Need Ideas for a 5-Color deck
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 20, 2017, 4:24 p.m. by Phaetion
Here's a list of requirements:
-No Tribal decks.
-I'm a control player who doesn't like to drag the game out for too long.
-No superfriends. Atraxa does that already.
-I'm OCD about my colored mana curve being equal on all fronts.
More to come, but I'm stumped on ideas. Any leads on where I can go?
A temur combo deck that has control elements can be fun. The commander could be Riku of Two Reflections or a partner or Kraum, Ludevic's Opus and Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix.
You could also run a mardu pillow fort with Queen Marchesa and use drain effects to weaken your opponents.
April 20, 2017 4:44 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #4
No tribal so basically Cromat, Progenitus and Child of Alara.
I've always been fond of cromat for voltron. Get a lot of mana or infinite mana and swing in for the win. As long as you have the needed mana it is very hard to get rid of cromat too. Just build a 5-color control around him to protect yourself until the combo goes off or you can at least dump in a lot of mana. progenitus can work in a similar fashion but is harder to cast and not as interesting to me.
child is less build around me and more of a you dont need to run board wipes any more or not as many.
Chaos is a good 5-color strategy. Load up on Hive Mind and other silly things but games go long if you dont control what effects you are using and manage to stay alive.
Honestly I've always found that it is better to choose a strategy and then choose the colors rather then the other way. You can do anything with 5 colors, like build a nekusar deck that uses hug cards from green and protection from white.
April 20, 2017 4:47 p.m.
Matt_The_OGRE. Intriguing, but wouldn't Yidris colors be the best option?
And that adds another criteria to the OP.
xrex479: I said 5-color. Not 3-color.
April 20, 2017 4:47 p.m.
Quietman988 says... #6
5 color allies. Very aggressive, lots of rally procs, and easy to cast commander, since he only costs 4W. But he's technically a 5 color commander
April 20, 2017 5 p.m.
Phaetion so sorry, didn't read the title just the requirements. If you have lots of wheel effects put in Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Shrieking Affliction and Teferi's Puzzle Box.
April 20, 2017 5:01 p.m.
Quietman988: I'm fond of allies, but there's just one, small problem: No tribal decks (See OP).
xrex479: It's ok. :) I feel like Wheel decks are better with Vial Smasher the Fierce and Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix at the helm.
Bhaal666: I don't like voltron, and I find Progenitus to be better in the 99. I'm going to settle on Child, which suits my style. Not sure about Chaos though.
April 20, 2017 5:10 p.m. Edited.
DrukenReaps says... #9
Well things that come to my mind for child are:
Reanimator: child needs to hit the grave to blow up the world so things that bring stuff out of the grave would be good.
Grave Shenanigans: slightly different from above in that you focus more on Grave Pact and Zulaport Cutthroat effects. I also find Grave Pact effects are great for control and allow you to hit the opponent with ease.
Group-Slug: doesn't win much but is funny. acts a lot like chaos but doesn't necessarily have chaos effects might have a lot of everybody draws effects and loses 1 life for each drawn card or something similar.
5-color control: this is very broad so I don't really have anything to say here...
Combo: board wipes are a great thing to have go off right before you play your combo and win so child makes combo easier.
Pillow Fort: child is a great rattle snake and you have access to all colors so you can pick the best rattles and pillows in the game. Engulfing Slagwurm, Price of Glory, Ghostly Prison, etc.
April 20, 2017 5:39 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #10
Duuuuude! Five color control sounds super control sounds hella neat! While it wouldn't be necessary, I think opting to not include cards that have more colored pips than generic mana in the cost to decrease the likelihood of getting color screwed would make for quite a fun deck! If it were me, I'd make my commander my only win con, so I'd probably pick Progenitus for showy factor, but there are arguments to be made for Sliver Hivelord who will always survive your board wipes, Child of Alara who's a 6/6 trampler with a control ability, Cromat even though he sucks up valuable mana that could be used for control instants, Sliver Queen who is a 7/7 that can make more board presence, Sliver Overlord who can steal creatures once you use him to search up Amoeboid Changeling, or Horde of Notions who's a 5/5 with keywords.
Thoughts?
April 20, 2017 6:25 p.m. Edited.
I'm not fond of Pillowfort, Combo,Grave Shenanigans, and Group Slug. 5-color control would overwhelm me just from the multitude of choices available. Reanimator is possible, though I'm not keen on not being able to attack that turn (and relying on other cards to pull this off). I'd only have 1-2 threats a turn, and they may get eliminated before I even get to use them.
MagicalHacker: Progenitus and Child of Alara are my favorites among the listed because the rest lean towards tribal stuff (and Cromat sucks up too much mana). My big problem is the other 99 (barring lands).
April 20, 2017 6:34 p.m.
I know you said no tribal, but just think of a 5 color man land deck. Killing your opponents with land.
April 20, 2017 6:48 p.m.
My vote would go for Sliver Queen combo control. It's fast, has lots of redundancy and while you combo off with sliver tokens, you're generally only running 5 or 6 slivers total in the deck (basically just Basal Sliver, Necrotic Sliver, Manaweft Sliver/Gemhide Sliver, possibly Dormant Sliver and Diffusion Sliver). ther rest of the deck is control, ramp, card draw and combo.
April 20, 2017 9:50 p.m.
Alright, so reviewing my options, I feel like I pidgeon-holed myself into something too narrow. So, what I decided to do was build Allies instead. I know I said I didn't want to build tribal, but I have a soft spot for the tribe since the original Zendikar.
About them slivers. I avoid them because they're a hate magnet. Never mind that Queen and Legion are absurdly expensive for me right now.
April 20, 2017 10:24 p.m.
Phaetion: Yeah, Sliver Queen ins't cheap.
Food Chain Tazri is a cool build, basically you run Misthollow Griffin / Eternal Scourge with Food Chain to get infintie creature mana. Then you cast your commander , tutoring something like Kalastria Healer and then exile and recast your commadner until the table is dead.
If you wanted, you could probably adapt the strategy to use Deadeye Navigator / Eldrazi Displacer and Palinchron / Peregrine Drake / Great Whale if budget is a concern. And flicker for allies is not a bad strategy at all.
April 20, 2017 11:28 p.m. Edited.
enpc: Food Chain Tazri was a direction I didn't want to go.
I brought back and overhauled my old ally deck from ~a year ago. The link is above.
April 20, 2017 11:32 p.m.
JaceTheSwagSculptor says... #19
Reading the comments it seems like the OP has ruled out the majority of archeatypes in commander already. I'll try the last ones I can think of that aren't pure garbage - 5C Birthing Pod, 5C Primal Surge, or 5C storm.
Pod would take a more toolbox approach to control and use creatures as opposed to spells as answers. Since you have access to 5C's, then each spot on your curve can be occupied by the best creatures MTG has to offer.
As for Surge...well I'm sure you know how the deck works - tutor it as fast as possible and flip your deck.
Storm would probably be something with Paradox Engine for creatures or Ad Nauseam, Angel's Grace, Aetherflux Reservoir, etc for something spell oriented. Child of Alara could be used if things ever get out of control or you need an early game nuke.
April 21, 2017 2:59 p.m.
JaceTheSwagSculptor says... #20
Thought of one more! 5-color Loam. Obviously this is going to use a bunch of land-based interactions (mainly Life from the Loam) to generate advantage. The main win-con would be Maze's End.
April 21, 2017 3:12 p.m.
pskinn01 and JaceTheSwagSculptor: I already decided to build Ally tribal, but thanks for the contributions. :)
April 21, 2017 3:20 p.m.
JaceTheSwagSculptor says... #22
Darn! Guess I missed the post where you accepted someone's idea. Nevertheless, good luck with your deck!
Matt_The_OGRE says... #2
5 color Waste Not. Plays lots of wheel effects, board wipes, counterspells, and graveyard recursion for spells. I find I usually win with Molten Psyche after everyone had drawn 80 cards or so.
April 20, 2017 4:44 p.m.