MTG is a beloved game – and a significant reason for that is its excellent set of mechanics, like ‘you win the game’ cards. These alternate win conditions are an old favorite of players, and some have even seen competitive play. So, then, if you want to win without damage or mill, which are the best ‘you win the game’ cards in MTG?
The best MTG ‘you win the game’ cards have easy conditions to trigger, such as having a specific life total or no cards in your library. These alternate win conditions often provide additional value before victory, so they’re worthwhile to play in other circumstances.
We can move onto the list now that we know what to keep aware of when playing alternate win conditions. This list isn’t in any ranked order since each ‘you win the game’ card needs a different strategy to be effective. However, you can use some, like Felidar Sovereign and Approach of the Second Sun, in the same deck or switch them out to juke your opponent.
Best MTG Alternate Win Conditions
1. Laboratory Maniac & Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
Typically, you’d lose the game if you tried to draw with no cards in your library.
However, Laboratory Maniac and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, will win you the game instead. There are several dangerous strategies to mill yourself out and trigger these abilities – they have fourteen Top 8s in pro-tier tournaments.
In addition to being favorites of the cEDH format, these blue alternate win conditions are also decent cards otherwise.
While Laboratory Maniac can attack and block if need be, Jace can draw you cards and mill a target player.
2. Maze’s End
Maze’s End is one of the best alternate win conditions since it’s a land, so it’ll naturally avoid most removal.
Not only that, but you can pay three mana, tap it, and return it to your hand to ramp you. You can search your library for a gate and put it onto the battlefield.
Then, if you control at least ten gates with different names, Maze’s End will win you the game. Doing so isn’t as complicated as it looks since gates are a surprisingly powerful tribe. You have cards like Crop Rotation to help you along the way.
Maze’s End has even won games in the Pro Tour, with one Top 8.
3. Simic Ascendancy
If you like +1/+1 counters, then Simic Ascendancy is your alternate win condition.
This enchantment ‘you win the game’ card triggers when it has twenty or more growth counters on it. And Simic Ascendency gets growth counters whenever you put that many +1/+1 counters on a creature you control.
In a counters-matter deck, placing twenty +1/+1 counters is a cakewalk. Likewise, Simic Ascendancy can put those counters on your creatures at the cost of three mana.
This enchantment is wondrous in proliferate strategies since anything that increases counters will quickly get it to the necessary total.
4. Approach of the Second Sun
The Approach of the Second Sun is one of white’s best alternate win conditions, and it has a Pro Tour Top 8 victory to prove it.
You win the game if you’ve cast this spell from your hand twice in the game. However, it costs seven mana by default.
Nevertheless, it isn’t impossible to pull off. With cost-reducing cards and plenty of stalling, you can easily see the Second Sunrise on the battlefield. This white sorcery also gains you seven life the first time you cast it, then puts itself in your library seventh from the top.
You’ve got a definite countdown and some breathing room until the next time.
5. Battle of Wits
Battle of Wits will win you the game at the start of your turn.
However, you must have at least 200 hundred cards in your library for this enchantment’s ability to trigger. And that means one seriously massive deck.
Battle of Wits decks, therefore, often load up with tutors, counterspells, and other prison strategies to buy time until you can play this card. So, if you enjoy slinging all of your favorite spells in one deck, or shuffling loads of cards, check this one out.
It even has one Pro Tour first place win!
6. Halo Fountain
A powerful artifact from Streets of New Capenna, Halo Fountain, is like the Swiss Army Knife of alternate win conditions.
It starts by untapping a creature to create a 1/1 citizen token. That token comes in handy, too – you can untap it and another creature to draw a card.
Last, if you have fifteen tapped creatures, Halo Fountain can untap them all for five white mana and win you the game.
All these abilities are extraordinary, and the first two are especially helpful in keeping you alive long enough to activate the third.
7. Coalition Victory
Coalition Victory wins you the game if you control a land of each basic land type, plus a creature of each color.
While it’s also an expensive card – it costs 3WUBRG – it’s also immediate. If it resolves correctly, you’ve won without any further questions.
Triggering the condition is straightforward, too. Multicolored creatures and lands with several types count for it, so that’s the best way forward. Coalition Victory is also a smart include in rainbow decks as a backup win condition.
No wonder it has a Pro Tour Top 8, then.
8. Felidar Sovereign & Test of Endurance
Felidar Sovereign and Test of Endurance will win you the game if you have enough life – forty and fifty, respectively.
In Commander, where you begin with forty life, these cards can immediately ensure your victory. Test of Endurance has also done that at a competitive level, picking up one Pro Tour Top 8.
And while Test of Endurance is an otherwise textless enchantment, Felidar Sovereign is also a helpful creature, seeing play over 17,000 EDHREC decks.
It’s 4/6 with vigilance and lifelink, so it can quickly earn you the life you need to trigger it.
9. Darksteel Reactor
A significant risk of alternate win conditions is your opponent destroying them.
You won’t need to care about that with the indestructible Darksteel Reactor. This artifact wins the game when it has twenty or more charge counters. And you can put another charge counter on it during each of your upkeeps.
Charge counters are easy to add, too. Cards like Coretapper can quickly get Darksteel Reactor to twenty counters, and proliferate cards are helpful, too.
It’s no surprise, then, that Darksteel Reactor has earned a Pro Tour Top 8.
10. Thassa’s Oracle
An infamously potent alternate win condition, Thassa’s Oracle is the go-to card for competitive self-mill.
This little merfolk wizard has an astonishing nine PT Top 8s, and it’s a must-have for many cEDH builds. And here’s why.
When it enters, you can look at the top X cards of your library. X is your devotion to blue. You can keep one on top and put the rest on the bottom in any order. If your devotion is equal to or higher than the number of cards left in your library, you win instead.
If you can reduce your library to a tiny amount, Thassa’s Oracle is a guaranteed win. And even if it isn’t, it still has a helpful scry ability.
