Talking about all my favorite combos in the commander format. Patreon / edhdeckbuilding The T-shirt I'm wearing intotheam.com/EDHDeck promo code: EDHDeck
It was me! I was the patron that mentioned the Monkey cage combo, sadly I don't have the income to keep being a patron anymore, my friend who came up with it called it the 13 Monkeys combo (after the film) It's one of those Legendary stories of EDH, making combos! He played it in a mono red goblins deck I recall to up the number of tokens on the field for the Warp.
I have a combo that has become one of my recent favorites. It uses only lands and takes infinite turns, and you can play it in a mono-blue deck. Play Magosi the Waterveil, and skip one of your turns (high cost indeed) to put an eon counter on it. Then get Karn's Bastion to proliferate another eon counter onto Magosi. Then use Nesting Grounds to move one of the eon counters onto another permanent to store it. Then bounce Magosi back to hand to take an extra turn, and replay it as your land for turn. Next turn everything untaps, and you spend 5 to proliferate, 2 to move one token back to Magosi, and 1 to bounce Magosi and take another turn. Rinse and repeat.
One combo I enjoy is Madcap Experiment in a deck where the only artifact is Platinum Emperion. Due to a ruling, you get the freecast with no loss of life.
Conspiracy + Endreck Shar, Master Breeder = Infinite (non-)Thrulls! Just love the Combo and I love Endreck Sahr as a Commander Additionally, in terms of combo, my number 1 deck is my Slobad Scrapyard. It is an artifact based deck around the old Slobad with the theme of playing artifacts, sacrificing them, returning them and reusing them. During the first month of playing the deck I always found new combo-interactions in the deck, which was absolutely great. Sometimes it was even gameending without me realizing it at the beginning of the turn.
A personal favorite of mine is turning a cheap deck-filler into the key combo piece that ends the game. Octavia + Gigadrowse - make your X creatures on your board 8/8s while tapping down X blockers your opponents control Horobi + Touch of Darkness - 1 mana 1-sided-board-wipe. Etc
Radiant Performer +... (ideally played under a cost reduction commander like Animar or Henzie) ..+ Agent of treachery or Zealous Conscripts = everybody's stuff is yours ..+ Assassin's trophy (+Ob Nixilis Unshackled) = asymmetrical board wipe ..+emrakul the promised end = 3 extra turns under your conteol
The combo with monkey cage could also work with Sydri Galvanic Genius as a commander transforming it into a creature then using planar guide's activated ability which will exile monkey cage then when the creatures come back monkey cage will see all of them as well
In Orzhov/WBX, Ophiomancer will work with Divine Visitation as well. With the Warp World/Monkey Cage example, I think running as many Haste enablers as possible would be key. If their creatures are big, you’re going to swarm them, and if they are small you’re going to force bad blocks. In Boros, there’s also a chance to hit an anthem or two, while in Gruul you could hit one of many token doublers. Seems like a relatively reliable win-con. There are a couple two-card combos that revolve around Ivy Lane Denizen or Rosie Cotton, which each pair up with either Herd Baloth or Scurry Oak. If you use ILD, you need it on the board first. If you use Rosie Cotton you need HB or SO on board first. Either way, you end up with an arbitrarily large HB or SO and an arbitrarily large number of token creatures.
Fun combo/deck idea for you demo - play sakashima of a thousand faces with a parter in really any color(s) and then the goal is to get all three kaldra pieces out. Then you have an engine on the helm of kaldra to make a 4/4 legendary for 1 mana and the sakashima lets you skirt the legend rule so you have a big cheap army! Love your content bud!
Omniscience-> Insurrection/Dark Realm->Warp World. You'd need to run a lot of tutors& some protection to guarantee Omniscience, whomever has the most permanents in play when Warp World resolves benefits the most.
My current favorite combos are from my recent River Song deck and are reliant on her to draw from the bottom of the deck Extra turn sorcery version: River Song and a card like Canal Dredger on the board Cast extra turn spell Put it on the bottom of your library with Canal Dredger (or similar) Draw it in your extra turn Repeat Sinfe this doesn't actually change anything on the board state this 3 card and 5-7 mana combo still needs an out, so I need something like one of the Niv Mizzets that ping or a Locust God or a repeatable draw to search for those in my deck (or an evasive creature to just hit people with, there is a Rogues Passage in the deck for that) There is also Timestream Navigator that does similar stuff, but for the loop it either needs the extra draw or a haste enabler like swiftfoot boots Otherwise River just turns stuff like Canal Dredger and Epitath Golem into neat recursion ans cards like Anticipate and Impulse into getting a card and stacking my draws
My favorite janky combo is Cadaverous Bloom + Lich's Mastery + any lifegain effect. So I have this in my Abzan Lifegain deck and it let's my storm off and play/draw my entire deck, typically the lifegain effect is from a Soul sister and I use the mana to play creatures which also have lifegain etb effects. Works amazing with extort as well 👌
Here's a combo for Mycosynth Lattice+Bludgeon Brawl+Armory Automaton: cast Murderous Spoils on your own automaton. It destroys it, and you permanently gain control of ALL equipment attached to it. Meaning you steal all of your opponent's lands and other non-creature permanents.
Ophiomancer + Divine Visitation is a personal favorite of mine. Generous Patron is mvp in my Volrath deck, don't sleep on Willbreaker in that deck though!
I have a full deck based on interacting with warp world to win the game with Riku the Two Reflections as the commander. At its core is ETB triggers, ETB doublers, mana doublers, and cards that can return warp world to hand. The value is off the charts and if I resolve warp world the game is probably over. If I can double it with Riku’s trigger the game is definitely over. The big swing combos; Terror of the Peaks and Purphoros, God of the Forge just end the game but I think those are pretty straight forward Tunnel Ignus bolt opponents for each land they flip out past the first Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, this works better in mono red but it also just rains lightning bolts after a warp world. Roil Elemental, take all the good creatures (for each land you flipped out)
Monkey cage also hits hard with living death in mid to late game. definitely want to set it up with removing all graveyards besides yours, but it's still fun to pull off
my favorite combo with maskwood nexus is with the world tree. all creatures are gods. and with world tree you can spend the mana intensive 2 of each color to sac world tree and get every god onto the battle field. so 10 mana to get every creature in your deck onto the battlefield. i use it in my sliver deck lol
my arcades sabboth deck is a secret sliver deck. if i find dormant sliver then all slivers are defenders. if i get hivestonee or maskwood, all walls are slivers. i get double draw for walls and slivers + flying, trample, vig, double strike, etc. with eerie interlude/ghostway i can draw a dozen cards on etb. with eternal winess in play and enough mana i can geet it back and do it 3 times before it's my turn
Just wanted to say thanks for some interesting cards. Definitely going to be using conspiracy in my saruman, the white hand deck. I can make all my cards armies to buff anything with +1/+1 counters or make all creatures orcs or goblins to give all my creatures ward and make multiple amass tokens to go wide rather than tall lol
One of my favourite jank combos is maskwood nexus with deathbellow warcry. Lets you tutor for any 4 of your best creatures and immediately play them all without paying their mana costs.
I like Warp World after playing Mana Severance in order to maximize the number of creatures that come into play, with the drawback of using mana rocks and creature sources of mana for the rest of the game.
a combo that i would like to fit into a deck sometime is 'Stormtide Leviathan' + some effect that prevents islands from untapping. 'Curse of Marit Lague' is the go to card because it also TAPS all islands on ETB. 'Choke' will prevent islands from untapping. so the idea is, now you have an 8/8 islandwalk creature that prevents non-flying and non-islandwalk creatures from attacking, can freely hit your opponents, and now nobody can tap lands for mana. not a HARD lock, but potentially a very strong one. havent been able to fit it into a deck because the enchanments are REALLY jank and dont do very much to the board for the mana invested, especially since they hurt you for having islands too.
how would mystic reflection work with a warp world? would you be able to cast it in response to the warp world cast, and everyone would create a copy of (insert creature)? seems kinda neat, could do some funny stuff
i put warp world in my treasure deck, it is more permanent based and if you hoard treasures you can reveal 20 cards putting you on average further ahead then your opponents.
My favorite combo requires a literal 10 cards to set up but it involves the sixth doctor, ojer Taq, Mondrak, Adrix and Nev, lullmage Mentor, a few additional clone effects and Mystic Reflection. The most I've done with it was countered a spell using Lullmage Mentor, made like 130 merfolk tokens, then cast Mystic Reflection targeting Lullmage Mentor. 130 tokens enter as copies of it, now when I counter any spell, I make 16900 merfolk tokens, all of which can be tapped to counter any spell. I win. Lol
Warp World + Tunnel Ignus is an old "sometimes" winning combo. although Im not sure if we played it correctly :P The Monkey cage isn't winning unless you got haste
Auratog and Rancor! Hulk SMASH! Just came up with Cavalier of Dawn and Animate Dead: Animate the Cavalier, have it destroy the Animate Dead to get a 3/3 golem, Cavalier dies as a result, death trigger returns Animate Dead to hand. Repeat I have a Sythis deck with the sole purpose of using Tornado and Solemnity (Saw the combo the moment Solemnity got released, as Tornado was already on my short list of cards I really wanted to make work) Literally just made a monoblue merfolk deck with intruder alarm and lullmage in it (Emperor Mihail II) Mirrorweave is hilarious. Attack with some sort of evasion, one creature at each player, then use it on a Virulent Sliver. Suddenly all creatures have poisonious N, where N is the number of creatures in play
With Warp World you can wait, for there are cards that let you see your library or better use an vampiric tutor, then you are sure you get your monkey cage with Warp World.
If u have a way to make infinite tokens, then cast warp world, since it doesn’t say non-token permanents, you’d reveal all the permanents in ur deck including monkey cage right?
There are a couple cards with effects like the salamander, that if you combine them with bow of nylea or ohran frostfang give you repeated one sided boardwipes. For the sake of sportsmanship please show restriction with this tek if you play at a casual table.
One of my favorite combos happened recently where an opponent played tombstone stairwell into my Teysa, Orzhov Scion. I got a whole round of 12 black creatures dying every instep giving me 36 white spirits. My opponent didn’t read the card, so it didn’t explain the card.
I think it's really fun brewing different deck ideas and thinking about synergies. But i think it's really bad advices to suggest playing 2 cards in a deck that sometime only synergize between themselves. If your deck runs a Ophiomancer, throwing a Conspiracy in it only means that 90% of your games it will be an absolute dead draw, unless you already have Ophiomancer in play, in which case it's still a suboptimal play for 8 mana. We should prioritize deck synergy as a whole. But of course, you absolutely play what you want. I tend to favor playing combo card that synergize with the rest of my deck, and is always a good draw.
Probably more a matter of "incidental value". Ophiomancer provides value in any deck it's in, but Conspiracy is build-around. So if you're already running Conspiracy because you want all your creatures to be a certain type, then consider Ophiomancer since that's going to be a good card even without Conspiracy. Conversely, if you're running Ophiomancer to provide sac fodder and you don't care about creature types, then you probably don't want to run Conspiracy (for the reasons you mentioned.) EDIT: Demo does speak to this at 13:13.
It was me! I was the patron that mentioned the Monkey cage combo, sadly I don't have the income to keep being a patron anymore, my friend who came up with it called it the 13 Monkeys combo (after the film) It's one of those Legendary stories of EDH, making combos! He played it in a mono red goblins deck I recall to up the number of tokens on the field for the Warp.
thanks for bringing the intro back, was not the same without it
Very much agree!
The intro has no reason to slap so hard as it does, but I'm glad it does
I have a combo that has become one of my recent favorites. It uses only lands and takes infinite turns, and you can play it in a mono-blue deck. Play Magosi the Waterveil, and skip one of your turns (high cost indeed) to put an eon counter on it. Then get Karn's Bastion to proliferate another eon counter onto Magosi. Then use Nesting Grounds to move one of the eon counters onto another permanent to store it. Then bounce Magosi back to hand to take an extra turn, and replay it as your land for turn. Next turn everything untaps, and you spend 5 to proliferate, 2 to move one token back to Magosi, and 1 to bounce Magosi and take another turn. Rinse and repeat.
One combo I enjoy is Madcap Experiment in a deck where the only artifact is Platinum Emperion. Due to a ruling, you get the freecast with no loss of life.
If you hit a goblin bombardment off warped world as well, you can turn all of the monkeys into damage before the other ETBs even resolve.
Conspiracy + Endreck Shar, Master Breeder = Infinite (non-)Thrulls! Just love the Combo and I love Endreck Sahr as a Commander
Additionally, in terms of combo, my number 1 deck is my Slobad Scrapyard. It is an artifact based deck around the old Slobad with the theme of playing artifacts, sacrificing them, returning them and reusing them. During the first month of playing the deck I always found new combo-interactions in the deck, which was absolutely great. Sometimes it was even gameending without me realizing it at the beginning of the turn.
A personal favorite of mine is turning a cheap deck-filler into the key combo piece that ends the game.
Octavia + Gigadrowse - make your X creatures on your board 8/8s while tapping down X blockers your opponents control
Horobi + Touch of Darkness - 1 mana 1-sided-board-wipe. Etc
I recently built my Octavia deck and gigadrowse is a blast
Radiant Performer +... (ideally played under a cost reduction commander like Animar or Henzie)
..+ Agent of treachery or Zealous Conscripts = everybody's stuff is yours
..+ Assassin's trophy (+Ob Nixilis Unshackled) = asymmetrical board wipe
..+emrakul the promised end = 3 extra turns under your conteol
The combo with monkey cage could also work with Sydri Galvanic Genius as a commander transforming it into a creature then using planar guide's activated ability which will exile monkey cage then when the creatures come back monkey cage will see all of them as well
That drooling orge one is disgusting. I'm shocked I've never seen that one before.
I'm trying to think of a Jeskai commander to brew that with now lol
Monkey cage + Living end = Hilarity
In Orzhov/WBX, Ophiomancer will work with Divine Visitation as well.
With the Warp World/Monkey Cage example, I think running as many Haste enablers as possible would be key. If their creatures are big, you’re going to swarm them, and if they are small you’re going to force bad blocks. In Boros, there’s also a chance to hit an anthem or two, while in Gruul you could hit one of many token doublers. Seems like a relatively reliable win-con.
There are a couple two-card combos that revolve around Ivy Lane Denizen or Rosie Cotton, which each pair up with either Herd Baloth or Scurry Oak. If you use ILD, you need it on the board first. If you use Rosie Cotton you need HB or SO on board first. Either way, you end up with an arbitrarily large HB or SO and an arbitrarily large number of token creatures.
Fun combo/deck idea for you demo - play sakashima of a thousand faces with a parter in really any color(s) and then the goal is to get all three kaldra pieces out. Then you have an engine on the helm of kaldra to make a 4/4 legendary for 1 mana and the sakashima lets you skirt the legend rule so you have a big cheap army! Love your content bud!
My Mycosynth Lattice heater:
Lattice + Unwinding Clock + Kill Switch
Full (c)lock down.
Omniscience-> Insurrection/Dark Realm->Warp World.
You'd need to run a lot of tutors& some protection to guarantee Omniscience, whomever has the most permanents in play when Warp World resolves benefits the most.
My current favorite combos are from my recent River Song deck and are reliant on her to draw from the bottom of the deck
Extra turn sorcery version:
River Song and a card like Canal Dredger on the board
Cast extra turn spell
Put it on the bottom of your library with Canal Dredger (or similar)
Draw it in your extra turn
Repeat
Sinfe this doesn't actually change anything on the board state this 3 card and 5-7 mana combo still needs an out, so I need something like one of the Niv Mizzets that ping or a Locust God or a repeatable draw to search for those in my deck (or an evasive creature to just hit people with, there is a Rogues Passage in the deck for that)
There is also Timestream Navigator that does similar stuff, but for the loop it either needs the extra draw or a haste enabler like swiftfoot boots
Otherwise River just turns stuff like Canal Dredger and Epitath Golem into neat recursion ans cards like Anticipate and Impulse into getting a card and stacking my draws
My favorite janky combo is Cadaverous Bloom + Lich's Mastery + any lifegain effect. So I have this in my Abzan Lifegain deck and it let's my storm off and play/draw my entire deck, typically the lifegain effect is from a Soul sister and I use the mana to play creatures which also have lifegain etb effects. Works amazing with extort as well 👌
Threw generous Patron in the wise mothman and drew 15 cards in a round
Here's a combo for Mycosynth Lattice+Bludgeon Brawl+Armory Automaton: cast Murderous Spoils on your own automaton. It destroys it, and you permanently gain control of ALL equipment attached to it. Meaning you steal all of your opponent's lands and other non-creature permanents.
Ophiomancer + Divine Visitation is a personal favorite of mine.
Generous Patron is mvp in my Volrath deck, don't sleep on Willbreaker in that deck though!
Sefir got me into looking for jank combos and they can be so fun.
I have a full deck based on interacting with warp world to win the game with Riku the Two Reflections as the commander. At its core is ETB triggers, ETB doublers, mana doublers, and cards that can return warp world to hand. The value is off the charts and if I resolve warp world the game is probably over. If I can double it with Riku’s trigger the game is definitely over.
The big swing combos;
Terror of the Peaks and Purphoros, God of the Forge just end the game but I think those are pretty straight forward
Tunnel Ignus bolt opponents for each land they flip out past the first
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, this works better in mono red but it also just rains lightning bolts after a warp world.
Roil Elemental, take all the good creatures (for each land you flipped out)
Pure Reflection and Spirit Mirror both seem cool with creature type changing shenanigans. Would be an interesting deck.
Monkey cage also hits hard with living death in mid to late game. definitely want to set it up with removing all graveyards besides yours, but it's still fun to pull off
Monkey Cage can get up to a lot of shenanigans with The Master, Multiplied.
last laugh also is a perfect fit in my Kazarov Voltron Deck :)
Death Pits of Rath + Caltrops = Don't even think of attacking. Realm Razer + Tunnel Ignus. Sac outlet for Razer and watch the fun.
With Mishra, Eminent One and Monkey Cage, the Warform causes you to get 10 2/2 Monkeys.
Man that warpworld monkey cage combo might have to go into my Kibo deck 😂
my favorite combo with maskwood nexus is with the world tree. all creatures are gods. and with world tree you can spend the mana intensive 2 of each color to sac world tree and get every god onto the battle field. so 10 mana to get every creature in your deck onto the battlefield. i use it in my sliver deck lol
my arcades sabboth deck is a secret sliver deck. if i find dormant sliver then all slivers are defenders. if i get hivestonee or maskwood, all walls are slivers. i get double draw for walls and slivers + flying, trample, vig, double strike, etc. with eerie interlude/ghostway i can draw a dozen cards on etb. with eternal winess in play and enough mana i can geet it back and do it 3 times before it's my turn
Prototype Portal + The One Ring or The Stasis Coffin.
Just wanted to say thanks for some interesting cards. Definitely going to be using conspiracy in my saruman, the white hand deck. I can make all my cards armies to buff anything with +1/+1 counters or make all creatures orcs or goblins to give all my creatures ward and make multiple amass tokens to go wide rather than tall lol
One of my favourite jank combos is maskwood nexus with deathbellow warcry. Lets you tutor for any 4 of your best creatures and immediately play them all without paying their mana costs.
I like Warp World after playing Mana Severance in order to maximize the number of creatures that come into play, with the drawback of using mana rocks and creature sources of mana for the rest of the game.
I have lullmage mentor and intruder alarm in my hakball deck. So much fun to pull off.
What i expected from the warp world would have been some kind of "oblivion ring hiding some sort of stax effect" kind of sitiation.
a combo that i would like to fit into a deck sometime is 'Stormtide Leviathan' + some effect that prevents islands from untapping. 'Curse of Marit Lague' is the go to card because it also TAPS all islands on ETB. 'Choke' will prevent islands from untapping. so the idea is, now you have an 8/8 islandwalk creature that prevents non-flying and non-islandwalk creatures from attacking, can freely hit your opponents, and now nobody can tap lands for mana. not a HARD lock, but potentially a very strong one. havent been able to fit it into a deck because the enchanments are REALLY jank and dont do very much to the board for the mana invested, especially since they hurt you for having islands too.
18:25 Correct me if I'm wrong. Dryad Arbor (oracle text and green dot) so only commander that have green identity can play it and other can't
You could play gather specimens before warp world, or something like that!
I love jank, more ganes should have it
conspiracy or xenograft with spirit reflection means free instant speed removal.
Unnatural Selection also works great with Willbreaker and Dismiss into Dream
how would mystic reflection work with a warp world? would you be able to cast it in response to the warp world cast, and everyone would create a copy of (insert creature)? seems kinda neat, could do some funny stuff
the warp world monkey cage can be done using a exil target until this leaves the battlefield
i put warp world in my treasure deck, it is more permanent based and if you hoard treasures you can reveal 20 cards putting you on average further ahead then your opponents.
i do the same with the great aurora. ramp out to 25-30 lands with boundless realms then put on way more stuff than everyone
For the equipment combo you can play
End hostilities and voilà everything is gone
My favorite combo requires a literal 10 cards to set up but it involves the sixth doctor, ojer Taq, Mondrak, Adrix and Nev, lullmage Mentor, a few additional clone effects and Mystic Reflection.
The most I've done with it was countered a spell using Lullmage Mentor, made like 130 merfolk tokens, then cast Mystic Reflection targeting Lullmage Mentor.
130 tokens enter as copies of it, now when I counter any spell, I make 16900 merfolk tokens, all of which can be tapped to counter any spell.
I win. Lol
Warp World + Tunnel Ignus is an old "sometimes" winning combo. although Im not sure if we played it correctly :P The Monkey cage isn't winning unless you got haste
Monkey cage with Planar Guide!
Auratog and Rancor! Hulk SMASH!
Just came up with Cavalier of Dawn and Animate Dead: Animate the Cavalier, have it destroy the Animate Dead to get a 3/3 golem, Cavalier dies as a result, death trigger returns Animate Dead to hand. Repeat
I have a Sythis deck with the sole purpose of using Tornado and Solemnity (Saw the combo the moment Solemnity got released, as Tornado was already on my short list of cards I really wanted to make work)
Literally just made a monoblue merfolk deck with intruder alarm and lullmage in it (Emperor Mihail II)
Mirrorweave is hilarious. Attack with some sort of evasion, one creature at each player, then use it on a Virulent Sliver. Suddenly all creatures have poisonious N, where N is the number of creatures in play
With Warp World you can wait, for there are cards that let you see your library or better use an vampiric tutor, then you are sure you get your monkey cage with Warp World.
gather specimens get better if you get one of those "plot this card" effect
"A destroy is a die" -Demo 2024
My favorite combos include:
Enchanted Evening + Calming verse
Guilty conscience + Stuffy doll
Immortal coil + Fractured Identity + any graveyard hate
Hooray for Jank!
If u have a way to make infinite tokens, then cast warp world, since it doesn’t say non-token permanents, you’d reveal all the permanents in ur deck including monkey cage right?
Would Monkey Cage work with any mass-blink spell? Wouldn't it combo with your planar guide?
it would. i'm currently working on slotting this idea into a deck.
Mirrorweave + Leyline of Singularity = everyone drops to 1 creature
Does ophiomancer work with conspiracy? It says creature cards. I thought tokens were not cards?
There are a couple cards with effects like the salamander, that if you combine them with bow of nylea or ohran frostfang give you repeated one sided boardwipes. For the sake of sportsmanship please show restriction with this tek if you play at a casual table.
What about Planar Guide and Monkey Cage?
funny enough i was just thinking that after i made the video.
You forgot Enchanted Evening and Aura Thief 😛
lullmage also combos with Vodalian Hexcatcher
Phase out that Armory automaton, and your opponents cant use their lands XD
Missed a golden opportunity… “This Monkey Cage combo is just bananas”
I’ll see myself out 😅
Theoretical Duplication before the Warp World
could u O ring Monkey Cage, then warp world, so u don't have to hope to hit Cage? lol
no. all the effects would resolve from warp world before the o-ring trigger would resolve. so everything would already be in play before it came back.
Monkey Cage could be in your hand too for that combo to work, as long as you also draw into 5 mana off the Warp World effect. 🤙🏼
How? If you play the MC before casting WW then MC gets shuffled in; if you play MC after WW resolves, it doesn't see the creatures from WW entering.
One of my favorite combos happened recently where an opponent played tombstone stairwell into my Teysa, Orzhov Scion. I got a whole round of 12 black creatures dying every instep giving me 36 white spirits.
My opponent didn’t read the card, so it didn’t explain the card.
Tokens with warp world will give you the upper hand with more permanent s
i was just thinking it works pretty amazing with ezuri's predation too.
I think it's really fun brewing different deck ideas and thinking about synergies. But i think it's really bad advices to suggest playing 2 cards in a deck that sometime only synergize between themselves. If your deck runs a Ophiomancer, throwing a Conspiracy in it only means that 90% of your games it will be an absolute dead draw, unless you already have Ophiomancer in play, in which case it's still a suboptimal play for 8 mana. We should prioritize deck synergy as a whole. But of course, you absolutely play what you want. I tend to favor playing combo card that synergize with the rest of my deck, and is always a good draw.
Probably more a matter of "incidental value". Ophiomancer provides value in any deck it's in, but Conspiracy is build-around. So if you're already running Conspiracy because you want all your creatures to be a certain type, then consider Ophiomancer since that's going to be a good card even without Conspiracy. Conversely, if you're running Ophiomancer to provide sac fodder and you don't care about creature types, then you probably don't want to run Conspiracy (for the reasons you mentioned.)
EDIT: Demo does speak to this at 13:13.
my signature move is flood of tears to cheat in omniscience.
also ghostly flicker + eternal witness + coveted jewel = inf mana + draw