Cards That Secretly Go Infinite in EDH: Hidden Two-Card Combos

I keep seeing people run these cards in their decks without realizing they're one piece away from going infinite. And I'm not talking about obvious combo pieces like Thassa's Oracle or Demonic Consultation. I'm talking about cards you'd run anyway because they're good on their own.

The best combos in Commander don't look like combos. They look like value pieces. Someone plays Reveillark and the table shrugs because it's a reanimator deck doing reanimator things. Then Karmic Guide hits the board and suddenly you're taking infinite turns or draining everyone out.

These are the combos that slip past threat assessment. Neither piece screams "I win the game" until they're both on the battlefield.

Reveillark and Karmic Guide with any extort source

This one has been around forever but people still don't see it coming. Reveillark is $0.72 and Karmic Guide is $1.26. Both are genuinely good cards you'd run in any white creature deck. Reveillark brings back two power-2-or-less creatures when it dies or leaves the battlefield. Karmic Guide brings back any creature when it enters, then dies to echo if you don't pay.

Here's the loop: you have both on the battlefield. Sacrifice Karmic Guide (or let echo kill it). Reveillark dies or gets blinked, brings back Karmic Guide and something else. Karmic Guide enters, brings back Reveillark. Reveillark enters, brings back Karmic Guide and your other creature. Repeat.

Infinite death triggers, infinite ETBs. You need a sacrifice outlet and a payoff. Viscera Seer is free and scrys your whole deck. Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat kills the table. Or you run Blind Obedience at $5.91 and extort everyone to death while making infinite bird angels.

The thing that makes this combo sneaky is both creatures are format staples in white. Nobody blinks when you cast Reveillark in a Karador or Sefris deck. It's just good recursion. Then it wins the game.

Grand Architect and Pili-Pala

Grand Architect costs $1.07 and Pili-Pala costs $2.68. I see Grand Architect in blue artifact decks all the time because it makes your artifacts cheaper and turns your blue creatures into mana. Pili-Pala is a mediocre mana fixer that nobody cares about. Together they make infinite mana of any color.

Grand Architect gives Pili-Pala +1/+1 and makes it blue. It also lets you tap blue creatures for

. Pili-Pala's ability costs to untap itself and add one mana of any color. You tap Pili-Pala for two colorless with Grand Architect, spend that two to untap it and make one colored mana. Net result is one mana. Do it infinite times, make infinite mana.

People miss this because neither card looks like a combo piece. Grand Architect is an anthem and mana dork for artifact decks. Pili-Pala is weird janky filler. I've had both on the battlefield for three turns before someone noticed I could win.

What do you do with infinite mana? Blue Sun's Zenith yourself. Walking Ballista the table. Capsize with buyback until everyone scoops. The mana is the hard part. Winning with infinite mana is trivial.

Dualcaster Mage and Ghostly Flicker

Dualcaster Mage is $4.74 and sees play in red spellslinger decks because it's a creature that copies spells. Flash it in, copy someone's Cyclonic Rift, profit. Ghostly Flicker is $2.77 and blinks two targets for value. Both are fine cards. Together they make infinite copies of Dualcaster Mage and infinite ETBs.

Cast Ghostly Flicker targeting any two creatures or artifacts you control. Hold priority and flash in Dualcaster Mage. Dualcaster's ETB copies Ghostly Flicker. Use the copy to blink Dualcaster and something else. Dualcaster enters, copies the original Ghostly Flicker again. Repeat.

You get infinite Dualcaster Mage tokens with haste (thanks to the copy effect). Attack for lethal. Or run Impact Tremors and ping everyone to death. Or blink Archaeomancer alongside Dualcaster to get infinite mana if you have lands or rocks to blink.

This combo is stupid easy to assemble because both cards are instant speed. You can hold up Dualcaster Mage as interaction and then combo off when someone casts a spell worth copying. I've won games where I planned to copy an opponent's removal spell and ended up comboing instead.

Hullbreaker Horror with zero-cost artifacts

Hullbreaker Horror is $7.60 and it's a control finisher. You cast it in a Talrand or Nymris deck because it bounces permanents every time you cast a spell, and it has flash. Most people use it to protect their board or remove threats. Some people realize it goes infinite with any zero-cost artifact and a mana rock.

You need Hullbreaker Horror, Sol Ring (or any rock that makes two mana), and a zero-cost artifact like Jeweled Lotus or Mox Amber. Cast the zero-cost artifact. Hullbreaker triggers, bounce the artifact back to your hand. Sol Ring is untapped because you just started your turn or someone blinked it or whatever. Cast the artifact again. Bounce it again. Infinite storm count, infinite ETBs.

Win with Aetherflux Reservoir. Win with Talrand, Sky Summoner making infinite drakes. Win with Sentinel Tower pinging everyone out. The Horror itself doesn't look like a combo piece. It looks like a control card that happens to win if left unchecked.

I think the reason this one flies under the radar is people see a seven-mana creature and don't treat it as a combo piece. They're wrong. If you're in blue and you're running fast mana and free spells anyway, Hullbreaker wins on the spot.

Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth

Basalt Monolith is $3.98 and Rings of Brighthearth is $5.12. Monolith is a three-mana rock that taps for three colorless and has an untap ability. Rings copies activated abilities for

. Together they make infinite colorless mana.

Tap Basalt Monolith for three. Use that three to activate its untap ability. Hold priority and spend two to copy the untap with Rings. Let the copy resolve first, untapping the Monolith. Tap it again for three. Let the original untap resolve. You're back where you started but you have one extra mana. Repeat.

This one is sneaky because both cards are generically good in colorless-matters decks or artifact-heavy strategies. Rings is value town with fetchlands, planeswalkers, or any repeatable ability. Monolith is just fast mana with a downside. People don't connect the dots until you're making fifty colorless and tutoring for Staff of Domination to draw your deck.

Nim Deathmantle and mana creatures

Nim Deathmantle is $4.75 and it's a recursion engine. Pay four, return a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield and attach Deathmantle to it. The creature becomes a black Zombie. This is good in aristocrats or reanimator decks. It becomes infinite with any creature that makes four or more mana.

Priest of Gix is $0.55 and makes three black mana when it enters. That's not enough by itself. But if you have Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar on the battlefield, you sacrifice Priest of Gix for two colorless (or one colored). That's five total mana from a three-mana creature. Pay four to Deathmantle to bring it back. Net one mana, infinite loops, infinite death triggers.

Or use Priest of Urabrask which is similar but red. Or any creature that untaps lands like Peregrine Drake at $0.28 if you have five lands. Deathmantle combos with a lot of creatures and the entire package costs less than ten dollars.

I've seen Nim Deathmantle sit on the battlefield for ten turns in a Teysa Karlov deck and nobody removed it because it's "just" recursion. Then the Teysa player finds Weaponcraft Enthusiast or something and goes infinite out of nowhere.

Deadeye Navigator and anything that makes mana

Deadeye Navigator is $3.75 and it blinks creatures repeatedly. Soulbond it to a creature, pay

, blink that creature. It's a value engine. Blink Mulldrifter every turn. Blink Archaeomancer to loop spells. Blink Sepulchral Primordial to steal everyone's graveyards.

It's also a combo piece with anything that makes three or more mana on ETB. Peregrine Drake is the classic example. Drake enters, untaps five lands. Soulbond to Deadeye. Tap five lands for five mana. Pay two to blink Drake. Drake untaps five lands again. You netted three mana. Repeat for infinite mana and infinite ETBs.

Cloud of Faeries does the same thing with two lands if those lands tap for two each. Great Whale and Palinchron also work but they're more expensive and more obvious.

Deadeye Navigator gets hated out of a lot of games now because people know it combos. But it still sneaks through sometimes because the creature it's paired with looks innocent. Nobody kills Peregrine Drake on sight. They should.

What this means for deck building

If you're running any of these cards, you should know what they combo with. You don't have to build around it. You don't have to tutor for the combo every game. But if you naturally draw into both pieces, you should recognize it and win.

I built a Brago, King Eternal deck that ran Strionic Resonator because doubling Brago triggers is good value. Turns out Resonator also goes infinite with any permanent that makes three mana when it enters or untaps. I found that out mid-game when someone pointed it out. Free win.

The flip side is if you're playing against these cards, you need to know what to remove. Reveillark is scarier than it looks. Hullbreaker Horror is not "just" a control finisher. Grand Architect in a blue artifact deck probably has Pili-Pala in the 99 somewhere.

Building in redundancy

The reason I like these combos is they're hard to disrupt compared to three-card or four-card piles. You need two specific cards and sometimes a generic enabler like a sacrifice outlet or a mana rock. That's easier to assemble than Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker at $12.32 plus Restoration Angel at $0.44 plus haste plus protection.

And most of these pieces have backup combos. Reveillark combos with Karmic Guide but also with Body Double or Saffi Eriksdotter. Deadeye Navigator works with Peregrine Drake but also Cloud of Faeries, Great Whale, or even Palinchron if you're rich. Isochron Scepter plus Dramatic Reversal at $6.13 is a different combo but it uses similar principles (untap your mana rocks, make infinite mana, win).

If you're building a combo deck, redundancy is how you win before turn ten. If you're building a value deck that happens to have combos, redundancy means you stumble into wins you didn't plan for.

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