Synergy Search

What a lane is

A lane is one way two cards connect by the rules. Each lane has two sides: a payoff, the card that cares, and an enabler, the card that supplies. Pick a card and the page shows the cards on the other side of every lane it is in, with the same key: the same creature type, the same card type, the same kind of counter. Each lane says its rule in a sentence, with its Comprehensive Rules numbers where one applies, and opening a card marks the words on both cards that make the link.

Where the lanes come from

Three sources, each read at build time or from files this site makes. The lane index (cards/lanes.json, written by synergy_build.py from the card facts and each card's rules text): tribes, spells cast, card types, lands, counters, enters and leaves abilities, tap abilities, costs, protection, graveyards and doublers, every match recorded with the sentence that qualified it. The card database's join (cards/feeds.json, from data/layers/satisfies.json): one hand-checked row for each pair of classes the rules connect, such as a sacrifice outlet and a death trigger, applied with each row's own checks on whose side, the card itself or another, and the token's type; a card whose text can't settle a row is shown as not decided and never counted. Commander Spellbook: two-card combos, with every step.

How the order is made

Best fit adds a card's lane weights, one for each distinct way it links (3 when the two halves are made for each other, 2 for most lanes, 1 when the link is true but broad, such as any removal spell and a death trigger), and 2 more when the link runs both ways: the card both supplies the picked card and is fed by it. Among equal fits the card more played in Commander (EDHREC rank) comes first. Deep cuts are cards with at least one weight-3 lane or two or more lanes, and an EDHREC rank past 5,000 or none, newest first. Most played is EDHREC rank, Newest the first printing's day, Cheapest the cheapest printing's price. Lanes come in order of weight, then by how closely their first cards fit. A lane's first eight cards put the ones not yet shown in a lane above ahead of the rest, so the few cards that fit several lanes don't fill every one; the counts and the full lists in Super Search don't change.

What it doesn't do

It reads the cards' words and facts, not a rules engine, and it doesn't count how often cards are played together: EDHREC does that. A link the text can't settle stays out of every count. Each pair page keeps the official rulings for both cards at its foot, which are the word to check a link against.

How the pair page reaches a verdict

Each card's facts say how it answers things (exile, destroy, damage, shrink, sacrifice, bounce, into the library, steal, shut off, counter, discard) and which kinds of permanent each way hits; its defences (indestructible, hexproof, shroud, ward and its cost, protection, regeneration, can't be countered); and any limits (mana value, power or toughness, type, color). For each way your card answers, the pair page checks, in order:

• Does it hit that kind of permanent at all? A spell (instant or sorcery) is only ever on the stack, so only a counter can meet it, or a discard spell while it's still in their hand.
• Does a limit rule it out: mana value, size, type or color?
• Does a defence stop it: indestructible against destroy and damage, hexproof or shroud against anything that targets (a sweeper or a sacrifice gets past them), protection against targeting and against damage? Only protection the card has itself counts: a keyword on it, or "this creature has protection". The One Ring gives its controller protection and a Sword gives the equipped creature protection; neither card has it, so neither stops an answer aimed at the card itself.
• Is there enough damage for its toughness? A * counts as it stands, X damage is a condition, and a creature that enters with +1/+1 counters (Murktide Regent, Stonecoil Serpent) is bigger than its printed size, so fixed damage or a fixed minus against it is a condition.
• Does something make it conditional: their choice of what to sacrifice, a minus that has to reach its toughness, regeneration, protection it can gain, or a condition in the text the facts don't spell out?

Ward is a cost, not a stop. A known ward cost ({2}, pay 2 life, discard a card, sacrifice a creature) is paid, and the row says what it adds; only a cost that can't be known in advance (ward {X}, life equal to its power) makes an answer conditional.

Bounce, tap and phasing, and taking a card until end of turn, answer "For a turn": the card comes back or untaps, so it buys a turn and doesn't remove it. A card its owner puts on the top or bottom of their library, their choice (Aether Gust, Tolarian Contempt), is a maybe for the same reason: on top, they draw it again. A spell taken off the stack that way, or returned to hand (Hullbreaker Horror), is a maybe on the stack; exiling it (Mindbreak Trap) works, even on a spell that can't be countered. A color written after the noun ("target spell or permanent that's red or green") limits it like one before it. Discard is judged while the card is in their hand: a spell where you choose the card (Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress) takes it when it fits what the spell can take, and misses a type it can't take; one where they choose (Mind Rot) or that picks at random (Hymn to Tourach) is a maybe.

Then what else happens: an exiled creature never dies (so a "dies" ability doesn't fire, and undying or persist can't bring it back), a bounced card can be cast again, and a counter only works while the spell is on the stack.

Then what lasts: a card that stays on the battlefield can shut another off without removing it. The pair page reads these from both cards' text, with the Comprehensive Rules numbers each rests on: activated abilities that can't be activated (Stony Silence and Sol Ring, Cursed Totem, Linvala; or a name chosen as it enters: Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Revoker, Meddling Mage), lands made a basic type or abilities removed (Blood Moon and Urborg, Humility), enters and dies triggers that don't trigger (Torpor Orb, Hushbringer), spells that can't be cast from a graveyard, library or exile (Drannith Magistrate, Grafdigger's Cage), more than once a turn (Rule of Law, Ethersworn Canonist) or at instant speed (Teferi, Time Raveler: a counterspell then never has a spell to counter), cards that can't enter from a graveyard or library and creatures exiled because they weren't cast (Containment Priest), cards exiled instead of going to a graveyard (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void), searching, life gain, draws past the first, taxes, permanents that enter tapped or don't untap, and creatures that can't attack. Each line is "Shuts it off", "Limits it" or "Doesn't reach it", with the sentence it was read from. "Shuts it off" means nothing the card does is left (keywords such as flying, which only shape how its body fights, aside): Blood Moon shuts off Urborg, but only limits Volcanic Island, which still taps for red, and Dryad Arbor, still a creature. A trigger that watches other creatures dying counts too: Hushbringer and Rest in Peace shut off Blood Artist (under Rest in Peace nothing dies at all, tokens included: each is exiled instead, CR 614.1a and 700.4). Activated abilities that can't be activated rest on CR 602.5. A kind it doesn't read is never a "no": the page says the pair page doesn't read every lasting effect and points to the rulings, and the rulings that name both cards come first.

How the pair page reads two cards together

For the same side of the table, the pair page reads both cards' rules text sentence by sentence into a profile: the types it names and what it does with them (pumps, counts, triggers on, tutors, makes cheaper), its mass effects and what they spare (a type, a card type, a size, flying, indestructible), what it costs and what can cut that cost, its enters and dies abilities, what it does to itself (sacrifices itself, comes back from the graveyard, has madness or cycling), and what it waits for. Then it matches one card's profile against the other's, both ways, and names each link by its kind, listed in this order:

• a two-card combo listed by Commander Spellbook;
• a cost one card cuts or skips;
• a trigger one card feeds or repeats (tokens, life, cards, counters, lands, deaths; a flicker, a copy or a doubler for an enters or dies ability);
• a wipe one card survives;
• a loop: one card uses itself up and the other brings it back;
• a type one card names (a lord, a tutor, a count);
• an ability one card gives the other;
• something one card supplies and the other uses (cards in the graveyard, mana, an untap).

The page doesn't grade links: it says what each one is and shows the sentences it was read from, and how much a link matters is yours to judge. Where the findings chain, the page lays out the line of play in order. It also lists where two cards get in each other's way on the same side: a wipe that takes yours too, a symmetric lock or tax, a flicker that misses a cast-only enters ability, graveyard hate against your own graveyard.

How it was checked, misses first. A set of 40 known pairs written after the first version caught 27 on its first run; the 13 misses (Entomb into Reanimate, Teysa Karlov doubling Blood Artist, and others) became new patterns, and it now catches 38 (the two left, Arcbound Ravager with Ornithopter and Sanctum Weaver with Utopia Sprawl, show only as links most cards of those types share). A probe of 80 famous pairs finds a link specific to the pair in 68; of the other 12, 5 are pure combos that Commander Spellbook finds instead, 3 show only as links most cards of those types share (Cranial Plating with Ornithopter is a known pairing the reader reaches only that way), 3 have no link in their text, and 1 name didn't match. 22 unrelated pairs (Doom Blade and Murder, Opt and Consider) show no false link, and 36 gold pairs with exact expected answers, clashes included, all pass. Because the patterns were tuned on these sets, real-world coverage is lower than these numbers.

Limits worth knowing

This is card facts and rules text, not a rules engine: layers, timestamps, replacement effects and the stack aren't simulated, and a card that targets in one mode but not another is read as targeting. The synergy reader knows patterns, not every card: an unusual wording can hide a real link, and a finding is a fact about the two texts, not a claim that the pair is worth playing. That's why each finding shows its sentences and each card's official rulings sit on the page: they're the word to check against.

The lasting restrictions are read the same way, from words: a Blood Moon row says what the rules make of Urborg, not what every later effect does to it, and a kind of lasting effect the reader doesn't know is never shown as "Doesn't reach it".

Sources

• Card facts: the site's card data (how each card answers, its defences and limits).
• Rulings: Wizards' official rulings, from Scryfall's rulings file (October 29, 2026).
• Lasting restrictions: both cards' rules text, read by the synergy reader (SY.apart), with rule numbers from the Comprehensive Rules effective September 25, 2026.
• Combos: Commander Spellbook.
• What feeds a card: the card database's join table (data/layers/satisfies.json), applied by feeds_build.py to the database's class facts and each card's oracle text in the database; rule numbers from the Comprehensive Rules effective September 25, 2026.