Now that we’ve had almost a week to pore over its many new cards, players are starting to get a feel for Edge of Eternities as a set. While less powerful than average, there’s still plenty of potential here in formats like Commander and Pauper. There are also, as is often the case, a number of new combos enabled by the set. This week, a new instant-win combo involving Requiem Monolith has got many MTG players talking.
By pairing the new artifact with one of Magic’s most famous black cards and an obscure combat trick, you can end the game on the spot. Three-card combos tend to be hard to swing, but the individual components of this one are solid enough that it could actually see real play. With Edge of Eternities Prerelease just two days away, we won’t need to wait long to find out, one way or another.
The MTG Requiem Monolith Infinite Combo
The Requiem Monolith combo is fairly simple, at least by typical MTG Standards. To pull it off you need Monolith on the board, Orcish Bowmasters and Armor of Shadows in your hand, and your opponent needs at least one creature in play.
From here, the first step is to tap Monolith and target the opposing creature with its effect. For the rest of the turn, whenever that creature takes damage your opponent will lose one life and draw a card. The wording here is a little confusing, since it specifies that “you” draw the card. When an opponent’s creature has it, however, the “you” refers to them.
Next, you’ll want to target the creature with Armor of Shadows. This will make it Indestructible for the turn, and thus prevent it from dying due to damage. Finally, cast Orcish Bowmasters targeting the creature, and your opponent’s fate is sealed.
Bowmasters will deal one damage to the creature, which will trigger the Monolith effect and force your opponent to draw a card and lose a life. This extra draw will, in turn, trigger Bowmasters, letting you damage the creature again and repeat the process. This will result in your opponent taking infinite damage and drawing their entire deck. One way or another, they’ll lose the game immediately. That said, if they draw a removal spell before decking or bleeding out, you could be in for a bad time, since they can remove the Bowmasters after having drawn a ton of cards.
In terms of viability, this combo has some things going for it. Monolith aside, you can cast all of its pieces at instant speed, which helps you go ‘over the top’ of your opponent’s interaction in many cases. It’s also contained entirely within one color, on cards that only need a single colored pip to cast. This makes it highly splashable, and an easy potential include in multiple shells, at least in Commander. This does have the potential to go very wrong, however, which is certainly a risk.
A Suitable Home?
In Commander, this combo seems like an easy include in any given black deck. Bowmasters is great in Commander already, and Monolith seems like a solid draw engine for the format too. Making room for a combat trick or two isn’t hard, either, especially when you consider Revitalizing Repast as an alternative to Armor of Shadows. Sure it only kills one opponent at a time, but you can get around that with untap effects like Voltaic Key.
More of a question mark is whether the Requiem Monolith combo will make it in competitive MTG formats. It’s safe to discount Legacy and Vintage here, but I think it could have a shot in Modern. Plenty of decks run Bowmasters as-is. On top of that, the format isn’t so hyper-aggressive that a Phyrexian Arena variant like Monolith is stone-cold unplayable. The bigger problem is finding room for an Indestructible combat trick.
The key to this combo’s success will be slotting it into decks that both run Bowmasters already, and have key creatures worth protecting in a pinch. There are a few reasonable options in the current format, like Esper Midrange and Dimir Murktide. In the former you can keep Phelia alive post-swing to keep generating value. In the latter, protecting your huge Flying win conditions is solid. You can use your trick early to fuel graveyard costs, too. Even then, however, Requiem Monolith might be too clunky for Modern.
A combo similar to this that used Flumph did exist in Modern as a sort of meme deck. It proved somewhat viable, getting 5-0 league results, but never took off past that point. This likely means that the Requiem Monolith combo will be the same; likely an untiered deck that can occasionally win a small event at absolute best.
It’s easy to dismiss a combo like this as too clunky for Modern. That said, it’s actually fairly speedy all things considered. It can end the game on turn four fairly easily, or even turn three with mana dork support. I’d expect some Modern players to give it a spin, at the very least.
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