Smaug Incinerates Commander Pods With Endless Infinite Combos

Last updated on July 24, 2026

Smaug, The Magnificent Illustration by Francisco Miyara

The Hobbit spoiler season hasn’t been shy about highlighting awesome commanders like Thranduil or The Great Goblin, but few are as imposing as Smaug the Impenetrable:

Flying, haste, indestructible is already a textbox to gape at, but the ability to make Treasure when dealt noncombat damage makes Smaug a fascinating commander for the combo-minded. This is a front-runner for the best combo commander in the set because of how easily you can repeatedly trigger Smaug. Whether you want to shoot Smaug from the sky or bring desolation to your table with it, these are the combos to know.

Chain Lightning

The Chain Lightning combo might be the most frightening because it needs the least resources: Just Smaug, the card, and .

Cast Chain Lightning targeting Smaug, then pay to copy it. The copy goes on the stack, and you can stack the copy and Smaug’s trigger so Smaug resolves first, creating three Treasure. Two of that goes into the next copy of Chain Lightning while the third goes towards infinite mana and infinite Treasure.

This is good moment to consider how to win with the Smaug combos, all of which generate infinite Treasure and often infinite mana. The most common win condition will be cards like Reckless Fireweaver or Disciple of the Vault that turn creating or sacrificing Treasure into a win via artifactfall or death triggers. I find Marionette Master particularly interesting since it can be worked into infinite combos without Smaug in case you lose access to it. As for infinite mana win conditions, Walking Ballista is a classic since it performs multiple functions, and I’m fond of Crackle with Power and Torment of Hailfire as mana sinks that don’t need infinite mana, just lots and lots.

Blazing Sunsteel

This is a pretty simple combo: you need to control Smaug equipped with Blazing Sunsteel and a way to damage it. Let’s say you Shock Smaug by sneaking into his lair. That triggers Sunsteel, which you make target Smaug, so it keeps damaging itself to generate infinite Treasure in a tidy little loop.

Dawnsire Dreadnought + Win Con

The Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought combo doesn’t go infinite, but that doesn’t stop it from winning. Start with Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought with 10 charge counters for its attack trigger. Once you blast Smaug for 100 damage, you’ll make as many Treasures. From there, it’s as simple as finding a win condition to convert 100 Treasure into a dead table.

As a little aside, a Dreadnought deck should consider cards like Pain for All, Brash Taunter, and Barbed Servitor to maximize its trigger. These are super useful because they work with cards Smaug naturally wants like the Dreadnought or Blasphemous Act while serving as alternate win conditions if you can’t use Smaug.

Mayhem Devil

Surprising no-one, Mayhem Devil is present as another combo card. All you need is Smaug, the Devil, and one Treasure, or any other way to trigger Mayhem Devil like a fetch land. When you sacrifice the appropriate permanents, target Smaug with the Devil’s ping, creating a Treasure to trigger the Devil again. This nets infinite mana as well as infinite Treasures entering/getting sacrificed.

Pyrohemia/Pestilence

This combo has great flexibility thanks to Planar Chaos’ nonsense colorshifting Pestilence into red on Pyrohemia. You need to control Smaug, one of the enchantments, and have a mana to activate whichever one you control. You can then use Smaug’s hoarde to activate your enchantment over and over.

Since you take damage when activating the enchantment, it has different requirements than the others. The easiest way to win is to just have more life than your opponents so you can activate until they’re dead. Alternatively, you can equip Smaug with Pariah's Shield to go truly infinite. Also, it’s worth noting that even if you can’t kill your opponents, this works as a board wipe as long as you have more life than the creature with the highest toughness in play; if you keep the board clear for a few turns, you could win with Smaug as a beater.