Three Cards, One Loop: The Abdel Adrian Combo That Costs Less Than a Coffee

Turn five, for example. On the table you have Abdel Adrian and Lumbering Battlement, both on the battlefield, and in your hand you hold Suspension Field. Nothing expensive, nothing spectacular. But if the loop closes, what starts out as an ordinary scene turns into an army that nobody can keep count of anymore.

This is the story of a combo that costs €0.42 in total. Let's see how it works.

The Combo in Three Steps

The mechanism exploits the word "until". Both Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward and Lumbering Battlement exile permanents "until I leave the battlefield", and they return everything when they leave.

First step. Abdel Adrian enters and exiles your nonland permanents, creating a 1/1 white Soldier token for each one exiled.

Second step. Lumbering Battlement enters and exiles, among nontoken creatures, Abdel Adrian himself. Abdel leaves the battlefield, so everything he was holding in exile comes back.

Third step. This is where Suspension Field comes in. When it enters, it exiles a creature with toughness 3 or greater: you choose Lumbering Battlement. As soon as Battlement leaves the battlefield, Abdel Adrian returns from exile. As he re-enters, his trigger goes off again: new exile, new Soldiers, and Battlement can be recaptured. The cycle renews itself without needing any additional mana.

The Commander Spellbook database classifies the combo among those that produce infinite tokens, infinite ETBs, infinite LTBs and infinite blink of nonland permanents, with a minimum bracket of 3. This is not a casual-table combo: it should be played where a sudden win is accepted.

The piece that closes the loop is Suspension Field itself, a two-mana card with a negligible price: a cheap removal Aura serving as the engine of a loop. No special creature is needed, just a sufficiently sturdy target, and Battlement is exactly that.

Cost and Price Trends

Today the entire combo costs €0.42. Two weeks ago, when the idea first surfaced, the total was the same, but under the surface the individual prices have moved:

• Abdel Adrian: from €0.42 to €0.24, a drop of 42.9%.
• Lumbering Battlement: from €0.18 to €0.13, down 27.8%.
• Suspension Field: from €0.07 to €0.05, down 28.6%.

All three have gone down. The signal is simple: none of the three is speculative, and none is at risk of spiking after an article. This is a combo you can build today without checking your wallet.

How to Fit It Into Your Deck

You have three pieces, with mana costs of 5, 5 and 2. The plan is to hold the first two in hand and cast them in sequence, with Suspension Field as the closer. A few ideas:

• Tutors. White doesn't have many, so it's worth increasing redundancy: more blink effects and more temporary exile removal that reacts to "leave the battlefield".
• Window. The critical turn is the one in which the third piece enters. If you have an opponent with open mana, wait for them to spend it before starting the loop.
• Closing. The loop produces Soldiers and triggers, not damage in itself. To close the game you need a way to make use of those Soldiers: an effect that makes them lethal, or a trigger on creatures dying or entering that causes life loss.

A word of caution: Abdel Adrian is a legendary creature and can serve as a commander, so in your starting deck you can keep him always available from the command zone.

How It Gets Disrupted (and How to Protect It)

The combo has an obvious weak point: everything runs through creatures. If an opponent touches a piece at the wrong moment, the cycle breaks.

The most common enemies:

• Instant-speed removal. Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile exile the creature in response to the trigger. If Abdel or Battlement leaves for good, the loop dies.
• Sweepers. A board wipe clears everything in one stroke.
• Stasis or lock effects. Effects that stop creatures from entering or stop activated abilities can prevent the re-trigger.

There are few options for protecting the pieces, and all come with limits. Spirit Mantle gives protection from creatures, so it stops attacks or removal that comes from creatures, but not an instant spell. Hyena Umbra has totem armor: if the creature would be destroyed, the Aura is sacrificed in its place. It helps against destruction, not against exile. Timely Ward grants indestructible, with the same limitation.

In short, these measures protect against damage and destruction, but they won't stop an exile effect like Swords to Plowshares. Against that, the only defence is timing: waiting until the table is bare of answers, or knowing that your opponent has already spent theirs.

Alternative Combos with Abdel Adrian

Abdel Adrian doesn't live on this combo alone. The database lists many others built on the same underlying logic:

• Restoration Angel plus Ephemerate
• Felidar Guardian plus Cloudshift
• Combinations with Oblivion Ring

They all work on the same principle: making Abdel leave and re-enter so as to reactivate his trigger. The Suspension Field variant stands out for its price and simplicity: two mana for the final piece.

If you want to add more protection or more routes to the same result, Ghostway is another option: it exiles all your creatures and returns them at end of turn, useful as an emergency response.

Back to the Table

Let's return to the table from the beginning. Abdel, Battlement, and in hand a two-mana card. The rules do the rest. It seems like very little, and that is exactly the point: a combo that costs less than a coffee and that, played at the right moment, turns an ordinary scene into a finished game. The only thing to remember is to look at what the person sitting across from you is holding before pressing the button.