MTG is a game filled with interesting combos. Nearly every Constructed format features a handful of combo decks for those that enjoy winning in a unique fashion. Whenever a new combo is discovered, players are bound to get excited.
With this in mind, today, we wanted to showcase a sweet Standard combo deck that many players are likely unfamiliar with. This deck has helped multiple people win their local Regional Championship Qualifiers, and yet it still flies under the radar. If casting a plethora of free spells and ending the game in style sounds up your alley, then look no further.
Combo Lines
- Mana Value: X3W
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Sorcery
- MTG Sets: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
- Card Text: Return target artifact or non-Aura enchantment card from your graveyard to the battlefield with X additional +1/+1 counters on it. It’s a 1/1 Spirit creature with flying in addition to its other types.
The basis for this combo deck revolves around a few key cards. The first is none other than Omniscience. Omniscience was a major addition to Standard in MTG Foundations and received a ton of hype during spoiler season. Up to this point, though, the card has made very little noise. As powerful as the card is, you still need an effective way to cheat it into play, as paying 10 mana is not realistic.
This brings us to the next piece of the puzzle: Abuelo’s Awakening. Abuelo’s Awakening allows you to return Omniscience from your graveyard to play as a flier for four mana. As we will see in the next section, there are plenty of ways in this deck to get Omniscience into the graveyard.
As a creature, your Omniscience is a bit vulnerable to removal. However, the fact that it’s a creature in the first place is extremely important when it comes to executing combo lines. All you need to do is find a safe window to resurrect Omniscience, cast Invasion of Arcavios, and winning the game becomes trivial.
While the pilots of the deck didn’t reveal their sideboard on Twitter, we do know that one of the sideboard cards you can tutor for with Invasion is Season of Weaving. Season of Weaving offers a handful of different combo lines that all allow you to win the game.
For example, one potential avenue to victory involves you selecting the second and third mode when you cast Season of Weaving. The second mode lets you make a token copy of your Omniscience creature, then the third mode bounces all nonland, nontoken permanents to their owner’s hands.
This includes Invasion, which you can now recast, grab the Season of Weaving from your graveyard, and recast it with the same modes.
Each time you follow these steps, you’ll end up with another flying Omniscience creature token. Once you perform the loop enough times, if you have a copy of Song of Totentanz in your sideboard to search for, you can give your team Haste and attack for the win.
One pilot of the deck mentioned that this wasn’t their combo line of choice, but there are other options available. With a single Omniscience creature token in play, let’s say you choose to use the first mode twice and the third mode once instead when you cast Season of Weaving. Now, rather than creating a bunch of Omniscience creature tokens over time, you’re churning through your deck.
Eventually, you’ll find another copy of Invasion. From there, casting Season of Weaving enables you to return both copies of Invasion to hand. One of them can pick up Season of Weaving, while the other can nab a burn spell like Boltwave for you to cast over and over for the win. It’s not clear exactly what path of victory the RCQ winners used on their quest, but with Omniscience in play, the world is your oyster.
Digging for Combo Pieces
- Mana Value: 1U
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Stats: 1/3
- Card Type: Creature- Faerie Rogue
- MTG Sets: Wilds of Eldraine
- Card Text: Flying, vigilance. Free the Fae 1U, Instant- Adventure: Mill four cards. Then put an instant, sorcery, or Faerie card from among the milled cards into your hand.
Considering that you need access to Omniscience in your graveyard as well as Abuelo’s Awakening and Invasion of Arcavios in hand to go off, it’s in your best interest to have a variety of ways to dig for your combo pieces. Well, this deck delivers on that front, with tons of card selection spells that also fuel your graveyard.
Picklock Prankster and Fallaji Archaeologist are particularly strong in this role. Both cards help you find Abuelo’s Awakening, while also providing you with blockers against aggro decks. Moment of Truth is a bit weaker but still accomplishes the task of letting you put Omniscience into your graveyard if you find one and an impactful spell into your hand.
Chart a Course is a nice inclusion, too, because it lets you pitch copies of Omniscience that otherwise might rot in your hand. You want to ensure that any copies you draw or find with any of your card selection spells can end up in your graveyard.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Mana Value: 2U
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Instant
- MTG Sets: March of the Machine, Murders at Karlov Manor Commander
- Card Text: This spell costs 2 less to cast if it targets an attacking creature. Return target creature to its owner’s hand. Surveil 2. (Look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)
Despite the fact that this archetype hasn’t put up a ton of results so far, it does have some appeal. Right off the bat, the fact that you can win the game as early as turn four means that it isn’t easy to race your best draws.
The deck also gets a lot of mileage out of its lack of popularity. Some players are bound to tap out without knowing what you’re up to. This deck can look like it’s just turning its wheels and then bring back Omniscience and win the game in one go out of nowhere. This makes this combo strategy especially strong in a best-of-one setting on MTG Arena.
Where this deck can struggle is against decks that apply early pressure and also have access to cheap interaction. Decks like mono-red and Gruul aggro, for instance, can get on the board very quickly. Ephara’s Dispersal can slow down some draws and lines up well against pump spells, but that’s your only piece of interaction for creatures that hit the table in game one.
If the aggro player can back up this pressure with Burst Lightning to mess with your combo (because Abuelo’s Awakening returns Omniscience as a creature), you may end up in a rough position. On top of that, graveyard hate cards like Ghost Vacuum prevent you from effectively using Abuelo’s Awakening.
All in all, this deck gets a lot of points for presenting a cool and unusual gameplan, but it’s unlikely to break out as a top tier archetype anytime soon. Nonetheless, for those that enjoy off-the-wall combo decks, this is a sweet Standard shell to bust out on the Arena ladder or at your next FNM.
