not trying to sound like a jerk or anything, but colorless is indeed NOT a color. so prism, settlement, servant, etc can't make colorless mana. however one of the cards you mentioned, aether hub can. that's because it has T: add C and pay 1 E T: add any color
I am a fan! Love this deck as well. I have 4 colors and abandoned red as I could not really find anything in red that provided significant benefit. The path to victory is often Verderous Gearhulk with counters placed on a cranes, pilgrims, or himself. So, 3 of these is critical. I have found a couple of the blue puzzleknots to be helpful as the scry is needed to find the signature card early and scrying twice is nice later to find the win cons (plus you get some extra energy for color fixing through the hubs and servants. I have found two Skysoverigns to also be helpful as an answer to planeswalkers and they can be found with the crane.
Question...for those who have tried some of the cards that require colorless mana, how are you getting that to work successfully? With so many colors fit in, do you add one waste as a search target for Pilgrims and then simply count on that and Aether Hub as a source? Inventor's fair is nice but can't be searched and I wonder if that is worth it as it adds the color screw risk. Also, can you use the prism to make colorless mana?
not sure what your manabase looks like, but the deck in the OP should have no trouble casting colorless cards. that's mainly because aether hub and holdout settlement. also sure red was kinda there for the meh redhulk, but it also brought in radiant flames from the side
Notes: The Gearsmith is actually the best late game card there is. Recycling gearhulks for use again after a cataclysmic, negating the usefulness of the opponent's Appetites or other artifact destruction... Obviously Eternal witness is a good card, this just has better stats and triggers like 12 times in this deck. It's worth playing.
I'm going down to one bring to light because it's the worst card in the deck. I mean, it's every card, but it's 5 mana which is too steep. I can see why Seth was trying out Eldritch Evolution.
I'm not sold on TKS in the deck without Evolution, there's only like 5 sources that can cast it, it's pretty rough. If you build around it in like a bant colored version (so 4 color), it might have more merit but i'm not a fan right now.
i quite like the gearsmith. dunno where/if i can fit into the MB, but i can certainly find a slot in the side, nice find though. im kinda the opposite with bring to light. i feel it's really important for the deck and one of the main reasons to even bother with 5-color at all. i do get your point though, like paying 5 to search up anything less than a gearhulk or something feels kinda meh in most cases. i also completely forgot about inventor's fair, seems like an auto-inclusion.
so for FNM i went 3-1. got a bye 1st round then beat RB vampire/madness aggro pretty easily. lost to some weird GW aetherworks marvel deck because i sideboarded wrong games 2 and 3. i never saw anything marvel-related so i just thought it was GW energy aggro or something only to get blown up game 2 with the wrong sideboard. game 3 he had a buncha stuff, but i never drew into my counters/appetites so i got marveled again.then i got matched up with GB delirium. they were either really unlucky or something though, because they never once had delirium up. kinda durdled for a bit gearhulks closed it up.
still didn't get to play a counter-based control deck, so i still don't know how this deck really fares against it.
i didn't play him during FNM, but a friend built a mardu gearhulk reanimator deck with refurbish. turns out a turn 4 combustible gearhulk is kinda good. i had removal, but he also had the new elixir of immortality thing perpetual timepiece. so even though i was killing stuff, he was just able to win through inevitability. we didn't sideboard though, so idk how that would've gone.
it can be tough to get off the ground for a bit with the ETB tapped lands and overall slow nature of the deck. You are in for the long game though. the longer it goes, the better you'll do usually since you can start slamming multiple Panharmonicons and creatures in the same turn.
yeah sideboard is a tough one. the problem comes with that there isn't really many sideboard worthy creatures/artifacts. so sideboarding out a creature or artifact with an instant/sorcery just usually feels pretty meh. i think the main problem is gonna be control decks. i didn't get to play against one last week so i've no experience against it though.
i do like the idea of maybe a single gonti, lord of luxury. not sure if i'll toss him in the sideboard or mainboard. i'm thinking about the main since i'm running bring to lights
I would also highly suggest watching Seth's games. he's matched against UW control, UR panharmonicon, UR fevered visions, GR energy/pummeler, and Grixis emerge. i think he only loses like 1 game to UW control because of a counterspell, but he went on to win that match and proceeds to 5-0 this set.
i feel that not having any amount of gearhulks definitely hinders the plan. i see people running cranes for prisms, familiars, and of course panharmonicons. However one of the main reasons to run the gearhulks (besides just being bonkers good) is that it fits right into the crane package since they are artifacts themselves.
i kinda forgot all about thought-knot seer, with the hubs and settlements we have plenty of colorless to cast it pretty reliably. i also really agree on the verdurous gearhlks being a vital part of the deck. still messing around with some numbers atm, but i'm definitely slotting more in
one card i felt was rather meh was definitely combustible gearhulk. like i almost never wanted to cast it, bc getting multiple crane/familiar triggers was usually better. a standout card for me was filigree familiar. without panharmonicon it's a bit on the underwhelming side, but with it familiar just goes up in value quite well.
the mana base was pretty good imo. between hubs, prisms, and servants i had almost no problems casting what i wanted. the main issue is all the "enter tapped" lands, im not sure if it's better to run the manlands or just substitute some for the new fastlands like botanical sanctum. with the amount of lifegain cards, being a bit slow isn't usually too bad unless the opponent gets the nuts draw maybe.
some cards you removed i feel were extremely important for the deck's survival, mainly noxious gearhulk. even without panharmonicon it provides way too much value to omit it i feel. leaving out the greenwarden of murasais a bit rough though since it also provides an infinite loop of interludes. however i really do like the addition of confiscation coup because getting servant's triggers doubled isn't really that good. not bad of course, but i don't have many outlets for all the energy i was producing. like by the time panharmonicon comes online, servant's/hub's usefulness isn't as important then.
one final note: don't underestimate the deck's sustainability. plenty of card advantage, lifegain, and having all those effects doubled (or more) times makes even the most menial creatures waaaay better. like my final game of the night against RW vehicles i started with 2 land and crane. craned away 4 lands, so i was stuck on 2 lands for at least 3 turns. they hit me hard and got me to 2 at some point. Once i finally had lands/servants to play panharmonicon, i steam-rolled to victory.
i think you need to think bigger. sure getting a bunch of 1/1s is nice and all, but panharmonicon isn't really suited to an lower costed deck. plus you'd get wrecked by all the kozilek's returns and radiant flames running around. imo a more midrangey style of deck with filigree familiar, some amount of gearhulks, and overall more potent ETB effects would do you better.
I went undefeated without a game loss with this against RW vehicles, GR energy, and BW allies. Got really really close to dying multiple times going only to comeback with a panharmoniconand a bunch of lifegain cards. it can deal with aggro pretty well with all the relatively high toughness creatures like glint-nest craneand reflector mage. overall it seems to be a pretty good midrangey good-things deck
yes. the only thing that would stop Gonti, lord of luxury's ability is if the card somehow came out of exile before you cast it. Because the last lil' bit of his text is "For as long as that card remains exiled...etc".
still didn't get to play a counter-based control deck, so i still don't know how this deck really fares against it.
i didn't play him during FNM, but a friend built a mardu gearhulk reanimator deck with refurbish. turns out a turn 4 combustible gearhulk is kinda good. i had removal, but he also had the new elixir of immortality thing perpetual timepiece. so even though i was killing stuff, he was just able to win through inevitability. we didn't sideboard though, so idk how that would've gone.
also made some changes mainly being:
-1 combustible gearhulk
-1 eerie interlude
+1 thought-knot seer
+1 eldrazi displacer
thought-knot and displacer were great,never had to worry about the colorless requirement at all.
yeah sideboard is a tough one. the problem comes with that there isn't really many sideboard worthy creatures/artifacts. so sideboarding out a creature or artifact with an instant/sorcery just usually feels pretty meh. i think the main problem is gonna be control decks. i didn't get to play against one last week so i've no experience against it though.
i do like the idea of maybe a single gonti, lord of luxury. not sure if i'll toss him in the sideboard or mainboard. i'm thinking about the main since i'm running bring to lights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLtLlcD-b2JRGx0F79AhkUZgbXx2g0xPhC&v=MqIqUD_32Lw
i kinda forgot all about thought-knot seer, with the hubs and settlements we have plenty of colorless to cast it pretty reliably. i also really agree on the verdurous gearhlks being a vital part of the deck. still messing around with some numbers atm, but i'm definitely slotting more in
the mana base was pretty good imo. between hubs, prisms, and servants i had almost no problems casting what i wanted. the main issue is all the "enter tapped" lands, im not sure if it's better to run the manlands or just substitute some for the new fastlands like botanical sanctum. with the amount of lifegain cards, being a bit slow isn't usually too bad unless the opponent gets the nuts draw maybe.
some cards you removed i feel were extremely important for the deck's survival, mainly noxious gearhulk. even without panharmonicon it provides way too much value to omit it i feel. leaving out the greenwarden of murasais a bit rough though since it also provides an infinite loop of interludes. however i really do like the addition of confiscation coup because getting servant's triggers doubled isn't really that good. not bad of course, but i don't have many outlets for all the energy i was producing. like by the time panharmonicon comes online, servant's/hub's usefulness isn't as important then.
one final note: don't underestimate the deck's sustainability. plenty of card advantage, lifegain, and having all those effects doubled (or more) times makes even the most menial creatures waaaay better. like my final game of the night against RW vehicles i started with 2 land and crane. craned away 4 lands, so i was stuck on 2 lands for at least 3 turns. they hit me hard and got me to 2 at some point. Once i finally had lands/servants to play panharmonicon, i steam-rolled to victory.
i do however really like weaponcraft enthusiast here though!
4 glint-nest crane
4 servant of the conduit
4 filigree familiar
1 pilgrim's eye
3 reflector mage
1 arborback stomper
1 cloudblazer
1 verdurous gearhulk
1 combustible gearhulk
1 greenwarden of murasa
2 noxious gearhulk
spells
4 prophetic prism
2 eerie interlude
4 panharmonicon
2 bring to light
4 aether hub
2 botanical sanctum
4 evolving wilds
1 forest
1 hissing quagmire
3 holdout settlement
1 island
2 lumbering falls
1 mountain
1 needle spires
1 plains
1 shambling vent
1 swamp
1 wandering fumarole
2 ceremonious rejection
1 natural state
4 harnessed lightning
2 negate
2 appetite for the unnatural
4 radiant flames
I went undefeated without a game loss with this against RW vehicles, GR energy, and BW allies. Got really really close to dying multiple times going only to comeback with a panharmoniconand a bunch of lifegain cards. it can deal with aggro pretty well with all the relatively high toughness creatures like glint-nest craneand reflector mage. overall it seems to be a pretty good midrangey good-things deck