Of all the legends in Duskmourn, The Jolly Balloon Man is undoubtedly one of the most popular. While it hasn’t made much of a splash in Constructed, it’s the perfect card for EDH. As a Commander, The Jolly Balloon Man acts as a value engine alongside any creature with an enters-the-battlefield trigger. There are also lots of decks that can make great use of The Jolly Balloon Man in the 99.
As good as The Jolly Balloon Man is at generating value, likely its biggest strength is acting as a combo piece. Even being restricted to just Boros colors, there are plenty of infinite combos you can assemble with The Jolly Balloon Man at the helm.
Once you branch into other colors with The Jolly Balloon Man in your 99, you open the door for even more sweet combo kills. Many of them are rather easy to assemble, so just be careful you don’t make your playgroup mad!
Infinite Attackers
- Mana Value: 2W
- Rarity: Common
- Stats: 1/4
- MTG Sets: Innistrad, March of the Machine Commander, Tales of Middle-earth Commander
- Card Text: Flash. When Village Bell-Ringer enters the battlefield, untap all creatures you control.
The first style of combo with The Jolly Balloon Man that players can abuse involves creating infinite attackers. The simplest way to do this is with Village Bell-Ringer and any mana dork, such as Gold Myr.
Start by tapping Gold Myr for mana and use this mana to tap The Jolly Balloon Man, targeting Village Bell-Ringer. When the copy enters, you’ll get to untap all of your creatures. This provides you with the opportunity to tap Gold Myr for mana again and reactive The Jolly Balloon Man’s ability, targeting Village Bell-Ringer all the same. Repeat this process over and over to get infinite attackers.
If you have access to other colors, there are plenty of cards that can replace Village Bell-Ringer. Take Great Oak Guardian, for example. You can follow the same steps we mentioned above with Great Oak Guardian in the mix.
A similar combo can be executed with Intruder Alarm. Use your Gold Myr to tap for mana and have The Jolly Balloon Man copy any of your other nonlegendary creatures. From there, you can accomplish the goal of getting infinite attackers.
More Commander Content: Commander Desperately Needs These Cards Unbanned
Infinite Mana
- Mana Value: 2RR
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- MTG Sets: Onslaught, Double Masters
- Card Text: Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, you may add an amount of colorless mana equal to the number of creatures you control that share a creature type with it.
When necessary, there are also multiple ways to generate infinite mana with The Jolly Balloon Man. Obviously, if you have multiple mana dorks in play at once, Village Bell-Ringer and the like will net you infinite mana. However, there are some other unique ways to achieve this goal.
Let’s say you have a Mana Echoes in play alongside The Jolly Balloon Man. Now, instead of relying on copying creatures like Village Bell-Ringer that untap ALL of your creatures including mana dorks, the door is open for you to copy cards such as Restoration Angel or Felidar Guardian that blink and reset The Jolly Balloon Man.
See, if you tap The Jolly Balloon Man to copy Restoration Angel, you’ll get mana right away when the copy enters. Plus, you’ll get to blink The Jolly Balloon Man. When The Jolly Balloon Man comes back into play, Mana Echoes will provide even more mana.
Because The Jolly Balloon Man has Haste, you’ll be able to use that floating mana to copy Restoration Angel once more. Repeating this process will net you infinite attackers as well as infinite colorless mana from Mana Echoes.
Interestingly, if you have enough mana to start with, you can net infinite mana with any nonlegendary creature in play, so long as you have Umbral Mantle on the battlefield, too. Start by equipping The Jolly Balloon Man with Umbral Mantle. Then, copy one of your nonlegendary creatures.
When it enters, you’ll net some mana from Mana Echoes. From there, you pay three mana to untap The Jolly Balloon Mana, and one more mana to copy the same nonlegendary creature from earlier. Mana Echoes will provide even more mana this time around, since you now control more creatures with the same creature type.
Even though Umbral Mantle requires three mana to activate, eventually, Mana Echoes will start netting you mana in the transaction.
Infinite Turns
- Mana Value: 3
- Rarity: Rare
- MTG Sets: Mercadian Masques, Core Set 2019
- Card Text: 4, Tap: Put a charge counter on Magistrate’s Scepter. Tap, Remove three charge counters from Magistrate’s Scepter: Take an extra turn after this one.
Perhaps the coolest combo that The Jolly Balloon Man brings to the table is one that allows you to take infinite turns. This one requires you to play two other cards that aren’t exactly great individually. Nonetheless, the reward is awesome.
These two requisite cards are Magistrate’s Scepter and Coretapper. In order to take infinite turns, you’ll start by copying Coretapper. Once you do, tap the copy to add a charge counter to Magistrate’s Scepter. After that, sacrifice it to add two more charge counters to Magistrate’s Scepter.
This alone gets you the three charge counters needed to take an extra turn with Magistrate’s Scepter. You can follow these same steps on each of your subsequent turns to take infinite turns. Winning the game should be trivial at that point.
The Jolly Balloon Man is a fun and amusing character, but don’t let your guard down when he’s in play. Otherwise, you might find yourself on the wrong end of one of these game-ending combos.
Additional Commander Information: Ex-CAG Members Reveal WotC Advised Against Recent Commander Bans
