Exploring Five Popular Monocolored Combos in Commander
Ezra SassamanApril 9, 2026
To celebrate Combo Week on EDHREC, Ezra is listing off five of Commander's most famous monocolored combos. How many of these do you play?
Exquisite Blood | Art by Cynthia Sheppard | Sanguine Bond | Art by Jaime Jones
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With over 30,600 unique cards legal in the Commander format, there are sure to be some combinations that have special interactions when brought together. Today, we're focusing on simple combos that are possible with just two cards and within a single color identity.
Let's use Commander Spellbook to find popular monocolored combos and look into Magic history to see just how we got here.
White
Ever since Healing Salve, white has cared about gaining life.
In Commander, this penchant for lifegain has led to a combo that can grant its controller infinite life and the potential to deal infinite damage: Heliod, Sun-Crowned combined with Walking Ballista or Triskelion.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista – 44,894 decks
Just use Heliod to give the Ballista (or Triskelion) lifelink, remove a +1/+1 counter to deal one damage, use Heliod to put a counter back on the artifact creature, and repeat forever! And if you're okay only having access to white and colorless cards, Heliod can even be your commander.
Blue
Ever since Twiddle, blue has cared about untapping permanents.
Urza's block introduced players to cards that untapped lands equal to their mana costs, which is ripe for combo potential. And finally, after had begun sharing the "flicker" ability with in cards like Momentary Blink and Turn to Mist, Avacyn Restored marked the first set with a devoted array of mono-blue cards that could blink permanents.
As a result, Peregrine Drake found a perfect partner in Deadeye Navigator, leading to a very popular Commander combo.
Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator – 40,216 decks
Once you have both these creatures on the battlefield and soulbonded together, you just need to spend to start the chain. Blinking the Drake will unlock five lands, allowing you to continue blinking – but getting more and more mana each time.
Importantly, once you have infinite mana, you can blink the Deadeye and attach it to a different creature that cares about entering the battlefield – maybe something like Mulldrifter or Archaeomancer. With access to infinite mana alongside every card in your deck or infinite casts of an instant or sorcery, you should be able to find a way to win.
Black
Ever since Drain Life, black has harmed opponents while gaining life at the same time.
Beginning with Sanguine Bond in Magic 2010, more and more black abilities started triggering off of lifegain. Many of these cards also cause opponents to lose life when this happens.
A few years after this enchantment was printed, Avacyn Restored introduced it to a new friend: Exquisite Blood.
Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood – 127,793 decks
When combined together, these black enchantments complement each other perfectly: life gain for you leads to life loss for an opponent and life loss for an opponent leads to life gain for you. The end result: infinite life gain for you, infinite life loss for opponents.
The perfectly symbiotic and simple relationship between these two cards has made them the second most popular two-card combo in the format, only behind cEDH special Demonic Consultation + Thassa's Oracle.
While there are many ways to trigger the Bond half of the combo (including Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose in the command zone), there is only one other stand-in for the Blood half: Bloodthirsty Conqueror.
Red
Ever since Fork, red has copied spells.
Beginning with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and expanding in following years with Heat Shimmer and Splinter Twin, this color gained the ability to copy creatures as well.
While blue cards like Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite provide a well-known infinite combo with Kiki-Jiki/Twin, there are also fitting options in mono-red like Zealous Conscripts, Combat Celebrant, Port Razer, and Fear of Missing Out. Each of these creatures allows you to untap the Goblin Shaman, leading to infinite creatures and/or infinite combat steps.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts – 27,079 decks
Green
Ever since Llanowar Elves, green creatures have tapped for mana.
An Elf tapping for just isn't going to enable any sorts of broken combos anytime soon. But with Urza's Saga, a super-charged version of this effect got printed in Priest of Titania. Now, a single creature has the potential to create boatloads of mana – but how can we best use it?
A few years later, Fifth Dawn introduced the ultimate mana sink: Staff of Domination. With five Elves on the battlefield, this combo allows you to first tap the Priest for , then use to untap it with the Staff, then use to untap the Staff itself. Now you're in the same starting position, but you have netted .
This means infinite mana, and with the Staff available, it also means infinite life, taps, untaps, and draws as well. That should be enough to win.
Priest of Titania and Staff of Domination – 29,299 decks
Over the years, there are plenty of cards to add to the Priest half of the combo, whether they are creatures that care about defenders, devotion, creatures in general, or power. Meanwhile, Umbral Mantle is a fitting replacement for the Staff. You won't get to draw your deck, but you'll still have infinite mana with the added bonus of infinitely powerful creatures.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading along! Do you have any devoted combos in your monocolored decks? What about simple combos that only require a single color that you think are under the radar? Let the EDHREC community know in the comments below, and see you next time.