The 17 Best Orzhov Combos in Magic Ranked

Last updated on November 28, 2025

Vizkopa Guildmage | Illustration by Tyler Jacobson

Though many players, especially in EDH, dislike combo lines because they don’t find them interesting, they’re excellent ways to end a multiplayer game and add intricacy to decks that assemble combos in addition to their other game plans.

Every color combination has plenty of combos that go infinite or simply combine a few cards to extract untold value that exceeds the sum of their parts. Orzhov () combos are predominantly creature focused, with quite a bit of depth.

What Are Orzhov Combos in MTG?

Ratadrabik of Urborg | Illustration by Anna Pavleeva

Orzhov combos use two or more cards with a combined color identity of black and white to enable infinite loops or provide an otherwise overwhelming advantage that any individual card couldn't achieve alone. Many Orzhov loops involve infinitely sacrificing creatures and recurring them or combining cards that care about players losing and gaining life to eliminate players without needing to attack.

Generally, combos that use fewer cards are more consistent since they’re easier to assemble; the same goes for combos that are cheap. It’s also important to consider the value of combo pieces outside of the combo; a combo line that uses three or four pieces becomes much more reasonable if each card is an independently strong part of the deck in question. Flexible combos with lots of variations have additional value since these can “cheat” on the card requirements; if you have three or four cards that fulfill a certain role within a loop, those redundant copies make it much easier to assemble.

These combos were primarily ranked for their value in EDH.

#17. Demonic Approach

Cards: Approach of the Second Sun + Demonic Tutor

Prerequisites: You’ve cast Approach of the Second Sun once and have the mana to cast it and Demonic Tutor.

Result: You win the game.

Variations: Any tutor that finds Approach of the Second Sun replaces Demonic Tutor.

This combo is the simplest of the simple, though it’s only somewhat effective; there are just far easier ways to win the game, with combos and otherwise.

#16. Teferi’s Nauseam

Cards: Ad Nauseam + Teferi's Protection

Prerequisites: You have the mana to cast both cards.

Result: Draw your deck.

Variations: Anything that stops your life total from changing, like Platinum Emperion or Flare of Fortitude. Cards that prevent you from losing the game like Angel's Grace also work, so long as you win in the same turn (which shouldn’t be an issue since you’ve drawn your whole deck). Phyrexian Unlife’s a pretty appealing card since it combos with Solemnity.

This combo lets you draw your entire deck, setting up for an easy combo win in the same turn. It does seem less efficient than just building your deck around Ad Nauseam naturally, but I suppose a high-powered Orzhov deck might contain both cards naturally.

#15. Decadent Deaths

Cards: Astarion, the Decadent + Quietus Spike

Prerequisites: You have a creature equipped with Quietus Spike that dealt combat damage to an opponent this turn.

Result: Delete one player from the game.

Variations: You can replace Quietus Spike with any card that makes an opponent lose half or more of their life total, like Unstoppable Slasher or Sorin Markov. Other cards that double the amount of life your opponents lose or make them lose life equal to the life they lost in a turn work in place of Astarion, the Decadent; Bloodletter of Aclazotz and Warlock Class are good examples.

This combo’s pretty simple, though it’s on the clunkier side given how expensive and telegraphed it is. That said, this combo has enough variants that you can probably stick them all in a deck and make some combination stick.

#14. Sanguine Avatar

Cards: Serra Avatar + Swords to Plowshares + Sanguine Bond

Prerequisites: You control both permanents, can cast Swords to Plowshares, and your life total is higher than one of your opponent's.

Result: Target opponent with lesser life total loses the game.

Variations: Multiple cards can replace Sanguine Bond, including Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Enduring Tenacity.

This combo’s a bit strange since it involves exiling your own Serra Avatar to zap a player down, but it’s certainly effective. This combo is sneakily strong since plenty of lifegain decks likely run these pieces.

#13. Tainted Reservoir

Cards: Tainted Sigil + Aetherflux Reservoir

Prerequisites: You control both artifacts, you have more than 50 life, and your opponents have 50 or less life.

Result: Blast your EDH table away.

Variations: Children of Korlis is precisely half as effective, but it still squeezes another activation from Aetherflux Reservoir.

This combo simply blows everybody away. Activating Aetherflux Reservoir and zapping a player results in players losing a total of 100 life; sacrificing Tainted Sigil lets you gain enough life to activate the Reservoir twice more, killing a total of three players.

#12. Displaced Marionettes

Cards: Marionette Master + Ashnod's Altar + Eldrazi Displacer

Prerequisites: You control all three permanents, plus two additional creatures.

Result: Infinite enters/leaves the battlefield triggers, infinite colorless mana, infinite sacrifice/death triggers, infinite life loss.

Variations: You can use Nim Deathmantle instead of Eldrazi Displacer, though that combo utilizes the graveyard rather than a flicker loop. Krark-Clan Ironworks can replace Ashnod's Altar since the Servo tokens are artifacts. Creatures like Myr Battlesphere that make multiple bodies when they enter the battlefield can replace Marionette Master.

To use this combo, you need to sacrifice two creatures to create 4 colorless mana, 3 of which can flicker Marionette Master. Once it enters, make two Servo tokens with its fabricate ability. You can then sacrifice those tokens to hit your opponents and make more mana to feed into Eldrazi Displacer. It's pretty simple, though the Nim Deathmantle variant is more common.

#11. Bond of Immortality

Cards: Sanguine Bond + Beacon of Immortality

Prerequisites: You control Sanguine Bond, you have the mana to cast Beacon of Immortality, and you have a life total equal to or higher than your opponent.

Result: Kill target opponent.

Variations: Any card with the Sanguine Bond text like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose works in place of the enchantment.

Both cards have high mana costs, making this a fairly pricey combo. But any self-respecting lifegain deck probably has Sanguine Bond anyway, and there are plenty of other effects that benefit from a huge burst of lifegain from Beacon of Immortality.

#10. Abdel Adrian, Dead Walker

Cards: Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward + Animate Dead

Prerequisites: Abdel needs to be in the graveyard, and Animate Dead needs to be in hand.

Result: Infinite dies triggers, infinite enters/leaves triggers, infinite blinking, infinite Soldier tokens.

Variations: You can use Necromancy or Dance of the Dead instead of Animate Dead. Leonin Relic-Warder works instead of Abdel Adrian, though you lose the infinite blinking and soldiers.

To make this combo work, you need to reanimate your creature, then use its enters ability to exile Animate Dead. This forces you to sacrifice the creature, allowing the aura to enter and reanimate it again.

This neat little package often crops up in decks with Abdel Adrian and Agent of the Iron Throne in the command zone. I appreciate the Leonin Relic-Warder variant because it’s cheap, and the cat works well alone.

#9. Orzhov Darkest Hour

Cards: Teysa, Orzhov Scion + Darkest Hour + Viscera Seer

Prerequisites: You control all three permanents and at least one additional creature.

Result: Infinite death/sacrifice triggers, infinite enters triggers.

Variations: Any sacrifice outlet works instead of Viscera Seer. Painter's Servant naming black works in place of Darkest Hour.

This combo allows you to continually sacrifice the tokens created by Teysa, which become black due to Darkest Hour. This combo can be risky as Darkest Hour overwrites creatures’ colors, so you lose access to Teysa’s first ability.

#8. Elesh Norn, Night Sweeper

Cards: Maha, Its Feathers Night + Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Prerequisites: You control both creatures.

Result: Opposing creatures become illegal.

Variations: A handful of black cards like Night of Souls' Betrayal and Kaervek, the Spiteful can fill in for Elesh Norn.

This combo won’t win outright, but it gets as many boos as the flashiest of combos that one-shot the table. It often ends the game in a few turns though, given that your team gets a massive power boost while you remove any potential blockers.

#7. Teysa, Plunderer of Dementia

Cards: Teysa Karlov + Pitiless Plunderer + Reassembling Skeleton + Altar of Dementia

Prerequisites: You control all four permanents.

Result: Infinite mill, infinite death/sacrifice triggers, infinite enters/leaves the battlefield triggers.

Variations: You can use any other free sacrifice outlet in place of Altar of Dementia, which exchanges the mill for something else—Phyrexian Altar is particularly interesting for infinite colored mana. Bloodsoaked Champion or Cult Conscript can replace Reassembling Skeleton, though their reanimation abilities have additional prerequisites.

This combo takes quite a few steps, but it’s pretty flexible since the cards other than Teysa and Pitiless Plunderer have several replacement options while the irreplaceable parts have a home in other combos. The non-legendary cards are all strong elements of Teysa Karlov EDH decks anyway, making this a strong combo to backdoor into—heck, your Teysa list might have it already!

#6. Karmic Annihilation

Cards: Sun Titan + Karmic Guide + Animate Dead + Altar of Dementia.

Prerequisites: You can cast Sun Titan, control Altar of Dementia, and have Karmic Guide and Animate Dead in the graveyard.

Result: Infinite death/sacrifice triggers, infinite enters/leaves the battlefield, infinite mill

Variations: Necromancy and Dance of the Dead work in place of Animate Dead. You can use any free sacrifice outlet in place of Altar of Dementia, though you lose the infinite mill.

This combo makes clever use of Karmic Guide’s protection from black to set up a loop that wins any number of ways. I appreciate that this combo uses pieces that are individually good; you aren’t embarrassed to play any of these cards, and not building towards an obvious combo can be useful in EDH.

#5. Viscera Revelations

Cards: Karmic Guide + Reveillark + Viscera Seer

Prerequisites: You control all of the creatures.

Result: Infinite ETBs, death triggers, sacrifice triggers, leaves the battlefield/graveyard triggers.

Variations: You can use any free sacrifice outlet instead of Viscera Seer; it’s just the cheapest.

This loop doesn’t technically end the game on its own, but it takes so little effort to turn it into a win with a Blood Artist or Altar of the Brood, or an Altar of Such and Such to make infinite mana instead of infinite scrying. The best part is the easy assembly since these pieces can reanimate one another, allowing you to utilize entomb effects or survive interaction.

#4. Exquisite Guildmage

Cards: Exquisite Blood + Vizkopa Guildmage

Prerequisites: You can activate Vizkopa Guildmage and make a players’ life total change.

Result: Infinite lifegain/life loss; instant death for the table.

Variations: This works with a bunch of other black cards like Sanguine Bond and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose.

This is a variation on the classic Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo that instantly kills the table. Playing Vizkopa Guildmage makes the mana a touch easier since you pay 5 mana in two installments, plus it’s handy for redundancy.

#3. Boromir, Agent of Urborg

Cards: Ratadrabik of Urborg + Boromir, Warden of the Tower

Prerequisites: You control both creatures.

Result: Infinite enters/leaves the battlefield triggers, infinite sacrifice triggers, infinite death triggers.

Variations: You can replace Boromir, Warden of the Tower with Samwise the Stouthearted or Gollum, Patient Plotter as long as you have an additional free sacrifice outlet.

This combo exploits the Ring tempting you do to make Ratadrabik’s token copies legendary so you can sacrifice them forever. In addition to converting this into a win thanks to other cards, it effectively makes your board indestructible for as long as you control both halves.

#2. Luminous Looping

Cards: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Luminous Broodmoth

Prerequisites: You control both of these permanents, plus a creature without flying and a free sacrifice outlet.

Result: Infinite death/sacrifice triggers, infinite leaves/enters the battlefield triggers.

Variations: You can use Solemnity in place of either piece to cancel out the counters they would get when they return to play.

This combo is incredibly flexible since you have so many interlocking combo pieces, and Mikaeus lends itself to about a million different combo lines. This combo basically alternates between the two reanimation abilities, and it wins in any number of ways; perhaps you make Gray Merchant of Asphodel enter an infinite number of times, or your sacrifice outlet is Blasting Station. However you apply the combo, you get a win.

#1. Mantle of the Dusk Rose

Cards: Elenda, the Dusk Rose + Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar

Prerequisites: Elenda needs to be equipped by Nim Deathmantle, and you must control Ashnod's Altar.

Result: Infinite colorless mana, infinite vampire tokens, infinite counters on Elenda, infinite death/sacrifice triggers, infinite enters/leaves the battlefield triggers.

Variations: Any creature that dies and creates at least two more tokens works instead of Elenda, the Dusk Rose. Wurmcoil Engine and Marionette Master are common substitutes.

This combo requires lots of mana upfront, but it’s a pretty convincing win that fits nicely into Elenda, the Dusk Rose decks. It plays well in other sacrifice decks too since these are just strong cards, and you have a few substitutions for Elenda.

Wrap Up

Teysa, Orzhov Scion | Illustration by Sara Winters

Some decks just need a little extra juice to get over the finish line, which is where these combos come in. Some of the ones using cards like Karmic Guide and Pitiless Plunderer might already be in some EDH decks, even if you aren’t actively using them! Any of these combos could add some spice and power to your newest Orzhov deck, especially if you use the graveyard or sacrifice synergies.

Which of these combos would you want to run in your EDH decks? Do you like combos in Commander or hate them? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!