Every "You Win the Game" Card Ranked from Hardest to Easiest | Magic: the Gathering (MTG) 

Triskadekaphile being #14 is hurtful to say the least.

I like how Seth shows the Crim biovisionary punt and ignores the time he did the same thing.

OP: Liliana's Contract is normally bad because if you have 4 different demons, you're probably already going to win. OP immediately afterward: Epic Struggle is good because it can win you the game if you untap with infinite squirrels.

3 treasure hunts, thassa's oracle, 4 mystic sanctuarys, a playset of lonely sandbars, 48 islands, and arena's broken randomizer. Those where the days.

I like how Seth can’t pronounce Aria correctly, but he can say Triskaidekaphile perfectly

Love these kinds of videos - taking this opportunity to thank you all at the MTGGoldfish team for the great work and great videos :^)

Honestly, despite (or because of) being terrible, Hedron Alignment is tied for my favorite card in the game.

We need a Against The Odds for Izzet Darskteel reactor. With all the new Proliferate tricks, it’s a must.

We need a ranking list for "You lose the game" cards next! :D

really love this preview of the next 29 against the odds decks

the worst part about elocuters is that even in a dream scenario you need a bare minimum of 2 upkeeps 2 win as the last counter has to be put there by the ability. the very best case scenario would be casting it when your opponent cant get through have paradox haze to get 1 upkeep for the first counter then proliferate 3 times and get the 5th in your second upkeep to win in 1 turn cycle

I like that I somehow forgot about the existence of Thassa's Oracle so the list was suspenseful up to the end.

They should make a variant with "As an additional cost to cast this card, discard 50 cards. You win the game."

This is actually GREAT non-gameplay content that I didn’t know I wanted. Please make more of this kind of stuff!!

Putting Triskaidekaphile in 14h position is a statement i wouldn't have been willing to make, being in the same circumstances. well played, sir.

Love this video format, honestly I like the longer videos. Tier lists or MTG history if I can throw on a 30+ minute video I'm happy 😊

I bet a color pie break ranking would be interesting.

Really nice video 👍😃 I've always liked alternate wins conditions in magic and try to win with those cards is very fun. I hope there will be a second video with the "loses the game" cards like door to nothingness, triskaidekaphobia, vorpal sword or vraska the unseen.

I just blew 4 wildcards on Liliana's Contract because of this video. It took about 4 games to cross 'win with Liliana's Contract' off my bucket list.

the cheese stands alone at #1 in our hearts

Amazing video!! would have alreadyd been happy with just the win the game cards but gwetting tips on how to do it is perfect

Darksteel Reactor has a cooked in accellerant in Darksteel with Dismantle. Adding counters is not conditional to the artifact being destroyed, so Dismantling your reactor can double the counters on it.

idk if you have anymore ranked vids like this but if not i'd love to see more !

Azor’s elocutors was actually not uncommon to see when it was in standard. While it was never “the right” card, lots of people played it as a fun of in the turbo fog maze’s end deck. I saw it at four different card shops in two cities, which is not a great sample size, but still, shockingly common.

Man I laughed so hard when you played that clip for Azor's elocutors

5:30 My idea for a Barren Glory combo deck: Use Corpse Dance (Return the top creature card of your graveyard to the battlefield. That creature gains haste until end of turn. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.) to reanimate a Hellcarver Demon (Whenever Hellcarver Demon deals combat damage to a player, sacrifice all other permanents you control and discard your hand. Exile the top six cards of your library. You may cast any number of spells from among cards exiled this way without paying their mana costs.) Then, all I need is to find a Barren Glory in the top six, or an extra combat phase spell for an additional spin.

Great video, thankyou! Gotta love those alternate win conditions! Permanents that are all colours are important for Happily ever after, imo. There was a time not long ago where you could reach mythic in standard with 'wins the game' cards... I played hundreds of games with a standard deck that used a sort of toolbox approach, winning with "Happily ever after" and Atemsis. Happily ever after wins were surprisingly easy if you could pull a Sphynx of the guildpact out of the sideboard (thankyou "Karn. the great creator" and 'Fae of wishes') Atemsis wins came via Finale of Revelation (3-mana Teferi allowing sorceries cast at instant speed made this much easier). The deck's 'third' win condition was Parhelion 2, which Karn also helped retrieve, 'flood of tears' helped bring to the battlefield (instant speed; thx Teferi), and "Kiora, behemoth beckoner" turned 4/4 angels into insane upside). The deck was mostly white and blue, but relied on lotus field with "Tale's end", "Brought back", and Kiora to 'cheat'. It also relied heavily on Fae of wishes and Wishclaw talisman (which Karn, 3feri, and flood of tears really helps work). There was something wonderful about the enemy never knowing whether happily ever after or Atemsis is going to suddenly win the game this turn. The only other important cards were charming prince, Vantress gargoyle, and Elite Guardmage to survive the first few turns. This might sound like a silly deck, but I got high in standard with it! I miss it loads, but I can't make it work in bigger formats - it's was very specific to a certain time (Eldraine) in standard. It's mental that all these cards were standard legal at the same time, and could take wins from Hydroid Krasis, Oko thief of crowns, and wilderness reclamation. :)

So at first I was upset Angel of Destiny wasn't on here, but then I had to go read it and I see why, though I feel it should get somewhat of an honorable mention for 1v1 as being fairly easy to pull off. Anyways, in my circle of MTG friends, we call these "Jarett" cards. Named for my nephew, whom like many children when explained the rules to a game, he was more interested in making his own and also his own card concepts. Unfortunately he was exposed to the yu gi oh show before magic, and the "FINAL" set (in yu gi oh, you collect all 5 letters and insta win much like these in mtga) and thus most the things he would come up with were either broken or way too cheap win condition cards. Thank you for making this, so I can link him to it saying someone finally ranked all the Jarett cards lol

I was wondering if you were going to show that game where crim tried to biovisionary win. I was not disappointed lol 😂

I have a casual Mazes end deck that i love to play, and the theme i got about a tunnel that i am searching for the exit to win makes it a bit more fun. I also got a door to nothingness to show another player the "wrong" exit to win that way aswell xD

Thx man for this video ! 🥳 Do you think we could use more alternative win conditions? Mtg Arena

A while back on Arena mill was super popular so I decided to sideboard Jace, Wielder of Mysteries in my control decks. I only got to use him a few times but it was worth it to watch mill players go through so much hard work only to see me win by turning their own strategy against them.

I've always wanted to build an Iname, Death's Aspect Mortal Combat build in EDH where I play Conspiracy, Xenograph, and Maskwood Nexus, at the time of brewing Maskwood Nexus didn't exist, so it's like a 5 color spirits deck that's all about having terrible spirit cards in the deck so I can massively dump them all into the yard with Iname, Death's Aspect, and having any of the cards that say creatures are all types everywhere in my deck, I just dump everything and win, well, that's assuming my yard doesn't get exiled, or Mortal Combat being blown up, but I always thought the combo was really cool, and it was inspired from an old video of yours where the old crew all played EDH with each other on MTGO and one of the players was doing Mortal Combat.

People not realizing they didn't win cause Sakashima the Imposter is such a lore accurate thing that Sakashima would do

I use a lot of these cards as Red Herrings. Simic Ascendancy being a large one. They will be so preoccupied dealing with the instant win they won't see the game ending combo assembling.

Darksteel reactor is a favorite of mine. Twenty counters is surprisingly easy to get with the right cards. Like dismantle.

I built a Darksteel Reactor deck for Modern about 5 years ago. The best I could do was bring it down to turn 5/6 for a victory but it usually went off around turn 7/8. Sadly not fast enough for the meta at the time.

I love Elocutors. I used them in a venser deck that turned off combat by blinking dignitaries. Good times.

With Liliana's contract you play Dimir with Arcane Adaptation, it's only three mana I've done it on Arena before and at FNM I actually won a game off of Simic Ascendancy paired with the three drop when a land enters proliferate. I was playing merfolk tribal and dude thought he was gonna bounce it during my upkeep when I had two untapped islands lol

I am currently planning a Commander deck that starts with every possible "you win the game" card. The twist is that I plan to take out each win con after I achieve a win with it. It's challenging to build in such a way that every single win con is at least somewhat reasonable. But that is also the fun part. Since the release of this video, Gallifrey Stands and Luck Bobblehead have joined the ranks.

My favorite is by far Darksteel Reactor. Darksteel was one of those themes that if you were an edgy kid back in the day it was around you can't help get obsessed over having those dark things that cannot be destroyed. And I was such kid.

I won with hedron alignment one time at an FNM and it was the best feeling in the world. Never did going 1-3 ever feel so good 😂

Approach of the Second Sun is the only one on the list I ever won a game with. It was just really good in standard at the time. The first one gained you life which is a reasonably effect in many matchups. A lot of decks couldn't interact with it, so you just needed enough time to get to the second. And it was a real threat in control mirrors too. Fun quirk: It doesn't matter if the first one resolves, because it checks for you casting it not it resolving. So noone ever countered no1, and after that the lurking threat of no2 was constant. You could never tap out of a counterspell if the opponent was there already. You could also Accelerate to the re-inserted card with Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, and it played really well with instant speed threats, because you could start a counter war on the opponent's end step and either resolve something that puts you ahead, or run them out of mana/counters, untap and resolve your second Approach. Oh and the rest of the playerbase didn't hate you as much for playing a control deck, like in the standard after where your wincon was usually attacking 10 times with a Shambling Vent.

I thought you were gonna mention Ramos as the card that makes door busted. Gives exactly what you need

I freaking love win/lose the game cards (a shame they weren't the same list, as "your opponent loses the game" often acts the same way). I started playing when Zendikar had just come out, and one of my first decks was a white lifegain value deck with Felidar Sovereign as one of the main wincons. I'll never forget winning an *eight* player FFA game with it - when the player whose turn it was before mine attacked into me with everything to try and make sure I wouldn't hit 40 life, except they didn't realise that Sovereign had lifelink so they actually put me above 40 for the win. I still really enjoy them, but these days Approach is definitely the card I play the most - occasionally as a control finisher, but more often as a combo kill card once I've gotten an early Omniscience down. Super common play from these decks is "cheat Omni into play, Mastermind's Acquisition to get cards from my sideboard, get out Scholar of the Ages (creature with ETB to get back 2 instants/sorceries from the graveyard), get back Acquisition +1 other card, Acquisition for Sublime Epiphany, make a token of the Scholar and get back Acquisition and Epiphany, Acquisition for Approach (or Thought Distortion if I'm not sure their hand is clear of interaction), cast Approach, hold priority and counter it plus make a token of Scholar with Epiphany, get back Epiphany and Approach, recast Approach for the win". Only the second Approach needs to resolve so sometimes countering the first to make it easily accessible in the graveyard is the correct play. And if you're ever playing against Approach, unless you're full to the brim with counterspells or playing one that will exile the other copies like Test of Talents, you definitiely want to save your counters for the second+ copy of it.

I have double-digit wins in Commamder from casting Kaervek's Spite, either in response to Barren Glory or with Academy Rector in play :)

I just won my first game with Barren Glory last week. It's a super difficult wincon. I ended up getting it by cheating out Barren Glory with Academy Rector. A couple turns later I got down Dockside Extortionist, and used my treasure windfall to blast the board (and everyone's hands) with Decree of Annihilation. Luckily for me the blue player hadn't left up enough mana to counter. Decree is the only one-stop-shop because unlike Apocalypse it spares Enchantments (and Planeswalkers). I do have Oblivion+Apocalypse in the deck, a long with a bunch of sac outlets, land sac outlets, and discard outlets that can potentially allow me to clear my board and hand on my opponent's end step.

In Canadian Highlander Thassa’s Oracle is the same number of points in your deck as Black Lotus or Ancestral Recall and for good reason.

Richards Barren Glory Atog Atog Commander Clash win was a thing of beauty.

I played Battle of Wits (with birthing pod when it was able) in modern in 2 tournament and obviously I didn't do anything relevant. But I received applause when I showed the 270 cards deck. Shuffling was hell by the way. The funniest thing they played me was A chalice of the void at 5. XD

Making Triskadephile number 14 instead of 13 is a missed joke opportunity.

My favorite way to win with Halo Fountain is always tokens with Cryptolith Rite. Just tap them for 15 mana and untap to win, plus the Rite helps play more cards to progress faster potentially.

Re: Chance Encounter and Frenetic Efreet, Frenetic Sliver would also work for this, and you wouldn't have to rely on your opponent calling heads or tails. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that they could limit how many times you activate the ability, as it could be seen as deliberate slow play.

Used to win with Mechanized Production in magic duels, good times

I just have triskaidekaphile in some of my blue and blue green commander and brawl decks. It's not my dedicated wincon, but it sometimes just happens kind of by accident and it's always great when you can just go 'Oh, i just draw a card and then win, cool? cool'

I was hoping that alternate player loses the game cards would be here. Like Door to Nothingness. Although I very much wasn't expecting you lose the game cards like demonic pact to get in (but if they did, I might have been pleasantly surprised)

I actually use the fillibusters in one of my decks. It's a lockdown deck with a lot of reanimation, so even if he can get a removal though I can recast it soon.

I just noticed the giant handprint on the Barren Glory!

Someone just got me with the maze's end win in arena recently. I wasn't even mad

I feel like simic ascendancy and other similar cards have the "you win the game" as a backup plan. I feel like in this case the plan is to be agro counters deck, but if you run onto a infinite life combo , some kind of prison, your oponen is playing worship ...you can still win the game

I have a monogreen Ghalta deck and seeing Mayael's Aria makes me wish it was monogreen, but in a Naya deck, someone could consider playing Ghalta, then before this upkeep trigger goes off you use Boon of Boseiju on Ghalta itself, making it a 24/24! Not sure if this works but possibly an interesting wincon, assuming you have the board state to play Ghalta for as cheap as possible to begin with haha

I have won the game with Simi Ascendancy and Body of Research... plus a counter spell for a counter spell because my opponent knew what I was doing and i had enough mana to use it. It was simic, so my mana was nearly infinite. For this combo i just recommend you have enough counter spells in hand to pull it off

Very nice video, thanks

Nice, now the next video of this kind will be all the “lose the game” effect ranked

With the recent bump on proliferate Azors Elocutors can be accelerated to 2 or 1 turn with it down

With the release of the new doctor who cards they released a new Win The Game card ive been trying called "Gallifrey Stands" I think its 6 mana i don't remember But it's an enchantment that puts all doctor creatures from your graveyard into your hand then allows you to put a doctor creature on to the battlefield for free each turn on your upkeep If buy the end of your upkeep you have 13 or more doctors on the battlefield you win the game Im not bothered to type out my whole strategy but the short version is a good few of the doctor creatures abilitys help bring about this win and i also have some changelings in the deck to pad the numbers haven't one yet but im also very new to magic its been a fun time regardless

Halo fountain is the only one of these ive sucessfully pulled off more than once. Though i havnt tried some of the lower tier options

For Hellkite Tyrant, Bloodvial Purveyor is a very fair way to win I have found because every time anyone cast a spell they get a blood token, Sure some people may sac in response but that will have had to leave up the mana for that.

Liliana's contract is probably better with a bunch of the Demons from the Warhammer Commander set. There are new Demons in the Abaddon deck of varying mana values from 3 up to 7 or 8, so you could very easily have at least 2-3 by the time you even play Contract. Seems like it could be pretty solid

Near-Death Experience + Wall of Blood + Intervention Pact (to prevent bolts from killing you) Modern-legal alternate win con combo.

I have a historic Approach of the second Sun ramp deck that's pretty good

I mindslavered someone who controlled a lochmere serpent while there was an urborg in play. You damn right I never got invited back to that group!

Well, Sphinx of the Second Sun can help a lot with all those "you need to wait for your next upkeep with this fragile thing" cards near the beginning of the list...

You should revisit some AGAINST THE ODDS classics from this list

I had a standard legal hedron alignment deck using The Great Aurora

Agreed with Thassa's Oracle being too easy. Real feel bad when you have this interesting commander game going on then someone plays that and just wins. On the other hand, I put it in Gyruda as the alternate win con to milling everyone out, which seems neater because at that point everyone is milled :)

I actually won with Biovisonry in a commander game using Adrix and Nev, playing a clone spell to get two token copies, and then a spark double to get the win!

I know people still seem pretty against it, but Seth would you consider doing an Alchemy deck tech sometime? There are some cool new alchemy cards from ONE like Mephidross Slime and Gyox that are pretty interesting!

Angel's Grace is a great card when trying to make Near Death Experience work. Let's you protect against being bolted or destroyed in combat while you wait for your upkeep to come back aroubd

Approach of the second sun is plenty of fun when ran with omniscience. Drawing 7 is easy when everything in your hand is free.

100% agree with the assessment on Oracle. I actually think it needs banning because it's so easy to assemble the combo and it's so prolific that CEDH is super homogenised due to it being in the format.

We'll need a you lose the game ranking list now lol.

Approach of the second sun is nimber 1 in satisfying spells to counter

Your final point about Thoracle being so easy and prolific that it's boring is so fucking true lol

Triskaidekaphobia is best in a speedy damage deck that only has to deal seven damage to one's opponent while doing whatever it can to prevent the same damage being done to one's self.

I’ve won quite many Standard games with (Faithbound Judge/) Sinner’s Judgement. That is, until Invoke Despair crept into the decks of all of my opponents. I do think it still deserves a (high) ranking in this list though…

If anyone's curious on that Ted cruz clip during azor's elocutors, the united states rules on senate filibustering is that you're allowed to hold the senate floor for as long as you keep talking, but what you're talking about doesn't need to be related to whatever bill or legislation you are trying to delay, hence the reading of dr. seuss, but senators have also read entire cookbooks, newspaper articles, the comprehensive rules of golf, etc. As long as you don't stop talking or leave the center podium, you can't be stopped (unless a huuuuge portion of the senate votes to censure you, which doesn't happen often). Usually someone filibustering will start their time with an actual case against whatever they're trying to not get passed into law, but the tactical usage for filibustering is not to convince the rest of the senate that its a bad idea to pass the bill, but to just take up literally as much time as you can so that the senate has to delay voting on it, hope that it the bill dies before it gets to that point, and these things do go on for hours and hours, the longest I think have been a day or two at a time.

Simic is a win condition that fit naturally with the Tyrannid. Thanks Lucea, you can put ten +1 just casting one creture at 5 mana.

Also for mechanized production, Replicating Ring makes 8 tokens. Not as fast but it still works and is funny if you make multiple copies of replicating ring itself.

I'm surprised the barren glory portion didnt mention atog atog shenanigans

I play a test of endurance in my W/B life gain commander deck, my playgroup asked me to take it out!

I don't know too much about the MTG meta, but at face value, Mycosynth Lattice seems like a pretty powerful card based on my limited knowledge. Am I totally wrong on this?

No mention of 'Oops All Spells' for Lab Maniac? Hes a win condition in a perfectly playable Legacy deck, that alone should put him higher than Jace 'it can +1 and that lets you draw so thats easier'

I played biovisionary in standard without clones and it was actually pretty decent at winning with angel of glorys rise and faithless lootings. But obviously graveyard hate is a bummer against that deck.

This is calling for a You win the game tribal against the odds.

Epic struggle is my personal favorite.

I'm using this video as a challenge and checklist

Hedron alignment: Secret salvage costs five mana and it needs you to already have one in your graveyard, which takes time. Serum Powder on the other hand, allows you to mulligan a Hedron Alignment into exile before the game even begins, a far superior option. 0/10 hedron alignment suggestion. Can't wait to add Felidair sovern to my lifegain deck though.

the real question though, what is the most amount of these win the game effects you could have on the same stack, i'd assume most of the beginning of upkeep wincons would be the most likely, though incredibly hard.

Celestial convergence + solemnity Darksteel reactor + energy chamber, paradox haze, and vorel of the hull Clade