(Oloro, Ageless Ascetic | Art by Eric Deschamps)

Es-per My Last E-mail

Welcome back to Wombo Combo, the article series where we explore the most used combo cards in each color identity, using data from EDHREC and Commander Spellbook. This edition, we will look at the combination of the first three colors of the color pie: white, blue and black. This combination is commonly referred to as Esper.

Esper is a hub for many popular deck types, including artifact, enchantment, and card draw based decks. Esper is also home to two of the most infamous commanders in Sen Triplets and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic (who also happened to be my first ever commander). Some of the main creature types found in Esper include Wizards, Sphinxes, and Artificers. Let's see what these magical creatures can conjure (or craft) up to improve your next deck!

 

#10: Thopter Foundry

Number of Combos: 11

Deck Inclusions: 11,781 decks (2.205%)

Thopter Foundry is a card with a simple effect that allows you to pay one mana and sacrifice a nontoken artifact to create a 1/1 Servo artifact creature token and gain 1 life. While this can act as a sacrifice outlet, or a way to get value out of artifacts that are about to be removed, it can also act as a combo engine. The card that synergizes the best with Thopter Foundry is Sword of the Meek, as it will be returned to the battlefield when the Servo is created. All you need then is to cover the mana, using a card like Pitiless Plunderer and you have an easy infinite combo. You can also achieve similar results using Metalwork Colossus and Pitiless Plunderer, by instead returning Colossus to your hand and casting it for free due to its reduction.

 

#9: Tawnos, Solemn Survivor

Number of Combos: 13

Deck Inclusions: 838 as commander (#1,062); 4,352 as card (0.887%)

Tawnos, Solemn Survivor dones two very unique abilities. The first allows you to mill two cards and create a copy of an artifact token you control. The second allows you to exile a card from your graveyard and create an artifact copy of it. Both abilities are clearly made to synergize together - you make a token using the second ability, and then copy it via the first ability. There are a few combo opportunities with Tawnos, such as copying a Corridor Monitor and a mana rock together thanks to Illusionist's Bracers copying Tawnos's first ability. You can also take a landfall approach by creating a copy of an artifact land, such as Seat of the Synod, and untap Tawnos using Retreat to Coralhelm. You can also pair Tawnos with Intruder Alarm to easily untap it if you make a creature token each time.

 

#8: Zur, Eternal Schemer

Number of Combos: 14

Deck Inclusions: 3,820 as commander (#318); 10,970 as card (2.083%)

Zur, Eternal Schemer provides an easy way to animate your non-Aura enchantments, without needing to animate all of them like Opalescence would require. Animating an enchatment can lead to some useful, and sometimes humorous, results. One such result is to animate Day of the Dragons to exile and then return itself infinitely. Another is to animate All Will Be One, and then either give it infect using a card like Phyresis, or easily put counters on a permanent with cards like Heliod, Sun-Crowned or Ajani's Pridemate. If you don't get to combo with Zur, you can at least have some fun by animating unexpected enchantments like Heroism.

 

#7: Queza, Augur of Agonies

Number of Combos: 16

Deck Inclusions: 6,066 as commander (#166); 12,840 as card (2.403%)

Queza, Augur of Agonies causes you to gain 1 life and an opponent to lose 1 life when you draw a card. There are several cards that cause you to draw cards when you gain life, similar to Drogskol Reaver. This also includes the Lich style cards, although you have to be careful using those to ensure you don't accidentally lose the game. You can also use Queza to counteract the lifeloss from Vilis, Broker of Blood's ability, and pay for the black mana using life thanks to K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth. Queza can finally be paired with the infamous Oloro if you have a way to cover the mana each draw, which can be easily achieved using Skirge Familiar or Mind Over Matter. Speaking of Oloro...

 

#6: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Number of Combos: 26

Deck Inclusions: 11,401 as commander (#48); 736 as card (0.137%)

You either love Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, or you hate him. Either way, no one can dispute that Oloro is a very strong commander and can spiral out of control quickly. Oloro starts by having an Eminence style ability, where you gain 2 life during each of your turns if it's in the command zone or on the battlefield. Then, it also allows you to pay one mana whenever you gain life to draw a card and cause each opponent to lose 1 life. As mentioned, cards like Queza work well with Oloro, alongside other mana adders like Skirge Familiar. Another key card for Oloro is Pristine Talisman, which causes Oloro to trigger and pays for it triggering, and which you can untap using Mind Over Matter. Nadir Kraken is also another solid option, alongside a Soul Warden effect.

 

#5: Marneus Calgar

Number of Combos: 27

Deck Inclusions: 9,825 as commander (#70); 7,370 as card (1.449%)

The Warhammer 40,000 crossover set brought us many combo delights, including the popular and very useful Marneus Calgar. Marneus allows you to draw a card when a token enters the battlefield under your control, and allows you to pay six mana to create two 2/2 Astartes Warrior creature tokens. The activated ability can be easily improved using a token doubler, like Anointed Procession, and Ashnod's Altar to cover the activation cost. You can also pair Marneus with Nadir Kraken or The Locust God to take advantage of its triggered ability. Another simple line if you have red in your color identity adds mana via Mana Echoes, which is easily achieved.

 

#4: Aminatou, the Fateshifter

Number of Combos: 28

Deck Inclusions: 6,278 as commander (#154); 14,669 as card (2.745%)

Aminatou, the Fateshifter is a commander eligible Planeswalker with a strong second ability that blinks any permanent you control. There are several instances where this can be turned into an infinite combo. The first involves blinking something that can blink Aminatou, like Felidar Guardian. The second involves blinking a Clone, which can then become an Animatou and blink the original Aminatou, thanks to Clones like Spark Double. The third is to steal Aminatou's ability by using Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, which you can pair with Oath of Teferi to activate Nicol Bolas and Aminatou's other abilities first. You can also use Altar of the Brood as a payoff to infinitely mill each opponent's library.

 

#3: Alela, Artful Provocateur

Number of Combos: 42

Deck Inclusions: 11,844 as commander (#44); 8,297 as card (1.553%)

Alela, Artful Provocateur is another great option to helm either an artifact or enchantment based deck, creating a 1/1 Faerie creature token every time you cast an artifact or enchantment spell. The best includes for an Alela deck are artifacts and/or enchantments with the ability to bounce themselves repeatedly. For artifacts, there is no better option than Sensei's Divining Top, alongside Future Sight or another effect to cast Top from the top of your library. For enchantments, there is a cycle of self-bouncing Auras, like Shimmering Wings and Flickering Ward. Both of these can create tokens using Alela and double them (if needed) using a token doubler, and then sacrifice them to a mana sacrifice outlet to get the mana to continue.

 

#2: Sydri, Galvanic Genius

Number of Combos: 43

Deck Inclusions: 2,146 as commander (#563); 1,881 as card (0.352%)

Sydri, Galvanic Genius is the equivalent of Zur, Eternal Schemer for artifacts. Animating artifacts is an easy way to create combos that would otherwise not be possible. For example, Aetherflux Reservoir can be animated and given lifelink to activate its ability infinitely. Voltaic Construct can also be used to untap an animated mana-rock, like Gilded Lotus. You can also target artifacts you don't control, such as an opponent's lands. You can make all their lands artifacts with Mycosynth Lattice if you really want to make life difficult for your opponents. In addition to Voltaic Construct, you can attach other untappers to an animated mana rock, like Pemmin's Aura, to untap them repeatedly.

 

#1: Sharuum the Hegemon

Number of Combos: 43

Deck Inclusions: 1,881 as commander (#640); 11,767 as card (2.202%)

Our #1 most popular Esper combo card is Sharuum the Hegemon. By themselves, Sphinx are a unique creature type in Magic, and Sharuum has a simple, yet powerful ability to return any artifact to the battlefield when it enters. Sharuum gives you a large amount of options with its ability, but some artifacts are better to return than others for an infinite combo. The simplest option is to return Phyrexian Metamorph as a copy of Sharuum, and sacrifice Sharuum to the legend rule, and then return it again via Phyrexian Metamorph's trigger. Other options include Sculpting Steel, Machine God's Effigy and Synth Infiltrator. You can also create tokens of Sharuum using Reflections of Littjara or Ratadrabik of Urborg, or use a Clone style effect. If the effect makes the copy nonlegendary, you can add your favorite sacrifice outlet to make the combo functional without the legend rule. Sharuum is also the perfect pick for a Sphinx kindred deck, and who wouldn't want to build that?

 

 

Honorable Mentions

Here are a few other Esper combo cards that can fly into your next deck:

1. Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant: You can either use Nevinyrral to create infinite tokens, or to destroy everything over and over again. One may annoy your opponents versus the other.

2. Sefris of the Hidden Ways: If you like dungeons, Sefris allows you to infinitely combo them, alongside other dungeon cards like Radiant Solar.

3. Magister Sphinx: A quick way to knock down an opponent's life total for an easy win with cards like Hidetsugu's Second Rite.

Thank you very much for reading this edition of Wombo Combo, and don't forget to check out Commander Spellbook for more EDH combos and visit the Commander Spellbook Discord to vote on the next edition of Wombo Combo. Until next time, happy comboing!

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