Wombo Combo - Best Colorless Combos in EDH (Part 2)
(Crystalline Crawler | Art by Jason Felix)
Color-less is More
Welcome back to Wombo Combo, where we have been looking into the best EDH combo cards in each color identity with assistance from EDHREC and Commander Spellbook. Last edition, we looked at some of the most popular colorless EDH combo cards, ranking #11 through #20 on Commander Spellbook. This edition, we will finish off the list with the Top 10 colorless EDH combo cards.
Since we gave colorless a formal introduction last time, lets just dive right in to the top 10. Be sure to read until the end, as there will be a special announcement once we complete the countdown!
#10: Sensei's Divining Top
Deck Inclusions: 269,424 decks
Sensei's Divining Top is a universally loved draw engine, allowing you to draw a card earlier, and replacing the next draw with drawing Sensei's Divining Top. Sensei's Divining Top's ability to allow you to draw it again makes it a very easy combo piece to draw your library.
The first key piece is reducing Top to cost , using a card like Cloud Key. From here you can use an effect allowing you to cast spells from your library, like Mystic Forge or The Reality Chip, to cast Top directly from your library and draw another card.
You can also copy the ability, using something like Rings of Brighthearth, to also draw Top and be able to cast it to continue the combo.
#9: Maskwood Nexus
Deck Inclusions: 136,505 decks
Maskwood Nexus allows you to blur the lines between different creature types by just giving all your creatures every creature type. Maskwood Nexus allows you to turn cards meant for specific creature types and apply them to every creature you control and/or own instead.
For example, using it with Bishop of Wings allows the Spirit to also be an Angel and trigger Bishop of Wings again after it dies. It also allows Reckless Fireweaver to become a Pirate, thus continually triggering Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator.
If you want to fetch every creature card in your library, Maskwood Nexus allows The World Tree or Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree to do just that. Maskwood Nexus allows you to easily blur the lines between these cards for your advantage - just hope your opponents don't have a Crux of Fate handy.
#8: Animation Module
Animation Module has an ability that is similar to Scurry Oak, where you can pay to create a 1/1 Servo artifact creature token whenever a +1/+1 counter is put on a creature you control. There are two obvious components to creating a combo here - +1/+1 counters and mana.
The mana can be covered with a sacrifice outlet (more on that later), Pitiless Plunderer and/or Mana Echoes. For the counters, we can look to a variety of placement effects. Cards like Sigil Captain can put the counters on the creature itself, while cards like Cathars' Crusade can put a counter on every creature.
Certain sacrifice outlets can also suffice, such as Carrion Feeder or Extruder. From there you can add your favorite payoff to swarm your opponents with Servos and/or mana.
#7: Nim Deathmantle
Nim Deathmantle is an imperative recursion piece, allowing you to pay to recur any creature when it dies. There's an obvious affinity for mana-adding creatures like Great Whale who can cover this cost themselves, or Mana Echoes which can also help cover the cost.
A mana sacrifice outlet can add up to two of the four mana needed, opening the window for creatures who can make creature tokens. There are practically hundreds of options for this, but some notable colorless options include Wurmcoil Engine, Myr Battlesphere and Triplicate Titan.
Nim Deathmantle can be a great piece to save an important creature in your deck, but it can also lead to an easy infinite combo with your favorite token creator.
#6: Clock of Omens
If you run an artifact-heavy deck, Clock of Omens should be a strong contender for your 99. Clock of Omens allows you to tap two artifacts to untap an artifact of your choosing. This effect seems simple enough but is a massive combo opportunity. You can use Clock to untap Myr Galvanizer, and then use another mana-producing Myr like Palladium Myr to cover the mana each iteration.
You can use an artifact that produces a Food, Clue and/or Treasure alongside Academy Manufactor to get enough tokens to untap the original token generator and reap the benefits of the tokens.
Clock of Omens also gives easy infinite turns using Magistrate's Scepter, allowing you to put three charge counters and get an extra turn each turn so long as you control enough artifacts.
#5: Crystalline Crawler
Crystalline Crawler has a unique ability that allows you to remove a +1/+1 counter from it to add one mana of any color. This suits cards like Bristly Bill, Spine Sower perfectly to easily pay the mana cost and double their counters. You can also move counters onto it using Resourceful Defense, which conveniently works with a counter doubler to double the counters on Crystalline Crawler in a similar fashion to Bristly Bill.
Crystalline Crawler is also a perfect creature to give undying, as Mikaeus, the Unhallowed can, as it can remove its own +1/+1 counter to activate undying again. You can also use it for a fairly easy Simic Ascendancy win with some doublers.
#4: Mycosynth Lattice / Chromatic Orrery
Number of Combos: 455 (Lattice); 425 (Orrery)
Deck Inclusions: 40,227 decks (Lattice); 75,758 decks (Orrery)
Mycosynth Lattice and Chromatic Orrery are two powerful combo cards with a wide range of use in infinite combos. Both cards share one key use: the ability to act as mana fixers on the spot. Blurring the lines of colored mana makes paying costs in combos much easier, such as being able to use colorless mana for costs like Ant Queen.
Chromatic Orrery also has two other useful qualities: drawing cards and being a large mana rock, leading to infinite mana and card draw combos. Mycosynth Lattice has the ability to turn any permanent into an artifact with ease, perfect for cards like Battered Golem or Voltaic Construct that care about it.
Chromatic Orrery is a bit less restrictive, as Mycosynth Lattice making everything colorless and artifacts can have negative interactions with cards like Vandalblast (although, you can also use that for your own purposes).
#3: Cloudstone Curio
Cloudstone Curio is a curious card that allows you to bounce permanents that share a type with permanents entering the battlefield. This makes Curio a perfect fit for "see-saw" combos, where you cast a permanent, return a second permanent, and then vice-versa. Using Aluren, you can cast any nonartifact creature with mana value 3 or less for free, return another creature, and repeat the process infinitely.
You can also use creatures who can pay for themselves, like Priest of Gix and Cloud of Faeries. In a similar vein to Aluren, zero-cost creatures like Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh are also solid choices. It's also worth mentioning that Curio will trigger for tokens, meaning creature tokens can also bounce creatures back to your hand to cast again.
#2: Thornbite Staff
Thornbite Staff is a simple card that allows a creature to be untapped when a creature dies. Thornbite Staff is the perfect card for creatures that tap to make creature tokens, such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, which is also a Shaman. Other popular options include Krenko, Mob Boss, Marrow-Gnawer and Avatar of Woe.
Pairing Thornbite Staff with a creature that can tap to deal damage for free, like Kelsien, the Plague, makes an easy destruction lock once you give the creature deathtouch. You can also use Thornbite Staff to untap large mana dorks, and funnel that mana into a creature like Ant Queen to make a creature token instead.
#1: Free Sacrifice Outlets
Number of Combos: Over 6,000 total
Deck Inclusions: Up to 400,000 each
This is probably the most anti-climatic list topper of the series, but the top card(s) in colorless are free sacrifice outlets. Specifically, these include: Ashnod's Altar (2,734 combos), Phyrexian Altar (2,439 combos) and Krark-Clan Ironworks (701 combos) among many others.
Sacrifice outlets are essential to the majority of permanent-focused combos. The three aforementioned sacrifice outlets also give mana, pivotal for so many combos and also as an extremely valuable payoff to any combo. The majority of cards we have covered in this edition, and every edition of Wombo Combo for that matter, require at least one sacrifice outlet to make a great combo.
Free sacrifice outlets also allow you to pitch permanents for needed effects, or to get something out of your creatures when a boardwipe is imminent. If you want to create a deck with some infinite combos, you best save a couple slots for these combo martyrs.
The End of an Era
This concludes the final edition of the Wombo Combo series focused around color identities. But, fret not, this will not signify the end of Wombo Combo! Next edition, which will be the final one of 2024, we will look at 2024's most useful combo cards.
After that, a new series will begin to start off 2025. Be sure to join the Commander Spellbook Discord to keep up to date on Wombo Combo and EDH in general. Until next time, thank you so much for reading Wombo Combo, and happy comboing!
Ethan Coover
Ethan has been an avid EDH player since 2014 with the release of Core Set 2015. In 2021, he joined the Commander Spellbook project as an editor, and later a head-editor and moderator, and has assisted in the curation, updating and/or uploading of over 10,000 unique EDH combos. In his spare time, Ethan loves coming up with new jank EDH lines, playing video games, and going for long walks.
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