Magic set includes combo so powerful English language has no words to describe it
Who wants 60 cards when you only need two?
That’s all it will take to bring games of Magic: The Gatheringto a swift and violent end with the release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One, Magic’slatest expansion. You’ll soon have a new way to blow up your opponents with infinite damage, or by creating a swarm of zombie tokens so large that the English language has yet to create the words needed to describe it. The Phyrexian cult is here, and it’s hunting season for Magic’s combo players.
Seasoned Magic players will acknowledge that most winning strategies fall into one of several different buckets. “Aggro” or “beatdown” decks use an army of heroes or creatures to bash an opponent into defeat. Another strategy is called “control,” which effectively prevents an opponent from playing cards altogether while slowly setting up one powerful creature that single-handedly wins the game. And then there are “combo” builds, which typically refers to a specific interaction between two or more cards that effectively wins the game once they’re played in a certain sequence.
While combo decks can be difficult to build, finicky to execute, and hard to learn, they’re as old as the game itself and have defined various eras of Magic’shistory. But these kinds of stunt decks come with an inherent risk. Without triggering the specific combo they’re built around, a combo deck might not be able to win at all. New combo decks don’t come around very often, and those that do emerge don’t necessarily have the moxie to compete at Magic’shighest levels. And yet, the possibility of new combos never ceases to capture the imagination. Who doesn’t want to press the win button every once in a while?
Which brings us to Phyrexia. Narratively, the set revolves around
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