Lost and Found
Terrible puns aside, so far the decks I’ve talked about in these articles have had some neat synergies, but I haven’t written about an honest to goodness combo deck – until now. I was inspired by the Wizard’s Tower resident, lover of all things non-interactive and degenerate, Benson Lai. I have a list that is sure to attract lovers of solitaire everywhere. Featuring the game’s most beloved lost homunculus Fblthp as the commander, this deck features a one card combo that will win you the game on the spot if you have enough mana to get it going. Let’s take a look.
First things first, let’s answer the burning question of exactly how the combo works. Since Fblthp hates crowds, we haven’t put any other creatures in the deck with him. The reason for this is that the card Proteus Staff lets us put a creature card on the bottom of our library, then flip cards from the top until we hit a creature card. That creature card goes into play and we put the rest of the cards back in any order we choose. We kick things off by playing Fblthp and drawing a card. Then we activate proteus staff, targeting Fblthp. Since there are no creatures in our deck, we will inevitably reveal our whole deck to the staff, until we reveal the Fblthp we just put on the bottom. The Fblthp goes directly into play, and since it entered from the library we draw two cards – but not before we stack our deck in exactly the perfect order.
The two cards we want to draw first are Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal. Play the Isochron Scepter and stick Dramatic Reversal under it. Now, assuming we have a mana rock that produces blue mana, such as Sky Diamond, as well as a mana rock that produces 2 or more mana of any kind, like Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith, we tap all our mana rocks and activate Isochron Scepter, casting Dramatic Reversal and untapping the Isochron Scepter, the Proteus Staff, and all the mana rocks. Repeat this as many times as you want to generate an arbitrarily large amount of blue mana and use that mana to activate Proteus Staff on Fblthp repeatedly until you draw your whole deck. Then simply dump all your extra mana into a Blue Sun’s Zenith for a million pointed at your opponent, and if everything went to plan your opponent loses from drawing cards from an empty deck.
For the most part the rest of the deck is built around assembling this combo. We have a wide range mana rocks to make sure that when we do get Proteus Staff out, we’re ready to hit the ground running with it. Coldsteel Heart, Mox Amber, Sky Diamond, Star Compass, and in a pinch Prismatic Lens make sure that we have enough blue mana to keep activating Proteus Staff while the beefier colourless mana rocks like Basalt Monolith, Grim Monolith, and Worn Powerstone keep our Isochron Scepter activations fuelled. To make sure we’re actually able to find the Proteus Staff, we have a full suite of cantrips, Preordain, Ponder, and the other usual suspects. On top of that, I’ve added a Narset, Parter of Veils essentially as a 3 mana Dig Through Time, and a copy of all the best artifact tutors available to us, in Fabricate, Reshape, Tinker, Transmute Artifact, and even snuck one into our land base in the form of Inventor’s Fair.
Lastly, when it comes time to combo, you have a copy of Pact of Negation for protection so you can tap out and still be able to interact. Originally this was the new Force of Negation, but in context, the ideal use of this slot is to use this during your turn to protect your combo, meaning Force of Negation is just going to be a Cancel, and you’ll probably never have to worry about paying for the trigger on Pact anyway. If Pact isn’t enough protection for your combo, there are a few more options in the sideboard to help out. Boseiju, Who Shelters All will make your Blue Sun’s Zenith uncounterable if that’s a concern in the matchup. Defense Grid really slows down your opponent and can do an even better job that Pact of Negation at stopping your opponents disrupting you. After all, there’s only so much fun to be had in a game of magic, and we want to have all of it!
As always, check back soon for another tiny deck tech.
