Commander Glossary
An infinite combo is a loop you can repeat as often as you like, usually two cards that feed each other. The half people miss is that most loops only make a resource: mana, creatures, cards. Turning that into a win takes a second card, and knowing which half you are looking at is what tells you whether to panic.
Two or more cards that produce a state you can return to, having gained something on the way round. Basalt Monolith untaps itself for three and taps for three, which goes nowhere. Add Rings of Brighthearth to copy the untap, and each cycle leaves you a mana ahead. That is the whole idea: a repeatable sequence with a net gain.
"Infinite" is not a term the rules use. What you actually do at a table is show the loop, state how many times you are running it, and jump to the result. You are entitled to do that, and the table is entitled to watch it work first.
Someone went infinite, so the game is over.
Only if the loop produces damage or a win outright. Infinite mana, infinite creatures and infinite draw are resources, not wins, and every one of them needs a second card to convert. The gap between assembling the engine and finding the outlet is usually your last window to interact.
Combo decks are built in two halves and it is worth learning to see them separately, because they fail in different ways and are answered by different cards.
Infinite mana needs a sink: a creature with an X-cost activated ability, a draw engine you can point the mana at, or a commander with a repeatable pump.
Infinite creatures need haste, a sacrifice outlet, or an anthem effect that turns a board into lethal this turn rather than next.
Infinite draw needs a way to not lose to your own empty library, and a way to spend what you drew.
Infinite turns need something to do with them. Extra turns with no board is a slower version of doing nothing.
The exception, and the reason it is so widely played, is a combo that skips the outlet entirely. Thassa's Oracle with Demonic Consultation is not a loop at all: it exiles your library and then wins on an arrival trigger. Two cards, no engine, no sink, nothing to convert.
Grouped by what the loop produces, since that is what decides which outlet it needs and which answers stop it. Hover any card to see it.
Legality checked August 2026, and deliberately not asserted card by card. Combo pieces are the cards most often banned and the Commander list has moved several times recently, so check the current list before building any of these. The Commander banned list →
Produces mana and nothing else. Every one of these needs a separate outlet to convert the mana into a win.
Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal
Imprint the Reversal, then tap the Scepter to untap all your nonland permanents. If your rocks and dorks make more than the two mana the Scepter costs, the difference is free and repeatable.
Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth
The Monolith untaps itself for three, Rings copies that ability for two, so each cycle spends five and untaps a rock that taps for three, twice. The surplus is colorless.
Grim Monolith + Power Artifact
Power Artifact drops the Monolith's untap cost to zero, so it taps for three and untaps free, forever.
Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake
Soulbond the Drake, blink it for two, untap five lands on arrival. Three mana ahead per loop, and it works with any creature that untaps enough lands.
Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies
The Druid untaps by taking a minus-one-minus-one counter; the Vizier stops that counter being placed at all, so it taps for green indefinitely.
The Architect makes Pili-Pala blue, then taps blue creatures for two colorless. Pili-Pala converts that into one mana of any color, and untaps itself doing it.
Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead
Reanimating the Dragon exiles your whole board including the aura, which returns everything untapped. A famously fiddly loop, and one that fizzles into a draw without an outlet held ready.
These end the game on their own, which is what makes them the ones people actually fear.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista
Give the Ballista lifelink, remove a counter to ping, gain a life, and Heliod puts the counter back. Repeat for as much damage as you like.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion
Trike removes counters to deal damage, dies, comes back with undying and a plus-one-plus-one counter, and repeats. The oldest reliable one-card-plus-one kill in the format.
Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond
Each one triggers the other: you gain life, an opponent loses life, which gains you life. It only stops when the table is dead.
Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank
Mindcrank mills on life loss, the Guildmage turns milling into life loss, and the two feed each other until a library is empty.
A board rather than a win. Hasty tokens attack this turn; the rest need a sacrifice outlet or another turn.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts
The copy untaps Kiki-Jiki, which copies again. Any creature that untaps or blinks him does the same job, which is why he appears in so many lists.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Pestermite
The same loop for two fewer mana, since Pestermite's untap trigger can point at Kiki-Jiki himself.
Ashnod's Altar + Nim Deathmantle
Sacrifice a creature for two colorless, spend it reanimating the creature with the Deathmantle, and repeat. Needs a creature whose arrival does something to be worth anything.
Each returns the other when it leaves, so with a sacrifice outlet the pair recurs endlessly, dragging small creatures back with them.
The loops that end a game without dealing a single point of damage on the turn they start.
Godo, Bandit Warlord + Helm of the Host
Godo fetches the Helm on cast, the Helm copies Godo each combat, and each new Godo grants another combat. Wins from an empty board, which is what makes it notorious.
Aggravated Assault + Bear Umbra
Untapping your lands at combat pays for the next extra combat, so the loop is limited only by how much mana your lands make.
The quietest category, and the one most likely to end things while the table is looking elsewhere.
Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation
Exile your library naming a card that is not in it, then the Oracle's arrival checks an empty library and you win outright. Not a loop at all, which is why it is the cleanest two-card win in the format.
Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience
The Helm mills until a creature is hit, but Rest in Peace exiles each card instead, so the condition never trips and the whole library goes.
Sensei's Divining Top + Future Sight
With Future Sight out you can cast the Top off the top of your library, drawing a card each time. Infinite draw for as much mana as you can pay.
Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond
The Diamond makes three, the Salvagers return it for one, and the loop nets two mana and unlimited storm count.
This is not every loop in Magic, which is a list nobody could finish. It is the ones that come up often enough that a Commander player benefits from recognising them across the table, ideally before the second piece resolves.
Almost every combo above is two permanents, which is the good news: you are not trying to answer a loop, you are trying to answer one card at the right moment.
Kill a piece in response. Most of these are two permanents, and removing either one at instant speed ends it before it starts.
Counter the second half. The piece cast last is usually the one that closes the loop, and it is the cheapest moment to interact.
Tax or deny the mana. Many loops need a specific amount available; a stax piece that adds one to every activation stops several of them dead.
Exile rather than destroy where the loop recurs from the graveyard, since a destroy effect can be the thing feeding it.
Watch for the outlet, not just the engine. A player assembling infinite mana with no sink is not yet winning, and that is your window.
Nothing in the rules prohibits any of this, and a card is banned on its own merits rather than for comboing. Whether a two-card infinite is welcome in your pod is a social question, not a rules one, and it is the kind that goes badly when it is settled after the game rather than before it.
Assembling a loop with no outlet, and announcing it. Infinite mana on its own wins nothing, and saying so out loud hands the table a turn to answer it.
Forgetting that a mandatory loop nobody can break makes the game a draw. If your engine has no off switch and no payoff, you have not won, you have ended the game for everybody.
Not being able to explain the loop. You have to demonstrate it and name a number of iterations; a table is entitled to see it work before conceding to it.
Putting a two-card infinite in a deck you told the table was low bracket. The combo is not the problem, the mismatch with what you said is.
Relying on a piece without checking the banned list first, since combo pieces are the cards most often banned and the list moves.
A combo deck's win rate says less about it than the turn it wins on. Two decks can both sit at fifty percent and be completely different experiences for the rest of the pod: one closes on turn five when it draws well and does nothing otherwise, the other grinds to turn twelve and wins from a board. The first is the one your table forms an opinion about.
TurnZero HQ records the result and the shape of each game, so a deck built around a loop accumulates a record of when it actually assembles and how often it fizzles. That answers the question a Rule 0 conversation is really asking, which is not "does it combo" but "how often does this end the game early", with a number rather than a guess.
An infinite combo is a set of cards that creates a loop you can repeat as many times as you want, usually producing mana, damage, creatures, turns or cards each time round. Most are two cards. "Infinite" is not a game term: what you actually do is demonstrate the loop, state how many times you are repeating it, and the game skips to that result.
Some do and most do not. A loop that deals damage or drains life ends the game by itself. A loop that makes mana, creatures or cards only produces a resource, and needs a separate outlet to convert that resource into a win. That distinction is the single most useful thing to understand about combo decks: the engine and the payoff are different cards, and interacting with either one stops it.
If the loop is mandatory and no player can do anything to break it, the game is a draw. That matters in practice, because a combo that produces a compulsory repeating trigger with no way out does not win you the game, it ends it for everybody. A loop you choose to repeat is different: you simply stop when you want to.
Yes. Nothing in the rules prohibits them, and individual combo pieces are banned or not on their own merits rather than because they combo. Whether they are welcome at your table is a separate and entirely social question, which is what the Rule 0 conversation and the bracket system exist to settle before the game rather than after.
There is no single answer, but a few recur constantly: Thassa's Oracle with Demonic Consultation as the cleanest two-card win, Isochron Scepter with Dramatic Reversal for mana, Heliod with Walking Ballista for damage, and Kiki-Jiki with any creature that untaps him for a board of hasty copies. Godo with Helm of the Host is the best-known one that wins from an empty board.
Remove either piece at instant speed, ideally in response to the second one being cast, since that is when the loop is one card short and the cheapest to break. Failing that, deny the mana, exile rather than destroy where a graveyard is feeding the loop, and watch for the outlet as much as the engine. A player with infinite mana and no sink has not won yet.
Having one at all pushes a deck up, and a compact two-card loop you actively tutor for pushes it further. The brackets are a build-time framework rather than a score, so the honest way to use them is to say what your deck can do and how early, rather than to argue about which number it lands on.
Track the turn your combo deck wins on, not just whether it won.
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