We’re almost at the release of Streets of New Capenna, and while the set itself is exciting, many look forward to the new Commander Decks that come out with each set. This time around, Wizards of the Coast have given the players a creature that has been asked for for a while, and it has the the potential to go infinite!
Rising From the Ashes

For the very first time, we’re getting a Legendary Phoenix creature! Welcome Syrix, Carrier of the Flame to the party! Syrix is a 4 mana 3/3 with Flying and Haste. At the beginning of our end step, if a creature left our graveyard, then a phoenix we control deals damage equal to its power to any target. Additionally, whenever another phoenix we control dies, we can cast Syrix from our graveyard.
These abilities themselves do lend themselves to Phoenix Tribal, and we’ll definitely be playing some in our deck. One of which gives us an infinite combo with a few extra tools.
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Wombo
There’s a few pieces to this puzzle as far as this combo goes. First off, we’ll need a phoenix that will allow us to cast Syrix from the graveyard. The one that we’re going to use is
Skyfire Phoenix
Skyfire Phoenix
Flying, haste
When you cast your commander, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
. With Skyfire, we can get it back from the graveyard for free when we cast Syrix.

Next up, we need a way to get our creatures into the graveyard, and ways to generate mana to be able to cast our commander from the graveyard. For this there’s a particular artifact that accomplishes everything we need,
Phyrexian Altar
Phyrexian Altar
Sacrifice a creature: Add one mana of any color.
.
Phyrexian Altar lets us sacrifice both our commander and Skyfire Phoenix to generate mana, which can be used to cast Syrix again. But this only generates 2 mana, so we need a way to either generate more mana, or reduce the cost of creatures. There are a few options for this goal.
Pitiless Plunderer
Pitiless Plunderer
Whenever another creature you control dies, create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.")
will generate 2 treasures for us when we sacrifice our creatures.
Heartless Summoning
Heartless Summoning
Creature spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.
Creatures you control get -1/-1.
reduces the costs of creatures that we cast, which takes the cost of Syrix from 4 to 2. Both of these are ways for us to loop our creatures, but both of these together will give us infinite mana.
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Winning the Game
There’s a few ways we can go about winning the game with this combo. With Infinite Mana, we can do a few different things in Rakdos.
A couple of easy options to win the game on the spot is
Crackle with Power
Crackle with Power
Crackle with Power deals five times X damage to each of up to X targets.
and
Torment of Hailfire
Torment of Hailfire
Repeat the following process X times. Each opponent loses 3 life unless that player sacrifices a nonland permanent of their choice or discards a card.
. With enough mana, these can take our opponent’s life total to 0 in an instant… well sorcery.
The other way that we can win the game through this loop is to use cards like
Blood Artist
Blood Artist
Whenever this creature or another creature dies, target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
and
Zulaport Cutthroat
Zulaport Cutthroat
Whenever this creature or another creature you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
as ways to drain our opponent’s life total when a creature we control dies.
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There are plenty of other great supporting cards to play in this deck, like
Birgi, God of Storytelling
Birgi, God of Storytelling
Whenever you cast a spell, add {R}. Until end of turn, you don't lose this mana as steps and phases end.
Creatures you control can boast twice during each of your turns rather than once.
and
Impact Tremors
Impact Tremors
Whenever a creature you control enters, this enchantment deals 1 damage to each opponent.
. This commander is very cool, and there’s a lot of ways to go about building it, but there’s some serious potential for some cEDH play here.