As any long-time Magic: The Gathering player will tell you, underestimating cards based on their rarity is a bad move. Some of the commons in Pauper are banned in Modern, after all, and uncommons regularly outpace rares in terms of power and value. This week, with the release of Edge of Eternities, players have unearthed a hidden gem uncommon from the set. That card is Bygone Colossus, and it enables a turn four combo win in MTG Standard.
While it looks woefully clunky on the surface, the Warp mechanic gives this Robot Giant surprisingly flexible legs. When combined with an obscure enchantment from Tarkir: Dragonstorm, it can end the game before it really gets going. Edge of Eternities has enabled a number of powerful combos so far. This one, by virtue of its splashability, may just be the best of the bunch.
Bygone Colossus MTG Combo
The Bygone Colossus MTG combo is fairly simple. To pull it off, you’ll need three cards: the Colossus itself, Frostcliff Siege, and Callous Sell-Sword.
On turn three, you can lay the foundations for the combo by casting Siege and picking the Temur option. Next, on turn four, you’ll want to cast Colossus for its Warp cost. Paired with the Siege effect, this will give you a 10/9 Hasty Trampler for just three mana. Swing in with that, and half of your opponent’s life is gone.
That alone is pretty terrifying, but there’s more. Assuming you’ve hit all your land drops, you can use your fourth and final mana to cast the Burn Together Adventure on Callous Sell-Sword. This will turn your Colossus into 10 more damage, which you can aim at your opponent’s face to finish the game.
There are some potential pitfalls with this combo, of course. Since half of the damage is dependent upon Colossus getting to swing in unblocked, your opponent can avoid an early grave by blocking. In most cases, however, this is unlikely. Warp means Colossus will leave play at the end of the turn, and most opponents won’t trade one of their creatures for a point or two of life.
The other issue here is removal. Instant speed removal spells like Shoot the Sheriff and Bitter Triumph can stop your combo in its tracks. Even worse, Colossus is an artifact, so it’s vulnerable to artifact removal like Abrade and Heritage Reclamation, too. While not totally damning, this does make the combo somewhat fragile.
Brewing It Up
Since Standard has slowed down significantly since the June bans, a deck like this, which essentially needs to skip turn three, could still see play.
Since all three pieces can be cast using Izzet mana, you’ll want to stick to those colors to keep things streamlined. Fortunately for us, Izzet is one of the best color combinations in Standard right now, with both the Cauldron and Prowess variants putting up consistently strong results.
Prowess would be the best home for this combo, since it’s a deck that already cares about explosive creature plays. Both Vivi and Slickshot Show-Off can pull off similar feats to the combo above. Frostcliff Siege is a bit of a clunky card to support, but Colossus actually isn’t too bad. Wild Ride is one of the deck’s best combat tricks, and it serves as another way to make use of a Warped-in Colossus if you don’t draw Siege.
Adding the Colossus combo pivots Prowess more into a go-big damage deck, so you might want to add fellow Fling effect Self-Destruct as well. This adds much-needed redundancy and plays great with Vivi/Slickshot, too. Ultimately, this is the strength of this combo: its pieces aren’t dead on their own. Each can fill a role in Izzet Prowess independently, which gives the overall package a reasonable shot at seeing play.
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