Top 10 Worst Alternate Win Conditions

Magic has a few cards that let you win the game without dealing 20 damage to your opponent or decking them out. These “alternate win conditions” could obviously be pretty powerful, so Wizards makes sure to give them plenty of downsides to stop them from taking over the meta. So today, we’re going over the top 10 worst alternate win conditions.
Script and Editing by Pumkinswift
├ The List
Intro: (0:00)
10: Phage the Untouchable: (0:16)
9: Chance Encounter: (2:43)
8: Darksteel Reactor: (4:51)
7: Battle of Wits: (6:14)
6: Azor’s Elocutors: (8:06)
5: Biovisionary: (9:32)
4: Helix Pinnacle: (10:58)
3: Near-Death Experience: (12:45)
2: Barren Glory: (14:31)
1: Hedron Alignment: (15:51)
#mtg #tcg #magicthegathering

[@spore4ever91]

I’d love to see the inverse of this, the best cards that say “You lose the game” somewhere on them. Like pact of negation, demonic pact, etc

[@LavaRhino3]

I remember I made a funny trick deck based around giving my opponent Immortal Coil and then emptying their graveyard.

[@spore4ever91]

@@LavaRhino3 i knew a guy who’s finisher was hive mind + pacts. You have to pay a colored cost, so unless your deck was 5c he just needed the right spell to shut you out

[@Nyghtking]

I don't remember what it was called but there was a red card that said it gave you another turn then at the end of that turn you lost.

[@grantsbb8459]

Alchemist's Gambit

[@Grand270]

There is the One with Death test card. It's basically One with Nothing, but instead of discarding your hand, it simply has "You lose the game."

[@jakedup589]

I accidentally walked a player into a 'Near Death Experience' win at the Rise of Eldrazi pre-release. I got tilted and attacked with all my creatures. They selectively blocked to get down to 1 life point left. I still feel embarrassed about this ~10 years later.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Oh no

[@aethersquall6202]

At our LGS they have the saying "Math is for blockers" funny how many times they miss their mark

[@johngleeman8347]

Yugioh moment!

[@benplocica3790]

Don't be. On a scale of 1 to 5 on viability in limited, near death is a 1.5 as it isn't impossible in the given format but you would have to be desperate or insane to play it.

[@davestier6247]

I pulled the perfect ally deck at my draft and won vs OG kozilek. God bless you.

[@eirh]

The coolest way to win with Barren Glory is with the ultimate of Karn Liberated. It's a planeswalker that can exile cards from the field and players hands, and has an ultimate that can restart the game with you controlling all the exiled cards. Target yourself with the exile from hand ability and exile Barren Glory, get to the ultimate and restart the game with only barren glory on the board. Mulligan down to 0 cards in hand and win on your "first" upkeep. Is it good? Haha, no. Is it one of the coolest convoluted ways to win the game (and technically a 2 card combo)? Yes.

[@ich3730]

technically you even win 2 games xD the one that karn restarted and the second game xD

[@RktShipp]

Used to play a barren glory deck with worldpurge and o ring. This was an extended deck way back when cloupost was a viable mana option. You put the barren glory under the o ring. then you worldpurge choose 0 cards and win the next upkeep. They usually couldnt interact with an enchantment with a single land back in those days. It was a low percentage win but when you did it felt good.

[@RussianToLane]

You are wrong, the coolest way to win with Barren Glory is in EDH with Atogs, I have done it once exactly

[@RGC_animation]

Well that card will make Barren Glory live up to its name!

[@Zkintzer]

@@RussianToLane Atogs eat the world

[@nanya524]

Surprised you didn't mention the funny version of Barren Glory. The Cheese Stands Alone.

[@Kazmahu]

Probably because The Cheese Stands Alone is silver-bordered, so it's not playable in any format worth talking about seriously. Though it does have the interesting quirk of not having any timing restrictions, so if you can get it into play and somehow clear your board and hand in the same turn, you win without the usual "at the beginning of your upkeep" delay to let your opponents respond at sorcery speed.

[@vxicepickxv]

@@Kazmahu I'm partial to the O-Ring Worldfire way of getting it out for victory.

[@benplocica3790]

Fun fact: The cheese stands alone came first.

[@TheAverageGuyTAG]

@@benplocica3790 Another fun fact: WotC tried to get The Cheese Stands Alone printed in actual sanctioned Magic but was shot down because they couldn't find a solution to the issue of a card being both silver-bordered and white/black-bordered as far as Organized Play. The planned art for the card would have been a room filled with countless treasures and a big wedge of cheese atop a pedestal with divine light from the heavens shining onto it.

[@bariltrailette]

@@benplocica3790 barren is a legAL copy of cheese

[@roberthoddinott9160]

ive actually lost a game to darksteel reactor. the deck was built around coretapper and abilities to untap it. i got it up to 18 counters, then my opponent confiscated it and i lost.

[@jeremyphillips3087]

🤣🤣🤣

[@Myrdden71]

I've won several games with Darksteel Reactor. Coretappers, Energy Chambers, Power Conduits, other artifacts that generate counters (i.e. Sun Droplet) to move to it, spells that add counters, etc., all help to get it to 20 fairly quickly in a multiplayer game. I've always won a number of games with Helix Pinnacle. Seedborn Muse, lots of white mana for the various old Runes to keep up protection, and you just pump it up on each player's turn to get it up quickly. Biovisionary has also helped me win numerous games with Clone, Infinite Reflection, and other such effects. But I can see that these can probably work much better in multiplayer than in dueling.

[@Goldscorpio7]

my favorite play is to dismantle it with 10 counters putting it's own counters on it and winning instantly

[@flaetsbnort]

I love it. You've lost a game to Darksteel Reactor by _playing Darksteel Reactor_

[@roberthoddinott9160]

@@flaetsbnort I'm glad you enjoyed that story. I can look back on it and laugh now, but I was so very salty when it happened. I mean, I built an entire deck based around 1 card, that I only had 1 copy of and it killed me. Objectively hilarious. Lol

[@munchiemaniac]

Speaking as someone with a Darksteel Reactor deck, its surprisingly effeicient when focusing on charge counters.

[@plasmabanana8914]

I love these kind of cards. All of them. Even the slow, risky and overpriced ones. They seem like a puzzle to actually try to win with them, more than a bad idea. Also, if you can clone Hedron Alignment on field, you can sack the original and then you just need to find 3 copies.

[@morgantaylor84]

Hexproof makes sacking one on the field difficult. Possible but difficult lol

[@jereulmanen7093]

@@morgantaylor84 what do you mean? hexproof lets you target your own stuff. Thats literally difference between hexproof and shroud

[@morgantaylor84]

@@jereulmanen7093 Oh you can target it with literally any spell card as long as it's one that you yourself control? I was pretty sure Hexproof means you can target your own stuff with only ENCHANTMENTS and NOT instants or sorceries. If this were true it would remove a lot of cards that would other wise work for the purpose from viability. But you're claiming that they do work, which is yet another of those counter-intuitive Magic rulings that exist.

[@jereulmanen7093]

​@@morgantaylor84 Hexproof(this permament cant be target of spells or abilites your OPPONENTS controls) so yes you can target it with your own instants and sorceries. Shroud(this permament cant be target of spells or abilities) meaning you cant target your own shroud stuff with anything

[@CrazyRampage]

I like how whenever there’s a mention of Commander, there is an immediate disclaimer about how they don’t like to account it

[@Hanmacx]

Some rules about coin flipping You only win the flip if the effect says that you call out the wanted result That is only 34 cards

[@fernandobanda5734]

Yep. This is important

[@danielgreenwood793]

@@fernandobanda5734 Made a karplusan minotaur deck once, some many coin flips, so many lost friendships. They all trigger off each other

[@jmanwild87]

Perhaps the easiest way to do it is with a Krark the Thumbless/Sakashima of a thousand faces Commander Deck as it turns all your instants and sorceries into coinflip cards clones from Sakashima and clone cards make it significantly easier as well though good luck finding people willing to play it

[@daemoncarroll8347]

My deck that I created for hedron alignment is basically all draw card stuff or stuff to filter my deck. Hardest part was exile for me. When I built the deck it was standard so exiling it was somewhat costly. My typical solution was countering my own Hedron alignment into exile. Honestly it almost never won, but the fact is it did, and that is what matters

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

I always thought there were more ‘exile card in graveyard’ spells than you can shake a fist at. I figured players would run self-mill dumping their entire library into their graveyard and that the hardest piece of the puzzle would actually be the hand + deck hedrons

[@jereulmanen7093]

you just make your hedron deck blue/black control and play secret salvage for easy wins and yes those 2 cards were in same standard few months

[@serrakagin]

I main a biovisionary deck, your supposed to with with “infinite reflection”. Have any 3 creatures out then play biovisionary and infinite reflection and insta win. It’s actually really effective

[@simplegarak]

Yeah I was about to say, shouldn't biovisionary be MUCH lower on the list? Especially considering one of it's colors is the Clone color?

[@brandonkrack2980]

@@simplegarak I'm surprised Rite of Replication was not mentioned either.. seems pretty easy to win with it to be honest.

[@mikemoyer8162]

@@brandonkrack2980 I do agree, but rite is a sorcery, so you need blue leyline or orrery to be effective. Edit: or any of the creatures that let you cast sorceries as instants

[@randomusername3445]

Yeah, and myojin of cryptic dreams is an instant condition fulfillment as long as you cast it from your hand

[@JesseClark]

Heck even progenitor mimic puts biovisionary on a timer at minimum

[@krunchyapples]

There's actually some pretty creative ways you can win with Near Death Experience using any cards that let you bid life or pay any amount of life. Plunge into darkness, hatred, fire covenant, and mages' contest all at instant speed so you can cast them at the end step of the turn prior to yours.

[@adrians8249]

"Angel's Grace" is also very helpful there with it's split second effect!

[@TheDerpyDeed]

untap, upkeep, draw - if it triggers in upkeep you CAN untap and instant cast before your upkeep, thus winning the game lol Near Death really shouldn't be on the list of "worst" win conditions...

[@krunchyapples]

@@TheDerpyDeed yea, especially if you're also running Worship and they don't have any ways to get rid of it soon enough, Near Death isn't really that bad

[@tonysmith9905]

@@TheDerpyDeed Incorrect. If a trigger has a condition attached to it, like Near Death Experience, that condition must be true for it to trigger in the first place. For instance if your life is 3, trigger will not go on the stack at start of upkeep, so no Fire Covenant will not allow you to win that turn.

[@stoneybones2149]

Quicken channel on their endstep

[@calemr]

Pre Watch: Expecting Battle of Wits to be high up. Edit: I've seen more people get Phage on to someone Else's board to kill, than I have seen them win by the attack trigger. I've won with Chance Encounter. Once. Without using an infinite flip combo, just having a lot of coin flip effects, and Krark's Thumb (If you would flip a coin, flip two, ignore one). Darksteel reactor I've won with a couple times. You'd be surprised how many counters you can put on it a single turn if your deck is built around it. I'd often be able to get it charged in 3 or 4 turns at most... And then get it exiled before it went off anyway. Been beaten by an Azor's Elocutors deck. Someone I played with had a deck that made it cost 10+ mana to attack them. Per creature. And I wasn't running any burn. Biovisionary Can 2 card combo with kicked Rites of Replication. Never seen it done, but, y'know, it's Possible. Helix pinnacle I've won with, without going infinite mana, but with the Locuses (land, 1 gives you 1 mana per locus you control, the other gives you 1 life per locus when it enters, and taps for 1 mana. 4 of each, 4 of two different lands that copy other lands. If I have 4 Cloudposts I could gen 16 mana. Thooough if I have that, I can hard cast Emrakul. Which is Far better.) Seen a near-death Almost win with a wall of blood (Which lets you pay life for it's effect, so you can drop to 1 during your opponent's end step). But then lightning bolt killed them. I've never seen anyone win with Barren Glory. Or even try. You Could run something like angel of sanctions (Exile target non-land permanent until Angel of Sanctions leaves the field) then play something with destroy all permanents, but it's Still super risky. And I've never seen anyone try to do Hedron Alignment, and can't even think of any real decent combos to get it to go off.

[@regisdecremps6571]

for biovisionary... on a 1V1 i dont think it can win... cause u have to do suspicious things to win. but on a multiple player game. with hidden decks. VS 3 other players, I won turn 5 with the biovisionnary. i abused the doppleganger renegat mechanic. Wich mean i didnt set up a "biovisionary" set of clone... i cloned doppelganger renegat - first turn ramp (whatever the way) - second turn doppelganger - third turn mirror image on the doppelganger - fourth turn one more copy of the doppel... (if u have enought mana and the good card in hands... u can cast both another doppel + the biovisionary = GG) - fifth turn biovisionary. end of the game. turn 2 3 4 ennemy will see you with couples of doppelganger 0/1. you wont be a direct threat. And even if it look suspicious some things may happen on the table should be far more threatening than u... add a bit of acting "oh god... i really have nothing to do...", some long blow when u draw, "oh god jerry if i could help you i would but i'm really without any option here" and u may fool them enought to get biovisionary out. once it's on the table... with 3 doppel ... the doppel turns to bio... 4 bio on the board... end your turn. GG. additional notes : here is the deck i made to do this : www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?ref=775535

[@crovax1375]

I play Barren Glory in my Ghen Arcane Weaver deck. The key is to have Barren Glory in the graveyard, use Ghen to cheat it into play, and respond to Ghen's activation with Kaervek's Spite. Or you can exile Barren Glory with Oblivion Ring and than cast Kaervek's Spite

[@bobzour]

Saffron Olive has done a few Hedron Alignment decks. His Pioneer version is probably the best that has ever worked for the times he's played it.

[@markcahalan5698]

Decree of Annihilation meets Barren Glory's condition, while preventing any non-instant answers - it exiles everyone's hands too. It's the safest way to do it

[@joshuaspector8182]

I’ve seen biovisionary with rites in a commander game before. Wasn’t expecting it and didn’t even know it was a thing. 😂

[@devster14]

for darksteel reactor, you can use a combination of arcbound creatures(they into play with +1/+1 counters and can be moved when they die) and dismantle to move all those counters to darksteel reactor. you could even target darksteel reactor with dismantle and double its counters cause Dismantle says "Destroy target artifact." and not sacrifice.

[@coraxgamer2272]

Back when darksteel reactor first came out, I used to shred people with it, dismantle and doubling season on MTGO. Some cards are only bad when you don't know what you're doing.

[@lydianlights]

@@coraxgamer2272 more like some cards are only good when your opponent doesnt know what they are doing lmao

[@leftysheppey]

There's things like coretapper and surge node which put charge counters on other permanents

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

Creating Treasure Tokens actually would help a lot with the 'opponent floating mana' issue with Barren Glory, since you could hold off on casting your One With Nothing until your opponent has no lands and no mana in their mana pool.

[@silenceyoufear7127]

I know you mentioned biovisionary being difficult in commander, but I have built a deck around it in the past and it is surprisingly easy to make copies of it and win the turn you play it out. You are already playing simic so you have the ramp to get the mana needed while filtering your deck down and the blue counters and other effects to protect yourself the turn you go for it.

[@nzephier]

Is your commander momir vig too?

[@yelljayjay]

@@nzephier I remember it being the go to wincon for Riku of two reflections

[@BobSmith-cg2ek]

At one point I won a game of commander with someone else's biovisionary, spelltwining for another player's reanimate and a clone in my graveyard, then just having the clones in hand to finish the job. It was a unique experience to say the least

[@skriznacrunthunner2178]

​@@nzephiermy favorite simic commander even if he isn't the best, I also have him trying to clone biovisionary

[@diegocassola1]

What I love about magic in comparison with the online ccgs (specially hearthstone): in most games the comments about bad cards are just agreeing how the cards presented are bad, unplayable and only sometimes worked by pure luck while learning the game, while in magic if you present any "bad" card (hello one with nothing) the players will immediately brainstorm the most convoluted combo possible to make that work or try some way to make that combo in one of the formats just because it would be hilarious

[@khhnator]

30 years of experience i guess

[@khaas9]

Cause winning with less then perfect cards is just more fun. It's still a game at the end of the day.

[@bunnyben5607]

On darksteel reactor, Vorel of the hull clade more than halves the number of turns you need to win. Darksteel reactor isn't that bad, charge counters have large amounts of support from power conduit and friends. Reactor was my alternate wincon for my vorel edh deck and it's pretty good

[@mikemoyer8162]

Isnt there that manta ray card that doubles the amount of counters on something as well? Deepglow skate, I want to say.

[@thatstranger6114]

My Animar artifact proliferate deck loves darksteel reactor as an alternate win con. Recycling 0 drop mana rocks and free artifact creatures makes it add up very fast.

[@Beapark]

Yeah team Vorel! I've won several times with Darksteel with doubling counters with Vorel or Doubling Season + untap vorel effects, prolif. It's a great wincon in that deck!

[@dudemcfurgusson7179]

You can also play things like the fish that doubles counters on anything, or the gauntlet that copies a counter every time you cast a noncreature spell. I run this in a superfriends deck, and I can't count the number of games i've won with reactor.

[@wombataldebaran9686]

Oh, I remember Darksteel Reactor! One of my friends had that card back in middle school and I just had no card in my collection of the colours of my deck to get rid of it. so he just built the tankiest, counterspelliest mono-blue deck he could and slowly made me count the turns to lose^^

[@ivorymantis1026]

Darksteel Reactor was an alt wincon back from Mirrodin where in standard you could have a bunch of Coretappers, Power Conduits, and Energy Chamber and you got up to 4 of each. You could literally assemble a charging process and make everything indestructible with Darksteel Forge and then just have a perpetual ticking timebomb. I made a deck like this filled to the brim with modular creatures and sunburst artifacts. It was a real fun deck and I miss it to death.

[@kennydarmawan13]

14:31 Regarding Barren Glory, it's actually based on The Cheese Stands Alone. It's INFINITELY more powerful than Barren Glory cause it wins you the game instantly (albeit can still be responded to) the moment you don't have any permanents on the field or a card in your hand. In other words, three Black Lotuses (or turbo-mana cards), then cast The Cheese Stands Alone, and then cast One With Nothing in response to that and you just win the game unless your opponent responds to it fast. Yeah, hope to see Top 10 Acorn/Silver-bordered cards that would be overpowered in competitive Magic soon. For certain, I heard that Magical Hacker would be overpowered in Planeswalker decks as it can make them ultimate fast because it turns all instances of a + on a permanent into a -, and vice-versa. Considering how hefty some ultimates cost on Planeswalkers, this can end up turning the hefty cost into a way to make a Planeswalker super tough with so many loyalty counters on them while also giving you a massive advantage.

[@AlteredNova04]

I imagine most casual play groups would house rule that the loyalty symbols on planeswalker cards don't count as part of the text box and thus couldn't be changed by Magical Hacker. Otherwise that would be such an absurdly overpowered combo that the card would have to be banned or Planeswalker decks would just steamroll almost every other deck archetype. The card would still be insanely powerful and fun to play around with even with such a house rule though. Just off the top of my head, Magical Hacker would give you infinite mana and infinite +1/+1 counters with devoted druid.

[@XenithShadow]

The general method for winning with barren glory is to exile it with your own obliveon ring the cast a card like world fire or an equivalent to exile every thing on the board. The gideon that exile everything would also work you would just need to have emptied you hand first. Also you wound need him to have had exactly 15 counters or he won't exile himself, but i guess in that case he might just be able to kill your opponent him self.

[@shaunmcisaac782]

Battle of Wits was fringe tournament worthy. Never tier 1 but absolutely could, and did, win games in competitive. Helix Pinnacle has been in Tier 1 cEDH decks before Engine was banned. Turns out when you can reliably generate infinity mana G+100 is not a big deal.

[@NiconPecio]

I've actually gotten biovisionary's win con a handful of times with my Esix, fractal bloom commander deck. You can play visionary, make at least 3 tokens, have esix make those tokens copies of biovisionary, and just win on your end step; it's a huge upset and is definitely my favorite alt win-con!

[@christopherb501]

#4 - Um, _actually,_ that would be "hexproof"; "shroud" insulates an object from all targeting period, including your own spells/abilities.

[@Daijaga]

Man it is 2022 and people still describe shroud like this 😆 lol. It was such a common misconception they invented Hexproof to replace it but for my money I liked shroud just fine

[@wel4636]

i've used darksteel reactor with proliferate + vorel of the hull clade to get it to 20 pretty quickly. Having green and blue ramps mana quickly, and you can untap vorel fairly easily.

[@jakila97]

When you were talking about Helix Pennacle at 10:58 you said Shroud makes the permanent untargetable by opponents which isnt the case, it makes it untargetable by all players. Hexproof is opponents only.

[@frostedoceans3486]

Yeah, which means you can't actually proliferate it either because that targets permanents and players

[@Blackvolttage]

@@frostedoceans3486 proliferate doesnt target. You can proliferate the tower counters no problem.

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

@@frostedoceans3486 yeah like mentioned proliferate doesn’t target the spell. So Shroud vs Hexproof doesn’t really come into play here asides from cards like Vorel’s ‘tap- double all counters on target’ ability. On the upside you don’t have to worry about Worst Fears so much

[@Icekin23]

Phage was also used with Endless Whispers for an instant win combo. Endless Whispers is a 4 mana enchantment that makes it so whenever a creature dies, a target opponent puts that creature into play at end of turn, meaning if your phage ever died, you could instantly win by targeting an opponent and giving him your Phage. It could still be chump blocked indefinitely, but you could also just kill your own phage in any way and win this way. Not the best combo, but still a funny one.

[@ReederMG]

My friend did this to me once in a friendly match

[@jakethewolfie119]

Thanks man! I'll be sure to include these cards and others in my "Alyernating Wincons" Commander deck!

[@jedstanaland2897]

It's fairly easy to drop 20 counters on darksteel reactor on the same turn you play it and if you have any ability to take an additional turn even if you would lose after the end of that turn you will win with the reactor. The most common way to win with barren glory is to exile it with something like oblivion ring then cast something like apocalypse.

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

You really just need to get it to 10 then cast Dismantle. I made a pretty solid deck for casual play with proliferate but ended up just going for x=20 fireball since it won on about the same pace and was more interactive with the board (plus big boom is big fun). My deck would be strictly better with it though since I usually play 3-5 player games so ‘I win’ is 3-5x better than ‘you lose’. And thanks for the Oblivion Ring-Barren Glory- I recall there being an easier way than suspending it but don’t play White so it slipped my mind.

[@jedstanaland2897]

@@DoABarrelRol1l if you really like total destruction and making everything burn there is a combo that can give you a nearly 10 to 1 damage to mana ratio using mono red and Artifacts. You need earthquake stuffy doll and pariah's shield. There is a red creature that serves the same purpose as stuffy doll and it would be preferable to have a damage doubling effects on the field. The end result is if you are able to have two damage doubling effects on the field and 5 to 7 mana you can hit one player for close to 500 damage and the rest for 40 to 60 damage. The combo works like this you have two damage doubling effects on the field along with stuffy doll equipped with pariah's shield. You cast your earthquake for an x of 4 to 6 and the damage will be doubled twice when it hits each player. The damage that you will receive is zero but your opponents will receive a minimum of 20 to them and all of their creatures and Planeswalkers. What will happen when the damage hits you it will be doubled twice then not hit you and be redirected to the stuffy doll which will double it again then it will be doubled again when it hits the opponent then the damage to your creatures will be doubled once when it hits stuffy doll then again when it gets redirected to the opponent. The result is that you will be turning a small amount of damage that is only 4 damage into something like 200 or so. You can use other options but the combo I just used is the easiest to pull off around turn 3 to 5 and it's possible to have close to ten mana available on turn 3 if you are particularly lucky.

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

@@jedstanaland2897 Yeah i've been 'hmmm'-ing over Stuffy Doll / Boros Reckoner decks for a while. The doubling back-and-forth can quickly get ridiculous but that was before I knew about Pariah's Shield. I was lately trying to find a way to reliably end the game in a draw with a Stuffy affect but how the stacked abilities work they often end in you being the last one alive rather than a tie (state-based actions and all that). Seems the best way is still Worldfire (now unbanned in CMDR!) + a suspended burn like Sizzle.

[@lachlank.8270]

You guys are great, don't feel like you need to limit yourself to top 10s - you could talk about every alt win condition card out there and it would still be good content. Longform videos are cool again 😉

[@Atheau]

It is worth noting that Biovisionary works particularly well with the sorcery Rite of Replication. When kicked, it gives you five copies of a target creature, so not only do you have your four Biovisionaries but also two more as insurance. Granted it's nine mana, but when you're committing yourself to a G/U deck that isn't as unreasonable as you might think. At that point, it's all a matter of timing. If your opponent ever decides to tap out on their turn, they just lose.

[@ElswordmodeRageux]

Same goes for azor's elocutors

[@aliasdragonbait8798]

Why not build a Biovisionary deck with Soul Foundry and Helm of the Host? Heck, you could even try it with Vesuvan Duplimancy instead. Biovisionary really doesn't seem like that difficult of an alt-wincon to build a solid deck around. Not a tournament level deck, but plenty strong enough for casual play.

[@scottpearson9846]

Darksteel has 4 synergy cards that transfer charge counters. You can also double the counters easily. Hex parasite counters, as well as pike 2 specific change counter Haye cards

[@benvictim]

Scrolled to see this. There are many ways to speed up darksteel reactor. You don't drop it on turn 4 if you are playing it. You drop some energy chambers or coretappers. You then play the reactor on turn 8 or so. So you then use your 2-3 core tappers and 2-3 energy chambers to win in 4 to 3 turns form darksteel reactor for an 10-15 turn win instead of the 24 turn he suggested. And then yeah, doubling the counters is also super easy. Dropping it a turn after laying a lot of energy chambers or coretappers to boost it to like 8 to 10, then using the card to double the counters on it.

[@scottpearson9846]

@@benvictim so you should run a 4 cound of nesting ground in the lands, 4 count of karns bastion, the doubling season effects cards, the surge node, charging fork, and the coretapper. proliferate effects too

[@derrickbuhonick3105]

I believe Huey Jensen top 8’d an event with a Battle of Wits deck, which if true, I’d think that card be should number 10 or not even on the list as it’s been done in competitive magic

[@sagacious03]

Interesting analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@viviblue7277]

Helix pinnacle is actually really nice in commander since there are infinite mana combos in green alone and completing it legitimately is very possible for many commanders who generate outlandish amounts of excess mana as the game goes on.

[@StealthNinja4577]

In 60 cards it's more of an insurance policy. Let's say you're in green you go wide and generate infinite mana but you get fogged/ moment's peaced and the next turn a wrath comes down to kill everything. By that point they probably don't have enough gas and you just tick into your upkeep and win. Back in the old days if you had mana left around you'd get burned for it so it was nice to have abilities to sink mana into

[@viviblue7277]

@@StealthNinja4577 in commander like I said it’s a mere 1/99 and it’s surprisingly searchable when you need it.

[@Dreznin]

Coretappers and Dismantle were pretty much an instant win with Darksteel Reactor. Phage used to be terrifying before the power creep overtook her and she was still in Type 2 (Standard) back when Whispersilk Cloak got introduced... I feel that they just looked at some of these cards in a vacuum and didn't consider how much play some of them have actually seen and what's been used to empower them to win a lot of games.

[@benvictim]

Yeah. Like currently some of these are bleh. Back when they were current? They were monsters. Even now with counter support you could play darksteel reactor and win without needing to even wait 5 turns once it's out. Play some arc bound creatures and dismantle them to move their counters to it. Play some energy chambers to boost it. Ect.

[@fpjrzman]

Phage was part of the famous Cephalid Breakfast combo using Volrath's Shapeshifter. You would pitch a Cephalid Inkshrouder to Shapeshifter, making it an Inkshrouder, then pitch Phage to Inkshrouder's ability, making it unblockable and giving it shroud.

[@Dreznin]

@@fpjrzman Been a long time since I've seen that combo, I had all but forgotten about it since most of the people in my play group that ran Phage just used her in the conventional way!

[@NamelessArcana]

I actually play Phage with shulk, creature protection and unblockable-giving enchants / artifacts in a vintage deck, but yeah, the mana cost is hard.

[@nonlamesniper]

Volrath's shapeshifter is your go to solution.

[@lunondisposable5382]

Technically you can win in Commander with Battle of Wits, all you need is Spawnsire of Ulamog, to own hundreds of eldrazi cards, and some way to shuffle your battlefield into the library

[@johnnyjoestar4473]

Battle of Wits actually saw top-level competitive play in one deck. And by one deck, I don't mean one archetype I mean like one oversized pile of cards

[@Metallicity]

Yeah, I was surprised it wasn''t in the other video, honestly. What makes it different from all the terrible "win the game next turn" cards is that its condition is always met. Any deck running Battle of Wits will have 240+ cards, and essentially is just playing a singleton deck (because 60 different cards * 4 copies each = 240 cards) that gets access to "5 mana, you win the game next turn", and Yorion. Is it the greatest strategy in Modern or Legacy? Not remotely, but it's a deck that can hang in both those formats, unlike most of the other laughable entries even in the "Top 10 Best" video.

[@ich3730]

@@Metallicity was about to say the same. "yorion highlander" is a legit deck to play.

[@johnnyjoestar4473]

@@Metallicity I don't see why something like Coalition Victory, Epic Struggle, Triskaidekaphobia, Vorpal Sword, or Door to Nothingness wouldn't make an appearance over the card that literally got a top 8.

[@NotSoSerious69420]

@@johnnyjoestar4473 chance encounter AND dark steel reactor are also fine alternate win cons since proliferate exists. Battle of witts is the ONLY one that has no business being on this list at all. I’m still not entirely sure the guy who makes these videos (i know him from yugioh) has played magic for particularly long. Some of the takes I see here are exactly the takes I had when id played for a couple months but 5+ years later it’s totally different and would be even more so for people who have played almost 30 years

[@johnnyjoestar4473]

@@NotSoSerious69420 If you want similar lists with actual, factual data to back them up, I would recommend taking a look at Nizzahon Magic. He has a points system that looks at how many top8s a card has had at certain events, specifically stuff like Magicfests, Grand Prix, MTGO Challenges, etc. They're data driven, and Nizzahon has played for more than long enough to be able to speak on *why* the cards are so good.

[@ifyouwantmoneythengivemeev8094]

13:55 wouldn't Angel's Grace be a much better combo card with Near death experience? it's basically a one turn version of worship, except it doesn't require you to have a creature and is an instant with *split second* . so your plan just becomes: take lethal dmg on your opponent's turn -> cast Angel's Grace in response, your opponent can't do anything because split second -> get down to 1 life -> win next upkeep. the one weakness is that you might get bolted on your upkeep before the NDE trigger resolves, but I think that's a managble risk.

[@ericarnold1096]

Thank you for saving me the time to explain that.

[@JervisGermane]

@@ericarnold1096 Angel's Grace on an Isochron Scepter and an Unwinding Clock will make it work more reliably. That's a 4-card combo, to be sure, so you'd need to build around doing exactly that.

[@JervisGermane]

@@ericarnold1096 Sorry, meant to respond to the OC, not you. I figured this would be less confusing than editing it once you've already received a notification.

[@TheJadeFist]

Dark Steel Reactor, there were tons of ways to put specifically charge counters on artifacts you control in Mirrordin block, long before proliferate was thing.

[@GrimoireM]

The best card for Darksteel Reactor in recent years has been Resourceful Defense. I wish it had been in New Capenna proper so it could be in Modern Dice Factory, a deck that uses those same Mirrodin synergies for ramp.

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

Yeah, moving around charge counters plus a Dismantle to double the counters would have been really fun in standard at the time.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

Battle of Wits *legitimately* saw play in a tournament. Granted, it was exactly in one gimmick deck, but they top 8'd. That's more than you can say for most of the crap on the list.

[@SomeGuy712x]

(3:57) The odds of failing 1000 coin flips in a row is about 1 in 10^301. "So, you're saying there's a chance."

[@dstreetz91]

That's a number that's going to need some scientific notation indeed. Though you don't have to fail that many flips in a row, as you could win one coinflip every 300 or so and not get there in 1000 flips. Or you could win 9 consecutive flips and lose the rest and wonder why you are the unluckiest person to ever exist to lose to such astronomically low odds outside of the powerball.

[@Jasper_Silva]

Not relevant to this or your previous win condition video, but I once got punked by a Nine Lives / Trickster God's Heist combo in Arena (playing Nine Lives, then swapping permanents with your opponent and exiling Nine Lives) that made me feel like the most complete idiot. Love the vids btw! I'm an Arena zoomer so it's always fun to learn about some of these old and obscure magic cards.

[@calemr]

A variant on an old classic. "Trix" was a deck over 20 years ago that would play Delusions of Grandeur (3U, enchantment, Cumulative upkeep 2, ETB gain 20 life, when it leaves the battlefield Lose 20 life) and Donate (2U, Target player gains control of target permanent you control). So your opponent has to pay 2 mana next turn, then 4 the next, then 6 if they can, then they probably can't pay 8 on turn 7 and take 20 damage. Even if they can, can they pay 10 on turn 8?

[@tubebrocoli]

Battle of Wits saw some competitive play back in the day. Even if it's really bad, I really don't think it compares with the other cards in this list, that never even got that.

[@calemr]

There's a lot of Enchantment/any card Tutor options, and you can Mulligan a bunch of times, so you can get it Fairly consistently in hand at start of game, or tutored by turn 3. Then you just hope you're not dead before turn 6, and your opponent doesn't have enchantment removal... Good luck with that...

[@fernandobanda5734]

"Saw competitive play" might be overselling it. It has been played in tournaments for the meme factor, but it would've been easier to just not to. I do agree that it's better than Chance Encounter.

[@ich3730]

you can play yorion highlander right now in modern/legacy with 250 cards and battle of wits. Not the best thing to do but it certainly holds up.

[@NotSoSerious69420]

@@fernandobanda5734 literally has a top 8 in a “official” format, of which I actually don’t think any of the other ones here do at all. Doesn’t mean it’s good but it has literally seen competitive play lol.

[@fernandobanda5734]

@@NotSoSerious69420 Yes, I didn't mean to say that it did not get wins. Just that it wasn't a deck archetype that was constantly played and more like one-off occurrences.

[@thespelsheepington6664]

I actually use Biovisionary in my commander clone deck as an alt win condition. Stick Followed Footsteps or Endless Evil on him, and it forces your opponents to have to respond. If you can kick Rite of Replication on him, that's a win that turn. He's not my main win con, just a little surprise :3

[@viviblue7277]

Bio visionary is a nice one of in commander clone decks that have the colors to play it.

[@TheEmeraldboy100]

Due to how it's worded, Phage causes you to lose the game if you cast it from the command zone, meaning you need some way to pull it from the command zone to your hand if it's your commander.

[@TheJustinist]

or have something that lets you not lose that turn, or a way to end the turn with the etb on the stack like with sundial of the infinite.

[@calemr]

@@TheJustinist Or a torpor orb so you have no ETBs.

[@cerebralisk]

There's also ways to reanimate phage but for opponents. The tricky part of course is that as a commander phage requires jank to even get into play because you can't play her from the command zone without losing.

[@ThePrincessrael]

I get a lot of use out of command beacon and neverborn altar in my phage deck. My biggest problem with her is that black is crap for counters, so she usually gets deleted before I can do anything with her

[@Varandru]

Now I kinda want to play a friendly game of EDH with phage as a commander. Get mana, block somehow, lose on a magnificent fashion.

[@williamdrum9899]

Fractured Identity and Beamtown Bullies can both do it

[@cerebralisk]

@@williamdrum9899 true though obvs that's with phage in the 99, which makes things a lot easier since you don't need some jank to even get her into play

[@cerebralisk]

actually double-checking beamtown doesn't work, that only works on nonlegendaries

[@spyfire242]

Hirumaredx? Damn on that grind, cool to see you covering MTG now.

[@scru66y]

Thank you sir, I will now put all of these into a deck and hope for the best

[@IronChainRepairman]

Feels like all you need to boost Dark Steel Reactor and especially Helix Pinnacle is Vorel of the Hull Clade.

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

Vorel targets so Shroud comes into play. But Dismantle is a great doubler for Darksteel Reactor Not sure how many counter-doublers there are that don’t target so Helix seems a little tricky and as soon as ‘infinite mana’ is involved it kind of cheapens the experience.

[@stigmaoftherose]

@@DoABarrelRol1l you turn helix pinnacle into a creature with opalescense, give it to an opponent, use arcane lighthouse to turn off its shroud then target it with vorrel.

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

@@stigmaoftherose Shoot I knew I was missing something obvious thanks.

[@pandoe5442]

Sorry, I loved hedron alignment when it was in standard. I made top 8 in our LGS in Japan using esper control with this card in our gameday. It might be the worst alt wincon for you but I enjoyed brewing this card. When I built around hedron alignment, I added secret salvage to find the rest of the hedron alignments. I also added sorin, grim nemesis and I think emrakul the promised end as another wincons. I'm now brewing a deck for pioneer with this card either esper or grixis control. Hope it does well.

[@TheAverageGuyTAG]

You're more than welcome to love a bad card (much like how I love Mechtitan Core), but it's still a bad card. :P

[@kevinmorris150]

There used to be an article on Wizards of the Coast for MTG called "Building on a Budget." One of the authors, Ben Bleiweiss, had an entire series of Battle of Wits decks where he built a 240-250 card deck for under 30 dollars, and he had a win percentage of around 65-75%. I highly suggest you check it out, since Battle of Wits is a card that requires a unique kind of approach to deck construction that's really quite fascinating.

[@christopherb501]

#8 - What I always did was use Dismantle to double it. The counter-applying effect isn't actually contingent on the artifact being destroyed, so use it on the Reactor, it won't be destroyed, then use Dismantle to put those counters on the Reactor itself, doubling whatever it had.

[@DoABarrelRol1l]

👌 yes with Dismantle you just need 10 counters. Then you double it during your turn for a sorcery-speed win. I imagine once you play the combo for the first time your playgroup will just treat anything over ~7 mana as ‘we have to kill him now’. The ‘surprise I win’ factor is gone after the first time but if you can fend them off then I’m sure it’s pretty fun.

[@christopherb501]

@@DoABarrelRol1l Had a couple of Coretappers, Energy Chambers, and Power Conduits to speed it along, slow as it still was.

[@matthiasgoldschmidt8134]

If I remember correct, there was a competitive deck with Phage using Volrath's Shapeshifter and Spirit of the Night.

[@nonlamesniper]

Damage on the Stack helped back then.

[@afriendofafriend5766]

Barren Glory is amazing and you can't convince me otherwise.

[@xer0cide881]

yeah it is, you combine it with decree of annihilation. it exiles all lands, artifacts, and creatures from the game, and all hands. which means that your opponents can't do anything to you and your next turn, you win

[@afriendofafriend5766]

@@xer0cide881 also would hit barren glory itself

[@xer0cide881]

@@afriendofafriend5766 no it wouldn't, it is an enchantment and decree only hits artifacts, lands, and creatures. Not enchantments or plainswalkers

[@StefanWB]

My favourite story about Phage, the Untouchable is that it created a metagame within the Momir Vig format on MTGO. Basically, you were only allowed to activate Momir's ability with X=7, and you weren't allowed to attack until you had at least seven creatures that were capable of attacking. Basically, it was a silly way to play the format that included the added tension that you could just insta-lose if you were given Phage, because her entering as a token via Momir activated her first ability clause and lost you the game. The format was called "The Phlottery". And then it actually happened on stream during the Community Super League event, in a match between LoadingReadyRun and Wedge from the Mana Source, with Wedge rolling Phage and losing the game. It was an amazing moment.

[@FesterrotGaming]

paradox haze turns darksteel reactor into a 10 turn win and then if you have a way to take any extra turns it reduces that by even more since paradox haze gives you 2 upkeeps. not to mention any kind of proliferate effects or things like doubling season.

[@Jeramiahstool]

biovisionary gets a lot better when you remember rite of replication exists

[@SuperZeroNegative]

March from Velis Vel also makes it much better

[@darklightmagus1222]

Infinite Reflection makes it better ever still.

[@hiimemily]

There were enough clone effects in Innistrad-Return to Ravnica Standard that Biovisionary was actually a decent rogue deck.

[@twizzicles23]

I really enjoy going for the Biovisionary win in Commander, mainly by creating tokens that are copies of it. One game I won I had two Doubling Season effects and created four tokens of Biovisionary with God-Pharaoh's Gift. Good times!

[@josephwodarczyk977]

You deserve the win at that point.

[@adamxue6096]

Wait so you had a clone enchantment on Doubling Seasons to do this, madman, you really deserve to win at that point

[@zombiesatethevideostar1695]

I run a 300 card landfall deck that just has one Battle of Wits in it. That deck has a shockingly high win count for me, and I've actually won with Wits twice in it. My fave pull though was drawing Omniscience and Enter the Infinite in a 300 card deck the same day I put them in after pulling them in two separate packs I bought at the store earlier. One in the opening hand, the other turn 6 by turn 7 I had the mana for it, won by dropping Landfall Ob Nix and most of my land out with spells and scapeshifting the rest out.

[@th3giv3r]

That you could find a context in which emrakul is considered a "more practical creature" than literally anything else is exactly why i love this game. Subbed

[@connorhamilton5707]

I see why you didn't put Battle of Wits in the best win conditions video now, you think it's terrible. It doesn't really belong here though. Battle of Wits isn't as bad as you make it out to be. The deck gets counterspells and boardwipes aplenty to help it survive, and there are lots of tutors to get Battle of Wits. Happily Ever After, Door to Nothingness, Coalition Victory, and Celestial Convergence are all much more difficult to win with. Coalition Victory and Happily Ever After are especially bad, as you not only need to set up a perfect board, you need to make certain no one interferes with that board until the spell/ability resolves.

[@XenithShadow]

Door to nothingness does not "win" the game it makes an opponent lose which is mechancially distinct so would in eligible for either list. Considering coalition victory is banned in commander it's probably a reasonable win condition. Functionally it has no oportunity cost to run in a 5 colour deck as it's 8 mana do you have counter or instant speen land removal or lose the game. Celestial convergence is pretty dependent on reliable way's to remove counters from card, or an infinite life gain combo. So likely isnt great. Happily ever after while alot less mana intensive has a significantly harder time triggering than than colalition victory due to requring you to keep you graveyard until the start of your turn. Again though probably has some playable lines in comander if your able to keep and artifacct and planeswalker alive until the end of your opponent's turn where you play an instant to hit the 6 card type requiremnt to win during you upkeep. I do agree that battle of wit's likely shouldn't have been on this list.

[@connorhamilton5707]

@@XenithShadow The commander banlist isn't really run like a banlist, so I wouldn't read too much into it. It's more like legacy banlist plus suggestions of types of cards that may be unfun. The RC prefers people to speak with their group about what is acceptable, and a lot of early bans are just examples from discussions between their group. They really need to either actually moderate it, or give up on it, because rule zero doesn't work when playing with random people, which is what banlist are for. They are supposed to be a baseline for people that don't have a regular group and don't have the time or ability to find like-minded people to play with. Coalition Victory was added back near the beginning of the format, when there was almost no interaction between players, and it was mostly battle cruiser magic. It was banned because it couldn't be seen ahead of time and no one wanted to play cards to stop it (as that would mean less cool cards and ideas in their decks). It's the exact same reason Biorythm is banned, but Biorythm is actually significantly easier to win with due to the plethora of boardwipes. In actuality, Coalition Victory is really terrible. Lands do not have color unless specifically stated (like Dryad Arbor having a color indicator to show it is green), so they still need other permanents that do have colors which are much easier to interact with. A Generous Gift on their only non-green permanent of a specific color (their only red permanent, or only blue permanent, etc.) will make Coalition Victory not work, for example. If they are playing something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove to meet the land type requirement, you just need to remove that in response. Happily Ever After has these same types of issues, while additionally telegraphing that you want to win that way. Door to Nothingness is applicable for the list, as in the "best alternate win conditions" video he included several "opponent loses the game" cards, such as Nicol Bolas Dragon God and Faithbound Judge//Sinner's Judgment. While it doesn't say "you win the game", it is clearly considered an alternate win condition. Though out of the four I listed, it is actually somewhat playable and saw meme success in Omni-Door ThragFire decks.

[@XenithShadow]

@@connorhamilton5707 I was assuming they would be using a slightly more resilient colour source requirement in the form of progenitus, or scion of ur-dragon. Although you would need an extra 2 mana to give scion hexproof. Land's are a fair bit tougher of course obviously all the tri land's with basic land types help alot. I assumed that alot of the early ban's were in relation to no interactive win conditions. I guess the other reason it was banned is their is literally 0 deck building restriction for running it in old school 5 colour commander, your already running all 5 colours of lands and your commander is 5 colours. Also no-one would have run counter spells or instant speed land destruction as that just 0 for 1ing your self v,s your other 2 opponents. Yeh i rewatched the win con's video and yeh door to nothingness would infact be a valid choice, as it's effectiveness with only beating one opponent does certainly make it a bit weaker. Obviously the issue with the win con video, is that a card that is already "good" that happens to have a win the game clause attached such as nicol bolas, and the artifact steal dragon made the list when most of the time their arent really being plaued for their win the game ability. Arguably i don't think the varaska was either.

[@zanderwoods5434]

Did you know that Barren Glory is actually one of the only just straight up reprints of a card with a different name? In one of the first Un sets, Unglues, they printed a card called The Cheese Stands Alone, which is literally the same card as Barren Glory, but since they can't reprint silver border cards in black border sets, they had to give it a new name when they did so.

[@alexbruce9499]

They're not exactly the same. The Cheese Stands Alone wins immediately when you satisfy the alt win condition, whereas Barren Glory triggers on your next upkeep which is a lot more vulnerable.

[@zanderwoods5434]

@@alexbruce9499 8 month late response🤓

[@nigh_anxiety]

I was a much more active player back in the Odyssey days and worked on building a Chance Encounter deck, mostly just to annoy people. The backbone of it was Krark's Thumb + Goblin Bombs and Fiery Gambit could get you a bunch of coin flips too. Didn't really expect to actually win with the Chance Encounter effect, but it was a decent backup plan when you're flipping coins 4-5 times a turn.

[@randomjunk1977]

As soon as I saw the title I thought "I bet Near-Death Experience is on there". I have been an on and off Magic player since Ice Age. (Yes I'm old) Last time I had a sizable collection was when Near Death Experience was new. I knew it was bad but I still wanted to build a standard legal deck around it anyway because it amuses me. I only played casual games, not seriously competitive so I was able to get it to work somewhat. My forget the exact cards I used but I remember it was a tri-color deck (which makes it even worse since I need three colors of mana, but also three plains out by turn 5 to have any chance), and I had a couple creatures with abilities like "You may tap this creature to prevent one damage to any target". I actually can't remember for sure what the second color even was, I want to say blue maybe for counterspells or something but can't remember, but I definitely had red as the third option. There was enough variety of burn spells and at least one that was variable if I could get 2 or 3 into my hand I would be able to burn myself for like 2-5 or so on my opponents end step to get me to the exact number. If they tried to burn me also I remember it definitely had a redirect type spell where I could bounce the damage to a creature. If I could get NDE onto the board (which itself was a bit dicey) I could win at least half the time probably. Not a good deck but very fun to play. What would usually happen is my opponent would be banging away at me getting me fairly low life while my bizarre deck that doesn't seem to do anything mostly just sat there. Then I'd drop NDE sitting at like 6 life or something and they'd get a concerned look. Obviously it's still tricky for me but now they suddenly have to think a lot harder in a game that moments ago seemed like a runaway before my win condition became apparent, plus the psychological hit of realizing they had somewhat played into my hands by hitting me. They would need to hit me anyway even of they knew but it still gives a nice rug pull moment when they don't see it coming.

[@deathscion]

I kind of find it funny that you mentioned Azor's Elocutors as one of the bad alt wins when I got a pure white enchantment control deck that's won multiple games with it. I'm in no way shape or form disagreeing with it's place on the list just love that I found a way to make it work despite the clunkiness.

[@dudemcfurgusson7179]

Near Death Experience is a combo i enjoyed in Oathbreaker with Serra the Benevolent as the commander. She ults after two turns, giving you an emblem that's effectively a Worship that your opponent can't interact with. There were obviously ways around it, but it was still a fun wincon that a lot of people didn't see coming.

[@Jacqthepossposs]

10:58 solution to making Helix Pinnacle work possibly Llanowar Tribe, Dramatic Reversal, Isochron Scepter play U/G - play forest, tap for Helix Pinnacle - get to 3g & 1U, playing defense as you do - play Llanowar Tribe - use Llanowar Tribe to play Isochron Scepter - imprint Dramatic reversal onto Isochron Scepter - use the 1G floating and a land to tap Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reveral - untap everything with Dramatic Reversal's effect - keep doing that till 100 on X for all the tower counters needed - do it one more time to untap everything as needed for counterspells and blockers on their turn, survive their turn - win

[@SK-nv2lw]

There is one way to continually pull all other Hedron Alignments from the deck and that is Secret Salvage, 3 gen and 2 black sorcery that says: "Exile target nonland card from your graveyard. Search your library for any number of cards with the same name as that card, reveal them, put them into your hand, then shuffle." Get one or 2 to graveyard via self mill for example and fire this one to get the other two to your hand and 1 to exile from graveyard. Add in Emergence Zone for nonland flash. It is still a precarious win con with way too many failure points, but pulling that off is so goddamn satisfying.

[@RobinBonhomme]

In commander (and probably other formats) you can tutor for scute swarm, biovisionary, and echoing equation (flip is augmenter pugilist) with uncage the menagerie using 3 as x. I've thought about putting this combo in my Aesi deck, but it doesn't seem fun to play against.

[@noahhager1187]

my favorite phage move is to cheat it out with beamtown bullies and watch as the opponent stuck with phage loses instantly

[@austinvanderveer213]

I remember winning a 2v2 game with Near-Death Experience. It was absolutely hilarious, me and my partner busted out laughing for like five minutes because we all forgot about the card being on the field.

[@levferno483]

If you did a MTG rules series where you go over different rules and aspects of magic, I would definitely watch them.

[@aegisofhonor]

the main way people used Phage the Untouchable was with Volrath's Shapeshifter. This deck back in the day (and probably still is) called "Full English Breakfast or "Phage's Breakfast". As ridiculous as it might sound, there was a VINTAGE deck that was rolling around the MTGO that was moderately successful that used Hedron Alignment as it's win condition; you need an Alignment, a Relic of Progentetis (or Scrabbling Claws) and of course the Hedron Alignment in play, Intuition and the end of an opponent's turn, exile one of the Alignments from your graveyard, you win. and the opponent would blink and go "what?"

[@trdl23]

There was actually a Legacy deck way back when whose win condition was Barren Glory. It was definitely a meme deck, but it could still steal games if you let it. The combo was to play Academy Rector and then cast Kaervek's Spite, a BBB instant 5-damage burn spell whose additional cost was to sacrifice all permanents you control and to discard your hand. This allows Academy Rector to trigger and cheat Barren Glory out as your opponent ends their turn, forcing them to have instant-speed enchantment removal to stop you from winning on your upkeep. Granted, you actually had to resolve an academy rector and probably dark ritual out Kaervek's Spite, but it was hilarious to see it go off. Definitely good enough for Barren Glory to avoid being on this list.

[@snap-off5383]

"The Cheese Stands Alone" is a perfectly acceptable proxy for Barren Glory.

[@merkyofaycemfx2944]

Phage the untouchable is generally played in decks that can both ramp mana really fast and has high spot removal. Darksteel reactor can be sped up with by using an untap engine with Power Conduit. Most of the cards in that combo can be tutored with Fabricate

[@CobaltDraco]

One other downside unmentioned with Phage is that if she gets "blinked", she'll kill you upon re-entry. So if your opponent happens to have a blink card that can target her, you're just dead right there and then.

[@entririhunter]

I get that the cards are clunky and kind of terrible but man, the ideas they have are so clever. The names of the cards and the affects are so spot on, I love it!

[@Oxygen1004]

7:26 if you include the illegal un-cards you CAN pull it off in commander as there is one that make tokens count as actual cards (they can go into your grave, hand, deck, etc.), you just need to make ~100 tokens and shuffle them into your deck with only blue and white to be the most consistent getting the creature out

[@Beapark]

My very first EDH deck is Vorel, the Hull Clade - It uses Darksteel Reactor pretty effectively with untapping Vorel and doubling counters. Def not a very competitive deck but pretty fun!

[@darianleyer5777]

Objection to Battle Of Wits not working in Commander: Eldrazi Spawnsire plus any of the Eldrazi Titans from Rise of the Eldrazi. Those versions of the Titans have "When this card would enter your graveyard from anywhere, shuffle it into your library." Only works in Casual Commander, granted, but only due to Sideboard restrictions.

[@darianleyer5777]

As for Hedron Alignment being unable to be bypassed via copy effects: Mirrormade can let you sacrifice the battlefield one, and Opalescence lets you use creature cloning to get the copy out so the original can be sacrificed.

[@TheDerpyDeed]

Near death experience and hurt-self lands combo is also super easy to pull off as you can tap said lands to take damage during opponents' end steps as they'll likely hurt you, then you play near death and hurt yourself to one after their turn (in fact, untap, upkeep, draw- you get to untap and tap those hurt lands before your upkeep where the effect triggers so it's EXTREMELY good if you know how to play the self-mutilation decks)

[@elotufo]

I love how every “worst of” list in the channel ends a spot saying “oh you thought this was bad? Wait til you here the next one”.

[@theangrycolossal]

I remember a while back I was brewing an idea for a joke Commander deck where the idea was to 'win' by generating enough mana to play Phage from the command zone on turn 1, and then immediately self-destruct because playing a card from the command zone doesn't count as casting it

[@nelsonpina1797]

I see a lot of people pointing out this cards aren't that bad but I still think they are the worst instant win cards it just happens that most instant win cards are really good in mtg

[@fpjrzman]

I've won with both Barren Glory and Azor's Elocutors before. Elocutors I've won multiple times in Commander, and Barren Glory, I hid under an Oblivion Ring, then cast Worldpurge, and dumped my whole hand, and prayed. It was glorious watching opponents scramble.

[@7Alberto7]

Amazing! Biovisionary may just got better with a new card from Dominaria united tho!

[@jasonmohn1472]

Biovisionary is a lot easier to win with because of Esix, Fractal Bloom. When you make tokens for the first time on your turn you can have those tokens be any creature on the battlefield instead because of Esix. There are tons of lower cost cards that make 3 or more 1/1 tokens, but thanks to Esix they come in as Biovisionary. End turn win. Plus Esix can give you huge numbers real quick is you don't find the Biovisionary. As a note this is my alt win in my commander deck.

[@sylverdobbigaming8942]

For chance encounter, there is a card you can combo with it to make it far more effective. Gilder barin. 1B/G and 2 others, untap it, for each counter on target permanent, put another counter of the same type. Meaning, you have a Planeswalker out that can change into a creature and already has 3 +1/+1 counters on it as well as 2 loyalty counters. Now that Planeswalker has 6 +1/+1 counters and 4 loyalty counters now. Same can apply for luck counters.

[@olvynchuru1663]

I run a Legacy deck that wins with Barren Glory. It's significantly better than you give it credit for. The trick is to run only lands that can be sacrificed to add two mana (e.g. Crystal Vein, Ruins of Trokair, Ebon Stronghold). This both eliminates the need to cast Armageddon (so it's a two-card combo rather than a three-card combo) and makes it significantly easier to ramp up to 6 mana. As for ways to discard your hand, you have better options: Last Rites (which discards your hand while also taking enchantment removal out of the opponent's hand) and Lion's Eye Diamond (one mana cheaper than One With Nothing). Fast mana cards like Dark Ritual and Lotus Bloom also work very well in this deck.

[@ameliaward7429]

Phage was released on MTGO when everyone and their brother had a playset of Cabal Coffers. Hard casting her was not an issue. Getting her through was what required strategy.

[@thunderstruck560]

Phage is a fun control finisher. You really should consider commander in these videos because it's one of the most popular formats.

[@youngthinker1]

There is a competitive "Battle of Wits" deck in modern. You see, you stack the deck with all of the elementals, modern horizons cards, and excellent lands. The deck simply wins by the sheer power of all the cards over all. So it is called, "Battle of Credit Cards," "Money of Wits," "Battle of Horizons," etc. etc.

[@Disanthrophobia]

I built a Near Death Experience deck. It used Angels Grace and Fortune Thief to both get to one as well as survive to upkeep. Was a fun deck and got a number of wins.

[@stevencowan37]

Paradox Haze is such a great accelerant for some of these - it can make dark steel reactor pop in 5 turns with 4 copies in play. My first (admittedly weak) combo was braid of fire, upwelling, paradox haze, and big burn spells. Suddenly mana ramp was not a problem, as I was producing 5+6+7+8 mana at the start of my turn and making it stay in my mana pool to power comet storms. Aah memories.

[@doktarr]

I have a Barren Glory deck in commander. The key is to use big powerful board wipes. Decree of Annihilation lets you just watch your opponents pass helplessly and then win on your upkeep. Worldfire and Apocalypse work if you used an Oblivion Ring-type effect to set Barren Glory aside. Jokulhaups plus Academy Rector is the cheapest way to win, if you can get rid of the rest of your hand.