MTG Salvation

Hey there. My casual play group of 5 is beginning a cycle of games in the style called "Color Wheel", where each player can only play a mono-colored deck (artifacts allowed obviously), and each deck must be a different color. You are also supposed to try to attack your "enemy" colors more than your allied ones. Each session, the color slotted to each player rotates, until 5 sessions have gone by.

What I'd like to do is build single color decks based on a single defining card, and try to get the deck to synergize around that card as much as possible. Here are the ones I am looking at so far:


Blue: By far my favorite color, with by far my favorite card: Veldaken Shackles (yah, yah, artifact, I know). Also, Rystic Study.

White: Land Tax. And I want to find a way other than scroll rack!

Green: Abundance. Again, mono-color abuses to this might be hard to find. We shall see.

Black: Bottomless Pit. And / OrMegrim, oh yes definitely. Obviously, breaking Pestilence is easy. Hello Sun Droplet?

Red: Form of the Dragon. So. Dangerous. in multiplayer. I love it.



I'll be playing Blue first. This is my first list, just to set the tone here. I play with a skilled and fairly "high-powered" playgroup. Also, we tend to build our decks to reflect the color's "philosophies".

"what's yours is mine"Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Spells: 24 4 Counterspell 4 Ancestral Knowledge 4 Rystic Study 3 Thirst for Knowledge 2 Bribery 1 Capsize 3 Propaganda	Artifacts: 8 4 Veldaken Shackles 4 Ivory Tower 2 Nevinrayl's Disk Creatures: 4 2 Aeon Chronicler 1 Triskelavus 1 Platinum Angel	Lands: 24 2 Academy Ruins 18 Island 4 Desert

Seems fairly typical for Blue multiplayer. Make your opponents pay extra to harm you, try to be political with your shackles, and stay resilient with propagandas and Ivory Towers.

Blue is, obviously, easy.

However, cards like Land Tax have me stumped. I am also open to other mono-color ideas, just remember it is chaos 5 man multiplayer, and we try to obey "color pie" philosophies.

I think Land Tax is going to be a hard one. White is obviously good at gaining life, cards like Congregate would combo well with Well of Lost Dreams. Maybe I should play a deck focused on Lifegain instead, that can be fun. but besides drawing cards, what exactly can white do with all that life?

VitalityMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Spells: 22 4 Wrath of God 4 Congregate 4 Martyr of Sands 4 Swords to Plowshares 2 Proclamation of Rebirth 4 Feudkiller's Verdict	Artifacts: 13 4 Coldsteel Heart 4 Ivory Tower 3 Well of Lost Dreams 2 Phyrexian Processor	Lands: 25 3 Srcying Sheets 22 Snow-covered Plains

I would try to pull off a Cornered Market or two. Very powerful, very annoying in multiplayer.

cornered market wouldn't be quite as effective in this format, since nobody will be playing the same color. it might still mess with artifacts. Thats not to say it won't do anything, but it won't do as much.

as for land tax, have you considered that wisdom mechanic stuff from later in kamigawa block? where what mattered was how many cards were in your hand? it doesn't matter if they're all or mostly land.
[CARD]
descendant of kiyomaro[/CARD], gerards wisdom cowed by wisdom, kiyomaro, first to stand kitsune lore weaver, presence of the wise

all of them will benefit from you drawing 3 extra cards a turn. If somebody gets annoyed at you holding such a fistfull of cards all the time and tries to make you discard, you can even run the otherwise useless pure intentions

keep in mind also that you'll have sucked most of the land out of your deck in a few turns, and goblin charbelcher will become much more effective.

The blue deck needs more early defense. How about Wall of Tears? Maze of Ith? Drift of Phantasms (which can transmute into Shackles)?

Land Tax is great to build around. Do a weenie build with Armageddon.

Cheers,
rant

I like the Drift of Phantasms transmuting idea, that is solid.

I think I will end up playing a Well of Lost Dreams build over Land tax, I am pretty sure that a mono-white deck built around the well would be savagely annoying to fight in 5 man Chaos.

As for Black, well, there is always pestilence, its just that my build of that deck almost always gets me ganged up on:

EpidemicMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Black Spells: 20 4 Pestilence 4 Phyrexian Arena 4 Consume Spirit 2 Corrupt 2 Infest 4 Tendrils of Corruption	Creatures: 7 4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade 3 Shriekmaw Artifacts: 8 4 Sun Droplet 4 Oblivion Stone	Land: 25 4 Cabal Coffers 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 19 Swamp

if you're going to go with well of lost dreams, words of worship combos well with it.

It sure does, the only limitation then is mana.

Perhaps Gauntlet of Power?

4 Words of worship
4 Well of Lost Dreams
3 Gauntlet of Power

I'd really like to find something "offensive" to do with all that life. Serra Avatar will just get Chump blocked.

Totally random ideas!

White - With all the life gain, you could go gonzo and run artifacts like Blood Clock (or Umbilicus), Wand of Denial, or Phyrexian Processor. Dunno what else. Or with the Land Tax, you can sacrifice lands for stuff like, Jeweled Spirit, Pegasus Stampede, Ha, you can also go, Land Tax turn one, discard plains for several turns, maybe even Tithe some, (Weathered Wayfarer similar) then Planar Birth to bring them all to play. Then drop a Serra Avatar or a white fattie like Akroma. Also great white cards like Oblivion Ring, Runed Halo, Disenchant... all good. Also, the Avatar is broken with the Elephant Hammer aka Loxodon Warhammer, ya know.

Green - Sylvan Library works, but Feral Deceiver and Gilt-Leaf Seer also allow you to look at your top card in a pinch.

Black - Pestilence and regeneration / black w/ pro-black always rocks. BUT, if you want to do the Pit or Megrims, you can still get your Pestilence on in red with Pyrohemia with red pro-reds (Keeper of Kookus, Thick-Skinned Goblin, etc.), or maybe regeneration or some artifact solution to keeping a creature with the Pyrohemia damage.

Red - Could do Pyrohemia, refer above.

Sounds like a fun project. Tell us how it works out.

I'd say toss in an armageddon clock or more with the lifegain.

Clock with Ghostly prison = no one will be attacking you.

True. That's a huge threat to be laying Chaos though, one that can get RFGed, or thrown back into my library.