Finding the Flank
How to win when you can't combo off
Amulet Titan is the kind of combo deck that presents an instant win - infinite tramplers with haste are usually good enough to end the game on the spot. Storm is another deck that one-shots the opponent in a single turn. Yawgmoth as well - the deck packs multiple combos which present an instant deterministic kill.
Not all combo decks win immediately, though.
Living End doesn't, but it wipes the opponent's board and fills yours with so many large creatures that you most likely win the next combat phase.
Being able to just play a few cards and win the game sounds incredibly powerful, so why aren’t we all just playing combo decks then?
In 60-card formats like Modern, any deck is packed with powerful interaction spells and hate pieces that can put a wedge in your plan and prevent you from executing your combination.
It doesn't matter if you can win on the spot if your cards can't resolve.
Combos can be disrupted - that’s their greatest flaw. Each of the decks I mentioned at the beginning has cards that completely shut them down, leaving the players counting cards in their hand while their opponent is smacking them down with a couple of creatures.
I believe that the true strength of a combo deck is measured by its ability to fight through hate by presenting an alternative game plan outside of its main combo line.
I call this finding the flank.
Not just finding an answer
Combo decks usually come prepared with a lot of answers for their common hate pieces.
Boseiju presents uncounterable destruction for artifact hate pieces and is a staple in any combo deck with green in it. Force of Negation has long been abused by Living End, and Storm plays Orim's Chant offensively.
However, in some games, you just won't be able to combo right away.
Maybe the opponent has more hate pieces than you have answers, maybe you're not drawing your Boseijus, maybe the control player is passing with 4 untapped lands and a full grip, and going all-in in the blind is way too risky.
You can't just scoop these games, or you'll be going 2-2 at locals, wondering how people top MTGO Challenges with a combo deck.
Finding the flank
In the games when you’re shut down or you know you can’t resolve your combo, your backup plan, your ability for the deck to create an opening is what makes a deck (and pilot) great.
To have a high win rate, you need to be able to close games even when the opponent draws their sideboard cards.
Channeling a Boseiju in the end step is not always enough.
Finding the flank is about putting your opponent in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. They either lose to your backup plan and the pressure you’re presenting or lose to your combo.
Since I'm currently playing mostly Amulet Titan and this write-up will be predominantly focused on it. But before we get into it, it's worth exploring how this idea works with other combo decks.
How Yawgmoth finds the flank
Before I started my psychedelic Amulet Titan experience, I played Yawgmoth for about a year, and there’s a joke that it’s actually a mid-range deck disguised as a combo deck.
And often, it can run away with the game by playing fairly but constantly threatening a combo.
This is the deck that made me think about this idea at all.
Yawgmoth's combos require a combination of creatures on the field at the same time, and it forces your opponent to continuously calculate what pieces are missing on the board and what the Yawg player needs to have to assemble a combo.
Some lines have the same core, but differ in one of their creatures, so if the opponent incorrectly recognizes what we're aiming to do, they may waste their removal on the wrong creature and open up a flank for us to combo through.
This has happened many times while I was playing the deck.
They may destroy our Wall of Roots to prevent us from playing a large Chord of Calling, only for us to then play a Cauldron, exile the wall, and combo off with a Young Wolf and Ballista.
The same goes for Grist. She controls the board well and forces the opponent to deal with her, but then, when they destroy her, we can put her in the Cauldron and open up even more lines.
Cauldron can serve as grave hate stopping opposing combos and synergies, and Yawgmoth himself is a great value engine, allowing you to cripple the opponent's board and draw cards at the same time. Even his protection from humans can be relevant against decks like Prowess.
The deck forces you to use your interaction constantly to prevent its setup, and if you do, it can win with pure combat damage. If you don’t, it can assemble its combo and close the game.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
How Living End finds the flank
Living End is a very powerful one-card combo deck, but because of the cascade mechanic, they can’t play 1 or 2 drops, so they’re limited to the early pressure they can present.
However, when they can’t combo off, they can just start hard-casting their creatures.
That’s how they find the flank.
Their cyclers help them draw a lot of cards and find lands in the deck, so they can find their aggressive creatures like Endurance and Subtlety and start a beatdown plan as early as turn 3 while disrupting the other player.
If the opponent keeps a hand because of its graveyard hate and then they proceed to get hit with elementals and draft chaff creatures, they can find themselves in a tough spot.
When I played that deck back in the day, I even won a few games with Shardless Agent hits when the opponents kept a hand with a bunch of counterspells.
While you’re dealing with their creatures, you’re giving them time to develop their mana and potentially go for Living End with a counterspell to protect it. You might even give them more fodder if you take the creatures out.
Experienced combo players will find the flank by putting the opponent in difficult situations - attempting to cast a Living End with a single creature in the graveyard, for example.
Do you hold your graveyard hate for a larger Living End while you’re getting attacked every turn? Do you deal with the immediate threat and hope you can tackle the next cascade? A single Shardless Agent and a Curator of Mysteries is 6 power - that’s a 3-turn clock if you’ve played a shock land.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
How Storm doesn’t find the flank
Storm is a combo deck that's meta-dependent exactly because it can’t find the flank reliably.
If people expect it, it can't fight through hate, and that was shown at Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3. It's an incredibly powerful deck, but it's a glass cannon. It’s not a deck that can adapt to the meta.
It doesn't have enough support to fight through hate, and it doesn't have a backup plan that it can use to find a flank. What’s it going to do, Ral beatdown?
As a combo player, that's not a deck I'd consider playing.
Not because it's not fun, not because it's not powerful, but because when people start packing hate against you, you just can't play the game. It becomes a slot machine simulator of whether you draw enough answers.
You're not learning anything, and you're not becoming a better player.
Will Amulet Titan find the flank?
When I picked up Amulet Titan, I didn’t know what kind of combo deck it was and how strong a backup plan it had. I knew the deck was incredibly strong, but I was afraid that I’d be piloting a glass cannon deck that people could steamroll if they decided to.
Boy, was I wrong.
I started my testing against my control-loving best friend and his Jeskai Control variant. It seemed like an interaction-heavy matchup that wasn't as bad as the Azorius one, and it would give me a real impression of how the deck adapts.
I will start by saying that going for the combo in the blind doesn’t give good results.
I tried everything just to see how it would go, and it wasn’t a pretty picture. I even played Scapeshift for bounce lands once to fill my hand and play a Colossus (as a Redditor suggested), but I got hit with a Consign to Memory on his ETB trigger that felt like a physical slap in the face.
I had to find a flank.
So I started looking for plays that would put pressure on them.
Before sideboard, this meant prioritizing Urza's Saga and using Primeval Titan as a tutor instead of a combo piece unless I was sure he had his shields down. The Saga Constructs force the opponent to give us some cards and present a good beatdown plan if we catch them with counterspells, but no removal.
Playing Scapeshift without the intention to combo is still a way to open up a flank. It either eats up a counterspell, or if it resolves, I can sacrifice lands to find more Sagas that will demand more cards out of their hand to deal with the constructs.
I even did a value Analyst activation once to return a couple of Sagas.
Regardless of how much I like them, Sagas are no silver bullet.
Wrath of the Skies is a terrible card, and Dress Down can wipe our whole board at instant speed. I learned this the hard way when I kept a Titan in my hand, prioritizing a wide board with Constructs only for it to be wiped by a Wrath.
Even as a value piece, the Titan is a big beater that asks them a pressing question. If they don't deal with it, we'll eventually combo them through hate. If they sink resources into it, we can resolve another threat.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Keeping them off balance
If you focus on just one game plan, you become predictable.
By threatening both a mid-range plan and a combo, you're asking them to do suboptimal decisions.
It's a game of push and pull, trying to constantly keep the opponent off balance.
We're looking for ways to poke them constantly and force them to give us cards. Every removal spell used is one they don't get to use on our Titan when we Mirrorpool it. Every counter is one that's not countering our combo.
Some decks side out removal that hits smaller creatures because they’re not threatened by our Grazers, and removal is pretty much useless against Analyst. But by playing Six and Tireless Tracker, we’re again asking them to make suboptimal decisions.
They can’t adapt to our plan perfectly.
You don’t need to combo every game
So far I had only played Titan as a combo deck that does infinite damage, and I didn't pay that much attention to the life total of the opponent.
But in grindy games, getting them to a lower life total can be very relevant. You're making them hold up interaction or blockers because any Titan can tutor up a haste land and hit them for 6 or create a copy and haste both, depending on your lands.
Even if they’ve dealt with your combo pieces, a Primeval Titan top deck can be lethal.
At first, I was rushing to try and do my combo as quickly as possible because I had the impression I was playing a Storm-like deck. But Titan can play a surprisingly adequate normal game.
In postboard games, Six and Tireless Tracker seem like good mid-range tools that can put up solid pressure.
The Tracker grows very quickly, getting you extra cards with the Clue tokens and pumping up the Constructs. Six allows you to play your Amulets again if they got wiped by Wrath of the Skies or even your Titan if it's that late in the game.
Shifting Woodlands is a combo piece, but you can also turn it into a Titan if the opponent takes their shields down.
Another interesting line that I managed to do is to go for the regular combo line with a backup threat in hand.
I fetched 2 Lotus Fields, Simic Growth Chamber, and Tolaria West, giving the impression that I want to do the Analyst loop, then when the opponent Consigned my bounce trigger, I resolved a Titan and continued playing a value game.
Mastering a combo deck
What I’m getting at is that a strong combo deck needs to have the ability to look for openings.
And a good pilot needs to know how to do that.
It’s not enough to goldfish until your hands hurt and you memorize all the lines. It’s important or you’d be misplaying like I did last week. But you need to know when the straight line isn’t there and you need to create an angle.
Sometimes this means that you get your opponent to spend resources so you can combo. Other times it means not going for a combo at all - just finding a fair way to win.
That tension is what keeps your opponent guessing, burning resources, and making mistakes.
Practice finding the flank.