Combo Winter
Premodern is an enticing format for many Magic the Gathering players, either bringing nostalgia to older players or introducing newer players to the glory days of the late 90s/early 2000s Magic. What many players don’t know is that there was a major shift in the power level of Magic that occurred in 1999.
Between 1998 and 1999, the Urza’s block was introduced to Magic, comprised of Urza’s Saga, Urza’s Legacy, and Urza’s Destiny. The cards from these sets were so strong that not only was this time period known as ‘Combo Winter,’ but the first emergency banning occurred (Memory Jar), and the CEO of Wizards of the Coast threatened to fire the entire R&D team if it ever happened again.
Following the Urza’s block was the Mercadian Masques block, comprised of Mercadian Masques, Nemesis, and Prophecy. Due to the fallout of the Urza’s block, the Mercadian Masques block is known as being one of the lowest-powered blocks ever to be printed. Wizards of the Coast wanted to ensure that no more broken combos could be created after the disastrous ‘Combo Winter.’
Little did they know, they would create one of the most powerful combos, comprised of cards from both the Urza’s and Mercadian Masques blocks. Luckily for us, Premodern allows us to relive those glorious days of Magic the Gathering.
The Combo
Before I explain the combo to you, I have a challenge for you. Look at the deck below and try to see if you can figure out the combo all by yourself. If you can, congratulations! You are a genius!
Decklist can also be found here.
Now that you’ve had a chance to look over the decklist, I have a confession. Even though the deck is called Parallax Replenish, Replenish is not technically part of the combo. Yes, Replenish helps your combo occur, but it is not necessary for the combo to happen.
The cards that I want you to focus on are these three: Parallax Wave, Parallax Tide, and Opalescence. Now I know what you’re thinking, “So I just turn my enchantments into 4/4 creatures and attack my opponent?” That is probably how you end up winning the game, but what if I told you that you could create infinite mana and exile all of your opponent’s lands and creatures with this combo?
This combo is a doozy, so try to stay with me. The first part of the combo begins with getting Opalescence and Parallax Wave onto the battlefield. Once they are both on the battlefield, Opalescence turns Parallax Wave into a 4/4 creature. Now, to exile all your opponent's creatures, all you have to do is hold priority and remove all but one of the fading counters from Parallax Wave, targeting your opponent’s creatures and putting all the triggers on the stack. Then you remove the last counter from Parallax Wave, targeting itself, since it is now a creature due to Opalescence.
Then, you let all of the triggers occur. First, Parallax Wave will exile itself, which triggers its leave the battlefield trigger, returning itself to the battlefield with five counters on it. Then, the other triggers will resolve one by one, exiling each of your opponent’s creatures. These creatures will never return to the battlefield because the trigger on Parallax Wave has already occurred.
Now you simply rinse and repeat. Even if your opponent has created one million goblin tokens, you can keep exiling Parallax Wave repeatedly until all their creatures are gone. This combo simply never ends.
Now, what about the infinite mana and exiling all of your opponent’s lands? This is where Parallax Tide comes in. Note: you must already have Opalescence and Parallax Wave on the battlefield for this to work.
Once all three combo pieces are on the battlefield, you can make infinite mana by tapping all your lands for mana and then using Parallax Wave to exile Parallax Tide (which is also now a 4/4 creature due to Opalescence). When Parallax Tide leaves play, all your lands will enter play untapped. When you eventually exile Parallax Wave with its own ability, Parallax Tide will return to the battlefield, allowing you to tap your lands for mana once again and exile them. This can be done infinite times, generating infinite mana.
The combo of exiling all of your opponent’s lands is very similar to exiling all of their creatures. Holding priority, you remove all the counters from Parallax Tide, putting all the triggers on the stack targeting your opponent’s lands. You then target Parallax Tide with Parallax Wave, exiling it and putting the leaves the battlefield trigger on the stack, which will return nothing since nothing has been exiled yet.
You then let all the other triggers resolve, exiling your opponent’s lands. When Parallax Wave leaves the battlefield, Parallax Tide will return to play with five counters on it, allowing you to repeat the combo until all of your opponent’s lands are gone. Isn’t land destruction fun?
And there you have it! With the right cards and correct timing, you can remove all of your opponent’s creatures and lands and generate infinite mana. Now you’re getting a true taste of Combo Winter, and you can clearly see why this time period of Magic was (not) enjoyable!
How do we get to the combo?
While the combo is very powerful and fun (for the player with the combo), it requires three separate cards, all of which are four-drop enchantments, to be on the battlefield simultaneously. To many, this would seem like a very slow combo that is easy to interact with. What if they counter our combo piece? What if they Duress a combo piece from our hand?
I know you’ve been waiting for it; this is where Replenish comes in. If you were to simply cast all of your combo pieces (which can be done in dire situations), it would require 12 total mana! But with Replenish, you can get your pieces out as early as turn two!
This is done with the help of several cards that help you loot through your deck. The first of the looting spells is Careful Study. Careful Study is a powerful looting spell that is usually seen in Legacy UB Reanimator decks. With it, you can draw two cards for only one mana on turn one, finding your Replenish and putting two of your combo pieces into your graveyard.
Frantic Search is also perfect for this deck, especially when coupled with Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors. Let’s say you have an Island, Ancient Tomb, and City of Traitors on the battlefield. You tap all three, adding one blue and four colorless to your mana pool.
Then you cast Frantic Search using three of that mana, loot two times (hopefully finding your Replenish and putting your combo pieces in the bin), and then untap your three lands with two mana still floating. Now you can tap all your lands again, and suddenly you have seven mana!
Attunement is an exciting card that not many people know of. In this deck, it can be an effortless way to get your combo pieces into your graveyard and Replenish in your hand. This card is similar to Bazaar of Baghdad, but because it is an enchantment, it will also return to the battlefield when you cast Replenish. This allows you to keep going through your deck to find a missing combo piece or more loot effects.
There are two card-advantage cards in this deck that are very worthy of note. The first is Intuition, which allows you to go and find your Replenish or your missing combo pieces. Of course, getting a Replenish is sometimes necessary, but what you really want to be doing is finding your combo pieces.
Because the other two cards go into your graveyard, you can use Intuition to search your library for all three enchantments, put one in your hand and the other two in your graveyard, and then use Replenish to return them from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Deep Analysis is one of Premodern's strongest card-advantage cards, and it’s even better in this deck. Because of all the looting occurring, it is usually the right play to discard Deep Analysis. This allows you to keep the cards you need in your hand, recast Deep Analysis from your graveyard for less mana, and gain card advantage over your opponents all at once.
The sideboard is very self-explanatory: there is something to deal with opposing creatures, something to deal with opposing artifacts and enchantments, and a card to protect your combo. The sideboard usually has an additional Deep Analysis to bring in against slower decks and an additional Parallax Tide to help with land-centric decks.
Who should play this deck?
Very simple. If you’re a combo player, this is the one for you. This deck is pure combo, with no plan B to win the game. Either you combo off or you don’t; it’s that simple. The good thing about this deck is that you usually don’t have to deal lethal damage to your opponent. Once you remove all of your opponent’s lands and creatures, they usually just concede.
Now I know that many people will look at the price tag for this deck and immediately be turned away. But the good thing about this deck is that all of the pricey cards are unnecessary for the combo!
While Mox Diamond, City of Traitors, and Intuition are powerful cards, they are not required to play this deck, and just these three cards add up to 80% of the total cost of the deck. If you want to play this deck but money is tight, trust me, there is a way to play this deck that doesn’t cost $5k.
Final Thoughts
While combo is not for everybody, I recommend proxying this deck or finding someone with it built and trying it out. That way, if you play against this deck at a tournament, you know precisely how the combo plays out and ways to play around it. Or maybe you’ll fall in love with the deck and start playing it.
Either way, the next time someone brings up Combo Winter, now you’ll have a good idea of the hardships that the early pioneers of Magic the Gathering had to go through!
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