Combo Watch: Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth

Welcome back to another installment of Mana Forge's Combo Watch column. Today we're looking at one of the most elegant and accessible combos in the entire Commander format: infinite colorless mana with just two pieces for a combined cost of roughly €7. Yes, you read that right.

How the combo works

The pieces are Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth.

Let's start with the basics. Basalt Monolith is an artifact that produces colorless mana but does not untap automatically at the beginning of your untap step. It does, however, have an activated ability: by paying , you can untap it.

That's where Rings of Brighthearth comes in: whenever you activate an activated ability (not a mana ability), you may pay to copy that ability.

The sequence goes like this:

1. Basalt Monolith is on the battlefield untapped. Tap it to produce .
2. Activate Basalt Monolith's untap ability by paying (using the you just produced).
3. With Rings of Brighthearth in play, pay to copy the untap ability. You need extra mana — but where does it come from? From the same Monolith production, provided you already have at least floating, or from any other source.

In practice, the combo requires additional mana to get started the first time. Once it's rolling:

• The copy of the untap ability resolves → Basalt Monolith untaps.
• Tap it again for .
• Activate the untap ability again for , copy it with Rings for .
• Net gain: + each loop → infinite colorless mana.

Both cards have a completely colorless () color identity, which means this combo slots into any Commander deck with no color restrictions whatsoever. That's one of its biggest strengths.

Where to play it (suggested commanders)

Because it's colorless, the combo fits anywhere. Here are five commanders that get particularly good mileage out of it:

• Kozilek, Butcher of Truth — Pure colorless commander. Infinite mana lets you recast it multiple times or dump your hand full of massive spells.
• Urza, Lord High Artificer — identity. Urza taps artifacts for mana, and infinite colorless mana converts easily into blue mana thanks to his ability.
• Breya, Etherium Shaper — identity. In an artifacts deck, both pieces already fit the gameplan, and the infinite mana fuels Breya's abilities to wipe out everything.
• Shorikai, Genesis Engine — identity. Loves having mana to spend every turn to create tokens and draw cards.
• Emry, Lurker of the Loch — identity. Recovers the pieces from the graveyard if they get removed, making the combo resilient.

Lines of play and protection

The ideal plan is to deploy Basalt Monolith on turn 3 (cost ) and Rings of Brighthearth on turn 4 (cost ), ready to go infinite from turn 4–5 with supporting mana available.

How to protect yourself:

• Counterspells targeting Rings are the biggest risk. Consider holding it in hand until you have backup like Dispel or Fierce Guardianship.
• Basalt Monolith is vulnerable to artifact removal. Darksteel Forge protects it, but that's a luxury. Alternatively, keeping a second copy in hand isn't a bad idea.
• The best time to activate the combo is your second main phase, after confirming there are no obvious instant-speed responses waiting.

Budget vs. premium versions

There is no "functionally premium" version — the combo works exactly the same way with any printing. You can spend more for aesthetics, but not for performance. It's hard to find a better value proposition anywhere in the format.

Verdict

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for accessibility 🎯 Recommended bracket: 3+

Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth is a combo every Commander player should know. It's cheap, it's colorless (and therefore universal), it requires only two pieces, and it produces a resource — mana — that converts into a win condition in almost any strategy. The only downside is that it's fairly well known, so at experienced tables it will run into answers. But at €7 total, the risk is more than acceptable.

Include it. Now.