While MTG Foundations wasn’t quite the huge Standard shake-up many were hoping for, it still opened its fair share of doors in the format. For the most part these doors, interestingly enough, lead to wacky combo brews. We’ve seen combos for infinite damage, combos for infinite combat steps, and many more besides. This week another MTG Combo deck, this time built around Duskmourn’s Manifest Dread mechanic, has come to light.
By playing just a few cards in sequence, this list can cheat out the biggest bads in the format as early as turn two. Even the recently-reprinted Progenitus is on the table here; mana cost doesn’t matter when you’re a combo player, after all. That new interactions like this are still being discovered nearly two months after the release of Foundations speaks volumes of the depth it added to Standard.
Manifest Dread Combo In MTG Standard
So how does the new MTG Manifest Dread Combo work? It’s pretty simple, really. First of all you need to put a huge creature face-down with Manifest Dread. There are a few ways to achieve this in the deck. You can cast Manifest Dread itself for two mana, or use Growing Dread for the same effect if you have access to blue. You can also do this on three mana with Twist Reality, or by attacking with Hauntwoods Shrieker.
Once you’ve got your fatty face-down, the next step is turning it over at a discounted rate. In this deck, Splash Portal is your best bet in this regard. If you exile a face-down creature and return it to play it comes back face-up, thus circumventing the high mana cost. Splash Portal does this for just one mana, which is a huge bargain. Hauntwoods Shrieker can also turn things over for two mana, which makes the card an enabler on two fronts.
That’s really the crux of the deck. We’ll get to the specific huge monsters you’ll be cheating out shortly, but for the most part the above covers the full gameplan. In a normal scenario, you can Manifest Dread on turn two then Splash Portal on turn three for a massive early threat. With an ideal draw you can actually pull this off even earlier, however.
Drop a Llanowar Elves on turn one and you’ll have three mana available on turn two. That’s enough to cast both Manifest Dread/Growing Dread and Splash Portal in the same turn. We’ve seen Reanimator decks pull out big threats early before, but turn two is particularly fast. This is doubly true for Standard, which doesn’t typically get access to that level of speed and power.
Progenitus And Pals
What kinds of huge creatures are we cheating out here exactly? I’m glad you asked. Since Manifest Dread Combo has no real color or cost restrictions, it can play all of the best big swingers in MTG Standard. The original decklist, which comes via the legendary MTG Creative Combos, takes full advantage of this fact.
As you’ll have probably guessed from his appearance in the title, Progenitus is one of the very best combo targets here. Thanks to its second ability, it’s typically not an option when it comes to Reanimator decks. Since we’re blinking things into play here, however, it’s fair game. For the most part you can think of Progenitus as an unblockable, unkillable 10/10. Barring exceptional circumstances, it’s going to end the game in two to three turns once it hits the board. That’s a crazy clock, even compared to that of the various Aggro decks in Standard right now.
Progenitus aside, the deck also runs some other fantastic creatures. Valgavoth is evasive and difficult to remove. It comes with the added benefit of Lifelink to put any race out of reach for your opponent. Etali, Primal Conqueror lets you potentially cheat out a second big guy when it enters play, on top of its solid 7/7 trampling body. Atraxa offers card advantage, and Koma and Ghalta offer sheer stats and bulk.
Generally, cheating any one of these creatures out in the early game should be enough to close things out. The removal in Standard is good, but not this good for the most part. The problem isn’t the games where this happens, however, but the games where it doesn’t. As Combo decks go, this one is pretty all-in.
Gas Or Gimmick?
The biggest issue with MTG decks like Manifest Dread Combo is consistency. The games where everything goes to plan and you bring out a huge threat on turn two/three will pretty much all be wins. Spectacular wins, too, by Standard metrics. The rest of the time the deck has very little going for it, however.
Without a big creature the best you can hope for is to curve into a Hauntwoods Shrieker and pursue a very slow beatdown plan with the 2/2s it creates. That’s the kind of strategy that gets you laughed out of current Standard. Even the Midrange decks, like Dimir and Golgari, are capable of applying a lot of early pressure. To say nothing of the various Aggro/Prowess decks running around at the minute. Basically, you don’t have a lot of time to wait for your combo pieces to show up, which really hurts decks like this.
On top of that, the core combo here is very easy to disrupt post-sideboard. All your opponent needs to do is kill your face-down 2/2 creature at instant speed, and it’s all over. Everything from Torch the Tower to Cut Down can get the job done here. Since Splash Portal is sorcery speed, you’ll need Hauntwoods Shrieker and two open mana to prevent this.
For that reason, Manifest Dread Combo ultimately seems more like a fun novelty than a serious deck you should invest in. Especially given how pricey all of its big creatures are in paper. It is very fun and explosive, however, so if you have the cards lying around it could be good for a few rounds at FNM.
