This resource is intended to explain the ideas behind winconless decks, when to cut wincons and some of the most basic “winconless” approaches.

Context

First up, “Wincon” is short for “Win Condition”, but what counts as one?
The waters around this can be a little bit muddy. Some people say that the combo set up is the wincon, while some focus on the outlet.
In a deck like Breakfast Hulk; Hermit Druid, the Breakfast Combo, Laboratory Maniac, Hulk Death Trigger or even Ad Nauseam could all be described as “wincons” in different contexts.
When discussing “winconless”, it’s typically the piece that takes you from “comboing off” to “dead opponents” that is counted as a wincon. In Breakfast Hulk, that would be the Laboratory Maniac.

What?

There is a spectrum of how useful outside its role as a win condition a given spell is.
Near the bottom would be a card like Exsanguinate. Killing players in a non-infinite way is very difficult, and it doesn’t really have utility outside killing people. When you aren’t winning with it, Laboratory Maniac is a Gray Ogre, which is a card often used as the butt of jokes about bad cards.
Up from there would be a card like Grapeshot. Doesn’t do much, but in a pinch can remove a truly problematic permanent. Slightly better is something like Blue Sun’s Zenith, which is a mediocre card draw spell, or Walking Ballista, which has a moderately useful board presence.

Winconless decks seek to win using cards closest to the “useful spell” end of this spectrum.

One of the first decks to go “winconless” was Tasigur. Beast Within and Reality Shift are both passable removal spells, and when looped infinitely with Tasigur, they let you destroy all of someone’s permanents and exile their library.
Some Green-based decks like Selvala and Momir went for Eternal Witness loops, repeatedly casting some standalone spells to win.
We see it in lots of other decks as well, perhaps most famously in Scepter Thrasios, where the “Twister Loop” was used to recur some spell to kill.

Why?

It comes down to card quality. If you have infinite mana and access to your whole library, who cares if your win is pieced together from 5 cards? But when you are trying to play the game and avoid losing, wouldn’t you prefer if you didn’t draw Aetherflux Reservoir?

When?

The combos most friendly towards being made winconless are ones that involve infinite mana or draw, such as Scepter with an outlet in the CZ, Top + Future sight etc.
One of the most common culprits is Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries in decks without Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation. If you have to draw your entire deck to win with a card, chances are you can cobble together a win out of the cards you drew, rather than running a dedicated wincon. This, and other similar scenarios, are when to look for cutting wincons.
Not that all dedicated wincons should be cut, for example, storm decks can “manually” use Aetherflux Reservoir when not going infinite, or certain spells may allow you to win at instant speed, or through some disruption or hate piece. “Winconless” should be applied only to cards that do not enable wins that are otherwise unavailable.

Who?

Some examples of decks that commonly include unnecessary wincons, and could go winconless:
Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries in Urza, Lord High Artificer

You are casting your whole deck for free. Look for Twister/Narsets Reversal loops, or Codex Shredder + scepter to mill.

Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries in Chulane, Teller of Tales

Your various combos draw your deck, and typically have a way to start generating mana once you draw a given piece. You also have tons of ways of repeatedly using Eternal Witness, and often Finale of Devastation

A life loss spell in The Gitrog Monster

You make infinite mana and loop your whole deck. You can use Finale of Devastation, Assassin’s Trophy etc.

Storm Payoffs in Elsha/Kykar

These decks do Top+Future Sight style combos and draw the whole deck. It’s easy to net mana and go in to some loop

How?

There are lots of tools available to winconless decks, and many of them are both recent quite affordable (with a couple exceptions). They fall in to a few different categories:

Payloads:
These are spells that will actually win you the game if cast infinite under the right scenarios:

• Swan Song for infinite 2/2 birds (requires haste or the ability to survive a turn cycle)
• Assassin’s Trophy to destroy all of your opponent’s permanents
• Winds of Rebuke to mill your opponents infinitely
• Extract to exile your opponents libraries
• Praetors Grasp to exile your opponents libraries
• Finale of Devastation to kill with infinite mana and some creatures

Note that Winds of Rebuke and Assassin’s Trophy may not be suitable for Twister loops as Timetwister will reset your progress.

Loop Enablers
These are spells that let you leverage infinite access to your deck by recurring spells (through draw or something like Urza/The First Sliver)

Multi-Buyback spells such as:
Timetwister, Memory’s Journey, Echo of Eons. Any spell that lets you put more than one card from your graveyard back in to your library to draw again. These will put both Payloads and single buyback spells back in to your library

Single Buyback Spells such as:
Regrowth, Noxious Revival, Eternal Witness, Codex Shredder. These let you buy back your multi-buyback spell of loop enabler, and will in turn be bought back by them.

Other Enablers
Copy Artifact – Copying your Isochron Scepter with Dramatic Reversal and putting a payload under it
Narset’s Reversal – Either under Scepter or with Bonus Round, this spell lets you copy payload spells infinitely. It can also function as a single buyback spell by copying your multi buyback spell and returning it to your hand

The basic Twister Loop:
Requirements: Some way to infinitely cast spells that are in your library, either a combo of Infinite Mana + Draw, or infinite cascade, infinite urza activations or similar. Timetwister or an analogue, Regrowth or an analogue, Payload spell.
Steps:

1. Find your Payload spell
2. Cast your Payload spell
3. Find your Twister effect
4. Cast your Twister effect (shuffling in your Regrowth and Payload effects)
5. Find your Regrowth Effect
6. Cast your Regrowth Effect, returning Twister
7. Repeat

The basic dual scepter setup:
Requirements: Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal making infinite mana. Access to your whole deck. Copy Artifact, Payload that can go under scepter (or payload that can’t + narset’s reversal).
Steps:

1. Cast Copy Artifact, copying Isochron Scepter, Imprinting Narset’s Reversal
2. Cast your Payload Spell.
3. Activate the Scepter with Narset’s Reversal, returning your Payload to your hand and copying it
4. Let the Copy Resolve
5. Activate the Scepter with Dramatic Reversal, untapping both Scepters
6. Repeat

If you have a payload that goes under scepter, you can skip steps 2 and 4, and modify step 3 to cast the payload off of scepter.

Downsides of going Winconless

• Winconless combos often require more cards, so there can be increased risk of losing access to something important.
• Most winconless lines are not shortcuttable, which means you will have to execute an obnoxious combo if somebody asks you to
• Winconless combos can be more difficult to execute

If you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to comment, I will probably turn this in to a nicer formatted and updated doc someday.