MTG Salvation

I know that this site will be shut down relatively soon, but I hope that it won't take two weeks to figure out a direction.

My darling has a 5-color deck, Jodah to be specific. But he is wanting to have it taken apart because it not only wins too often, but wins in an overwhelming/boring way. (Enter the Infinite/Omniscience/Haste/Eldrazi/Extra Turns) Whatever happens, the deck pretty much pilots itself. The correct answer is always to play the big haymaker in your hand, usually more than one of them.

He wants a new deck, and I am the deck-builder. But I am stuck on what sort of theme to tackle for this one, and I would appreciate any suggestions for generals that can help give the deck a sufficiently satisfying piloting experience.

Here are the things he likes:
* 5-color. He likes 5-color because he likes the mana-base. It has ABUR duals, fetches, etc. He loves those land cards, and Jodah was a good fit because it made the color-fixing relevant.

* Decision trees. He likes having to make the correct decision to make the deck "go". He absolutely loves his Izzet spellslinger deck that I built about six years ago. It's gone from Melek to Mizzix to Niv 3.0, but it always remains Izzet spellslinger, with lots of relevant, important decisions to make.

But it cannot be Superfriends for the simple reason that we have two 5-color Superfriends decks built to be rivals. Giving one the "top" mana-base would be an unfair advantage.

He also dislikes slivers, a lot.

He has nothing against tribal decks, and he is not looking for an "underpowered" (or overpowered!) general, but rather one that offers options and requires decisions.

Anybody have an idea?

I have seen a few cool 5 color decks over the years:


* Ramos Enchantress - guy just used Ramos as a mana engine, you cast a couple enchantments and draw a bunch of cards then pull ramos' counters and windmill slam a few more

* Najeela warrior tribal - It's pretty cool. you can focus on the infinite attack step combos if you like, or not, she's just super strong.

* Child of Alara counter lands deck - he just played child as a sweeper in the command zone and made the game go long with every single mana battery land he could play and then played huge bombs.

* Scion of the Ur Dragon dragon tribals Lands - played all the extra land drop and land tutor effects, played huge dragons but also had the alternate Scion voltron kill option

Check out out my Sisay, Weatherlight Captain deck in my signature. It's a 5 color toolbox build, so you are playing to the table, and so there are in theory correct decision making sequences. It does require some practice to figure out the best use, so sounds perfect.

Thank you! I'll mention the ideas to him.

I like Najeela myself, and Sisay.

We have a 4-color Enchantress, though, and Kaalia dragons already.

The only problem with Najeela is that it's actually extremely linear in reality. Honestly it's one of the more boring decks I've played, had a shelf life of a few days.

I love playing my Yidris Wheels/Graveyards/Chaos deck. It's fun because you play a lot of big flashy spells, but also do a lot of crazy things and can win in so many different ways, even playing your opponent's best cards from their libraries and graveyards!

Yes, well, I like Najeela because of the warrior tribal. But ... I did disassemble my Najeela after a few days, too. It was just too linear even for me. I know my darling won't like it.

Do you find that Sisay's tutoring ability makes games play out too similarly? I had a Zur "toolbox" once, and eventually I realized that the "toolbox" was actually the same few cards, regardless of my opponents' board states. It didn't matter what they did. I just did my own thing and won.

Quote from Kedvesem »

Yes, well, I like Najeela because of the warrior tribal. But ... I did disassemble my Najeela after a few days, too. It was just too linear even for me. I know my darling won't like it.

Do you find that Sisay's tutoring ability makes games play out too similarly? I had a Zur "toolbox" once, and eventually I realized that the "toolbox" was actually the same few cards, regardless of my opponents' board states. It didn't matter what they did. I just did my own thing and won.

Too be fair, yeah because you have access to your deck. Unless opponents literally deal with Sisay, then the game does snowball, actually regardless of even how you sequence. Like you have to make some really poor decisions not to get ahead if you're able to just keep using her.

I think if you want to stay away from 5c "play out the same way" decks you're going to need to have most of your strategy be separate from the commander. Najeela might be boring on that account as her main design space is to cast her and attack as many times as possible with her

That's one thing I do like about Ramos very much as he's more of a ramp commander than a tutor/draw commander.

Quote from Pokken »

I think if you want to stay away from 5c "play out the same way" decks you're going to need to have most of your strategy be separate from the commander. Najeela might be boring on that account as her main design space is to cast her and attack as many times as possible with her

That's one thing I do like about Ramos very much as he's more of a ramp commander than a tutor/draw commander.

Well, I have a Ramos. I'm just wondering about viable, variable themes for a 5-color deck. Enchantress would probably be perfect--except that he loves my 4-color Enchantress as it is, headed up by Kynaios and Tiro. (I cannot recommend those guys highly enough as Enchantress commanders. They give a touch of draw to get the engine going until you can set up your Enchantresses, and they allow for use of those excess lands you draw. In my build, there is no group hug aside from K&T themselves, and yet, everyone loves that little hug so much that the Kings are left to their own devices. No one snipes them. Ever.)

So ... what does that leave? Are there some good 5-color tribes? (Besides slivers, which he hates, and Dragons, which we have Kaalia.) I tried God-tribal once, but it ended up being too slow and clunky, with too many of the gods not actually being creatures often enough.

Is there a sort of spell-tribal possibility? I'm reaching here, I know.

I've heard of 5-color Sunforger decks. Do those ever work?

I mean I've made my own version on materpillar The Ur-Dragon, Changeling Tribal deck => https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/807504

It has a wild variation, it either does nothing and get's crushed, or you get to do massively impressive things. So it's very hit or miss. Just don't look to play it for consistency, but the rewards for a good game are very high.

It's a casual build, but I do feel like it's got quite good decision making, because you have to plan out what effects might benefit you more in the long run. If you think you are interested I'll DM you my most recent list.

Yes, please do. At this point, I'm pretty much willing to try anything.

I don't have the 5-color attraction, so I have a harder time with it. I generally prefer to focus down in colors. I actually enjoy mono-color decks...

There are 20 changelings which have a cost reduction of 1 from the The Ur-Dragon.

Basically on their own they literally do nothing, so you need a pay off tribal cards that might benefit from ETB triggers or number of cards in play. This is often where I'm trying to figure out whether to keep changelings in hand or play them out. Often I'll keep them in hand unless I really do have a card already that helps with quantity of them in play.

Also there are a number of creatures that have tribal searches, so you can use these to search up changelings. These are not very fast, so it's not like Sisay where it really snowballs hard, like you still have to work for it, and it's a bigger setup, but still gives you versatility to make correct decisions given what you have.

About the only thing I can think of is make sure you add Risen Reef from Core 2020 when it comes out.