The 30 Best Artifact Combos in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 21, 2025

Ashnod's Altar | Illustration by Greg Staples

Some people like the soothing sound of the ocean, or the dulcet tones of an evening breeze brushing against their curtains. I prefer the whirring and clanking of cogs and machinery grinding and gnashing against each other. Forget ASMR; I use Michael Bay’s Transformers movies to lull myself to bed.

Why such a cacophonous introduction, you ask? Well, we’re chatting about artifact combos in Magic, so you can expect that we’ll be smashing artifacts into one another quite a bit. I’ve already blown my one affinity joke, so let’s get into this.

What Are Artifact Combos in MTG?

Helm of the Host | Illustration by Igor Kieryluk

I’ll be defining an “artifact combo” as any infinite, near-infinite, or just exceptionally strong interaction involving at least one artifact card. I can’t go overliterally every combo with every artifact out there, and there’s a lot of redundancy with certain cards, so I’m limiting myself to one combo per artifact mentioned. Most of these involve infinites, so clutch your pearls and hide if that scares you.

I’ll be covering combos across all formats, not just Commander, especially since most Constructed combos are just as viable in 100-card decks. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, more of a list honoring the artifacts that lend themselves to combos easily.

#30. The Fifth Dawn Stations

Most artifact combos happen by accident, but the “Stations” from Fifth Dawn were specifically designed to create an infinite loop resulting in infinite damage and infinite mill. It’s janky and requires four cards in play plus some additional set up, but I love a good Rube Goldberg machine. Here’s how it works:

• Summoning Station creates a 2/2 Pincher token.
• Blasting Station untaps, then sacrifices the token to deal 1 damage to any target.
• Salvaging Station untaps, then returns a cheap artifact from the graveyard to the battlefield.
• Grinding Station untaps, then sacrifices the returned artifact to mill target player for three cards.
• Summoning Station untaps, and now you can make a 2/2 Pincher again and restart the loop.

#29. Crackdown Construct

Crackdown Construct gets +1/+1 whenever you activate a non-mana ability. Find a creature or artifact with an activation cost of and keep spamming the ability to make the Construct arbitrarily large. Lightning Greaves and Wandering Fumarole are some of the easiest enablers for this combo.

#28. Kaladesh Modules

Similar to the Fifth Dawn Stations, Kaladesh introduced a trio of “Modules” with similar combo potential. This one isn’t indefinite, as it’s limited by the amount of mana you have. Here’s the process:

• Decoction Module produces an energy counter when a creature enters play under your control.
• Fabrication Module triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on one of your creatures.
• Animation Module triggers, allowing you to pay to create a Servo token. When the token enters, Decoction Module triggers again, restarting the process.

Note that any of these artifacts can start the chain, resulting in a Servo, an energy, and a +1/+1 counter for each you spend during the loop.

#27. Myr Galvanizer

For this one you need Clock of Omens, Myr Galvanizer and Palladium Myr which must be able to , and two other myr creatures. Palladium starts you with 2 mana, use one to activate Galvanizer, then the Clock needs the two myr to untap Myr Galvanizer. You net one extra mana, and can repeat the process infinitely, no rares needed!

#26. Syr Ginger

We start with each permanent on the battlefield and one other artifact creature fodder. Sacrifice that fodder to Ashnod's Altar. That triggers Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender, and when the +1/+1 counter gets added to Syr Ginger, Animation Module triggers, you pay the from the Altar, get a new Servo artifact creature token and continue as needed to get infinite colorless mana, counters on Syr Ginger and lots more.

#25. Panoptic Mirror

Panoptic Mirror has rightfully been banned since Commander’s first bans. This “1-card combo” just needs to imprint an extra turn spell like Time Warp, survive a turn cycle, and that’s infinite turns from thereon out. I’m not sure of its Constructed viability, and it’s not legal in Commander, so no one’s actually out there comboing off with Panoptic Mirror.

#24. Helm of the Host

Helm of the Host goes infinite with a toothpick and a bobby pin if you try hard enough. There are countless 2-card combos with Helm, but the easiest involves Godo, Bandit Warlord since it can fetch and auto-equip the Helm. I find that dreadfully boring, so let’s highlight the equally popular Combat Celebrant combo:

• Attach Helm of the Host to an untapped Combat Celebrant.
• Create a copy of Celebrant at the beginning of combat.
• Attack and exert the Celebrant copy, but don’t attack with the original, or at least don’t let it die in combat.
• Exerting the copy gives you an extra combat, where you’ll make a new Celebrant with Helm and repeat the process.

This results in infinite extra combats with at least a 4/1 that can attack each time. An opponent usually needs an indestructible/protection from red blocker to stop themself from dying.

#23. Umbral Mantle

The untap symbol is just asking for incidental combos. Attach Umbral Mantle to any creature that taps to produce 4+ mana and boom: infinite mana. Circle of Dreams Druid and Bloom Tender are examples of easy combo pieces. This is an especially difficult combo to interrupt since it involves mana abilities and untapping as a cost, neither of which use the stack or give players opportunities to interact.

#22. Zuran Orb

Zuran Orb in cubes usually signals the presence of a powerful combo deck, likely involving either Balance or Fastbond. Restore Balance does a close approximation in Commander, though you could also opt for a more fair combo with Titania, Protector of Argoth, turning all your lands into 5/3 Elementals.

#21. Mindslaver Lock

Mindslaver’s a nasty card without help, but “Mindslaver locks” are especially heinous. The goal is to have somewhere around 12+ mana, enough to cast and activate Mindslaver each turn, with enough mana to activate something like Academy Ruins to redraw it every turn. That’s enough to control almost all remaining game actions, assuming you’re in a 1v1 situation.

#20. The Chain Veil

The Chain Veil loops with planeswalkers the untap permanents with one of their loyalty abilities. Specifically, you want a planeswalker that untaps two or more permanents, as well as a mana source that taps for enough mana to activate The Chain Veil. That makes ‘walkers like Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Tezzeret the Seeker, and Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset the main culprits. Something like Chromatic Orrery usually works for the mana source.

#19. Painter’s Servant + Grindstone

Here’s that metal-on-metal action I was prattling on about, just two artifacts melded together into one beautiful combo. Choose any color with Painter's Servant and mill someone with Grindstone. Since every card in their deck shares the chosen color, Grindstone repeats until they mill out. It’s only good enough to take out one opponent at a time in Commander, but it also sees Constructed play from time to time.

#18. Ancestral Statue

With enough cost reduction to make Ancestral Statue cost 0 mana, you can replay and bounce it infinitely. Impact Tremors turns this into an easy win, with Animar, Soul of Elements and Rakdos, Lord of Riots being two common homes for the Statue.

#17. Thopter-Sword Combo

Here’s another Constructed-focused combo that doesn’t flat-out end the game, but it presents a powerful enough engine to form its own competitive archetypes. Here’s what you need:

• Thopter Foundry needs to be on the battlefield.
• Sword of the Meek needs to be either in play or in the graveyard.
• If Sword’s already in play, pay with Foundry to sac the Sword and create a 1/1 Thopter. If Sword’s in the graveyard, you’ll need to start by sacrificing a different artifact.
• When the Thopter enters, Sword triggers from the graveyard and attach to the Thopter.

Repeat the process from there, creating a 1/1 flier and gaining a life for every you’re able to spend. It’s not a pure infinite combo, but it easily converts all your mana for a turn into an army of small flying creatures.

#16. Mike and Ike

An old Commander baddie, though just as viable as it’s ever been: Triskelion and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed combine to deal infinite damage. Triskelion removes its counters to sling around damage, though the last counter needs to target Triskelion itself, since it’ll have +1/+1 from Mikaeus. It’ll die as a 1/1 with no counters, triggering undying and coming back with four new +1/+1 counters. Rinse and repeat.

#15. Nim Deathmantle

Nim Deathmantle’s super clunky when used fairly, but you should suspect anyone running this card to have a few combos at their disposal. This combo involves Ashnod's Altar and any creature that puts three separate bodies on board. I’m using Breya, Etherium Shaper here, but cards like Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine work too:

• Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle need to be in play. Notably Deathmantle doesn’t have to be equipped for this combo to work.
• Resolve Breya, Etherium Shaper, creating two Thopters.
• Sacrifice Breya and a Thopter to Ashnod’s Altar, generating . Use that mana on Deathmantle’s trigger to return Breya to the battlefield.
• Cycle through these steps, netting an extra Thopter each time, then sacrifice an arbitrary number of Thopters for near-infinite mana.

Breya’s the best creature for this combo since it also includes a mana sink that turns infinite mana and Thopters into damage, making it the wincon as well. You can also combo Altar and Deathmantle with two bodies instead of three if you control a Blood Artist or Impact Tremors effect.

#14. Mycosynth Lattice Softlock

Mycosynth Lattice promotes inaction rather than using a collection of moving parts to end a game. That’s achieved through Null Rod effects, primarily the one-sided Karn, the Great Creator. This shuts off your opponents’ activated abilities, including the mana abilities of lands, soft-locking players out of casting spells for the remainder of the game.

#13. Staff of Domination

Staff of Domination is one of the go-to infinite mana sinks. It’s another one of those combo pieces that works with big-mana dorks like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, but it has enough utility through other modes that you might see it in some non-combo decks.

#12. Aetherflux Reservoir

I find the most fun Aetherflux Reservoir combos involve giving the permanent lifelink in some convoluted way. It’s possible to move a lifelink counter from another permanent onto Reservoir with Nesting Grounds, or you can animate it and give it lifelink with Sydri, Galvanic Genius. With the requisite 51+ life, you can shoot a player, gain 50 life, shoot a player, gain 50, shoot a creature for good measure, and so on.

#12. Basalt Monolith

First off, Basalt Monolith just goes infinite with itself. Weird design choice, but “toggling” Monolith can self-mill with Mesmeric Orb or grow a giant Wake Thrasher. More often you’ll find this making infinite mana alongside Zirda, the Dawnwaker, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, or Rings of Brighthearth.

#11. LED-Breach

You never really see Lion's Eye Diamond (LED) combos in Commander because the card’s so ungodly expensive and usually relegated to cEDH power levels anyway. However, it’s part of a popular Vintage Cube combo involving Brain Freeze and Underworld Breach:

• Get Underworld Breach into play.
• If Lion's Eye Diamond’s in your graveyard, exile three other cards to escape it; otherwise, just cast it normally.
• Sacrifice LED for 3 blue mana, then cast Brain Freeze targeting yourself. This mills at least enough cards to escape LED again, which makes enough mana to escape Brain Freeze.
• You might need to Brain Freeze yourself a second time to mill enough cards to keep escaping LED.
• Once the storm count’s high enough, Brain Freeze your opponent’s library away.

#10. Altar of Dementia

The word “altar” might as well mean “combo” in Magic. Altar of Dementia is one of three combo-tastic Altars, each one responsible for its own subset of degenerate infinite combos. The Reveillark + Karmic Guide combo showcases Altar of Dementia in its prime:

• Altar of Dementia needs to be on the battlefield, and one of either Reveillark or Karmic Guide should be in the graveyard (you can cast both from hand if you have enough mana).
• If Reveillark’s in the graveyard, cast Karmic Guide targeting it, then respond by sacrificing Karmic Guide to Altar and mill and opponent for two cards.
• Reveillark returns to the battlefield. Sacrifice it to mill an opponent for four cards, then return Karmic Guide with Reveillark’s leaves-the-battlefield trigger.
• If Reveillark was in your hand with Karmic Guide in the graveyard instead, simply evoke Reveillark to start the process.

This results in an infinite mill engine, plus infinite death triggers if you happen to control a Blood Artist effect on board.

#9. Time Vault

Time Vault and a way to untap Vault each turn, like Voltaic Key. Infinite turns, easy-peasy, though cheesy enough that it’s not actually playable in most formats.

#8. Modern Krark-Clan Ironworks

Krark-Clan Ironworks (KCI) was a meta-defining card in Modern, producing infinites for artifact decks just as easily as you’d imagine for a card that’s basically a mirror image of Ashnod's Altar. The combo deck piloted by Matt Nass in Grand Prix Vegas 2018 involves quite a bit of tinkering:

• Get Krark-Clan Ironworks into play.
• Sacrifice a Scrap Trawler with another Scrap Trawler in play, returning a Myr Retriever and Mox Opal from the graveyard to play.
• Tap Mox Opal for mana (notably a source of colored mana), then sacrifice it to KCI.
• Sacrifice Myr Retriever, picking up Scrap Trawler from your graveyard, while the Trawler on board picks up Mox Opal from the graveyard.
• Play Scrap Trawler and Opal from your hand, tapping Opal for mana and sacrificing it to KCI. You’re now floating plus 2 mana of any color, and you’re back where you started the combo.

This exact combo doesn’t quite work in Commander since you can’t run multiple Scrap Trawlers, but you could always sub in Sculpting Steel or run a number of other variants to generate infinite mana. It’s unclear if KCI was banned in Modern for being too powerful or just because the combo took so long to work through.

#7 Mox Amber Kethis Combo

Mox Amber, attempt #2,314 to make a “fair and balanced Mox.”

Failure #2,313 (Mox Tantalite did a good job).

Turns out the legendary restriction isn’t that bad when half the cards in every Magic set are legendary. This particular offender was part of a combo deck that got Kethis, the Hidden Hand banned in Pioneer. Here’s the original Kethis combo:

• Diligent Excavator and Kethis, the Hidden Hand need to be on the battlefield.
• Cast a Mox Amber and mill yourself for two cards with Excavator. Tap Mox Amber for mana.
• Exile two legendary cards from your graveyard to cast a Mox Amber from your graveyard, sending the tapped on to the graveyard via the Legendary Rule.
• Mill yourself for two cards again, tap the new Mox for mana, and repeat.
• Mill yourself out while generating the mana to cast Jace, Wielder of Mysteries from your hand or graveyard. +1 to win the game on an empty library.

There were some faults with the combo, mainly that it was a 4+ color deck and you might not mill over enough legendary cards to keep casting Mox Ambers from your graveyard. It’s been fine-tuned since then, though Kethis remains banned in Pioneer for the sins of Mox Amber.

#6. Bomberman

It’s not too hard to imagine infinite combos involving Black Lotus. I mean, we already talked about Lion's Eye Diamond and that’s just a strictly worse version. I’ll keep it simple with the classic “Bomberman” strategy.

Auriok Salvagers can return a Black Lotus to play, which can pay for the activated ability, returning it to the battlefield and netting a mana of any color. This makes infinite mana, which is usually filtered into a damage-dealing artifact like Pyrite Spellbomb.

#5. Phyrexian Altar

Still not the best altar. Phyrexian Altar turns a creature into a mana, which sounds tame. I spent more to cast that creature, didn’t I? Sure, but it’s all about finding the right creature to sacrifice, Gravecrawler perhaps. With another zombie on board, you can feed Gravecrawler to Phyrexian Altar ad nauseum. From there it’s just a matter of having some sort of win condition, like a Vengeful Dead or Zulaport Cutthroat sitting on board.

#4. Infini-Top

Sensei's Divining Top is a very popular card that’s equal parts combo piece and generic value tool. It’s unclear when someone plays a turn-1 Top what their intentions are, but be prepared for warning signs – namely, cost reduction for artifacts and ways to play from the top of the library.

With a card like Foundry Inspector making the Top free and something like Mystic Forge playing from the library, you can infini-cast your Divining Top. Elsha of the Infinite uses this strategy to become infinitely large with prowess, while other decks rely on Aetherflux Reservoir as the kill condition.

#3. Heliod/Ballista

Walking Ballista can fill the spikey metal shoes of Triskelion in most combos that card is involved in, but Ballista’s a much cheaper card to cast and serves as a perfect conduit for infinite mana, both with its casting cost and its activated ability.

You’re probably most familiar with the Heliod, Sun-Crowned combo, which involves giving Walking Ballista lifelink. From there, every time Ballista removes a counter to deal damage, Heliod restocks another counter. That’s enough to mow down all creatures and players, and gain infinite life in the process, because why not?

#2. Dramatic Scepter

Isochron Scepter, one of the best imprint cards in Magic, is the ultimate cheesy win combo card. You could play “fair” and stick a Silence or Counterspell under this, but more often than not someone’s trying to tuck away Dramatic Reversal; hence the name “Dramatic Scepter combo.”

Imprinting Reversal lets you tap Scepter to cast Reversal and untap all your non-land permanents, including the Scepter itself and whatever mana sources you’re using to activate it. That usually results in infinite mana, or infinite activations of whatever tap effects you have on board.

#1. Ashnod’s Altar

Oh me oh my, Ashnod's Altar at the top of the list? Who could’ve seen that coming? This card is involved in so many combos it’s laughable; it’s literally the reason some of the other combos on this list even exist. It can even sub into the Altar of Dementia or Thopter Foundry combos as an infinite mana generator.

Take your pick of your favorite Ashnod's Altar combo, but I’ll stick with a classic involving Pitiless Plunderer and Reassembling Skeleton:

• Pitiless Plunderer and Ashnod's Altar need to be on the battlefield.
• Reassembling Skeleton can be on the battlefield or in the graveyard. If it’s in play, sac it to Altar; if it’s in the graveyard, you’ll need to bring it back to play first.
• Altar generates and Plunderer creates a Treasure.
• Use the Treasure for and from Altar to return Skeleton to the battlefield.
• Rinse and repeat for infinite colorless mana.

Best Artifact Combo Enablers

The most obvious place to start is artifact-themed decks. Many of these combo-enabling cards are also just generally good value cards on their own, so it’s not too hard to maneuver a few pieces in your deck to unlock access to an infinite combo. If you already run Voyager Quickwelder, Etherium Sculptor, or Foundry Inspector and Sensei's Divining Top, you’re one Mystic Forge or Bolas's Citadel away from a combo. You might already be running all these cards as individual synergy pieces and not even know they come together to form a combo!

Some of these combos could use a little support, which is where artifact tutors come in handy. Fabricate, Reckless Handling, and Enlightened Tutor are all reliable ways to get whatever combo piece you’re missing. You might even consider a card like Goblin Engineer, which is often used in Constructed as part of the Sword of the Meek and Painter's Servant combos.

The majority of artifact combos have the net result of producing infinite mana. In some cases, the combo piece is also the mana sink, as evidenced by Staff of Domination or Breya, Etherium Shaper. In other cases, you’ll need some way to spend all that mana, which isn’t hard to do. A mana sink such as Bloodrite Invoker or decisive X spell like Torment of Hailfire or Crackle with Power should be enough, or you might take the route of drawing your deck with something like Thrasios, Triton Hero. Once you have infinite mana, the world’s yours for the taking.

Wrap Up

Walking Ballista | Illustration by Daniel Ljunggren

Speaking of infinites, it feels like I’ve been typing for an eternity. Let’s wind this loop down by just saying artifact combos are an ever-present part of Magic across all formats. While there’s a bit of a stigma against combos in Commander, that’s really up to the discretion of the players to hammer that out, and everything’s fair game in Constructed.

I left some pretty notable artifacts off this list – Bolas's Citadel, Skullclamp – because they start to tread the same combo territory as some of the ones I did mention, but feel free to sub them in and out at your leisure. If I made any glaring oversights and missed a popular artifact combo that doesn’t overlap with any listed here, sound off! Let me know in the comments or over in the Draftsim Discord.

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