Grand Prix: Columbus - Combo Your Face Off

The biggest card pool also means the most potential combos, here's a brief look into various combination decks that you may end up sitting across from.

Aluren | The Rusty Machete

17 Creatures:  
1 Parasitic Strix
2 Eternal Witness
4 Wall of Roots
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Cavern Harpy
2 Dream Stalker
1 Bone Shredder
1 Raven Familiar
1 Man-o'-War

19 Spells:  
4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
4 Aluren

24 Lands:  
2 Swamp
2 Island
2 Forest
1 Stomping Ground
1 Windswept Heath
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs

15 Sideboard:  
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Stifle
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Pithing Needle
1 Harmonic Sliver
3 Krosan Grip

How it works:  Play Aluren.  You're dead.  More specifically, here's what happens.

1. Play Aluren.
2. Play Imperial Recruiter fetching Imperial Recruiter, 3 times. (not necessary to repeat the process, but might as well, right?)
3. Play Imperial Recruiter fetching Dream Stalker.
4. Play Dream Stalker, bouncing Imperial Recruiter.
5. Play Imperial Recruiter, fetching Cavern Harpy.
6. Play Cavern Harpy, bouncing Dream Stalker.
7. Play Dream Stalker, bouncing Imperial Recruiter.
8. Play Imperial Recruiter, fetching Parasitic Strix.
9. Play Parasitic Strix, your opponent loses 2 life, you gain 2 life.
10. Pay 1 life to bounce Cavern Harpy with Cavern Harpy's ability.
11. Play Cavern Harpy, bouncing Parasitic Strix.
12. See steps 9-11.

There are a lot more interactions within Aluren as well, but this is the most basic path to combo.
How to beat Aluren:

• Race it!
• Respond to something with Cavern Harpy on the stack.
• Make them pay for their spells.

Belcher | The Rusty Machete

16 Creatures:  
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith

43 Spells:  
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Burning Wish
4 Manamorphose
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song

1 Lands:  
1 Taiga

15 Sideboard:  
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Reverent Silence
1 Hull Breach
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Grapeshot
1 Cave-In
1 Shattering Spree
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pyroblast

How it works:  You open up your hand, show it to your opponent (Land Grant) and ask them if they can beat it.  Maybe they'll say yes, maybe they'll say no.  Here's a typical hand for Belcher:

Burning Wish, Land Grant, Rite of Flame, Tinder Wall, Lotus Petal, Desperate Ritual, Simian Spirit Guide.

They will, likely on turn 1:

1. Cast Land Grant (Alternate Cost) for Taiga.
2. Play Taiga, cast Tinder Wall.
3. Cast Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame, Desperate Ritual for RRR.
4. Cast Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens.
5. Cast Empty the Warrens for 14 Goblins.
6. Attack you two times.

How to beat Belcher:

• Attack their win conditions, kill all the goblins.  Or counter the Goblin Charbelcher.
• Play this card called Force of Will.  Maybe you've heard of it.  It defines our format.

Doomsday | The Rusty Machete

0 Creatures:  

44 Spells:  
4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
2 Infernal Tutor
1 Brain Freeze
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Doomsday
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Meditate
1 Helm of Awakening
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

16 Lands:  
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand

15 Sideboard:  
1 Pithing Needle
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Wipe Away
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Shelldock Isle
4 Dark Confidant
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience

Doooooom.  I can't even to begin to go through all the combinations of Doomsday piles, but here goes one of the easiest ones that I know:

1. Get a Sensei's Divining Top on board, have some mana floating from other ritual effects and your lands.
2. Play Doomsday, stacking from top to bottom - Meditate, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Ill-Gotten Gains, Tendrils of Agony, this pile needs a B floating.
3. Activate Sensei's Divining Top's second ability and draw a card.
4. Cast Meditate.
5. Cast Dark Ritual.
6. Cast Dark Ritual.
7. Cast Ill-Gotten Gains, returning Sensei's Divining Top, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual.
8. Cast Dark Ritual.
9. Cast Dark Ritual.
10. Cast Sensei's Divining Top.
11. Activate Sensei's Divining Top's second ability and draw a card.
12. Cast Tendrils of Agony.  This pile has the storm count of 9.

Okay, so I messed up on that one.  But just cast another spell and kill them.  Alternatively, there are backup kill combos in this version, in case your opponent has different ways of disrupting you.
Helm of Awakening + 2x Sensei's Divining Top = arbitrarily large number of spells cast, Tendrils or Brain Freeze you.
Helm of Obedience + Leyline of the Void = You mill, this comes in vs graveyard decks.
Shelldock Isle + Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn = You're getting annihilated.  This combo usually comes in against Counterbalance.

How to fight it:

• Race it!
• Counter key spells (Doomsday, Ad Nauseam, some Infernal Tutors)
• Play the enchantment Counterbalance.  It's pretty okay.
• Limit them to one spell a turn.

Dream Halls | The Rusty Machete

5 Creatures:  
4 Progenitus
1 Bogardan Hellkite

38 Spells:  
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Conflux
3 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Show and Tell
4 Dream Halls
4 Thoughtseize
3 Lotus Petal
4 Lim-Dul's Vault

16 Lands:  
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
5 Island

15 Sideboard:  
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
4 Spell Pierce
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Meditate
2 Duress
1 Wipe Away
1 Echoing Truth

You can lump Dream Halls and Aluren together, the way they play out is pretty similar, in the sense that both decks primarily win by getting its namesake enchantment into play, and then combo off from there.  This one has a slightly stronger backup plan, in my opinion, where you just get to play Show and Tell and put Progenitus into play.

A typical combo kill by Dream Halls (please excuse superfluous steps, which there are in here, I'm not much of a combo player):

1. Play Show and Tell, putting Dream Halls into play.
2. Play Conflux, discarding and shuffling in Progenitus.
3. Search up 3 more copies of Conflux, and 2 copies of Progenitus.
4. Play Conflux, discarding and shuffling in Progenitus.
5. Search up 3 copies of Cruel Ultimatum, and 2 copies of Progenitus.
6. Play Conflux, discarding and shuffling in Progenitus.
7. Search for 4 copies of Progenitus, 1 Bogardan Hellkite.
8. Dome your opponent for 20, using 3 Cruel Ultimatum and 1 Bogardan Hellkite.

There are more compact versions (Beacon of Immortality + False Cure), but they all operate off of Dream Halls into Conflux for a full combo kill.

How to beat it:

• Race it.  Sometimes they can't find their namesake enchantment, or have to pay too much life off of Lim Dul's Vault.
• Counter Conflux.
• Destroy Dream Halls if you get a reasonable priority pass.

Dredge | The Rusty Machete

27 Creatures:  
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
1 Angel of Despair
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Ichorid
3 Golgari Thug

21 Spells:  
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Deep Analysis
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

12 Lands:  
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum

15 Sideboard:  
3 Firestorm
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Unmask
3 Tireless Tribe
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Terastodon

There will be people who do not have the fear, and will be piloting the full on graveyard deck.  This version is the 'combo' version, where in game 1, it goes for the biggest and fastest kill.  A combo turn may end up looking like this:

1. Play City of Brass, play Lion's Eye Diamond.
2. Cast Breakthrough, in response, add 3 blue mana with Lion's Eye Diamond discarding my hand (Hand includes some combination of Dredge creatures, Bridge from Below, reanimation targets).
3. Breakthrough resolves, dredge off 20 or so cards, discard hand after Breakthrough finishes resolve, stack Narcomoeba triggers.
4. Use floating blue mana to Flashback Deep Analysis, targeting self.  This usually dredges 11 or 12 cards, usually there's a Golgari Grave-Troll or two in the graveyard by this tim.
5. Flashback Dread Return using Narcomoebas, return Sadistic Hypnotist, and make opponent discard his hand.
6. If you haven't actually seen the Dredge deck before, please ask someone to show it to you - When everything is working well, it is a sight to see.  I could write something much, much longer to show someone how Dredge works, and how it's like playing a different game entirely.

The best way to handle Dredge:

• Vary your graveyard hate.  Play to your deck's strengths for attacking the deck.  If you're unprepared to fight the deck (when and where to use your graveyard hate) you're going to get crushed.  I honestly don't have a lot of experience in fighting it, so I'm going to get crushed.

Reanimator | The Rusty Machete

7 Creatures:  
1 It That Betrays
1 Terastodon
1 Blazing Archon
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
2 Iona, Shield of Emeria

36 Spells:  
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Personal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Careful Study
1 Show and Tell
1 Turbulent Dreams
3 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Entomb
2 Thoughtseize

17 Lands:  
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Island

15 Sideboard:  
1 Animate Dead
1 Show and Tell
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Perish
1 Reverent Silence
1 Gilded Drake
1 Realm Razer
2 Moment's Peace
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Null Rod
2 Pithing Needle

The apparent "Boogeyman" of the format, pre-Mystical Tutor banning, without enough tournament placements to really warrant it.  Regardless, the typical Reanimator combo play:

1. Cast Entomb for Iona.
2. Cast Exhume, name white.

Seriously.  This is the autopilot that makes people lose games.  The best way to actually fight them is to anticipate what target they're going to get and plan accordingly.  I don't think there's a good way of putting it.

We're still even less than halfway there.

-G