Marino Casino by William Ashford (1776). Dragonsoul Knight by Justin Sweet.
Last week I wrote about how I was going to build a voltron Ramos, Dragon Engine deck. I explored all manner of multicolored spells and talked about how I absolutely, positively wasn't going to build it as some lame combo engine.
Then I took a long, hard look at Conflux.
I also took a long hard look at the many mistakes I made last week by constantly forgetting that Ramos is colorless. I'm lucky I didn't write about how amazing Dragonsoul Knight would be in the deck. My suggestion that Conqueror's Flail would give Ramos +5/+5 was wildly off base - he would gain zero counters and zero bonus over and above suppressing opponents' spells during your turn.
Then I looked back at Conflux.
Is it possible that in my heart of hearts I'm a combo player? I don't know. Is it possible I'm misusing the word combo because I'm such a filthy casual that I can't even be bothered to get my terms right? Quite possibly! Will this be an interesting path to victory for Ramos regardless of whether it's technically a combo or just a sequence of cards that result in a win? Let's find out.
I'll be using "combo" a lot. If that drives you crazy, I guess consider yourself warned...
8 Steps to a Conflux Combo Win
Before I begin, I should confess that I have looked at long, convoluted Ramos combos and the ones I saw were so lengthy that I basically decided they weren't worth the effort. Multiple flickers and a ridiculous number of spells doesn't sound like fun to me. If anything in this article is something already outlined by a more clever deckbuilder than me, I'll have to assume I must have seen it and just internalized it.
So - with that caveat I'm pretty sure this is fresh territory or at the very least it's a win that I haven't yet seen anywhere yet.
The cards needed for this combo will all work nicely on their own but if we can manage to get Ramos on the table, ramp up to the point where we can generate 4WUBRGG, and have Conflux in hand we stand a pretty good chance of winning the game.
After each step I will review the two key values we need to track - hpw many counters are on Ramos and how much mana is in our mana pool. I'll put it in italics like this so it stands out:
Ramos has 0 counters (+1/+1) on him. He might have more, but we can do this starting at zero.
Mana Pool: We need to generate 10 mana in the form of 4WUBRGG when we start this process.
1 - Cast Conflux for 3WUBRG
Don't look so surprised. Yes - step number one is to cast Conflux. This puts 5 +1/+1 counters on Ramos and more importantly tutors up five wonderful cards we will use to win the game. The cards we will tutor for, in WUBRG order, are...
Ramos has 5 counters (from here on out, this means +1/+1 counters).
Mana Pool: 1G
2 - Make Mana
Here we use Ramos' second ability to pull 5 counters off of Ramos to give us WWUUBBRRGG.
Ramos has 0 counters and we cannot remove counters off of him again this turn.
Mana Pool: 1WWUUBBRRGGG
3 - Flicker Ramos
We cast Cloudshift for W targeting Ramos. Ramos goes bye bye. Say hello to New Ramos!
New Ramos has 0 counters.
Mana Pool: 1WUUBBRRGGG
4 - Line up a Cascade
We cast Congregation at Dawn for GGW, putting Dragonlord Dromoka, Enigma Sphinx and Etherium-Horn Sorceror on top of our library in that order - with Dromoka on top.
New Ramos has 2 counters.
Mana Pool: 1UUBBRRG
5 - Wander that Maelstrom
Now we cast Maelstrom Wanderer for 1UUBBRRG (5URG), which will cascade into Dragonlord Dromoka [4GW] and Enigma Sphinx [4WUB]. Enigma Sphinx will cascade into Etherium-Horn Sorceror [4UR], which in turn will cascade into something else that should have at least one color if not two or three. The total colors from all of these castings is at least URG+GW+WUB+UR+?, so Ramos should gain at least 11 counters.
New Ramos has 13 counters.
Mana Pool: 0 mana
6 - Make More Mana
Here we use Ramos' second ability again. We can do this because this isn't Ramos - it's a new Ramos, which we will predictably call "New Ramos".
New Ramos has 8 counters.
Mana Pool: WWUUBBRRGG
7 - Infect is Hilarious
OK - maybe Infect isn't hilarious, but when you get away with killing a table and you're using infect as part of the process, it feels pretty funny at the time. We cast Phyresis for 1B targeting New Ramos. He now has infect. I'm even smiling as I write this...
New Ramos has 9 counters.
Mana Pool: WWUURRGG
8 - Now We Win
For the paltry sum of 3RR we cast Chandra's Ignition. This puts 1 counter on New Ramos.
New Ramos has 10 counters.
Mana Pool: Irrelevant because Ramos is a 14/14 and just did 14 infect to every creature and every opponent.
Key Points
If you can manage to get extra mana so you can hold up a counterspell to protect the early part of this process, that's great. Once Maelstrom Wanderer resolves the game is probably over because Dromoka can't be countered and the rest of your combo can't be countered. If you can get a Grand Abolisher out, or get that pesky and highly questionable Conqueror's Flail attached to a creature before you start this combo you're good to go.
Even if an opponent has hexproof from something like Orbs of Warding they won't be able to survive because Chandra's Ignition doesn't target your opponents.
If an opponent has creature-based protection like Platinum Emperion on the table, it should die and in a worst case scenario you should be able to swing into them as your board has haste from Maelstrom Wanderer and hopefully everyone else will be dead. For this reason you'll want to combo in your first main phase so that you have that chance to attack if necessary.
If that nasty new white enchantment "Solemnity" is on the table, all bets are off. Lots of decks will be shut down by it, but Ramos in particular is pretty dependent upon putting counters on things, and this combo requires it.
There are cards like Momentary Blink and Acrobatic Maneuvers that we can substitute for Cloudshift but they cost more.
We can also replace Phryesis with Glistening Oil, which costs BB. Corrupted Conscience is a much more expensive option, but it throws off our colors for Conflux. I'll probably run it just to have additional options for the key parts of our combo but it's not a great fallback option.
There is no substitute for the other pieces of our little puzzle. Congregation at Dawn could theoretically tutor for three cascade creatures but we want Dromoka or Grand Abolisher in that lineup and we don't want to risk getting our final infect damage below lethal. In the league I play in and run, that's currently at 13. The official number is of course 10, per the Rules Committee. If we have cards we need already in hand when we cast Conflux we can always grab protection either in the form of counters so long as we line up our conflux colors well. The more options we add to the deck the more flexibility we'll have for trying to pull this big pile of ridiculousness off in a real game.
You get extra cred for making up bad movie sequel names for "New Ramos". My personal favorite is "Ramos 2: Electric Boogaloo". Use whatever you like so long as it amuses you and the poor folks you in the process of knocking out of the game.
Final Thoughts
In comparison with the Ramos combo wins I was seeing when the card was first spoiled, this is relatively straightforward. One might argue that anyone allowing a Conflux to resolve deserves to lose the game. I think it's more accurate to say that anyone who allow Conflux, Cloudshift, Congregation at Dawn and Maelstrom Wanderer to resolve deserves to lose the game. Having counter support or just good timing and a little luck will go a long way towards pulling this combo off.
You can spread your combo out over multiple turns if necessary but when you do that you lose the protection of Dromoka or Grand Abolisher and might wind up seeing your board wiped or your hand wheeled... or someone else winning the game on their turn.
We will definitely want to ramp like crazy and we'll want ample counter support and tutors if we want this to be a semi-reliable wincon. More than likely we'll mainly be playing for Voltron wins via commander damage, but with a constant eye out for the chance to combo off.
While this may be part 2 in my work on building Ramos - I'm pretty sure there will be at least a third part. I haven't completely abandoned the color craziness that I went on and on about last week, but my focus has definitely shifted towards building around something more interesting than just weird hybrid cards that bring little else to the deck's core strategy.
I have managed to put together a pretty sweet Sunforger package at this point in my work on this deck. Unless anything else comes up, I may go into that in detail next week.
Thanks for reading!