Yes, glorious anthem effects are useless without any creatures on the board. So are equipment. But they are both very powerful effects in most games of magic because they help you win combat so much. Anthem effects are high picks in regular draft because they're really strong.
As for lava spike, some of the red decks that are basically all burn spells are considered to be kind of combo decks.
And as for spider spawning, yes it wins through attacking with creatures, but a lot of its game plan involves filling up its graveyard and leveraging that zone to its advantage, which isn't something most decks do. How you actually win isn't relevant. Storming into Goblin Warrens actually kills you through turning men sideways, but it's still definitely a combo deck.
See, this is where it feels like the definition of combo is getting too liberal. What I'm hearing is that combo is any archetype that uses any number of unlikely, often underpowered, cards, and combines them such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I wouldn't call that a combo deck, though. That's just an archetype. Or a rogue deck, if you're talking about particularly unusual card choices.
"Filling up your own graveyard" on its own doesn't classify a deck as a combo deck. That's just the theme of Innistrad block, especially in limited. Like landfall was the theme of Zendikar, but running 18 lands and three Plated Geopedes wouldn't mean your draft deck was a combo deck. Again, saying it's unusual, or it's something that most decks don't do, doesn't immediately make a deck a combo deck. In constructed, UB control runs Nephalia Drownyard so that it can mill itself for more juice (along with milling the control opponent out in the mirror). But it's still a control deck through and through, even if no one else is running the self mill angle.
First off those cards are good on their own. And secondly those cards attack the game in the same way most decks do, combat. If your definition of combo is only something like Pestermite + Kiki-Jiki, is storm not a combo deck?
Cards like Glorious Anthem and Honor of the Pure are not good on their own. Pros have referred to them time and again as "half a card", because they don't do anything on their own, and do very little with only a single creature being buffed. Global buffs are actually card disadvantage, and only pass mustard when you have a sizable army to boost.
To use another example, Lava Spike is not a good card. However, when combined with many similar cards, the result is a deck that can win its fair share of games. It doesn't use the combat zone. If minimal usage of the combat zone is your definition of combo, is Lava Spike then a combo card?
To follow that point, why, then, would Spider Spawning considered a combo deck? The deck makes ample use of the combat zone. Armored Skaab and Fortress Crab hold down the ground, and 1/2 tokens later take over the field. It has some non-combat spells, but then, what deck doesn't?
They're very much combo decks. They function by taking a whole bunch of cards that don't do that much individually and weaving them together to make a cohesive deck.
By that definition, Honor of the Pure, Glorious Anthem, and a bunch of small white creatures is a combo deck. None of these cards are very good on their own. But putting them together sure makes for a cohesive deck.
We're probably getting caught up in semantics here. It feels like people are using the word "combo" to be synonymous with "archetype" and "synergy". While I don't want to turn this into a nitpicky back and forth over definitions, you'll note that the original author of this thread was talking specifically about two and three card combos - your Pestermites and such, not your archetype-enabling Glorious Anthems. It's certainly more than possible to enable archetypes and syngeries in cube, but I don't think I could recommend seeding any actual combos in a cube, unless it was a rotisserie draft.
I'm not sure if I would define any of those as combo decks. Archetypes, definitely, and the cards invite people to build around their themes. But I haven't heard anyone refer to their U/G self-mill Spider Spawning deck as combo. They are really just control decks with lots of Horned Turtles to gum up the ground, and a powerful end game win condition. Burning Vengeance, maybe there could be a case made for that, but those decks still have to play a real game of Magic.
When I think combo, mostly I think of non-interactive decks that largely ignore the board state, focusing instead on a sculpting a combination of cards that will either win the game on the spot, or put the game largely out of reach. I would say that combo decks operate more like solitaire than normal back and forth games of Magic. The kind of raw power and consistency to execute that kind of combo is difficult to achieve in draft.
I also run a Modern cube, and find that neither reanimator nor combo are really possible. For reanimator, the zombify effects are decent in Modern, but what you're missing is the equivalent of Entomb or Survival. The discard outlets, and maybe more importantly the tutors, just aren't there to enable the archetype. As for combo, consider actual Limited formats - when has combo ever been a draftable deck? Combo decks require consistency more than any other archetype, which usually means four copies of all the key cards, and that goes against the very nature of drafting a cube.
As eidolon mentions, there should be midrange strategies available in your cube, like tokens or good stuff ramp. If you've set it up, tempo can be a powerful option as well - Snapcaster Mage + Lightning Bolt decks can be a house. These archetypes are easier to support than reanimator or combo, and the payoff is well worth the effort.
See, this is where it feels like the definition of combo is getting too liberal. What I'm hearing is that combo is any archetype that uses any number of unlikely, often underpowered, cards, and combines them such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I wouldn't call that a combo deck, though. That's just an archetype. Or a rogue deck, if you're talking about particularly unusual card choices.
"Filling up your own graveyard" on its own doesn't classify a deck as a combo deck. That's just the theme of Innistrad block, especially in limited. Like landfall was the theme of Zendikar, but running 18 lands and three Plated Geopedes wouldn't mean your draft deck was a combo deck. Again, saying it's unusual, or it's something that most decks don't do, doesn't immediately make a deck a combo deck. In constructed, UB control runs Nephalia Drownyard so that it can mill itself for more juice (along with milling the control opponent out in the mirror). But it's still a control deck through and through, even if no one else is running the self mill angle.
Cards like Glorious Anthem and Honor of the Pure are not good on their own. Pros have referred to them time and again as "half a card", because they don't do anything on their own, and do very little with only a single creature being buffed. Global buffs are actually card disadvantage, and only pass mustard when you have a sizable army to boost.
To use another example, Lava Spike is not a good card. However, when combined with many similar cards, the result is a deck that can win its fair share of games. It doesn't use the combat zone. If minimal usage of the combat zone is your definition of combo, is Lava Spike then a combo card?
To follow that point, why, then, would Spider Spawning considered a combo deck? The deck makes ample use of the combat zone. Armored Skaab and Fortress Crab hold down the ground, and 1/2 tokens later take over the field. It has some non-combat spells, but then, what deck doesn't?
By that definition, Honor of the Pure, Glorious Anthem, and a bunch of small white creatures is a combo deck. None of these cards are very good on their own. But putting them together sure makes for a cohesive deck.
We're probably getting caught up in semantics here. It feels like people are using the word "combo" to be synonymous with "archetype" and "synergy". While I don't want to turn this into a nitpicky back and forth over definitions, you'll note that the original author of this thread was talking specifically about two and three card combos - your Pestermites and such, not your archetype-enabling Glorious Anthems. It's certainly more than possible to enable archetypes and syngeries in cube, but I don't think I could recommend seeding any actual combos in a cube, unless it was a rotisserie draft.
I'm not sure if I would define any of those as combo decks. Archetypes, definitely, and the cards invite people to build around their themes. But I haven't heard anyone refer to their U/G self-mill Spider Spawning deck as combo. They are really just control decks with lots of Horned Turtles to gum up the ground, and a powerful end game win condition. Burning Vengeance, maybe there could be a case made for that, but those decks still have to play a real game of Magic.
When I think combo, mostly I think of non-interactive decks that largely ignore the board state, focusing instead on a sculpting a combination of cards that will either win the game on the spot, or put the game largely out of reach. I would say that combo decks operate more like solitaire than normal back and forth games of Magic. The kind of raw power and consistency to execute that kind of combo is difficult to achieve in draft.
As eidolon mentions, there should be midrange strategies available in your cube, like tokens or good stuff ramp. If you've set it up, tempo can be a powerful option as well - Snapcaster Mage + Lightning Bolt decks can be a house. These archetypes are easier to support than reanimator or combo, and the payoff is well worth the effort.