If you’re willing to play the odds, there are all kinds of wacky MTG combos you can pull off. While generally inconsistent, playing blisteringly fast combo decks loaded up with lands is something we’ve seen in the past. Including 97 lands in a deck can lead to flashy wins, but you’ll be stuck drawing lands for the rest of the game if something goes wrong.
While some of these problems persist, a new Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander ensures that a similar combo can be assembled consistently, no matter what cards are in your starting hand.
MTG Sanar, Innovative First Year
For four mana, Sanar Innovative First-Year is one of the many cards that features Lorwyn Eclipsed’s Vivid mechanic. Sadly, since its triggered ability conflicts with its color identity, you’ll never be able to maximize Sanar’s potential in the Command Zone. Due to this, most of the time, Sanar Innovative First-Year is better found within the 99 of five-color decks.
Even if you do maximize it,there’s a major catch that further limits Sanar’s potential. While grabbing five nonland permanents to play each turn is extremely powerful, you don’t get to play those cards for free. Furthermore, since you only get to play the cards until your end step, there’s a very good chance that you won’t be able to cast everything that Sanar finds. Worse yet, there’s a decent chance that some of your revealed cards will either share a color or have no colors at all.
Thankfully, while Sanar does feel best suited within five-color decks, he can still do work in the 99 of more generic strategies. After all, getting to Impulse draw two cards during your first main phase isn’t bad at all, as you’ll always have something to do. On top of this, there’s also the implicit synergy with a lot of Exile Matters cards, like Laelia, Blade Reforged and Passionate Archaeologist.
A One Card Win Combo
While Sanar, Innovative First Year does seem somewhat capable as a Commander, this hard has hidden combo potential. In fact, with some clever deck construction, Sanar can enable a one-card win combo that wins on turn five. All you have to do is resolve Sanar’s ability once, and you’ll be set up for a game-ending combo.
To make this work, you need 97 lands, a Thassa’s Oracle, and a Solstice Revalations. This ensures that Sanar’s trigger will always find the two nonland cards and exile them to play. From there, all you need to do is cast Thassa’s Oracle and respond to its entry trigger with Solstice Revalations. Since your deck is entirely lands, the instant will exile your entire library, allowing you to win the game with Thassa’s Oracle’s effect.
While a guaranteed turn 5 win can be quite powerful, especially in casual Commander, there are a lot of ways that this combo can go wrong. First and foremost, if either of your cards gets countered, you’re stuck with a deck that doesn’t do anything for the rest of the game. You can include some utility lands like Field of the Dead to potentially have a board presence, but your Commander won’t do anything useful.
Alternatively, if your opponents know what you’re up to, they can also remove your Commander before its trigger goes off. Sanar, Innovative First-Year needs to survive to your main phase to do anything, which just adds to the glaring number of weaknesses this card has.
This is generally the type of MTG combo that you pull off once, then put the deck away for good. The gimmick is a lot less effective if your opponents see it coming, but you’ll probably catch them off guard a few times. If you really want to pull this off, you might be better off building two Sanar decks and playing the regular one first. That way, your opponents are unlikely to expect what’s otherwise a painfully straightforward combo.
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