Re: List of Compact Combos
Umm Counterbalance and Sensei's divining top is strong from what i hear. :rolleyes:
2/3/nadda
Re: List of Compact Combos
He means a combo- as in a combination of cards that win the game...
Re: List of Compact Combos
Time Vault/Mizzium Transreliquat: 2/8/0
Time Vault/Rings of Brighthearth: 2/8/0
These are both comparable to Trix, as they are extremely compact (although you do have to have an actual win condition somewhere in your 60). As with Trix, you pay for this compactness with a higher cost in mana, but these are about as resilient as Severance/Belcher (and one mana cheaper), and the fact that both of these combos involve Time Vault makes for interesting design possibilities.
Unfortunately, I think that Legacy really favors mana-efficient win conditions over compact ones, which is why Cephalid Breakfast is the only combo in your list that can be found in a competitive deck right now.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Buried Alive/Reanimate: 2/4/3
Just an alternative Survival/Kiki/Hussar (the chaff being Kiki-Jiki, Karmic Guide, and Sky Hussar), but uses one more card and costs three less mana. You can also use Sutured Ghoul/Dreadnought/Dreadnought which is a bit less fragile. In either case, the deck construction is still somewhat closed (as it's 11 cards at minimum) but you can still do some interesing things with it.
Edit - But of course, for Ghoul you need Shallow Grave or Corpse Dance instead, making it 5-6 mana.
Re: List of Compact Combos
There's also Sensei Sensei:
SDT/SDT/Helm of Awakening/Storm card edit - it's 4/3/0
I'm not sure if I got the numbers quite right, but I didn't count SDT as part of the cards you need in hand or the chaff, because it's damn useful in its own right with Counterbalance or just to keep card quality up. The chaff here is the Helm and the Storm card (Brainfreeze most likely, but the rest of the combo is colorless so you can fit it in with Dragonstorm/Tendrils/what have you), which are also the cards you need in hand.
edit - Although if you actually want to see Helm or your storm card, the chaff could concievably be 8.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pinder
There's also Sensei Sensei:
SDT/SDT/Helm of Awakening/Storm card 2/4/2
I'm not sure if I got the numbers quite right, but I didn't count SDT as part of the cards you need in hand or the chaff...
lol wut? SDT counts as one of the cards you need for the combo to work, ...because you need it for the combo to work. That makes this a four-card combo, which is exactly why it sucks.
For the sake of completeness, the number breakdown should be 4/2/0
You need Top/Top/Helm/storm card to go off, two mana to play the Helm, and nothing else needs to be in the deck to win. So, this combo is extremely cheap, mana-wise, and as compact as possible when three unique cards are involved. However, as I said, it's killed by the fact that you need a total of four cards in hand or in play for it to work.
EDIT: Pinder corrected me, since I forgot about casting Brainfreeze. The number breakdown should actually be 4/3/0.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Ah, I see now. I broke it down completely wrong. I thought chaff here meant 'cards that did nothing for the deck outside of the combo', not 'cards that need to be in the library (or graveyard, or otherwise not in your hand) to combo.'
Either way though, you need 2 mana for Helm and an extra mana for Brainfreeze. So it's probably closer to 4/3/0.
But I contend that Top isn't really an issue here, even though you need 2 of them. You want one of them, regardless of the fact that it's part of the combo, because you can set up CounterTop to stall while you use it to find other pieces of the combo. I suppose once you have one on the table you need to find another before you can combo, but even then you really only need 3 cards in hand, because one will already be on the table. So, 3/3/0?
Re: List of Compact Combos
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pinder
Either way though, you need 2 mana for Helm and an extra mana for Brainfreeze. So it's probably closer to 4/3/0.
Whoops. You're right. Edited.
Quote:
But I contend that Top isn't really an issue here, even though you need 2 of them. You want one of them, regardless of the fact that it's part of the combo, because you can set up CounterTop to stall while you use it to find other pieces of the combo. I suppose once you have one on the table you need to find another before you can combo, but even then you really only need 3 cards in hand, because one will already be on the table. So, 3/3/0?
No, you really have to count both Tops, because you need both of them for the combo to function. You can't say that's irrelevant because you "want" a Top for other reasons. It isn't as if that helps you find, resolve, or protect one.
Breaking a combo down into three numbers is obviously going to present an incomplete description. Beyond the "4/3/0," You might be able to argue that this combo is better than other four-card combos because Top is a good card on its own. But that doesn't make it any less of a four-card combo.
Re: List of Compact Combos
I suppose for the purpose of hard numbers, you're right, in the same way that Survival is an amazing card all on its own, but you still need one for some of the combos listed above, and so it's still in the numbers.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Aluren / Imperial Recruiter: 2/4/4
Chaff is Cavern Harpy, bounce (ie Manowar), life gain (ie Spike Feeder), and kill (ie Ghitu Slinger).
EDIT: Recruiter grabs Manowar, bounce Recruiter, Recruiter grabs Harpy, bounce Manowar, bounce Recruiter, repeat. This loop lets you grab and re-bounce any 3cc creature in your deck. Re-bounce Feeder for infinite life to help pay for Harpy's bounce cost. Re-bounce Slinger to win. There are other choices for bounce and kill like Dream Stalker and Etched Oracle (this requires Wall of Roots to generate infinite mana).
There are cheaper combos than this, but this combo doesn't depend on the graveyard.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Gifts Ungiven
Cheapest targets are Dark Ritual (or Cabal Ritual which makes the combo cheaper, but adds Threshold as a requirement), Recoup, Reanimate, Buried Alive. Requires 9URRB to combo on the same turn in the worst case scenario. Incorporates Reanimate + Buried Alive and Kiki Jiki/Sky Hussar/Karmic Guide.
1/13/7*
*Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Sky Hussar, Karmic Guide, Recoup, Dark Ritual, Reanimate, Buried Alive are all chaff. It could be argued that this number is 6 since Dark Ritual is genuinely useful to cast Gifts Ungiven, reduce the mana cost of the combo, or to stall with.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Here is something i thought of but really could never break.
Intuition for:
Academy Ruins
Life from the Loam
Mindslaver
i guess its not that amazing.
Re: List of Compact Combos
In addition to that, I would suggest to write down the disruptability of the combo.
- Grave dependency (disruptable by planar void/leyline of the void/tormod's crypt) (half are)
- Needleability (a lot are)
- Stiflabitiliy (most are)
- Forceability (all are I think)
- Wastelandability (few are)
- Swordsability (half are)
- Disenchantability (half are)
- Chaliceability (most are)
In combos, peeble is also not that bad: 0CC creature, sacrifice outlet that can win the game when repeated (goblin bombardment is the best), enduring renewal. 3/6/0 (grave:yes, needle: not really if played with several sac outlets, stifle: not if 2 creatures in hand, yes if only 1, force: yes, wastelands: no, swords: no, disenchant: yes, chalice: yes)
Salvager combo: Auriok Salvager, LED, either a card that wins the game when infinite mana, or a 1CC artifact that makes your draw. 3/4/0 (grave:yes, needle: yes, stifle: no, force: yes, wastelands: no, swords: yes, disenchant: no, chalice: yes)
Re: List of Compact Combos
I'm not sure if this is considered Legacy playable, but:
Dark Depths+Aether Snap: 2/5/0
The combo is very similar to Trix in that it won't win you the game outright, but it will give you a 20/20 flying, indestructible creature. The mana investment is roughly the same, though you can Dark Ritual into Aether Snap. It's very disruptable, but the investment is low.
Grave dependency: No
Needleability: No
Stiflabitiliy: Yes
Forceability: Yes
Wastelandability: Yes
Swordsability: Yes
Disenchantability: No
Chaliceability: No
Re: List of Compact Combos
It's worth noting that Doomsday can actually pretty easily be 1/5/5 instead of 1/6/5. If you have Predict, Conjurer's Bauble, or Lion's Eye Diamond in your hand, then you can easily replace its slot with Chrome Mox or Lotus Petal in your stack. While technically this is still 1/6/5, the fact the combo can occasionally fetch itself the mana to go off makes it virtually count for less.
This is highly relevant in cases where you want to cast a first turn Dark Ritual / Doomsday and be able to win the next turn.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Quote:
Time Vault/Mizzium Transreliquat: 2/8/0
Time Vault/Rings of Brighthearth: 2/8/0
This looks interesting together with Reconstruction or Argivian Restoration as a Gifts Pile, i'll try that.
Maybe a little slow though, like you said.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Wow, a lot of excellent feedback... thanks especially for doing my thinking for me and using the same format.
I'm aware it isn't perfect. The 'chaff' number doesn't take into account whether the combo pieces we need in hand are useful on their own right, and they do range from dead-ish to awesome. I tried to keep it as simple as possible, to let people rule some out as too slot-hungry or mana-hungry. If I started to comment on all the traits on Maveric78f's list I'd be tempted to also include things like alternate routes in the face of a Meddling Mage, colour intensity, Extractability, Froglockability, Jötungruntability, Truebelievability, Gaddockteegability and other brain-imploding words. This is something far beyond the scope I had in mind and I planned to leave that to each deckbuilder... hopefully, they know what traits they are looking for.
Not all of these have to be capable of powering a Deck-to-Beat; throwing a compact combo into a deck that can support it easily might net free wins simply through the rogue factor and in very defined/small metagames there might be the option of dodging the most common hate while maindecking 20 hate cards yourself.
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My brain tries very hard to forget that Time Vault exists, and was mostly successful before the reminder. That certainly deserves a spot in the list, as do Aluren and Buried Alive. Many thanks to iOWN, Obfuscate Freely and jamest.
I'm reluctant to include combos with more than 2 primary cards, unless I can see a very compelling reason. As a comparison, the cheapest IGG loop would come down as 3/2/3, and that's generally used in all-engine decks rather than as a compact combo.
Likewise, a 3*4 configuration only saves one slot compared to Cephalid Breakfast and getting 3 cards in hand at once is a lot trickier. Unless I'm very mistaken, a good Sensei, Sensei implementation (yes, the minimum would be a 4/3/0) would take up far too many slots to count as a compact combo.
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@ Emidlin: Personally, I'd see that as an (expensive) way to fetch the real combo rather than a 1-card-combo... at least in Legacy. With Survival, I can at least provide my own acceleration to cut the 'effective' cost down to 7-ish. We're fast approaching the regions of Door to Nothingness (1/15/0) or Kaervek's Torch (1/21/0 with a considerable benefit).
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@ Tacosnape: Duly noted, and relevant indeed. I tried to make as few assumptions as possible though, and considering we don't run multiples that alternative would be more along the lines of a 2/5/4... if multiple avenues with different values exist, I'll just write down the one I consider most impressive. Again, I can't be 100% fair without giving a ridiculous amount of details.
Re: List of Compact Combos
Actually I think, in FEB Cephalid Inkshrouder is not necessary. Because IF the opponent had removal, he could still play it in response for discarding phage. And if he has no removal, the Inkshrouder's ability (untargetable) does not matter. The unblockable thing does not matter too, since Akroma ALWAYS makes at least 1 (trample) damage to opponent, which will trigger Phage's ability. I cant image a situation, when the opponent has a untapped 6/6 flying blocker on turn 4 (except maybe against Reanimator or Mystic Enforcer).
At least I play no Inkshrouder, and I'm quite happy with it.
Maybe we should add the Savalgers Combo?
But this may not be a compact combo?
Re: List of Compact Combos
Speaking of Full English Breakfast, the combo can be made 1/7/4 instead of 1/9/3, which I think is the better option, just by adding in a Palinchron which you discard to fetch Shapeshifter and cast it (1G for Survival, GG for activations, 1UU for Shapeshifter). You then untap your lands and can play the rest of the combo "for free".
I don't know if you're only looking for combos that win right then and there, but otherwise you could include Enlightened Tutor (for Draco)/Erratic Explosion, which is a 2/4/1 combo dealing sixteen damage.