(Flumph | Art by Brian Valeza)

Jabbing Jellyfish

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Uncage the Menagerie is the only multi-card tutor that allows you to look for two cards that specifically have the same mana value?)

On a cheerier note than the Top 8 of Pro Tour: Lord of the Rings at MagicFest Barcelona, a lesser-known decklist went 5-0 on Arena in the week leading up to that event which would almost fully feature decklists with playsets of either Orcish Bowmasters and/or The One Ring. This deck does the same, but in a much cheerier fashion!

That's right, I'm talking about Flumph and Orcish Bowmasters combo!

For those that haven't yet seen this delightful pairing, it works by putting Flumph into play, then throwing out Orcish Bowmasters, targeting Flumph. This triggers Flumph to have you and an opponent draw a card, which then triggers Orcish Bowmasters. Normally you'd only be able to repeat this four times, but the deck solves that issue by playing nine different sources of giving Flumph indestructible. This means you can keep the loop going until you or an opponent both draw your deck (which hopefully ends up being your opponent, given that you're playing 63 cards in your deck).

So, what we have here is a delightfully funny-yet-highly-interruptible combo with two two-mana creatures that needs some way of giving Flumph either indestructible or otherwise able to take damage indefinitely. Even better, while we're actively going off, the table is still engaged, seeing if they can draw answers to the combo in progress as you go, making for a unique experience every time you try to go off. The question is... how are we going to find all of these cards in a format where we can only play one of each?

Top 10 Multiple Creature Tutors

Why, by playing tutors that can find them for us, of course! For good reason, there aren't a ton of cards out there that can find multiple cards at the same time, but that doesn't mean there are none. I'm sure a few of them you can name off the top of your head, due to their infamy, so let's cover some of those first.

Defense of the Heart, Birthing Pod, and Protean Hulk are all infamous for essentially saying "you win the game if this ability resolves". The reasons for this are simple: There are known combos that each of these cards can fetch directly onto the battlefield, all of which are much better ways to win the game than what we're trying for here. Combine that with the fact that our combo creatures are both just two mana, and there's really no reason to have these kinds of powerhouses that can bring creatures onto the battlefield around anyhow.

Criteria: Cards which can search for multiple creature cards from your own deck simultaneously and place all cards searched for either in your hand, in your graveyard, or on top of your library without exiling said library (get outta here, Doomsday!). As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

So, having eliminated those pesky onto the battlefield tutors to keep the table from killing us outright (let's not kid ourselves, they're gonna do that anyhow), let's take a look at what fairer tutors exist out there!

10. Illicit Shipment

(5,744 Inclusions, 0% of 1,198,137 Decks)

Casualty can often feel like an auto-copy, but having a creature with three power to sacrifice is actually a pretty steep hill to climb. Combine that with this being five mana to start with and I'm not the biggest fan. Don't get me wrong, this could end up in the final cut, but I wouldn't be surprised to find it just outside the 99, either. I think the same sentiment can be said for a lot of more general decks as well.

9.Conflux

(11,088 Inclusions, 6% of 198,193 Decks)

If we're being honest, Conflux is no more than a five-color flex. Eight mana with five pips, it's almost impossible to cast under any circumstance, and would be the biggest whoof in the world if it got countered, all to get you the cards you need to win the game instead of actually winning the game.

So... we're doing it, right?

(NOTE: We in fact, did not do it. Eight mana is a lot.)

8. Congregation at Dawn

(11,413 Inclusions, 2% of 599,492 Decks)

Getting both cards at once would be better, but it's also not too hard to stack the top of the deck with a creature that will just draw you the next two, either. Throw in a Mulldrifter and call it a day, that's what I say! Failing that, throwing in a cheap creature that will give Flumph indestructible like Selfless Savior isn't a terrible idea either, even if it does mean taking a few turns or relying on Flumph itself to draw you cards.

7. Jarad's Orders

(17,950 Inclusions, 3% of 626,375 Decks)

For a quicker combo, however, you can always insert another step where one of your pieces takes a slight detour to the graveyard. Jarad's Orders is happy to do that for you, and then from there you're a simple Raise Dead away from comboing off! That might seem like a hard road to climb, but let's take a look at a whole bunch of options you're probably already playing in a few decks:

Top 10 Single Card/Creature Recursion Options

1. Eternal Witness
2. Sun Titan
3. Bala Ged Recovery
4. Animate Dead
5. Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
6. Sevinne's Reclamation
7. Karmic Guide
8. Sheoldred, Whispering One
9. Regrowth
10. Phyrexian Reclamation

Setting blue and red aside, I'd give decent odds that no matter the deck you're building, you were already playing at least one of these cards. If you are building one that has two cheap creatures as your main combo piece however, then I would pump those numbers up!

6. Tooth and Nail

(20,633 Inclusions, 2% of 1,324,247 Decks)

What I wouldn't go out of my way to include if you have cheap creatures as your main focus, however, is Tooth and Nail. Yes, it can go find them. Yes, it can even put them on the battlefield for cheaper. But there are better options for this exact scenario both further ahead and behind on this list. Leave Tooth and Nail for finding Craterhoof Behemoth, and we'll find slimmer options elsewhere.

5. Burning-Rune Demon

(24,632 Inclusions, 2% of 1,469,939 Decks)

Already having gone over just how easy it can be to abuse the hand and graveyard options of Jarad's Orders, here we find the same effect but stapled to a body. Burning-Rune Demon will probably only get you Flumph in your hand and put Orcish Bowmasters in your graveyard (given that card's deserved reputation), but that's more than easy enough to remedy and still effectively tutors you both cards.

4.Intuition

(27,928 Inclusions, 2% of 1,409,766 Decks)

So why not go for three, then? And at instant speed? Intuition has been banned from several formats before for a reason, precisely because it didn't take players long to realize that tutoring stuff to the graveyard was just about as good as tutoring them to your hand. The only problem? Being on the reserve list, Intuition is creeping up on $170, so if you weren't planning on breaking the bank, this might not be the option for you.

3.Shared Summons

(30,064 Inclusions, 2% of 1,318,991 Decks)

It doesn't get much more straightforward than Shared Summons. Do you have five mana? Are there two creatures you would like to have in your hand? Well then let's make it happen!

2. Final Parting

(32,045 Inclusions, 2% of 1,469,939 Decks)

If you'd rather have two of any card, however, then Final Parting can do the same for the same mana value. One of them will go to the graveyard, which is less than ideal if you're not looking up a big fatty and a reanimation spell, but isn't a total deal breaker, either. As we covered with Jarad's Orders, there are all sorts of great recursion options, especially if you're talking about stuff going back to your hand because it only costs two to cast anyhow.

1. Buried Alive

(90,377 Inclusions, 6% of 1,469,939 Decks)

If you'd rather do it early, and have it all go to your graveyard, however, then you can absolutely do that with Buried Alive. Three cards also allows for the "full" Flumph combo, as you can easily throw in a Selfless Savior, Selfless Spirit, or Boromir, Warden of the Tower in addition to the Orcish Bowmasters and Flumph itself. As for the easiest ways to get them all out of the graveyard? It's hard to beat Tortured Existence for sheer efficiency, but I'm actually a bigger fan of Sevinne's Reclamation. There's also probably a very fun, high-powered version of this combo deck that has Lurrus of the Dream-Den as a commander or Companion as well, although in the second case you wouldn't be able to use Buried Alive at all...

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Honorable Mentions

First off, I feel like the two tutors that just barely got left off of the list might actually be the best you can play for this deck, along with a "three-color" version that seems like it was custom made for this:

While the initial claim to fame with Uncage the Menagerie was that it could go fetch easy infinite mana combo Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies, it can also do the same with Flumph and Orcish Bowmasters, and for one mana less than Shared Summons. In short, it's the perfect tutor for this deck, and can also be flexible if you've had to change your plans along the way. Weird Harvest can do the same for the same mana, with the significant downside of allowing your opponents to go search for whatever two creatures they want as well. That's going to lead to some significant problems, but if you're fairly confident that you can play down your cheap creature combo before they get to their probably more expensive value creatures, then it's a tradeoff that might just be worth it. Finally, Mythos of Brokkos is a significant mana investment to pull off in its entirety, but if you have access to full Simic colors, then you can pay four mana to search for a creature, put it into your graveyard, and then return two permanents from your graveyard to your hand. That might not grab the full combo, but then again... it might!

As for how I did the deck itself, I do still want to try for the higher-powered version with Lurrus of the Dream-Den at the helm or in the Companion zone, but for now I went with the friendlier five-mana version that has a higher chance of showcasing the hilarity of the combo.

Fairly commonly in testing, I was getting the combo out on turns four and five. However, it was usually without indestructible already online. In all honesty however, the deck doesn't really want to go that fast, instead going the tempo/control route and putting down a whole bunch of Spiketail Hatchlings to protect your combo (remember you're going to let the rest of the table draw all their answers) and wanting to also have some mana open so you can play interaction from your hand or shuffle your deck with some combination of Firestorm, Merchant of the Vale, and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. I did also include a Simian Spirit Guide as a means to cast either of those effects, but you only get one shot at that. That means it's only viable if your opponents have a lot less cards in their libraries than you do, or if there are enough legal targets on the board for you to pull off a lethal Firestorm (which will be pretty epic, if so). In either case, it's a blast of a goofy-yet-not-overly-powerful combo to pull off, which is a solid spot to be in at a lot of mid-power tables that don't mind that kind of thing.

Don't get me wrong, you could do this more powerfully, but there's a reason I built this deck on a bit of a budget: Despite featuring Orcish Bowmasters, there's no doubt that this is a bad combo. Sure, it's cheap, it will draw you your whole deck, and you can do it at instant speed. It also needs three cards, is easily interruptible, and draws your opponents the interaction they need to interrupt it. With that in mind, while you can do this at a higher power level fairly easily, I'd advise against it (says the guy who will probably be back next week with a Lurrus version).

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Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

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What Do You Think?

Once again, I've wandered into EDH's ethical morass of "you can play friendly combos!", so I'd be remiss not to ask:

And finally, what do you think of the Flumph-Orcish Bowmasters combo? Were you aware of it before reading this article? Have you built it or do you plan on building it either in Modern or in EDH?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the floating table in the above ground pool, once we're done playing lawn darts.