land making mana.
I bumbled my way into one in my old Atraxa deck from years ago. It required Crystalline Crawler, Cathar's Crusade, and Animation Module on field plus the ability to tap the Crawler. You tap the Crawler to add a counter to it, remove the counter for a mana to pay the Module cost, create a 1/1 Servo, trigger Crusade, use new counter on Crawler to repeat as many times as you please to build an unstoppable board of infinitely large creatures 😁
Ichormoon gauntlet doesn’t need 13 planeswalkers, proliferating 13 planeswalkers 12 times will give you 156 loyalty per turn, you literally only need 4 planeswalkers Turn 1: P 1-3 prolif, P 4 extra turn 1 = +3 2 = +3 3 = +3 4 = -9 Turn 2: Rotate one space 1 = +6 2 = +6 3 = -6 4 = - 6 Turn 3: Rotate one space 1 = +9 2 = -3 3 = -3 4 = -3 Turn 4: 1-4 = 0 Every 4 turns it resets, you do however need to get their loyalty up before hand or just use Tekuthal to reduce it to only needing 3 planeswalkers and enjoy, I’ve literally used this in standard and it works pretty well, please consider what’s happening with a combo before you judge it, ichormoon is 1000x better than they said
Fukken died from serpent/suit combo. UNSTOPPABLE FORCE (suit) MEETS IMMOVABLE STONE. SOME SAY THE FIGHT IS STILL ON THE SERPENT NOT CUT AND THE SUIT NOT GONE
the caged sun Loop cam be responded to by any mana-ability, that lets you sacrifice a creature, enchantment, artifact or permanent (Ashnods Altar and Phyrexian Altar for example).
Narset's Reversal, Swarm Intelligence, and pretty much any Instant/Sorcery you could ever want. Cast spell. Swarm triggers, making a copy. Response, Narset's Reversal, targeting original spell. Swarm triggers, making a copy. Copy targets original Narset's Reversal. Copy resolves, bouncing the original Narset's Reversal to hand, and creating a copy you can freely pilot to the original spell. Copy of Narset's Reversal #2 bounces the original spell, and copies it. Two copies of a spell resolve. Very gross for Storm count, especially if you get Yusri, Fortune's Flame to hit the 5-win Omniscience for a turn.
I found an approximately 20 card combo to give my opponents infinite extra turns (I think that technically counts as group hug). I actually did it in commander and won because they decked out. It's worth noting that there's an easier way to set this up, but I only used cards I owned at the time, so my version is needlessly complex. Here's the list broken down by what each part does. *Infinite Mana*: Sol Ring Tidespout Tyrant Spellbook *Mana Storage and Management*: Empowered Autogenerator (ever increasing mana generation) Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset (emblem to untap the generator) Gemstone Array (literally storage and color filtering) *Give spells flash*: Emergence Zone Slogurk, the Overslime (land from yard to hand) Viral Drake Gretchen Twitchwillow (land from hand to field) *Zone Changers*: Temur Sabertooth (creatures to hand) Kefnet the Mindful (lands to hand) Clear the Mind (yard to library) Mystic Sanctuary (spell to library and eventually to hand) Scuttle Tide (hand to yard) *Extra Turns for Opponents*: Eon Frolicker (must be cast from hand to work and gives us *Protection* from that player until our next turn) *Extra Spice*: Chronomantic Escape (can't be attacked until our next turn) Kros, Defense Contractor (goad creatures and give them trample until our next turn to force our opponent's to duke it out) Mana Short (tap all their lands if things get dicey) Rift Sweeper (Exile resistance) Counter spells just in case we have to After having the necessary setup complete (and Eon Frolicker in your hand), pass the turn. Wait for the last opponent before you to move to end step. On their main phase 2, cast Eon Frolicker and give one opponent an extra turn. Do the bounce thingy and reset. Wait until that turn's end and do the same for another opponent until you have protection from all of them. Then, just give extra turns as you see fit and sit back and enjoy the show. You'll have to use Scuttletide and some zone changers to prevent decking yourself from Gretchen's ability. You get infinite crabs, for the memes. I used Kros as the commander. It's technically group hug, right?
Ichormoon Gauntlet is actually WAY easier to go infinite with than this video suggests. You don't need 13 Planeswalkers at all, only 5 (or 4 including Urza who can activate twice). It's VERY easy to get a ton of Planeswalkers on board because so many opponents run only a small selection of Planeswalker removal, and if you're casting the Planeswalkers while Gauntlet is already on board, it's trivial to get the first one up to 13 or more loyalty. This is seriously one of my favorite combos to pull when it works. "Oh, opponent, you liked having turns? Sorry, you can't have those anymore 🤣"
I actually used the Ichormoon loop in Modern and performed middle of the pack. You don't use 13 walkers, you use Doubling Season, Jace, Cunning Castaway, Jace, Architect of Will and Samut, the one that ults to pull two creatures and or walkers from library to battlefield, and Wheel of Sun and Moon, among other things. When performed to completion you have infinite Jace, Cunning Castaways, infinite 2/2 illusions, infinite counters on every player and permanent that has counters, infinite turns, and you've played every card in both players' deck.
How does ensoul + caged sun ashaya go infinite? Am I missing something here? If it’s a land artifact creature, with its add another mana ability, I would just add another mana…how is it triggering again? And again?
9:19 I won't stand for that kind of Ral, Storm Conduit erasure! Seriously, there was a (bad) combo deck with Ral and Expansion//Explosion back in War of the Spark, it was hilarious As other people said, your math for Ichormoon Scepter doesn't work. You also forgot that effects like Lae'zel and Carn's bastion makes thing easier Still unusable outside of EDH though Another "wait, it's not a may" type combo is Aether Flash+Polyraptor, it also has the same issue as Life and Limb+Sporemound in that dinosaure tribal EDH decks can play both of them. Good thing Gishat's ability to put dinosaures from the top of the deck is an "any number", it would have led to awkward moments otherwise
For 4 horseman, these days if u throw a Sidisi Brood Tyrant and a 2nd Dread Return in there so you can bring out sidisi and everytime you mill an Amoeba you make a 2/2 zombie that way you dodge the slow play as you are impacting the board state with a zombie everytime you hit an amoeba, its just too slow for the format these days in general imo, too many ways to disrupt it
I used to use Basalt Mesmeric for really cheeky Thoracle wins. Fun stuff. Ichormoon Gauntlet is also super underrated, lol. It's incredibly powerful, but stupid jank. I've run it in a few planeswalker decks. You don't actually need 12 walkers. You need 3-5 walkers, depending on the walker. As they proliferate, they give themselves and each other counters so you can get to the extra turns mode surprisingly fast. Walkers that have +2 abilities tend to be better to use that than the proliferate. But the second line of text is what makes it actually really good. Narset, Parter of Veils works really well with this, as does 5 drop Teferi. Both of them let you draw cards, grab walkers, and keep the engine going. Sometimes you don't even need to -12 if you can fire off a Teferi -8 followed by Ugin -10. The current shell I'm playing with it in is a Historic 8-key knock off (only have astral cornucopia and manifold key...) that's wrapped in a control-shell. You just counter/remove everything, jam a cornucopia with 1 counter and start playing planeswalkers until you can get to the real jank of ichormoon. Slap down a Magistrate's Scepter, and watch them cry.
When I was playing Magic I made a deck with 3 softlock combos inside (one of them you didnt list but I forgot the cards name, it created infinite tokens with no "may" ability) and called it "The gentleman's tie", I'd play it in casual play against my friend when I didnt want them to feel bad about losing XD
The last infinite is absolutely something you’d want in your commander deck. It effectively makes it so you can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game permanently, since if they ever try to disrupt the combo you immediately force a draw. So you either win the game or draw the game. But the game isn’t technically guaranteed to end in a draw since if you are close to winning and someone breaks the combo you likely let them, which also gives your opponents a chance at winning. So in theory if everyone plays optimally it nearly guarantees that you win the game.
This combo is pain, not only because it's slow, but because it has way too many factors... but it is still pretty stupidly awesome (exclusive to MTGA): For this bullshit, you will need Oracle of the alpha (or colored mana rocks for the combo so you don't have to draw power nine cards!), Rothga bonded Engulfer, temur Ascendancy, Sinister reflections, Paradox engine, and Squee the immortal. How this works is that you set up Oracle a few times with Sinister reflections to dump power nine cards into the deck, draw out cards by using Rothga to power up 1 squee card by using the legend rule to kill the amped card with Rogtha's boon effect, you keep casting that Squee from the graveyard infinitely using infinite mana from the rocks resetting because of paradox engine, draw cards until you you hit all of you sinister reflections to keep conjuring copies of Rogtha into your hand and using the boon and legend rule for the Rogtha's and the amped Squee, and when you run out you can use one of the copies of timetwister conjured in your deck to reset everything and keep using the copies of Rogtha to amp the squee to oblivion permanently with little options for your opponent to get rid of it. throw in a card that gives him lifelink and trample, and you win. lol.
1) Ichormoon gauntlet isn't that hard to go go infinite with 4-5 planeswalkers (especially when the point of the deck is to get several out all at once as fast as possible). I have done it in my super friends edh deck a few times. The math is wonky, but it works as long as one or two of your walkers have enough "starting" loyalty. 2) With Transcendence and Rain Of Gore: They are both replacement effects, which can apply to any given event only once, so there is no loop. 3) Caged Sun: as with number 2, a replacement effect can apply to any given event only once, so no loop is had.
I disagree on the Ichormoon Gauntlet. It goes infinite with two jaces and Leori, Spark touchedhunter. I have an EDH deck that not only consistently protects it's Planeswalkers, it frequently goes infinite with Ichormoon and Jace, cunning castaway, in part because of the cards that tutor Planeswalkers.
6:30 what about Kicker Jace? Jace Mirror Mage. For two blue and a generic, you can pay an additional 2 generic to have a non legendary token of Jace, Mirror Mage which then blue has many different ways to create additional copies of tokens. 8:30 Actually that's a competitive infinite combo needing to make use of a spell like Fury Storm or Bonus Round. What makes it competitively viable is the fact the cards can all be in your hand or graveyard as you can then make use of cards like Past in Flames so when you copy a spell that copies another spell, it's creating an additional copy of those copy target spell effects. Then you just cast a spell like Gut Shot and then you can choose to be casting X copies of Gut Shot. 12:50 That would be a gnarly way to cause the game to end. Just pass the Bog Serpent to a player who controls no Swamps and force a draw. Prob get you disqualified from a tournament though. i feel like the Stuffy Doll and Pariah "combo" is unrealistically never going to happen. You would have to resolve Stuffy Doll, and an opponent use a spell that redirects the damage it would cause to you. At which point you wouldn't enchant it with Pariah unless your intentially causing this weird "End the game in a weird way" effect. Which i'm sure can get you disqualified. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, with an effect that makes Caged Sun become a creature like Lifecraft Awakening is really interesting. But wow, causes the game to end and you can't use the mana! i was really expecting Worldgorger Dragon and possibly it's Legendary white counterpart Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward to be on this list as it's a combo that is terrible in how "all or nothing" it is.
I'm partial to the version of the Reverberate combo where you use Wild Ricochet and Grip of Chaos and a few copy effects to make Wild Ricochet copy itself an extremely large but deterministically finite number of times, and there's no way to know how many times without resolving the entire thing
im currently working on a kenrith archenemy commander deck that only wins with 4+ card infinite combos (its made specifically for archenemy commander). i think ill take one or two of the combos here, if you dont mind
As far as I know you can already go Infinite with Ichormoon Gauntlet and 4 Walkers if they have the correct amount of Loyality. And with 5 it is alr pretty easy. You don't need 13 Walkers...
The cager sun combo should be number 1 as the ultimate failsafe combo, and not the worst combo possible! you set a deadmans switch that ensures you can't lose the game. You play to win, but if you're opponent manages to pull out a sneaky game winning move on you you react by forcing the draw instead. And they can't possibly make you lose faster than you can force the draw by rule. And if they try to disarm your deadmans switch you can set off bomb in response while blaming their tampering wirh your creatures for forcing your hand in blowing up the game...much better than trying to hide behind some stupid clockwork angel automaton and a much more robust solution to boot! Make copies of the bomb for all the players in commander and play the Cold War version of Commander where everyone has to play softly keeping MAD in mind...🤡 Magic needs an Unglued card "Participation Trophy Display Case" Enchantment if the game ends in a draw you win the game instead, you cannot win the game as a result of your opponent losing the game. If a another cards effect says you win the game, ignore that effect unless your opponent would not also lose the game as a result. "Check out all the activities my sons participated in! Xbox doesn't track these achievements for you!"
i remember as a teenager finding panoptic mirror + beacon of tomorrow and trying to force a deck around it. thanks wizard apprentices. took forever but its not like my friends and i were great. then id deck them slowly with supreme inquisitor
You absolutely do not need 13 Planeswalkers for The ichormoon gauntlet combo. Because if that's the strategy you're going for you got enough other ways to proliferate things you can get it done with like 4-5 walkers. You're also making the assumption that you're running it in a 60 card format which is less likely anyway because most people play commander in which case it's super easy to go infinite with
Awwwe you missed my favorite. Painters Servant + Grindstone + Wheel of Sun and Moon. Once the grindstone is activated, you infinitely put cards from the top of the deck to the bottom. if they don’t deal with one of the pieces, before the grindstone trigger resolves, the actions are mandatory, the combo can’t stop and the game draws.
Arena is the home of shit combos - 250 card deck with 10 combo cards = Shitty shuffler says "all good" not good at math anyway plus the devs don't understand what the random function in unity does.
Can't you sacrifice the saporlings to like goblin bombardment to kill your opponent's the the life & limb, spormound comb? Or with Perporos or impact tremors on board?
The Double Cast/ Reverberate thing, is like, well just pick a storm spell to play after. You now should have infinite death dealing, or tokens or what ever else the storm spell of choice does.
Chronatog/Stasis/kismet pre-errata when used by stasis players that neglected to add a way to win the game was comically bad when played against dungeon or necropotence decks or other mill-proof deck setups. Just players passing turns hoping their opponent concedes from boredom before time is called... I did see someone once win the entire tournament with an last two card draw of burnt offering, which was only in the deck by mistake.
I understand why four horsemen cant be shortcut but its so annoying because like realistically you will eventually hit the game state required. Especially given petals of insight / duskwatch recruiter are considered loopable to stack the deck, even though these technically require decisions.😊
You only need 4 planeswalkers out to go infinite with ichormoon gauntlet. Proliferating 3 times puts a total of 12 counters on all your planeswalkers, which is enough to keep the combo going as long as the planeswalkers have enough loyalty initially. I actually lost to this once on standard mtg arena. Even with the combo my opponent nearly lost to milling themselves, they had 2 cards left when they won.
Leech Bonder : Blue&Untap to move target counter to from one creature to another Prismatic Mantle: Tap equiped creature for any color. Infinite counter moving, useful not even a little bit.
So that Planeswalker rule was changed as long as it doesn't have the same name as one you already have so you can have a nissa vital force and a nissa worldwaker out at the same time
I can’t really agree with No 7 being on the list being worse that the planeswalker smog combo you mentioned because of Grapeshot, or the storm keyword in general. Your looking at an infinite combo that costs similar mana but by keeping it to purely spells you restrict your opponent to using double counterspell where the planeswalker can be interacted with in more ways to prevent the combo. Interesting video otherwise.
How did Life and Limb and Sporemound even get allowed to be made like that? This doesn't even seem like an obscure combo. If I wanted to make a deck based on saprolings, both of those cards seem like obvious cards to put in the deck.
Where is Polyraptor + Marauding Raptor? It's one of the easier combos to assemble (given that it's tribal) and it goes infinite if no interaction is played.
The stuffy doll pariah combo can be broken with a heliod’s intervention at instant speed, destroying the pariah. Time to make this deck to annoy my friends.
#3 ....so clearly the play here is to give Transcendence to your *opponent*. Then have a way to destroy an Enchantment at Instant speed on hand and.... exponential damage, anyone?
I personally hate infinite loops. I know there is no stopping people from doing it and there usually no stopping the loop in game because they can suddenly appear out of nowhere. Its very non-interactive gameplay. "I play this odd card, then I play this card and go infinite to win the game" - I've literally had someone say this on like turn 5 of a commander game (I forget the actual cards). Very fun. It feels like someone just activating cheat codes in an eGame.
The Stuffy Doll, Pariah combo would make a lot more sense, if the player that was chosen by Stuffy Doll was the one to also put Pariah onto it, but it would likely result in the same outcome, unless the player that controls Stuffy Doll has a sacrifice outlet on the battlefield
For the Double Cast and Reverberate combo you also need to give to give Double Cast flash because you can't cast anything because to play anything at sorcery speed it has to be during one of your main phases and there can't be anything on the stack
Cant i just mill myself in response to emrakul until my deck is in my GY, put the nacromoebas on the stack, let them return, sac them still in response to blasting station and then let emrakul resolve?
Ichormoon gauntlet is so much easier to pull off. I use it in my proliferate planeswalker deck. I use cards to cheat planeswalkers out with a teferi as well to help protect them as opponents cant cast on my turn. Just a waiting game until nicol bolas comes out board wipes and insta win
Delina pre-errata was a rules nightmare, as a non-deterministic loop composed solely of mandatory actions is effectively not resolvable. If it was *truly* infinite, the rules say that it's a draw. If any of the actions composing the loop are *not* mandatory, then you have to eventually do something else that will end the loop. But with Delina, since the rules don't allow the use of calculus and other math to help determine the results of loops, rhe game just breaks.
I reckon that if you can prove that a loop will deterministically do something but not how long it would take then we should be able to set an end point for example, I do this until I have dealt X damage. If a loop could take an arbitrarily long time to complete the opponent should be able to respond and say I will gain whatever damage you deal +20 or whatever life. I think it wouldn't break anything in paper magic and if it did we could deal with that by banning cards
Judges always had the right to propose resolutions that both players could agree on, such as assuming that exactly one billion faeries are generated if the loop doesn't stop after ten. Judges could also penalize whatever player caused the non-deterministic combo to happen.
I think the fairly easy solution to non-deterministic loops would be to cut them at some big but not infinite number of loops, like, maybe 20 (because if your loop actually does something and it helps you to kill your opponent, 20 loops should be enough to achieve that.)
If after resolving 20 loops of your silly combo you still don't get what you want, you just lose.
If both players agree on a ruling such as a fairly reasonable calculus problem to shortcut a situation, that is allowed in the rules I believe.
@@OMGitshimitisThat runs into a problem with the "possible with probability 0" sequences of outcomes that go on forever without any progress being made. When infinity gets involved, a 100% *chance* of winning is not necessarily a guaranteed win.
Pitiless Plunderer + March of the Machines is another draw loop; it creates an infinite loop of treasure tokens generating and dying as 0/0 creatures.
Find something that trigger on ETB or Dying and thats pretty good
@@EverianKalim There are a ton of creatures (and other permanents) that trigger on Dying causing life loss for one or all opponents.
Add zulaport cutthroat to that combo and it’s an instant win as all life on the board is drained into you.
I actually built and played a super friend deck with "Ichormoon Gauntlet" a few months ago, it's quite easy to keep taking turns after turns with 4 or 5 walkers. Remember that when you play a noncreature spell (which means every spell in a super friend deck), you also proliferate one of the walker, I also played "Urza assembles the titans", with which you can go off as soon as it hit the field most of the time. BTW, you don't need to go infinite to win, just take a few turns then tokens created with "Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim" or "The Wandering Emperor" will be big enough for lethal, or ultimating "Liliana of the Veil" to lock down the board, or ultimating "Sorin the Mirthless" and "Vraska, Betrayal's Sting" for the kill. It's not that impractical.
The stuffy doll combo is hilarious. Go to your locals and pull it off just for the fun it. Trolling your opponents is never useless
The Stuffy Doll combo is extra egregious because for a third of the cost of Pariah in the same colour, you could play Guilty Conscience and immediately infinite your opponent.
@@JadefirewsnA guilty conscience, indeed.
Caged sun is interesting because it is templated differently. Most cards like it say "whenever you tap a land for mana", but this says "whenever a land's ability adds mana". Subtle but huge difference.
would caged sun's mana double ability be considered as a mana ability, so it can be searched by moonsilver key?
@@TheBadsectorzero no because mana abilities are all active abilities and caged sun is a replacement effect.
@@stigmaoftheroseno
Cage is a trigger, not an replacement effect
But if it is a trigger then it should go to the stack and could be responded to
@@synxcopt mana abilities doesn't use the stack
Btw I absolutely love this episode- combo engines that exploit the game rules so badly that they make it crash- absolute gold; I wish to see more of those in the future!
sometimes, it's not about winning, but sending a message
my friend often does a lot of inifinite combos that ultimately do nothing lol
One of the most annoying Infinites drawbacks combos i have seeing, was my brother casting an Archon of Sun's Grace with an Enchanted Evening in-game in our commander games.
Since Enchanted Evening make all permanents into enchantments, casting the Archon of Sun's grace will create a Pegasus when getting into the battlefield triggering itself to their own ability, making a Pegasus token wich would adquire the enchantment type and triggering the Archon once more time. The Archon trigger is Mandatory, it doesn't have a stop clause, Bricking the game.
Usually, In most of my commander games the enchantment removal have being Board Wipes, wich make Enchanted Evening a bit of hard card to remove.
No, since the archon is not yet in play, it doesn't see itself
@@damo9961 the archon enters as an enchantment and therefore when it enters sees an enchantment entering the battlefield (see C.R. 603.6a-b). Another card who does the same (only for artifacts) would be Kappa Cannoneer.
Xzibiti: yo dawg I heard you like copying spells, so we copied your spell while it was copying a spell so you can now copy a spell while you copy a spell
them old-school memes
how is number 1 an infinite loop ? i dont understand. ensoul and ashaya are there to make caged sun a forest, ok. but then of you tap it, it would produce two green like any other forest... can someone explain what im missing ?
edit : i got it ! the last ability of caged sun is a mana ability ! i thought of it as a replacement effect
I don't get it either. Can someone explain?
Caged sun is a triggered mana ability meaning it is triggering whenever a land makes mana. When you turn caged sun into a land it will trigger to make the 1 extra when you tap it, then because it is a land the trigger of caged sun sees the 1st triggered ability of caged sun that made 1 green mana and will trigger again(because caged sun is a land and just made mana). The ability to make mana is part of caged sun, when you turn it into a land the mana it makes off the ability is now mana made from a land which would in turn trigger it again. Hope that helps
@@lukaspecson6095 Thank you. Now I understand.
Wholesome internet interaction. ❤
I find the combo of Transcendence and Rain of Gore to be the funniest, because you could also put a Platinum Angel on your side of the field, or your opponent could have an Abyssal Persecutor, and now, even if you stop the loop by removing Rain of Gore, now you get stuck in a state based loop similar to the Bog Serpent/Assault Suit combo, literally trading one game breaking loop for yet another game breaking loop!
How can you leave out Polyraptor / Marauding Raptor? Marauding Raptor deals damage to the Polyraptor, which makes a copy of Polyraptor, which takes a damage, etc, forcing the game into a draw of infinite mandatory actions. I think It's worse than any other bad infinite because those are two cards that actually want to be in the same deck together, they are meant to be in the same deck, they synergize with the same cards, and with something like Gishath, you can and will lock out the game and force a draw completely by accident.
For the ichormoon gauntlet part
For having testing it in my super friend deck
It goes infinite very quickly
Because technically it's infinite with just 4 walkers (but the loop gonna take time to start)
(Also I expect that you don't juge edh for this video but I wanted to had precision with my playthrough)
Technically it can also go infinite if you have something like Oath of Teferi (one extra loyalty activation per turn) and Gideon, Champion of Justice (+1: Put a number of loyalty counters on Gideon equal to the number of creatures your opponents control) while your opponent(s) have 11 or more creatures on the field. Who needs the proliferate ability when you can just double up on a single good loyalty ability, with the strangest fuel source known to mankind: your enemies' (enemy's) living, breathing army! 😂
To be fair, if a commander superfriends deck sticks 13 planeswalkers to the battlefield, it doesn't need Ichormoon Gauntlet to win the game.13 uncontested planeswalkers is a win condition in of itself.
@@pretends2know Ugin could potentially get you over halfway there, theoretically speaking. Does that count? I feel like that counts
I was going to post this. I have actually seen this happen a few times on Arena when it first came out.
I'm so glad someone pointed this out. Like you don't realize how the math plays out when you first read it.
Also, note to help you with testing: the planeswalkers need 10, 7, 4, and 1 loyalty to start the infinite loop. Just always ultimate the highest loyalty dude, and AFTER you proliferate. If you play karn liberated (+4 loyalty), that's probably not a difficult boardstate to make.
It's kinda lame that the game is forced into a draw if someone goes into an infinite combo that doesn't change the game state. Must suck to be winning a game and then be forced into a draw because your opponent played a shitty infinite combo. Much prefer how in Yugioh you simply aren't allowed to start any infinite combos that don't have a net change, and if started by a mandatory effect, the offending card is removed.
I have a Delina deck myself, it’s probably my nastiest deck. I use Wyll, Blade of Frontiers instead of Pixie Guide because a) Pixie Guide isn’t red, and b) they get bigger as well
Pre-errata Delina, the Wild Mage can also do the same thing with Wyll, Blade of Frontiers if you get lucky the first time but it's obviously easier with Pixie Guide
Faceless butcher's effect was also shown in lorwyen with the champion effect. 3x nova chaser + pandemonium was fun. We called it mudkips
If you're going for a "fairly well known" combo for Chain of Smog, please don't choose the awful 6 mana planeswalker version over Witherbloom Apprentice, which is a 2 drop and so makes the combo actually viable in Legacy.
I was under the impression that the Bog Serpent/Assault Suit combo was a textbook example if the "Can't beats can" rule: if 2 effects are on the board, one saying "do X" and the other saying "You can't do X", the one that says you can't takes precedence.
And that's exactly what happens. The problem is that the sac trigger is a staye-based action, so that happens over and over again without the game being allowed to progress to the next step or phase.
depends on how its worded, it might make it so you cant cast a spell, meaning if you had one on board already it would stay. it might counter said abilty, so it still activates. it could disallow the abilty from being ativated. ward, shroud, hexproof, protection from x, cant activate, extra cost, pay x: counter (does any card have these?), cant make tokens, cant put x counters about, x-walk. can all do a "you cant do x". some things are better then others for certain things.
maybe MTG needs an anti-infinite ruling like yugioh that states you can break an infinite at any point by forcefully destroying the card(s) that triggered the infinite
I remember ending games of Magic Online with Faceless Butcher. Good times.
for Faceless Butcher
I have a similar interaction with 3x Lightning Crafter (or other creatures with "Champion a Goblin/Shaman/Creature" effect) + Goblin Warchief to give haste: you take advantage of Haste to tap the L.C. to deal 3 damage to anyone
Did he actually pronounce every card title correctly in this video? That's insane. I refuse to believe it!
Ichor moon gauntlet doesn’t actually need 13 plane walkers to pop off. It needs 4 or 5, including one that can reach the -12 without dying. If all but one of your n planeswalkers proliferate you generate n(n-1) counters, 12 with four walkers, and 20 with 5. You can cycle through which planeswalker caches out on the extra turn, and utilize all of these counters
Imma make a faceless butcher to just force draws at my fnms
from the infinites i can't believe this one wasn't mentioned
and its
Polyraptor plus Marauding Raptor
basically polyraptors make clones of themselves when dealt damage and the marauding Raptor deals damage to creatures that enter
basically the clones will endlessly enter to cause a draw unless you can get rid of the marauding raptor (or something that deals damage to opponents when a creature enters.)
Ahhh yes the combo that bricked mtg arena matches 😂😂😂😂
The state triggered ability reminds me of one of my favorite bizarre rules interactions.
For this to work, you need to be playing an Emperor game. Emperor is a multiplayer format with six players, in two teams of three, that uses the "limited range of influence" rules in an unusual way. Each team sits together, with the center player being the Emperor. The Emperors have a range of influence of two players (meaning they can reach/see/target everyone except the opposing Emperor initially) and the other players have a range of influence of one (meaning they can initially see only their own Emperor and the immediately adjacent opponent.) Gameplay normally consists of taking out at least one of the players on the side of a team and then that team's Emperor, after the range of influence readjusts to include them.
The interaction involves the card Darksteel Reactor, which has the ability "When Darksteel Reactor has twenty or more charge counters on it, you win the game." If all players are still in the game and an Emperor controls a Darksteel Reactor with twenty counters on it, a bunch of rules interact in a way that causes the game to be a *draw* for their team and a *win* for the other team.
How? Well, first we have to apply a rule that affects multiplayer games. In any multiplayer game, an effect that would cause a player to win the game instead causes all of that player's opponents to lose the game. If the limited range of influence rules are in effect, a "you win the game" effect causes only the opponents who are in your range of influence to lose the game. So Darksteel Reactor triggers, and the two players on the other team within the Emperor's range of influence lose the game.
Here's where things get really weird. The game doesn't adjust who is in a player's range of influence immediately when a player leaves the game; it waits until the next turn starts to do that. So after the first instance of Darksteel Reactor's ability resolves, the two opponents that the Emperor can see lose the game, and then the game continues. Darksteel Reactor triggers again. When the ability resolves, it attempts to make all of its controller's opponents within range of influence lose the game - but there aren't any, so nothing happens. Then Darksteel Reactor triggers again. We've hit the point where there is an unavoidable loop of mandatory actions, so the game is forced to be a draw - *for all players within the Emperor's range of influence.* This means the game is now a draw for that Emperor's team, and no one else. They all leave the game. The opposing Emperor, by virtue of being the only player still in the game, thus wins the game.
Having 4 different planeswalkers with ichormoon gauntlet is enough to go infinite since you can just use them after each other and with 3 activations each putting a total of 4 loyalty on planeswalkers, you get the needed 12 esch turn
#7 - the infinite copy spells, works best with Aetherflux Reservoir on the field.
No, as the copys aren´t cast, they don´t trigger the reservoir. you could use Witherbloom Apprentice (easier to cast than Obyx)
Planeswalker uniqueness was removed with Ixalan, meaning it's not actually a factor to the Ichormoon one. 13 walkers is still a huge hurdle, but uniqueness isn't standing in the way anymore.
they said the legend rule, not the planeswalker rule. Also u only need 4 walkers
the faceless butcher thing is a legit commander deck idea, this is what we call "a fiend hunter effect" and the deck plays all the creatures that do this. the commander does this too, but he has an ETB that makes a soldier token, so if you loop him infinitely, you get infinite 1/1 solders, then all you need is a sac outlet and your opponents die, because the background he's paired with which drains people when things die. Abdel Adrian, Gorion's ward and the background you want is "Agent of the Iron Throne"
My fav jank combo has to be the one with reckless fireweaver+ steelfin whale+ banishing knack+ random artifact. Boy does it feel good to pull off
When the dungeons and dragons set first launched on arena I remember winning a limited match because my opponent timed out from the delina pixie combo.
Stuffy Doll + Guilty Conscience (Enchant creature, Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, Guilty Conscience deals that much damage to that creature.) was always my favorite Stuffy Doll combo, would be a guarantee kill of any player.... Pariah just speeds up the loop
Enduring Renewal from Ice Age is apparently fully legal in Modern, Commander, Legacy, and Vintage.
It has a couple of effects, but the combo one is when a creature card goes to the graveyard from the battlefield, it goes back to your hand. Any zero cost creature can be sacrificed over and over for some benefit.
I'd like to nominate a very dumb way to die, which I once blundered into: Teferi's Ageless Insight and Alhammaret's Archive. Instant loss. (Unless you control a Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries - in which case it becomes an instant win.)
That's not actually how replacement effects work. Each event can only be effected be a replacement effect once. In this case, TAI sees a "draw 1" and instead makes it say "draw 2", then AA sees "draw 2" and replaces that with "draw 4." Technically you can reverse these two effects, but it doesn't change anything, this time. If they worked your way, people would just die from any damage if two damage doublers were in play, for example.
I ran a Delina deck in Arena for shenanigans when the Baldurs Gate sets were new. It had Delina, Pixie Guide and Barbarian Class to stack dice rolls, and Brazen Dwarf and Feywild Trickster to capitalise on the dice buckets. It only went off about 25% of the time but it was hilarious every time. I have a Commander version deck on the backburner, which also includes an Attractions deck (because attraction dice also benefit from Pixie Guide and Barbarian Class...)
Another forced draw is any 'when X, you win/lose the game' state based effect + 'you can't win the game/you can't lose the game'. Like Platinum Angel/Darksteel Reactor or Platinum Angel/Transcendence
I'm trying desperately to understand how turning Caged Sun into a land itself makes the combo happen but just having a forest tap with Caged Sun on the battlefield doesn't. They are both lands, they both tap for a single green, caged sun adds another. If caged sun goes infinite it seems like forests would as well.
What am i missing?
OK I get it now. So nyxbloom ancient does a similar thing, but it changes the lands to add more mana on their own. Caged sun meanwhile adds mana by itself, when you use your lands. So when you make it into a land and tap it, it adds more mana in response. And that's a new triggered ability, so it triggers again in response. This doesn't work with nyxbloom ancient because it says the word "instead." There's no new ability triggering with that one.
@josephwodarczyk977
I’m still so confused by this. So why would itself being the source of the extra mana cause itself to trigger infinitely. It’s still just a land being tapped for mana just like any other land that meets its criteria, isn’t it?
I feel like I’m missing something from all the explanations that I’ve read, like the way it’s being said just isn’t registering with me.
@@Keizerbunz you could use a normal forest to start the combo. What matters is that the caged sun says it's a land. So that when the triggered ability to make more mana happens, it counts as a land making mana.
I bumbled my way into one in my old Atraxa deck from years ago. It required Crystalline Crawler, Cathar's Crusade, and Animation Module on field plus the ability to tap the Crawler. You tap the Crawler to add a counter to it, remove the counter for a mana to pay the Module cost, create a 1/1 Servo, trigger Crusade, use new counter on Crawler to repeat as many times as you please to build an unstoppable board of infinitely large creatures 😁
Ichormoon gauntlet doesn’t need 13 planeswalkers, proliferating 13 planeswalkers 12 times will give you 156 loyalty per turn, you literally only need 4 planeswalkers
Turn 1:
P 1-3 prolif, P 4 extra turn
1 = +3
2 = +3
3 = +3
4 = -9
Turn 2:
Rotate one space
1 = +6
2 = +6
3 = -6
4 = - 6
Turn 3:
Rotate one space
1 = +9
2 = -3
3 = -3
4 = -3
Turn 4:
1-4 = 0
Every 4 turns it resets, you do however need to get their loyalty up before hand or just use Tekuthal to reduce it to only needing 3 planeswalkers and enjoy, I’ve literally used this in standard and it works pretty well, please consider what’s happening with a combo before you judge it, ichormoon is 1000x better than they said
Fukken died from serpent/suit combo.
UNSTOPPABLE FORCE (suit) MEETS IMMOVABLE STONE.
SOME SAY THE FIGHT IS STILL ON
THE SERPENT NOT CUT AND THE SUIT NOT GONE
the caged sun Loop cam be responded to by any mana-ability, that lets you sacrifice a creature, enchantment, artifact or permanent (Ashnods Altar and Phyrexian Altar for example).
Narset's Reversal, Swarm Intelligence, and pretty much any Instant/Sorcery you could ever want.
Cast spell. Swarm triggers, making a copy.
Response, Narset's Reversal, targeting original spell. Swarm triggers, making a copy.
Copy targets original Narset's Reversal. Copy resolves, bouncing the original Narset's Reversal to hand, and creating a copy you can freely pilot to the original spell. Copy of Narset's Reversal #2 bounces the original spell, and copies it. Two copies of a spell resolve.
Very gross for Storm count, especially if you get Yusri, Fortune's Flame to hit the 5-win Omniscience for a turn.
I found an approximately 20 card combo to give my opponents infinite extra turns (I think that technically counts as group hug). I actually did it in commander and won because they decked out.
It's worth noting that there's an easier way to set this up, but I only used cards I owned at the time, so my version is needlessly complex. Here's the list broken down by what each part does.
*Infinite Mana*:
Sol Ring
Tidespout Tyrant
Spellbook
*Mana Storage and Management*:
Empowered Autogenerator (ever increasing mana generation)
Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset (emblem to untap the generator)
Gemstone Array (literally storage and color filtering)
*Give spells flash*:
Emergence Zone
Slogurk, the Overslime (land from yard to hand)
Viral Drake
Gretchen Twitchwillow (land from hand to field)
*Zone Changers*:
Temur Sabertooth (creatures to hand)
Kefnet the Mindful (lands to hand)
Clear the Mind (yard to library)
Mystic Sanctuary (spell to library and eventually to hand)
Scuttle Tide (hand to yard)
*Extra Turns for Opponents*:
Eon Frolicker (must be cast from hand to work and gives us *Protection* from that player until our next turn)
*Extra Spice*:
Chronomantic Escape (can't be attacked until our next turn)
Kros, Defense Contractor (goad creatures and give them trample until our next turn to force our opponent's to duke it out)
Mana Short (tap all their lands if things get dicey)
Rift Sweeper (Exile resistance)
Counter spells just in case we have to
After having the necessary setup complete (and Eon Frolicker in your hand), pass the turn. Wait for the last opponent before you to move to end step. On their main phase 2, cast Eon Frolicker and give one opponent an extra turn. Do the bounce thingy and reset. Wait until that turn's end and do the same for another opponent until you have protection from all of them. Then, just give extra turns as you see fit and sit back and enjoy the show. You'll have to use Scuttletide and some zone changers to prevent decking yourself from Gretchen's ability. You get infinite crabs, for the memes.
I used Kros as the commander. It's technically group hug, right?
Ichormoon Gauntlet is actually WAY easier to go infinite with than this video suggests. You don't need 13 Planeswalkers at all, only 5 (or 4 including Urza who can activate twice). It's VERY easy to get a ton of Planeswalkers on board because so many opponents run only a small selection of Planeswalker removal, and if you're casting the Planeswalkers while Gauntlet is already on board, it's trivial to get the first one up to 13 or more loyalty. This is seriously one of my favorite combos to pull when it works. "Oh, opponent, you liked having turns? Sorry, you can't have those anymore 🤣"
I actually used the Ichormoon loop in Modern and performed middle of the pack. You don't use 13 walkers, you use Doubling Season, Jace, Cunning Castaway, Jace, Architect of Will and Samut, the one that ults to pull two creatures and or walkers from library to battlefield, and Wheel of Sun and Moon, among other things. When performed to completion you have infinite Jace, Cunning Castaways, infinite 2/2 illusions, infinite counters on every player and permanent that has counters, infinite turns, and you've played every card in both players' deck.
How does ensoul + caged sun ashaya go infinite? Am I missing something here? If it’s a land artifact creature, with its add another mana ability, I would just add another mana…how is it triggering again? And again?
9:19 I won't stand for that kind of Ral, Storm Conduit erasure!
Seriously, there was a (bad) combo deck with Ral and Expansion//Explosion back in War of the Spark, it was hilarious
As other people said, your math for Ichormoon Scepter doesn't work. You also forgot that effects like Lae'zel and Carn's bastion makes thing easier
Still unusable outside of EDH though
Another "wait, it's not a may" type combo is Aether Flash+Polyraptor, it also has the same issue as Life and Limb+Sporemound in that dinosaure tribal EDH decks can play both of them. Good thing Gishat's ability to put dinosaures from the top of the deck is an "any number", it would have led to awkward moments otherwise
For 4 horseman, these days if u throw a Sidisi Brood Tyrant and a 2nd Dread Return in there so you can bring out sidisi and everytime you mill an Amoeba you make a 2/2 zombie that way you dodge the slow play as you are impacting the board state with a zombie everytime you hit an amoeba, its just too slow for the format these days in general imo, too many ways to disrupt it
I used to use Basalt Mesmeric for really cheeky Thoracle wins. Fun stuff.
Ichormoon Gauntlet is also super underrated, lol. It's incredibly powerful, but stupid jank. I've run it in a few planeswalker decks. You don't actually need 12 walkers. You need 3-5 walkers, depending on the walker. As they proliferate, they give themselves and each other counters so you can get to the extra turns mode surprisingly fast. Walkers that have +2 abilities tend to be better to use that than the proliferate. But the second line of text is what makes it actually really good. Narset, Parter of Veils works really well with this, as does 5 drop Teferi. Both of them let you draw cards, grab walkers, and keep the engine going. Sometimes you don't even need to -12 if you can fire off a Teferi -8 followed by Ugin -10. The current shell I'm playing with it in is a Historic 8-key knock off (only have astral cornucopia and manifold key...) that's wrapped in a control-shell. You just counter/remove everything, jam a cornucopia with 1 counter and start playing planeswalkers until you can get to the real jank of ichormoon. Slap down a Magistrate's Scepter, and watch them cry.
When I was playing Magic I made a deck with 3 softlock combos inside (one of them you didnt list but I forgot the cards name, it created infinite tokens with no "may" ability) and called it "The gentleman's tie", I'd play it in casual play against my friend when I didnt want them to feel bad about losing XD
The last infinite is absolutely something you’d want in your commander deck. It effectively makes it so you can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game permanently, since if they ever try to disrupt the combo you immediately force a draw. So you either win the game or draw the game. But the game isn’t technically guaranteed to end in a draw since if you are close to winning and someone breaks the combo you likely let them, which also gives your opponents a chance at winning. So in theory if everyone plays optimally it nearly guarantees that you win the game.
This combo is pain, not only because it's slow, but because it has way too many factors... but it is still pretty stupidly awesome (exclusive to MTGA):
For this bullshit, you will need Oracle of the alpha (or colored mana rocks for the combo so you don't have to draw power nine cards!), Rothga bonded Engulfer, temur Ascendancy, Sinister reflections, Paradox engine, and Squee the immortal.
How this works is that you set up Oracle a few times with Sinister reflections to dump power nine cards into the deck, draw out cards by using Rothga to power up 1 squee card by using the legend rule to kill the amped card with Rogtha's boon effect, you keep casting that Squee from the graveyard infinitely using infinite mana from the rocks resetting because of paradox engine, draw cards until you you hit all of you sinister reflections to keep conjuring copies of Rogtha into your hand and using the boon and legend rule for the Rogtha's and the amped Squee, and when you run out you can use one of the copies of timetwister conjured in your deck to reset everything and keep using the copies of Rogtha to amp the squee to oblivion permanently with little options for your opponent to get rid of it. throw in a card that gives him lifelink and trample, and you win. lol.
1) Ichormoon gauntlet isn't that hard to go go infinite with 4-5 planeswalkers (especially when the point of the deck is to get several out all at once as fast as possible). I have done it in my super friends edh deck a few times. The math is wonky, but it works as long as one or two of your walkers have enough "starting" loyalty.
2) With Transcendence and Rain Of Gore: They are both replacement effects, which can apply to any given event only once, so there is no loop.
3) Caged Sun: as with number 2, a replacement effect can apply to any given event only once, so no loop is had.
I disagree on the Ichormoon Gauntlet.
It goes infinite with two jaces and Leori, Spark touchedhunter. I have an EDH deck that not only consistently protects it's Planeswalkers, it frequently goes infinite with Ichormoon and Jace, cunning castaway, in part because of the cards that tutor Planeswalkers.
6:30 what about Kicker Jace? Jace Mirror Mage. For two blue and a generic, you can pay an additional 2 generic to have a non legendary token of Jace, Mirror Mage which then blue has many different ways to create additional copies of tokens.
8:30 Actually that's a competitive infinite combo needing to make use of a spell like Fury Storm or Bonus Round. What makes it competitively viable is the fact the cards can all be in your hand or graveyard as you can then make use of cards like Past in Flames so when you copy a spell that copies another spell, it's creating an additional copy of those copy target spell effects. Then you just cast a spell like Gut Shot and then you can choose to be casting X copies of Gut Shot.
12:50 That would be a gnarly way to cause the game to end. Just pass the Bog Serpent to a player who controls no Swamps and force a draw. Prob get you disqualified from a tournament though.
i feel like the Stuffy Doll and Pariah "combo" is unrealistically never going to happen. You would have to resolve Stuffy Doll, and an opponent use a spell that redirects the damage it would cause to you. At which point you wouldn't enchant it with Pariah unless your intentially causing this weird "End the game in a weird way" effect. Which i'm sure can get you disqualified.
Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, with an effect that makes Caged Sun become a creature like Lifecraft Awakening is really interesting. But wow, causes the game to end and you can't use the mana!
i was really expecting Worldgorger Dragon and possibly it's Legendary white counterpart Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward to be on this list as it's a combo that is terrible in how "all or nothing" it is.
I've won a game with the Delina combo, had to Pongify delina when I had enough pixie guides I was unaware of the errata 😆
Ichormoon gauntlet combo no body plays 13 planes walker me with my superfriends deck where i have 24 planeswalker Commander deck
I'm partial to the version of the Reverberate combo where you use Wild Ricochet and Grip of Chaos and a few copy effects to make Wild Ricochet copy itself an extremely large but deterministically finite number of times, and there's no way to know how many times without resolving the entire thing
im currently working on a kenrith archenemy commander deck that only wins with 4+ card infinite combos (its made specifically for archenemy commander). i think ill take one or two of the combos here, if you dont mind
As far as I know you can already go Infinite with Ichormoon Gauntlet and 4 Walkers if they have the correct amount of Loyality. And with 5 it is alr pretty easy. You don't need 13 Walkers...
The cager sun combo should be number 1 as the ultimate failsafe combo, and not the worst combo possible!
you set a deadmans switch that ensures you can't lose the game. You play to win, but if you're opponent manages to pull out a sneaky game winning move on you you react by forcing the draw instead. And they can't possibly make you lose faster than you can force the draw by rule. And if they try to disarm your deadmans switch you can set off bomb in response while blaming their tampering wirh your creatures for forcing your hand in blowing up the game...much better than trying to hide behind some stupid clockwork angel automaton and a much more robust solution to boot! Make copies of the bomb for all the players in commander and play the Cold War version of Commander where everyone has to play softly keeping MAD in mind...🤡
Magic needs an Unglued card
"Participation Trophy Display Case"
Enchantment
if the game ends in a draw you win the game instead, you cannot win the game as a result of your opponent losing the game. If a another cards effect says you win the game, ignore that effect unless your opponent would not also lose the game as a result.
"Check out all the activities my sons participated in! Xbox doesn't track these achievements for you!"
Three Oblivion Rings each exiling the other will end in a draw. MTG Gatherer makes note of this in its rules explanation.
i remember as a teenager finding panoptic mirror + beacon of tomorrow and trying to force a deck around it. thanks wizard apprentices. took forever but its not like my friends and i were great. then id deck them slowly with supreme inquisitor
Couldn't you use delana, wyll blade of frontiers and pixie guide for an infinite combo? Making wyll basically have infinite attack
You absolutely do not need 13 Planeswalkers for The ichormoon gauntlet combo. Because if that's the strategy you're going for you got enough other ways to proliferate things you can get it done with like 4-5 walkers. You're also making the assumption that you're running it in a 60 card format which is less likely anyway because most people play commander in which case it's super easy to go infinite with
Awwwe you missed my favorite. Painters Servant + Grindstone + Wheel of Sun and Moon. Once the grindstone is activated, you infinitely put cards from the top of the deck to the bottom. if they don’t deal with one of the pieces, before the grindstone trigger resolves, the actions are mandatory, the combo can’t stop and the game draws.
3 card infinite turn, isocron scepter, with final fortune, and use Sundial of the Infinite, to end the extra turns to avoid losing
Arena is the home of shit combos - 250 card deck with 10 combo cards = Shitty shuffler says "all good" not good at math anyway plus the devs don't understand what the random function in unity does.
Locust God + Kindred Discovery
With an Purphoros, witty roastmaster or impact tremors on the field you most likely win.
Otherwise u die to deckout.
Can't you sacrifice the saporlings to like goblin bombardment to kill your opponent's the the life & limb, spormound comb? Or with Perporos or impact tremors on board?
Polyraptor + Marauding Raptor. It looks awesome but unless the Marauding Raptor dies, you can’t stop it
The Double Cast/ Reverberate thing, is like, well just pick a storm spell to play after. You now should have infinite death dealing, or tokens or what ever else the storm spell of choice does.
Chronatog/Stasis/kismet pre-errata when used by stasis players that neglected to add a way to win the game was comically bad when played against dungeon or necropotence decks or other mill-proof deck setups. Just players passing turns hoping their opponent concedes from boredom before time is called...
I did see someone once win the entire tournament with an last two card draw of burnt offering, which was only in the deck by mistake.
The Fork/Fork Combo was not useless before Magecraft. Storm was a thing before magecraft.
I understand why four horsemen cant be shortcut but its so annoying because like realistically you will eventually hit the game state required.
Especially given petals of insight / duskwatch recruiter are considered loopable to stack the deck, even though these technically require decisions.😊
Enraging Raptor + temp indestructable + Polyraptor = infinite loop which will draw the game if used with no other effects.
You only need 4 planeswalkers out to go infinite with ichormoon gauntlet. Proliferating 3 times puts a total of 12 counters on all your planeswalkers, which is enough to keep the combo going as long as the planeswalkers have enough loyalty initially.
I actually lost to this once on standard mtg arena. Even with the combo my opponent nearly lost to milling themselves, they had 2 cards left when they won.
Leech Bonder : Blue&Untap to move target counter to from one creature to another
Prismatic Mantle: Tap equiped creature for any color.
Infinite counter moving, useful not even a little bit.
So that Planeswalker rule was changed as long as it doesn't have the same name as one you already have so you can have a nissa vital force and a nissa worldwaker out at the same time
The Sporemound combo would actually be back breaking with something like Goblin Bombardment
Damn now i want to build an EDH grixis deck with prof. Onyx and chain of smog + ral, storm conduit and the double cast combo.
I can’t really agree with No 7 being on the list being worse that the planeswalker smog combo you mentioned because of Grapeshot, or the storm keyword in general.
Your looking at an infinite combo that costs similar mana but by keeping it to purely spells you restrict your opponent to using double counterspell where the planeswalker can be interacted with in more ways to prevent the combo.
Interesting video otherwise.
How did Life and Limb and Sporemound even get allowed to be made like that? This doesn't even seem like an obscure combo. If I wanted to make a deck based on saprolings, both of those cards seem like obvious cards to put in the deck.
Where is Polyraptor + Marauding Raptor? It's one of the easier combos to assemble (given that it's tribal) and it goes infinite if no interaction is played.
Butcher Juggling was my favorite jerk move back in the day
The stuffy doll pariah combo can be broken with a heliod’s intervention at instant speed, destroying the pariah.
Time to make this deck to annoy my friends.
#3 ....so clearly the play here is to give Transcendence to your *opponent*. Then have a way to destroy an Enchantment at Instant speed on hand and.... exponential damage, anyone?
Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead would result in draw games a lot when they couldn't combo off back in the day
I personally hate infinite loops. I know there is no stopping people from doing it and there usually no stopping the loop in game because they can suddenly appear out of nowhere. Its very non-interactive gameplay. "I play this odd card, then I play this card and go infinite to win the game" - I've literally had someone say this on like turn 5 of a commander game (I forget the actual cards). Very fun. It feels like someone just activating cheat codes in an eGame.
Black carriage + elemental mastery only making infinite tokens in your upkeep for way too much mana
Personally i prefer pariah/ trecherous link to pariah/ stuffy doll. The result is the same, but its less obvious that you were trying to deaw the game
The Stuffy Doll, Pariah combo would make a lot more sense, if the player that was chosen by Stuffy Doll was the one to also put Pariah onto it, but it would likely result in the same outcome, unless the player that controls Stuffy Doll has a sacrifice outlet on the battlefield
For the Double Cast and Reverberate combo you also need to give to give Double Cast flash because you can't cast anything because to play anything at sorcery speed it has to be during one of your main phases and there can't be anything on the stack
9:00 isnt witherbloom apprentice the most popular way to win off chain of smog? its literally 1/3 the mana cost of liliana
Faceless Butcher-The previous Hostage Taker. Right?
Cant i just mill myself in response to emrakul until my deck is in my GY, put the nacromoebas on the stack, let them return, sac them still in response to blasting station and then let emrakul resolve?
Ichormoon gauntlet is so much easier to pull off. I use it in my proliferate planeswalker deck. I use cards to cheat planeswalkers out with a teferi as well to help protect them as opponents cant cast on my turn. Just a waiting game until nicol bolas comes out board wipes and insta win
I'm convinced this guy mispronounces the shit out of cards just to get engagement in the comment section.