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Breaking Heliod: 5 Apects to Combo

I love playing combo decks. I love building Combo decks. I really suck at both as well.  But over the years trying to make cards synergize, I’ve learned six qualities for successful combo: speed, consistency, efficiency, power, and resilience. Every good Combo deck utilizes three of these qualities. The great combo decks (ones that often times get banned), utilize four or more. Deck builders need to know which aspects they’re utilizing the most, then how and why.  Deck pilots need to know how to maximize the most important elements for their particular match-up, hands, and game state.  For those who don’t know these 5 aspects, let’s discuss them.

Speed.  Speed in Magic: The Gathering strictly refers to the turn in which a deck can win on average. For combo, speed should be the highest priority of the deck. The faster the deck can put together its combo, the less likely it is to be disrupted, and the less it has to interact with the opponent’s game plan. Having to interact to keep from losing prevents the combo deck from being proactive both in game play and in card slots.  Without many slots for interaction, combo decks need to race their opponents and win before needing to interact. (Splinter Twin as combo control was an extreme exception).

Consistency measures how often the deck works, not wins, but works in the way in which it was designed. Consistency is the second most important aspect of a combo deck, and thankfully it can be measured. Play a large number of games and record the coinciding data. Slap a statistic on it. If it doesn’t consistently work, remember this: Non-combo card slots in the deck should be devoted to consistency.  There should be plenty of slots available for consistency, which brings up our next quality.

Efficiency describes two things: 1) the number of cards required for the combo, and 2) the number of turns the combo takes to set-up on the battlefield. The smaller number of cards the combo demands, the easier it is to assemble.  The less turns needed for set-up makes it more difficult to interact with. An uber successful combo deck is efficient in both areas.  It has ways to find it’s combo quickly, requires only a few cards to assemble, and can combo out the turn the cards hit the battlefield. 

Resilience refers to how well the deck plays through hate. Eventually a combo deck will be hated out. It may be hated out through sideboard options, while interactive decks will run main-board disruption. If a deck folds to a single card, it will be difficult to win side-boarded games, which are 2 out of every 3 games played in a given match. To be resilient, combo decks need either a plan B, redundancy in the deck, disruption of their own to protect the combo, or sideboard cards to bring in to interact with opponent’s hate. All of these make a more resilient deck.  Resiliency is necessary for post side-board games.

Power describes the strength of the combo, and it needs to be as broken as possible. By that, I mean when the combo is in effect, it must lead to winning the game, a.k.a inevitability. The combo could be to make infinite mana, card draw, life gain, mill, damage, or creature creation. But no matter what it is, the combo must lead to winning the game once on board.  If it doesn’t, or it doesn’t have inevitability, it isn’t powerful enough to build a deck around.  Now with all this discussed, let’s get to how identifying these 5 aspects helped me break the card Heliod, Sun-Crowned. First, here is my initial 75:

Creatures:

4 Helio, Sun-Crowned, 4 Walking Ballista, 4 Ranger, Captain of Eos,         4 Birds of Paradise

Instants:

4 Brought Back, 4 Once Upon a Time, 3 Eldarami’s Call, 3 Swift Justice

Arifacts:

4 Mishra’s Bauble

Enchantments:

4 Leyline of Vitality, 2 Force of Virture

Lands:

4 Windswept Heath, 4 Flooded Strand, 4 Temple Gardens, 2 Canopy Vista, 2 Plains, 2 Forests, 2 Cavern of Souls

Breakdown: The deck pairs Heliod with Walking Ballista for infinite damage between the card interactions.  Everything else in the deck either speeds it up, makes it resilient, efficient, or consistent.  Once Upon a Time, Eladamri’s Call, Mishra’s Bauble, and Ranger, Captain of Eos let me either dig or tutor for the cards I need.  Birds of Paradise and Brought Back ramps mana.  Ranger Captain and Cavern of Souls protect the combo pieces the turn I cast them to go off while Brought Back can bring them back if they are destroyed after casting them. Leyline of Vitality, Force of Virture, and Swift Justice speed up the deck, with Leyline acting as an engine card.  Leyline ensures I can cast Ballista for free and it doesn’t die because it comes in as an 0/1.  I can gain a life from a creature entering the battlefield, which triggers Heliod putting a counter onto a target creature, which is Ballista.  Then if i have mana open to activate Heliod’s lifelink ability, or a Swift Justice in hand, Walking Ballista goes infinite.  Force of Virtue is in the deck to act as another 2 copies of Leyline.  It doesn’t grant all the abilities of Leyline, but it is a free cast and grants a point of power and defense, as well as 2 white devotion to make Heliod a creature in case i need to go with Plan B of creature beat downs. Leyline gaining life for each creature entering the battlefield also buys an extra turn against aggro and burn decks in case I need until turn five for my combo.

The deck consistently goldfishes turn 4, and occasionally turn three, but this is only with Leyline on board from the opening hand.  Don’t underestimate the power of Brought Back and Leyline in this deck.  The deck can’t win on turn 3 without one of those two cards. Leyline can guarantee a turn three combo with a turn 2 Heliod and turn three Ballista coming down for free. Brought Back can ramp and dig through the deck quickly by returning fetch lands or Mishra’s Bauble to thin out the deck as well as return a combo piece, blocker, or sacked Ranger from the graveyard.

The sideboard consists of 4 Force of Vigor. 3 Leyline of Sanctity  2 Phyrexian Revoker, 2 Beast Within, 2 Engineered Explosives, 2 Path to Exile

Leyline and Force of Vigor protects my combo by either protecting my hand or my life total against direct damage and discard, or by killing artifacts and enchantments that shut my combo down.  Beast Within, EE, and Path take out anything I could need to take out, and Revoker can be tutored to shut down opponent combo pieces.  I was tempted to include 4 Silence in the sideboard as a control card, and I might still, but I haven’t played enough games to know if it’s worth it or not. 

I didn’t want to jam Heliod into another shell like most people are attempting.  I wanted a shell based around the combo, and this one seems to be the best.  It’s important cards are hard to interact with such as Heliod and due to Cavern and Ranger, and many of the cards are simply free to play: Once Upon a Time, Leylines, Force of Virtue, Ballista, Bauble.  Please feel free to try this list with the understanding of the 5 aspects of combo, and that this list attempts to maximize all 5 aspects: speed, power, consistency, resilience, and efficiency to make every game winnable. If anyone has any other feedback or suggestions, please feel free to comment.

[the-unprofessional-mtgplaye-blog]

My History with MTG

My friend dragged me into playing Magic: The Gathering when I was 25, worked way too much, and had almost zero hobbies other than doing nothing and smoking.  All I can say is that I wish he had done it sooner, like a decade sooner.  I wish I had gotten in on the ground floor of Magic in every department: collecting, playing, deck building, and learning.  The game is amazing.  The cards could have been an investment the way my sports’ cards never turned out to be, and I could have actually learned how to play the game well.  At 25 and working 70 hours a week (yes, legitimately 70), I used Magic as a mindlessly constructive, social outlet with friends so not to go crazy.  8 years later and it’s still my mindless hobby that comes and goes depending upon how much time I have to do other things.  I may go months or even years without playing, but, damn, I love this game.  Along the way, I’ve learned a few things. 

First, I’m not good at the game by any means.  To be good at Magic, it can’t be a mindless hobby I use just to take my mind off work.  Magic requires focus, thinking, study, strategic planning, quick decisions, and problem solving.  Magic is a constantly shifting rubix cube, like chess but with more moving pieces and variables. Nothing about those things are mindless.  I lose to myself more than I lose to anything else, partially due to lack of practice, partially due to picking up the game later in life, but mainly due to me not being very good because I play the game mindlessly. I don’t take time to read cards before I make plays or gain as much information as I can on each turn.  Information is king in Magic.  All of my best plays I’ve made based on knowing, and that leads to wins.  All my dumbest decisions I’ve made mindlessly, and they led to losing. Almost directly.  No matter how much I try to tell myself that if I tried I could be good, I couldn’t because I use the game for something opposite of what makes a successful Magic player: to not think, to not care, to do nothing with my time.  I still occasionally frequent small IQs to keep my hopes up, but mainly I go to these events to test my favorite part of Magic: Deck Building.

I absolutely love deck building.  All the thought, and knowing, and practice, and focus that I should put into playing I put into deck building.  I love building a deck of my own then testing them against the field to see if I have succeeded in creating a cohesive, effective puzzle that, when put together correctly, performs the functions it is meant to do to win.  Deck building always has and always will be my favorite part of Magic: The Gathering.  I have never once played a deck that wasn’t created by me or a friend.  I have nothing against decks adopted by thousands of people. I love those too.  Having thousands of people test-run a singular entity speeds up the streamlining process to create an efficient machine.  It rapidly improves the experimental process.  I even hope one of my decks becomes one of those “netdecks” decks at some point in the future.  To me, deck building is the best challenge in Magic, and the part I can do on my own, alone, when I need to fixate upon something pointless away from work and life. Being able to study and watch netdecks helps me to do this.  To get better along the way, I read, I watched, I studied what other people said and did.  Then I tried.  And tried.  And tried.  I have been able to put together fun decks, a few good decks, and an absolute ton of piles of garbage that didn’t make it past my kitchen table.  I have, however, learned.  I’m not very good at applying those lessons when sitting in front of an opponent, but I still have a list of them, and a list of reasons why certain things work and others don’t, and a list of what different types of decks need to function appropriately, for what format, etc.  I plan to use this space to share things I’ve learned with other people who love the game of Magic: The Gathering. So thanks for listening.  I hope it helps others be more successful.