Ridiculous Reality Fracture Mythic Creates Turn 4 Infinite Combos in Multiple Formats

Since its debut at the set’s spoiler season kickoff, many eyes have been on Reality Fracture’s Hexhaven Invigorator. With tons of combo potential in formats like Modern, many players believed that this Phyrexian ObliteratorPhyrexian ObliteratorTrample
Whenever a source deals damage to this creature, that source's controller sacrifices that many permanents of their choice. retrain might be the next Primeval TitanPrimeval TitanTrample
Whenever this creature enters or attacks, you may search your library for up to two land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle..

While the card is still being explored in older formats, the infinite combos it can pull off are quite powerful. If that weren’t enough, Hexhaven Invigorator seems to have Standard infinite combos too, massively increasing its potential.

MTG Hexhaven Invigorator Standard Infinite Combo

Discovered by Pro Tour winner Simon Nielson, Standard’s Hexhaven Invigorator infinite combo is a bit more complex than the rest. This is primarily a 3-card combo that uses three new Reality Fracture cards: Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes, Way of the Warlord, and the Invigorator itself.

The goal is to, essentially, use Way of the Warlord’s -4 ability infinitely, dealing infinite damage to Hexhaven Invigorator and tutoring all the lands in your deck into play. Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes’s Landfall ability fuels your extra Empower Jace activations, while Roiling Canopy keeps your Hexhaven Invigorator alive.

Here’s an example of how the combo works:

• Start with a Jace token at 4 loyalty, as well as Hexhaven Invigorator, Way of the Warlord, Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes, and at least three Forest lands in play
• Activate Way of the Warlord’s -4, dealing two damage to Hexhaven Invigorator and your opponent. Invigorator finds Roiling Canopy and a Forest land, while your Jace token dies.
• Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes triggers twice, Empowering Jace 4. Activate the -4 ability again with the same targets, finding two Forest lands this time.
• Roiling Canopy triggers twice, giving your Invigorator +6/+6. Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes also triggers twice, Empowering Jace 4. You can then target Invigorator again with your -4 ability, creating a loop.

Sadly, because Way of the Warlord Empowers Jace 5, setting up this combo is more difficult than it looks. Surveilling 1 with your Jace token and going for the combo next turn is the easiest way to make this work, but you can also use Fabled Passage to Empower Jace 4 with Avatar if your opponent goes after your Jace token.

Given how difficult this combo is to set up, it might not be competitively viable in Standard, but as Nielson shows, you can pull it off as early as turn four. That said, since creature removal easily disrupts this combo, I wouldn’t count on it making a competitive appearance.

Beyond Standard

While this newly discovered Standard combo for Hexhaven Invigorator is quite interesting, things get a lot scarier when Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is added to the mix. With Mine Collapse dealing 5 damage to the Invigorator for free, you can easily set up a similar infinite combo as early as turn four.

To start, you need four Forest/Mountain cards in play, one of which you’ll sacrifice to Mine Collapse to deal 5 damage to your Invigorator. From here, you can search up three Mountain/Forest lands, Valakut, and Roiling Canopy, triggering Valakut and Canopy three times each. Buff up your Invigorator before dealing damage to it with Valakut, finding three more lands in the process. Killing your opponent from here should be trivial.

While this combo is already well-known in Modern and is seeing some early experimentation, you can also pull it off in Historic, where Scapeshift Valakut decks were already competitively viable. Notably, you can also grab Yavimaya, Cradle of GrowthYavimaya, Cradle of GrowthEach land is a Forest in addition to its other land types. with your Invigorator, making Roiling Canopy extremely easy to trigger. Green Sun’s Zenith can further improve your consistency, essentially giving you eight copies of your key creature.

Compared to Standard, Hexhaven Invigorator looks far more powerful in Modern and Historic since you really only need two cards to combo off. Of the three formats, this might mean Invigorator is at its best in Historic, since the card pool there is far weaker than Modern.

Add its Commander appeal, and it’s no wonder this card is one of the most expensive Reality Fracture cards after release. It will be interesting to see if any of these combos have a larger impact on these formats’ metagames, or if Hexhaven Invigorator is just yet another silly combo card.

Stick with us here at dev.mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!