Thanks to being spoiled early, many of the new Secrets of Strixhaven Commanders are already being broken in half. Players were extremely quick to discover a two-card infinite with Witherbloom, the Balancer, for example, thanks to Affinity for creatures’ interaction with Sprout Swarm. This quickly caused the instant to see a massive price spike as players picked up the card for their Golgari EDH decks.
It turns out that this isn’t the only new two-card combo that has been discovered in Secrets of Strixhaven. Two of the new precon Face Commanders, in particular, have some two-card combos to try. Thanks to this, their partners in crime could become some great upgrades for the appropriate precon.
MTG Rootha, Mastering the Moment and Breath of Fury
The Face Commander to the new Prismari Artistry deck, Rootha, Mastering the Moment rewards you for casting massive instants and sorceries by creating big creatures. Sadly, because these creatures are only temporary, it can be surprisingly difficult to create lasting value out of them. Breath of Fury completely fixes this issue, however, by just killing everyone in the same turn.
In order to pull this off, you do need another creature to initially attach Breath of Fury to, but from there, Rootha should be able to kill the table. Just deal combat damage with your Breath of Fury creature, and move Breath of Fury to Rootha’s created Flying token afterward. Since you’re starting a new combat, Rootha, Mastering the Moment will create a new token to attack with, which Breath of Fury can attach to after dealing another round of combat damage. This, essentially, gives Breath of Fury a new creature to attach to each combat, creating infinite damage and infinite combats.
Sadly, while this combo is rather easy to assemble with Rootha in the Command Zone, it’s hardly foolproof. Any Flying blocker can be particularly problematic for Breath of Fury, essentially preventing the combo from killing whichever player has one. Instants that grant even temporary Trample, like Fists of Flame, can help here, but it won’t stop a simple removal spell from ending the chain.
Still, even with this downside, Breath of Fury makes for an easy upgrade to the Prismatic Artistry precon. Upgrading around this combo even a little should make it surprisingly lethal in the average Commander game.
MTG Dina, Essence Brewer and Jumbo Cactuar
Dina, Essence Brewer, the face Commander of Witherbloom Pestilence, really wants to sacrifice creatures with a lot of power. Fortunately, thanks to the recent MTG x Final Fantasy crossover, Jumbo Cactuar gives Dina more power than MTG was ever intended to work with. Sacrificing an attacking Jumbo Cactuar gives another creature you control 10,000 +1/+1 counters, while granting you 10,000 life. You can even wait until after blocks to do this, granting the counters to a creature that isn’t blocked to knock someone out.
While this combo won’t kill the entire table at once, losing once you have 10,000 life is extremely difficult. If you want to make the combo more lethal, adding a wide variety of cards, like Sanguine Bond or Vito, Thorn of Dusk Rose, can turn the lifegain into 10,000 damage to an opponent.
Even without adding cards, dumping 10,000 +1/+1 counters onto a creature can easily set up table wipes in Witherbloom Pestilence. The new Ribtruss Roaster is a particularly good target for this boon, allowing you to pump out 10,000 1/1 Pests.
If anything, the biggest downside to this combo is that you need to attack with Jumbo Cactuar for it to work. Fortunately, common Commander staples like Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots can help speed things along.
Other Options
As far as Commander precon combo upgrades go, these are, by far, the easiest ones to add to your Precon decks. As you may imagine, there are a lot more Secrets of Strixhaven infinite combos to look at, but they all have their issues.
Quintorius, History Chaser, the Lorehold Spirit Precon Face Commander, creates a whole bunch of different infinite combos. Sadly, all of these involve using three or more cards, and a vast majority of them need a third color, keeping Quintorius out of the Command Zone. Still, any number of different recursion loops, like Gollum, Patient Plotter and Skirge Familiar, can create infinite Spirits with Quintorius. Thanks to this, there are dozens of different combos for the Elephant to choose from. There are some in-color infinites you can add to the Lorehold Spirit, but these largely don’t need Quintorius to win.
Thanks to its color identity, Bogwater Lumaret is also part of a ton of infinite combos, but none of them are unique. Prosperous Innkeeper can do everything the Spirit Frog can, but Soul Sisters effects are rarely printed outside of white. This gives Bogwater Lumaret value through redundancy.
While these combos are notable, but not super enticing, the two-card Face Commander combos are extremely easy to add to your Commander precons. If you’re planning on picking up Prismari Artistry or Witherbloom Pestilence, grabbing these combo pieces as soon as possible might be in your best interest.
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