Five Color Planechase is a Group Hug variant that relies on your opponents attacking each other and winning off of a go-wide game plan or by swinging with your Commander. The idea of the deck is to act as a Planechase deck would, offering your opponents with a myriad of options distracting them from your board. By propelling all of your opponents in a game of casual commander, they will be more concerned with dealing with your opponents than what you are up to. The Commander is Progenitus which can be a quick clock and is very hard to deal with. There are five basic strategies of the deck:
1) Ramping Yourself and Your Opponents
The first step in setting the stage as the player to leave alone and possibly befriend is by ramping everyone. This can be tricky, because in some games some opponents may be so far ahead, by playing cards like Mana Crypt and Mox Diamond, that it may not be worth ramping. It could be impossible to catch up to those players. The best scenario for this technique is when everyone is progressing at an equal pace and you can help everyone equally so that the game progresses to a further stage (going from 4 mana to 6 mana for instance). It doesn't hurt that players are more likely to thank you for helping them rather than be mad that they help their opponents. Cards in this strategy: Eladamri's Vineyard, Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, Rites of Flourishing, Oath of Lieges
2) "The Planes"
What I'm calling the Planes are the enchantments that have effects that can be significantly game changing. It can be a state-based effects that makes your opponents reassess the threat level of their opponents or triggered effects that can lead to big swings. The idea of the abilities is that they are decision-based, not entirely based on chance, just to get your opponents as involved as possible. This strategy is the core of the deck, by opening up the game more you occupy your opponents with so many effects that they can even forget their own gameplan, possibly to just to win a minigame of sorts. Cards in this strategy: Field of Dreams, Oath of Druids, Oath of Scholars, Tempt with Discovery
3) Mana Sinks
After ramping your opponents and yourself, you may have access to more mana than you know what to do with. Unlike a lot of other group hug strategies, we are not trying to make our opponents draw a lot to deck out. In my experience, you give them more cards AND more mana, they'll find a win before you can deck them unless you have a combo. Because they are going to have extra mana, they may want to pay into collective mana sinks. These exist it two primary forms: the Mongers and the Join Forces cards. With the Mongers, like Squallmonger, any player may pay mana into it to get the effect. They may lead to players working together to get a certain effect, knocking down the player in the lead. Most of the Mongers deal incremental damage to creatures and/or players but it can stack very quickly when players have lots of mana. The Join Forces cards, like Minds Aglow, any player may pay into the one time effect but instead of knocking down the player in the lead it helps every player not matter how much the player invests. This strategy is fairly supplementary, unlike the triggered abilities the mana sinks can often be missed or ignored unless they are to deal with a problem creature.
4) Awakening and Flash Spells
Although the smallest of the strategies, having an Awakening flash package can significantly alter the way a game is played. When all spells have flash, players don't know if it's safe to attack or to cast their spells. In a lot cases there is a lot of waiting and then ten spells on the stack at once. Awakening also supplements the mana sink strategy, allowing players to go all in on each end step. Cards in this strategy: Awakening, Tidal Barracuda, Vernal Equinox.
5) Go-Wide
While most of the strategies are to propel your opponents, this strategy is your main way to win after a lot of attrition. There are a few mana outlets and abilities to make 1/1s and with some other synergistic cards you can safely transition from group hug to a full-on token based game plan. Cards in this strategy: Saproling Cluster, Liege of the Hollows, Tempt with Vengeance, Cryptolith Rite
Outside of these main strategies, there are some cards that are just plain weird. The whole point of the deck is to be shocking with different kinds of effects and angles to come from. What's great about this deck is that it will never play the same way twice and you and your opponents will just have fun with all of the choices and payoffs you can get. Typically, when your opponents are having fun you have a good chance of sticking around.
