War of the Spark Planeswalker spoilers: Ral Zarek’s infinite combos

Ral Zarek’s new MTG card is the latest Planeswalker to be revealed as part of the War of the Spark spoiler season. With this reveal, we receive further confirmation that the leak shared a while back was, in fact, accurate. More importantly, though, the new Ral Zarek means there are now a couple of new combos in Standard. Let’s break those down really quick.

The cards

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The combos

Ral combo #1: Doublecast combo

This combo involves having Ral, Storm Conduit on the battlefield and 1 copy of both Doublecast and Expansion//Explosion. Here’s how it goes:

• Use Ral’s -2 so that the next spell you cast this turn is copied.
• Cast Double Cast so that Ral’s ability copies it, giving you two Doublecasts on the stack. Let the copy resolve; keep the original Doublecast on the stack.
• Cast Expansion targeting Doublecast. Expansion gets copied because we let the copy of Doublecast resolve.
• Use the copy of Expansion to target the real Expansion.
• Use the copy of Expansion to target the copy of Expansion.
• Chain Expansions for forever, all while Ral, Storm Conduit pings your opponent to death for infinite damage.

Ral combo #2: Expansion combo

This version of the combo requires Ral to be on the battlefield like the prior one, but you have to have 2 copies of Expansion in your hand and a cheap instant spell like Opt or Shock.

• Cast Opt or Shock.
• Before that spell resolves, cast Expansion #1.
• Before Expansion #1 resolves, cast Expansion #2 targeting Expansion #1.
• Chain Expansion copies for forever while Ral pings your opponent to death for infinite damage.

Is this playable?

These combos fit in the same deck, which is really important because it means there’s a certain degree of redundancy. If combo #1 can’t happen, then maybe combo #2 can. The deck would most likely run countermagic, early game removal to survive against aggro. It may splash a color to run board wipes or Wilderness Reclamation so that it could win via large Explosions as well.

Ultimately, all these cards are pretty playable by themselves. They fit in the same colors, which means even if a deck isn’t explicitly all in on the combo, it may run them all for the off-chance of getting the combo kill every now and then.