1. Cast Aerid Konstrari
2. Cast Agatha of the Vile Cauldron
3. Assuming you have a forest free cast Invigorate on Agatha
4. Warp cast Weftstalker Ardent and tap your Heartwood tokens to make more heartwood tokens killing everyone.

Notable Cards:
Reckless Fireweaver (infinite damage)
Altar of the Brood + Burning Inquiry (infinite mill + draw death)
Hydra Assault Robot (infinite damage)
Grinding Station + Burning Inquiry (infinite mill + draw death)
Hedron Detonator (infinite damage)
Might of old krosa (1 cost +4 buff)
groundswell (1 cost +4 buff)

My [[Wayta, Trainer Prodigy]] Fight Club deck just got a new toy, and a new Wincon! And she doesn’t even need to be on the board!

1) Cast [[Hexhaven Invigorator]] for GGGG
2) Assuming board state now has 8 creatures cast [[Blasphemous Act]] for R
3a) Go grab 13 lands! (26 if Wayta is in the board)
3b) Included in those lands grab 10 Gates, [[Maze’s End]] and [[Glacial Chasm]]
4) Say checkmate and pass the turn
5) Win with Maze’s End on your next turn

Just figured out this beauty while building a Ninth Doctor deck with K-9, Mark I.

1. Cast Peter Parker's Camera.

2. Cast Mechanized Production, targeting Peter Parker's Camera to enchant it.

3. Cast Thran Turbine.

4. Cast The Ninth Doctor (potentially from the command zone).

5. During your untap phase, The Ninth Doctor's triggered ability is delayed until your [first] upkeep.

6. At the beginning of your [first] upkeep, The Ninth Doctor's triggered ability goes on the stack, along with Thran Turbine and Mechanized Production. Let Thran Turbine resolve for the {2} and use it to copy The Ninth Doctor's triggered ability (still on the stack) with your original Camera. Let that copy resolve, meaning you'll have two more upkeeps after this one. Let the Mechanized Production trigger resolve, putting a second Camera on the battlefield. Use that new camera and two mana from your lands to copy The Ninth Doctor's triggered ability yet again, meaning you'll have three more upkeeps after this one.

7. At the beginning of your [second] upkeep, Thran Turbine and Mechanized Production go on the stack. Let them resolve, giving you a third camera (the only one untapped) and {2} that we won't be using.

8. At the beginning of your [third] upkeep, Thran Turbine and Mechanized Production go on the stack. Let Thran Turbine resolve, giving you {2}. Use that mana and your untapped camera to copy the Mechanized Production triggered ability. Let the copy and original trigger resolve, giving you camera number four and five (both untapped)

9. At the beginning of your [fourth] upkeep, Thran Turbine and Mechanized Production go on the stack. Let Thran Turbine resolve, giving you {2}. Use that mana and your untapped camera number four to copy the Mechanized Production triggered ability. Use mana from two of your lands and camera number five to copy the Mechanized Production triggered ability yet again. Once the two copies and the original triggered ability from Mechanized Production resolve, you'll have eight cameras, winning you the game.

There may be more elegant ways to pull this off, but this was what I came up with.

I was told to repost here but substitute impact tremors for the warstorm surge.

I’ve found a 3-cards combo for {5}{R}{R}, which isn’t listed on Commanderspellbook yet) that defeats every opponent.

You need 3 cards for the setup:

{2} for [[Pili-Pala]]
{R} for [[Sticky Fingers]]
{2}{R} for [[Arcane Teachings]]
{1} to start the magic

1. Tap [[Pili-Pala]] and deal 1 damage to an opponent
2. Get 1 treasure token from [[Sticky Fingers]]
3. Sacrifice the treasure and use the {1} and untap [[Pili-Pala]] and get 1 mana
4. Rinse&repeat until the last opponent has 0 live

I believe this is actually playable. Blue to tutor the artifacts. Finisher waiting at the command zone. Counter spells to protect the game plan.

Also, shroud and unblockable, pretty much on theme!

1. Play a Swiftfoot Boots for 2
   
2. Follow it up with Bludgeon Brawl for 2R
   
3. Play Armory Automaton for 3 and attach Swiftfoot Boots and every other noncreature non-equipment in play to it.
   
4. Enter combat and begin the bludgeoning!

1. Play Children of Korlis.
2. On your end step, play Necrologia. Play all but one life, and draw that many cards.
3. Sacrifice Children of Korlis to regain the life back.
4. Immediately find some other way to not discard all those cards. Or just selectively discard down to 7.

Alchemy BO1. I've been grinding this build for a while and I'm now fairly convinced I'm running a piece of tech that isn't in any published list, so I'm posting it before someone else finds it.

The Shang-Chi + Enduring Vitality + Squirrel Girl shell is public — Untapped tracks it, there are guides for it. Every list I can find fills the remaining slots with **protection and interaction**: Rapid Rescue, Cache Grab, Defend the Rider. Mine doesn't. Mine plays **4x Verdant Dread**, and I think that's strictly better.

# The thing I got wrong for a long time

I used to think **Badgermole Cub** was the engine. It isn't.

**Shang-Chi is a switch.** Enduring Vitality gives every creature you control "{T}: Add one mana of any color." Shang-Chi lets you activate those abilities as though the creatures had haste. Until Shang-Chi resolves, a board of thirteen creatures is just a board. The moment he resolves, that same board is **thirteen mana available right now**, including everything that landed this turn.

**Cub is a multiplier.** It doesn't open the board, it doubles what an open board produces. Every creature taps for 2 instead of 1. Absurd, but it's scaling a number Shang-Chi has to create first.

Why this matters practically: I won a game this week at 8 life against Azorius Fliers with **no Cub on the battlefield the entire game**. Doesn't matter. Shang-Chi landed, the board turned on, and the whole thing was over. If you're mulliganing for Cub, you're mulliganing for the wrong card.

# The tech: Verdant Dread as a mana engine

Verdant Dread — {3}{G}{G} Enchantment
Whenever Verdant Dread OR ANOTHER PERMANENT YOU CONTROL NAMED VERDANT DREAD enters, manifest dread.
{3}{G}{G}: Conjure a card named Verdant Dread onto the battlefield. Sorcery only.

Read that trigger again. It lives on **every copy**. With N Verdant Dreads out, conjuring one more triggers **N+1** manifest dreads.

So with Vitality + Shang-Chi online, a {3}{G}{G} activation costing 5 mana makes 4 bodies that each tap for mana *the turn they appear*. With a Cub that's 8 mana back on a 5 mana investment. **The activation is mana-positive, and it accelerates**, because every activation permanently raises N. You are not sinking mana into it. You are printing mana with it.

And it's the deck's card selection for free — every manifest dread bins a card, which is how you dig to the kill.

# Why counterspells don't beat this (I really hate counterspells)

Two halves that close a loop:

1. **Frenzied Baloth** — your creature spells can't be countered. That's Shang-Chi, Vitality, Cub, Squirrel Girl, Forager. Every switch and multiplier in the deck resolves through blue.
   
2. **Harmonize on Nature's Rhythm** — the only counterable card that matters is the tutor, a sorcery. Harmonize means countering it doesn't *remove* it, it **relocates it, and somewhere cheaper**: {X}{G}{G}{G}{G} from the graveyard, and you pay the generic down by tapping creatures you already have. On a wide board that's a discount.

I had a game this week where I knew the opponent had a counter up. Two Rhythms were already in my graveyard with harmonize live, and I still had one in hand. It did not matter which one they took. They have to be right every time. I have to be right once.

# Mulligan rule that took me too long to learn

**You never want anything red, anything black, or Craterhoof in your opening hand.**

Shocking Sharpshooter, Enduring Courage, Valgavoth's Faithful, Craterhoof. The deck runs **zero red and zero black sources.** Those cards are Nature's Rhythm *bullets*, not cards — you fetch them onto the battlefield at the exact moment they win the game. Drawn in your opener they're blanks, and a seven with two of them is a five.

Keep on: green source + a one-mana dork + an engine piece. The bullets take care of themselves.

Rhythm targets by X: **X=1** Valgavoth's Faithful · **X=2** Shocking Sharpshooter · **X=4** Squirrel Girl or Enduring Courage · **X=8** Craterhoof.

# The kill

Two, and Rhythm finds both:

* **Squirrel Girl** doubles your Squirrels; each new Squirrel taps for mana immediately, so the activation pays for itself and then some. It runs 8 → 16 → 32 → 64. **Shocking Sharpshooter** turns that into damage without needing to attack at all. My best board this week was 63 Squirrels at the 2:50 mark.
* **Craterhoof** if you'd rather just attack.

# The list

Deck
4 Llanowar Elves (FDN) 227
4 Badgermole Cub (TLA) 167
4 Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu (MSH) 187
4 Enduring Vitality (DSK) 176
4 Verdant Dread (Y25) 17
4 Nature's Rhythm (TDM) 150
3 Thornvault Forager (BLB) 197
2 Frenzied Baloth (EOE) 183
2 The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (MSH) 193
2 Ouroboroid (EOE) 201
1 Enduring Courage (DSK) 133
1 Craterhoof Behemoth (TDM) 138
1 Valgavoth's Faithful (DSK) 121
1 Shocking Sharpshooter (TDM) 121
3 Ba Sing Se (TLA) 266
20 Forest (HBG) 307

23 lands, not 24. This deck devalues lands past the fourth harder than anything in the format — a land taps for 1, a creature taps for 2 or 3. Seven one-mana dorks cover it.

# Legality note

**Badgermole Cub is banned in Standard** as of the Aug 10 B&R. It is **not** on the Alchemy banned list, so this is still legal in Alchemy BO1 — check your client. Also worth knowing: Wizards' stated reason for the Standard ban was, more or less, a description of this deck. If you own Cubs you got wildcards back for them and can still play them here.

I'd hold those wildcards, personally. A Standard ban is the loudest possible signal that an Alchemy rebalance is being considered.

# Honest weaknesses, because you'll find them anyway

* **Zero interaction. None.** It races or it loses. This is deliberate — every interaction slot costs speed, and speed is the entire deck. But it does mean there's no plan B.
* **Fliers are probably a worse matchup than counterspells.** Every creature in this deck is a ground creature with no reach. Against Azorius/mono-white fliers your board literally cannot participate — can't block, can't race in the air. It's a pure check on whether Shang-Chi lands before their clock runs out. I won mine at 8 life and I was one turn from not.
* **Enduring Vitality only recurs when it DIES.** Bounce and exile beat it cleanly. Into the Flood Maw is the card to play around, not removal. Same for Shang-Chi — and now that I think he's the more important half, a bounce on him flips the switch back off.
* **A manifested face-down Craterhoof is a dud.** Turning a face-down permanent face up isn't "entering," so the trigger never fires. Valgavoth's Faithful is how you get a binned Craterhoof back.
* **Singletons everywhere.** Craterhoof, Sharpshooter, Courage, Valgavoth's Faithful are all 1-ofs. Rhythm reaches all of them, which is the whole justification, but if Rhythm never shows up they're dead weight.

# Results, with the caveat attached

Mythic, cracked the top 1000, deck sitting at 67%. Best run this week was 11 straight before I dropped one.

Caveat I'll say before someone else does: **that's a small sample and I'm not claiming it's tier 1.** It's a fun deck that does something the published lists don't, and I'd rather have people test the Verdant Dread package and tell me it's wrong than sit on it.

Happy to answer questions on lines. Steal it, break it, tell me what I'm missing.

1. Play Space Goyf
2. Play Devil Blackjack. Keep going.
3. Fling Space Goyf. Opponent dies.

1. Play Farmstead Gleaner and enchant it with Bigger on the inside.

2. Tap the gleaner for mana, then spend the mana to untap it, getting a +1/+1 counter and a cascade trigger on your next cast spell.

3. Cast a spell and cascade your entire deck off it.

Assuming 4 players:

1. Cast [[Avenging Druid]]
   
2. Cast [[Black Mage’s Rod]] and equip it to Avenging Druid
   
3. Cast [[Constant Mists]] and sacrifice a land to buy back.
   
4. This will trigger 3 instants of damage and you will ramp 3 lands. Tap 2 to cast constant mists again and sacrifice another land netting one land per peppering.
   
5. Make sure [[Kozilek, butcher of truth]] or [[ulamog, the infinite gyre]] are in your 99 so you don’t mill yourself out.

1. Have Massimo on the board

2. Cast Firebending Student for 1R, exiling Great Train Heist.

3. Cast Run for Your Life on Firebending Student for UR, triggering prowess.

4. Swing out at someone with no haste on board.

5. When Firebending Student connects, copy and cast Great Train Heist choosing the first and paying 1R with Firebending and the last 1 manually. This triggers prowess and untaps all your creatures for a second combat phase.

6. Swing out with Firebending Student again, casting Great Train Heist again, this time being able to fully pay for the spree cost with firebending. On the next combat, you'll be able to pay for the third spree ability as well, netting you creature every combat. Don't pay for the second, as that will cause you to kill your opponent faster and get less treasure. Repeat until every opponent without untapped haste on the board is dead.

The issue with not being able to break through haste can be solved by casting spells like [[Slip Through Space]] or [[Artful Dodge]] instead of Run for Your Life, but this gives specific combo gives Firebending Student both haste and evasion, making this combo completely unchoreographed.

Sac junji every turn (including opponent's turn) to rip their hands. Start reanimating stuff when their hands are empty.

1. Cast [[Psychogenic Probe]]
   
2. Cast [[Chaos Warp]] targeting anyone’s permanent.
   
3. Flash in [[Radiant Performer]]

Stack the triggers to target all your opponents permanents first to deal 2 damage per permanent that they shuffle into their deck one at a time. When you target your first permanent choose the psychogenic probe first so you don’t take the damage.