5-Color is a format that is polarized into archetypes. There are pure control decks that destroy combo and live in fear of the Armageddons that aggro packs. There are wacky Dream Halls decks that seek to draw their entire decks on turn 4. There’s aggro, with nothing in the deck costing more than two mana outside of mana-denial cards like Ruination, Winter Orb, and the aforementioned Armageddon. This is a format that requires 250 cards – there must be more variation than that!
There is a middle ground between control and aggro that I find comforting in all formats, especially 5C. Being able to moderate what goes on in the game while applying pressure with threats makes for a very strong position. Aggro-control seeks to use mana-efficient creatures and spells so that it may smoothly transition from the role of aggro to control whenever the game dictates it. The archetype isn’t as controlling as control is or as fast as aggro is, but the archetype allows for player skill to come through. Because it has many options for any situation, the player who can pilot it well and make the right decisions will be rewarded with victory.
The deck I am presenting has as many colors minimized as possible. Blue is abundant because it facilitates drawing into more cards and maintaining control over the game. If a card is run in a non-blue color here, it is because it is incredibly strong for its cost and color. I’ll post a decklist, and then we’ll go over how the parts make the whole.
Green: 24
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Werebear
1 Regrowth
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fastbond
1 Nostalgic Dreams
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Roar of the Wurm
1 All Suns’ Dawn
1 Crop Rotation
4 Nature’s Lore
Red: 22
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Fire / Ice
2 Artifact Mutation
1 Hull Breach
4 Flametongue Kavu
1 Recoup
1 Burning Wish
1 Gamble
4 Firestorm
Black: 18
4 Duress
4 Contract From Below
4 Psychatog
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Divining Witch
1 Mind Twist
White: 18
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Disenchant
1 Balance
1 Academy Rector
4 Mystic Enforcer
2 Auriok Salvagers
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Enlightened Tutor
Blue: 56
4 Counterspell
4 Evasive Action
4 Mana Leak
4 Mana Drain
4 Circular Logic
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Deep Analysis
4 Brainstorm
4 Trinket Mage
4 Ophidian
4 Impulse
3 Quiet Speculation
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Upheaval
1 Fabricate
1 Future Sight
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Cunning Wish
Artifacts: 36
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Etched Oracle
4 Talisman of Progress
4 Talisman of Dominance
1 Grinning Totem
1 Black Vise
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Phyrexian Furnace
4 Jeweled Bird
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Memory Jar
1 Chaos Orb
1 Isochron Scepter
Lands: 74
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Windswept Heath
1 Badlands
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1 Savannah
1 Plateau
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 City of Brass
1 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Mountain
2 Forest
10 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
The First Part: Aggro!
Aggro-control decks cannot simply run fast beats or big creatures and pull off wins on those. The downside of playing creatures is that you must tap out on your turn to play them – and if you do that, you give up control of the game with counters for at least one turn. This means that you can’t just play any creature; it has to be one that can affect the board in a significant want. For example, if we look at Fish in Vintage, the deck ran sometimes-inferior attackers because they could control the game state, a la Spiketail Hatchling and Voidmage Prodigy. In 5-Color, it is no different. Threats have to do more than just be threatening!
Let’s take a look at the creatures and creature-like cards that are run in here. I’ve left out the obvious tutors like Divining Witch – something that I will get to later. For reference, the creatures are:
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Roar of the Wurm
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Psychatog
4 Mystic Enforcer
2 Auriok Salvagers
4 Trinket Mage
4 Ophidian
4 Etched Oracle
4 Mishra’s Factory
Any one of these creatures can go the distance and beat for the win. We have some close exceptions to our rule here though that all creatures must do something else. Dryad, Psychatog, and Roar (among others) don’t seem to do much other than attack. However, they are solid threats and deterrents. Dropping a Wild Mongrel or Psychatog early against aggro can slow them down if they don’t have removal for it, and both combo well with Contract From Below (but what doesn’t?). Cards like Roar and Enforcer are strong finishers that serve to put pressure on pure control decks.
There are several utility creatures here as well. Lavamancers can help stave off weenie rushes as well as pick off annoying utility cards on the other side of the board. They don’t interact well with the threshold cards in this deck, though, so either bite the bullet and accept the negative synergy because they’re so good otherwise – or replace them with Firebolts. Either option is fine.
Trinket Mage and Etched Oracle can become big attackers and also draw plenty of cards. The mages have lots of targets in this deck, and they can always go get Skullclamp to ramp up the damage dealing and drawing. The Oracles should be looked at as another, later draw engine like Deep Analysis. You end up investing a bit in them – but if they hit, they’ll always swing a game. A 4/4 that turns into an Ancestral Recall isn’t too shabby. They also fit in nicely with having alternate uses besides just attacking. Ophidians fall in this same category.
The Auriok Salvagers need a bit of explanation: sometimes in 5C, you want to win big. Sometimes you want to win in a fun way. And sometimes you want to win now. Salvagers lets you do all that in this deck. I added in a smaller subtheme of a Salvagers kill in the deck. Trinket Mages can get Black Lotus or Pyrite Spellbomb to complete the combo – and even if you can’t go infinite, recurring Phyrexian Furnaces to draw cards isn’t so bad. Salvagers are 2/4 creatures as well, so they’ve got a healthy butt against attackers.
Being Able To Say “Stop”
Control is the other part of this deck. I’ll pull out all the cards that fulfill the role of control to make it easier to see what does what. Here they are:
4 Fire/Ice
2 Artifact Mutation
1 Hull Breach
1 Burning Wish
4 Firestorm
4 Duress
1 Mind Twist
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Disenchant
1 Balance
1 Ray of Revelation
4 Counterspell
4 Evasive Action
4 Mana Leak
4 Mana Drain
4 Circular Logic
1 Upheaval
1 Cunning Wish
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Chaos Orb
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
These cards range from silver bullets to general answers to threats. The counterspells should buy you time to attack in for the win or prevent the loss of your creatures. (They also stop the opponent from doing silly things, but we already know this.) There’s plenty of creature-kill in here as well. 5C has a lot of creatures in it, and most of the removal outside of the Swords to Plowshares does other stuff too. Fire/Ice cycles or shoots your opponent’s head, and Engineered Explosives deals with problem permanents.
The Tabernacle is one of your most potent tools against aggro. Unless they can deal with it, they are significantly slowed down to a manageable stream of creatures. Crop Rotate this in or tutor for it if you can early in the game, because it will definitely swing the game in your favor. You’ll end up paying one or two mana each turn to keep your creatures around, but most of the time yours are far better than theirs. The downside of the land is that it doesn’t produce mana, so we’re running as few Tabernacles as we can.
The deck has Balance in it because every now and then it acts like a Wrath of God or a Mind Twist. It’s cuttable if you don’t like drawing it, but Balance will rebound you into games where you should be losing. There’s also a Chaos Orb; it’s a bit random, but it’s Tinkerable and deals with any problems in the game. If you have it, run it; otherwise, replace with Pernicious Deed, Oblivion Stone, or anything else that suits your fancy.
Draw, Partner!: Keeping The Cards Flowing
Naturally, this deck runs a lot of draw. You need it because the deck invariably will need to see more cards to find what it needs than aggro or control does. Since you might draw a Quirion Dryad when you need a Hull Breach, you’ve got to have a constant stream of cards coming into your hand so you can make sure to have just what’s needed. Included in this group are the tutors and Regrowth effects. First, we’ll look at the pure draw:
4 Contract From Below
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Deep Analysis
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Future Sight
1 Memory Jar
4 Jeweled Bird
It may not look like much, but there’s enough good, solid draw there to make sure that you’re seeing plenty. Some of the draw spells are very mana-intensive, so they’re better held until later when you’ve established a bit of mana to play with. Contract is an obvious card for the deck, and it powers up threshold and discard-based kills like Wild Mongrel. The other cards here are the bare minimum for blue-centered decks. If you want more draw effects, take a look at Concentrate or Worldly Council, but both are subpar.
Now for the tutors and Regrowths:
1 Regrowth
1 Eternal Witness
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 All Suns’ Dawn
1 Crop Rotation
1 Gamble
1 Recoup
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Divining Witch
1 Academy Rector
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Quiet Speculation
1 Tinker
1 Fabricate
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Grinning Totem
1 Isochron Scepter
As you can see, there are lots of tutors in here. It goes back to the earlier idea of needing strong card quality so that you can get the threat or answer when you need it. The Regrowth effects can pull back removal or draw that you’ll need, or they bring up a killed-off creature. All Suns’ Dawn isn’t so stellar in here because the deck runs so few of other colors; often times, you’ll be pulling back two or three cards at most. However, they’ll be amazing cards. Nostalgic Dreams is in the same category. It’ll win the game if it resolves later on, so you’ll want to hold it and All Suns’ Dawn until you really need them.
Most of the tutors here are to get Contract From Below or Ancestral Recall. There are also little synergies in the deck, such as Seal of Cleansing to grab with Rector or Enlightened Tutor. The Quiet Speculations will be golden in control matches; getting Roar, Roar, and Deep Analysis can throw you past their permission. If you end up resolving Divining Witch, you can usually grab Psychatog with it and then enough Contracts to make it lethal and win from that point. The Witch is probably the strongest tutor in your entire deck. Use it well.
All The Mana In The World!
This deck wants to play control a lot so it can sit on counters and drawing. Most of its bombs cost the critical four mana. As a result, there’s a lot of mana acceleration in here that goes towards getting that crucial four mana. What do we have to accelerate with?
4 Werebear
4 Nature’s Lore
1 Fastbond
4 Talisman of Progress
4 Talisman of Dominance
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
You are probably noting the lack of Fellwar Stone and Mind Stone in here. They’re both dynamite cards, no doubt about that: I run the Talismans because getting blue mana puts you into whatever you need, and I find that more important than what usually turns out to be colorless mana. If you prefer the Stones though, they’re easily integratable. If you don’t have Moxes, you can replace them with Stones or just swap out Talismans for them.
There’s also a bit of emphasis on green mana acceleration here. Nature’s Lore thins your deck and gets Dual Lands, something many other accelerants cannot do, and Werebear can win as well. If you don’t have enough duals, I’d add in more acceleration in the form of Rampant Growth and Sakura-Tribe Elder, as well as a few more green sources to make up for it.
The mana base runs plenty of fetchlands to thin the deck and shuffle. It also runs only a single copy of the nonblue duals. Let’s face it, islands are better than those duals in this deck.
Odds And Ends
There are a few other cards that this deck runs for general utility. Time Walk is one of them. Your deck will need some sort of Time Walk effect. Run a Time Warp if you have to! The deck also runs Black Vise for the random Trinket Mage tutoring as well as a pair of Skullclamps to make your guys bigger. For reference, here’s a list of all the cards that Trinket Mage nabs in your deck:
- Engineered Explosives
- Black Vise
- Skullclamp
- Pyrite Spellbomb
- Phyrexian Furnace
- Jeweled Bird
- Sol Ring
- Black Lotus
- The Moxes
Obviously it’s one of the strongest aggro-control cards. Trinket Mage will give you a slight advantage that should pull you out of problems that you run into or push you over the top in a game. If nothing else, it’s a ten-turn clock!
Also, there are some things that are missing in this deck. Planar Portal takes up too much mana to use, as does Citanul Flute. Pernicious Deed will usually kill one of your threats as well (frowns) and is better replaced by spot removal. There’s only one draw-7 card outside of Contract in here (Memory Jar) because refilling the opponent’s hand will negate the advantage you built up with your control cards.
A Few Play Tips
You’ll want to play conservatively against aggro. Counter their Skullclamps and Armageddons; the creatures they drop can usually be nailed by your slower, yet stronger creatures. You may need to expend a lot of resources, though, in the form of Firestorm or Psychatog to stop a truly horrifying rush.
Against control, you should be speeding up. Drop creatures instead of holding back for counterspells. Quirion Dryad is your best friend here, along with any of the threshold creatures. They get stronger just by you casting spells, and when not everything is guaranteed to resolve, it’s good to have your cards doing something as they fizzle away. Point burn at the control player’s head. Make them go on the defensive and waste cards to find answers for your creatures. Once you make your card economy better than theirs, you’ll be winning. You can do this by having a threat on the table and defending it or casting a lot of draw/tutoring.
Aggro-control can take many forms, especially in 5C. I hope that you’ll play around with this deck, change it to suit your styles and realize the strength of the Way of Two Paths. Solid threats combined with solid answers will cover more bases than an emphasis on just one or the other. Sometimes you will lose because you try to do two things. Many times however, you will win precisely because you are doing two things.
Doug "The Standard Argument" Linn
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