colorless lands in 5 color deck

Commander Deck Help forum

Posted on April 19, 2016, 9:52 p.m. by Nocturnal Outcast

How many colorless lands is it safe to put into a 5 color deck? I'm running both Chromatic Lantern and Prismatic Omen, so they can gain more usefullness to me, but seems I'm defeating the purpose of getting all these expensive 5 color/dual lands by having them, but each one of my colorless lands bring something very useful to the table, like Homeward Path since EVERY blue player in my group runs bribe, and gets my overlord out of my deck.

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DrFunk27 says... #2

Would help if you linked your deck.

April 19, 2016 10:25 p.m.
April 19, 2016 10:44 p.m.

Gidgetimer says... #4

As few as possible. With that said what is the purpose behind Darksteel Citadel and Arcane Lighthouse. Citadel doesn't seem to have a purpose. Lighthouse has an obvious purpose, but are hexproof and shroud that big at your table?

April 20, 2016 midnight

Darksteel citadel is there as an indestructible artifact to save my combo pieces from my own Harmonic Sliver's ability not being a "may", its same reason for Darksteel Ingot, i could drop citadel in favor of colored land, and get porphoros, or some the other gods perhaps

April 20, 2016 12:13 a.m.

Gidgetimer says... #6

I'm sorry, I'm just used to Sliver Overlord decks where you have Hibernation Sliver out guaranteed and don't have to worry about own abilities interacting poorly.

April 20, 2016 12:22 a.m.

No worries, "queen v overlord" section of my description goes into detail of my commander choice.

Citadel is the biggest candidate for replacement, esp if i add in more indestructible artifacts and enchants, maybe put in spotlight and i can ditch lighthouse, there is a lot of shroud/hex proof at my table, esp when one of the players breaks out their mono white control deck.

Also i get slowed by some of my lands only being multi colored when to creatures only, such as cavern of souls, sliver hive, and ancient ziggurat.

April 20, 2016 1:08 a.m.

enpc says... #8

You can very easily cut Harmonic Sliver for Aura Shards which is only a may. Though personally I've found that something as simple as Nature's Claim is enough. Typically you shouldn't be dealing with that many artifact/enchantment threats that you need a high level of artifcat/enchantment removal. Plus you also have access to Necrotic Sliver anyway, who is the better removal source.

As for the topic at hand, the number of colourless lands in a five colour deck can vary on a few different things. Fixing through mana base is one thing, however including more ramp is also another thing to consider. You could very easily cut a decent chunk of slivers without affecting the core functionality of the deck. The few which immediately come to mind are Ghostflame Sliver, Firewake Sliver, Screeching Sliver, Quilled Sliver, Frenzy Sliver as well as cards like Amoeboid Changeling (I know why he's there, I just don't thinkhe's any good) as well as cards like Spirit of Resistance which could be culled in place of more effective ramp.

Once you're able to get a full cycle of shock lands (Breeding Pool, Blood Crypt, etc.) then you can take advantage of cards like Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim, Farseek and the like to tailor your mana base so it is easier to fix. Then you can lean our land base to having more green than the rest and you can introduce a quite a few colourless lands.

Card advantage is another thing worth taking into consideration. The better the deck's card advantage is, the more likely you will be able to draw into fixing.

April 20, 2016 4:45 a.m.

Gidgetimer says... #9

Yeah, I read your Queen vs Overlord section. I was unconvinced by it, but I am not the type to suggest a change in commander if the person has said that they do not want to.

Aura Shards is a great suggestion since you are not tutoring out all the slivers anyway. I believe that you do need either Aura Shards or Harmonic Sliver since there are a lot of decks that like to win off of artifacts or enchantments.

April 20, 2016 8:23 a.m.

Artifacts & enchants are both heavy I'm my play group, there are two colorless decks that rely on artifacts, (also the reason for ghostflame, since both run ugin and all is dust) and the mentioned white deck uses many enchants.

More non-basic fetchers could be a solution, but most of them need one of the basic sub types, to use. I want them but its gonna take me a month or two to get.

As for the queen vs overlord, guess agree to disagree there, its a matter of preference, I've swapped them before, and didn't enjoy it as much.

Aura shards could work, i have one already from my the reminents of deck that is long retired to try out work, might even run both since there is a strong artifact and enchant presence at my table

Thanks for the suggestions!

April 20, 2016 1:03 p.m.

This discussion has been closed