Iron Man, Titan of Innovation is one of the five new mechanically unique cards appearing in the MTG X Marvel Secret Lair drop. Each of these new superhero-themed cards has its own gimmick. Iron Man’s, understandably, involves artifacts. Specifically, Iron Man provides a ‘Pod Effect’, which have historically been extremely powerful in Magic’s history.
The banning of Birthing Pod in Modern stands as a monument to this type of effect’s power and utility. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that many MTG players have been seriously excited about the new Iron Man, Titan of Innovation card. Beyond just being good, however, this card has serious combo potential in Commander. This card might just even break into the cEDH big leagues!
Specifically, Iron Man, Titan of Innovation has a ‘Pod’ effect for artifacts. This Pod effect occurs on an attack trigger, so replicating the effect multiple times in a turn is tough. That said, this is still a recurring search effect that can help set up infinite combos with artifacts. Iron Man even provides a Treasure for you to potentially sacrifice, so you don’t even need artifacts in play to get the process started.
Here are some artifact-based combos you could build into an Iron Man, Titan of Innovation Commander deck.
Mystic Forge and Sensei’s Divining Top
Sensei’s Divining Top and Mystic Forge is a well-known artifact combo that, essentially, allows you to draw a ton of cards. By placing Sensei’s Divining Top on top of your deck and drawing a card, Mystic Forge allows you to re-cast your Divining Top. This can be used to draw a ton of cards, but what happens if you can make Sensei’s Divining Top cost zero?
Using mana reducers like Etherium Sculptor, Enthusiastic Mechanaut, and Foundry Inspector, you can make Sensei’s Divining Top cost zero. The combination of Mystic Forge and Sensei’s Divining Top allows you to draw your deck instead.
With this combo setup, you also get to cast any other one-mana artifacts for free. Considering that there are a series of mana rocks like Sol Ring that could be cast for free, you should be able to win the game with some combination of cards after drawing your deck, even if you have no mana left.
All three cards needed to pull this off can be found with Iron Man, Titan of Innovation’s Pod effect. You can also replace Mystic Forge with The Reality Chip to achieve the same effect.
Hullbreaker Horror and Sol Ring/Mana Vault
Iron Man is also more than capable of generating a ton of mana. Between creating Treasure Tokens and easily searching for mana rocks like Sol Ring and Mana Vault, casting Hullbreaker Horror should be really easy.
Once you have Hullbreaker Horror in play, going infinite becomes boringly easy. All you need to accomplish this is either Sol Ring or Mana Vault, and another permanent that can be cast for less mana than these artifacts produce. Here’s how the combo looks:
- Tap your Sol Ring for mana. Cast a one or zero mana artifact.
- Hullbreaker Horror triggers. Bounce your Sol Ring to your hand.
- Use some of your floating mana to cast Sol Ring. Bounce your other artifact.
- Float mana with Sol Ring. Rinse and repeat.
Since Mana Vault produces more mana, you can even use two-mana artifacts with that card to execute this combo. Mana Vault, in general, is an amazing card in an Iron Man, Titan of Innovation deck. It’s not a great tutor target unless you’re going to go infinite with it since Mana Vault enters tapped from Iron Man’s effect, but you can use the mana from Mana Vault, and sacrifice it to Iron Man to tutor up something more useful.
Basalt Monolith and a Lot of Different Things
Basalt Monolith has a dizzying amount of two-card infinite combos. The idea behind this card is to use it for a temporary burst of mana. Since it doesn’t untap on its own, if you want to use it again, you ideally need to pay mana to untap it. As long as you can somehow alter the ratio between mana generated and mana it costs to untap Basalt Monolith, it’s really easy to go infinite with it.
One card that does this, that is also searchable with Iron Man, Titan of Innovation is Forsaken Monument. If you’re playing a decent amount of mana rocks in Iron Man, you’re probably interested in using this anyway. This will allow Basalt Monolith to generate four mana, meaning that, after you pay three to untap the Monolith, you’ll have one mana left over. Use this exchange to generate infinite colorless mana.
Rings of Brighthearth is another card that can go infinite with Basalt Monolith, but you need some extra mana to get started. This time, you want to use Rings of Brighthearth’s ability to copy Basalt Monolith’s untap effect. As long as you five mana to do this, you can untap Basalt Monolith, float the Monolith for mana, and untap it again. Since you’re generating six mana by tapping the Monolith twice, you’re netting one mana with the interaction, creating infinite colorless mana.
Notably, you can add Sensei’s Divining Top to this combo to draw your deck. Once you generate infinite mana, you can start copying Sensei’s Divining Top’s draw ability with Rings of Brighthearth to draw your entire deck. You’ll be drawing your top plus an extra card. You can then re-cast the top and repeat the process.
This Just Scratches the Surface
There are an absurd amount of infinite combos you can throw into an artifact toolbox deck with a repeatable search effect like Iron Man, Titan of Innovation. Including cards like Krark-Clan Ironworks and Myr Retriever can unlock another mess of infinite combos to experiment with.
These combos don’t need to be exclusive to Iron Man, Titan of Innovation, but the search effect on Iron Man can help you assemble these various infinites rather easily. Of course, you may want to build an Iron Man deck that’s a bit tamer than this depending on your table’s power level, and we wouldn’t blame you for doing so.