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The Rainbow's End

Standard* Competitive Five Color Midrange

NigelOBody

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Creature (20)

Planeswalker (3)

Land (25)

Enchantment (2)

Instant (10)

Sideboard

Creature (4)

Planeswalker (2)

Instant (3)

Sorcery (6)

Maybeboard

Creature (2)

Inspired to build a 5 color deck by Schechefter's deck Taste the Rainbow (5 Color Beats) I went to sort my binder. While sorting though my binder I realized that I had full play-sets of most of standard's bombs, leaving my binder half sorted, I took these play-sets and my 5-color deck was born, a pot of gold (cards) in a rainbow deck. So how exactly does the deck work?

The Bombs:

  • Brutal Hordechief is the newest edition to this deck and so far the only card from fate reforged that has made it in (Though I am still considering swamping them for Shaman of the Great Hunt). The Hordechief is basically a Hellrider that drains our opponents instead of damaging them allowing me to quickly tilt life totals in our favor.

  • Mantis Rider serves as a easy way to slow down aggro decks while allowing us to apply more pressure to them. As a 3 drop creature it is able to full out my curve and it can net us a lot of life when used with a Sorin, Solem Visitor

  • Rakshasa Deathdealer is an early creature that can also shine in the late game. It is also relatively easy to activate it 2-3 times as black and green mana are the easiest mana to produce in the deck.

  • Savage Knuckleblade is also a curve filler like Mantis Rider though profoundly more useful. The ability to stand up to Lightning Strike and Bile Blight is very relevant and the fact that it can even protect itself from other removal spells in the later game by bouncing it has saved me a couple of games. Savage Knuckleblade is most effective in the late game when I am able to utilize its abilities as soon as it enters the battlefield though it can be used as an early blocker if needed.

  • Siege Rhino is one of the most powerful creatures in standard. The huge body combined with trample allows this to smash though blockers and the life drain allows us to stay in the game longer as our mana base is quite slow.

  • Sorin, Solemn Visitor just wins games. By itself it can provide an evasive creature to start damaging our opponent but combined with the creatures in the deck his +1 can easily allow us to race our opponent. If you are luck enough to pull off his ultimate it is not hard to lose the game as your opponent will have trouble keeping a board presence.

Removal:

  • Abzan Charm give us plenty of utility whether it be growing a Mantis Rider or just simply removing our opponents threats or drawing us into gas. Its utility simply means we always have a good reason to cast it at any stage of the game.

  • Crackling Doom helps keep the pressure off us as we try to develop our board. Th fact that it damages our opponents is also very useful as it can finish off a walker or even the opponent themselves.

  • Temur Charm like the Abzan Charm provides us utility in plenty of different situations, though it is useful in quite different situations than the Abzan Charm. Its fight ability can be used to pick off our opponent's smaller creatures while increasing the power of our own for combat. This mode is quite useful with mantis rider as you opponent will be less likely to block the mantis rider and deal the remaining damage required to kill it after it has fought a creature during combat. I hardly use the mana leak ability as we would much rather play a creature than attempt to leave up a counter spell though for the very reason your opponent will be less likely to expect the counters our instants are mainly used for board removal. The third mode is very useful in breaking a board stall against an Elspeth, Sun's Champion or Hornet Queen and can therefore seal a game from out of nowhere.

  • Utter End is our emergency button that allows us to kill most problematic permanents our opponents drop whether it be a creature, planeswalker or ever a Whip of Erebos.

The Mana Base:

Though it may not seem like it our mana base is fairly consistent allowing as to usually access our full five colors by turn 4.However the tri-lands slow us down a lot and due to the fact that I cannot afford a play-set of mana confluence (and I don't currently have any) we have even more tapped lands through Evolving Wilds. Our mana creatures are very useful as providing early blockers is essential. Sylvan Caryatid is an effective blocker for tokens and other small creatures, and while Rattleclaw Mystic has only 1 toughness its ability to trade with Goblin Rabblemaster is very poweverful. Rattleclaw Mystic also can help contribute damage later in the game as your opponent attempts to deal with our threats that we deploy.

The Sideboard:

  • Anafenza, the Foremost is brought in in more aggressive match ups to lower our curve as well as against any reanimation or delve decks in order to remove their graveyard.

  • Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver Brought in against midrange as it basically allows us to use their bombs allowing us to keep up mana for removal instead of casting our threats. I would this can even be run in the main deck if you don't have a fairly aggressive meta like mine.

  • Drown in Sorrow is aggro hate but not much more so we only run 1 copy so it doesn't clunk up our side board options for other match-ups. Most aggro players I have played against have also learnt to keep recover from this by keeping a spell back as well so it is less effective than it used to be.

  • End Hostilities Allows us to stabilize against an unfavorable board state and therefore allows us to recover.

  • Nyx-Fleece Ram is useful against aggro as well as some of the more aggressive midrange decks. I have come to like this more than drown in sorrow in these match ups.

  • Sultai Charm Allows us to kill the occasional mono-colored deck though it is mainly in here as a naturalize. However the draw can also be nice against control so this is usually a good replacement for Temur Charm that does almost nothing in those match ups.

  • Thoughtseize allows us to disrupt midrange and control decks allowing more of our threats to go unanswered.

  • A third Utter End is brought in against any midrange or control decks as it deals with any permanent threat without giving our opponents the chance to reanimate them.

I would love suggestions to help improve this deck and if you like the deck go ahead and give it a +1.

Updates Add

A little Tweaking — Jan. 26, 2015
Edit

After under-performing at the last few week's FMNs I have made a few alterations to the deck.

-2 Brutal Hordechief -3 Mantis Rider -2 Temur Charm

+2 Palace Siege +2 Sagu Mauler +2 Garruk, Apex Predator +1 Abzan Charm

One of the main weak point of the deck was its lack of card advantage and to help with this I have added in the Sieges and the extra Charm. Garruk, Apex Predator allows me to dump a lot of creatures onto the feild though he can also be used to destroy my opponents creatures and especially their Planeswalkers which are much harder to deal with since the cutting of Mantis Rider (His emblem is also game-breaking if you can pull it off). Sagu Mauler was added as it is quite hard to deal with and can grant huge life swings with Sorin on the field. Mantis Rider and Brutal Hordechief were cut as they were often removed as soon as they hit the board stopping me from gaining any value from them. I also found that Temur Charm just doesn't pull its weight with its counter and unblockable abilities and in all circumstances I had it I would have rather had the Abzan Charm.

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