Overview
This pile of cards can be played as four different 5 color decks, depending on the power level and play-style you want. Really you're just switching commanders, but each one featured here supports a different strategy and win condition, or has a different power-level.
If you're looking to build this, you can start with a more budget friendly build and add plans to the deck over time as you acquire more funding. If you care less about budget, you can build as shown or with modifications to taste.
Deck 1: Jegantha, the Wellspring
(Budget-ish) 5 Color Good Stuff
Comparative Power-Level: Medium
Reasons to build this first:
I originally built this deck around Jegantha, the Wellspring because I wanted an inexpensive 5 color deck that could still play reasonably at the table. Jegantha is great for this because the most reliably expensive part of a good 5C deck is the mana-base, and jegantha lets you consistently cast spells of all five colors while running a large number of basics.
Reasons to play Jegantha instead of the other 5C commanders:
If you play a lot of commander, you've probably played or played against at least one deck where the commander has a "KILL ON SITE" sign stapled to the card. Which commanders specifically fit this bill vary by play-group, but some of the other options given here have a bit of a reputation for it. Jegantha is not this. It is difficult to make her the most threatening thing on the board, so she's likely to stick around a bit. Yes, it is technically possible to go infinite with untap shenanigans like Freed from the Real, but even then the infinite mana can't be spent to pay for generic costs, which makes it prohibitively difficult to cast most spells with this alone. If you're on a budget, or hate having your commander relentlessly destroyed/exiled/countered, play Jegantha as you commander. Also, the consistency she adds is not to be underestimated. If you have green mana, you can play Jegantha. If you have Jegantha, you can play nearly any other card in the deck without caring about mana color.
Jegantha also works particularly well with:
Deck 2: Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
Legendary Tribal Toolbox
Comparative Power-Level: High
General Note for Play:
You can activate Sisay at instant speed. It's generally best to wait until your opponents do something to tutor so you can surprise them with a response.
Archetype Support:
Nearly every other nonland in our deck is Legendary as well, but these care about the archetype specifically. A list of good tutor targets for Sisay will be included under General Support below.
Deck 3: Golos, Tireless Pilgrim
Maze's End
Comparative Power-Level: Low-Medium (High against counterspell.deck)
This plan is rather self-explanatory. Play Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, find Maze's End, start getting guildgates to un-counterably (almost) win the game.
In addition to the standard package, Circuitous Route also gets gates, Chulane, Teller of Tales, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Kamahl's Druidic Vow, Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, Urban Evolution, and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath support playing extra lands per turn, and Tatyova, Benthic Druid draws cards on landfall. I can see an argument for playing Amulet of Vigor, but I wouldn't know what to cut for it.
Deck 4: Kenrith, the Returned King
5C Good Stuff
Comparative Power-Level: High
This plan isn't really different than Jegantha, but it has more power to it because of the options Kenrith, the Returned King gives you. He's card draw in the command zone, with the added perks of his other abilities. Zirda, the Dawnwaker does work particularly well with him, though.
Technically you could also run Jodah, Archmage Eternal as a commander, but I think it doesn't really change the plan enough to warrant calling it a 5th deck. If you disagree, leave a comment with an explanation. I'd love to hear what you think.
General Support
Mana
The lands in the deck were not chosen randomly. The guildgates are obvious. The rest of the lands, though, were chosen to be fetchable by land type. Specifically, every land in the deck that is not part of the Maze's End package, either comes into play untapped for free or is a forest or a plains and therefore fetchable by Karametra, God of Harvests. As a side effect, this lets all of the noncreature ramp in the deck except Fellwar Stone get any color of mana. Also, the deck can theoretically deal with a Blood Moon. There are enough basics, and Jegantha taps for all colors.
Removal
Beast Within and its white variant Generous Gift hit any permanent type at instant speed. Anguished Unmaking, and Utter End are almost as versatile, and also exile, preventing easy recursion.
In EDH, artifacts and enchantments run rampant. To deal with them, we have Destructive Revelry and Krosan Grip in addition to everything else.
That said, I prefer repeatable removal, such as Legacy Weapon and Profane Procession
. The downside is people are less likely to play their key pieces while you have them on board, but at that point it's gone from cure to preventative, which isn't so bad. And procession has the upside of giving you control of the creatures you exile.
Recursion/Protection
Any self-respecting edh deck has a way to get stuff back from the graveyard. These are the options in this deck:
Tamiyo is a nice transition, seeing as she serves double duty. What's better than getting back stuff your opponents have killed? Preventing them from killing it in the first place! We have protection:
Tutors & Targets
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain good targets include:
- Chulane, Teller of Tales for grindy value
- Golos, Tireless Pilgrim to find Maze's End
- Kenrith, the Returned King
- Lavinia of the Tenth shuts down most other decks for a turn, gives you time to find something else
- Anafenza, the Foremost excellent graveyard hate
- Karametra, God of Harvests
- Shalai, Voice of Plenty to save your board from targeted removal
- Tatyova, Benthic Druid if you've drawn too many lands, good with the Maze's End plan
- Heroes' Podium buffs Sisay to get bigger things
- Helm of the Host can copy Jegantha to give you more tutors with Sisay
- Journey to Eternity
good response to creature removal
- Kethis, the Hidden Hand
- Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage to fight counterspell-heavy decks
- Tamiyo, Collector of Tales to fight Sheoldred, Whispering One and the like
- Jegantha, the Wellspring get this as soon as you can, it pays for an activation of Sisay on its own
- Legacy Weapon
Bring to Light
Demonic Tutor
Because there are other repeatable tutors in the deck, it can be best to use the ones that get anything for the stuff you can't get otherwise. This includes:
Diabolic Tutor
see above
