Kirin Combo: A Celestial Primer

What is Kirin Combo?

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Kirin Combo is a deck built around the Celestial Kirin and Ugin’s Conjurant combo. For those of you who are unfamiliar, it works like this: as long as you have a Celestial Kirin in play, Ugin’s Conjurant is a spell that reads, “When you cast this spell, destroy all permanents with converted mana cost X.”

If you look closely, you’ll realise that there’s no nonland clause attached to the word ‘permanents’, which means you can cast Ugin’s Conjurant for X=0 to Armageddon everyone’s lands away!

The Kirin combo can be played in any color combination that includes white. The most common variant of the deck is GW so it can play creature tutors like Eladamri’s Call, Eldritch Evolution, and Chord of Calling. Other versions that don’t play green exist (think As Foretold + Evermind), but they are considered suboptimal, extra-spicy takes on the deck.

This primer is about a base-white, GWx Vial Toolbox build of Kirin Combo that I like to call Armageddon & Taxes (though I’ll refer to it as “Kirin Combo” here, for simplicity’s sake). In the following sections, I will describe at length the overarching ideas behind Kirin Combo’s construction, individual card selection as it pertains to the current metagame, the deck’s strengths and weaknesses, and some general strategy and piloting advice. So, let’s get started!

The Philosophy of Armageddon

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Armageddon is not just a Magic: the Gathering card—it’s a way of life! In this section, I’ll reveal Armageddon’s most sacred secrets and give you some insight on how I used them to craft Kirin Combo.

Countdown to Doomsday

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The Armageddon deck is one that lives and dies by the hand of tempo. This is inherent in the card itself, which is an earth-shaking tempo swing if it ever resolves. By stripping both players of their resources, all play is reduced to whatever is left on board, and because of this, the early game becomes a race to see who can build a better board by turn four.

Now, the concept of time is an important one. You are all probably familiar with the thing we call a ‘clock’. Most of the time, this term is used in reference to the number of turns it takes for a player to win the game. However, the Armageddon deck is unique in that it puts a clock on something far more abstract than one’s life total: mana.

Tempo is very closely tied to mana. In some ways, tempo is defined by how efficiently one uses their mana. This idea that mana usage is equivalent to tempo is fundamental to the philosophy of Armageddon—to win, one must spend their mana more effectively than their opponent in the turns before Armageddon hits the table. In this way, the deck puts a clock on each players’ mana: they have three turns’ worth of it to make an impact on the board. Any mana left unused is precious time wasted, and with every passing turn, like a ticking bomb, catastrophe creeps closer…

Of course, this is just one of many aspects of tempo, and we’ll look at a couple others shortly. If you want to read more about tempo in MTG, I recommend you check out “What is Tempo?“, an article by Tom Anderson. He does a great job of explaining the basics and some of the nuances behind the concept.

Tipping the Scales

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Here, artifact ramp spells such as Mox Ruby and Mox Pearl generate an early-game mana advantage that’s used to cast creature spells above curve and gain a big lead in development. This early board pressure pairs well with mana denial from Armageddon and allows the deck to play an effective tempo-aggro game.

It’s important to note that simply having more mana than your opponent does not translate into a tempo advantage on its own—that mana needs to be spent on something to create tempo. Think of it in terms of energy: mana sources are a measure of your potential energy. The more mana you have, the more spells you can cast, and the act of using that mana to play a spell is what converts the potential energy into kinetic energy (i.e. a tangible effect in-game).

To create tempo, the spell must also affect the board in some way. Cantrips, for example, are inherently tempo-negative spells because they cost mana but have no impact on the board. This is why only one-mana and zero-mana cantrips see play in Modern—more expensive cantrips are simply too inefficient. This is also the reason the Cube Armageddon deck above plays such a high density of creatures. By limiting its spells to ones that only affect the board, it increases its odds of having more tempo-making plays than its opponents.

Considering this facet of tempo, taxing creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben are extremely powerful because they force players to spend extra mana on their spells, thereby ‘stealing’ a little bit of tempo from them. Any mana opponents spend on taxes is mana spent not developing their board, and that mana disadvantage accrues at a much higher rate than usual (almost higher than the interest on my student loans!) since Armageddon prevents them from recouping that loss of tempo in later turns.

Armageddon in Modern

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Now, you might be wondering how Vintage Cube is relevant to us—the Moxen aren’t legal in Modern, after all. Indeed, this fact changes a lot more than you might think; unlike the Cube Armageddon deck, which can afford to have an assertive game plan thanks to the Moxen, Modern Armageddon lacks the fast mana to create a huge tempo advantage early in the game and is hindered by its two-card combo requirement. Because of this, the deck needs to take the game slower and steadily build its advantage by answering opposing threats while it establishes its own. In short, it has to be a midrange deck.

But how does one build a “midrange” Armageddon deck? Well, let’s think of the basic requirements: it needs to put things on board. Without any board pressure, Armageddon has no sting. It also needs to have some interaction, otherwise it’ll be too slow to keep up with the fast aggro decks that exist in Modern.

With this in mind, of the established archetypes in the format, the Death & Taxes strategy is best suited to take advantage of Armageddon due to its abundance of creatures and usage of proactive, permanent-based disruption. So now that we have an idea of what direction to take the deck, just one question remains:

How do we tip the scales?

The Holy Trinity

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Kirin Combo’s Holy Trinity is made up of these three cards: Aether Vial, Noble Hierarch, and Flagstones of Trokair. I’ll go through them in order.

Aether Vial’s purpose is threefold: First, it simply cheats on mana by letting us play creatures for free, which is especially useful after Armageddon because it can put higher cmc creatures onto the board right away. This card generates an insane amount of mana for a teeny-tiny investment at the cost of speed and flexibility.

Second, it frees up our mana to cast noncreature spells like Eladamri’s Call without falling behind on board. This is extremely important because the Kirin combo has no redundant pieces; you’ll often need to cast a tutor to fetch part of the combo, which can result in a loss of tempo. Don’t forget, any mana spent without contributing to the board is detrimental to your end game.

Finally, it’s our first line of defense against countermagic; a Vial on four is a boon against any kind of control or blue midrange deck. On another note, Aether Vial is kind of like an in-game depiction of the mana clock I described earlier—it literally counts the turns ‘til Kirin, the Harbinger of Doom™ descends from the heavens to bring death to those blasted lands. How neat is that?

Non-land mana sources like mana dorks are another easy way to get around Armageddon. Noble Hierarch is the best dork in these colors since she taps for both green and white. In addition, Exalted is a relevant keyword because we’re often left with only a few creatures in play after we cast the combo—time is of the essence in the end game, and an extra point of power on Celestial Kirin can shave turns off our combat clock.

Flagstones of Trokair serves the same general purpose as Hierarch by giving us mana to use after we combo, except it’s a land so it doesn’t take up any card slots. Remember that it can fetch dual lands like Temple Garden and Hallowed Fountain as well as basic Plains when it dies.

These cards give us the ability to profitably break the symmetry and snowball the advantage afterward. They are the pillars of Modern Armageddon.

And so, Kirin Combo is born!

Card Choices

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Main Deck

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Tutors:

Eladamri’s Call: Our main tutor spell and the glue that holds the deck together. This card has great synergy with Aether Vial, which can put tutored creatures into play for free, and gives us a lot of sideboard flexibility.

Ranger-Captain of Eos: Ranger-Captain is an all-star support card—he’s a combo tutor that contributes to the board, curves perfectly into Celestial Kirin, and can be Vialed into play on the combo turn. His second ability is also extremely relevant as a way to push through counterspells and counter cascade.

Disruption:

Skyclave Apparition: Skyclave is one of the best cards in the deck. It’s a remarkable tempo play in the early game that helps us catch up on board if we have to take a turn off to cast a tutor. If it ever dies, the Kirin combo destroys the Illusion tokens it leaves behind, and since it’s a spirit, it can even trigger Celestial Kirin itself! Just be careful not to blow up your own stuff.

Solitude: This card is a tutorable removal spell that can clear up bigger creatures for free, which is an incredibly strong tempo play alongside Armageddon. Play one or two of these (but not more—we can’t support the card disadvantage like the Ephemerate decks can).

Oust, Path to Exile, and Prismatic Ending: These three cards are our choices for one-mana removal. I would reserve no more than four slots for noncreature removal spells, as we are an Aether Vial deck with a set of Eladamri’s Call in the mix.

• Oust: Removal spells that can cleanly answer both a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer on turn one and a big Murktide Regent on turn two are very hard to come by in Modern, and Oust does exactly that whilst synergizing with our combo.
  • Oust’s worst downside is that it’s only a temporary answer; opponents will just draw their creature again in two turns. However, the Armageddon combo negates that problem by keeping opponents off of the mana needed to recast their threats.
  • Draw steps can also factor into tempo: a turn spent drawing a creature is a turn spent not drawing a land and more time for you to keep clocking them in the face. The fact that Oust rigs your opponent’s draw step is a huge deal because their counterplay usually involves finding the mana to remove your creatures or rebuild their board.
• Path to Exile: Even though Path is better in the Armageddon deck than it is in any other, I believe it’s worse than Oust in the current meta of must-answer one-drops. I would only run it if you expect to play against a creature combo deck like Heliod or Hammertime, where instant-speed removal is more relevant.
• Prismatic Ending: This card was a great addition from MH2 as it gives us more answers to Wrenn and Six in the main. However, Ending always trades at parity mana-wise, which is mediocre in the Armageddon deck if you’re paying more than one mana for it, and it can’t hit high cmc threats like Murktide Regent.

My recommended splits for removal are:

• 1 Oust/Path to Exile and 1 Prismatic Ending (or vice versa) with 1 Solitude
• 1 Oust and 1 Prismatic Ending with 2 Solitude
• 2 Prismatic Ending with 2 Solitude

The no-Oust split leaves you more vulnerable to Murktide and Reanimator but bolsters your game against Wrenn and Six, other Aether Vial decks, and sideboard cards like Torpor Orb. It’s nice to have an extra Prismatic Ending in the sideboard, as well.

Mana Base:

Never play fewer than 21-22 lands! You want to hit four mana and cast the combo on-curve as consistently as possible; every turn you lose by stumbling on mana is a turn for your opponent to use theirs to build up their board.

I think the best color combo for Kirin is Bant for reasons I’ll get to in a moment. However, if your local meta has fewer Cascade, 4c Omnath, or Tron decks, I recommend going strictly GW for less painful (and cheaper) mana. If Blood Moon isn’t popular, I’d go further and play a fetchless or fetch-light mana base. For example:

• 4 Flagstones of Trokair
• 4 Branchloft Pathway
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Horizon Canopy
• 1 Cavern of Souls or 1 Windswept Heath
• 3 Temple Garden
• 4 Plains
• 1 Forest
• 1 Dryad Arbor (opt.)

It looks strange to play less than a playset of fetchlands, but you actually fetch basics before duals most of the time so Pathways are technically better (assuming Blood Moon isn’t around). Fewer fetches also gives you extra resilience to Drown in the Loch and search-punishing effects such as Archive Trap and Leonin Arbiter. If Moon is meta, 4-6 fetches over some of the Pathways and Cavern is preferable.

Sideboard

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Burrenton Forge-Tender: Forge-Tender serves as a roadblock for Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Burn hate, and protection from red removal spells such as Unholy Heat, Lightning Bolt, and most importantly, Fury. Just one copy is fine since it can be tutored by Ranger-Captain of Eos; you could even play it in the main deck if you so chose.

Rest in Peace/Sanctifier en-Vec: A 2/2 split of RIP and Sanctifier is appropriate when BRx decks are popular. When they’re not, I like to play a 3/1 or 3/0 split because most other graveyard-reliant decks can play through a Sanctifier: UR Murktide runs a lot of blue cards and fetches, Living End’s cyclers are mostly blue, Wrenn and Six only cares about lands, Tarmogoyf counts both graveyards, Yawgmoth can recycle green Undying creatures, etc.

Phyrexian Revoker: This card is our answer to creature combos and planeswalkers (two of Armageddon’s worst enemies). I played 3-4 copies at the peak of Heliod, Sun-Crowned’s dominance, but right now its main targets are planeswalkers, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, The Underworld Cookbook, Stoneforge Mystic, Goblin Charbelcher, and Colossus Hammer.

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade: Lavinia is our only blue card and my choice for Elementals, Cascade, and Tron hate. Now, I know some of you may be wondering, why splash for Lavinia for these decks when you could stay GW and play Drannith Magistrate and Hushbringer instead? Here is my reasoning:

• The main purpose of Lavinia in Kirin is not to stop cascade spells (which, between Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Ranger-Captain of Eos, and Sanctum Prelate, we are already good at), but to counter the evoke elementals, which are the Cascade deck’s main source of counterplay against us. Lavinia does that while incidentally hating on the cascade mechanic and is much more relevant than Magistrate in the four-color matchup, so she is better here.
• Hushbringer and similar cards are nonbos with our own ETB creatures and, more importantly, let opponents put their elementals into play for free, which is a big problem considering how important tempo is in our deck—a 3/3 double striker for five mana is one thing, but zero? That’s a huge roadblock that can even outpace us in a race. Lavinia’s downsides, on the other hand, are set off by the Armageddon combo, which keeps opponents off of hard-cast mana. 
• The blue splash is very easy with Noble Hierarch.

Knight of Autumn: A silver bullet artifact hate and life gain card. Knight’s beatstick mode is nice to have when you’re on the offensive. If you were to play an extra copy of Prismatic Ending in the sideboard, this would be the best card to cut since both are good against Hammertime.

Sanctum Prelate: One to three copies of Prelate in the 75 are recommended as it covers a large spread of matchups (Cascade, UR Murktide, BR Rock, Grixis Shadow, and Burn being the most notable). It’s a great main-deck silver bullet to play in metas with a lot of spell-heavy midrange decks like GDS and Murktide or Cascade decks like Living End or Rhinos.

Honorable Mentions

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Some cards that didn’t quite make the cut, but I think are good to have as options. There’s a full list of these on the MTGGoldfish page.

Main Deck:

Dryad Arbor: Dryad Arbor is a strange but sweet addition whose specific purpose is to be a tutorable land drop in situations where you’re stuck on two or three mana with the Kirin combo and an Eladamri’s Call or Ranger-Captain of Eos in hand. In these scenarios, fetching and playing Dryad Arbor is a full turn faster than doing the same with Noble Hierarch, which saves valuable time.

Aether Vial can also put a Dryad Arbor into play on turn one, when it has zero counters on it, for very fast mana acceleration (and occasionally to ambush an attacking Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer).

Mana Tithe: You may think I’m meming, but Mana Tithe is actually sweet as a one or two-of. It’s a great tempo play, and its biggest downside, which is that opponents can pay for it in the late game, is mitigated by Armageddon. In addition:

• To play around Mana Tithe, opponents must play off-curve. However, in doing so, they risk getting blown out by Armageddon, which heavily punishes players who don’t use all their mana effectively; oftentimes, the mere threat of it will lure your opponents into not playing around Tithe for fear of falling behind on board.
  • In other words, it’s a win-win situation: either they play around your Tithe and get punished when they lose their lands, or they play into it and get their spell Tithed (if you have it, of course).
• There are three issues with Tithe in Kirin: one, it competes for slots with our other noncreature removal spells; two, it’s a bit of a nonbo with Thalia and Prelate; three, it can be awkward to leave up mana for Tithe if you don’t have an Aether Vial.

Elite Spellbinder: Paulo here is a good pick for slower metas. His biggest weakness is his vulnerability to ping effects like Wrenn and Six and Lava Dart.

Esper Sentinel: Sentinel is a great card, but card advantage generally takes a back seat to board state and tempo in Kirin Combo. In this case, Thalia’s mandatory tax effect and better stats are more worth the extra mana required to cast her.

• You could run 4 Esper Sentinel in place of Noble Hierarch if you wanted to dunk on other midrange decks. You’d be worse against everything else, though.

Sideboard:

Ghostly Prison: Prison, while mediocre on its own, is an extremely powerful effect when paired with Armageddon. If you expect to play against creature aggro decks, this is the card to have in the sideboard or main deck.

Veil of Summer: Veil is great in metas with lots of discard and counterspells. Also useful against Tourach, Dread Cantor and name-a-card exile spells like Necromentia.

Mirran Crusader: This card is for Yawgmoth and other GBx decks such as Jund. In these matchups, you will typically board out Aether Vial and some number of Eladamri’s Call to bolster your midrange plan; here, Crusader helps fill in some of the “air” with a more individually powerful threat. As such, if you do play Crusader, it’s best to play multiple copies of it since you won’t have as many tutors to fetch it out.

Deputy of Detention: Deputy serves the same general purpose as Brutal Cathar, except it can also hit big planeswalkers like Teferi Hero of Dominaria and Karn Liberated at the cost of being a worse beater.

Gaddock Teeg: Teeg is able to prevent Prismatic Ending, one of the most common removal spells in the format, from being cast. He can also stop high-value spells like Bring to Light, Supreme Verdict, and Cryptic Command, making him a great sideboard option for control and four-color ramp matchups.

Kataki Wars Wage/Collector Ouphe/Leonin Relic-Warder: More options for artifact hate. Kataki synergizes well with Armageddon, Ouphe is great at dealing with the indestructible Bridge artifact lands, and Relic-Warder can answer Kaldra Compleat and an early Sigarda’s Aid.

FAQ

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• Q: Why play all four copies of Celestial Kirin and Ugin’s Conjurant? Don’t they suck on their own?
  • A: While both of our combo pieces are generally not great in multiples, we always want to draw them. Naturally drawing the combo lets us use Eladamri’s Call to tutor relevant creatures for the situation, and not having to spend a turn playing Ranger-Captain of Eos to fetch Conjurant lets us play more impactful cards like Skyclave Apparition on curve to stay ahead or catch up on board.
  • This is the difference between the Kirin combo and a combo like Heliod, Sun-Crowned / Walking Ballista; it’s fine to play the combo piece as a one-of to fetch with Ranger-Captain of Eos when it literally wins the game, but Armageddon doesn’t do that. You don’t always have the time to play a three-mana 3/3 on curve in Modern.
    • It’s fine to play a 3/4 split of Ranger/Conjurant or vice versa (depending on the prevalence of counterspells in your meta).
  • In a way, this is the play-to-win mentality applied to deckbuilding; you will certainly lose some games because you drew a bunch of useless Kirins or Conjurants in a row, but by playing these cards in multiples you give yourself higher odds of reaching the ceiling (naturally drawing both), which I believe is necessary to win with a slower and less powerful combo like this one.

• Q: Why not play more mana dorks? More mana dorks means more turn three Armageddons!
  • A: You don’t always want to combo early since opponents could still have lands left in their hand; if you jam the combo on the play turn three and your opponent plays a Mountain and Lightning Bolts your Kirin right after, what have you really gained?
  • You also don’t want to dilute the deck with one-drops. I think eight one-drop creatures with Vial is the max, and any copy of Giver is significantly better than the fifth dork.
  • I’ve tried playing eight dorks and no Vial (a build I call Turbo-Geddon), and it does work fairly well; you lose some of Eladamri’s Call‘s utility, but the additional ramp lets you double-spell more frequently and comfortably play more copies of Solitude. Lower ceiling, higher floor.

• Q: Can you pair this combo with an infinite like Devoted Druid or Heliod?
  • A: There are some merits to running a second combo; for one, you get a better matchup versus decks that Armageddon isn’t as effective against (e.g. Affinity). However, I think that adding another combo dilutes the deck too much to be worth those niche upsides—it’s almost always better to have a focused plan and lose a few matchups than it is to try to beat everything at once. And besides, why win the game with infinite damage when you could blow up some lands instead?

Strategy & Gameplay

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In this final section, I’ll analyze Kirin Combo’s traits, give you my best advice for piloting the deck, and provide a brief overview of its matchups.

Strengths

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One of Kirin’s greatest strengths is its resilience to disruption. Most creature combo decks have one or more windows for your opponent to interact with removal or counterspells; the Heliod, Sun-Crowned / Spike Feeder infinite life combo, for example, has a moment where you can remove either creature in response to Feeder’s ability. The Kirin combo, however, is not susceptible to creature removal because there aren’t any activated abilities involved—so long as you don’t pass through a phase, you’ll be able to cast a Conjurant and get the Armageddon trigger immediately after the Kirin resolves. If you pair this feature with cards like Aether Vial or Cavern of Souls to get past counterspells, it becomes literally impossible to interact with the combo without a Stifle effect such as Nimble Obstructionist or Tale’s End.

Besides that, there aren’t many commonly played hate cards that can stop the combo outright, and if an opponent does have one, it’s not always game-over; Kirin has a solid midrange plan to fall back on when it doesn’t have access to the combo. It is not only possible but fairly common to win games by playing like a normal Taxes deck and beating ‘em down with big Conjurants.

The GW Toolbox shell’s versatility is another important asset of Kirin Combo. White and green have some of the best hate cards in the game, and with Eladamri’s Call, you can prepare for more diverse metagames without diluting your sideboard. Furthermore, the deck is a scary dark horse in a known metagame since the main deck can be tuned to beat particular matchups while maintaining its combo consistency.

This next one may seem obvious, but it’s pretty significant: Kirin has a great matchup against land-based strategies like Amulet Titan, Tron, and Bring to Light Scapeshift. This is a rare and valuable trait to have in a midrange deck, as the archetype doesn’t typically fare well against ramp or value piles. In addition, the Kirin combo destroys tokens, which is extremely relevant in today’s meta where Crashing Footfalls and Urza’s Saga are format staples. Since we have built-in hate for those cards and strategies, we don’t have to respect them as much in our sideboard, giving us more room to target whatever other matchups are most prevalent. (And if land or token decks are at the top, more power to us!)

Weaknesses

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First: while Kirin Combo has very prominent midrange elements, it’s still a combo deck at the end of the day. If you never draw or resolve that combo, you’ll be stuck playing a fair game. On top of that, the combo doesn’t immediately win the game on its own, so the entire deck needs to be built to take advantage of it. 

Due to the nature of Armageddon, decks with a more aggressive plan than ours will usually have us on the back foot; ones that accompany board pressure with disruption like discard spells are especially hard to beat. That said, it’s only when that disruption is accompanied by non-graveyard-reliant threats such as Ledger Shredder or Chandra, Torch of Defiance that Kirin really begins to struggle. This is because we have super effective hate cards in Rest in Peace, Sanctifier en-Vec, and Sanctum Prelate for graveyards and spell-heavy decks like UR Murktide.

Speaking of Murktide, big creatures that come down early—cards like Murktide Regent, Stormwing Entity, Scion of Draco, and Tarmogoyf—are quite good against us; our creatures are much smaller in general, so their higher-than-average stats and disproportionate mana costs can make Armageddon nearly obsolete. The good news is that these creatures often come with the downside of having some condition to fulfill (like a reliance on graveyards, other spells, lands, etc.) and we have the tools to answer those things, but we need to pay special attention to them with cards like Oust and Brutal Cathar to ensure they aren’t a problem.

Creature combo decks are difficult to deal with because they have ways to pressure the board while threatening to win the game outright. It can be tough to deal with both angles of attack simultaneously since we care very much about both their “I win” button and the state of the board. Similarly, planeswalkers like Liliana of the Veil can attack our board while generating enough value to overpower an Armageddon. As the Kirin deck, you must always be prepared for these; never forget your Revokers!

Decks that play Aether Vials or mana dorks of their own make it harder for us to create an advantage as they have some immunity to the effects of Armageddon. Against Vial, we’re forced to prioritize answering it over their creatures (an unchecked Vial can easily take over the game), which can result in getting overrun on board. The upside of these matchups is that they often play less removal, so using the Kirin combo as a modal board wipe is more of an option.

Given Kirin Combo’s reliance on tempo, free spells that affect the board—particularly Fury and Solitude—are very good against us. On the other hand, they’re also good for us, but we don’t get quite as much mileage out of them as the Ephemerate decks do.

Finally, the hidden boss of the Modern format: indestructible lands (🤮). Need I say more?

Piloting Kirin Combo

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Kirin Combo is a pretty straightforward deck to pilot overall: don’t keep one-landers, mulligan for at least one combo piece, try to curve out, etc. There is, however, a bit of nuance in some decisions—namely when to cast the combo, when to pivot into an Ugin’s Conjurant end game, land play, and sideboarding.

Combo Timing

When it comes to finding the opportune time to cast the combo, the most important skill you’ll need is the ability to correctly evaluate the board and anticipate your opponents’ counterplay in future turns. This comes more naturally as you gain experience with the deck, but the easiest way to go about it in the meantime is to think of who benefits the most from Armageddon.

Remember: board state is king. If your opponent has more creatures in play than you do, they’ll be glad to see you cast Armageddon. Alternatively, if your board is bigger, it’s likely time to strike. But before you windmill slam the combo onto the table, also consider how your opponent could respond to it: How can they equalize? What is the likelihood of them having the cards to do so? If you don’t cast the combo this turn, how could your opponent punish you for it? In some cases, you’ll realize that you’re too far behind on board to realistically cast Armageddon. Be open to the possibility of using Celestial Kirin + Ugin’s Conjurant as a board wipe spell in these situations. While it isn’t ideal to expose your Kirin to removal, it is sometimes necessary to stay alive.

When it comes to more balanced board states, it’s imperative that you ask yourself those questions I mentioned earlier; in spots like those, a single spell can be the difference between victory and defeat. Also make sure that you’re maximizing your mana in the early turns. If you neglect to develop your board, you will be punished for it.

One situation that comes up frequently is this: it’s turn three and you have both combo pieces, an Eladamri’s Call, a three-drop, but no fourth land in hand. Your opponent is playing a proactive deck (like Jund, for example) and currently has a board presence.

Here, you may be tempted to fetch a Noble Hierarch with Eladamri’s Call to guarantee the fourth mana for next turn. But first, think of how your opponent might react to that. Paying three mana for a mana dork is a very tempo-negative play; should your opponent cast another threat or a removal spell on their turn, you may not have enough firepower on your side to back up the Armageddon with. Thus, in this situation, it’s always correct to curve out with the three-drop and try to draw a land for the combo.

Ugin’s Conjurant End Games

Every so often, you’ll be at a place in the mid-game where you have an Ugin’s Conjurant in hand but no Celestial Kirin and are faced with the decision to cast the Conjurant as a beater or hold out for the combo. In my experience, this happens at least once every three-ish games, so it’s important to be able to recognize these spots quickly.

There are two major situations where you’ll need to cast a Conjurant: the first is when you’re behind on board and Armageddon would be better for your opponent. The second is when you have your opponent on low resources and are in a position to start the beatdown.

The first situation is pretty cut-and-dry for the most part; the only thing to consider is whether you’re able to use the combo as a board wipe to catch back up. If you’re in a precarious board state in which playing a big Ugin’s Conjurant might buy you one or two more turns but holding it to wrath the board with Celestial Kirin could turn the tides in your favor, it’s usually correct to hold and risk it all for the win.

The second situation is where it gets harder. Without any knowledge of what you or your opponent might draw in future turns, the decision to commit a Conjurant to the board is essentially a shot in the dark. An understanding of your opponent’s deck can help inform your judgment, though; if you know your opponent is playing Archmage’s Charm, for example, you probably shouldn’t do it, but if their deck is full of burn spells, a big ol’ Conjurant might just get the job done.

So, the major points from these two sections:

1. Keep track of who benefits most from Armageddon.
2. Try to make the most efficient, tempo-positive plays you can.
3. Don’t be afraid to cast Conjurants to keep up on board or take big hits for a winning line. Play to win!

Land Play

Optimal land sequencing is surprisingly complicated. Here are my tips:

1. Don’t fetch all of your dual lands. You want to have access to duals post-Armageddon, especially to fetch off of Flagstones.
2. Carefully evaluate how many lands you want to draw and use that to inform your fetching decisions. You can leave fetches uncracked since you want to fetch basics before duals anyway.
3. Post-Armageddon, hold your lands until you have two in hand; if you draw a second Ugin’s Conjurant after mindlessly playing your extra land the turn before, you’ll be down a mana for no reason.
   1. Exception: You have a card you can play off a land this turn and a topdecked land next turn.
4. Hold lands if you have enough mana to cast the combo but don’t yet have both combo pieces.
   1. Exceptions:
      1. You are starting to fall behind on board and need to play a big Conjurant to catch up.
      2. You have a Conjurant and a fifth/sixth land and want to have access to Eladamri’s Call into Kirin.
      3. Hard-cast Solitude.
      4. Fetching for deck-thinning purposes when you’re flooded.
5. Fetching a Forest on turn one is always fine as long as you have only one in the deck. With the list above, it’s impossible to not have double W with any combination of two lands after turn one Forest.
   1. Exception: When you have a two-cmc card with no green or generic pips like Sanctifier en-Vec or Lavinia, Azorius Renegade in your deck.

Sideboarding

Sideboarding is the most important and perhaps the most nuanced aspect of piloting Kirin Combo. With access to many of the best sideboard cards in the format, it is very easy to overboard in some matchups without a well thought-out sideboard plan. In addition, to sideboard optimally you need to find the best balance between your midrange and combo plans in every matchup; if you go too far in either direction, the odds are high that you’ll get steamrolled.

With that being said, the list above uses a mix between a toolbox and quasi-transformational sideboard to maximize both elements of the deck. Sounds weird, I know, but let me explain.

In many matchups, you’ll keep the combo core intact and bring in a few tutorable pieces to hedge against whatever your opponent is doing. However, against certain strategies (like discard decks, for example) it’s viable to board out core cards such as Aether Vial or Eladamri’s Call and shift to a more midrange-focused plan. Gavin Verhey calls this the “half-transform”; you adjust your approach to the game while maintaining the threat of the combo. This is why the sideboard isn’t strictly composed of silver bullets like you might see in other toolbox decks—singletons become a lot worse when you remove their accompanying tutor spells.

With this in mind, my rule of thumb is to always keep these cards in your deck: 4 Celestial Kirin, 4 Ugin’s Conjurant, and 2-3 Ranger-Captain of Eos. More detailed notes on sideboard plans and the theory behind this approach are in the Sideboard Guide below.

Matchups

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As far as matchups go, the most notable decks that I believe Kirin is at least slightly favored against are Cascade (Crashing Footfalls and Living End), UR Murktide, Grixis Death’s Shadow, Amulet Titan, and Hammertime.

Of all the tier decks, the biggest thorn in our side is 4c Omnath. Armageddon can be effective against them, but the fact that they play eight free removal spells and Wrenn and Six means it’s never a surefire path to victory. The deck also outclasses us in the late game with powerhouses like Omnath, Locus of Creation, so we can’t afford to board into the midrange backup plan, either. Our best strategy is basically to cheese them with Lavinia, Azorius Renegade and a timely Armageddon.

So, without getting into the nitty-gritty details, here is Kirin Combo’s archetypal matchup chart:

Kirin Combo Matchup Chart
Winning (65-35)	Land Ramp Spell-based Combo
Favored (60-40)	Control Cascade Spell-reliant Aggro Urza’s Saga decks
Slightly Favored (55-45)	Spell/Graveyard-reliant Midrange Graveyard decks
Even (50-50)	Vial Tribal White-based Midrange
Slightly Unfavored (45-55)	Creature Aggro
Unfavored (40-60)	Creature Combo Black-based Midrange Affinity Mill
Losing (35-65)	4c Omnath Red-based Midrange

Keep in mind that there’s a lot of variation between specific decks within each archetype. For an in-depth look at Kirin Combo’s matchups and sideboard strategies, please see the Kirin Combo Sideboard Guide!

Conclusion

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To wrap things up, Kirin Combo is a unique midrange-combo deck that rewards players who have a good understanding of the fundamental concepts of Magic. Despite how it might seem at first glance, it has serious game against many competitive and otherwise established decks; I’ve personally had consistent success with it at FNM and online. If you like janky combos, are a degenerate, or simply hate Tron, I highly recommend giving it a try!

If you want to see the deck in action, here are some great content creators who featured the deck on their channels!

• D00mwake: Armageddon in Modern?!
• Seth (probably better known as SaffronOlive): Featured on Much Abrew About Nothing!
• ThrabenU: MODERN LEGAL ARMAGEDDON!!!
• Me: Blowing up EVERYTHING with Armageddon & Taxes Combo!

Special thanks to my good friend Jo, everyone on the Untap Open League Discord who I’ve played with or talked to (particularly GreenSkyDragon, Razz, and Dank_confidant), and Arsteel for letting me publish this article here.

Finally, thanks to all of you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments or through DM (my Discord is pizza#9468). I’d be happy to answer all of them!