Ray

(who is blisterguy)

(the guy with all the parenthetical statements)

begins:

Let's talk lands. I like to run around a hundred of those adorable little mana producers, which works out at exactly 40%, the same as running twenty-four lands in a sixty-card deck. Many 5-Color enthusiasts run as few as sixty-five land in their decks, but I hazard a guess that they'd also run that in a Standard tournament or even a prerelease.

Yes - let's talk lands. As Ray helps point out, a hundred lands is a good starting point. However, just as in more traditional Constructed formats, this number can (and should) be tweaked. You should add more lands if your mana curve goes above 4cc (Morphling, Spiritmonger, and so on), and you can trim lands if your deck only needs 3 in play to function effectively.

For reference, I'll be using the math provided in Jack Marsh's"Another Take On Preventing Manascrew." This article provides the best way to calculate mana (short of running simulations). The article, in terms of content, is easily in par with some of the best Dojo articles. I advise readers to read through it. The results apply for a wide range of decks from land-light decks like Alan Comer's original Miracle Gro to mana-intensive control decks like Antoine Ruel's Nether-Go.

Getting back to 5-Color, Ray's curve goes to 5cc with spells like Chromeshell Crab. Taking into account the card drawing power that is Fact or Fiction, he can get away with a hundred and six lands. However, there is no need to play that many, as long as Ray adds in some card drawing. There is precedent for replacing lands with card draw in such decks as the aforementioned Miracle Gro and Turbo Chevy.

The standard complement of 5-Color card drawing is:

4 Quiet Speculation
4 Deep Analysis
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse

There are certainly others such as Fact or Fiction, or Contract from Below. However, counting on drawing Contract is something only combo decks should do, and Fact is a rather hefty four-mana - competitive 5-Color decks should be able to run fine by the time they hit four mana. Yes, I am intentionally not following the rules set forth in Marsh's article (for these two cards). You may not want to take the one land over four nonland cards in a Fact, and you don't want to have to Contract just to find land.

Anyway, by simply adding four Impulse (and doing the relevant math), Ray can cut down to ninety-three lands and still expect to hit five lands on Turn 5. He may be able to make further cuts based on whether he keeps the Compulsions. Personally, I've never liked Compulsion, due to an inability to activate more than once per turn. If he keeps the Compulsions, he can drop another land.

Ray continues:

I usually like to play with the full compliment of Invasion duals, and would probably only start removing any of them if I somehow successfully collected a full, forty-strong playset of original dual lands

This"forty dual land mentality" is common among new 5-Color players. When supported by dual lands, the Onslaught fetchlands are simply amazing. Each one feels like an improved City of Brass, pinging you once, getting you the color you need, and then supplying you with, at worst, colorless mana for the rest of the game. With Ray's modest collection of eleven dual lands, each of the twelve fetchlands he plays can nab him four colors. That's a lot of mileage out of a land.

I own a full set of duals, and I only play twenty-five of them, backed up by twenty fetchlands. In fact, I had started cutting certain duals (like Badlands) before the fetchlands came out; sometimes, you just don't need them.

Ray then lists his assortment of Invasion (and 8^th Edition!)"dual" lands. Unfortunately, the Invasion tap lands are unplayable because they stunt your mana development by a turn. While this may not be important to you and your friends playing your more casual decks, speed has become such an issue at the competitive level that there is consideration to change the rule about drawing and playing first.

To improve his mana base, Ray should play City of Brass. The painlands are acceptable, and, strangely, the Apocalypse ones seem better than the Ice Age ones: Chalk it up to how the colors complement each other. I've been pleased with the Planeshift Lairs in low numbers (somewhere in the five to eight range is acceptable). While they hinder your long-term mana development, you maintain tempo the turn you play them. You can also use them as poor Lotus Petals.

If your mana still needs fixing beyond that, Chromatic Sphere and other non-land mana fixers (such as Harrow) should be used.

While Reflecting Pool doesn't technically provide the whole basket of goodies itself, it's still one I have a soft spot for.

Reflecting Pool is obviously at its best in a control deck. While I hesitate using it to fix my mana base, I don't mind using it to cap off an otherwise solid mana base. That is to say, in reference to the math discussed in Jack Marsh's article, I won't use Reflecting Pool to help me reach my number of necessary red-producing lands on Turn 2. However, I will use Reflecting Pool to help cast Future Sight, since I obviously need at least one real blue source by then.

(I have this strange need to play the very best deck in any format, no matter what.)

A year ago, it was control. Beatdown is currently the best in the format. As higher-quality creatures see print, the metagame (at least initially) shifts towards beatdown. Cards like Psychatog are often best in beatdown, as even a non-lethal Tog swing can be backed up by enough other creatures or burn to finish a player.

It's also hard to play control when Tog can swing for the win on Turn 3.

Ray lists his rainbow lands:

4 Grand Coliseum
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Gemstone Mine

Coliseum is acceptable and is best in a control deck. Gemstone Mine is horrible, however; Ray is not playing a deck that can take advantage of the early consistency, such as beatdown or combo. He has no way to reset the counters (see: Planeshift Lairs). Over three-quarters of Ray's lands are nonbasic: w hen you open yourself up to nonbasic hate (such as Dwarven Miner or Wasteland) to that extent, you don't want your lands to go away on their own.

I've always hated pain lands

They're a necessary evil. When you're playing for ante, you realize that every game you play has some level of monetary investment on the line. Since color-screwing an opponent is a great strategy in 5-Color, I suggest playing like an adult, and take your pinging. There's a reason that gambling has age restrictions in some areas.

My Krosan Verges won't look as silly as they do when they repeatedly fetch, game after game, yet another Tropical Island and a Scrubland.

It's become a bit of a local joke that Krosan Verge only ever fetches Tundra and Bayou. Just to mix it up (or to, perhaps, play a Pernicious Deed), people fetch Tropical Island and Scrubland. Again, these are people with full sets of duals, so don't expect your playing to change substantially with the extra duals. Though having the option, of course, is nice.

I've basically given up all hope of ever seeing a Volcanic Island.

That's a shame, since it would best complement your post-Plateau dual land base.

4 Faerie Conclave

Despite your heavy blue base, I prefer Nantuko Monastery in a control deck. The evasion is nice, but it's a lot easier to kill a 2/1 creature than a 4/4 first striker. Consider that Monastery swings into every other man land and doesn't come into play tapped.

Dustbowl seems a bit cheesy for my liking.

Dustbowl is a little slow, but it's a nice one-of after exhausting superior options.

As Ray goes on about the pictures on the basic lands he plays, I humbly suggest playing Beta basic lands (though Alpha is more old school), unless you feel like dusting off your Guru lands. I've had the discussion of"selecting your Forests for maximum intimidation factor" and nothing says intimidation like Beta.

(Especially in Limited formats. You should see the look on your opponent's face when you drop that black-border Volcanic Island.)

4 Hull Breach

Sorcery speed and two color-specific mana make this very uninteresting. If you need it to fill up your eighteen red spots, you could do worse, but I've never liked Hull Breach. In most metagames, it doesn't frequently two-for-one.

4 Firebolt

Firebolt is somehow better than Lightning Bolt in 5-Color...

I disagree - though, to your credit, former Dictator Dan Flood agrees with you. I don't like less damage, and I don't like Sorcery speed. Flashing it back might happen, but the bad Shock seems unnecessary for a control deck and takes more mana than one can expect in an aggressive metagame.

I did have Form of the Dragon in there for a while so I could Academy Rector it into play. But basically, it would come into play, put it's end of turn trigger on the stack and Disco Dave would Disenchant/Naturalize/Nantuko Vigilante/whatever-else-he-had-handy it, just to annoy me

I've seldom wanted more than four Disenchant effects in a 250-card deck. I think the most I've ever played was ten.

3 Roar of the Wurm

If you're playing four Quiet Speculations (and Compulsions), I'd add a fourth.

4 Spiritmonger

I've never been impressed by him. The removal is too good in 5-Color, and he's very expensive to cast (and"protect").

Some people have said that four Sylvan Libraries are too many, and they may actually be right in some strange parallel universe where nothing makes sense and people drive fruit boats to work. Four of a card is only one in 62.5 when it comes to 5-Color, so... I dunno, they must be drinking petroleum, or something.

I know for a fact that people around here will rightfully shoot a Sylvan on sight, and have done since long before sac/fetch lands made them that much better again.

People who don't eat Vegemite also don't play 100 Lands + 4 Sylvans + 146 Disenchant effects.dec, either.

Watch out now! I called Ray a Vegemite-eater. Keep in mind that he started it by calling me a petroleum-drinker.

Sylvan is fine, if you're using the card-viewing ability to your benefit. It will help reduce the number of lands you need to play in your deck. In fact, Ray could probably play as few as eighty-eight lands with the plus-Impulse configuration.

But on the other hand, I'm only running three Roar of the Wurms here, so what's up with that? Actually, I wouldn't even bother running them if Quiet Speculation was restricted

This is only logical. Quiet Speculation is somewhat akin to Ancestral Recall; in fact, it can be more powerful, at times, since it can act as a quasi-tutor and, frequently, the cards you Spec for are undercosted.

Seven mana for a 6/6 creature isn't a particular deal. Four mana for a 6/6 is more reasonable. Especially when it's followed up by 2 more.

Did you see that Decimate at the bottom of the list? Didja, didja? Hull Breach has always been good times for me, and the mere thought of what a Decimate could do makes me go all rubbery.

It can sit in your hand, while Wild Mongrel beats you in the face. It can take out your own artifact, providing you with a positively savage 3-for-2 (plus 4 mana, 2 color-specific, on your main phase). It can stop the ante, and let you go first.

Balance went, because I just couldn't be bothered with it.

This is where, in video games like Ninja Gaiden, the main character says"..."

I can hear the justification:"Two mana for a Wrath of God was just too expensive - it just didn't have the targetablity of Decimate! I sometimes had to discard a card and lose two of my ten lands (since I'm playing hundred-land control)."

Darren Di Battista recently suggested that, in the current Type 1 metagame, the only reason to play Keeper over Hulk Smash (a Psychatog deck) is Balance. And he points out that this is, to some degree, a decision.

And you make fun of us Northern Hemisphere dwellers for not playing a fourth Sylvan?

Land Tax was a pain to execute with so few basics, and so was Weathered Wayfarer, but more so because I had to actually tap mana to use it.

You play a hundred lands (which limits the usefulness of Wayfarer, anyway). There's something wrong with your deck if you can't tap for white at the end of your opponent's turn.

Ray tackles win conditions:

(Which, unfortunately and in the lamest way possible, always ends up being a Spiritmonger or a Psychatog.)

I hope you're feigning surprise at this. The only ways your deck can win are Monger, Tog, Roar of the Wurm (only a three-of!), and two four-of landcyclers. That's it: There is actually no other way for your deck to win. Since Tog and Monger don't cycle, and you have to Quiet Spec for Roar, I would bet money on you winning with a Monger or Tog.

1 Decree of Pain

"..."

1 Chainer's Edict

The Edict can be Speculated for randomly

You're right. That is random. Why not play four?

I was going to remove the Psychatogs like I had removed many other"boring" cards, but Dave assured me he was playing with them too, so I figured it was okay.

"..."

4 Repulse

A bit of miscellaneous bounce and yet more creature removal. I hope R&D doesn't consider Repulse to be"too good," because I love that wee spell. Unfortunately, if I put my common-sense pants on, I fear I won't be seeing it again any time soon.

Repulse may be too good for Standard, but 5-Color is about as broken as Type 1. Have you ever considered tempo?

I usually pack as many restricted cards into my deck as I possibly can, but for some reason I'm coming around to the realization that they aren't as much fun as they're cracked up to be.

As Ray points out, his goal is to have fun with his 5-Color. For those who consider winning to be more fun than losing with a Decree of Pain, Decimate, and countless other bad spells that begin with the letter"D" in hand, the inclusion of restricted cards should be weighed carefully. These cards are restricted for particular reasons.

Hopefully, this brief analysis helps provide readers with a sense of necessary considerations when building a 5-Color deck.

nick.
nickrueben at hotmail dot com