Legendary Tarkir: Dragonstorm Enchantment is a Combo Puzzle Waiting to be Broken

Last updated on March 20, 2025

The Sibsig Ceremony | Illustration by Eli Minaya

From the reveals we've seen thus far, Tarkir: Dragonstorm is Magic at its best. The upcoming MTG set is peak cardboard: Red mana dorks; Nicol Bolas rearing its adorable, villainous head and returning to the MTG storyline; amazing planeswalkers; Hoof Daddy in Standard…

… and the first MTG card in quite a while that makes you go, “Wait… what the heck am I supposed to do with this!?”

(Eli Minaya‘s art for The Sibsig Ceremony is also the first non Secret Lair Magic card in the longest time that looks illustrated by a Death Metal fan – you are entitled to consider that a negative, of course, but you'd be objectively wrong, just saying!)

Artistic considerations aside, The Sibsig Ceremony has the markings of a black enchantment begging to be broken… even if exactly how may not be obvious just yet.

“This feels like a trap,” notes u/PyreDynasty in the most-upvoted reply on one of the many reddit threads bubbling with The Sibsig Ceremony brews, “but I'm gonna try it.”

Reading the Ceremony Explains the Ceremony

Heartless Summoning | Illustration by Anthony Palumbo

First things first: What exactly does The Sibsig Ceremony do?

To begin with, note that it's a legendary enchantment – you can only have one copy of this black enchantment in play. That's an obvious design decision to avoid players stacking multiples.

The cost-reduction effect is copy-pasted from Heartless Summoning: Creature spells you cast cost less to cast. This has no limitation, so you can bring the total cost to zero, as you'll see in a bit among one of The Sibsig Ceremony‘s most obvious combos.

Then comes the drawback: You have to destroy the creatures you cast as soon as they enter. And then comes the kicker: You create a 2/2 zombie druid token to replace them.

Let's check the fine print here, though: The Sibsig Ceremony says destroy, not sacrifice. Which means that:

• If the creature is indestructible, you can keep it around,
• You can sacrifice your creature (to some sacrifice outlet you have already in play, like Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar) before you have to destroy it,
• The “destroy that creature” clause is not an if: Even if the creature dies before the destroy trigger (or you remove it any other way before said trigger resolves, like by blinking or bouncing it back to hand), you still get the 2/2 token zombie.

The Sibsig Ceremony‘s effect only applies to creatures you cast, by the way. If your creature enters some other way (blinked back, reanimated, etc), The Sibsig Ceremony won't trigger.

Cheer Up, Sad Robot!

The most straightforward way to squeeze The Sibsig Ceremony is cost-reducing good ETB creatures, get the value, and call it a day. The poster child here is Solemn Simulacrum, which may not be what it once was in the Commander format but, thanks to Foundations, is now Standard-legal.

With The Sibsig Ceremony in play, you get to play Solemn Simulacrum for , get its card-draw death trigger right away (since it dies on the spot), but you still get a 2/2 body for your troubles thanks to the zombie token.

Basically anything with a good ETB and a weak body gets cheaper, and you still get a body.

Many Myrs in Modern

Cost reduction is always cool, but all the more so when it lets you cast spells for free!

One simple infinite combo that has Modern players interested is pairing The Sibsig Ceremony with Myr Retriever.

It's actually a 3-card combo since you need two copies of Myr Retriever (one in your hand, the other in your graveyard) plus The Sibsig Ceremony in play. But if you do, you can keep casting one Myr Retriever for free while recurring the other to your hand, and create an army of (non-hasty) zombies that would make Liliana, Dreadhorde General drool.

Gravecrawler Galore

Another 3-card infinite card combo is mixing The Sibsig Ceremony with Dazzling Theater in play and Gravecrawler in your hand (or in your yard, if you have another zombie in play).

If you cast Gravecrawler, you get a 2/2 zombie token and the ‘Crawler goes to the graveyard. Now you can use the 2/2 zombie to convoke the Gravecrawler back, rinse and repeat Ad Nauseam. The combo is a bit worse than the Myr combo since the tokens will be tapped (and therefore can't block, unless you have the other room unlocked), but as long as you care for the body count both combos are pretty similar.

(Just in case: A Reanimate effect does not trigger The Sibsig Ceremony, since in that case you are not casting the creature you put onto the battlefield. But since you are casting Gravecrawler, The Sibsig Ceremony goes off).

Pioneer Dungeoneer

Pioneer players also get a Pioneer-playable, three-card infinite combo out of The Sibsig Ceremony, in this case with Acererak the Archlich and Relic of Legends. 

Since you get to arrange your triggers as you see fit, in this case you tap Acererak the Archlich to get thanks to Relic of Legends and bounce the lich back to hand before The Sibsig Ceremony‘s “destroy creature” trigger.

In this case you get the infinite zombie army plus infinite ventures into your dungeon of choice.

Aristocratic Fun

Ratadrabik of Urborg | Illustration by Anna Pavleeva

Players fond of aristocrat commanders are going to have infinite fun with The Sibsig Ceremony, that's for certain, with Ratadrabik of Urborg looking like one of the most obvious ones. 

There's for certain a million ways to break this black enchantment in EDH – it's been quite some time since Magic gave players a card this weird, so shout out in the comments what you plan to do with your death triggers and zombie army!