Combo Questions

orrrr just because you can doesn't mean you necessarily should.

This post is going to be a bit more theoretical than most of the lists.  Maybe not for everyone.

I saw a cool combo from a youtube channel called MTG Budget Decks.  I pondered about it for awhile and tried to see if it was viable.

Composite Golem + Nim Deathmantle

As they explain and you can figure out, you sacrifice the golem for 5 mana and use four of it to return the golem to play, using Nim Deathmantle's ability.  Infinite mana!!!

Ok, that's fair and all, but composite golem is steep at 6 mana.  I usually try to put everything into play in one turn for combo-oriented decks, leaving my opponent less time to find an answer.  So, yeah, you can spit out your deathmantle on turn 2 (and 2 mana is perfectly reasonable!), but waiting four turns is just begging to get your artifact Abrupt Decay'd or something.

Once you have infinite mana, you need to be able to do something with it.  An x spell is the obvious answer and you can Banefire/Demonfire/Blaze/Fireball etc.,etc. your opponent.

I built this deck for modern and I actually won three games in a row (of three games).  The deck was nothing but combo pieces and draw spells.  A focused modern deck would rip it apart pretty easily.

Anyway, the main problem is essentially that it's a three part combo: you need the creature (1), the artifact (2) and the spell (3).  All of the cards are (essentially) worthless without them and having something get countered/destroyed/discarded from your hand leaves you completely vulnerable and unable to do much.

So, if you want to build a sweet brew and you wonder if it's tournament worthy, there's a few questions you need to ask yourself...

1) Is it worth it?
What is your deck trying to do?  Are you working toward a reasonable goal?  Too often, I see decks on MTGO and there's so much durdling from the opponent and I have to ask them what their deck even does.  If your combo isn't working towards winning the game, it probably isn't worth it.

2) Am I going to win right away? (/will my opponent concede right away?)
Another thing I see are these decks that produce what I call "I win...OK go."  They amass a huge army, or put some giant monster on the table, or something, but then they ALWAYS give the opponent an extra turn.  This is crucial.  Consider Living End in this example.  Without Violent Outburst, the deck would only use Demonic Dread and be very prone to getting blown out by a wrath of god effect.  And if you do get your combo off, will it be enough?  This is especially important for Restore Balance decks.  Although destroying your opponent's field/hand is obviously very good, but if you don't have a creature coming into play, your opponent then has time to rebuild.

3) How easy is it to assemble to combo?
Most of the really combos in Modern are 1 or 2 cards.  Scapeshift finds Valakut so it only counts as one.  Cascade spells finding Living End/Restore Balance are technically one.  Ad Nauseam involves three cards, but it's a two-card combo since it again finds the third piece in going off.  Anything above 3 is not viable.  I have some doubts how viable three is.  That's the "sweet spot" of brewing, where a lot of people try and, well, mostly fail.

Let me give an example of something I saw on CFB/gathering magic:
Intruder Alarm + Forbidden Orchard + Voyaging Satyr/Kiora's Follower + Massacre Wurm

Wow, I hate this.  First all, it's three different colors (which means a good manabase unless you want problems).  Second, you need four cards to accomplish your goal.  And none of these cards really interact with the others (i.e. none of these cards help find the other ones).

4) How resilient is your combo?
There is a lot of "hate" that your deck can face and in modern, you should expect that your opponent isn't going to nicely roll over and die for you.  For each color, you should have an expectation of difficulties that your opponent could present you with.  So

Black - Hand disruption (Thoughtseize), Graveyard hate (Crypt Incursion), Removal (Dismember), Exile Effects (Cranial Extraction)
Blue - Counterspells (Negate), Bounce (Echoing Truth), Mill (Tome Scour)
Red - Direct Damage (Lightning Bolt), Artifact Removal (Ancient Grudge), Mana Disruption (Stone Rain)
White - Artifact/Enchantment Removal (Disenchant), Gaining Life (Healing Salve), Protection Spells (Story Circle, Leyline)
Green - Artifact/Enchantment Removal (Krosan Grip)

These ways of disruption are obviously very diverse.  Players should still pay attention to what their opponents are doing.

5) Will you survive to your combo?
Even if you have all the pieces in your hand, you have to make it to that turn first.  A good expectation in modern is that your opponent will be able to kill you by turn 4-5, sometimes sooner.  Scapeshift is in a blue/red shell, blue for countering opponent's threats and red for removing problematic creatures.  Ad Nauseam's combo piece (Phyrexian Unlife/Angel's Grace) means the opponent has to deal extra damage.

In a way, modern is defined by Affinity, Burn and Infect.  These are the decks to beat.  You, therefore, need to dedicate certain cards to keep yourself from dying on turn 4 (or even 3).

I will probably come back to this post from time to time and make it a bit prettier/more eloquent.  Right now I feel pretty awful so that's enough writing for now.