Combo Watch: Infinite Turns with Thopter Assembly + Time Sieve

Every so often the Commander format gives us combos that seem almost too cheap to be real. Today we're talking about an infinite turns loop that costs less than six euros in total and, once it gets going, almost certainly wins the game. Welcome to the duo formed by Thopter Assembly and Time Sieve.

How the combo works

The mechanism is elegant in its simplicity. Let's break down the pieces:

• Thopter Assembly: a 5/5 artifact creature that, at the beginning of your upkeep, if you control no other Thopters, returns to its owner's hand and creates five 1/1 flying Thopter tokens.
• Time Sieve: an artifact that lets you sacrifice five artifacts to take an extra turn.

The loop works like this:

1. Thopter Assembly is on the battlefield. You control no other Thopters.
2. At the beginning of your upkeep, Assembly triggers: it returns to your hand and produces five Thopter tokens.
3. You activate Time Sieve by sacrificing the five tokens: you gain an extra turn.
4. During the extra turn, you cast Thopter Assembly from your hand again.
5. On the next turn (still yours), the whole thing repeats from the upkeep.

The loop is perfect: it feeds itself every turn without consuming any additional resources. Once it's running, you have infinite turns until you win.

⚠️ Minimum recommended Bracket: 4. This combo requires two specific cards on the battlefield, is slow to set up but lethal once online. Don't bring it to casual tables without giving fair warning.

Where to slot it in

The combined color identity of the two cards is Blue/Black (Thopter Assembly is colorless but an artifact, Time Sieve is blue/black). Ideal commanders must fall within the identity or broader.

Here are five suggestions:

• Breya, Etherium Shaper (): the queen of artifact combos. She finds the pieces, protects them, and exploits them. This is the natural home for this combo.
• Urza, Lord High Artificer (): generates mana with artifacts and can tutor up the pieces. Monocolored but a perfect fit for this context.
• Sharuum the Hegemon (): recovers artifacts from the graveyard, offering great resilience against removal.
• Emry, Lurker of the Loch (): cheap to cast with artifacts on the battlefield, reactivates Assembly from the graveyard. Ideal for more aggressive builds.
• Sai, Master Thopterist (): creates tokens whenever you cast an artifact, and can sacrifice them to draw cards. Excellent thematic synergy with both pieces.

Lines of play and protection

The combo's weak spot is the window between the turn you cast Thopter Assembly and your next upkeep. During that span of time, a single piece of removal targeting Assembly is enough to tear the whole thing apart.

Recommended protection:

• Counterspell, Dispel, or Swan Song to cover the vulnerability window.
• Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots grant immediate hexproof to Assembly (but watch out: Greaves also prevent you from targeting the creature yourself).
• Teferi's Time Twist is a reactive answer: it bounces Assembly in response to removal and puts it back on the battlefield with a counter, preserving your setup.

How to find the pieces:

• Fabricate and Whir of Invention are artifact-specific tutors.
• In Breya or Sharuum, Enlightened Tutor is pure gold.
• Reshape is a lesser-known but functional option.

Budget vs. premium versions

The good news is that the combo itself is already budget-friendly: €0.23 for Thopter Assembly and €5.58 for Time Sieve, for a total of €5.81.

The real cost of the deck depends on the supporting package:

A functional build around Emry, Lurker of the Loch can come in under €50 total while remaining reasonably competitive at Bracket 4.

Verdict

Thopter Assembly + Time Sieve is a combo that needs no exotic setup, demands no absurd mana sacrifices, and costs a negligible amount. It's the kind of interaction that illustrates exactly why artifacts in Commander are so dangerous: modular, tutorable, and hard to hate out in a targeted way.

If you're building a blue/black artifact deck and haven't included it yet, you're probably leaving a free win condition on the table.

Technical rating: 8/10 — Simple, affordable, effective. It only loses points for being slow to get started and for its vulnerability to mass artifact removal.