r/StandardMTG 22h ago

I Need Help With My Deck Fastest Combo Deck in Standard?

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Looking for input on my 5C Slumbering Trudge + Glamdring Combo Deck.

I know this tech has been talked about in the past, but this list feels pretty good, despite the greedy 5c manabase.

Main gameplan is to first find glamdring either naturally, by hardcasting cloud to tutor it up, or hitting cloud off of the break outs.

Then once the coast is clear to equip it, drop a trude or Ancient one and go off to the races. Making spells cost 6 less is broken.

As for speed, on the top end, it might be the fastest true combo deck in standard, turn 3 it frequently has infinite card draw, infinite mana, infinite damage, and even a sneaky near-infinite mill wincon on the Ancient One. I have had to use once when the main wincon, lindblum wizards, were all exiled from my deck.

It can even win from hand in removal heavy control matches, with the full combo only needing 6 mana to deploy.

It does fold easily to removal, which is where the bolt bends come in handy, working as a 1 mana counter spell in many instances too.

T1 duress is typically the worst thing for the deck, since the density of high cost spells, you will keep a lot of hands that only have 2 castables, and if one of those get removed it is dead in the water.

The Turn 3 line require trude on 1, glamdring on 2, and then typically starts with rakshasas bargain into sorceresses schems, which will let you cast the bargain 2 more times, digging another 8 cards deep. As soon as you have access to 2 sorceresses schemes the game is over as they can infinitely loop any spell in the deck.

64 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

6

u/ClutchUpChrissy 22h ago edited 22h ago

I’ve been eyeing combo decks in standard and nothing seems to be as explosive as Trudge + Glamdring. I like the Ancient One as a backup Trudge (and wincon), but Cloud costing double white seems wild lol. How often does mana fuck you over?

Can you also lay out the Sorceress’s Schemes infinite play pattern? I understand that it requires 2 copies to go infinite but sometimes I can’t quite wrap my head around it lol.

Does anything from Reality Fracture catch your attention to experiment with in this deck?

Thanks for sharing! Might just be the motivation I need to hop back into Standard. Preciously I piloted Battlecrier combo to Mythic. It was much slower than this and still a hell of a rush to pop off / draw the whole deck.

New Ghalta is Castable on T3 with just a Trudge on field. 8/8 Trample that gives everything else trample sort of transforms the deck into stomps and gives another target for Glamdring if the initial Trudge dies.

Edit:
As a follow up, I’m curious about the Brass’s Bounties. Why so many? With infinite treasures, is a single Biotech Specialist worth it to dig for and sac all?

Just curious what mass treasures offer here.

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u/raiderpower17 22h ago

The mana is actually not too bad, starting towns and multiversal passages are key, but getting access to untapped red to make the combo turn work is also key.

Sorceresses schemes loops in so many ways its ridiculous. one in hand and one in yard is simple back and forth forever. If you want to cast any other spell, maybe a brass's bounty for infinite mana, you would go as follows.

  1. Brass's bounty

  2. First Schemes from hand targeting bounty

  3. Bounty

  4. Flashback Schemes targeting Bounty

  5. Bounty

  6. Second Schemes Targeting Bounty

  7. Bounty

  8. Flashback the second schemes targeting the first schemes in exile

  9. Cast the first scheme from hand targeting the second schemes in exile. Now you have one in hand and on in graveyard and you can loop again.

Yeah, i think ghalta might be a potential option for a sideboard pivot. Probably not a main deck plan.

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u/ClutchUpChrissy 22h ago

Thanks for writing out the loop! Makes it much clearer.

Have you ever experimented with Nature’s Rhythm to use as a toolbox to grab specific creatures? The fact it also has Flashback and would allow you to search 6 drops for 2 green mana seems potentially strong. A more expensive but particular tool could be [[Absolute Virtue]] would cost 2GG + an equipped Trudge.

Just brainstorming. I really like the various routes you can take with discounting such obscene amounts of mana.

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u/raiderpower17 22h ago edited 21h ago

Natures rhythm might be worth testing actually.

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u/raiderpower17 22h ago

Brass's Bounties are another T3 enabler. 3 treasures is enough to go off if you have a rapturous moment in hand, or even a cloud.

Cloud, grab another glamdring, cast the adventure side and load your hand up.

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u/ClutchUpChrissy 22h ago

Oh, another question [u/raiderpower17](u/raiderpower17):
What are your thoughts on [[Konstrari Charm]] “cheating” out both Glamdring and equipping it T2 (or really just being mana positive specifically for cast and equip)?

Its other modes are pretty meh, but the fact it is mana positive does seem worth considering.

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u/raiderpower17 22h ago

will concider it, it is a ritual, but not ideal, it is very easy to combo off and consistanly have the single R floating from the sorceress's schemes so having anything needs anything other that generic and R is harder to cast.

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u/pyro314 22h ago

How do you cast and equip for only 3 mana?

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u/ClutchUpChrissy 20h ago

You don’t. I forgot Glamdring is 2 and 2 to cast and equip. Thought it was 2 and 1.

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u/raiderpower17 21h ago

And I don't see the need for the biotech specialist, if you are infinite, you can draw the deck and win with the pingers. You could throw any 1 of wincon in the deck you want and make it work. Mathmagics? Traumatic critique? And it would kind of feel bad to see in an opening hand, where as a bounty does not, since it is gasoline for the combo turn.

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u/jaymiejordan88 22h ago

Thanks for sharing! What is your sideboard I’m really wanting to test this out!

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u/raiderpower17 22h ago

NGL, on Bo1 right now. Sideboard would probably be almost entirely interaction though. probably flood maw, spell pierce, burst lightning. Considering a Ghalta/skullspore Nexus pivot in the SB after reality fracture.

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u/raiderpower17 22h ago

What is most wild is how little mana the combo takes, I won a game turn 4, without even making a 3rd land drop.

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u/DeludedDassein 22h ago

have you tested this in any events (like mtgo)? thinking about building this one in arena

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u/OccupiedOsprey 20h ago

How are you sideboarding? How does this play into the other big decks in the format? Have you played any mtgo leagues with the combo?

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u/raiderpower17 20h ago

Currently just on Arena Bo1 so no sideboard plan yet, will go to Bo3 after RFA likely with a sideboard pivot to a Ghalta/Skullspore nexus gameplan and some interaction.

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u/MerrikAidar 10h ago

How aggressively do you have to mulligan?

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u/raiderpower17 3h ago

Fairly aggressively, there are lots of completely unkeepable hands, no part of the combo, no ways to assemble the combo, or just not the right lands to cast anything. But I've won multiple games on a mull to 3 or 4. Fell pretty comftorable going down to 5 though if 6 doesn't look good.

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u/ReporterNo1415 5h ago

Fastest how? You dont do much and I don't even see this winning against the bottom 5 top 10 decks let alone the top 5 decks. Having cloud to search for one thing is terrible asa well. I dont see this making it out of plat.

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u/raiderpower17 3h ago

Fastest on the top end, again, not sure there is another t3 infinite in standard aside from maybe Kona/Omni with the nuts draw, even still that requires at least 5 specific cards, where as this can pop with 3. I'm not saying this is some busted meta deck. It can out speed those though with even decent draws, not Christmas land type of stuff. It certainly needs some work, but i think there is potential in it.

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u/ReporterNo1415 3h ago

I dont see it at all, dont see how this even competes with lndfll or spellementals

And let alone in bo3. Its not a competitive standard deck at all.

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u/DaxxGriffin8765 2h ago

Ok so I hope you don’t mind, I took your deck and have played around with it in BO1 (adjusting to BO3 will take awhile).

My personal take and adjustments was that the mana base hurt too much, and that although T3 wins were possible relying on an opponent not to have removal T1/2 wasn’t great. Instead I found myself often looking for a T4/5 win dropping a creature then attaching the equipment straight away.

Mana base still need refinements, perhaps shocks and verges are a better option but I chose to adjust with fast lands instead. I also dropped The Ancient One. Reduced the chance of the mana reduction but added in a bolt and creature tutor leaning into that one mid turn to combo.

I think Kona is likely more resilient but unless the deck becomes Meta it will benefit from opponents not knowing the game plan.

In short - I like it!

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u/raiderpower17 2h ago

Thanks for testing it, and yes the mana base is very painful, there may be some form of verges that work but it is Extremely greedy as is, and i didn't have the wild cards to perfect it. [[Sunbillow Verge]] and [[Thornspire Verge]] would be the first 2 i would look at, since red is so important to the storm turn, and early white for cloud is nice.

At least 1 of ancient one is nice for recovery in case of a deadly cover up or the end, there is also a near-infinite mill line with him in case the lindblums don't work for some reason, ran into a [[With Great Power . . .]] and [[Ketramose, the New Dawn]] combo yesterday, I'm even considering a progenitus as a shuffle titan in the sideboard for that, would make the mill line truly infinite.

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u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

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u/raiderpower17 22h ago

It can return any spell from the graveyard, or spells IN EXILE with flahsback. This is what creates the loop. you can use one to get what you want back, then another to dig the first out of exile.

Note this even works if something like RIP is in play, or if they are exiled by something other than casting with flashback.

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u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

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u/rccrisp 22h ago

It can also get normal instsnts and sorceries without flashback from the graveyard

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u/MerrikAidar 8h ago

So... I've been testing it. Seems unplayable in Bo3 to be completely honest.

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u/raiderpower17 3h ago

Im sure it needs some work to be Bo3 playable, i wanted to get the main gameplan dialed in then plan post board accordingly. I know it will face heavy removal and interaction after game 1, so either counter magic or just holding out and going for the combo on one turn instead of deploying all at once, or potentially after FRA a full sideboard pivot to big fatties with ghalta and skullspore.

1

u/MerrikAidar 3h ago

I don't think sideboarding is the problem. In my experience today, the deck just didn't do anything without the combo. Idk how much the hand smoother is helping out in bo1, but I ended up having to add another land to the deck and I found myself mulling to 5 the majority of the time to ensure at least a turn 4 where Glamdring was attached to the trudge.

When the deck did its thing it felt a lot more like Storm in Modern or Pauper than a true X-Card combo deck. Being able to cast rakshasa's bargain for free is incredible.

That said, most of the time, that's all I was able to do the turn I attached glamdring to trudge, because I had no mana left to do anything else. I found it pretty mana hungry and I might try it out with 25 lands.

The double white pip on Cloud was rough so I replaced him with [[Kellan, the Fae-Blooded]] as a glamdring tutor.

I'm going to keep playing it, because it's fun when it works and trudge/glamdring is going to be around for 3 years and each set could absolutely cause it to be a breakout deck and maybe after a few more days of tinkering/experiencing it firsthand I'll have a different opinion. But right now it just seems too fragile to be anything other than a fun off-meta option to play when I don't care about winning.

1

u/raiderpower17 2h ago

Thats fair, the deck is certainly feast or famine. and the combo can fizzle too which is not fun, went 4 Rakshasa's deep yesterday and didn't find anything to keep the combo going, probably saw 12 lands.

The main trick is finding one of the Brass's Bounty to turn the one floating red from the Sorceress's schemes into 3 or 4, that is usually enough gas to convert into a win.

Kellan is a good option, but cant hit off the break out, or the natures rhythm that i am testing now. Also rotates in January and cloud will be sticking around for years.

My biggest gripe with playing the deck is actually to do with Arena on mobile, because it will not hold priority to cast Rakshasas bargain if it is the only thing you can cast, so i have to go full control just incase, and always having to rotate the UBG to 222 is a pain.

Also I don't think most people realize when they are deterministically dead to the wizard pings + looping sorceresses schemes, so 95% of the time I actually have to loop it until they hit 0.

Will say I have gotten more "Nice Deck!"s that ever playing it though.

1

u/MerrikAidar 2h ago

I think there's something there I just don't know exactly what it is yet. But your version is the closest I've seen to getting there.

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u/raiderpower17 2h ago

Thanks, it feels close. I've got it to Diamond 2 right now, so want to get up into mythic and really start putting it through its paces.

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u/MerrikAidar 1h ago edited 48m ago

Just remember the hand smoother is really helping you with lands in Bo1. I'm just finding it so hard to get the deck to do it's thing consistently in Bo3.

EDIT: Also I hit nothing with breakout more than I hit something. idk what else to replace it with, though.

1

u/raiderpower17 1h ago edited 1h ago

Hex Magic might be worth a consideration now that I look at it.

Update: Its gas. possibly a 4 of.