This deck has been retired.
Tayam, Luminous Enigma - Abzan Combos
Approximate Total Cost:
This is a combo focused deck centered around some specific concepts. The general idea is to get indefinite loops where you can mill as much of your library as you want and bring back as many permanents as you want.
Combos #1
The first centers around 3 creatures from the Shadowmoor set which features creatures which can untap by putting a -1/-1 counter on themselves; Devoted Druid, Barrenton Medic, Cinderhaze Wretch.
This allows you build up lots of counters (on creatures) which you can then use Tayam, Luminous Enigma to remove them.
Now with needing 3 counters each time you want to use Tayam, this means that only Barrenton Medic would survive putting -3/-3 with its 4 toughness.
This means that you will always have counters to remove and only mana becomes the limiting factor to using Tayam ability.
Devoted Druid and Cinderhaze Wretch only have 2 toughness, so in theory can only put a single -1/-1 counter, otherwise they will die.
There are cards specifically in the deck to give them toughness boosts so that you can put 3 x -1/-1 counters on them.
If Devoted Druid can put -3/-3 counters on itself then it can also produce the mana required for the Tayam activation. This means that you can activate the ability infinite times, milling your deck and putting all your 3 or less cost permanents into play.
Another combo is using cards that allow you to tap creatures for mana in Earthcraft, Cryptolith Rite, Song of Freyalise, Rishkar, Peema Renegade, so that you can also use Barrenton Medic and Cinderhaze Wretch for an infinite loop as well.
As I pointed out in order for Devoted Druid or Cinderhaze Wretch to work you need some additional help.
There are some lands in the deck that give stats bonuses, so if you've milled one of them you can look to use Tayam ability to put them into play, giving you access to them straight away with Centaur Garden and Hashep Oasis
Gavony Township is a bit slower, but this allows you make more counters for other plans.
Further to this you might actually have a number of cards in play that work together to make counters on creatures.
For example with Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, when you use Cinderhaze Wretch ability to untap, you'll create a 1/1 Snake and this comes with a "vigilance counter" from Tayam.
If you have Earthcraft for example in play now you can tap for 2 mana (Cinderhaze and Snake) while gaining 2 counters.
Alright so we are not all the way there for infinite, but now you can only need an additional to activate Tayam and this digs you deeper into finding other ways to produce counters or mana.
Combos #2
Another combo that we are looking to abuse, is to keep activating Tayam to put lands into play. If you can make it so that a land taps for at least mana, then that means you can activate Tayam as many times as you put a land into play.
However you also need a way to generate at least 3 counters on creatures each time as well.
Evolution Sage is the perfect card for this, as long as you've got two other creatures in play, with most likely "vigilance counters". Each time you put a land into play you can proliferate those counters, so that you can then remove them for Tayam ability.
Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is also another one that you can use, but you'll need to specifically use it with any of the fetchlands. This is perfectly fine as you can just keep returning the same fetchland for as many times as needed.
Avenger of Zendikar will also give you counters.
There is only one card that allows you to get 3 mana off a single land with Nyxbloom Ancient.
However you can look to use 2 x mana doubling cards to also get this effect, so if you can combine any of these two you can go infinite; Mirari's Wake, Nissa, Who Shakes the World, Heartbeat of Spring, Lotus Cobra.
But its important to note that even if you only have one mana doubler in play, it's basically costing you only to keep putting an additional land into play. So if you started the turn with 7 mana, then you'll end up putting 7 additional lands into play that turn! Then next turn double that again, unless of course you find your win conditions.
Combos #3
There are also some special lands that potentially produce multiple mana in; Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Sanctum, Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
First of all they are great because often they will pay for or even net you mana when you first have to activate Tayam for mana.
For example if you have 3 creatures in play, then activating Tayam to bring Gaea's Cradle into play will mean that you can activate him again.
You'll need the counters enabler still with Evolution Sage, Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, Avenger of Zendikar.
Even if you are not going infinite, ramping lands into play just means you have so much more mana in the following turns to activate him, invariably milling and putting cards into play off the activation that will forward your game plan.
But you can go infinite with one of these lands if they provide enough mana to activate Tayam with mana left over, and a way to sacrifice the land with either Squandered Resources or Sylvan Safekeeper.
You can just keep sacrificing the same land, to put it back into play.
Tutors for days
Because it is a combo deck, there are a lot of tutors to help assemble the required cards.
Further to this, because of Tayam ability to put cards from graveyard into play, you can leverage off cards that put cards into graveyard rather than hand.
Entomb can get any card, so it might be that you need Earthcraft to complete an infinite combo, and so you can just use Entomb to search it and use Tayam to return it to play.
Buried Alive is just for creatures, so if you go for the setup of Devoted Druid and Twigwalker.
You can bring both the Devoted Druid and Twigwalker into play with Tayam ability and then sacrifice the Twigwalker to give the Devoted Druid +2/+2 allowing you to go infinite.
Congregation at Dawn can actually be used in the same way as Buried Alive, as you can activate Tayam before you draw the cards to mill them into your graveyard. This just means you can access them with his ability, rather than having to wait and draw them.
There are some land tutors as well as we have special lands that we want access to; Crop Rotation, Scapeshift, Realms Uncharted. The neat thing is that the lands that go to the graveyard can potentially be brought back with Tayam ability if you wanted them. This works particularly well with Realms Uncharted.
Other interactions
With Tayam ability to only bring back 3 or less cmc permanents, there are some key combo cards that cost more.
Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead can be returned to target Barrenton Medic, Cinderhaze Wretch, Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest for example.
Freyalise's Winds is a way to get counters on your creatures, while also slowing down your opponents.
There are quite a lot of creatures that tap for mana in the deck, while Earthcraft, etc also allow you to do this.
You can remove the "wind counters" using Tayam and this means you get to untap them unlike your opponents.
Remember to use Wall of Roots during your opponents turns, even if you don't use the mana, as getting 4 counters on it will mean you have a guaranteed way to get an activation from Tayam each turn.
How to win?
The way the deck works is that there are quite a few disruptive element before you setup your combos.
There are a number of permanents that can be sacrificed for removal, and this means that you can reuse them again by using Tayam to bring them back into play; Caustic Caterpillar, Qasali Pridemage, Necrotic Sliver, Pernicious Deed.
The deck is also quite resilient to removal as you can get cards back from your graveyard. So unless your opponents are specifically dealing with Tayam or are exiling cards, its hard for them to stop you altogether.
Once you have milled your library and returned numerous permanents to play, then winning is just an inevitability.
With Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest you can make creatures infinitely large and attack for lethal with Concordant Crossroads helping to make it an alpha strike before opponents get a turn.
You can literally get infinite mana and destroy all your opponents permanents, including lands with Necrotic Sliver.
Whats not in the deck?
There are creatures that can generate a number of counters like;
Managorger Hydra, Ravenous Slime, Gideon's Avenger, Scute Mob, Grateful Apparition, Good-Fortune Unicorn, Forgotten Ancient, Sunscorch Regent, Ammit Eternal, Biogenic Ooze, Grismold, the Dreadsower.
The thing is that they do have a limit to their use if they don't provide loops. Sure you can get a Managorger Hydra up to 10 counters, but then that means you can only activate Tayam 3 times. Better than nothing, but this deck is geared towards busted plays.
There are some cards that would seem tempting at first that put counters on your permanents with Winding Constrictor, Pir, Imaginative Rascal, Doubling Season.
However the deck has a focus on -1/-1 counters with Devoted Druid, Barrenton Medic, Cinderhaze Wretch, and so is actually detrimental when trying to use them.
Zacama
I jammed 
