Ye Olde Deckbuilding Challenge #19- Staircase

Challenges and Articles forum

Posted on Aug. 8, 2014, 2:42 p.m. by doinitwrong

This challenge is for two types of people: the Old Fogey that soothly misses the good olde days of Magic, before the mischievous age of Miracles, Infect, and Annihilator, and the Young whippersnapper that wants to know what the game was like when artifacts were brown.

Click here to Pick the Next YODBC. Want to suggest a challenge? Visit the YODBC Request Page.

This is the deck with which Absinthman won the previous challenge, Ye Olde Deckbuilding Challenge #18- Creatures:




For this challenge, well try out the Johnny-beloved format of Rainbow Stairwell.

What to do:

  • Build a 60-card deck (Thou shalt not count to 59, nor to 61).
  • Except where noted below, follow the Rainbow Staircase rules.
  • All cards must have been printed before 8th Edition.
  • For each CMC, you may replace a monocolored card with a multicolored card that shares a color with it. (For example, you may have Lim-Dul's Vault replace Counterspell or Terror .)
  • You may replace one artifact card with a multicolor spell with the same CMC.
  • No Sideboard will be used.

Post your deck here by Wednesday, August 20, at which time I shall take all submissions and have a tournament to determine the superlative one.

Banned List- Fie upon the miscreant to post hither a deck whereinsoever contains a card mentioned forthwith:

Good luck to all and may the best antiquarian win!


P.S. If anyone wants me to ping them when I post a new challenge so you don't miss out, let me know.

doinitwrong says... #2

The Ping list has gotten rather large as of late, so It'd just be easier to mention you all here instead of posting individually on each of your pages.

Dritz gufymike Apoptosis atreyujames Cobthecobbler fluffybunnypants truble heuertag Azure124 Absinthman Femme_Fatale RedSoxFanKy Matsi883 smash10101 BooJr2001 sewellius Scytec Skimm3r williamgp99 brokendwarf 241543903 GoldGhost012

August 8, 2014 2:46 p.m.

brokendwarf says... #4

Dang, that's still a lot of options.

Suppose the landbases will look generally the same.

August 9, 2014 2:10 a.m.

brokendwarf says... #5


Rainbow Slivercase Playtest

Legacy* brokendwarf

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 1 VIEWS

August 9, 2014 3:47 a.m.

Scytec says... #6


Rainbow Stairwell - YODBC Playtest

Casual* Scytec

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 1 VIEWS

Guess me and brokendwarf had the same idea. Haha. I've had this planned since you mentioned it was definitely this next. But it's true stairwell, no multi colored cards are present. Is that OK doinitwrong?

August 9, 2014 8:21 a.m.

Scytec says... #7

Alright, my deck is updated, and you are good to go

August 9, 2014 4:20 p.m.

brokendwarf says... #8

doinitwrong: disregard my first submission. I figured I'd mess it up the first time, so I'm just going to rework the entire deck.

August 9, 2014 4:24 p.m.

sewellius says... #9

Alright, so this sure was a tricky one to figure out. I'm feeling like I got a fairly cohesive deck though.


Friendly Rainbow Fire Playtest

Casual sewellius

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 2 VIEWS

August 9, 2014 11:56 p.m.

BooJr2001 says... #10

This was Hard to figure out, but this seems alright.


YODBC #19 Double Rainbow All of the Way! Playtest

Legacy* BooJr2001

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 27 VIEWS

August 10, 2014 1:11 a.m.

doinitwrong says... #11

3 weeks to Pick the Next YODBC.

August 10, 2014 2:02 p.m.

brokendwarf says... #12

Alright, mine is fixed. The link above doesn't work so here's the updated one:


Rainbow Flyers Playtest

Legacy* brokendwarf

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 27 VIEWS

August 10, 2014 7:43 p.m.

doinitwrong says... #13

One week left!

August 13, 2014 9:39 a.m.

doinitwrong says... #14

Five days left!

August 15, 2014 3:36 p.m.

doinitwrong says... #15

In case there's an odd number of submissions, here's my deck:


Stairwell to Heaven Playtest

Standard* doinitwrong

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 1 VIEWS

August 15, 2014 5:32 p.m.

Azure124 says... #16

Walking the rainbow really fun to build for this challenge, time consuming but fun

August 16, 2014 11:11 p.m.

doinitwrong says... #17

Three days left! Hurry up and submit!

...Uh, you know what I mean.

Also, 2 weeks left to Pick the Next YODBC.

August 17, 2014 9:54 a.m.

Absinthman says... #18

Oh snap! I didn't subscribe when you pinged me and I completely forgot to build my deck. Well, I still have some time left. Powering up deckbuilding hyperdrive!

August 19, 2014 1:20 p.m.

doinitwrong says... #19

~24 hour warning!

August 19, 2014 10:47 p.m.

nighthawk101 says... #20


Crooked Staircase Playtest

Legacy williamgp99

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 1 VIEWS

I have no idea what I'm doing.

August 20, 2014 2:53 p.m.

GoldGhost012 says... #21


Maro's Blog Playtest

Legacy GoldGhost012

SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 2 VIEWS

I have a small idea of what I'm doing?

August 20, 2014 8:40 p.m.

doinitwrong says... #22

Time's up! Let the games begin!

August 21, 2014 12:24 a.m.

Absinthman says... #23

The deckbuilding for this one proved to be quite complicated. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it. Good luck to all you guys. I'm gonna watch the matches at least.

August 21, 2014 5:25 a.m.

doinitwrong says... #24

Since theres only 8 submissions, the tournament will just be 3 rounds of swiss.

Round 1 Pairings:

August 21, 2014 9:57 a.m.

Femme_Fatale says... #25

I wasn't messaged for this. Did you link all the necessary people?

August 22, 2014 1:37 a.m.

GoldGhost012 says... #26

He ended up tagging us because the list was so long.

August 22, 2014 1:40 a.m.

Femme_Fatale says... #27

No wonder his submission list is low then, I was in the middle of starting to fix all the M15 cards around that time. I literally did not see this pop-up once.

August 22, 2014 1:41 a.m.

Skimm3r says... #28

Looks like I was a bit late for this challenge. .. good luck guys.

August 27, 2014 9:21 p.m.

nighthawk101 says... #29

Everything OK doinitwrong?

September 8, 2014 9:42 p.m.

This discussion has been closed