Magic: The Gathering decks are made up of many moving parts, and this is true for any casual or competitive format, ranging from kitchen-table Magic and the Standard format to booster draft Limited or intense matches in the Modern format or Legacy. One concept that new players must learn is the concept of win-cons, or win conditions. Not all decks use them, but those that do must shape their entire game plan around them.
Often, it’s combo decks and dedicated control decks that use win-cons, usually in the Constructed formats, and win-cons appear in all five colors, as well as colorless cards, such as powerful artifacts or even lands. Novice players are urged to learn how to recognize win-con cards, use them, or fight against them. Some games will be decided almost entirely by the win-con, and both players must be ready.
How To Use Or Fight Against Win-Cons In Magic
A win-con is a powerful card that can potentially win the entire game if it has the right context and enough cards to support it. In a sense, a deck’s win-con is its main weapon. In a combo deck, the win-con is one or more cards that will come together to end the game via effects such as direct damage, infinite creature tokens, milling the opponent, and more. Combo decks are built almost entirely around being able to cast (and protect) the combo win-con.
In control decks, a win-con is a single powerful card that can apply serious pressure to the opponent and defeat them, and these win-cons are usually cast later in the game when the opponent is too far behind to fight back. Ideally, counterspells, removal spells and hand control effects will protect a win-con in either a combo deck or a control deck.
When a player builds a deck that relies on dedicated win-cons, they must know exactly what those win-cons are and be ready to stall out their opponent until they can cast and protect that win-con, such as a three-card combo, a huge creature or even a man-land, such as Celestial Colonnade. In fact, the player might not want to see their win-con in their opening hand. This is because the win-con won’t be cast that early anyway, and the player would rather have a hand full of spells that keep them alive until they can draw that win-con and use it. Combo players are in a roughly similar situation, though having one win-con card in hand isn’t so bad. That one card won’t take up too much room, so the combo player can use other spells (such as cheap blue spells) to draw the rest of their combo.
A win-con is strong, but the player must be ready for their opponent to try and negate it, especially with cards from their sideboard. So, the control or combo player can have a backup win-con either in their mainboard or in their sideboard. Otherwise, the deck is vulnerable to “silver bullet” effects and may have no means of winning. Decks might even have a plan C win-con if they must. In formats such as Modern and Legacy, decks aren’t terribly open to drastic customization, so the opponent can predict what the player’s win-con will be. That means the combo or control player must have plan B or plan C ready, especially after sideboarding is done.
Conversely, a player facing a combo or control deck is urged to memorize which win-cons are used in which decks and estimate what sort of cards their opponents will play and when. The player may be in a position where they’re ready for the win-con to arrive at any second and have a counterspell or removal spell ready at all times. And the sideboard should have one or more cards that can nullify a typical win-con in their meta, from Pithing Needle to Duress to Ghost Quarter or even Slaughter Games or Surgical Extraction.
Examples of Win-Con Cards
Typically, control decks will use creatures, lands and planeswalkers as their win-cons, and combo decks may use creatures, instants and sorceries to win the game in one fell swoop. Celestial Colonnade is the go-to win condition for Esper Control decks since it’s immune to countermagic and hand control, and a 4/4 flier is a great evasive beater later in the game (and it provides mana until then).
Creeping Tar-Pit is Celestial Colonnade’s black-blue cousin, being a bit weaker but even more difficult to block once it becomes a creature. Meanwhile, control decks may also turn to an Equipment card named Batterskull to win, a Living Weapon artifact that arrives as a 4/4 with lifelink and vigilance. It can return to its owner’s hand if it’s in danger of being destroyed, giving it serious staying power as a win-con. There’s also the option of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which has a hard-hitting win-con with its ult ability.
Green Tron decks are based mainly on win-cons, with Karn Liberated being the main one and cards such as Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Wurmcoil Engine being scary threats on turns three or four. The Ad Nauseam combo deck will cast Angel’s Grace and Ad Nauseam to draw their entire deck, then discard lands to Lightning Storm to burn the opponent to death. Scapeshift decks cast Scapeshift, a green sorcery, and use Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle’s triggered ability to effectively Bolt the opponent into oblivion. Combo decks with green mana right rely on beaters such as Tarmogoyf and/or Obstinate Baloth as plan B if the combo fails.
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