(Eldrazi Displacer | Art by Daarken)
A Divine Intervention
Welcome back to the only article series that bears resemblance to fast food – Wombo Combo! In this series we explore the best commander combo cards in each distinct color identity, according to data from EDHREC and Commander Spellbook, with today’s article focusing on mono-white combo cards. Mono-white is known for being the primary color for several strong in-game keywords and actions: lifegain and lifelink, first strike, Auras, and a strong affinity for control/Stax type effects among others.
For a while, there were discussions about white being the single weakest color in the game (along with red, which we covered in the first installment of Wombo Combo), but this doesn’t seem to hold true in modern Magic. White is an extremely powerful color for enchantment, lifegain, combat and control decks, and this article will show you why white can be the answer to dazzling your opponents to a divine defeat.
#10: Darien, King of Kjeldor
Deck Inclusions: 2,621 decks as commander (#345); 10,217 decks as card (0.721%)
Darien, King of Kjeldor is an interesting Commander-eligible card. His sole purpose is to compensate you for damage you take by making an army of 1/1 Soldiers, seemingly to help prevent damage in the future. Darien can make your opponents think twice about attacking you, especially with token-doublers, which we’ll cover later. However, Darien can also incentivize you to deal damage to yourself, making a never-ending army of Soldiers to overrun your opponents. Darien combos commonly use a lifegain card, such as Soul Warden or Soul’s Attendant, or a way to counteract the life loss, such as Platinum Angel, along with a sacrifice outlet such as Blasting Station, or another way to ping yourself, such as Terror of the Peaks. From here, you can either get infinite Soldiers, or use your favorite enter-the-battlefield or leave-the-battlefield effect to end the game.
#9: Bishop of Wings
Deck Inclusions: 15,488 decks (1.092%)
Bishop of Wings is a staple card in many Angel typal decks, and it’s easy to see why so many decks include it. Its first ability provides significant amounts of lifegain fairly easily, while its second ability provides you with compensation in the form of 1/1 Spirit tokens should your beloved Angels perish. Bishop of Wings combos typically focus on the second ability, using cards such as Divine Visitation to turn the Spirit tokens back into Angels, or Maskwood Nexus to simply make the Spirits also be Angels. While the second ability is what’s generally required for the combos to function, the first ability instantly adds infinite life alongside the other results of the combo. This life can be used for your favorite lifegain win condition, alongside the possible results of your sacrifice outlet, such as casting Bond of Agony for a very large amount of mana and life.
#8: Felidar Guardian
Deck Inclusions: 39,396 decks (2.778%)
Felidar Guardian brings an effect to the table that is very prominent in white: blinking (otherwise known as flickering). Blinking and flickering got their name sake from the cards Momentary Blink and Flicker respectively, and are an excellent manner to achieve more enter-the-battlefield and/or leave-the-battlefield triggers. There are other mono-white cards with similar effects to Felidar Guardian, such as Icewind Stalwart, Mysterious Limousine and Glorious Protector. However, Felidar Guardian is slightly different from these alternatives because it can blink nonland permanents instead of simply creatures. Felidar Guardian combos typically use the aforementioned blinking cards to blink each other, but can also use cards such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to create infinite Felidar Guardian tokens, or other blinking cards such as Aminatou, the Fateshifter. Adding a simple Corpse Knight effect ends the game in the blink of an eye (or a creature, I suppose).
#7: Karmic Guide
Deck Inclusions: 87,671 decks (6.183%)
Karmic Guide is a favorite card for recursion-based combos, alongside its cousins Sun Titan and Reveillark. Karmic Guide has a very simple effect of returning a creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield when it enters the battlefield, perfect for returning cards such as Reveillark, Sun Titan, Saffi Eriksdotter or Fiend Hunter. Some more interesting (and less common) uses for Karmic Guide involve returning Junji, the Midnight Sky or having Activated Sleeper enter the battlefield as a copy of Karmic Guide. If recursion is your preferred way to build a deck, then Karmic Guide is a great way to easily achieve an infinite recursion combo.
#6: Famished Paladin
Deck Inclusions: 1,518 decks (0.107%)
If you like cards that can be powerful but don’t see a lot of play, Famished Paladin may be the perfect card for you. On the surface, its effect seems relatively simple and not that powerful. However, there are many ways to use this effect to achieve an infinite result. One such way is to use Resplendent Mentor or Judge of Currents with a type-changer to make Famished Paladin tap for mana, and then easily untap itself. Other options include making Famished Paladin tap to create creature tokens, with cards such as Presence of Gond or Elemental Mastery, and then adding a lifegain effect like Soul Warden. Who knew all you need to win a game of Magic was a starving vampire?
#5: Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward
Deck Inclusions: 3,105 decks as commander; 12,585 decks as card (1.069%)
Another Felidar Guardian-type card but this time in the command zone, Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward can be used in a lot of the same combos as Felidar Guardian, with the added benefit of generating creature tokens. Getting Abdel Adrian as well as any two other banish-style cards, such as Lumbering Battlement and Oblivion Ring, creates a unique yet easy combo in the blink of an eye. Abdel Adrian can also be used with Animate Dead or Necromancy by using their sacrifice clauses to easily create an infinite combo. Abdel Adrian’s ability to have a Background also allows for an extra color in the command zone, allowing easy access to off-color combo pieces.
#4: Eldrazi Displacer
Deck Inclusions: 24,043 decks (1.696%)
Speaking of blinking, that brings us to Eldrazi Displacer. Eldrazi Displacer is a one-of-a-kind card in mono-white, but there are two other off-color equivalents in Emiel the Blessed and Deadeye Navigator. Eldrazi Displacer’s repeatable nature makes it a great option for combos involving creatures that make mana and/or creature tokens when they enter or leave the battlefield, such as the notorious Dockside Extortionist or Myr Battlesphere. It also works for instances where you may only need to blink a creature once per turn, such as blinking Wormfang Manta with a Torpor Orb out to get infinite turns. If you make infinite mana, you can then blink any desired creature(s) with Eldrazi Displacer and get infinite amounts of those creatures’ enter-the-battlefield or leave-the-battlefield abilities, leading to a plethora of unique and swift ways to conclude the game.
#3: Luminous Broodmoth
Deck Inclusions: 33,562 decks (2.367%)
Luminous Broodmoth is a great card for use with Persist and Undying creatures, such as River Kelpie, Lesser Masticore and Flayer of the Hatebound. When the Persist or Undying creature has a -1/-1 or +1/+1 counter on it, you can instead return it with a flying counter, re-enabling the creature’s persist or undying ability once again. Luminous Broodmoth also can easily go infinite using Solemnity which prevents the flying counter from being placed, thus keeping the creature from ever having flying. In a similar vein to Solemnity, Melira’s Keepers prevents the counter from being placed on itself for easy looping.
#2: Enduring Renewal
Deck Inclusions: 2,483 decks (0.175%)
Another completely slept-on combo card, Enduring Renewal makes creature based combos much easier to execute. Any time a nontoken creature dies, Enduring Renewal simply returns it to your hand. This opens up an extremely large amount of combo potential. The easiest combo potential comes with cards such as Walking Ballista or Stonecoil Serpent, which can be cast for 0, allowing them to die and be immediately returned. Furthermore, Enduring Renewal alongside Phyrexian Altar, Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod’s Altar can easily combo with any creature the respective sacrifice outlet can make enough mana to cast it (please refrain from sacrificing something as cute as Fearless Pup though). While Enduring Renewal’s card draw restriction hurts how many decks play it, it can be a lethal weapon to bring out and immediately end the game.
#1: Mondrak, Glory Dominus / Anointed Procession
Number of Combos: 270 total (Mondrak | Anointed Procession)
Deck Inclusions (Mondrak): 1,520 decks as commander (#572); 62,399 decks as card (8.202%)
Deck Inclusions (Anointed Procession): 133,966 decks (9.447%)
Tokens are everywhere in contemporary Magic, and that makes cards such as Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Anointed Procession no brainers for a large percentage of decks. Any deck caring about creature tokens, Treasure tokens, Clue tokens or any other token your heart and commander desire can benefit from Mondrak and/or Anointed Procession making their way to the battlefield. Doubling tokens allow for a lot of easy infinite combos with commander eligible cards such as Marneus Calgar and Ghave, Guru of Spores. If you want access to a doubler in the command zone, Mondrak can do that for you while also making itself indestructible and more resilient to removal. Or, if you’d prefer, you can make quite a few Mondrak tokens using Ratadrabik of Urborg to create absurdly large amounts of tokens that surely end the game in rapid fashion. If your deck creates any form of consistent tokens, I would highly recommend running one or both of these cards, as the only thing better than one token is two (or four) tokens.
Honorable Mentions
While these cards didn’t quite make the Top 10 list of the best mono-white combo cards, they can still pack a punch in your next deck!
Teleportation Circle allows for a once-per-turn blinking, perfect for Wormfang Manta and similar infinite turn based combos.
Solemnity, as mentioned in the Luminous Broodmoth section, perfectly enables persist, undying and Luminous Broodmoth combos by preventing the counters from being placed.
Yomiji, Who Bars the Way is a staple in legendary typal decks, and allows for the same combo opportunities as Enduring Renewal, if the permanent(s) in question are legendary.
Blessed Sanctuary‘s first ability is great for preventing damage to you and creatures you control from cards like Heartless Hidetsugu or Pyrohemia. Its second ability is also great if you need another creature to sacrifice for enough mana ot execute your combo.
Whitemane Lion and Kor Skyfisher are some of the more popular self-bouncing creatures, and allow for easy enter-the-battlefield and leave-the-battlefield based triggers (like with Blessed Sanctuary).
That concludes this edition of Wombo Combo! Thank you very much for reading, and be sure to check out Commander Spellbook for more EDH combos. See you next time!
Ethan showcases control, Stax, lifegain combos and more with mono-white EDH all-stars. Read More Articles, Abdel Adrian Gorion’s Ward, anointed procession, bishop of wings, combo, commander, Commander Spellbook, darien king of kjeldor, edh, eldrazi displacer, enduring renewal, famished paladin, felidar guardian, karmic guide, luminous broodmoth, Mondrak Glory Dominus, mono white, wombo combo EDHREC
