I've just Tinkered into Darksteel Colossus and your hand is empty. I think you're dead.

Draw. Contract From Below. Upheaval, floating three.

You suck.

You've got no permanents in play. You can't talk! Tropical Island, Mystic Enforcer. Go.

Bayou. Mox Diamond, pitching Bayou. Sol Ring, Chaos Orb.

Fine, you always miss.

Hi, I'm Mr. Anderson. And I'm Jonah Sutton-Morse. Between the two of us we've been playing 5-color for seven years. We like the format because you can keep one deck and make it your own, without having to change it for every rotation. Also, you've never played Magic until you've played with 250 cards... And hopefully, our tweaking has taught us something you'll find useful.

Below you'll find twenty cards that we've had to rethink while playing 5-Color. Everyone* should find something useful in this article, including some cards you've probably never thought of, and some new ways to think about old favorites.

First, consider these cards for your control deck.

Fellwar Stone/Mind Stone
If you're playing control, you need to get to 4 mana in a hurry. Wrath of God, Fact or Fiction, Flametongue Kavu . . All of your good stuff comes online at four mana.

If your Fellwar Stone doesn't tap for mana of any color, you're already doing fine. The debate between this and Mind Stone's cycling is stupid, because you should be playing both. If I'm looking for more acceleration, I go for Darksteel Ingot. I really like it with Obliterate or Pernicious Deed.

When I'm looking for acceleration cards nine through twelve, I turn to Fifth Dawn's Guardian Idol. Remember what I said earlier: Four mana is key. The Idol will be untapped when you need it, and sometimes it gets in for a few, or chumps an incoming Psychatog.

Other artifact options include the Mirrodin Talismans. Players who can get green mana reliably could also look at Birds of Paradise or Nature's Lore.

Firestorm/Massacre
These are the Wrath of God effects you should be playing. Firestorm is a one-mana instant Wrath; Massacre is free and takes out regenerators like River Boa or Spectral Lynx.

Firestorm's drawback is pretty manageable in a format with Contract from Below. If you're holding Contract, feel free to discard another card to hit your opponent.

The other great thing about Firestorm is that it fills up your mandatory eighteen-card red slots. Control decks usually have the hardest time with this.

Lin Sivvi/Quiet Speculation
We put these two together because they're two of the more common control win conditions. The rebel engine lets you keep mana open, has utility creatures like Whipcorder, and only got better with Skullclamp. Quiet Speculation usually gets some combination of Roar of the Wurm and Deep Analysis, but Ray of Revelation is a handy silver bullet.

Notice how you'll want to be able to affect your opponent's graveyard if they're using either of Jonah's strategies. There's a lot of good recursion in 5-color, so plan ahead.

Thought Lash, Browse
Go ahead and look those up. We'll wait.

Remember that you're playing with 250 cards. Thought Lash is a personal Crumbling Sanctuary, and the upkeep is manageable. Ten turns is fifty-five cards. I've cast Demonic Consultation, lost over a hundred and fifty cards, and still won.

Browse illustrates another important part of 5-color: You get to play with cards you like. I'm not saying that Browse is better than Future Sight, or that paying eight mana for Impulse is always worth it, but I can't remember losing a game where I Browsed more than twice.

While not the hottest cards in 5-color, these cards are two members of the very large pool of cards you get to draw from. You can't play rebels or Thought Lash in Type One, but this way you can enjoy the incredible art on Thought Lash and Browse.

Besides, it's good to remember that Alliances had cards that weren't Force of Will.

Firebolt
This is easy. It's a Chainer's Edict that costs half as much.

And goes to the dome. And fills a red slot.

Now consider these for your aggro deck.

Price of Progress
This is an amazing finisher. It ends games faster than Armageddon. And you're aggro; you should always have the life advantage.

Your opponent doesn't have nonbasic lands? It's going to take them longer to set up, so you've already killed them. Four Price of Progress is standard in aggro, and even control often runs one to force a draw.

Mana Leak/Evasive Action
Aggro's basic game plan is "threat, threat, disruption, Armageddon." Armageddon should be gg if you've got a threat or two. These cards make sure your threats are safe until you cast them.

Aggro can also have problems filling their blue slots, which these do. Mana Leak is for decks without dual lands, Evasive Action is better if you've got the duals.

I have duals and I play both; countering Firestorm is good.

Entomb
Entomb for Anger is always good for Aggro, Entomb for Filth can break open the mirror match. Entomb also gets flashback cards like Ray of Revelation.

Fervor is good for one mana. Some Bazaar of Baghdad builds will use something like Squee, Goblin Nabob for the card advantage. Clearly, this isn't just an aggro card; there's a reason it is restricted in Type One.

Merchant Scroll
I like casting Contract - in fact, I like it so much that I will play Merchant Scroll to get Mystical Tutor to get Contract. Sure, it can get Fire / Ice, but it doesn't, it draws you seven cards.

I'm much less excited about this card than Mr. Anderson is. Yeah, it gets you Contract for 1UUB and a draw step, and it can get Fire/Ice, but after that its uses go way down. I'd run it in Aggro, but I'm not happy about it.

Reckless Charge
This is six damage for one card; that's pretty good. The fact that you can spread it out over multiple turns and it can screw up your opponent's blocking math is just gravy.

Me? I don't like it. I'd rather play equipment or Rancor in my aggro decks. It's redundant if you're Entombing Anger. I've seen it used to good effect, but I still don't like it.

Some of the cards we've talked about so far are strategy specific. The following are cards you should think long and hard about before not running them.

Fire / Ice
This card fills red slots for control and blue slots for aggro. It can be a 2-mana instant wrath against an aggro draw, and at worst it cycles.

Against aggro, it either kills stuff or taps Ball Lightning. Against control, it attacks their mana and draws you a card. This card is amazing! It's hard to talk about a card that's so good.

Trinket Mage
This gets you Sol Ring, Skullclamp, Engineered Explosives, or Jeweled Bird. Those are all good cards.

Hey, don't forget about guys with Power Nine cards. It also gets Zuran Orb, Cursed Scroll, artifact lands, Spellbombs, and Scrabbling Claws for graveyard hate. Players without duals can get Chromatic Sphere to draw a card.

Vindicate
It's nice when a Disenchant is never a bad card. It's also nice when a Terror deals with Future Sight. This card is obviously good, and white slots can be hard to fill.

Best Stone Rain ever.

Artifact Mutation
I'll grant that this card is the least "auto-include" on the list, but it's pretty amazing. The aggro mirror is about Skullclamp, and this gets you a body when you kill it. If your opponent is running expensive artifacts, like Gilded Lotus in mono-brown or control, it's a significant clock. This card deals with a threat and puts one down.

I think Jonah overvalues this card. I usually don't include Artifact Mutation in my decks; I'd rather play Hull Breach in a control deck. Maybe I could play it in response to an opponent's artifact destruction in a slower deck with expensive artifacts, if they don't have anything for me to blow up.

Swords to Plowshares
You probably think I'm going to say Swords your own creature, since I just said to Artifact Mutation your own artifact. I've done it, but you usually don't have to; most opponents have creatures in their decks. If you're playing creature removal, this is the best there is.

Instant, remove from game, one mana? Sign me up!

Notably Absent
These are cards that define other formats or are popular in Prismatic. This should give you an idea of what makes 5-color different.

Rishadan Port
We've got Wasteland, Strip Mine, Library of Alexandria, and we need to cast spells that cost 5 colors. This just pales in comparison.

The mana-denial aspect that makes it useful in RDW or in Masques Block is just not disruptive enough in 5-Color... And you can only play so many colorless lands.

Collective Restraint
I played Collective Restraint in my first 5-color deck. Then my opponent played Armageddon. I switched it out for Propaganda immediately. Propaganda and Ghostly Prison are good against Aggro, but playing Collective Restraint against a deck that wants to Armageddon is just not good.

Most of the domain cards don't see much play in 5-Color... But surprise, surprise, the ones that do are blue. We've discussed Evasive Action, but even Allied Strategies only finds a home in certain decks.

Fact or Fiction
Obviously you play this in control, but you do not play this in aggro. At best, it gets you an Armageddon or a Contract. Usually it will get a threat and a land. You've got four lands already; why not just draw a threat?

Mr. Anderson has played more aggro than I have, so I'll take his word for it. In control, this card is amazing. I hear it's restricted in some other format.

Stifle
This card is great. It's a Stone Rain against fetchlands, stops Skullclamp's draw at least once, and deals with a lot of the restricted cards, such as Memory Jar, Isochron Scepter, and Academy Rector. But it's not a Counterspell, doesn't always show up on turn 1, and generally underperforms. I've tried fitting Stifle into my deck many times, but it's never quite made the cut. Save it for a Cunning Wish target.

I've found that the real problem is that it doesn't do much against aggro. There are a lot of conditional cards like Divert that I'd like to run one of to steal a win, but they are just not consistent enough.

Clearwater Goblet
Like the domain cards, sunburst cards have been pretty disappointing. You deserve to get Artifact Mutated if you're playing this over Memory Jar, Mind's Eye, Gilded Lotus, Karn, Silver Golem or other great cards that don't see play. It's a shame to see Wizards designing cards for Prismatic that don't pan out for 5-color. Similarly, type one cards like Trinisphere are unwieldy, to say the least.

When Fifth Dawn came out, I threw a number of Sunburst cards along with some Bringers into my deck. The only one that I wanted to see was Bringer of the Black Dawn, which is banned. Etched Oracle is a fine creature for control, and I love having Engineered Explosives as an option for my Trinket Mages, but otherwise stay far away from Sunburst.

We hope you've learned something from this article, and we hope you try out your own personal Thought Lash or Browse.

There are differences of opinions even among committed 5-color players, but hopefully we've given you an idea of some of the things you'll need to watch out for.

* - Except combo-players. We don't play combo, and don't know much about it. Combo sucks. Play aggro or control.