A major appeal of Magic’s gameplay is the deep level of interaction it encourages. Between counterspell wars and conditional removal, there’s plenty of opportunity to outplay your opponent. While this can create some incredible moments, not every MTG player wants to play the game fairly. Combo decks, for instance, often exchange interaction for explosive wins, attacking Magic on a different angle.
That being said, in most cases, combo decks still play within reasonable constraints. Gimmicky payoffs are often incredibly inconsistent, while stronger combos are slow enough to allow for interaction. This, however, isn’t true all of the time, and occasionally key combo pieces need to be banned as a result. Potentially, this is what might happen in Historic soon, thanks to a lethal new turn-one kill combo.
A New Turn One Kill
Balustrade Spy decks are nothing new to Historic, but Secrets of Strixhaven gave the deck two massive upgrades. The most important of these is Culling the Weak, which can turn a small creature, like Ornithopter, or Evoke Elementals like Endurance, into a four-mana Ritual. This allows players to cast Balustrade Spy as early as turn one, emptying their library and setting up for a win.
While this is quite powerful, previously, Historic Balustrade Spy decks haven’t been able to overrun Best of One. Even if you got Balustrade Spy into play immediately, there was no combination of cards that could kill the opponent on the same turn. Now, however, Group Project has become the solution to this problem by allowing players to deal 24 damage as soon as Balustrade Spy is resolved.
To start this combo, use Culling the Weak on one of your zero-drop creatures, casting Balustrade Spy. This will empty your library, triggering four copies of Narcomoeba and Creeping Chill that are milled from your library. These will deal 12 damage to your opponents and put four 1/1s into play. Since you have five creatures, you can now cast your two copies of Group Project, creating two more 2/2s. Since you cast three instants or sorceries, four Arclight Phoenix will come into play, finishing your opponent off.
To pull this combo off on turn one, you need four different cards in your hand: A black MDFC land, Balutrade Spy, Ornithopter, and Culling the Weak. You can also use Endurance and another Green card in place of Ornithopter, essentially functioning as an instant-speed zero-drop. On top of that, Group Project needs to be absent from your hand, since you won’t be able to cast it in your graveyard. The same is true for Narcomoeba, unless you have an extra Ornithopter to spare.
While this is a lot, you can also keep a lot of hands that win on turn two, which are far more consistent. Sylvan Tutor and Wordly Tutor come into play here, allowing you to find the missing pieces of the puzzle. Thanks to this, Culling the Weak is the only card you need to consistently see in your opening hand, as everything else is searchable. All of that said, if you want to save on wildcards and just go after the gimmick, the tutors aren’t necessary.
Tibalt’s Trickery 2.0
As far as competitive viability goes, this variant of Spy Combo is an unplayable gimmick, but that’s not the issue. Like the toxic Tibalt’s Trickery combos of old, this style of deck encourages players to simply mulligan to their combo and try to win. If you miss, you just concede and go to the next game. If you find it, however, your opponents just have to sit there and watch you combo off.
Tibalt’s Trickery was banned in Best of One for this exact reason. Regardless of whether the Trickery player won the game or not, games against the deck are unenjoyable for the opponent. They have absolutely no agency to affect the game, turning Best of One Historic into a gambling machine. If this Balustrade Spy combo catches on, it could do the exact same thing.
If that weren’t bad enough, there is a chance that Spy Combo will actually be competitive in Historic. The deck’s speed would need to be toned down in exchange for consistency, but there are more reliable shells out there using an Eldritch Evolution package. Even if a more competitive variant doesn’t break out, however, Historic is still in danger of devolving into a combo hellscape.
Bans Needed?
While there’s a potential problem looming over Best of One Historic, there is some good news. Because of this deck’s heavy focus on a couple of cards, fixing it with bans is rather easy.
Culling the Weak is probably the best ban for Best of One Historic as a whole, cleaning up Balustrade Spy while fixing a few other potential issues. The card is also problematic alongside Stitcher’s Supplier, setting up Underworld Breach wins as early as turn two. By banning Culling of the Weak, Wizards shouldn’t have to worry about a new problematic combo deck rising up from the ashes.
If the turn one nature of this combo is the real issue, Wizards could also just decide to ban Group Project in Best of One. This ban would ensure that no other Historic decks are affected due to Spy Combo’s sins, while allowing the combo to remain playable. While playable, this deck wouldn’t be able to produce turn one wins anymore, allowing other all-in Historic decks to compete.
All of that said, thanks to its dubious win rate, there’s also a chance that this Spy Combo variant doesn’t catch on at all. It certainly didn’t stop Tibalt’s Trickery, however, suggesting that history could repeat itself. Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the next MTG ban announcement. Currently, this is scheduled for May 18th, so we shouldn’t have long to wait, at least.
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