The new Smaug card revealed for Magic: The Gathering’s The Hobbit set goes infinite with upsetting ease. Smaug the Impenetrable may be difficult to cast at seven mana, but you’ll be glad of that if you ever play against this MTG commander. That’s because there are several two card combos that work with this scary dragon to make infinite mana or dish out infinite damage.
Smaug the Impenetrable is a massive, indestructible dragon with a really cool ability. When he takes noncombat damage (which, obviously, he can’t die from), he spits out treasure tokens.
This is a super sweet way of ramping, in colors that are normally pretty bad at that. It turns Lightning Bolt into a red Dark Ritual, for instance, while Blasphemous Act now doesn’t just wipe the board, but also leaves you an inheritance of 13 treasures.
One of the easiest ways to win with Smaug the Impenetrable is with the enchantments Pyrohemia or Pestilence. These cards let you pay one mana to deal one damage to every creature and player. With Smaug on the field, you can use this ability as often as you like, as each activation makes a treasure that lets you use it again. You can wipe out every creature that isn’t Smaug, and if you have the most life, you can win the game on the spot, burning out every opponent’s life total.
Of course, it’s a lot less useful if you’re not the life total leader, and if your opponents saw this combo coming, the odds are good that you’re not. You can still make it work, however, if you use the card Urza’s Armor. This negates the damage Pestilence and Pyrohemia deal to you, making it safe to go infinite and claim the win.
Another option, if you want a two card combo, and prefer mana to damage, is the sorcery spell Chain Lightning. This wacky card lets the owner of whatever it targets copy the spell after damage is dealt. Normally, this allows players to zap each other around the table, but here it lets you make infinite mana.
You just need to target Smaug with Chain Lightning, and pay two mana to copy it (targeting Smaug again) as it resolves. Then order your triggers so that Smaug’s treasure-making ability goes off before the copy fires, and you end up with three treasures. Then you can copy the spell again and again, always hitting Smaug, and using two treasures to make three. Keep going, and you have infinite mana.
If you can’t win the game when you have infinite treasures then you don’t deserve to. May I suggest a big X-cost spell – Torment of Hailfire seems fitting, no?
Source: Wargamer
