Kediss, Emberclaw FamiliarKediss, Emberclaw Familiar | Art by Jesper Ejsing
HatredHatred | Art by Brom

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Divine InterventionDivine Intervention is the only card with multiple combos that draw the game that see play in less than five decks?)

It's combo week here at EDHREC, and I've done a lot of coverage of some of the best combos in the game. From cheap two-card combos for Silverquill, the DisputantSilverquill, the Disputant, to expensive artifact combos for Lady OctopusLady Octopus, to more generic lists like the Top 10 Combo Dragons and infinite mana combos. I've even done decks that are made up of only combos, and explored new combos given to us by upgrades on previous combo-riffic cards.

One thing I've never done, however? I've never looked at the worst there is to offer. Which, it turns out, is for good reason. There are thousands of combos tied for zero inclusions, and those probably aren't even the worst, as there's more and more convoluted nonsense that gets found in Magic: The Gathering every day. In short, the worst possible combos probably haven't been found yet, and maybe never will, because they involve cards that no one is playing.

You know what we probably do know most of at this point, though? Two-card combos. Even when they involve awful cards, like Personal IncarnationPersonal Incarnation, folks have taken the time to think through the options and realize that this terrible card goes infinite with Crackdown ConstructCrackdown Construct. In short, there's a cap on the nonsense with two-card combos that just isn't present otherwise. We do, however, want true two-card combos. With that in mind, combos that have a prerequisite third card required, such as Chain of AcidChain of Acid needing a creature with indestructible to infinitely trigger Eager First-YearEager First-Year, will not be considered for our list today.

That said, there are plenty of two-card combos that could technically give you infinite mana, or infinite card draw, or infinite enters triggers, or even win you the game that are still truly awful. Seven-mana cards that don't do anything, board state prerequisites that are just as likely to lose you the game as win it for you, four-color nonsense that just has infinitely better options to win the game... there are all sorts of reasons why there are combos out there that are possible, but aren't really seeing any play.

So, shall we explore them?

Top 10 Worst Two-Card Combos

Criteria: Combos involving only two cards that do not share a card with a card higher on the list. If a card has the same number of inclusions and shares a combo with another card, both will be included. If two combos are tied for inclusions, the first tie-breaker will be number of colors, with more colors being worse. If two combos share number of inclusions and number of colors, the tiebreaker will be my personal decision as to which combo is worse. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score, although in this case we will be looking for the lowest score, not the highest.

10. Yavimaya BloomsageYavimaya Bloomsage & Cut // RibbonsCut // Ribbons

(2 Inclusions, 0.00031% of 644k Decks)

ChannelChannel FireballFireball is the oldest, most simple combo Magic has ever seen, and it turns out, it lives on in 2026! But why play a combo that will only kill one opponent when you can play one that will kill all of them? Sure, sure, that should probably be ExsanguinateExsanguinate instead of CutCut to RibbonsRibbons, but we're not here to talk about the better options today! And honestly, the short side of this equation isn't our X spell, it's Yavimaya BloomsageYavimaya Bloomsage and its need to have a seven-power creature before you can cast Channel. Combine all that with this whole thing assuming you have more life than your opponents' do, and this thing is on very shaky ground. Which sounds fun, doesn't it?

9. Vivi OrnitierVivi Ornitier & Volrath, the ShapestealerVolrath, the Shapestealer

(2 Inclusions, 0.00031% of 644k Decks)

If there was a card I wasn't expecting to see on this list, it was Vivi OrnitierVivi Ornitier. Vivi is famous for another two-card combo that is popular as all get-out: Vivi and CuriosityCuriosity. Sure, sure, it's not infinite, it's non-determinative, but the fact is, when you draw three cards every time you cast a spell and your commander comes with a font of mana attached to it, you can win the game with that nine times out of ten.

So, why would you go out of your way to include two more colors in your deck to play another legendary creature that's much less good that does nothing when it comes to spell-slinging? What possible deck would want Vivi Ornitier and Volrath, the ShapestealerVolrath, the Shapestealer? Well, I'm glad you asked, as they do have one common thread between them: counters.

It turns out that there aren't that many five-color commanders that care about weird counter situations, but there are some that care about +1/+1 counters, specifically, and multi-colored spells. Now, is it a good idea to smash Vivi and Volrath into a Jared CarthalionJared Carthalion brew and use it to get infinite mana without even having an outlet to win the game with it in the command zone? No, absolutely not. Does it sound like fun? You bet!

8. Mayael's AriaMayael's Aria & Minion of the WastesMinion of the Wastes

(2 Inclusions, 0.000312% of 641k Decks)

In the ongoing saga of four-color combos seeing barely any play comes this gem of a do-nothing enchantment paired with an actively terrible creature. Minion of the WastesMinion of the Wastes is one of the first cards printed that can get to 20 power, thanks to Commander's 40 life. Mayael's AriaMayael's Aria came along a lot later, trying to reward Naya decks that had gotten to their desired GodsireGodsire state of having massive creatures everywhere that just get bigger every turn. Now, to be clear, there are much, much better creatures to pair Aria up with. In fact, it has a combo page of 26 better creatures to do this same thing with, all of which require you to make it through a turn cycle with no one having a single removal spell to blow up your chances.

Most of those creatures, however, don't cost six mana with three pips. They also don't require both a fourth color and half of your starting life total. No, you have to be a real sicko to want to pair up Minion and Mayael's Aria, and that's what I like about you.

7. Famished ForagersFamished Foragers & Emiel the BlessedEmiel the Blessed

(1 Inclusion, 0.0000917% of 1.09M Decks)

You do need to swing in or otherwise cause damage for this whole thing to work, but if you've managed that, this combo actually isn't bad. Famished ForagersFamished Foragers enters, adding , which can then be spent to activate EmielEmiel's ability to blink Foragers, which will then reenter, adding , ad infinitum. Now, that's all it does. There isn't an extra mana to make infinite mana, or a trigger to deal damage along the way, or anything. In other words? For this to win you the game, you do need a third card that does something with this combo. But that's okay: if this did win the game, it'd be a good combo, right?

6. Sway of the StarsSway of the Stars & Zurgo StormrenderZurgo Stormrender

(1 Inclusion, 0.00015% of 668k Decks)

If you are looking for a bad combo, may I suggest to you one that involves a ten-mana spell, not in the colors of the legend it combos with? Sway of the StarsSway of the Stars was banned for a long time for exactly this reason, in that if you could amass a board state of things that trigger when they leave, you could reduce everyone's life total to seven, then resolve the triggers to kill your opponents. It turns out, however, that not very many cards can actually do this, with Zurgo StormrenderZurgo Stormrender being the worst of four.

Okay, okay, that's not actually what the Rules Committee was worried about when it came to Sway of the Stars. These combos are all pretty darn bad, requiring casting a massive spell and already having a huge prerequisite accomplished elsewhere. What they were worried about was Sway of the Stars negating the entire game that had come before then, which it does rather effectively. In short, it's annoying when someone throws an entire game in the trash can and says "let's start over", so instead of embracing the chaos, why not throw this combo in your deck that's trying out Sway of the Stars, or WorldfireWorldfire for that matter?

5. Charnelhoard WurmCharnelhoard Wurm OR Treasury ThrullTreasury Thrull & Second ChanceSecond Chance

(1 Inclusion, 0.000155% of 644k Decks)

Whether it be Charnelhoard WurmCharnelhoard Wurm or Treasury ThrullTreasury Thrull, the basic plan of this combo is to get yourself down to five life, get to your upkeep without dying, and then go to attack step and hope that your combo piece lives through it. If all that happens, repeatedly, then congratulations! You can take infinite extra turns. Do I think any of that is likely to happen, routinely? Nope! But that's why we're looking at bad combos today, and not good ones.

4. Nadier, Agent of the DuskenelNadier, Agent of the Duskenel & Food ChainFood Chain

(0 Inclusions, 0% of 1.99M Decks)

This one probably shouldn't be on this list. Is it suboptimal, to only have infinite tokens and +1/+1 counters from your Food ChainFood Chain combo? The answer is yes, as there are dozens of Food Chain commanders that can win on the spot and not have to wait for summoning sickness to wear off. The difference between those commanders and Nadier, Agent of the DuskenelNadier, Agent of the Duskenel, however, is that most of those commanders don't fully combo with Food Chain, instead requiring the likes of Squee, the ImmortalSquee, the Immortal or Eternal ScourgeEternal Scourge. Nadier, on the other hand, provides seven mana with his own body, then one more for each token he makes on death. In other words, you can exile him to Food Chain, exile one of the three tokens he makes when he dies, and recast him with two tokens left over. You can then exile those two tokens to put +1/+1 counters on Nadier, which will now make five tokens when you exile him, and so on, and so on.

In other words? This isn't a bad combo. No, what we're suffering from here is a bad commander. Nadier is six mana for a 3/3 and doesn't really do much outside of comboing with Food Chain where he doesn't win until the turn after you combo off. In other words? You're playing a bracket 4 deck with a bad commander and a suboptimal plan to win the game, meaning you're playing a bracket 3 deck that's legally required to be bracket 4.

All of which is to say, this isn't a bad combo, it's just a combo without a real home. There are better things to be doing in an environment with no holds barred, and yet the combo is too good to be played at a lower power level.

3. Kediss, Emberclaw FamiliarKediss, Emberclaw Familiar & HatredHatred

(0 Inclusions, 0% of 2.16M Decks)

If I'm honest? This is my favorite combo on the list, bar none. I was an old school black suicide player in the late 90s, and HatredHatred activates my nostalgia gene directly. Is this a little all-in? Yep. Are you likely to have your Hatred countered or your KedissKediss removed, leaving you with a single life and no real prospects? Absolutely. But when that doesn't happen and the table just dies because someone failed to block your 1/1 Lizard of a commander... that's a hell of an "I did the thing!" story.

2. Felothar the SteadfastFelothar the Steadfast OR Tom, Bert, and WilliamTom, Bert, and William & Body of ResearchBody of Research

(0 Inclusions, 0% of 702k Decks)

Back to our regularly scheduled bad combos, Body of ResearchBody of Research is a six-mana, six-pip sorcery that makes a creature as big as your library. Felothar the SteadfastFelothar the Steadfast and Tom, Bert, and WilliamTom, Bert, and William are creatures that can sacrifice another creature to draw cards equal to how big that creature was. Put the two together with three to four colors, eight to nine pips, and 10-11 mana, and you can draw your whole deck, which is pretty cool, and definitely a slow enough combo that you could play it in bracket 3.

1. Chamber SentryChamber Sentry & Enduring RenewalEnduring Renewal

(0 Inclusions, 0% of 626k Decks)

Why go four-color when you could go five, though? Why win the game by drawing your whole deck when you could instead just create infinite enters and dies triggers that don't actually do anything without another card getting involved?

As is correct for a combo at the top of our list of worst two-card combos in the game, there are dozens of better variations of this combo. Enduring RenewalEnduring Renewal and any -cost creature that comes in as a 0/0 can make infinite enters and dies triggers. In other words? If you wanted to do this, there is any number of better ways to do it in pretty much any white-plus color combination you wanted to do it in.

But if you were committed to the bit... what would be the best five-color commanders that can take advantage of your infinite enters/dies triggers?

Azlask, the Swelling ScourgeAzlask, the Swelling Scourge would be a bit hard-pressed to take advantage of Enduring Renewal and Chamber SentryChamber Sentry, as it would definitely be a bracket 4 combo, but you wouldn't get to win until the turn after you did it, instead settling for infinite experience counters in the meantime. Better would be General TazriGeneral Tazri, who allows you to search for any Ally, which notably includes well-known trigger-abuser Zulaport CutthroatZulaport Cutthroat, which could just drain the table out.

Honorable Mentions

There are a couple more combos at the two inclusion mark that were technically tied for tenth on our list but that had fewer colors than Yavimaya BloomsageYavimaya Bloomsage and Cut // RibbonsCut // Ribbons. Both of them, however, are just the bottom of a long list of things that combo with Crackdown ConstructCrackdown Construct to make it infinitely large:

Put simply, any artifact or creature that can activate for zero will make Crackdown Construct become infinitely large. How useful that is? I'll let you decide, although I will say that we already saw one thing to do with it on this list in the form of Felothar the SteadfastFelothar the Steadfast and Tom, Bert, and WilliamTom, Bert, and William. As for the cards Construct is comboing with? Well, there's a reason they're at the bottom of the list, very far away from efficient options, like Lightning GreavesLightning Greaves and ShukoShuko. For Personal IncarnationPersonal Incarnation, that reason begins and ends at its insane mana cost. For Varchild's CrusaderVarchild's Crusader, there's a little bit of that as well given its status as a four-mana 3/2, but don't forget that it also sacrifices itself as part of the ability you're activating over and over. Woof.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall Commander Spellbook search.

What Do You Think?

And finally, what is your favorite terrible two-card combo? Did it make our list, or did you keep it out of the running by putting it in one of your decks?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the two tables that weren't the same height or shape, so we had to use various books, papers, and cardboard to bring them together.