The Kitchen Table #171 - The Essentials, Volume 1

Good day folks, and welcome to another installment of that column that explores the depths and scales the heights of all things casual. I am the cartographer of the land of casual, here to chart new areas for you to explore in your journeys.

Today, I bring an article that has been long in coming. To be honest, I’m not completely sure why it took me so long to write. This concept has existed for over a year now in my group. However, there’s no time like the present, right?

Today we are going to take a look at a large highlander, Five-Color deck entitled The Essentials. As a highlander deck, this contraption cannot have more than one of each card except for basic lands. As a Five-Color deck, it abides by all of the rules of that format, including use of the banned list and a requirement to have at least twenty cards of each color.

The deck that resulted was a combination of two formats. Very large highlander decks (often well in excess of 250 cards) are regularly played at my casual table, as are Five-Color decks. This is hardly the first time we’ve combined both at the table. My abbreviation for Highlander Five-Color is H5C. That should be easy enough to remember.

What this deck tries to do is boil a highlander, Five-Color multiplayer deck down to the bare essentials. This is about as streamlined a deck as you are going to get when combining these two formats.

This deck came about because sometime over a year ago I was thinking about building the Essentials Deck, and then I decided to create a decklist of what the Essentials Deck would be, if I were to actually build it. A friend, Aaron, modified the list, built the deck, and has been the keeper of the list ever since. We give it to fellow players who are interested in seeing what the top cards in H5C are.

It’s always hard to make cuts. Every one of the cards in this deck is a game-winning card. Some are subtle, and some are obvious, but they all contribute. That includes recent cuts, like Captain Sisay, Decree of Pain, and Goblin Bombardment. All of those three cards were proven winners, and therefore cutting them was painful. However, we have to move on, constantly massaging the decklist.

Note that the decklist in its current form reflects an actual deck. Obviously changes would be made if someone has access to more cards. For example, I would add my power to the list. You might also consider Moat or The Abyss for the deck. Still, within the confines of “most cards ever printed,” this is a fine list.

The decklist is in its entirety at the end of the article. It takes up a lot of space, so I moved it to the end. What we’ll be doing is spending the next however many articles (just two? Maybe four?) looking at this deck and breaking down the cards that made it, and the cards that missed.

Please note that this is a deck, not just a list of cards. As such, it often runs copies of cards that you might consider strictly worse than other cards. For example, you might look at Court Hussar and wonder why we didn’t replace it with Impulse. However, we needed the creature. We’ve been slowly upping the creature count over the past few months at the expense of better creatures. A good Green land search spell was recently replaced with Chartooth Cougar, for example. The Cougar may have been worse at getting land, and it may not be a great creature, but the fact it gets land while still contributing to the red zone is quality.

One interesting fact is that many of these cards have cheap price tags. Sure, there’s the occasional Akroma or Reya, but there are scads of cards with cheap casting costs available for your selection. You’ll see as we flesh out the deck that a lot of cards that are amazingly good are also pretty cheap.

With that said, then, let’s take a look at the first section of cards.

White:

Academy Rector
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Akroma’s Vengeance
Balance
Commander Eesha
Decree of Justice
Dismantling Blow
Enlightened Tutor
Eternal Dragon
Exalted Angel
Glory
Land Tax
Lieutenant Kirtar
Magus of the Disc
Oblation
Orim’s Thunder
Pristine Angel
Ray of Revelation
Reya Dawnbringer
Rout
Spectral Lynx
Swords to Plowshares
Temple Acolyte
Tithe
Vengeful Dreams
Weathered Wayfarer
Wing Shards
Wrath of God

Without a doubt, these 28 cards are the most powerful of all colors. No color gives you as much versatility and staying power as White. From creatures to removal to tricks, White has it all.

Want proof? Well, first we have land search. Tithe, Land Tax, Weathered Wayfarer, and Eternal Dragon are among the best land searchers that we have, and are far better than Sakura-Tribe Elder or Chartooth Cougar or Farseek. The Eternal Dragon is the best landcycler because you can cycle him early and then bring him back later – which gives him a versatility unmatched by any other basic land-search card. Tithe is as cheap as you can get and gets you one or two duel lands. Weathered Wayfarer is not only a one-drop, but also gets you any land, a quite likely situation in multiplayer. Land Tax is so good that it may be the best land-searching spell ever printed. The next best card in that area is Gift of Estates, which is pretty good, but was a recent cut because occasionally it does nothing. White definitely does land search pretty well.

I hear it’s also pretty good at sweeping removal. Wrath of God, Rout, Akroma’s Vengeance, and Magus of the Disk are all great at removing creatures from the board. If there are a horde of creatures coming your way, you can stop it. The Vengeance and Magus are also great at clearing out unwanted artifacts and enchantments. You can always benefit from sweeping away opposing Ivory Masks, artifact mana, Sylvan Libraries, and other assorted non-land permanents. Rout’s ability to be played as an instant makes it often better than any other Wrath effect. Other choices you could include would likely start with Mageta the Lion or Kirtar’s Wrath.

White can also take out pinpoint enchantments. Orim’s Thunder is arguably the best Disenchant effect ever printed in White, although it needs Red to truly work. Dismantling Blow is also great, since it can net you a pair of cards. Ray of Revelation can be used to take out a pair of enchantments cheaply. If I were to add a fourth spell, I’d look at Aura of Silence.

Want to know something else White is good at? Defensive creatures that keep you alive. Commander Eesha is great at holding the fort against virtually any non-trampling threat. She can also dart in for two when you have need. Pristine Angel is also great at holding her own against virtually any non-trampler, while having a greater impact on the attacking side of the board than Eesha has. Spectral Lynx is a nice ground creature that has regeneration. That can save the creature, while it also can nip through the occasional Green defense. Lastly, Lieutenant Kirtar sits as a Seal of Order, and it will often keep people from attacking. When you have need, feel free to get a hit in with the 2/2 flyer. Even Temple Acolyte is a great blocker along with a bump in life that can save you. He’s much better than Bottle Gnomes. If I were to play another creature in this vein, I’d look at Cho Manno, Revolutionary.

There are a few creatures in this color that are meant to attack. Eternal Dragon, mentioned above, is a great attacker with its 5/5 body. I hear some card named Akroma is pretty good at swinging for six. Exalted Angel is money as either a cheap fourth turn beater if played through morph or a solid later creature. When you combine the evasive quality of most of White’s creatures with their ability to deal significant damage, I hope you realize that this is a very powerful suite of creatures. No other color has as powerful a combination of creatures that play both defense and offense.

Glory is another evasive creature, and this time it can protect your other creatures once it is in the graveyard. It serves the theme here well. Academy Rector can keep people attacking on he ground for fear that they’ll kill the Rector and give you a broken enchantment. These also serve the creature theme.

White also has some solid removal with a smaller impact than Wrath of God. Swords to Plowshares is ubiquitous in its usefulness at taking out virtually any creature for a single mana. Wing Shards can hit several creatures, but even if it takes out just one, that one can be some of the most broken creatures, including Akromas #1 and #2, and Darksteel Colossus. Oblation hits any non-land permanent on the board and keeps it out of the graveyard at instant speed, at the cost of giving an opponent two cards. You can also use it on yourself to draw two cards in a crunch. Few other cards can kill as many creatures with as little mana as Vengeful Dreams. People will often attack with all of their big guns at you when you have just a couple of White open. Punish them for their insolence by removing several from the game. A couple of cards pulled late from this section include Order / Chaos and Exile.

White has some of the best miscellaneous spells too. Balance is amazing at so many things, and its impact on the board for such a cheap mana cost is legendary. Decree of Justice is ideal at making an army at an instant. Enlightened Tutor joins the Rector by adding a potent tutor suite to round out the selection of cards in White.

As you can see, these 28 cards are among the most powerful that any color has to offer. Next up, Green.

Green:

All Suns’ Dawn
Birds of Paradise
Civic Wayfinder
Crop Rotation
Defense of the Heart
Eternal Witness
Farseek
Genesis
Hibernation’s End
Hermit Druid
Joiner Adept
Journey of Discovery
Kodama’s Reach
Krosan Tusker
Living Wish
Nantuko Vigilante
Nostalgic Dreams
Pattern of Rebirth
Protean Hulk
Recollect
Regrowth
Restock
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Search for Tomorrow
Silklash Spider
Silvos, Rogue Elemental
Skyshroud Elf
Spike Weaver
Sylvan Library
Sylvan Scrying
Thornscape Battlemage
Tooth and Nail
Wall of Blossoms
Yavimaya Elder

Although the Green section has more cards than the White, at 34 total cards, you can see that the average power level of these cards is diminished. Part of this is because the Green color contains the backbone of every Five Color or Highlander deck – mana. The other part is because historically Green has been a weak color.

If you want mana, wow, have you come to the right color. Birds of Paradise is a top notch color producer, as we all know. Yavimaya Elder gets you a pair of lands plus you can sometimes draw a card off him, creating a powerful card drawing engine. Sylvan Scrying is a cheap way of getting any land, including special lands, and it is a key mana retrieval spell. Search for Tomorrow can be played on the first turn, and therefore can get you out of extreme mana screw for those times when you secretly have a good hand. Skyshroud Elf makes three colors of mana and filters mana to allow double or triple cost spells from the adjacent colors. You can play Akroma the Senior or Junior through an Elf. Sakura-Tribe Elder was one of several cards to dominate Standard for a while, and joins fellow Champions of Kamigawa common Kodama’s Reach which is also a top notch land search card. Civic Wayfinder is great because it’s a creature that brings a land with it right away. Farseek can get a duel land. Journey of Discovery is solid in the later game when you can play the entwine cost. Krosan Tusker is an amazing card because it can serve as a 6/5 as well as serve as a Green Inspiration for one less mana. Joiner Adept makes your land tap for any color while also being a tempo-tastic 2/1 for two mana. Crop Rotation gets you any land at instant speed, and even Living Wish, in a pinch can get a land. The last card cut from here was Reap and Sow, which cost just a little bit too much mana.

After that, we have cards dedicated to graveyard recursion. Genesis is a 4/4 beater who can also recur creatures out of your yard over time, driving Wrath based decks and counter control decks nuts. He works well with this deck’s removal. All Suns’ Dawn is one of the broken cards in this format, and it can easily get you several ridiculous cards. Imagine if they printed Tidings that got four non-land cards, and occasionally five. That’s All Suns’ Dawn. Restock is solid although a bit underwhelming when compared to All Suns’ Dawn. Nostalgic Dreams is an amazingly cheap recursion tool for any time of the game. Pitch expensive stuff early for fetch lands and mana smoothing spells. Pitch cheap stuff or lands later for good stuff. Get Genesis or Glory in the graveyard. Regrowth is the obvious undercosted powerhouse of old. Restock is the more realistic costed modern version – and it is still great. Finally, we have Eternal Witness – which is just a strong version through and through.

There are several strong defensive creatures. Silklash Spider leads the list. As a card that can perma-block Akroma the Elder, it has value at any multiplayer table. When you toss in its ability to block just about any common played flyer with its reusable Hurricane-lite ability, you get an amazingly strong card. Spike Weaver provides you with three Fogs, and against many players, this is essentially three Time Walks in one card. It works wonders with cards like Genesis, Volrath’s Stronghold, and Oversold Cemetery. Wall of Blossoms is my favorite two-drop in Green in multiplayer. There’s no stopping you when you play a cheap blocker that draws you a card while stalling an attack.

The Green suite above also contains a smattering of tutoring. The best of the group is definitely Tooth and Nail. Playing that historically retrieves Akroma the White and Colossus the Dark. Now you can get both Akromas for mad beats. It often instantly gives you the best creature position on the board. Another amazing card is Hibernation’s End. The ability to grab one creature a turn for no cost in cards beyond the End itself is pretty solid. You can get mana on the first turn with Birds of Paradise or Weathered Wayfarer. Then, starting at your second drop, there are a lot of options from card drawing to defense to aggro and more mana fixing. Pattern of Rebirth gets you any creature immediately into play, much like a mini-Tooth and Nail, although printed first. Defense of the Heart works similar to Tooth and Nail but there are requirements on it that drops its casting cost significantly. Protean Hulk can also tutor for several creatures to suit your current needs after getting offed. Its size is a deterrent to those who might otherwise let it stay in play (like Academy Rector), but are forced to kill it lest it kill them. Lastly, Living Wish can feel like a creature tutor in the way that it plays.

There are several miscellaneous cards in Green. Despite the presence of several larger creatures, the color only features one true heavy hitter, unlike what you would expect Green to do. Silvos is a regenerating trampling machine for a fair cost. You’ll find him ending games frequently. We also have a pair of removal cards. Nantuko Vigilante is playable because it’s a creature that doubles as removal and also is useful in a deck that includes three other morph creatures (Bane of the Living, Exalted Angel, Willbender). Thornscape Battlemage has two kickers – one that takes out artifacts and the other that takes out creatures. It is a machine of death. Sylvan Library is your lone card drawing spell. Its one of the best enchantments to get early because it’s not as much of a threat as, say, Mirari’s Wake and Future Sight. Therefore, it doesn’t get killed as quickly. Finally, Hermit Druid can get you some land, true, but its main purpose if to stock your graveyard full of goodies from Recoup to Genesis and more – preparing for a large Living Death or giving you more targets for various spells like the recursion spells listed above.

As you can see, although the Green cards are certainly useful, they are aligned more towards making mana, tutoring for lands and creatures, and grabbing cards from the graveyard. Very few cards fall outside these bounds. Next up, we review the weakest color in Five-Color or H5C.

Red:

Akroma, Angel of Fury
Ancient Grudge
Anger
Arc-Slogger
Avatar of Fury
Burning Wish
Chartooth Cougar
Firestorm
Flametongue Kavu
Fledgling Dragon
Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Rakavolver
Recoup
Wheel of Fortune

There are just fourteen cards here. Aren’t I supposed to have at least 20 Red cards? Absolutely… and gold, split, and hybrid cards can count toward just one color of my choice. With that, Red has enough cards to hit twenty.

If you read my articles, then you’ll have noted that I have regularly attacked the relative weakness of Red in Five-Color. This is yet another classic example. Take a look at the general power level of these fourteen Red cards. They are good stuff, right?

I mean, you can’t fault Red for Arc-Slogger. The Slogger is arguably the best card in Red in an overly large deck. If you have the other cards to support him and his mana needs, you can deal a lot of damage quickly. He’s not the only one. The new Akroma is fantastic and very powerful, however the triple Red, whether morphing up or simply hard casting can get in the way of the creature, but she’s still very powerful. Fledgling Dragon is almost always a cheaper Shivan Dragon. 5/5 flyers with firebreathing for just four mana are a bargain. Rakavolver is a 5/5 spirit linked flyer in almost every situation, and you know how good Exalted Angel was with that combination of abilities, so you can easily extrapolate how powerful the good ‘Volver might be. Avatar of Fury is often a two mana creature that can swing with a mighty hit. All five of these creatures end games quickly.

In fact, these five Red creatures end games more quickly than the Green creatures of fatness. However, for all of that, Red lacks support. There’s removal, sure. Firestorm can hit numerous bad guys and players and you’ve seen how valuable the mechanic is with other cards (Vengeful Dreams, Nostalgic Dreams). Ancient Grudge is every bit as good as Ray of Revelation – possibly more so since there are typically more targets in play for it. Jaya Ballard is gold because all three of her abilities can blow stuff up, which Red is wont to do. Flametongue Kavu is famous for its ability to off an offending creature of some size while also serving for a significant amount of damage itself. So yes, there is removal here, certainly.

There are also some powerful miscellaneous cards. Recoup is the most abusable recursion spell currently not banned in Five-Color. It can get flipped by cards like Hermit Druid and turn into a game-winning recursion spell. Anger is another card that you want in the graveyard, and it has a great deal of power. Red’s Wish – the Burning Wish – is arguably the most powerful of the Wishes, although the Cunning Wish is the most diverse because of its instant ability. Wheel of Fortune is one of the greatest card drawing spells of all time. Even Chartooth Cougar is solid because it gets you a land early or becomes a pertinent creature late.

Sure, Red has some solid cards, but outside of these how many more are truly playable at this power level? A few of the last cards we took out include Tahngarth, Talruum Hero and Kumano, Master Yamabushi. You can only play so many removal effects in your deck, and the removal of White and Black is much better than that of Red. Would you rather have Wing Shards and Swords to Plowshares, or Firebolt and Lightning Bolt? Would you rather have Rend Flesh and Expunge or Arc Lightning and Magma Jet?

Exactly.

That’s why Red is relegated to the back of the lineup.

Black:

Avatar of Woe
Bane of the Living
Chainer’s Edict
Damnation
Demonic Collusion
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Tutor
Expunge
Guiltfeeder
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Living Death
Mortivore
Oversold Cemetery
Recurring Nightmare
Rend Flesh
Sudden Death
Tainted Pact
Tortured Existence

These 19 cards represent the best that Black has to offer over time (again, within the bounds of the banned list. No Vampiric Tutor or Imperial Seal here!). Black’s cards predominately are tutors, recursion, creatures, and removal. That’s to be expected. Let’s take a look.

The one thing that you know Black will do well is tutor. Other colors have tutors, sure, but Black has tutors that get any card and puts in it in your hand. Demonic Tutor has been around for a long time, and it has only gotten better over time. Although Diabolic Tutor is double the casting cost of the same effect, what it does is still so powerful that you simply must play it. Demonic Collusion is an expensive tutor with the ability to buy in back. Later in the game when you have some mana, it becomes a broken card. If you were to keep looking at tutor effects, another solid one is Diabolic Intent.

Like other colors, Black likes to contribute some major creatures. Guiltfeeder is the best at killing a player. With fear, it is naturally evasive. It will likely kill it one or two hits, and then keep attacking. It is essentially a player killer. In fact, Guiltfeeder is a better player killer than Phage ever will be. Mortivore is another large creature in the late game, and its Regeneration will often allow it to survive some sweep effects. Just calmly untap and attack someone for lethal damage. Mortivore is another player killer. Kokusho is a solid creature in the same vein as all of these large flyers you see in the deck. Combine that with its Soul Feast ability and you have an amazingly strong card. Even Avatar of Woe with its cheap cost and 6/5 fear body is capable of ending the game quickly.

Black also has removal. The most recent addition in this suite is the recently printed Damnation. Giving yourself another cheap Wrath of God is great. Although Bane of the Living can be simply played or morphed up as a 4/3 beater, it is almost exclusively used to selectively clear out the board as an instant. Expunge is solid because it cycles so you can always draw a card with it if you need. Rend Flesh can kill virtually every creature in the game, except for the occasional spirit, regenerator, or indestructible problem. Sudden Death is another solid recent addition that adds a powerful way to kill problem creatures. The aforementioned Avatar of Woe can also tap to pop a creature. Chainer’s Edict is a great kill spell because it fills a different role than many of the others. There are plenty of other cards here to consider, but I’d go with Brainspoil to get the transmute ability and the creature kill spell.

Creature recursion has always been a major theme in Black and it makes perfect sense that you see it here. Tortured Existence is a little ol’ common from Stronghold that is quite the powerful puppy. I’ve been able to use and reuse Tortured Existence enough that it wins me games. People will often kill it before it becomes a problem. Another card in a similar vein is Oversold Cemetery. It’s a mana-free way of getting a creature every turn. Opponents simply cannot allow you to keep an active Cemetery for long if they want to live. Recurring Nightmare is also one of the true classics of Black recursion, and is the only way of putting them directly into play. Unless, of course, you count Living Death, which is both an uber-Wrath of God and Twilight’s Call. Living Death is the single most powerful card in Black. I’d grab Gravedigger if I had to add another card in this area.

Black has always had the occasional miscellaneous cards as well, and we have one in here. Tainted Pact can dig very deeply in a highlander deck, just make sure you don’t double up on the basic lands. It’s much better than any Impulse or similar effect ever printed. If you wanted to add a bit more to the Black suite of cards, then I’d look at possibilities like Sudden Spoiling, which would fit here.

So then, Black does what you expect it to do, with little surprises.

That completes today’s article. Next week, I’ll go over the Blue, artifacts, lands, and gold / split / hybrid cards. I hope you enjoyed today’s look at some of the best cards you can use.

Until later,

Abe Sargent

Appendix: The Official Deck

Here is the entire deck in its full form:

The Essentials H5C

Abe Sargent

Test deck on 03-11-2007

Casual

Creatures (72)

Lands (85)

Spells (93)