The Best Colorless Wincons in Magic’s Biggest Formats

Monument to Endurance | Illustration by Victor Sales

Every deck in MTG needs to win, somehow. Colorless wincons in MTG are pretty special because you can play them in any deck. What’s more, MTG has a long history of producing a lot of colorless mana with special lands across different formats, be it with the famous Tron lands (Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, Urza's Power Plant), or with Mishra's Workshop, Basalt Monolith, Mana Crypt, and the like.

Today, we'll look at the best colorless wincons MTG has to offer, applied to the main Constructed formats. And of course, we’ll consider cards that fit a format best in the actual meta.

What Are Colorless Wincons in MTG?

Altar of the Brood | Illustration by Erica Yang

Colorless wincons are cards that have a colorless color identity and that, simply put, win games. These are the powerful bombs your opponent sees and thinks, “Oh, they have it in the bag. Time to lose.” (Or maybe just, “I’m screwed.”)

If I have a land that produces a lot of mana, like Ancient Tomb, it’s not a colorless wincon, but it’s probably setting up a future wincon like a big Eldrazi titan. Similarly, cards like The One Ring can be powerful card draw engines, but it won’t win the game for you. In fact, your own Ring can kill you.

Best Colorless Wincons for Standard

Chimil, the Inner Sun

Chimil, the Inner Sun offers interesting advantages. It’s very strong to discover 5 every turn, almost like a planeswalker ability. This card gives you card advantage and board presence. It also makes your spells uncounterable, so Chimil is twice as good against control decks.

Ugin, Eye of the Storms

Ugin, Eye of the Storms is a very fitting top-end for midrange and control decks. A planeswalker that enters and minuses to use removal is already good enough to see play, but this card gets it for free via a cast trigger. After that, you’ll decide if you need more mana or more cards and life. Once you untap with this planeswalker and start to cast colorless spells, it’s game over.

Best Colorless Wincons for Commander

Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought

I could have put Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought in the Standard or Pioneer section, but it can be very slow in a 1v1 game, considering that you’ll need to cast it for 5 mana and also tap 10 power worth of creatures. But in Commander, come on.

Legendary vehicles and spacecraft can be your commander now, and Dawnsire sets up great combos by dealing 100 damage to a card like Stuffy Doll and sniping someone else. Commander decks that can cheat a high-power creature into play like Ghalta, Primal Hunger should have this online in no time. And just attacking and killing creatures right away is already a high-value proposition.

Glaring Fleshraker

Glaring Fleshraker kills your opponents if you have a way to put colorless creatures into play again and again. The Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever duo will do it with another sacrifice outlet (Ashnod's Altar gets a special mention here).

Darksteel Reactor

You’ll need to put 20 counters into Darksteel Reactor to win, and that means quite a few turns or proliferate triggers. There are many ways to place and spread charge counters on your own permanents (like Surge Node), so it can be a win condition, if not the most reliable one. A commander like Lulu, Stern Guardian can proliferate at will given infinite mana. Vorel of the Hull Clade can double the number of counters, and so on.

Walking Ballista

Considering a more cEDH approach, Walking Ballista combos with a lot of cards like Heliod, Sun-Crowned, and this combo was pretty strong in Modern (pre-Horizons, at least). This card is easy to tutor, considering the ways you can search for artifacts that cost 1 or less, and it’s the perfect mana sink if you have any infinite mana combos. You can even run it out as a 0-mana 0/0 if you just need a quick death trigger.

Altar of the Brood

It’s slow if you don’t have any infinite combos, but Altar of the Brood mills all the opponents at the table if you have ways to go infinite with enter or leave the battlefield triggers. It’s also easily fetchable, like Walking Ballista.

Best Colorless Wincons for Modern

Inkmoth Nexus

There’s something special about a creature land with flying and infect that’s also an artifact. One or two hits from Inkmoth Nexus usually seals the deal, especially if it’s equipped or if it has extra +1/+1 counters.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Like Karn Liberated, an early Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in play means you’ll sweep the board if you’re in trouble, or just tick up and bury your opponent in Lightning Bolts while you head towards Ugin’s powerful ultimate.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

If you can reliably cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, it’s hard to top a 10/10 indestructible creature that’s also two targeted exile removal spells. The thing is, unlike other really expensive colorless threats, you’ll really want to cast this and not just cheat it into play.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn remains to this day one of the best threats that you can just put onto the battlefield and win. You can ramp it into play in decks that can produce an insane amount of colorless mana, or cheat it into play using cards like Through the Breach. One attack from this creature plus the annihilator 6 is usually enough to make your opponent concede. One of the best ways to defend yourself from this card is to use instant-speed edict effects like Sheoldred's Edict.

Best Colorless Wincons for Pioneer

Aetherflux Reservoir

Aetherflux Reservoir combo fits Pioneer, among other formats. The aim here is to cast a bunch of spells, ideally free spells, and use Paradoxical Outcome to do that again while you draw cards. Aetherflux Reservoir works like the storm mechanic, so when you cast a bunch of free spells, you gain loads of life, which you then redirect to your opponent’s face. Pay 50, deal 50, end the game. Having Reservoir in play also keeps your life total healthy so you'll have time to set up your combo finish.

Forsaken Monument

Forsaken Monument is a tough card to beat in colorless decks if you don’t have artifact removal. It can already kill you right away just with the +2/+2 bonus, and while it stays on the battlefield, your opponent’s gets more life and more mana. It has that same “oh no, I’m playing against The One Ring” feeling, but I put it here as a wincon because it can be just that.

Monument to Endurance

Monument to Endurance is being played in Standard value decks, but it has more tools to work with in Pioneer. The format supports many cards that let you freely discard cards and cheap card cyclers, which allows you to choose all three options every turn. Just dealing 3 damage every turn goes a long way, whether you’re controlling the board or just straight-up burning the opposition.

Best Colorless Wincons for Legacy and Vintage

Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage

Only legal in these two formats (besides EDH), Dark Depths aims to combo with another land like Thespian's Stage. You’ll want Thespian's Stage to become a copy of Dark Depths without the counters, and then you can put Marit Lage in play, a powerful 20/20 token with flying and indestructible. You can tutor for this combo via cards like Expedition Map and Crop Rotation.

Field of the Dead

Like Dark Depths, this card is only playable in these formats, maybe because there are more ways to keep it in check. Field of the Dead doesn’t need a specific combo, and it only asks you to keep playing lands with different names. Which, of course, is easier in Eternal formats due to the size of the card pool. At that point, it becomes an infinite supply of zombie tokens to close the game, almost like a good planeswalker emblem. 

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn remains a game-winning card, but this time with access to Show and Tell. Legacy and Vintage decks have more ways to tutor this card and cheat it into play.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

The big difference between Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in Legacy is that you can often cast this card in decks like 12-Post.

Goblin Charbelcher

How Goblin Charbelcher works: Cast it and activate once to reveal a lot of cards until you reveal a land, which is usually a Mountain. Just revealing 10 cards and a mountain is enough to deal 20 damage to your opponent’s face. Sometimes the activation whiffs if you reveal the mountain right away, though. Charbelcher decks are built with as few lands as possible, typically using nonland mana sources or MDFC lands to ramp this spell and its activation out as early as possible.

Painter’s Servant + Grindstone

This two-card colorless combo usually wins the game on the spot, considering that with Painter's Servant on the battlefield, all cards have the same color, and one activation of Grindstone makes your opponent mill their entire deck.

Blightsteel Colossus

Vintage decks usually win if they can Tinker for Blightsteel Colossus. One attack from this giant infect creature usually seals the deal.

Time Vault

The classic Time Vault + Voltaic Key combo gives you infinite turns by using the key and only 1 mana to untap the Vault. You should figure out how to win from there, or your opponent straight-up concedes. Time Vault is restricted in Vintage and banned in every other format for a reason.

Wrap Up

Ugin, Eye of the Storms | Illustration by Joshua Raphael

And that’s about it for colorless wincons, folks. Looking at these cards is a nice trip down memory lane, as many of these cards were considered oppressive during a certain meta, or a straight-up development mistake. I considered many cards for this list, like Arcbound Ravager or Cranial Plating, but I restricted it to cards that see play right now – I even cut Karn Liberated.

Were there any egregious omissions? Please let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it on the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading guys, and keep rocking those game-winning colorless cards.