In recent years, Wizards has gotten a lot better at adding safety valves to cards to prevent infinite combos. We’ve all gotten used to seeing “only once per turn” and “nontoken” as clauses that shut down potentially problematic cards. On rare occasions, however, Wizards lets something a bit spicy slip through.
This week, for example, we got to see Beifong’s Bounty Hunters, a new MTG card that breaks a lot of these established safety rules. As a result, it enables a huge range of infinite combos in a number of formats.
Beifong’s Bounty Hunters MTG
The first thing you’ll notice about Beifong’s Bounty Hunters is that it totally lacks most of the usual limitations we see on MTG cards like this. Its Earthbending ability triggers whenever any creature you control dies, be it token or nontoken. A lot of the card’s combo lines hinge on this fact, since it doesn’t exclude triggered token generators.
While the above makes the card exciting as a combo enabler, it’s also worth noting that it’s solid in a vacuum. Even if you’re not pulling off a degenerate scheme, for example, it’s great board wipe insurance at a base level. On top of this, the card offers some surprisingly compelling stats for just four mana.
Since it doesn’t specify “another” for its passive ability, Beifong’s Bounty Hunters will trigger whenever any creature you control dies, including itself. This means you’re getting two 4/4s out of this at minimum, which is pretty great for four mana. A lot of combo pieces suffer from mediocre stats, or being cards that don’t advance your game plan until the combo turn. Beifong’s Bounty Hunters doesn’t have that problem, since it also serves as a very solid tempo play by itself.
Sizzling Into Standard
Solid as it is when played fair, we’re more interested in Beifong’s Bounty Hunters for its ridiculous MTG combo potential. It’s not every day that a new card lets you go infinite in Standard of all formats, but this one does just that.
The easiest combo to pull off with Beifong’s Bounty Hunters in Standard is built around Bloodghast. With both cards in play, and a sacrifice outlet like Umbral Collar Zealot or Bartolomé del Presidio, you can get an infinite loop going. Start off by sacrificing Bloodghast, thus triggering Bounty Hunters and Earthbending one of your lands. Then sacrifice the now-creature land, causing it to bounce right back into play. This will net you a Landfall trigger, which will bring Bloodghast back from the graveyard.
You can repeat this loop as many times as you’d like, generating infinite enters, dies, and Landfall triggers. Throw in a damage source like Iridescent Vinelasher or Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, and you can win the game on the spot. Alternatively, you can sub the damage source out for Spelunking and generate infinite mana by tapping your lands as they re-enter, building up to something like a huge Morlun, Devourer of Spiders to close things out.
With the right draws, this combo can end the game on turn four. Even in a format as fast as Standard is currently, that’s impressive. While everything does rely on Bloodghast to an extent, the great thing is that you can start the combo off with it in the graveyard, too, provided you have another creature in play to sacrifice. This means you can run it out early for tempo, or use self-mill for extra reliability.
Tales From The Loop
As potent as Beifong’s Bounty Hunters is in Standard, it can do a lot more in other MTG formats. In Commander, specifically, this is going to open up a ton of avenues for a ton of different decks.
One of the best combos the card offers is with Khalni Garden. Since the Plant token Garden makes on entry is a 0/1, it can Earthbend Garden itself into a 0/0 when it dies. Garden will then die as a state-based action, and return to play, making another Plant in the process.
This goes infinite with any sacrifice outlet, allowing for a range of instant wins. You can make infinite mana with Phyrexian Altar, or just ping everyone down with Goblin Bombardment if you’re in Jund colors. For those in Sultai, Umbral Collar Zealot can even dig you through your entire deck to set up a Thassa’s Oracle win.
The card also offers easy infinites combos with Landfall token generators. Similar to Bloodghast, cards like Springheart Nantuko and Felidar Retreat create tokens whenever one of your Earthbent lands returns to play, allowing for potent sacrifice loops. As a result, I could easily see Landfall decks throwing this card in as an “oops, I win” button.
Overall, Beifong’s Bounty Hunters is one of the best combo enablers we’ve seen in a while, not just from Avatar itself. While some have bemoaned the fact that a card featuring two named characters isn’t legendary, I think it’s a good thing in this case. Having access to such a potent combo piece out of the command zone might’ve been a bit too good, after all.
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