Hello folks! We hope you enjoy yourselves as you come in from whatever articles you were reading before clicking here.
I returned from vacationing in West Virginia, and I have to tell you that WV is awesome! Hiking up mountains, swimming in a random river (it ended up being the Cheat River), and navigating the back roads was a ton of fun! My favorite place was this abandoned ghost town called Thurmond. It’s an old town that sprung up over the course of a few years as the perfect stop on the main C&O line. After trains changed to diesel, cars became more widely used, and traffic patterns changed, Thurmond’s prosperity left, as did most of the people. Today it is run by the National Park Service and has a lot of old, abandoned buildings, foundations, and such. It’s really cool, and if you ever get a chance to visit the area, you should check it out.
As I mentioned in last week’s article, I was unable to check out your comments because I was incommunicado. As of the writing of this article, I have read them and gotten caught up. Thanks to all of you who wrote! Also, The Ferrett name-dropped me and linked to one of my articles last week, and I missed that too. Therefore, I am publicly thanking him for the honor. It is very humbling each time a reader responds to an article I wrote or a fellow writer mentions me. That’s one reason why I normally try to thank writers and respond to readers.
For those of you who have been following this series, I am helping readers to build their first Five Color deck. Five Color is a casual format with its own banned and restricted list and a minimum of 250 cards with 20 of each color using all Vintage legal sets.
In fact, we have an official ballot for the month for the Five Color Ruling Council, on which I sit. We are looking at restricting Tolaria West and unrestricting Long Term Plans, Diabolic Tutor, and Land Tax. I believe that I will vote to restrict Tolaria West, unrestrict LTP, leave Land Tax restricted, and I am unsure of Diabolic Tutor. Of course, those are subject to change as I playtest and talk with people who play the format.
In this series, I resurrect an old entry in the first series, and then copy it into my article. After doing that, I keep all of the relevant parts, and add comments in bold. That means once the body of the article begins, you will read the old article, published over 4 and a half years ago as well as my new comments.
One irony is that in the previous third entry, I discussed the votes at the beginning of the article. Then here I am quickly going over the proposed changes in this article at the beginning. It’s interesting, no?
In last week’s article, I began the process of building a pair of 250 decks. In the first article we discussed how to start thinking about the deck you want to build. Last week we began building the deck by creating a skeleton. This week we are going to flesh out the skeleton.
As a result of using two new sample decks, the previous version of this article is now being removed, and that leaves fewer words of the old years. A large portion of this series is demonstrating the theory with examples, and since I am using all new examples, that chunk is removed.
Alright then, without further ado, let’s head into the meat of the article.
Begin the Original Article (Comments are in bold)
Building that Five deck you’ve been thinking about can appear to be daunting at first, but it’s not nearly so bad when you break it down into smaller chunks. In the past two articles we looked at the theory behind building decks of this size and then constructed a basic skeleton. We are also building three decks as sample decks to assist in giving some insight into the process. Deck theory can be a little obtuse at times, so we want to enlighten a bit with the sample decks.
(SNIP) – I just cut a large section of the article on mulligans and on the proposed changes. I wrote about mulligans in the first article in the new series and the vote changes from November 2003 are no longer pertinent.
Skeleton to Body
Back to our regularly scheduled article, already in progress
I was trying to come up with various ways of presenting this topic. The basic problem is this – until you know the Five Color game by building several decks and playing around with them, it’s downright impossible to figure out how to flesh out a deck. You have the skeleton, but what next?
My basic advice is simple: take your deck’s foundation, then add the details you might add in a regular deck. For now, ignore mana and cards to round out your deck – we are still working on the raw side of things. We want to take that skeleton and mold into a solid, well-rounded list of cards.
Our skeleton needs fleshing out.
Recall your skeleton. Did you have a quick beatdown deck? A long, drawn out-control deck that ends in some unforeseen combo? A Coalition Victory deck? And you also should have reviewed the cards in your collection – especially the ones gathering dust in the boxes or folders. You know, the ones that rotated out of Extended that no one wants anymore, or the chaff rares that were always good but never seemed to fit into a deck, and so forth.
I want to stress the whole “check you deck stock and old cards” advice. A metric ton of amazing cards in 250 are chaff or worse in normal 60 card decks. Do you want examples? How about Tolarian Serpent? It sucks in a 60 card deck, but in Five Color, as a reanimation target in a graveyard themed deck it fills up your yard quickly with tons of goodies. There are other examples like Tainted Pact. Take a look at the B&R list and you will see cards that were broken in Five Color, like Holistic Wisdom, Panoptic Mirror, Parallel Thoughts, or Insidious Dreams. Have you seen many of those in your 60 card decks recently?
You can find some high quality cards in the low trade value binders and boxes you have sitting around your home. Grab some and look through them for ideas for your decks and to flesh out your skeleton.
I’m going to warn you: in previous articles, I’ve dropped a lot of card names. In this article and the next, I’m going to do a lot more. Remember that it is the purpose of this article to help inspire you. So I am going to suggest alternatives, other routes, and so forth. Luckily, StarCityGames.com has this new link thing going on, or else I’d never had tried this series of article. Check out cards you are unfamiliar with – they may be really good.
The “new link thing” has been around for years now and has become standard on most major Magic sites. I think it’s funny to see me mentioning it so many years ago.
Feel encouraged to experiment with your deck.
One of the beauties of Five Color is that you get to experiment with your decks. Try something out, and if it doesn’t work, that’s fine. Go ahead and try something else, instead. After all, every card printed in a Vintage legal set is acceptable for the format (so long as it isn’t banned). We do require all five colors, after all. It’s a casual format. Sure, my aggro deck I’m building will be a powerful deck, fully teched out. The Invincible Counter Troll deck, on the other hand, will merely be okay. It will just be a fun experiment, and nothing major.
Anyway, the goal now is to take your core and start adding to it. You might want to simply start pawing through your collection and pull out cards which may fit your deck. That’s what I often do. Then look through those cards and see if the deck is gelling in your head. Start putting those cards in piles -"Definitely," "Maybe," and "What Was I Thinking?" That gives you a base of cards to consider for your deck.
There are several steps to fleshing out a deck. They are listed below for your convenience, then followed three times in the sample decks.
I consider this to be a smart path to use when building a deck, whether it’s Five Color or not. Remember that we already have a foundation to use to build the deck upon as per the last article. Before I head into these five steps, I want to reiterate that they will be used in detail in the two sample decks, so you will get a chance to see them in action. Let’s take a look at them
1). What creatures fit the deck? We’ll actually see some creatures added for the ((SNIP) I cut some talk about the sample decks) Aggro and ICT decks. This will, of course, be bounded by what cards you own, what your deck looks like, and so forth.
Some decks want defensive creatures, some want aggressive ones, and some want utility creatures. An Enchantment 250, for example, might want Academy Rector or Lost Auramancers to be used as creatures. Remember that most decks will be looking for winning conditions from creatures that go into the red zone, so include those now.
2). What removal should I add? You’ll want loads of creature removal. Artifact and enchantment removal should be included – but the form and amount vary depending on the deck. Some decks have land removal, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for every deck to have one emergency card that can be tutored for that takes care of lands. You never know when a Kjeldoran Outpost or Tolarian Academy can kill. Hand destruction and graveyard destruction are certainly options for some decks as well.
When considering what removal your deck needs, I would ask a simple question – can your deck reliably win without it? A very fast No-Holds-Barred Aggro deck can likely skip graveyard removal because it is focused on winning so quickly, but a control deck will need ways to shut down graveyard tricks like Genesis. On the other hand, a control deck may want only one or two emergency land removal spells where a NHBAggro deck might benefit from a lot of land destruction that doubles as tempo.
The basic things you want to take out are creatures, artifacts, and enchantments. Even the most aggressive of decks can benefit from removal of these permanent types, and many run cards like Vindicate and Swords to Plowshares. Remember that you can run cards that support your main theme, while also adding to your removal. For example, my Aggro deck might consider Kami of Ancient Law – a Grizzly Bear that can sac to pop an enchantment. It can both serve and pop a Propaganda or Ghostly Prison that might be played on the opposing side.
3). What support does my deck need? Some decks need countermagic; others need more proactive protection. Some need smaller or larger creatures, maybe it needs more ways to win – whatever.
You aren’t trying to outthink yourself with this step. You just want to explore the basic support. What does your deck need? If you envision last week’s article as the foundation of a house, and the previous two steps as the floors and rooms, this step is exploring the support beams and pillars. Not every deck needs to do the same things, but many of the same things are needed in each deck, if that makes sense. In other words, not every deck needs a Masticore, but every deck needs a way to pop opposing creatures.
4). What search and card drawing should go in? Parts of this question won’t be answered until next week… But for now, it’s important to note that you’ll need several ways of drawing cards, digging into your library, and otherwise getting what you need.
I consider this step to be the windows and doors. You need them as part of your house, and every house needs a few essentials, but how they break down and what they look like largely is based on the house. Similarly, there are some pretty powerful cards in this category that you will likely want to play, but after that, there is a lot of room for you to play cards as you have need.
5). Are there any holes in the deck? Could be. Remember, we are ignoring mana concerns for this week. But if there are holes out there, we need to stop them up.
We’ll ask this question this week, because it is part of the five steps. However, it’s typically going to be important in the future.
Utilizing these steps, let’s look at one of our decks from last week, and see if we can’t flesh it out.
(Snip) – For the rest of the article, the old sample decks were used. As such, I am taking them out. Instead, my own two decks will be featured. For the remainder of the article, I will be resuming normal methods of writing – no old words from long ago in normal print with new comments in bold – instead, all words are new and de-bolded.
Temporal 250 Skeleton
4 Savannah Lions
4 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Jungle Lion
4 Skyshroud Elite
4 Jackal Pup
4 Kird Ape
4 Carnophage
4 Winter Orb
4 Armageddon
We have 36 cards, and by the end of the article, we should have added quite a bit more. Let’s take a look at the deck.
1). What creatures fit the deck? I began with two-power one-drops to build the core of the deck along with the Orbs and Geddons. Now I need to add additional creatures.
Two-power two-drops should only be played if they have evasion or have another ability, such as pumping (like Wild Mongrel). Creatures like River Boa, Dryad Sophisticate, and Dauthi Horror are the types of creatures that I am thinking about. Let’s steer clear of creatures with double-mana casting costs. No White Knight or Whirling Dervish here.
There are a handful of two-drops that have a power greater than two with little to no loss of consistency. Take Skyshroud War Beast, as an example. In this format, a ton of non-basics get played, making it a large creature for just two mana.
Another choice that fits right in is Blade of the Sixth Pride. Its power is high enough in the curve to cause some damage with a splash-able casting cost.
I look at cheap evasive creatures like I mentioned above. Some that stand out are Soltari Trooper, Mistral Charger, and Mire Boa. I’ll steer clear of more vulnerable creatures like Skulking Ghost and Gossamer Phantasm. I could include something like Fledgling Djinn, on the other hand, but I’ll hold off for now. Spectral Lynx is another card on the edge.
I want to make sure that I mention Gaea’s Skyfolk and Watchwolf. For now, I am steering clear of both because of their double mana, but if I still need creatures later, I’ll come back and take another look.
There are other creatures that meet the two-power two-mana requirement but have nice abilities. Again, I’ll take a look later, but for now, I’ll just say that some of these creatures include Stingscourger, Dark Confidant, Wild Mongrel, Kavu Titan, and Joiner Adept.
Should any three-drops make the cut? I believe so. This should be our upper end. Several choices arise here. Obviously, any choices should have at least a three power, possibly more. I think there is one auto-inclusion – Serendib Efreet. The Efreet has been serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner for over a decade, and its power is obvious. If you have Sea Drakes, you might also think of them as auto-includes (I have one, but I can’t find it).
I love Troll Ascetic in my decks. There’s a lot of aggro running around the 250 block, and the Ascetic does several things to counter that. It blocks with regeneration. It kills virtually every playable ground creature an opponent might have. And it’s untargetable by burn or other removal, while I can still equip it.
Currently, Lavacore Elemental is in my own deck, and I love it. A five-power creature that can be reliably played and used with three mana is simply amazing, and the only cost you give up to use it is that you have to play it before combat. You are swinging anyway, so why not open up a hole with a big beater?
I have played Call of the Herd in the past because of its ability to double dip. Lavacore replaced it, and I haven’t gone back since.
You might want to toss in some broken four-mana creatures, from Flametongue Kavu to Mystic Enforcer. Even Moroii is a solid choice. Remember that you are running a lot of mana disruption, and you can best use it if your own spells don’t cost much mana. That’s why I’m running a total of twelve three-mana creatures.
I just added 44 cards. I’ll come back here later next week to finish the deck, but for now, I’ll stick with these creatures.
2). What removal should I add? An aggro deck like this one needs to eliminate speed bumps and disruption. Cards like Propaganda can really slow you down while Wall of Blossoms provides a powerful speed bump. You need to take out these offenders. However, you can’t slow your deck down too much to do so.
One of the best removal spells ever is Vindicate. It can do both of the above tasks, and if you want, it can also take out a land to cut off a color of mana, or slow down an opponent, or take out a land post-Armageddon. Vindicate is a vital card for this deck.
I also really like the aforementioned Kami of Ancient Law for this deck. It meets the requirements for beating with the ability to take out a vital opposing enchantment.
I want beaters, so removal spells like Aura Mutation and Artifact Mutation are good for taking out threats while making more attacking creatures. You might not find enough enchantments on the opposing side of the table to run Aura Mutation, but Artifact Mutation is hot. I’ll run four.
Swords to Plowshares is very cheap, and can take out very annoying speed bumps with amazing ease. Even with the life gain, it is still worth playing. Note that it handles even speed bumps with regeneration, such as opposing aggro decks with Boas or Lynxes.
After that, I believe in burn. Lightning Bolt should be getting upped to four with obviousness. After that, you spice to taste. From Incinerate to Char to Firebolt, there are a lot of options. I’m going with four Firebolts. You’d be surprised how often you flash it back and it takes out most early creatures just fine.
For now, we’ll stick with these 24 cards.
3). What support does my deck need? This deck can seriously benefit from Umezawa’s Jitte. The Troll Ascetic is a perfect Jitte Handler. With an obviously high creature ratio, Jitte should be on the table.
There are other creature pumpers I could run. Rancor is an obvious choice. More equipment like Grafted Wargear is also smart. I’ll hold off for now, but I’ll remember the cards if I need to come back.
This deck could also benefit from more tempo cards. There are several options. I could run substandard creatures like Dwarven Miner, Avalanche Riders and Orcish Settlers to eliminate opposing lands. At least they are creatures, so they fit the theme.
All of those options rely on having some serious mana open, and that’s no guarantee in this deck.
Instead, I could run more tempo options like, say, Tangle Wire. That’s a fine card with a lot of potential. It also makes a good Artifact Mutation target late in its run. Early in the game it can be two or even three Time Walks. Late in the game it is still often half a Time Walk… we want a great early game.
The tempo option would really love a Strip Mine and four Wastelands. The Strips are restricted, so I can run just one, but the Wastelands are fine.
As a special note, a lot of tournaments might feature fully tricked-out decks. Some of those decks will be running zero basic lands. Instead, they’ll run Onslaught fetches and both dual lands. In this metagame, meet Strips six through nine – Ghost Quarter. Dust Bowl might also be a good choice.
4). What search and card drawing should go in? Without hesitation, this deck needs Clamp. It’s restricted, so the deck can run just one, but Skullclamp is a serious need. Now, the question that needs to be asked is if this deck needs Clamp so much that it should run Trinket Mage. For now, I’m holding off, but the Trinket Mage is a definite possibility.
This deck can drop its hand very quickly and then has a serious desire to refill. That makes cards like Wheel of Fortune and Windfall highly valuable. No Jar, no Time Spiral, and no Timetwister (it costs too much money). On the other hand, Diminishing Returns is a fine choice. All of these cards are restricted, so we can just run one of each.
That gives us a few cards that scream "pick me, coach!" We can add more later if necessary.
5). Are there any holes in the deck? Is there anything that we need that we currently do not have? I’m not sure. This is a straightforward deck, and its needs are also straightforward. It could use some consistency, however. As such, I’m tossing in Demonic Tutor. Enlightened Tutor gets tempo, Clamp, or Jitte, so it goes in too.
There is one thing the deck needs that it doesn’t have – Price of Progress. The number of games that you will win with a straight up Price is staggering, and you should run all four.
We have now added 91 cards to the deck to bring us to 127 total cards. Here is the deck as it currently stands:
Temporal 250 Fleshed Out
4 Savannah Lions
4 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Jungle Lion
4 Skyshroud Elite
4 Jackal Pup
4 Kird Ape
4 Carnophage
4 Winter Orb
4 Armageddon
4 Skyshroud War Beast
4 River Boa
4 Dryad Sophisticate
4 Dauthi Horror
4 Blade of the Sixth Pride
4 Soltari Trooper
4 Mistral Charger
4 Mire Boa
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Lavacore Elemental
4 Vindicate
4 Kami of Ancient Law
4 Artifact Mutation
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Firebolt
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Tangle Wire
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Skullclamp
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Price of Progress
And with that, let’s move on to the next deck.
Invincible Counter Troll 250 Skeleton
4 Sedge Troll
4 Sedge Sliver
4 Nevinyrral’s Disk
4 Ophidian
4 Ohran Viper
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Counterspell
4 Forbid
32 cards of love. Let’s see what we can add.
1). What creatures fit the deck? Okay, straight off the bat, allow me to apologize for not including Hedge Troll last week. It should have been part of the skeleton and I forgot about it. Luckily, it was pointed out in the comments to the article. We are adding it this week to bring the Sedge Troll Count to twelve.
I just used the awesome Troll Ascetic above, and it fits here too. Let’s throw it in!
Continuing the three-power troll theme, take a look at two-drop Albino Troll. It may have echo, but with its low casting cost it has some power. In other news, I am going to skip the four-mana Charging Troll – it simply costs too much mana for a 3/3 regenerating, even if it has Vigilance. After all, I can get a four-mana 8/4 regenerating troll with Hunted Troll, so why run Charging? In fact, Hunted is so good I’m tossing it in. The tokens will die to our mass removal, while the trolls will stay standing.
Some of the creatures that were used in the original version were creatures that increased card advantage, including sideboarded Masticores. Let’s toss in those Masticores. I think that Etched Oracle also fits into the deck with ease, so let’s toss it in. I feel that Roy would approve of them in a Five Color ICT.
2). What removal should I add? This deck wanted to use Nevinyrral’s Disk as control and then regenerate the trolls. Let’s continue that there here – we might as well use Magus of the Disk. Another option is to run Oblivion Stone. As an artifact, it can sweep the board of most non-lands and yet you can regenerate your stuff.
Wrath effect and Disk effect Akroma’s Vengeance seems like another good choice for the deck. If you have mana left after you use it, you can regenerate, but let’s not get silly now – there may not be enough mana after you use six, like there is for Disks, so let’s not run too many of these expensive sweeping effects. Just a few, as emergencies, is fine.
This deck wants some removal options. Swords to Plowshares and Dismantling Blow appear to be obvious choices. The Swords is cheap and the Blows pop a permanent while also potentially drawing two cards, and Roy loves drawing cards.
The deck does need a few more removal spells for enchantments and artifacts, so let’s run Hull Breach, which is often a two-for-one.
3). What support does my deck need? The deck needs more countermagic. I suggest running some "one Blue" counterspells, like Arcane Denial, Mana Leak, and Delay. The deck would love more countermagic.
4). What search and card drawing should go in? Fact or Fiction is another obvious choice. The deck also needs some more card drawing. Deep Analysis might be a solid addition.
5). Are there any holes in the deck? This deck needs some more creatures, even if they don’t fit the troll or regenerating theme. May I suggest Flametongue Kavu? It can kill a creature while posing as a threat – which helps the card advantage nature of the deck.
I also really like Thornscape Battlemage for its diversity. It can pop an artifact, a creature, both or just be a speed bump – whatever you need.
There are other creatures from which the deck might benefit, like Nekrataal or Ghitu Slinger or Indrik Stomphowler. I want to go with Radiant’s Dragoons. They provide a nice ass that can stop aggro decks while giving you much of the life back that you may have lost.
We have just added 80 more cards to bring our deck total to 112. Here is the current iteration of the deck:
Invincible Counter Troll 250 Fleshed Out
4 Sedge Troll
4 Sedge Sliver
4 Nevinyrral’s Disk
4 Ophidian
4 Ohran Viper
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Counterspell
4 Forbid
4 Hedge Troll
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Albino Troll
4 Hunted Troll
4 Masticore
4 Etched Oracle
4 Magus of the Disk
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Akroma’s Vengeance
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Dismantling Blow
4 Hull Breach
4 Arcane Denial
4 Mana Leak
4 Delay
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Deep Analysis
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Thornscape Battlemage
4 Radiant’s Dragoons
There we have the two decks, fully fleshed out and ready for the next step.
Remember, if you don’t have all of the cards that you might want, you have pulled out the cards that you have. Using those cards, you should be able to find replacements for missing cards. For example, if I didn’t have the four Troll Ascetics for my first deck, I could run Call of the Herd or Watchwolf or something else. That’s the beauty of Magic.
I’ll leave you with the parting words from the first version of this article, so long ago:
And, the short of it is that we are finished fleshing out some decks. Using five simple steps we have worked and slaved our way to the happy beginning of a deck list. This week, go over your cards, pull out the ones you like. Afterwards separate them into those three piles -"Yep," "Maybe," and "Was I smoking crack?" Then go through your deck and answer each of those five questions. Fill out your decklist.
Have fun. And we’ll meet again next week.
Until later,