5 Color - an EDH Manifesto with 9 Questions to the Reader
This isn’t just a decklist. It’s a manifesto for my personal theories of EDH deckbuilding and a conceptual primer of EDH 5 color control. I also ask a bunch of questions looking for feedback on specific card slots.
Ah Sliver Queen, like the addict who just can’t put the bottle down again, I’m back.
Lol.
I’m a 5-color addict. I confess. Moreover, it’s this one specific deck. It started out years ago as a Horde of Notions deck, and after a little while switched to Sliver Queen when I realized how frickin’ Awesome having a stream of tokens can be.
Then, after time (a couple of years) we started to grow apart, the Queen and I.
“Why won’t you do more” I asked her? “Why can’t you be a sweeper?” “Why don’t you have flying?” (my most frequent demand) “why aren’t you just….. better at doing what I want you for?” (at the time, mostly a wall to protect my real wincons)
The Queen kept telling me how great she was for my deck, how much she did, but I didn’t pay enough attention to her. So about six months ago, we broke up.
Cromat came along and said “hey, I’ve got flying. I can even kill whatever I block, and protect myself, and give you a one-shot general kill. All I ask in return is Mana. Lots of Mana.” We hooked up for a bit, but I was tired of keeping so many lands untapped, and something was… missing.
Then Child passed by and said “hey, I’ll give you a sweeper whenever you want. You can drop other sweepers and have more room for awesomeness! Plus, there’s some Flavor stuff that I’ll try and impress you with”. I gave her a shot, but she kept killing my Mana Reflections and Rings of Brighthearth just to take out a couple of beaters. I told her we weren’t on the same page, but didn’t know where to go.
Then the Queen came back. She brought along her kid, a cool little dude named Necrotic Sliver, and reminded me what a great team she made with my deck, and what a great team her kid made with it too. “You want to block flyers? Forget it- just kill them instead”.
I remembered all the good times we had, and could have again.
We were back in business.
General (1)
(Japanese)
Planeswalkers (7)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
Win Conditions (2 + Wishboard)
(Foil)
(Foil)
Synergy Engines (14)
(Foil)
(5th dawn Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil) (yes this is Recursion – see below)
-Subcategory - Trigger/Ability Abuses
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(German)
Sweepers (5)
(Japanese)
(Textless Foil)
Spot Removal (7)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Japanese Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Judge Foil)
(Foil)
Protection (6)
(English signed)
(textless foil)
(foil)
(Russian)
Card Draw (7)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(FTV Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
Tutor (5)
(5th Dawn Foil)
(Angels vs. Demons)
(Foil)
(Foil)
Mana Ramp/Fixing (10)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Japanese Foil)
(Foil)
(Japanese Foil)
(Judge Foil)
Lands (36)
Dual Lands – the full set – all revised
Fetchlands – the full set –
Basics- a full set of 5
(Japanese Zen full art Foil),
(Zen full art Foil),
(Japanese Zen full art Foil),
(Zen full art Foil),
(Zen full art Foil)
Shocklands- a half-set of the most useful combinations
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
5-color lands
(Judge Foil)
(Japanese Foil Shadowmoor)
(Japanese)
Utility lands – very limited room for these
(Foil)
Wishboard
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
(Japanese Foil)
(Foil)
(Foil)
Ok, so what do we actually have here, apart from a $4000 pile of cardboard and an introduction with no less than 3 mixed metaphors?
This is a control deck. It’s does offer a combo finish, and lots of mini-combos (synergy), but at its heart, it’s a control deck. It wants to establish some big time card advantage engines, keep threats at bay (mostly by killing them, or countering key problems), and then close out the game either with a 5-card combo or whatever wincon is laying around at the time.
The thing is, there are a lot of threats here, but few of them are threats as a primary function. They all do something else first and foremost, and kill you as an afterthought.
Rather than go through every card choice here, I’m going to point out some of the synergies and interlinked strategies that make the deck more than just “5 color goodstuff”, though the deck certainly doesn’t run any “bad” cards really.
187 Creatures
There are 9 creatures in this deck, plus another 4 that while not having an EB effect, are desirable to blink (Reveillark, Phyrexian Metamorph, Kiki-Jiki, Glen Elendra Archmage). That’s 13% of the deck that does something nice with Mistmeadow Witch, Kiki-Jiki, Venser, Day of the Dragons, and Riku. Adding in Doubling Season has great synergy with Kiki-Jiki and Riku. Aura Shards adds ETB: Naturalize to everything, so that synergizes well with this theme. Abusing these triggers is one of the primary strategies this deck wants to use.
I’d love to add Draining Whelk or Mystic Snake to the deck to have an ETB Counterspell, but I can’t see cutting anything to drive the “protection” category to 10 slots, and each of the 9 choices there is superior (I’m going to discuss that section below).
Day of the Dragons
I’d like to stop and take a second to talk about how silly this card is in a deck like this. Why?
- Blink Engine: this is the primary use of the darn thing. Blink it with Venser, and you get all your ETB effects, every turn, for free. You can even do silly things like killing it of the ETB trigger of the Dragons with Aura Shards, then recurring it off the ETB trigger or Eternal Witness, and casting it again (and again and again given the mana production in this deck), to get multiple uses per turn.
- Wrath Insurance: with the Blink engine set up, you also protect your army from Wrath effects. The only way for the opponent to kill your team becomes Rout, or a ton of spot removal. Then, all you have to do is kill the enchantment (or preferably bounce or blink it), and you get the team back! Or course, there is the corner case where they Stifle the leaves the battlefield trigger and your team ends up exiled, but that’s why we have countermagic to protect us!
- Instant Army: with Sliver Queen churning out tokens (especially with Seedbourne Muse on the table), this can produce a sizable army of 5/5 flyers.
Sweepers, Spot Removal, and Protection – Keeping the Man Down
So we have 21% of the deck here dedicated to screwing with your plans (plus a few things from the Wishboard, 2 of the utility lands, and 2 of the Planeswalkers primary functions). That’s not a ton for a control deck, but the options are pretty synergistic. Martyr’s Bond for example is gross with Claws of Gix, and makes Necrotic Sliver + Queen into a huge card advantage engine, killing a guy plus something else for 5 mana every time. It’s also a really really nice rattlesnake. The pieces here are chosen to give flexibility – with time I can remove anything, even in complex, well turtled board states, and counter truly anything, even split second spells (as long as the have another target available) via Willbender. Rout is a particular Godsend in this format – allowing you to kill the instant Hasty armies or the Progenitus with Rafiq trigger and Anger in the GY that decks in this format like to churn out late game.
I’ve had the question as to why I don’t run Force of Will a few times. There are two reasons, one of which is stupid. The non-stupid reason is the blue card count. I have 23 blue cards in the deck, which is not in my opinion enough to turn FoW on consistently. In a 60 card deck, 18 cards is generally agreed among Vintage theorists to be the bare minimum needed to support FoW – that’s 30%. Going to 23% doesn’t make sense to me. Additionally, there are a number of cards here (Mulldrifter, Willbender, Voidslime, Timetwister, and Phyrexian Metamorph) that I would be very reluctant to exile for FoW, and this would lead to play errors on my part. The stupid reason is that I want to be able to pimp every card in this deck eventually, and Willenskraft is stupidly hard to find (harder than a Korean Stronghold, etc...) at any reasonable price.
The Ultimate Endgame
While most of my wins are just from overwhelming card advantage, I do have one “ultimate” combo finish that I can pull off. In keeping with my stance on combo (see below), it’s 5 cards and fairly conditional.
The combo is Phyrexian Metamorph (copying nothing, yes it’s a may) plus Mirari’s Wake (to keep the uncopying metamorph alive), plus Gilded Lotus, plus either Eternal Witness or Mnemonic Wall. (you can substitute the Mimeoplasm copying metamorph with some counters from something else, copying nothing with the metamorph’s ability, for mirari’s wake. Still a 5 card combo). You cast Rite of Replication (kicked) on the naked metamorph, and use 4 of the metamorphs to copy Gilded Lotus, with the 5th copying Witness/Wall to get the Rite back. Since the Lotii then tap for 12 and Rite costs 9, you net 3 mana from this process, allowing you to generate infinite mana. You can then cast rite over and over again, getting back your entire graveyard, making infinite copies of everything on the board, which usually allows you to draw your whole deck, and go infinite on every axis. Then, Burning Wish copied with Riku, with his ability copied over and over again with multiple copies of Rings of Brighthearth, gets you your whole wishboard. You also now have infinite Storm (for Tendrils), infinite activations of Planeswalker ultimate abilities, infinite turns, etc…..
It’s not all that easy to assemble, and fairly easy to disrupt, but it’s pretty epic.
the Mana Base
This mana base is about as optimal as it gets for 5 color. Fetchlands + duals are the best fixing available (obviously), and fetchlands are also very nice with Rings of Brighthearth and Prismatic Omen. I currently run 1 of each basic to mitigate vulnerability to non-basic hate.
One question I have for the reader- do you think it’s worth it? I could cut them and run the full suite of Shocklands instead, which is slightly better fixing, however given the ramp/search options I have, fixing is rarely an issue. I think having outs to stuff like back to basics is more important than a bit of extra fixing. What do you think?
The other option I’d explored is cutting the 5 shocklands for 5 more basics, which would then give me enough to justify running Thawing Glaciers and Solemn Simulacrum. Thoughts?
On the Value of Planeswalkers in a Multiplayer Format
I’ve had more than one person ask me why I choose to run so many Planeswalkers (at one point I had as many as 11 in the deck. 7 is the lowest this has been in many years.) in a format that isn’t very friendly to them.
I’m not sure I agree with the notion that walkers are “bad” in this format. Obviously, they are not as insane as they are in 1 vs. 1, where several of these walkers will just run away with games on their own, but I think they still offer a good deal of strength.
Most of the walkers I use have effects that are not terrible if you only get one use plus a fog out of them. Are they great if that’s what happens? No, but they’re not awful either. If you get two uses out of any of them, they pay for themselves in droves (well, except for Elspeth, but she synergizes so well with so many cards in the deck and has such a ridiculous ultimate that she’s worth it). At the end of the day, if you can protect them, they are still free sources of card advantage that cost zero mana turn over turn. You have to be picky about which ones you use, but I’ve won many a game on the back of my walkers.
What I’m Not Happy With
Bojuka Bog – it’s not the card that’s the issue – it’s a great card, does something highly useful in this format, and can be Venser’d over and over again. The thing is, I’m not sure it’s the “best” use of this slot. I’ve gone back and forth with a lot of options, from Boseiju, who Shelters All (lost a lot of value once I added Teferi to the deck, the life loss can get a bit much as well), to Strip Mine (I don’t like Strip –locking people, and Crucible is far to useful to cut in this deck, plus if I really need to kill a problem land I’ve got plenty of Vindicate options, all of which are easy to get multiple removals from), to Forbidden Orchard (1/1’s aren’t much of a problem for me and it does give me another Rainbow land, but the cumulative effect of so much life loss proved to be too much), to Academy Ruins (it’s nice with Memory Jar, but my artifacts don’t seem to die often enough for this to be worth the slot).
Doe anyone have any ideas for this slot? Maybe Bog is the right choice- after all it’s the only Maindeck true GY hate I have (sure Twister clears the yard, but they get cards out of it, and Mimeoplasm only hits creatures).
Lack of Riftsweaper effects - I currently have no way of getting things back once exiled. This irritates me. On the other hand, Riftsweaper is dead far too often – it’s had a slot before and never turns out to be worth it. I wish Pull from Eternity was a Sorcery so I could add it to the Wishboard. Any ideas folks?
Stuff that’s Not Here (and you’d think would be)
So there are a few cards which you might think deserve a place in this deck. I’m going to go over a few obvious (IMHO) ones, mostly cards that I’ve cut after previously running them.
More Slivers: With Sliver Queen, a natural tendency is to run more slivers. The thing is, they’re just kind of boring. Gemhide Sliver is just broken and leads to going infinite far too easily. The other slivers don’t have the desirable ETB effects that most of the creatures I do run happen to have. Necrotic Sliver is the only one the deck really wants. Harmonic Sliver is excluded in favour of Aura Shards both due to the Synergy with Day of the Dragons, and the fact that Aura Shards is a “may” whereas Harmonic Sliver is a “must”, and I often have the best artifacts and enchantments on the board, and given the number of times dudes are bounced and recurred, I’d end up killing my own stuff.
Two / Three - Card infinite Combos: I don’t really think these have a place in this format. I used to run several, the worst offender being Mana Echoes (since you get infinite mana and infinite creatures), but they’re just unfun. The closest I get now is Kiki-Jiki + Reveillark + Claws of Gix (you copy Lark with Kiki, sacrifice him, then sacrifice the Lark token to get him back) which lets you pay 2 to gain 1 life and recur a ‘larkable due in your yard, and do this over and over again for 3 each time). With stuff life Genesis Wave and tutors, it’s too easy to assemble 2 and 3 card combos that instantly win the game. The closest I get is my 5-card combo (see above). 5 cards is reasonable in my opinion, as it shouldn’t come up that often.
: Sorin was in this deck for years. The 10 life effect is very powerful in the right circumstances, and Mindslaver is obviously one of the most hated effects in the format for a reason, but Sorin never really shined in this deck. I was reluctant to cut him as I wanted the Planeswalker theme to shine through, but he’s always been kind of “meh”. I don’t really need the 10 life effect- Queen kills in 3 hits, and my opponents usually die by concession anyway after I’ve established an insurmountable on-board lead. If I want Mindslaver, I have the Golden Wish route to fetch the actual card itself from the board, and it is easier to recur the effect off the original.
: While I’m not a fan of banning cards in this format (like to be able to play with my cards, thanks. The format is pretty self-regulating, and I think that really the only cards on the banned list that belong there are the ones banned for price/ubiquity reasons and the single-card instant win combos), this card is insanely strong. Repeatable cheap tutoring is broken as heck. Worse, it makes the game boring. I have a Korean survival that I ran in here for quite a while. I took it out because it made every game into: find survival, resolve it, win. I don’t like to be bored.
, , : I really hate exiling my own stuff. These cards a very strong, no doubt about it. The thing is, once my card draw engines get going I can often go over 7 cards, and I don’t like exiling things. YawgWin is even worse for this, as it ALWAYS exiles things. I’d much rather lather, rinse, repeat. The whole deck is geared towards getting multiple uses out of every card. These cards don’t fit the theme.
: This is the last card I cut from this list, and one of the hardest. I literally contemplated the decision for a least a few moments of most days for the past several months. It made its exit for Asceticism, which is generally acknowledged as a far inferior card, an analysis I would agree with. However, this deck doesn’t want to attack all that much – bodies are usually used defensively rather than offensively, and this tends to be better politics as well. I sat down and laid out all the creatures in the deck, and realized that of all of them, I only ever card about the haste element for 2 (the Titans). Literally, only two guys benefitted from the haste function. What I wanted the Greaves for was a zero mana way to protect my guys from spot removal without eating up valuable countermagic. While Asceticism is 5 mana vs. 2, it protects everyone, all the time, and is of a harder permanent type to remove, plus a high CMC for stuff like Deed or Engineered Explosives. It may not be the better card, but it plays better in this deck.
Matchups
This deck curb stops Aggro strategies. The defensive wall, recursive elements, mass removal and recurring spot removal engines along with the ability of the general to produce endless chump blockers is far too much for most Aggro strategies to handle. The only exceptions tend to happen if the deck comes out of the gate extremely fast and really focuses on me. I still tend to be able to stabilize at low digits and come back for the win, but these ones do have a shot.
Land Destruction decks are obviously a very bad matchup. I have a high mana curve, lots of color-specific requirements, and a very non-basic focused mana base. Something like Back to Basics is truly backbreaking.
A very countermagic heavy control deck is also a hard pill to swallow if they are focused on me and have a good draw. Sometimes, they can be overwhelmed by playing out bomb after bomb and exhausting their counterwall, as I do have quite a few threats that can win the game on their own against this kind of deck. The ideal is to respond to their tapout with Teferi, which just kills them, but it’s rare that a good counter-control player will tap out vs. 2UUU open on the board.
Control decks that don’t have much of a counterwall tend to be easy matchups. I have too many engine cards for them to cope with, and present too many threats along too many angles to be removed.
Combo decks are either virtually impossible (optimized builds of stuff like Azami, Zur and Sharrum or Hermit Druid combo) or insanely easy (anything that’s not super consistent and optimized). These tend to be more about politics than gameplay anyway – you have to get the table to gang up on them, or you’ll loose. That’s why I don’t mind combo much in this format – as long as you stay away from the Dick builds, they make for interesting, almost Archenemy style, games that are a change of pace from standard free for all.
Summary of Questions to the Reader
There’s a lot of writing here, so I figured I’d conclude with a brief reminder of the questions I asked in the course of this writing (most explicit, some implied):
- do you think I should cut something for Mystic Snake or Draining Whelk? if so, what and why?
- Am I underestimating the potential of Force of Will in this deck? do you know anyone who
has a German FoW they'd be willing to part with?
-What do you think of my "ultimate finish"? epic combo or dick move?
-Is the resilience provided by 5 basics worth the opportunity cost of not running 10
shocklands?
-Conversely, would it be better to cut the 5 shocklands and go to 2 of each basic, in order to be
able to run Thawing glaciers and Solemn Simulacrum?
-potentially related to the above, what do you think is the best use of the land slot Bojuka Bog
is currently occupying?
-What do you think of my stances on planeswalkers and combo?
-Any ideas regarding the Riftsweaper conundrum?
-What are your thoughts regarding my "cards that aren't here", particularly Lightning
Greaves?
-Anything else?
