Happy Thursday to you all! Welcome back to the next installment in the updated Building Your First Five series. This is the fourth entry in the series. The previous series took five articles to get the final decklist finished, and then there were several articles on the restricted list, showing how to upgrade a deck, and then an article on miscellany. I intend this series to go to five articles, like the original..
As a reminder, my original series was written over four and a half years ago. Although some things have changed, others have not. The basic strategy for building your first 250 deck is still there, but the examples and details have changed. Since the series was first written, fifteen legal new sets have been published (it was written after Onslaught block was published but before Legions). That’s a ton of cards that now see print that had not when that series was written.
Plus, the rules have been tweaked and these do have an impact on building your decks. For example, in the old days, you played for hard-core ante, and a rare always stopped the ante, but you kept flipping until a non-land rare or foil hit the top (or your opponent chose to stop you). As such, a lot of decks ran “ante-stoppers.” These were cheap, rare cards that were played because they stopped the ante, not because they were among the best cards available. One such card I remember playing was Soltari Emissary. You could give it shadow with mana, and it was a 2/1 for two mana, so it never embarrassed you, but you won’t see me even sniffing Soltari Emissary in this aggro deck because ante has evolved in Five Color. Many games are no longer played for ante, and in those games that are, they are usually played for ghost ante, or scribble ante, or buck ante, or buy the next drink ante, or whatever.
These minor changes over time have had an impact on deck building, but not a major one. You’ll not see Contract From Below or Jeweled Bird in either of these decks. If you want to take them to a tournament that requires hard-core ante, then you can figure out what to take out for those cards.
Alright then, let’s head to the meat of the article. As a reminder, what I have done is I have cut and pasted the original article. I will then give my comments in bold text. Then, once I’ve gotten through the points of the original article, I will completely replace the previous sample decks with all new sample decks. The previous article chimed in at 14 pages of Word. Let’s hope this entry in a little bit smaller. (Remember that I occasionally snip comments from the older article that are no longer pertinent.)
Begin the Original Article (Comments are in bold)
(Snip) – Cut the original intro
When a format requires 250 cards, and 18 (TWENTY) of each color, it can be a little intimidating building your first deck. Where do you start? How do you go about it? What should be included? This series of articles takes you through the steps of building a Five Color deck. The first several articles dealt with selecting and considering a theme, building a basic skeleton, then fleshing out the deck. Now we are at the penultimate stage, with only one more remaining: it’s time to clothe the deck, round out the non-mana cards. In the next article, we will choose a manabase.
By now, we should have a healthy decklist, with only twenty to forty spaces left for non-mana cards. Typically, a good rule of thumb to use with a Five Color deck is 150 card to 100 mana, although many decks end up using a different ratio. You’ll find out that the 150:100 ratio is a little off, especially if you are playing classic mana fixers.
I don’t think I explained that well initially so let’s explore this statement further.
In my sixty card decks, I typically play 40% land, which breaks down to 24 lands. In this format, with all five colors and unreliability increased, I should want at least 40% mana, right? In that case, I’d want 100 lands.
However, this is not the case. If you remember from a previous article, I pointed out how the generous mulligan rules can really allow a Five Color player to cheat a bit. Plus, the mana total can include stuff like Fellwar Stone and Krosan Tusker. You don’t want to drown yourself in mana. As such, most decks don’t run even 100 mana sources. We’ll see what I am talking about in more detail in next week’s article. For now, just know that I am comfortable to go above 150 cards in the decklist.
The main issue with this stage is that it cannot be broken down into nice little pieces like the previous ones. In the last stage, for example, I broke down fleshing out a deck into five stages. Here, we want to top off the deck, then metagame it. There are, however, some general steps I identify that can be part of this stage. So, that is how I am going to divide up this work. Into the smaller steps required.
Although there are ideas for this stage, it is a lot more feel and a lot less think. This stage gets better with experience.
(SNIP) – I cut some conversation about the previous sample decks.
Step 1 – Adding the Essentials
The basic goal of this stage is to throw in those cards that are absolutely vital to a Five Color Deck’s success. For example, the most powerful sorcery in many decks is Balance. Balance is old, but it is also a fairly cheap card, with the cheapest version costing only $3.00 here at StarCityGames.com. As such, there is really no excuse for most Five Color decks not to run one. Even aggressive decks can take advantage of its faux-Mind Twist, faux-Armageddon abilities. And while we are on the subject of Mind Twist, here is a rare (the cheapest at StarCityGames.com is $2.75) that can also turn the tide versus any deck. It can fit into control, combo, and aggro all without missing a beat. The overwhelming power and inexpensive nature of these two cards suggest that practically every decktype should use them.
The cheapest Balance is now a buck fifty and Mind Twist has risen a quarter to three bucks at its cheapest. Isn’t it interesting to see how the prices of card have or have not changed over time? I love it! I totally agree with these two choices, by the way. They are very powerful, cheap, and worth playing in virtually every deck.
Snip – cut some talk on Contract
Other powerful cards include Regrowth, Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, Braingeyser, and Wheel of Fortune. Even cards taken out of play during Urza’s Block, like Memory Jar, Stroke of Genius, Windfall, Time Spiral, and Tolarian Academy are nice, inexpensive, and powerful.
Before we head into the next section, I want to pause momentarily. The 5CRC recently banned a lot of the cheapest tutors in order to add some variety to the game. As such, in the next section, a lot of recommended cards are now banned. Also, some are too slow for the modern environment. I’d never recommend Mangara’s Tome these days. In order to show what cards are still good, I will underline the cards that I would still recommend. The others are either banned or not as good.
And these are the sorts of cards you want to look at playing. I’d start with tutors. Practically every non-creature tutor is restricted, so I’d go towards playing them. A decent list would include: Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, Gamble, Diabolic Intent, Academy Rector, Sterling Grove, Mangara’s Tome, Merchant Scroll, Planar Portal, Demonic Consultation, Divining Witch, Tinker, Eladamri’s Call, Worldly Tutor, and Transmute Artifact. Not every one of these fits into every deck, and there are certainly other tutor options, but this is the list I would begin with. It’s definitely worth playing as many tutors as reasonably fit into a deck – if your deck has only four enchantments, you might leave out the Rector and Grove, for example. But, each of these can be quite powerful. Since decks are big, they are inherently unreliable, so you need pinpoint accuracy whenever possible.
If you take a look at that list again, you will see that 18 cards are listed, yet I only highlighted nine of them. That means half are either banned or not good enough to recommend any more.
The next section is even worse, as I talk about the power of Yawgmoth’s Will for some time. Again, that card was banned some time ago. I also talk about the wishes, but the rules for those have changed since this article was written. Today, I’d consider Cunning Wish, Living Wish, and Burning Wish but only if you have a desire to build a Wishboard. I’ll cut out that section now.
These cards are some of the five color essentials, and most decks will want them in order to be a more well rounded. Check and see what essentials fit the deck you are building, and slide them in.
Step 2 – Adding Redundancy and Filling Out Spaces
There are a few tricks that you may not have originally noticed. Most Five Color decks include a variety of tutors for pinpoint accuracy. As such, you will need a variety of removal for different card types. For example, if you have to kill a Masticore, and you topdeck a Sterling Grove, what do you go get? What if your opponent’s Humility is keeping him alive, since you’d have enough creatures in play to Alpha Strike him out of existence if only they weren’t all 1/1s. Do you have an Academy Rector target? What artifact do you Transmute Artifact for in order to stop a creature?
This is less important now with the banned tutors. Before, you had Mystical Tutor, which had to get you all of the answers. Merchant Scroll got a Mystical in order to get all of the answers. Then you had Tinker or Sterling Grove and Enlightened Tutor and whatnot. Now we have less tutoring needs. Most of the tutors we have left are not able to be as versatile. Take Merchant Scroll, for example. Without Mystical Tutor as a target, you can no longer get every answer with the Scroll. Transmute cards have similar problems. There isn’t always an answer for one mana (Dizzy Spell) when you need it.
The principle of making sure that you can get answers no matter the tutor still has some benefit, and I often run a Seal of Cleansing or Primordium in my decks because the enchantment tutors are still around. However, beyond that, I don’t use this advice as much anymore.
You want to make sure that you have a few cards in your deck for emergency purposes. Seal of Cleansing is an excellent choice; it’s rarely a bad card, and it can be Rectored/Enlightened/Groved to take out its respective targets. Another excellent enchantment to have available is a Confiscate. It can take out anything, assuming that merely taking control of something is enough. Other Seals could be useful, but besides possibly playing Seal of Doom, I wouldn’t really recommend any.
Like I said, I still think the enchantment points are valid, but the rest of this is less so.
SNIP – I cut a section on other types to build redundancy like artifacts. With no Tinker in the format, and with cards like Transmute Artifact and reshape getting little play, it’s no longer necessary.
Sometimes an examination of a deck turns up a need for more redundancy. If a deck needs artifact and enchantment destruction, then simply four copies of a Disenchant-flavored card are hardly sufficient. Likewise creature destruction, card drawing, winning conditions, and so forth. A studied observation might be necessary in order to determine if more cards are necessary.
This step is all about checking cards, adding extra cards if you need them, and then ensuring that your tutors can actually get what you want. Pretty simple, actually.
This step is mainly about checking you cards to make sure that you have enough cards to do what you want. Do you have enough creature removal? Do you want graveyard removal? What about ways of handling tricks like buyback spells?
Step 3 – Checking Your Colors
Remembering that your deck has to have 18 (TWENTY) cards in each color, now you want to list your cards, and figure out if you can meet that requirement. Remember that Gold and Split cards (and hybrid cards too) can count as any color in their cost, but not as more than one color. After you have counted the colors, if you have less than 18 (TWENTY) in a color, now is the time to bump up your cards. If you have less than 18 (TWENTY) in green or white, you can always add mana fixers in the last stage, which we will discuss next week.
Remember to check your colors (and that twenty is the minimum of each color). I thought about moving this step before step number two in my new article, but when I read that this step specifically refers back to the old step, I decided to leave it here. You’ll see what I’m talking about in a second.
How do you find those extra cards? Well, the first way is to use your needed redundancy from the previous step to add cards of the appropriate color. If you need, say, Red cards, and your deck could use some enchantment removal, then why not toss in Thunderscape Battlemage or Hull Breach? If you need Black cards and creature removal, then your options are legion. And so forth.
In other words, use these steps to round out your colors.
Another way to analyze your deck is to find a card that is absolutely essential. If you want to cast it, but you do not have the appropriate mana, is there another card out there that could suffice in another color? In our Living Death deck, for example, I am going to recommend a single copy of Death or Glory. In case the double-Black mana has not appeared, Death or Glory can substitute. Reanimation is so pivotal, that it may be our only route to victory at times. Therefore, if you topdeck a tutor, you have a card available to go for in order to bring back your dead. It may be substandard, but it gives your deck another alternate way of winning. Plus, it helps to round out White.
I had forgotten this advice, and it’s pretty good. Definitely look at the cards that you need to play and see if there are any others that serve as a nice adjunct. Good advice.
When in doubt, you can always add card drawing, land filtering, and creature removal to a deck. There is almost no such thing as too much removal. When looking at cards to include in those last few slots to fill out a color, look at Split Cards or cards with a colorless cycling ability. If you do not get the mana for that off color, you can still play a Split Card. Fire / Ice and Spite / Malice are both really good, but Assault / Battery, Wax / Wane, and Order / Chaos can each provide a nice benefit as well. Cycling cards with useful abilities, like Expunge, Miscalculation, and Unearth can be nice filler.
It should go without saying, but make sure that cards in your off-color only use one mana of that color – unless the card is really good.
Note that as a new deckbuilder, it is very possible that if you add up to 20 cards in your colors that you will go too high. You may need to remove cards from your deck after adding the essentials and then rounding out your colors. If that happens, don’t worry and don’t get frustrated. Just pull out some of the last cards that you added back in Volume Three and move on.
Step 4 – Accounting for the Metagame
SNIP – I cut three paragraphs about the metagame and the need for graveyard removal. It’s still valuable, but the format has altered. Remember that my previous articles were written shortly after Odyssey block with its incarnations, flashback cards, threshold mechanics and more. Add that to the already existing use of the graveyard plus a restricted Yawgmoth’s Will and you can see why I recommended graveyard removal so heavily.
Today, it is still useful. Cards like Life from the Loam can really ruin your plans. However, graveyard removal is more of a luxury. If you can toss it in without missing a beat, then you should. Otherwise, I’d skip it and move on.
Fast aggressive decks also abound in Five Color. If you start with a hand of mana and a tutor, you will want some target to stave off a fast horde. This is why cards like Wall of Blossoms, Bottle Gnomes, and Jungle Barrier are so important. Anything from Spike Weaver to Wrath of God to Starstorm can help. Most non-aggro decks should have lots of cards that help it survive to the middle-game. Otherwise, some fast deck that plops down a bunch of creatures before casting Contract will roll over you.
I wouldn’t run Jungle Barrier these days, but the advice is still good. See also cards like Steel Wall.
Aggro is even more dominant today. Be prepared.
Also, fast decks will use cards like Winter Orb and Armageddon to back them up. Keep this in mind as you play against them. But, more importantly for our purposes, we’ll need to remember that later when we put in some mana and enhancers. We’ll also want some artifact mana like Fellwar Stone and Mox Diamond. Again, this is food for thought for later.
I think that it is funny that in this series, I am using Winter Orb and Armageddon with my deck just like I said people would do in the previous series. I didn’t remember this paragraph, it was merely coincidence.
Now we have examined four steps to finish out the non-mana portions of our deck. Having this basic framework, it’s time to turn our attention to the three decks we have been building the entire time. Remember, these decks are illustrative in nature, and are not designed to be finely honed machines.
And with that, I am cutting out the rest of the article and moving into the two sample decks that I am creating for this series. Since all of the next section is new, I will no longer be bolding the new comments. Let’s return to the normal article style.
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 Wastelands
1 Skullclamp
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Price of Progress
This deck has 127 cards. Now let’s try to fully clothe it.
Step 1 – Adding the Essentials: As I mentioned before, even an aggro deck can benefit from Balance and Mind Twist. Those are very valuable cards, so I’m putting them in. I also really want to run Duress. It’s a fantastic card and will help us out a lot – I consider it essential.
We already have a lot of the cards that you might add here, like draw seven cards and tutors. One tutor I put off from last week was Trinket Mage. Trinket Mage tutors for Skullclamp and also provides a body to toss it on. Clamp wins games, and getting one would be fantastic. I’ll need to keep this in mind in a couple of steps when I analyze colors.
Step 2 – Adding Redundancy and Filling Out Spaces: I mentioned previously wanting to add some additional equipment. The obvious choices are cheap equipment like Bonesplitter and Grafted Wargear. I’m going with the Wargear for two reasons. First, it should come down at the same time as a Bonesplitter. I don’t want to spend mana on my first two turns playing equipment, I want to play creatures that deal damage. Then, I can afford to drop equipment on the third turn. Although the Wargear costs three mana, it’s equip cost is free, so I can play it, equip it immediately, and then swing for three additional damage that I would not otherwise have hit for. That’s pretty good, and that’s why I am adding it to the deck.
With the addition of the Wargear, I am no longer interested in Rancor or Bonesplitters or anything like that. I have my pump with nine pieces of equipment and now I am going to move away from it.
That brings me to 137 cards (but five are lands). The next step will change the look of the deck significantly.
Step 3 – Checking Your Colors: As of right now, I have 34 exclusively White cards, 28 Green cards, 25 Red cards (29 if I count Artifact Mutation here), 18 Black cards (that includes Vindicate), and a mighty 6 Blue cards. It’s obvious that I need more Black and Blue cards.
Since I need those Blue cards anyway, no reason not to run four Trinket Mages now. The deck could benefit from more burn, so let’s toss in Psionic Blast. That gives us 14 Blue cards. We need six more.
I could run Fire/Ice, and that would give me burn and Blue cards. I could also run something like Brainstorm. It’s cheap card drawing for when I need it. There are other tricks like Recoil that might have a use. I could also run Gaea’s Skyfolk, and get a beater out of my color. A lot of people have started playing Submerge, because it should be free, but I am concerned with drawing it when I don’t have Islands but I do have Blue mana.
I should be able to get six cards out of that mess, right? So its burn, bounce, flying creature, draw, or Submerge. I’m going to roll with Brainstorm at four and Fire/Ice at two.
Now I have need of Black. An obvious choice for Black is Dark Confidant. This is a great aggro creature for Black. Only five cards in the deck cost four mana (Armageddon and Diminishing Returns). Everything else costs very little, so he should have some serious power. With my remaining two slots, I toss in a pair of Dark Confidants.
I now have all colors complete
Step 4 – Accounting for the Metagame: I need to ask myself what the deck looks like now. I currently have a decklist with 163 cards, with five of those lands. I now have space for a handful more cards before turning off this deck and moving on to the next decklist.
There are aggro options that will take out opposing problems. Weathered Wretch, for example, can handle graveyards, but he costs double Black mana to play, and it’s obvious that I have reduced my Black to the base 20 requirement. I would like the ability to take out artifacts and permanents with a bit more cards in the deck. I can’t use any Blue or Black cards at this point, and should instead concentrate on my colors of emphasis – Red, White and Green. I decide to go with four Orim’s Thunder. They can take out two permanents, giving you card advantage.
I also want a bit more tempo in the deck. I really wanted some bounce in Blue, but I kept myself to the minimum of 20 cards there. Luckily for me, Planar Chaos came by and added a nice common creature to the game. Stingscourger is a solid card that is getting added to my pile.
Now with me at 171 cards (with five lands) I have space for another 79 lands. That gives me a complete list for now, so here is the final list, just before mana time.
Temporal 250 Clothed
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 Wastelands
1 Skullclamp
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Price of Progress
1 Balance
1 Mind Twist
4 Duress
4 Grafted Wargear
4 Trinket Mage
4 Psionic Blast
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire/Ice
2 Dark Confidant
4 Orim’s Thunder
4 Stingscourger
Okay, let’s move on to the next deck list.
Invincible Counter Troll 250
This deck was fleshed out last week and left with 112 cards. Let’s take a look at where we left off.
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
Every time I work on this deck, I have to go reread Roy’s primer. I want to remind myself of the mindset of the deck that we are trying to make into a 250 deck.
Step 1 – Adding the Essentials: From the first section, we again add in Mind Twist and Balance. Both are great at handling a variety of problems and both can put you seriously in the driver’s seat both in terms of relative position and in terms of pure card advantage.
There are a lot of great cards from which this deck could benefit. Demonic Tutor is great. Also good is Enlightened Tutor, which can retrieve a Disk or a creature. You might even consider Diabolic Tutor as well, since this deck wants to develop to the point where it can play four mana for something. Even Merchant Scroll is a solid tutor in this deck.
Recurring effects are powerful here too. I’m adding a slate of Regrowth, Nostalgic Dreams, All Suns’ Dawn, Eternal Witness, and Recollect. Why so many effects? All of these cards are powerful enough to be restricted, and getting back a vital card is really great in this deck.
This deck can also benefit from having all three of the good Wishes in it.
Transmute in this deck is okay, but it’s better when it’s one something playable by itself. In other words, Dizzy Spell won’t make the cut because you don’t really want to play it normally. Let’s add Drift of Phantasms, Muddle the Mixture and Shred Memory.
We’ve added a lot of cards to the deck, but they are all one ofs because they are restricted, so just 17 cards have been added. With that done, let’s move on to the next step.
Step 2 – Adding Redundancy and Filling Out Spaces: This deck wants card drawing, card advantage, countermagic, creatures that can survive Wrath effects and then Wrath effects that will keep the creatures around. That’s ICT in a nutshell. Roy would probably point out that all of these effects are related to pure card advantage. When you have to sweep the board, you get some card advantage, but if you don’t even lose your own creatures, you get more advantage.
This deck really hates artifacts and enchantments and creatures on the opposing side. Between the Disks and the Stones and the Vengeances, there’s a lot of sweeping hate. Then you add in the Swords and Dismantling Blows and… hold on a second. Can anyone tell me why I didn’t add Vindicate to the deck? Wow, was that a misfire. Let’s add Vindicate now.
Let’s play a game. In a control build like this, you want instants over sorceries. Why then, am I playing Vindicate over, say, Putrefy or Mortify? The answer is simple. The deck currently has no way of taking out lands. Sure, a Putrefy would take out every permanent that I’d probably want to take out against an aggro deck. However, in Five Color, you can often seriously hurt an opponent’s mana base with a single Vindicate. Don’t be afraid to cut off one or more mana with Vindicate on the third or subsequent turn.
The next thing I do is take a look. Does this deck need more card drawing? Actually it could probably use some cheaper card drawing. Let’s go with Brainstorm. What about card advantage? I’ll steer clear of this nebulous concept for now. How about countermagic? It has 21 cards, does it need more? I think it’s fine, at least for now. What about creatures that can survive Wrath effects or those Wrath effects that allow creatures to survive? Again , I believe I’m good here. As a result, I’ll move on to the next step.
Step 3 – Checking Your Colors: This deck currently has 30 Green cards, 17 Red cards (counting Hull Breach), 12 Black cards (if you count both Vindicate and Shadowmage Infiltrator), 40 Blue cards, and 22 White cards.
As you can see, we need to add three Red cards and eight Black cards. In Black, I’m going to add a classic standard, Expunge. I’ve played with them for years and years and I’d swear by them. I love their ability to cycle when you don’t need them.
Another card we can add is Terminate. Four Terminate will round out our Black. I could have it count as Red instead, but I’d prefer to finish off the Black for now.
3 Lightning Bolt will round out our Red. As cheap early game removal, it will help keep the land free of pesky aggressive creatures. We’ve now added an additional 36 cards to bring the deck total to 148.
Step 4 – Accounting for the Metagame: This is a deck that wants to handle the metagame. How would it handle a discarded Genesis? How would it win over a combo deck, such as Tendrils? I’m also not yet comfortable with the early game defense, and I think we could afford to add a bit more.
Dissipate adds to its countermagic suite, which it likes, while also removing the offending card from the game. That should help to stop problematic cards that might not be stopped by ordinary countermagic.
I think Trickbind is good at stopping a lot of problems that may arise. I’m tossing in four of those.
For defense, I want to stress the early game. These are creatures that could get Disked away, so they need to be dispensable. Steel Wall is great at coming down early and providing a wall. It does not interfere with countermagic later.
That brings our total to an even 160. Let’s stick here and add the mana stuff in the final segment next week. Here then is the clothed deck:
Invincible Counter Troll 250 Clothed
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
1 Balance
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Regrowth
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 All Suns’ Dawn
1 Eternal Witness
1 Recollect
1 Living Wish
1 Cunning Wish
1 Burning Wish
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Shred Memory
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Vindicate
4 Brainstorm
4 Expunge
4 Terminate
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Dissipate
4 Trickbind
4 Steel Wall
With that we bring to the close another week of exploration into building your first five. We are almost done. See you next week when we take the final step and add the mana!
Until later,