Over the years, a multitude of different combo decks have flourished in Modern. Do you enjoy one-card win conditions? Try Modern Belcher. Prefer spell-based combo decks? Give Ruby Storm a go. There are combos for everyone!
One particular combo deck that we find quite exciting is Song of Creation combo. This deck revolves around the powerful Enchantment and gives you the opportunity to draw your entire deck in one go!
With Underworld Breach out of the picture, Song of Creation has a lot more appeal. It continues to fly under the radar, so we wanted to give it its time in the spotlight following some strong showings in Modern.
Executing a Combo Kill
In order to win the game, your first step is to set up a window where you can safely land Song of Creation. Song of Creation is a weird card that most decks can’t use. The fact that you have to discard your hand at the beginning of your end step makes the Enchantment unreliable. Well, that is unless you can win the game on the same turn.
Thankfully, this deck is fully capable of winning the game right away after resolving Song of Creation. This is in large part due to the presence of Mox Opal and Mox Amber. First of all, these Artifacts help you accelerate out Song of Creation when applicable. They also make it easier in conjunction with Mishra’s Bauble to play Emry, Lurker of the Loch ahead of schedule.
On top of that, though, because they’re zero-mana Artifacts that often produce mana, they make it much easier to start the card-drawing chain once Song is in play. Casting a single Mox will draw you two cards and net you mana. You can only keep one of each Mox in play at a time since they’re legendary, but you’re free to float mana before resolving another copy.
Another important piece of the puzzle is Repeal. After playing a Mox and drawing two cards, you can float blue mana, use it to cast Repeal targeting your Mox, drawing even more cards. Now the Mox is back in your hand, ready to be recast to draw two more cards, and you’re not down on mana in the exchange.
Eventually, you’ll win the game in one of two ways. One kill condition is Grapeshot. Between Grapeshot and Noxious Revival, it’s trivial to build up enough Storm count to win with Grapeshot. Otherwise, Jace, Wielder of Mysteries will clean things up. Simply chain enough spells with Jace in play to draw from an empty library, and you’re golden.
Value and Consistency
As good as this deck is when it’s able to spin its wheels freely, it can suffer at times if you don’t have Song of Creation lined up or it gets countered. The good news, at least, is that you have plenty of ways to churn through your library naturally and dig for the Enchantment.
One of the best tools in this department is Malevolent Rumble. Malevolent Rumble digs four cards deep for Song of Creation while also ramping you in the process.
Outside of Malevolent Rumble, the combination of Emry and Mishra’s Bauble can generate lots of value. If your opponent can’t kill Emry the turn it comes down, recasting Mishra’s Bauble over and over will pull you ahead on resources in no time.
The same can be said for Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student. Tamiyo is a card advantage machine, and all your Moxen help you relish that card advantage.
Your Clue tokens buff your Construct tokens from Urza’s Saga, too. Urza’s Saga can technically serve as an alternate win condition in the face of lots of Counterspells, though it’s mostly included as a low-cost Artifact tutor.
Sidestepping Hate
As you might expect, playing against archetypes with lots of interaction is tough. A deck like Dimir Murktide, for instance, not only has Counterspells for Song of Creation, but can also use Thoughtseize to strip you of your most important card. Actually landing your Enchantment is hard.
There is one nice method this deck has of playing around hate, however. Once Song of Creation is in your graveyard, Shifting Woodland becomes a legitimate threat. This shell has a nice mix of Artifacts, Creatures, and Lands, so enabling Delirium isn’t a problem. Sometimes, Malevolent Rumble will set up Delirium on its own, grabbing you Shifting Woodland and putting Song of Creation into your graveyard nice and easy.
Once Song of Creation is in your graveyard, Shifting Woodland can copy it at will. Shifting Woodland is immune to Counterspells and discard spells, which is a huge boon.
This makes the archetype more resilient than it looks, though there are some areas for concern, regardless. Cheap interaction like Wear//Tear backed up by a fast clock from Boros Energy isn’t always easy to beat. Meanwhile, Belcher combo has access to free pieces of counter magic in the form of Flare of
Denial and Force of Negation as well as the ability to present a fast clock.
Then there are nightmare matchups like Dimir Mill which comes equipped with Surgical Extraction for your combo pieces. In this sense, Song of Creation combo is far from fool proof. Nonetheless, it does line up pretty well against a lot of the top decks in the format. Song of Creation combo is fast, fun, and not as fragile as you might think. Consider giving it a shot at your next FNM.
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