McRae's MTG Corner: The Rukarumel "Gay Pirates!" Tribal Tribal CEDH Primer AKA "The Rainbow Bible."

WARNING: This piece clocks in at 62,000+ words. It currently holds the record for longest “CEDH Primer” ever written. (Although it’s more like a textbook or resource guide to Tribal Archetypes, and Rainbow/5c Magic, really.) It is over half the size of my sci fi books. Please remember to drink water, stretch, and pee appropriately.

Update: Due to the immense amount of disrespect, antagonism, hate, and vitriol I have received for this piece of work from the CEDH community at large, I am taking an indefinite and possibly permanent hiatus from CEDH/EDH and am considering quitting Magic: The Gathering entirely despite 20 years of loving this game. I hope you have success with Tribal and Rainbow magic, and don’t encounter the sheer toxicity of the CEDH community like I have. Wishing you all the best.

The 19+ Rukarumel Decklists:

A Quick Pre-Rainbow Bible FAQ:

Q: Why would you write such a huge resource like this?

A: Because I wanted to? Rainbow, AKA 5c MTG is one of the hardest things to master, and Rukarumel provides a nice eighth card in the command zone for a whole slew of different Rainbow strategies. As an ex-educator, I’m invested in sharing and teaching what I know to help folks master the difficulty scaling of 5c Rainbow Magic, and learn the staples of all 28,000+ MTG cards in existence. Plus it’ll make you a better Tribal Tribal player overall!

Q: What the hell are your credentials?

A: Well, I thought the sheer fucking size of this thing would speak for me. Still, I’m a “Retired” L1 Magic: The Gathering Judge (Via the old way, even before Judge Academy, folks. I had to write a fucking paper test and pass with 80%.) I’ve also been playing MTG on and off across multiple formats for twenty years give or take, and love playing at the highest levels. In terms of writing, just look at my published books if you want? I dunno. My first commander was Animar, and he carried me in French Commander on through to today. I still pull him out sometimes! Oh yeah, I also have a couple of degrees, or something.

Q: Why Rukarumel?

A: Rainbow magic is consistently a pile of the best cards available to you in all of magic. The only major problem is mana fixing. With fetchlands and OG duals and the like, even through the printing of Opposition Agent and Archivist of Oghma, Rainbow doesn’t give a fuck. When you get good at playing 5c piles, you often realize that it doesn’t really matter who your commander is. They just have to mesh with a couple of your lines to win you the game as a backup for other combos. The Rainbow Bible could have easily been a Sisay or Kenrith primer (and I’ve already written the Garth One Eye Primer.) Rukarumel and Conspiracy.deck is an archetype I’ve played and loved ever since OG Ravnica Block. And there are plenty of famous combos from the competitive Magic of yesteryear to validate Creature Type Tribal-style abuse.

Q: What does The Rainbow Bible mean?

A: I’m hoping this will one day become one of the definitive guides to EDH and CEDH for those wishing to learn more about Rainbow magic and improve their games with it. I consistently state that Rainbow is the best color in Magic, as you have access to the whole color pie. The statistics have lots to tell us.

Q: What does “quantitative” and “qualitative” mean? Why do you use it a lot when talking about Magic The Gathering?

A: In academic research – quantitative measurements or data points are things you can count or measure. The foundation of mathematics and science is the ability to quantify the universe around us. On the other hand, Qualitative research is research where the individual researcher or team makes an assessment of something based on a more subjective lens, often using their pattern recognition skills. I frequently find many “experts” within the EDH and CEDH community make sweeping qualitative statements with little quantitative data to back it up. Which gets into the nature of TEDH vs CEDH vs EDH which we’ll talk about way later. I am a bit of a fucking infamous pariah at the edges of many CEDH communities already because I dislike any one person or cabal from declaring any form of ownership over a game and multiple formats I love. I dislike the database and top16 websites equally. At least I’m consistent.

Q: Why is this thing so long?

A: There’s a lot of things to cover about competitive Conspiracy style Magic, especially in all five colors. Not only will I be discussing general 5c strategies here and there, but I’ll also be doing card by card analysis across some of the more common staples of Tribal Tribal and Conspiracy style cards.

Q: Who is this for?

Anybody and everybody. I don’t really give a fuck who reads what I write or not. The moment you think about specific audiences, you’re hamstringing yourself as a writer. I’m aware The Rainbow Bible could be compared to something like a “teaching-based Master’s Thesis.” Considering a Math PHD designed the game, I’ll take that as a compliment.

Q: You’re wrong. OR Kenrith is better. OR Rainbow is bad.

A: First, none of these are questions. Second, No, fuck you, you’re wrong. I only talk about things I actually know anything about, you dumb bastard. That being said – I’m usually the first to admit to being wrong when I’m actually wrong with quantifiable data, though.

Q: What will I come out of this with?

A: Better understandings of Rainbow magic and some of the most common CEDH staples, strategies, and concepts. An in-depth working knowledge of Tribal Tribal, and Tribal/Typal synergies in general. Hopefully I can make you into a better Magic player, overall. Maybe it can help some people make the jump from EDH to CEDH proper. I could use the challenge these days. Obviously a lot in this primer can apply to Casual EDH as well, but the intent is CEDH power levels. You don’t want to blow out and pub stomp your local playgroups by accident. Don’t be toxic, okay?

Q: Why are your sideboard or considering cards at like 500-800+ cards?!?!

A: I genuinely consider a lot of cards, lines, and possibilities when brewing decks. There are nineteen plus Rukarumel brews just to prove a point about flexibility. I also find having decklists with all the common lines and any live playtest cards lets me do hot swaps during Cockatrice playtesting faster and more consistently – as I’m often doing hot swaps on the side during games, especially the grindier stax laden ones. People who make fun of you for having handy communal lists of cards you can pluck from, often can’t comprehend that you are actually thinking about that many cards at once. Joke’s on them. Some of us can. And they make themselves seem kinda silly by so blatantly pointing out their inability to see the reasons behind things, or comprehend that people can juggle that many individual items in a single brew.

Q: Can we get started already?

A: Yes. Impatient bastards.

The Intro (AKA “The Problem.”):

Welcome back, you MTG loving degenerates!

Welcome… To another of McRae’s CEDH primers, much to the chagrin of gatekeepy motherfuckers all across the various CEDH communities. After all, nothing is a monolith, you know? Even communities. I quite dislike how dismissive the community is at large to non-traditional ideas, which kind of sucks for one of the most creative formats within Magic: The Gathering.

Now, I did post this list in early drafts to the CEDH subreddit. It was so rapidly downvoted and shit upon that I must just surmise after getting this deck like a 33% win rate, that the majority of people dabbling in CEDH who feel the need to speak their mind negatively about off-meta brewing are fucking idiots. (I watched one of the morons, brave enough to comment that it wasn’t a CEDH deck, punt us both out of Round 1 in a CEDH tournament months prior to their negativity, but that’s neither here nor there…) So I ask you politely as an audience, (while I am 100% okay with you sharing this piece of work anywhere and everywhere,) please don’t post it to the CEDH subreddit.

However! I’ve since deleted that original post and have received tons of private positive feedback from other solid CEDH brewers who love the deck. Much love to everybody who has offered kind words, cool combos, and other dope shit. The deck has been super fucking fun to pilot! Take it, mod it to your preference, and jam the hell out of it!

And if you brew weird shit, have faith! There is so much bullshit across the CEDH community that is spewed as if it is an objective fact. Remember, computers haven’t solved this game yet, homies, especially not the most complex formats of them all. If you think something is viable, playtest it. And when you get to be an obsessive asshole like me who has played Magic on and off since the 90s, you develop almost a natural feel for what is competitive or not in any given meta, even as people spew their opinions on what is or isn’t playable. Magic is in that weird space of people having both subjective and objective opinions all over the place, rarely backed up by any real quantitative data.

(Don’t forget, the entirety of the CEDH community has been shitting on me for playing Garth One Eye for the last two years. Doesn’t seem to matter how much I win. You have to have thick skin to break metas and weather the plethora of bad vibes in the CEDH scene, as people WILL shit on you for trying to break the mold. The CEDH community can be toxic AF, despite their surface level statements.)

Anywho, the takeaway from this intro is that you should experiment and play jank if you think it can hang. Maybe don’t shuffle up that 5c Rainbow pile unless you’ve been playing Magic for a while, but you know – be free. Do you. Experiment! Ignore the elitist assholes with overbearing opinions. I’ve beat pros and tournament grinders all the time with dogshit, you know? Some crazy motherfuckers even play mono white decks exclusively in tournaments. When people make jokes about me bringing “Casual” decks to CEDH pods but then I often win said pods, who is making the joke?

I mean, damn. That’s pure fucking courage right there. To display one’s ignorance like a flag, eh?

At the end of the day, what’s more experimental and fun than playing Tribal Tribal? Or Typal Typal. Whatever. Tribalism is still a social construct, and a modern problematic issue that seeps into most political issues to some extent. Go read the wikipedia page on it – fascinating stuff. But I’m no anthropologist or sociologist, you know? WOTC can do whatever the lawyers want it to do to maintain what PR and marketing folks could call “brand cleanliness.”

Thus, as nothing but a simple Magic player – I present to you: Rukarumel, Biologist. AKA Conspiracy On A Stick. AKA Gay Pirates!

Welcome to what I’ve jokingly named “The Rainbow Bible.”

Deck Philosophy (AKA “The Goal.”):

If you’ve been listening to me ramble about Magic: The Gathering for any length of time, you’ll know I almost exclusively play five color Rainbow piles these days, due to the sheer card quality. I’ve talked before about how the stronger the Magic, the more it tends to lean towards 4c and 5c piles, with no ban list CEDH being a great example for the most part. You likely also know that I like to talk about the strength of the commander versus the power of the ninety nine.

Everybody who has played EDH/Commander/CEDH for a while knows that fragile decks that rely exclusively on their commander can be extremely good for reasons of consistency in games, but also get blown out completely the moment a Drannith Magistrate or other commander blocker hits the stack. Part of why I enjoy playing 5c so much is that the sheer card quality of my 99 card deck is often on par with whatever my commander provides me. I’ve won many games piloting 5c Rainbow piles without ever casting my commander once. Just jam a Thassa’s Oracle combo and get there, you know?

Now, I love playing Garth One Eye, the new “coat of arms on a stick” Jodah, and Najeela in my current rotation of rainbow decks. But Conspiracy strategies are special to me, as one of the first Magic combo archetypes I ever explored. I was a kid in the 90s, so the tupperware container of cards I got gifted by my Gram who ran a self serve storage locker service were mostly cool for the art.

Those sick Thrulls and Homarids, amirite?!

When I came back to Magic again, through Kamigawa to OG Ravnica, my internet friend at the time from South Dakota mailed me a modded Orzhov MTG 60 card deck. While the Haunt mechanic was mostly complete dogshit, the central combo or synergy revolved around using Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder, Conspiracy, and Skeletal Vampire to make ever exponential amounts of flying swinging bat tokens. Tribal or Typal archetypes are one of the earliest motifs throughout MTG, and also one of the most common or prevalent.

With the printing of Rukarumel, Biologist, what most people would consider to be purely a Sliver commander can do so much more. While she isn’t as broken as we could hope for, only hitting nontoken creatures and slivers, she does still “coat your deck and hand” in her static effect, in which you choose a creature type and a la the original Conspiracy enchantment, your creatures, even those outside the battlefield, gain that type. The closest we’ve gotten to a creature type commander prior to her printing was perhaps Morophon and the like. She also enters AS the type you choose, similar to how Clone effects work. Torpor Orbs and Hushbringers don’t stop her.

The advent of a Conspiracy effect available to us in the command zone provides reliability in an already pretty packed field of similar effects, and the ability to chunk out slivers with an additional typing is cute, albeit mediocre in most instances unless your board presence is already well accelerated. (The weird thing about Rukarumel is that by the time you have a solid board presence, you should already be winning the game via one of the many infinite loops in the deck, so you rarely ever make actual token slivers.) ~~Yet I still agonize about slapping a Skullclamp in the deck purely for the 3 mana 1/1 slivers. 5 Mana for 2 cards isn’t great, but it IS stapled to the damn commander, after all.~~ Update: See the various decklists that DO utilize Skullclamp and token based strategies.

Now, anybody like me who has been playing Tribal Tribal for a while knows that Tribal support has never been better than now in 2023. Over the past several years, WOTC has printed piece after piece of dedicated Tribal support for both specific creature types as well as for general blanket use. That means that Rukarumel not only gives us access to a Conspiracy in the command zone – it means that the 99 other cards of this deck can go brrrr all by themselves, without ever having to cast Rukarumel in the first place. Remember, that’s the power of 4c and 5c piles. They can go ham whether you have a Drannith down or not in many cases.

A final general note on Rukarumel – Many folks will want to go the Slivers route… I’ll get into it a little later in the “jankier” brews of Rukarumel, but Slivers can be a bit of a trap outside a few specific outliers, so be warned! A Conspiracy in the command zone is so much better for a wider mix of tribes in the 99 than only focusing on the most obvious one!

A Tale of Two Rukarumels (Competitive Jank vs. “Competitive Competitive”):

Now, there’s a bit of a problem and snag in this primer, in that I actually have ~~two~~ nineteen distinct brews of this deck thus far. One is a streamlined version, packed with classic CEDH tutors, counterspells, and only the most core infinite combo strategies. This is the one that can most successfully grind with other CEDH decks due to the stopping power of counters and lots of extra mana. If you’re wanting to sleeve up Rukarumel for legitimate CEDH tournament play, I’d suggest starting your brew from this one. It can hang with all the T1 meta decks like Blue Farm, RogSi, and the like.

The secondary “Double Down To Tribal Town” list is a more balls to the walls list, with fewer CEDH staples and a few more 2-3 card Tribal combos and tutor effects via creatures. There are only a handful of counterspells in the whole list, but a greater density of tutor effects and more specific synergies or overlapping combos. If the first brew is the streamlined build, the secondary build is a much greedier one, with most counterspells turfed in favor of more combo lines and even more “gotcha” cards. If you’re looking for a powerful deck that can hang at both casual and CEDH tables depending on the mulligan, this version is a better bet. I also have ~~two~~ nineteen other possible builds with varying archetypes ~~hanging in the wings of my brain cage~~ completed.

Now, I’m already known on the CEDH discord for taking decks with playstyles I like and modding them to my own specific play preferences, such as altering my version of Malcolm/Breeches to include cards like Back to Basics and Blood Moon to be more staxxy and unfriendly towards 4/5c decks. It’s an old Modern archetype called “Blue Moon,” that I co-opted.

While Rukarumel is ultimately my own original brew, most of the core rainbow shell, landbase, and staples were stolen initially from my Garth and Jodah lists. As we get into the specific lines and cards, to try and reduce confusion, I’m going to cover the two decklists I run separately (Streamlined + Double Down Lists ONLY) as best I can, with “Janky” or “Streamlined” tags for the pieces specific to the glass cannon “DOUBLE DOWN TO Tribal TOWN” version of the brew or vice versa.

So let’s get to the real meat and potatoes of Rukarumel!

The Core Combos & Synergies (AKA “The Bits & Pieces”):

Rukarumel is again, at her core, a Conspiracy on a stick, and from my early forays into EDH and later French Duel Commander – things were still heavily steeped in the classic tribes of elves, goblins, or merfolk and the like back around 2010. While the nice thing about Rukarumel is that you can modify her for any tribe you want to focus on, and dip into any color as much or as little as you want, for obvious reasons I’ve preferred diversifying my lines in lieu of rocking such famous lines as Kiki Jiki or Snoop and sticking to a few isolated key colors. If you want to do that, go for it! I’d love to see a Rukarumel deck designed around goblin synergies and other famous Tribal CEDH lines, for example. (Update: There’s a Goblin Rukarumel you can netdeck now. See it at the very top.)

Now, the core of this deck comes down to your Conspiracy effects. They’re our bread and butter. So let’s start this primer off right by taking a look at what we have available to us:

Our Conspiracy Effects:

Rukarumel, Biologist:

Rukarumel isn’t just another rainbow babe. Still, at WUBRG CMC for a 3/3 Human Wizard (Plus whatever type you name), her stats aren’t exactly great. She dies to a Lightning Bolt. Neither is her additional ability – pumping out whatever additionally typed Sliver you want for a tap and three colorless mana. Again, I’ve really thought hard about leaning into some of these quirks, such as rocking a Skullclamp for card advantage. But at 1.5 turns and 10 mana total, 2 extra cards just never feels worth it unless you have shenanigans to go with it such as Intruder Alarm or protection to ensure better subsequent card per mana trades. (Update: Rukarumel is the only Commander that can easily combo with Intruder Alarm! See the Intruder Alarm List at the top.) I’d rather just treat her as a copy of Conspiracy in the command zone in most cases – saving her first cast for when you have all the pieces set up on board to win you the game.

Now, she has two more drawbacks – the first is that she doesn’t affect nontoken creatures. This means that token synergies, outside of slivers, however awesome, are mostly out. Some of the cutest and most “gotcha” 2-card combos don’t work with Rukarumel as a result. However, unlike worse cards like Xenograft that only cover the field, Rukarumel does “coat” your hand, graveyard, and deck in the same Conspiracy effect, allowing for some very cute interactions we’ll get into later.

A final note on Ruka, unlike most common ETB effects that declare a creature type, Rukarumel is again, specifically worded like a CLONE card. This means that Torpor Orb and similar effects DO NOT hurt her. She enters AS the creature type you name in addition to being a Wizard and Human. Other judges reading this will immediately grimace as they know it means that they have to relearn the nuances of layers, possibly the most annoying rules subset in all of Magic: The Gathering. As a fellow L1 Judge, I apologize for the inconvenience. But this specific wording has proved itself extremely relevant in many white-leaning stax heavy pods that rely on Torpor Orb, Hushbringer, or similar effects to deny ETB value. This odd quirk of hers also means you can reset her chosen typing quite easily with a simple Ephemerate-like flicker or other flicker or bounce effects, if you want to lean towards a more ETB heavy build. (Update: Like above.)

Overall, just being a Deck coating WUBRG Conspiracy effect in the command zone is really all we need her for. She’s truly a Conspiracy on a stick! Finally!

Conspiracy:

The classic. At two black and three colorless mana, it has long been outpaced by cards like Arcane Adaptation and Maskwood Nexus, amongst others. Sadly, even Rukarumel costing WUBRG offers better value than the OG Conspiracy itself due to the additional tricks she can perform such as blinking and obtaining easy hexproof or shroud in Rainbow. Still, Conspiracy DOES coat your hand, graveyard, and deck with the type changing effect, meaning Tribal tutors and other such effects can still grab almost anything you need. And finally, Conspiracy DOES hit tokens, meaning if your Rukarumel build is focused around token synergies, almost every classically worded Conspiracy effect in the 99 outside of Rukarumel can go infinite with cards like Turntimber Ranger. It’s been on the chopping block many times due to the power creep of all the different synonym effects, but having backups has proven crucial in some grindier games against decks using Rhystic Study and the like.

Arcane Adaptation:

One of the new kids on the block for Conspiracy effects from Ixalan, at one blue and two colorless, this is one of the fastest and most mana efficient of the bunch. As many Rainbow CEDH decks lean blue already for the wide variety of card draw effects, this might often be one of the first Conspiracy effect cards you can drop with a lucky T1 or T2 Mana Crypt or Sol Ring. Identical to the classic Conspiracy in almost all aspects, it coats your hand and deck with the effect, allowing for easier tutors as per the rest. Otherwise, it functions the same as every other synonym card.

Maskwood Nexus:

In some ways, Kaldheim-era Magic and many of the Tribal support cards released in the past five years have blown creature type strategies up to new heights. Maskwood Nexus at four colorless is insanely easy to cast in a format riddled with cards like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, or Grim Monolith. Even better, unlike a classic Conspiracy effect, it just flat out gives every one of your creatures every single type a la the “changeling” rules text. Not only does this mean you can angle for multiple combo wins or lines at once without having to commit too hard, it ensures that you often have multiple different value engines online simultaneously across more tribes. If that wasn’t good enough, the wording ensures it coats both your deck, graveyard, and hand like all the great Conspiracy synonyms! This is hands down the best Conspiracy Effect printed thus far in Magic: The Gathering.

I cannot count the number of times in which an early game Cavern of Souls was saved by dropping a Maskwood Nexus and ensuring that one creature a turn was uncounterable. While being an artifact in the CEDH format does mean it’s often much more fragile than the enchantment card Conspiracy effects due to the high prevalence of artifact hate, cards like Null Rod or Collector Ouphe don’t really matter, as 90% of the time you only want the Maskwood Nexus for it’s static effect anyways. A final note – Maskwood Nexus can also tap for 3 colorless mana to create a colorless 2/2 changeling! While a good majority of the time it’s been largely irrelevant other than generating blockers against Tymna style effects, the tokens having changeling means that even if the Maskwood Nexus does get blown up, you still have a few infinitely typed hate bears for Malcolm or Magda triggers, in addition to other Tribal payoffs. All of this, including having artifact tutor support, often means Maskwood Nexus is one of the first Conspiracy cards you’ll tutor up for your combo wins, requiring zero mana fixing, and clocking in at one cheaper than either Rukarumel or Conspiracy itself.

Xenograft (Cut From Both!):

I’ll be perfectly honest. Xenograft was actually one of the earliest cuts in almost every single early brew of Gay Pirates. Two blue and three colorless puts it on par with OG Conspiracy in terms of cost, but the biggest failing of Xenograft is that it only affects the creatures on the board. While this does enable most of your game-winning combo lines, it doesn’t coat your hand, deck, and graveyard in the same effect, rendering your type-specific tutor cards absolutely useless. If you find that opponents are learning your deck and continually blow up your Conspiracy effects, you might consider Xenograft as yet another backup – but most of the time it’s hardly been worth it, other than a card to toss to Chrome Mox or Gemstone Cavern effects…

Runed Stalactite:

Runed Stalactite has two great things going for it. At 1 mana to play and 2 mana to equip, entirely in colorless, it ensures that one of your creatures can be a pseudo-changeling whilst equipped. The sick 1 colorless mana cost and artifact typing also means that it’s relatively easy to cheat out with unique tutors like Urza’s Saga or Inventor’s Fair. Additionally, often other players won’t want to waste counterspells or removal on a one mana card, due to the older notion in Magic of “trading down” in regards to mana value or card expenditure/advantage.

Honestly, while I’ve cut it in and out frequently as a bit of a flex slot, due to most of my combos needing only one specific creature on board like an Aphetto Alchemist or a Reckless Fireweaver to be a dwarf or pirate… I find it winning me more games than one might think, especially when cheated straight onto the board. Downsides include being donked by Null Rod Effects or being an easy Mental Misstep target once opponents have some grasp of the deck.

Unnatural Selection:

I have to admit with full honesty, I somehow slept on Unnatural Selection for a long time, despite it being a card I fully knew about due to my co-host on The Brewery Tobin abusing it many times. (He’s an OG 90’s Blue Player.) While I dislike the single target rather than a blanket effect, and the card is overcosted the first time you try to drop then use it… There’s some secret tech I’m stumbled across in playtest games! Since it targets, it is quite good at force-sacrificing Phantasmal Image copies. Otherwise, for our Gay Pirate purposes, it performs the duty of changing our damage generating creatures into Pirates fairly well, while also banking mana when performing the same sort of thing with Magda or another Tribal payoff. I’ve really warmed up to this card as an easy Turn 1 or 2 Conspiracy Effect that can do some really funny and useful things for many different brews of Rukarumel. 8/10 Conspiracy Card.

Mirror Entity:

Mirror Entity is another Conspiracy card I blanked on completely for some reason, forgetting the second effect of the “X” costed ability. Being a changeling is a huge plus, as it can be tutored with a ton of Tribal tech. Secondly, it gives you a combat method of killing opponents in addition to enabling and bolstering your Magda and Malcolm lines for cheap. As most of the deck’s wincons are combo-based, especially in the more streamlined builds of Rukarumel, having multiple kill conditions feels like a fun little include that doesn’t take away much to include. Brews with Najeela or Winota or the like love Mirror Entity even more, ensuring you can dodge everything from removal to juicing your triggers in various instant speed ways. It’s found a solid inclusion in most brews of Rukarumel to date.

Amoeboid Changeling (Janky Build Only.):

Anybody who has played Sliver Tribal in the last decade or so knows this sneaky motherfucker. It’s typed with changeling itself to ensure easy tutoring, at two mana – one blue, and one colorless. Upon being able to tap after summoning sickness, or via haste, it can target a single creature and either give it all creature types for the turn, or take away all creature types for the turn. I’ve rarely if ever used the second ability either offensively or defensively, (only against cards like Najeela or Phantasmal Image) but the first ability is an old two card combo with Sliver Overlord. Once you resolve both, for three mana and a tapped Amoeboid Changeling, you can steal your opponent’s creatures permanently, (A death knell for some CEDH decks like Winota.)

Due to the immense mana cost of WUBRG plus two, and an additional tabling and three mana on top of that to actually steal shit – I’m only running this combo in the jankier glass cannon build of Rukarumel, which runs a Training Grounds to downcost the numerous Tribal specific tutor effects in the deck. Suddenly, playing one mana on a Sliver Overlord to either tutor Amoeboid Changeling or a wincon, or steal an opponent’s creature, is much more profitable. While Amoeboid Changeling DOES also work to enable many of the deck’s wincons such as the Pirate or Dwarf lines, it’s relative ease to remove from the board without protection means that with Sliver Overlord getting cut for the more streamlined build, Amoeboid also often gets cut in and out. However, it’s just at the cusp of an include all by itself, being another Conspiracy backup, after all! Being tutorable as a creature based Conspiracy effect actually also gives it a bit of an advantage over the other synonym cards, so I’m at the cusp of including it in the streamlined CEDH list purely for more redundancy and consistency, possibly cutting original Conspiracy, etc. for it.

Shield of Velis Veil, Blades of Velis Veil, Artificial Evolution, Standardize, Etc. Etc. (Cut From Both!):

I’ve actually cut pretty much every single one of these from many of my Ruka lists due to the sheer number of Conspiracy effects available to us. The value of being able to press for a win with zero foreshadowing at Instant speed has allowed for many snap wins when opponents are least expecting it, especially with the amount of counterspell cards Izzet has access to for backing up said attempts. In Izzet, restrained by the color pie and card quality, I agree with this 100%! However, inversely, in Rainbow I have chosen not to run these sorts of cards for two reasons.

The first, already mentioned, is the card quality Rainbow provides. As a player thinking of board value and value over time, I tend to like the static value over time a permanent provides, in addition to baiting removal (Shoutout to other “Cowboy Magic” practitioners) on largely redundant effects that can be easily tutored and replaced.

There are obvious arguments against this, such as telegraphing your lines to opponents or feeding Docksides over the one and done nature of Sorcery and Instant cards. However, I kind of like the sense of dread and inevitability having a Conspiracy effect on board creates for opponents. Often it baits poorer players into shitty lines like wasting tutors – tutoring removal for your useless, half-complete combos as you angle for something completely different. Amongst the various Sorcery and Instant choices, cards like Shields of Velis Veil or Standardize that can count as changelings and hit your whole board of creatures are the better cards, but one of the flaws is that flickering or bouncing a permanent AFTER it has been typed via the resolution of the spell will usually kill your combo. The sheer number of removal spells in the format, especially in blue, keep me shying away from lines with possible holes or easy disruptions, especially ones that are one and done effects.

With our core Conspiracy effects covered, let’s get into the real spice of the deck – the actual Gay Pirates and other various backup lines.

Core Combos & Win Lines:

I’m going to cover the core win lines in the deck first, covering the basis of the Gay Pirates build and some frequent synonym cards for the various combos. This means that I’ll be covering the streamlined CEDH version first for the most part, with the janky stuff and any considering cards or lines tagged appropriately afterward. I’ll try to make sure to note for each type of line which deck I run it in if at all! (Update: There are 19 decklists of Rukarumel, so I will not be doing that.) Almost every build thus far have the Malcolm and Magda lines included by default, as the strongest lines.

Your Core Wincons:

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator:

Malcolm is the primary win con in this deck, using the classic two card combos as well as some three or four card backup combos with various synonym cards. At 3 mana, he’s easy to cast and the main problem is either granting him haste or tabling him to swing for extra Treasure, and thus, rainbow mana. His main weaknesses are the same ones the Izzet versions of Pirate Tribal face – Null Rod, Collector Ouphe, Stony Silence, Yasharn, and the like. Although you’ll often find that just having ETBs and not needing to crack the treasures is enough to kill folks anyways.

(Update: The database folks took the Izzet Malcolm lists off the database and then an izzet decklist immediately went and took a tourney. Take that as a word of warning when considering anyone or any group that assumes authority or institution over the game. Stay creative, and playtest, playtest, playtest!)

While there are some artifact lines in some brews of the deck that only need to tap the Treasures rather than sacrifice them to win a la Magda, Malcolm is still a relatively fragile, albeit evasive combo piece. He drops dead to almost every form of interaction, from counterspells to removal to board wipes, meaning protecting him somehow is incredibly important, as is keeping artifact hate off the board.

Malcolm having flying is important, as most of the time you’ll be able to swing rather freely against most lists outside Blue Farm or Jeska/Ishai and other specific flying or reach commanders. As Malcolm needs a pirate to deal damage to a player to start the Treasure loops for most of his wincons, I actually prefer the lines that need Malcolm on board, but which don’t need to actually attack or connect to get there.

Here are your most common Malcolm Wincons:

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator + Glint-Horn Buccaneer:

The classic two card Malcolm combo, birthed when WOTC staff was snorting fresh pirate Tribal power creep during a lunch meeting or some such. While Glinthorn does need to be attacking to use the ability, which is annoying, his three mana cost and 2/4 hasty body is always great to jam as either a blocker or a looting effect, even without the Malcolm available. With some additional Conspiracy tech, he can even do some work in other lines within the two builds of the deck.

For those new to Pirate lines, Malcolm triggers a Treasure off any Pirate dealing damage to an individual player, meaning that as long as you have 3 players, Glinthorn’s ability will go mana positive until the first player dies and makes the combo mana neutral. This means that while newer pirates players will always grab Glinthorn first when they see a Malcolm, it might be a trap if life totals aren’t relatively equal amongst your opponents. You need to generate enough extra mana after it goes mana neutral or mana negative to kill the last player or two somehow.

In Gay Pirates, other Malcolm lines are often much easier to set up and win from, despite needing more pieces! This is largely due to the huge number of backup pieces that intersect across multiple lines and pieces. It provides one or two of my favorite things in CEDH: redundancy and inevitability. Jam one wincon line and due to the flexibility of Tribal, a pilot can simply swap to another line or tutor the neccessary hate or removal piece. Obviously this means most Rukarumel brews are going to fit the midrange archetype. One of my favorite things to do with this deck thus far is to jam a Malcolm, and then bait counterspells with the Glinthorn if it’s not easy to use. Then I simply drop Rukarumel and some pinger effect and win. Thanks Glinthorn, you beautiful sandbag tool, you!

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator + Any Conspiracy Effect + Mayhem Devil OR Reckless Fireweaver OR… Etc. Etc.:

Surprisingly, this is the line I win with most often in this deck outside of maybe Magda. While Malcolm is one of a kind in these sorts of combos, there are plenty of pinger effects that when turned into a Pirate by any Conspiracy effect, immediately go infinite. Reckless Fireweaver and Mayhem Devil are the best of them. Reckless Fireweaver, because it’s only 2 mana, and Mayhem Devil because he triggers off the sacrifice of the Treasure, not the ETB. (You can also pitch him to Chrome Mox for BR!) Mayhem Devil has proven himself to be an incredible aggro slash board control card, often allowing me to kill mana dorks and combo pieces off opponent’s sacrifice effects like Fetchlands or cracking Treasures, especially when opponents forget about it. He also often dissuades Dockside lines entirely! Shout out to Havoc Jester for being an overcosted AF Mayhem Devil. If you want that much redundancy, go for it I guess? Gives you more ways to combo with Dockside Emiel loops, too?

We’ve already covered the various Conspiracy Effects above – most of them enable this game winning combo. However, there are MANY more cards that can easily act as backups for the final card slot of the 3 card combo:

Hedron Detonator: 3 mana for a creature that only pings one opponent at a time isn’t great. But it also gives the ability to tap it and use two Treasures for an impulse draw, which is okay I guess in a deck full of Treasure synergies? Additionally, if you’re running some of the goblin Tribal lines such as Moggcatcher, you can lean on the goblin typing of the card a bit. Otherwise meh. This card is currently cut from many lists.

Ingenious Artillerist: Another three mana creature that functions almost identically to Reckless Fireweaver for one more mana. Only downside is that it has the newer “one or more” rules text, although that doesn’t matter when you’re jamming Docksides and doming three people for a combined 33 damage. Human typing, which only matters if you dive into that tribe more than my better builds. This card is constantly at the edge of being included simply as another backup for the third Malcolm combo slot. One of the benefits of having a three card combo with several synonym slots means that only the Malcolm is set in stone, and if you find yourself struggling to find Mayhem Devil or Reckless Fireweaver in your games, you can always increase synonym density to ensure consistency.

DANGER, AVOID THESE TRAP MALCOLM LINE INCLUDES:

Disciple of the Vault: Watch out! This card is a trap! While your Treasures and artifacts hitting the graveyard will indeed drain your opponents slowly, one target at a time, this motherfucker is technically “loss of life” and NOT damage! That means he doesn’t go infinite with Malcolm, who requires “damage” specifically! One black mana is sick and all, and my old infinite combos in Sharuum in like 2015 go infinite with this guy for sure, but not our BFF Malcolm. I’d only run him if your chosen brew leans heavily into spamming Treasure for big damage, such as big Treasure Dockside loops dinging opponents in the face or some other degenerate shit. (I mean technically these sorts of cards ARE still a kill outlet for Dockside Loops!)

Marionette Master: Marionette Master is an awesome card in artifact combo decks, similar to Disciple of the Vault. Still, any black effects are again, usually loss of life effects, meaning they don’t work with Malcolm – only your other Treasure synergies. It’s also like 6 mana, so even if it DID work, which it doesn’t, you’d need to bloat the deck with reanimator cards or some shit to cheat it out. Avoid these sorts of effects until your brew is going ham into all the Dockside loops and can use them to end the game.

Magda, Brazen Outlaw:

Magda, Brazen Outlaw + Clock Of Omens + Universal Automaton OR Bloodline Pretender:

The classic Magda line, Dwarf Tribal has slotted right into this deck just like Magda slots into Izzet Pirate Tribal decklists… Now, we all already know that’s mostly because Treasure (and gold, etc. really) is a busted artifact mechanic with several completely bonkers cards that were power crept into the stratosphere. Honestly, the number of times I’ve jammed a Dockside for 10+ Treasures, only to dump a Magda and then win the game at Instant speed thereafter is fucking stupid. If any WOTC designer is reading this – somebody fucked up with how hard you pushed Treasure. Please stop. Get some help. (At least WOTC nerfed Gold into Treasure I guess due to being uncrackable without a tap?)

Unfortunately, this is currently 2023, and that means Dockside Extortionist, Smothering Tithe, Grim Hireling, Professional Facebreaker, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Revel in Riches, that muscled Gruul Capenna lady, hell, the list goes on and on. You could include every single one of these cards in your brew and I wouldn’t blink much of an eye, because as much as this brew is “Conspiracy.deck,” it’s also heavy into Treasure Tribal. One of the dumbest things I’ve done repeatedly is to keep turns with T1 Smothering Tithes and a Magda. If your opponents aren’t quite with it, or don’t have the countermagic, you can often jam a Magda T2 and get there.

For those who don’t know how this combo works – With all three pieces on board, (two tutorable via Magda herself at Instant speed) you use the Clock of Omens and Universal Automaton, tapping them both via the Clock of Omens activated ability to target the Universal Automaton with an untap trigger. As Magda is on the board, and sees the Universal Automaton tapping as a dwarf, she creates a Treasure. From there, you tap the now untapped universal automaton and the newly created Treasure to make another Treasure! Insert infinite tapped Treasures and infinite Magda tutors to win the game, all at Instant speed. All because WOTC has a huge hard-on for breaking Treasure. Ain’t it wonderful?

Bloodline Pretender is functionally identical to Universal Automaton for this combo line, it’s just 3 colorless mana rather than one, and has a weird self-pumping effect which triggers somewhat consistently off any of your Conspiracy effects. (You might be surprised at how big it can get when you land it early!) I often end up cutting it because there’s a more efficient, sneakier secret second line we’ll get into in a second with cards we’re already running…

Now, as with every other one of our various Treasure Tribal lines, Magda has some brutal weaknesses – primarily that Cursed Totem, Null Rod, Collector Ouphe, Yasharn, and other such staxxy cards just shit all over her. If her ability to activate as a creature gets shut off, she’s a Treasure generating brick. If the Clock of Omens gets bricked, same thing. Despite Magda being an easier and more easily mana-fixed combo to assemble out of nowhere, I often find myself migrating towards the Malcolm lines first due to stability and redundant backup synonym pieces.

Magda, Brazen Outlaw + Any Conspiracy Effect + Clock of Omens + Esper Sentinel:

I cannot tell you the pure joy I get in watching my opponents cast Mental Misstep or some shit on my Universal Automaton, thinking they’ve just bricked all of my Magda lines, only to dump out a Bloodline Pretender or Esper Sentinel immediately after and watch them panic.

This combo works exactly the same as the normal Magda combo, and the entire thing aside from Magda herself is still tutorable with Magda as long as you go for the Maskwood Nexus or Runed Stalactite as your Conspiracy piece. The cute thing about this combo line is that you can often sneak it onto the board in pieces, whilst opponents look for your more prominent Malcolm lines. The gotcha moments thus far in playtesting have been fucking hilarious.

Magda, Brazen Outlaw + Aphetto Alchemist (Haste or tabled to tap) + Any Conspiracy Effect:

As an OG artifacts player in every color combination imaginable for many years, I know Aphetto Alchemist is a card that at first glance might seem like a shitty two mana dork or a source of vigilance. However, with Magda, it becomes a crazy-powerful combo piece. For two mana, you get a human wizard that can tap itself to untap any target creature or artifact. Clever CEDH players can already see where this is going… With a Magda on board and any Conspiracy effect, Aphetto Alchemist becomes a dwarf who generates one Treasure when tapped. Now, I’ve only found two abilities that work with Magda this well – Aphetto Alchemist itself and Seeker of Skybreak (which can only target creatures and not artifacts.) Seeker is simply too narrow for us unless we’re focusing on Magda as the primary win condition in the deck, so Aphetto is the card that really gets to shine in the better versions of Gay Pirates.

Aphetto Alchemist goes infinite as a Dwarf with Magda on the board, because it can target itself for the untap, just like the worse synonym card Seeker of Skybreak. Tap the Aphetto, target itself, generate a Treasure, and untap the Aphetto. Voila. Infinite Treasures, mana, and Magda tutors. However, I’ve found Aphetto Alchemist to be useful as more than a simple combo win con or mana dork… Primarily due to the immense power of colorless generating artifacts within the CEDH format! Cards that often punish players with their downsides, such as Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, or Basalt Monolith suddenly become much more playable as simple mana rocks that can be untapped every turn to avoid stagnation or loss of life or tempo.

Finally, the printing of The One Ring absolutely breaks Aphetto Alchemist even further – in addition to being able to tap for various mana rocks, or to grant pseudo-vigilance to your creatures, it can also allow you to double tap The One Ring every turn, turning an already completely busted card draw engine into a two card synergy that can easily draw upwards of ten cards for as little as six mana and a handful of your life. Add The One Ring into the Aphetto/Magda combo and you can draw your entire deck to avoid any stinky Aven Mindcensors or Opposition Agents. (Update: I’ve even started running Minamo in most decklists that run The One Ring to truly abuse the Clock of Omens, Aphetto Alchemist, and similar shenanigans.)

Another cute trick is to activate a Wishclaw Talisman, but with the ability to tutor and give away the Wishclaw still on the stack, you can actually untap it with Aphetto Alchemist and use it AGAIN before the first ability resolves and gives the Wishclaw away. That means you get two tutors out of your Wishclaw Talisman for a mere 6 mana – only needing one black and one blue with the rest as colorless!

Aphetto Alchemist is a neat card, and I’m sure there are even more synergies and combos with it that I haven’t quite discovered as of yet!

Other Wincon Lines:

Thassa’s Oracle + Tainted Pact OR Demonic Consultation ~~OR Divining Witch OR Hermit Druid:~~

What do you want? I mostly brew at the CEDH level these days! The better streamlined versions of the deck are currently rocking Thassa’s, DT, and Pact. As per usual in CEDH, sometimes it’s just the easiest combo to shoot for, for a T1-T4 win. No list is on Divining Witch or Hermit Druid right now, as I’ve playtested them as Thassa’s Oracle and Laboratory Maniac pieces extensively in Garth One Eye over the past few years and find them rather dangerous. For the same reason I haven’t played Doomsday since like 2014, I’ve also moved away from combos that can result in getting blown out by an unlucky brainstorm or the like. At least if your Tainted or Pact gets countered, you can try again later, right? As where a Hermit Druid or Divining Witch is usually an all-in effort that is high-risk, high-reward. In the jankier brew of the list, I think I’m only on Tainted Pact and Thassa’s Oracle for that exact reason. Call me a coward if you want. Whatever. Fuck off.

Liliana’s Contract + Any Conspiracy Effect + Four Creatures(Janky Only):

This is some real fun tech. Liliana’s Contract draws you four cards for five mana and four life. But it also has a sneaky little second line of text that checks for four demons with different names and wins you the game on upkeep if it works. I was running this in most builds of the deck pretty consistently for a while, only cutting it from the streamlined builds more recently in favor of doubling down on the core deck combos around Malcolm and Magda instead. But I’ve won at least six games with this fucking two card combo, so even though it has to table, it often still gets there with a little countermagic backup to shut down removal attempts. Very sneaky, and easy to find a spot for as a single card that combos with all of your Conspiracy effects, including Rukarumel in the command zone, who can also pop out a Sliver to hit half that four demon quota all by herself. I’ve gotcha-ed a few folks by saving the Sliver for the end step to hit the check. I may add this back into the streamlined build due to how easy it is to dump this out. It also usually attracts lots of removal even when it’s a far cry from winning the game, which is often quite amusing when you only treat it as a “Draw 4” card a lot of the time.

Dockside Extortionist Loops + Malcolm Outlets(Varies Between Builds):

Many of the core win con lines in this deck need an outlet for various Treasure shenanigans, either by abusing Malcolm’s Treasure generation on pirate damage or at times simply tutoring via Magda in batches of five. However, if you’re running a red deck, it is objectively a poor decision not to run Dockside Extortionist, even if only as a simple wannabe Dark Ritual. Once you hit 5c, there are several great Dockside Extortionist combo pieces – Emiel the Blessed, Barrin, Master Wizard, Temur Sabertooth, Cloudstone Curio loops, and others.

Now, there’s a bit of a debate in my mind on whether it’s objectively good or bad to lean heavily into Dockside lines. (Update: See the ETB Flicker and similar lists for my explorations.) In some pods that utilize a ton of artifact stax and use only dorks or other sources of mana acceleration, your Dockside can be a dead card. In other matchups against decks like Tivit, you’re sitting pretty. Meta and matchup will often dictate which direction you should lean – granted a meta will also adjust to your own personal choices. If you’re known for abusing Dockside as a player, folks might start running Stony Silence or the various synonym cards to jam you up more often.

For sake of time, I’m going to leave the Dockside debates to the pros and simply point out that many of the Malcolm outlets – Mayhem Devil, Reckless Fireweaver, etc. all can kill the table with Dockside loops, rather easily in fact. I DID include Emiel for a time in the streamlined decklists, up until I cut all the ETB card type creature tutors for more Instants and Sorceries. So currently Dockside is more of a mere ritual for my TEDH/CEDH focused lists outside of the excellent Magda/Malcolm synergies.

You can add or remove how much emphasis you have on Dockside to your taste.

Brewing decks is kind of like cooking, no?

A Note on Dockside Loops:

In earlier builds of this deck, again, I DID include an Emiel, The Blessed, a famous combo with Dockside Extortionist. I also played around with Cloudstone Curio Loops. Additional synonym cards again include Barrin, Master Wizard, Temur Sabertooth, or even Deadeye Navigator. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not hard at all to find a few cuts or flex slots to include these infinite Dockside loops back in. However, those earlier builds of the deck were also heavy on the creature ETB tutors such as Spellseeker, Recruiter of the Guard, and Imperial Recruiter. For the streamlined CEDH list, I chose to lean more heavily on Instant speed tutor effects instead, going for unknown information over cheating repeatable effects.

It’s not that I don’t love Dockside loops! Take a look at my Garth One Eye primer over on www.McRaeWrites.com if you love your little Treasure goblin! I’ve simply chosen to cut the Emiel and other synonym effects in some brews as my only infinite outlets for those sort of combos are Orcish Bowmaster or a Reckless Fireweaver effect plus said Dockside loops as of current. If you prefer to lean on the ETB tutor effects in your Rainbow brews, go right ahead! I love some good Displacer Kitten or Cloudstone Curio shenanigans! I also love getting repeated value from the same cards or permanents repeatedly. There are indeed plenty of incredible ETB effects you can farm for value, which is entirely your prerogative.

Torpor Orb and the 3-4 other synonym effects are making a comeback somewhat, despite stax being crappy right now in the grand meta. Yet flicker as an archetype has never been stronger than now, for instance. (Hell, somebody bring back Astral Slide as a CEDH deck archetype somehow.) I think that’s the awesome part about playing 5c, in that you get to choose any package you like from the entirety of Magic and jam whichever synergies or playstyles you love the most as an individual. Once you get good enough at Magic, it just becomes legos, really. (Update: As you can see, since originally writing this primer, I’ve built 19 different Rukarumel decklists, purely to showcase the width and breadth of variety that Rainbow and 4c or 5c lists can display. More colors = better. Simple math.)

Slot in and slot out whatever the fuck you want from there to fit your play preferences.

Any Conspiracy Effect + 10 Mana + The World Tree OR Realmbreaker, The Invasion Tree:

I’ll be honest – the number of times I’ve won a CEDH game with The World Tree is above zero! (Thanks largely to early game World Trees fueled by juiced Dockside ETBs as a follow up.) While I’m only currently on The World Tree in some lists due to the ability to tap for green mana and to Rainbow mana fix at 6 dropped lands, the ability to jam every single creature in your deck onto the board at Instant speed will usually win you the game. It’s a fairly simple combo – an untapped World Tree or Realmbreaker plus any Conspiracy effect named onto the appropriate creature type. “God” or “Praetor” will result in most Conspiracy effects “coating your deck” with that type. Then simply activate the ability to tutor every single creature in your entire deck onto the board at Instant speed, so long as you don’t run face first into a Containment Priest or the like. From there, both your Magda and Malcolm lines should be able to win at Instant speed due to a Dockside or another similar ETB effect providing the damage or Treasures for you to start the loops.

Unfortunately, I’ve cut Realmbreaker currently from many lists, as despite being tutorable with effects like Magda to win at Instant speed, the first ability to tap 3, mill an opponent for three, and steal a tapped land is pretty mediocre. (It also feeds Underworld Breach decks and the like somewhat.) Being entirely colorless for both the casting cost and activation of abilities IS an upside over The World Tree though, which requires double WUBRG to use. Unfortunately though, it often feels like a “win more” card, and using a Magda to cheat it out is often kind of redundant, as dumping all the artifacts from your deck onto the battlefield will usually win you the game via Magda lines without the need for Realmbreaker to follow it up by dumping all your creatures onto the board right afterwards. I may jam it back into the Jankier brews if I can find the flex slots, but it’s been cut from many of the streamlined CEDH builds AND glass cannon builds for now.

Any Conspiracy Effect + Turntimber Ranger (Janky Build Only):

I did run the Turntimber lines in the original brews of this deck before I split it into a jankier glass cannon build and a more streamlined CEDH one. (Update: And built a total of 19 different brews.) A rather classic two card combo, Turntimber Ranger drops for 5 mana and creates a 2/2 wolf while pumping the named Elf with a +1/+1 counter. The effect also triggers whenever an Ally creature enters the battlefield. However, if you drop a Conspiracy effect naming “Ally” before casting the Turntimber Ranger, the wolves that enter the battlefield trigger the effect in an infinite loop, creating infinite 2/2 wolves and an infinitely large Turntimber Ranger. Stop the loop whenever you want, thanks to Turntimber Ranger being a “may” ability.

Now, unless you’re running haste enablers or Impact Tremor style effects, you need to table for a rotation to kill everyone and win the game. Toxic Deluge or another field nuke mostly ruins your day. So all-in-all it’s pretty high-risk, high reward. But it’s still a two card combo, with one of the slots having multiple redundant synonym effects. Unfortunately, Rukarumel not affecting non-sliver tokens with her Conspiracy effect means she doesn’t work with Turntimber Ranger for an easier to access 2 card combo from the command zone. But, c’est la vie, no? A two card game winning combo for as low as 8 mana with multiple secondary synonym slots is already not completely terrible, so what else do you want? Fucking kids these days, with their Turbo Ad Nauseams and Underworld Breaches and Thassa lines. God DAMN.

Any “Deck-Coating” Conspiracy Effect + Any Tribal Tutor to Field Effect + Demonic Consultation OR Tainted Pact (Janky Build Only):

So, in my dabbling across the jankier lines of Tribal Tribal, I “rediscovered” the 3-4 mana Tribal tutors from some of the oldest days of Magic. I’ve used Moggcatcher and other such cards before in more specific Tribal EDH decks, but mostly in casual. (Update: Fuck the assholes that make jokes about my brews being casual and not CEDH.) I know decks in Gruul and certain other pairings do rely on these sorts of cards like Mogg Catcher infrequently to grab Docksides, Kiki Jikis, Snoop pieces, and the like. However, they’re a lot of mana for what they do, despite tutoring the desired creature directly to the field and avoiding counterspells as a bonus.

Most of the time, the easiest way to make this work is to use your Conspiracy effect to name whichever of the Tribal tutors you get first, and then cheat a Thassa’s Oracle directly into play, holding priority on the ETB trigger to jam the Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact. With a Training Grounds or similar, the usually insane mana cost to tutor is reduced somewhat, but the steep price is still only tolerable due to the plethora of effects that can mix and match with a variety of Conspiracy effects. A pretty big downside as well, is that your opponents will most CERTAINLY notice that you suddenly have the ability to tutor any creature in your deck to the battlefield at Instant speed, (with the various changelings in the list being tutorable at worst without even the Conspiracy effect!)

Including several of these Tribal tutor on a stick effects in the jankier brews was a concerted attempt to make the sillier brews more consistent as a glass cannon – as I removed many of the counterspells simply to jam more cool typal combo and tutor shit into the deck. While they all cost the same roughly, at 4 mana to cast and 3 mana to activate (usually two of whichever colors the tribe identifies as to cast,) they do grab the deck’s various changelings without issue, helping to assemble other wincons in the deck such as the Magda ones. Most are bricked immediately by a Cursed Totem, or the new Drana and Linvala as well – so be cautious.

I’m going to discuss them below, but I won’t bother putting images in, to avoid fucking up my formatting. Feel free to google away.

Still, some are much better than others:

(Janky Yes)Seahunter: The main benefit of running this one over all the others is the obvious play of cheating a Thassa’s Oracle onto the battlefield at Instant speed to win the game with any of her combo pieces. Otherwise mid.

(Janky Yes)Moggcatcher: Probably the most consistent of the Tribal tutor to field cards, most red decks will be running a Dockside Extortionist, and/or Snoop lines, etc. etc. Again, grabs all the changelings at worst.

(Janky Yes)Lin-Sivvi, Defiant Hero: Now, not only is she on the lower side costwise, she also can recur shit back to the deck from the Graveyard to loop them out again with a tutor OR HERSELF. The insane part of my brain wants to break her with Intruder Alarm bullshit, but a 5c list can only spread in so many directions at once, you know? Thus far, holding up a scalable Instant speed tutor for any creature in my deck has scared opponents shitless. Two white makes her annoying in 5c, but as I’m running Training Grounds in the jankier list, she feels much better once she lands. She could only get better if her first ability didn’t require a tap, and she was a single white.

(Janky Yes)Rathi Assassin: Fuck this card for having so many god damn black pips scrawled on it. But also, how many of your tutor on a stick cards also shoot the fuck out of annoying nonblack cards? Again, a card that could get exponentially better with Intruder Alarm shenanigans, but for now it’s barely keeping a spot in the jankier brew of the list, and only because I can count it as a tutor and a removal spell simultaneously.

Rathi Fiend: Mid.

Cateran Kidnappers: Mid.

Defiant Vanguard: Mid, but the destroy effect is kinda neat.

Blightspeaker: Cheap, and the ping for one every turn for free is a cute upside, but also mid.

Cateran Persuader: Cheap but mid.

Defiant Falcon: Cheap, but yes, also mid.

Cateran Brute: Mid.

Amrou Scout: Mid.

Ramosian Sergeant: Cheap, but mid.

Ramosian Lieutenant: You can guess this one.

Ramosian Commander: Kinda trash.

Skyshroud Poacher: If I’m running the Turntimber Ranger combos, this is actually kinda good. But I’d always rather have the Merfolk or Goblin options for Thassa’s Oracle or Dockside instead. Alternatively it can get you one of many elf mana dorks or some other dumb elfball pieces that I don’t really want to play in a deck called Gay Pirates. Or maybe Elves are thematically appropriate for that? Gay Pirate Elves? I dunno. (Update: I now have both an Elfball AND a Actual Pirate Tribal deck. Slay.)

Cateran Enforcer: Trash.

Ramosian Sky Marshal: Hot Garbage. These fucking Mercenary and Rebel cards just get worse the higher the curve, huh?

Cateran Slaver: It has swampwalk. Mid.

Cateran Overlord: It regenerates, and is a sac outlet, I guess. But then we all realize that regenerating taps the fucking creature so it can’t tap to tutor unless you want to jankily try to get the regenerate effect first and use the tutor on the stack. Mid AF.

On Underworld Breach:

Listen, I know Breach lines are good. Possibly some of the most consistent win con lines around, even. But while you’ll note I do play breach in my Garth lists, I have chosen to abstain from Underworld Breach here. (Update: Outside lists like the “Basic Bitch” brew.) Part of this is because Garth is a graveyard deck in some very specific aspects (having access to regrowth, using anger tech, etc.) But the other part of this is because of how prevalent Breach lines are. I’m finding that the meta is adapting somewhat to the knowledge that every single red list is going to be on Breach, and obviously Intuition, Brain Freeze, and Sevinne’s Reclamation if the deck dips blue or white. There are even multiple cards that see regular play these days to stop Breach – Drannith Magistrate and Dauthi Voidwalker. You’ll note I’m running both in some of the streamlined CEDH versions of this deck specifically as anti-Breach tech in addition to Deathrite Shaman.

Additionally, we’re seeing many decks jam cards like Grafdigger’s Cage or the newer Weathered Runestone that hit both Winota style effects and graveyard effects simultaneously. Hell, I’ve even seen Rest In Peace and Leyline of the Void make a comeback recently! (4x Voids and 4x Surgical Extractions in the sideboard brings me back to Hogaak Winter, baby!) If RIP is being played again in CEDH, we have to acknowledge that the meta is slowly reacting to things like Breach. In addition to pure Breach lines, relied on heavily in Rakdos and Grixis decks, we’re also seeing a surge of other graveyard lines in many popular decks, from Entomb/Reanimate shenanigans, to Necrotic Ooze (or the new Agatha’s Cauldron) style effects. I’ve been told by different people before that “Breach is too good not to run.” I’m still on the fence, largely because of how easy it is to fuck up or disrupt in many different ways. And since every single deck in white is going to be on Drannith Magistrate at least, the odds are beginning to shift back against graveyard strategies I think.

But again, other people can bicker about Breach until the sky falls. Black decks might start running Void or the like again just to troll. Win cons are a dime a dozen, and which ones are better mostly depends on your specific deckbuilding and your meta, so the idea of “the best” win con is somewhat of a myth in my eyes outside maybe Thassa’s Oracle. If most of my lines are Graveyard lines, I’ll probably be on Breach. If my deck is creature and artifact based, like this one, you can clearly see I’ve often abstained from Breach. Speed and efficiency will always be the deciding factors I find, but how that speed or efficiency takes advantage of a game state will often be very different in application or angle.

I built 19 decklists to prove a point about variety, flexibility, and width in Rainbow. So just do whatever the fuck you want. That’s the power of autonomy, baby!

On Winota and Najeela:

Winota is an immediate trap (sorry Koanos!) when you realize that most of our best combo pieces are often not humans, and our human count can vary widely depending on what package we choose to run in the 99. Additionally, naming everything as human just bricks your Winota triggers anyways. No, save Winota for the 99 of your janky Najeela brews and the like, or for more balanced tribal typed lists with enough humans and non humans.

Najeela on the other hand has been playtested in and out of this deck in many brews constantly. Being able to slap down a Conspiracy on Warrior and speed up Najeela’s natural 7 turn clock is VERY appealing, even without considering the variety of combo pieces she merits such as Derevi, Empyreal Tactician, or Grim Hireling and Professional Facebreaker, which also feed into the treasure synergies of the deck and lure us further into Najeela territory. For some of the jankier, glass cannon lists I did jam Najeela as part of the 99, as a consistent combat damage kill option if the normal variety of tribal combo lines are shut off somehow. But currently she’s been cut from the streamlined list, along with the Grim Hireling and Facebreaker. Unfortunately, I think they’re something to save for the treasure tribal variant, where she can better grind value with better rainbow fixing for activating her ability. (Update: They made it into SEVERAL decklists of Rukarumel!)

A final note, I am well aware that there are plenty of Najeela lines one can run these days, as many Sisay decks do. I won handily with Rebell’s Sisay Jegantha list way back in Season 1 of The Brewery for one of the CEDH specials, and you can definitely jam some of the lines I’ve also included in my Jodah Jegantha list that include Samut or Jegantha or the like. As I repeat constantly when discussing Rainbow magic, Rainbow is entirely customizable to your playstyle and favorite lines, so mix and match whatever lines, packages, or synergies you want as long as you can play them competently. Competence is the key for Rainbow magic.

Najeela and Derevi are pretty tasty cards though, and thinking about them makes me want to play my dumb “all-combat” Najeela and Rukarumel brews in the rotation again soon.

On Ad Nauseam, Necropotence, and Peer Into The Abyss:

These are very tough cards to talk about in the CEDH scenes and communities because people preach about these cards every which way as if they’re gospel. If you’re running a low curve list, even in Rainbow, can you run Ad Nauseam? Sure! I’m sure somebody out there has even coded an Ad Nauseam generator so you can easily determine whether your unique brew is low enough of a curve to justify it. Or you can pull the old classic practice of goldfishing it all out and seeing what your deck averages in terms of life paid per cards drawn. I generally dislike Ad Nauseam myself for multiple reasons, and actually much prefer Peer in many contexts!

Now, in fear of enraging the majority of the CEDH scene – I’m going to tell you that I don’t think Ad Nauseam is that great outside of spellslinger style decks that can use a mixture of rituals, fast mana, and other such low to the ground combo lines. The CEDH community as I’ve seen it has a habit of shoving it in every black deck as a value card when it might not do the best work it can. Decks that come to mind and can use it well include Rakdos, Dimir and Grixis Turbo lists, which are already famous for taking stupidly long turns with Ad Nauseam towards win attempts.

That being said, I’ve also seen SO MANY Ad Nauseam uses, especially in Rakdos, that literally go nowhere, while leaving the player at less than ten life, easy AF to knock out shortly afterwards when they burn out with nowhere else to go. I’m beginning to dislike these sorts of “all-in” strategies a lot in CEDH purely because they’re the most glass cannon of builds, in which you win the game or lose the game on the spot depending on how your Ad Nauseam resolves and the amount of countermagic you face. I’d much rather rely on lines that keep me in the game to grind midrange after somebody blows the Ad Nauseam out of the water with a counterspell or some such tech.

Inversely, I like Peer Into The Abyss a lot more, and not only because it often draws you half of your remaining deck rather consistently, unlike Ad Nauseam. It’s more pip intensive and rather expensive as far as mana goes, but I’ve seen far fewer Peer attempts miss than Ad Nauseam. Plus paying close to fifteen to twenty life on average is much better than dropping into the single digits for an easy elimination to your own damn mana crypt or such, as I’ve also seen dozens of times. I know that folks often have to choose between Peer and Ad Nauseam as Peer can be a nasty Ad Nauseam hit, but I tend to like consistency more than anything else, so my vote is firmly in the Peer camp, and really only for the decks with the rituals and acceleration to be able to rush it out and ensure it resolves.

Necropotence is an old favorite staple of mine in black, but while it’s much cheaper to cast than the other two outside of the heavy three black pipping, it still straddles the wall between Ad Nauseam and Peer Into The Abyss rather well. That’s largely due to the choice the player using it has, to either go full ham, pulling a full Ad Nauseam wannabe and paying something stupid like 30 life, or being more conservative and simply refilling your hand every turn to ensure a full 7 card grip. As we’ll repeat “Ad Nauseam” in this primer, I much prefer modality and choice of application for my cards rather than these fucking full header plays that can punt the game with a single unlucky Ad Nauseam outside of decks specifically built for it like Codie. (Update: And even then, ask me how many times I’ve gleefully crushed Codie players with even the slightest breeze of interaction. And somehow it’s on the CEDH Database over Izzet Malcolm? I want some of what those folks are smoking.)

Overall, I’ve made the choice to cut these three cards from many builds of Rukarumel entirely, as even in edge cases there are simply more reliable ways to get our combo pieces such as the enormous availability of tutor cards in Rainbow. A final note, these three black card advantage effects do also benefit from infinite hand size effects, as most of the time a player will pump their hand to 20+ cards only to have to carefully discard down at the end of the turn, to exile even – if using Necropotence. Not only does this tell your opponent exactly what lines you’re going for by the process of elimination, a simple Reliquary tower or some such card could ensure you get to fully keep the 15+ cards you worked for, rather than pitching most of them and keeping a more narrow win line with perhaps a piece of interaction in hand for the next turn.

Overall, for most Rainbow players I’d advise avoiding these – outside of ritual-laden spellslinger decks like Codie and similar Grixis Turbo bullshit. Stick to tutors or other card draw engines instead that don’t leave you immensely vulnerable to common factors in CEDH games like Kraum beats.

The Brass Tacks (AKA Mana Base, Rainbow Shell Pieces, Tutors, Counterspells, Removal, Etc.):

Okay… Let me tell you a common secret or two about Rainbow Magic… Rainbow has some of the widest range in terms of deck building flexibility. But also oddly the worst, simultaneously. What the fuck does that mean? Well friends, with increased card quality also comes a problem: Fewer flex spots for whatever packages, lines, or strategies your chosen 5c deck has to present. A great example of this are three specific cards from within the last year of Magic as of publication in good old 2023.

Orcish Bowmasters and The One Ring are already famous or infamous enough in many formats right now. The power creep on these Universes Beyond branded products has been fucking insane, to be honest. More recently, Talion, Kindly Lord has found a permanent home in most of my Rainbow lists in the 99 as a better and more reliable Rhystic Study. (What the actual fuck.) But business philosophy and ethics of game theory aside, what I can tell you is that many of my Rainbow lists that I currently run are on all of these three cards. When we talk about card advantage later on in this subsection, I’ll show you some real fucking degeneracy. I’m not a math major, so maybe somebody can annotate the exponent formulas here later or some shit for me.

Foreshadowing all that, many cards are simply too good not to run in the colors that have access to them. Rainbow is somewhat punished by this, because if we’re truly wanting competitive Magic and true CEDH challenge – we need to run the best of the best. As a result, despite the overall printing of new commanders over time, the overall CEDH “common card pool” will shrink as cards are out valued and outmaneuvered via power creep. (This kinda gets into game design shit, which will make this primer a fucking book on game design, so I’mma just let you google that shit. I have my own huffs against MaRo. [I want those hours of my life back from the Drive to Work Podcast back you son of a bitch!])

Jokes about WOTC aside, You can see what I mean when you realize that the prototype for the shell I use in most of my Rainbow lists is the same one. People think I’m fucking insane for having a 295 (Update: Sometimes over 800 or a thousand) card “considering” or “sideboard” pile, sure. But I started from the very same Garth One Eye list for all of them, the same damn Cockatrice live pile I’ve been playtesting various pieces or packages in for like three years now. It’s kind of like a living document, in a sense. Cool, eh? My landbases of fetches and OG duals, my common tutor suites and mana dorks, even the usual suspects for card advantage… Check my Moxfield – how many cards are even really different between my various Rainbow lists, at a quick glance? Which cards are so good that they become auto includes?

Moving on, my whole fucking reputation in the CEDH community is playing off-meta garbage brew bullshit that can still hang. Not that I really want any fucking rep in the CEDH community whatsoever due to all the bullshit that comes with it. STILL, I clearly have a Magic problem. I like 5c competitive EDH Rainbow Magic way too much. And while that presents a whole host of very obvious issues at play, it also means that sometimes I know what the fuck I’m talking about. And soon enough, a wider number of CEDH players will start to notice that power creep is enforcing new “rules” on their brewing due to some cards being “unforgivable” excludes. (Queue the constant Ad Nauseam bickering of the last decade…)

Let’s pray I don’t fall into the weeds on all these goddamn nuances of 5c play, like whether you should be running a One Ring in your deck. (You should be.)

Land & Mana Base (AKA Gas Makes Car Go Vroom.):

Hey, we all need life to live. And Rainbow needs a lot of very specific fucking mana to do pretty much anything. My need for more untapped rainbow lands is a mighty thirst that WOTC’s design team spits upon. And the clever bastards have gotten smarter at double or triple pipping everything so I can’t live my best degenerate 5c lifestyle. (Also, If one of those fucks from “Into The North” Blood Moons or Back To Basics me one more time, I swear to fucking god I’ll go play Skred in Modern again.)

I’m not going to add card screencaps in these sections to come simply for the sake of time, assuming folks will recognize many of these as common 5c staples in various brews over the years.

Untapped Rainbow Lands Vs. Fetches & OG Duals:

Ever since I first built Animar into a turbo French Duel Commander a decade ago, I’ve always known the power of untapped rainbow lands. From Tendo Ice Bridge to Gemstone Mine, I knew ‘em all. I think I was even on Meteor Crater or some such shit at one point. And that was in Temur, not even the Rainbow of my modern age! As the jankier version is much rougher on fixing due to the dual pipped shit I run in it, I may convert it to a mostly untapped rainbow landbase just to see how it feels and plays. The idea of avoiding Opposition Agents or Aven Mindcensors is kind of thrilling. (Update: Playtesting says yes, not having to give much of a fuck about Oppo, Aven, and Archivist has been great.)

Again, a math major can tell me what the “percentage of card draw” advantage fetches provide me as they deck thin to fix mana, and maybe I’ll make a decision based on what rough percentage of the meta is on anti-tutor effects once I know. Obviously a lot of people like Underworld Breach lines, which fetches help. But I feel the meta is adapting to how good Breach lines are with more hate, in addition to auto including Drannith Magistrate in every white list to shut Breach down. For now, I’ve followed the old wisdoms – bling out your deck with fetches and OG duals homies, fuck that monocolor poor person bullshit. (The joke here is that while I mostly own playsets of fetches and shocks, I don’t own a single non-proxy OG Dual.)

When I was prototyping Garth One Eye a year or two ago, I was lazier in my mana bases, in that I slapped all ten fetches and ten OG duals in there alongside some rainbow lands and called it a day. Will that work? Sure. Should I actually get off my ass and look at the Moxfield pip spreads and land pip production? Also yes. Do I keep cutting Scrubland and Plateau, only to have it fuck me almost immediately during playtesting? That’s a yes as well.

For sake of ease, we’re going to acknowledge that there are 20 fetches and OG duals total, 10 of each, which will form the majority of any Rainbow landbase, tuned to the specific pips your unique brew will have. That just leaves us the Rainbow lands to explore.

Rainbow Lands:

(Both)Command Tower: I hear this is a good card in 5c Commander.

(Both)Exotic Orchard: Remember that this is a dead card if you’re on the play. I’ve watched that fuck many people in my time playing CEDH, including myself.

(Both)Cavern of Souls: As a lover of Elemental Tribal in at least three or four formats, you would not BELIEVE how hard Cavern of Souls works for you in this fucking deck. If you cut it, you’re stupid. Don’t cut Cavern of Souls. Just make sure that the naming between any of your Conspiracy effects matches what you declared for the Cavern, then enjoy your one free rainbow mana counter-proof creature cast each turn. Forever.

(Streamlined Only)Forbidden Orchard: This thing gets much better when you can ping the spirits you give away with a Mayhem Devil or something. Alternate uses include: Creating blockers to trade with Najeela or Winota attackers, or bartering spirits with the deck that runs Skullclamp in exchange for consensual sexual favors. Please don’t give these to the other Gaea’s Cradle players. (But also, try to convince the other Forbidden Orchard players to feed your own Gaea’s Cradle, of course.)

(Both)Gemstone Caverns: I don’t need to tell you that this thing is an auto include in every Rainbow deck, right? Not only can it give you the ability to play Turn 0 bullshit, it fixes your mana for you, duh.

Aether Hub: A one-use rainbow land. Mid.

Ancient Ziggurat: Creature only Rainbow mana, I’d only consider it if the jankier lists push 35-40+ creatures. And some lists pushing 41+ creatures do include this or other card or creature type specific rainbow generation.

City of Brass: I like it, especially as it gets around Yasharn unlike Mana Confluence. I do dislike that it sucks in the Ob Nixilis matchup though, and attracts beats since you’re already on Black.

Mana Confluence: Same as City of Brass, mostly, but gets shut off by stax effects like Yasharn.

Gemstone Mine: I’ve really come back to Gemstone Mine over the years, largely because it’s just so reliable in the first three turns of the game or so. However, without any land synergies like Crucible of Worlds or the like in this deck, it usually ends up cut for more fetches and OG Duals for sake of ease.

Lotus Field: This ain’t fucking Twiddle storm, get that shit out of here.

Lotus Vale: Come on, this is even worse than the previous one.

Mirrex: A one-use Rainbow land when it enters, and a colorless one that can pump out 1/1 Toxic keyworded mites after that? Due to how much I like manlands, (Thank OG U/G Infect in Modern) I really want to include this for some of the cuter tech, and have in some of the jankier glass cannon brews. But also, any Rainbow deck that relies on the Infect mechanic for kills in CEDH is suspicious AF. Does feed the Aura Shards and Harmonic/Necrotic Sliver I’ve been slotting in and out during playtesting in different brews, though!

Path of Ancestry: Okay, okay, hold up. I know you’re not gonna agree with me on this one… But while it’s currently cut from the better lists, just remember that with any Conspiracy effect it means you get to scry 1 on every single turn you can cast a creature. Plus it’s also a rainbow generating land, so… Rainbow tapland. As much as I do like it, let’s call it mid for now. Some decks can abuse this puppy better than others.

Reflecting Pool: Listen, in formats like Modern where you can run Rainbow lands as 4-ofs, I really do like Reflecting Pool. In these CEDH-minded brews, where you’re likely to be running mostly fetches and OG duals? Well, the value decreases dramatically the fewer Rainbow lands you run together. Critical mass and all that. So yes, as with all the others… Despite being an untapped rainbow land at best, mid.

Secluded Courtyard: I like the… Ideas for these? But the same problem occurs with these as with Ancient Ziggurat – they’re restricted to paying for creature spells, which means they only fuel about a third of your entire deck at best. At least they can tap for colorless and this one can pay for abilities, I guess? I only run these in the more Tribe centric brews.

Unclaimed territory: This is the “We have Secluded Courtyard at home” joke.

Tarnished Citadel: Fuck, I still run this semi-frequently. Never call a person who willingly takes a bolt to the face for untapped rainbow mana a coward. This is playable in many Rainbow lists for a very good reason, the same as when I played it in Animar around a decade ago to ensure T1 and T2 Animar drops. (Which speaks to the speed of the competitive commander game when a decade ago a T1 Animar was GREAT, and now Thassa’s Oracle alone can threaten T1 and T2 wins…)

Tendo Ice Bridge: Yes, charge counters are still a thing. No, I’m not sure if there’s really a way to break charge counters outside of proliferate bullshit or maybe some ancient secret artifact tech from OG Mirrodin block, which I missed almost entirely until my EDH days. Treat it like any other one-use Rainbow land and be thankful Kamigawa even had this shit for fixing back in the day.

The Mycosynth Gardens: Okay, the notion of dropping a Mana Crypt and this thing turn one and having four colorless mana on T2 is kind of fucking dope. But while it does act as a generic colorless producer, it’s a filter land for Rainbow where it counts. Unfortunately, I don’t think the artifact tech is strong enough to justify it over one of the better Rainbow lands or fetches/Duals. Sounds like a colorless all-star though! (Update: Made it into the artifact brews!)

Murmuring Bosk: This definitely isn’t a true Rainbow land, entering tapped most of the time and only producing three of the five types of mana we need. The reason I’ve included it here, and in certain Rainbow lists, is because it’s often missed as a fetchable land, holding the “Forest” tag for both green fetchlands as well as Three Visits, Nature’s Lore, etc. That means you can use this thing to fix better than an OG dual land in some specific cases, pain for White and Black mana notwithstanding. Additionally, in brews that run Treefolk Harbinger or the various Changeling cards, this can actually enter untapped more than one might think. (ESPECIALLY in the Changeling brew of Rukarumel!)

Sliver Hive: A Sliver specific rainbow land, which means at best it can only pay for a third of your deck, and that’s IF you have a Conspiracy effect on Slivers already. (Note to self: Build a Sliver specific Rukarumel build.) However, this card does shine in that it has an overcosted ability to pump out 1/1 Slivers if you control another Sliver already for five colorless. Plus it can just tap for colorless without any other hassle. All of this means that while I don’t touch this card in any of the streamlined brews, some of the Rukarumel decklists with large numbers of slivers, changelings, or Skullclamp and Token synergies might run this, simply because having extra effects on Rainbow lands is something I’m always super into.

Ally Encampment: Same pros and cons of Sliver Hive, except for Ally creature typed cards this time. It does have a neat bounce ability that requires a single mana, a tap, and a sac of the land, I guess? I think I’d rather run a land like Riptide Laboratory than this or Sliver Hive, but in the Changeling and other lists that run can cards that support Ally tribal or Turntimber Ranger combos. Paying for only a third of the deck’s cards is pretty rough in Rainbow lists, even with colorless untapped mana as a baseline.

Gallifrey Council Chamber: Hey look! A carbon copy of Ally Encampment and Sliver Hive and such that Surveils on ETB! Perfectly meh. I think I’m only running this and other similar cards in the Changeling Tribal brews that can support such silly, janky lands. I’ve been interested in some of the “Time Lord” or “Doctor” Dr. Who Universes Beyond Tribal cards, but most aren’t good or cheap enough to justify in any of the decklists, really.

Haven of the Spirit Dragon: Same as the others above for dragon types, save this one can recur creature cards from graveyard if you have a Conspiracy effect active that hits Dragon cards. Another meh card outside Changeling heavy builds.

Primal Beyond: One of the OG brands of these types of cards, this time for the Elemental tribe. (Which also has Flamekin Village for red mana and haste in the tribe, I guess?) No additional abilities outside of colorless mana or fixing for Elementals specifically make this card a cut in most Rukarumel lists aside from the Changeling ones, especially when it enters tapped without an elemental type in your hand. (Seeing a pattern here with these cards? They’re kind of a trap!)

Glimmervoid: Unlike the tribal-heavy Rainbow lands, Glimmervoid is one of the old Modern format affinity cards that sees play in some 4c or Rainbow artifact-based lists. It becomes a little more reliable the more artifact lands you run in a given decklist, as that sacrifice effect can be preyed upon by savvy opponents otherwise. Obviously this only sees play in my artifact or Treasure heavy brews of Rukarumel that can curve out its’ reliability.

Spire of Industry: Same as Glimmervoid, but trading the intense force-sacrifice effect for a Rainbow pain land that requires an artifact in play to use. Better than Glimmervoid for sure. Definitely an auto-include in artifact and treasure heavy lists. An easy cut otherwise.

Treasure Vault: This technically isn’t a rainbow land, I should note. But it can produce treasures that DO crack for Rainbow mana. Most of the time this card won’t see play in many of my Rainbow lists that aren’t heavy into the artifact synergies and can use or count the artifact typing on both the land and treasures for various boons. However, there is one exception – and that’s when you’re running Kinnan lines or other common CEDH lines that can produce infinite colorless mana. All of a sudden this mediocre untapped colorless artifact land skyrockets in value, allowing for infinite treasures, and thus – infinite Rainbow mana. Thus, I’d advise only running it in artifact heavy brews, or brews with Kinnan and the like that can use it as a sink for colorless mana somehow.

Mines of Moria: Similar to Treasure Vault, this thing has a pretty high barrier to entry as a red only land. Not only does it have that annoying clause about entering untapped with Legendary creatures, same as the rest of the cycle, first you need cards in your bin to even use it to generate Rainbow mana via the treasures it creates. Again, I’d only rock this in an artifact or treasure heavy brew, despite the appeal of it feeding Magda lines and the like. Maybe mono-red decks will want this? I dunno.

Others: Fuck ‘em.

Utility or Colorless Lands:

Something a buddy said to me stuck with me a while back, this CEDH wunderkinden I know named Hammond – that Otawara and Boseiju are must-includes in any list that can run them. A year later, I’m inclined to agree. I’ve also really leaned into the use of utility lands for the jankier of my strange Conspiracy brews, as there are some tech pieces that are frankly stupid in some contexts.

Same labelling as before:

(Both)Ancient Tomb: I’ve cut this thing from my Rainbow lists so many times, but unfortunately the ability to ramp out 3-4 drops on turn 1-2 is just too good to ignore. Yes it draws aggro in a Black deck. But yes, it’s still worth it for that turn 1 Arcane Signet or Fellwar Stone.

(Both)Boseiju, Who Endures: The king of 2023 stax removal! This puppy costs almost nothing most of the time, and while yes it does gift your opponent a shock land or dual, the ability to hold up Instant speed, cheap removal that can’t be countered by anything other than a fucking stifle (which almost nobody plays anymore) is… Incredible. This is one of those Rainbow “auto include” cards that make playing diverse Rainbow lists and land bases harder and harder every year. Just don’t use it against a deck that plays the Ghostly Flicker and Mystic Sanctuary extra turns loops, I guess?

(Both)Otawara, Soaring City: Otawara being able to hit your own creatures as well as remove annoying stax pieces or combo cards from the board makes it better than Boseiju in some aspects, but the 4 mana cost makes it a little worse in others, even with the Legendary Creature reduction. Still, I run these fucking things in every single deck that can fit them in the color identity of blue. Double Docksides are always sick AF, after all. And you should already know how I feel about lands that also fill additional roles in a given deck like removal or such! They’re great!

(Both)Cavern of Souls: I’ve mostly covered this up in the Rainbow lands, but hey, uncounterable shit is always dope in a format where Blue is one of the strongest colors! Plus Rainbow tribal fixing is just a bonus, honestly. This should be in every Rukarumel deck you ever build.

(Both)Gaea’s Cradle: As with most creature decks, Gaea’s Cradle scales better and better the more shit you can land successfully onto your board. While there ARE some cute Legendary Tribal synergies and lines you can run, Gaea’s Cradle is just a good mana accelerator, so much so that it deserves an inclusion in almost every creature-heavy green deck. It’s hard not to want to include Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and the various Ashaya lines with a Cradle in any given list, but I’ve resisted thus far!

(Both)Inventors’ Fair: Gaining one life a turn is mediocre, as is only tapping for colorless. And, we’re not on Ad Nauseam or Peer Into The Abyss in most builds to care enough about life anyways. But an artifact tutor for 4 mana on a land is a fucking godsend to a deck that uses artifacts to combo in most of the Magda and some of the Malcolm lines. Noice. Very noice. Add or remove it based on your own artifact lines and thresholds.

(Both)The World Tree: I already covered the game winning combo it can get you up above, so I’ll be brief. A tapland that produces green mana, and then fixes you for rainbow mana at six lands and up is already neat enough. But in a deck where it can tutor every creature onto the battlefield? It becomes the most busted land in the deck outside of Cavern of Souls! I have won many games with this card because opponents aren’t looking closely at my land base, and by the time I’m naming “Praetor” or “God” on a Conspiracy effect for this or Realmbreaker, it’s already too late to stop sans a stifle.

(Both)Urza’s Saga: I’m always watching how many colorless mana producing lands I include in my 5c Rainbow builds. Mana fixing can get dicey if one is too greedy. And I am often indeed, too greedy. But Urza’s Saga has legitimately won me games with pure beats in this deck. In addition to tutoring both Universal Automaton AND Runed Stalactite directly to the battlefield for combos, the scalable artifact beaters it creates often become stupidly big in a deck full of Treasure generating effects like Dockside, Smothering Tithe, or the like. And hey, it can grab you a Mana Crypt or Mox Opal or such at worst, right?!

Academy Ruins: While the ability to recur shit in most Rukarumel lists from graveyard is actually pretty shitty, ESPECIALLY artifacts… Only tapping for colorless mana makes this a tough inclusion. Honestly, the lack of Graveyard tech is one of the things this deck suffers from in the longer-game, preferring extra wincons especially in the glass cannon builds in lieu of any real recursion. I do really like the idea of running a Volrath’s Stronghold for the eventual Thassa’s Oracle snap win from graveyard, with an empty deck, though. And I guess these cards can give you a smidge of anti Brain Freeze protection?

Heliod’s Hall of Generosity: Same exact problem as Academy Ruins, but with fewer relevant targets to recur in the deck. Granted the enchantments we do play are mostly fucking bangers.

Volrath’s Stronghold: Volrath’s Stronghold and Academy Ruins are probably the two recursion lands most inclined to be included here, as most of our wincons are a mixture of creature and artifact cards. But as always, colorless mana generating lands in Rainbow decks is a bit grimace-worthy unless the archetypes you’ve chosen can really use it well.

Command Beacon: We have so many often-cheaper backup Conspiracy effects in this deck that we have no fucking need for this thing. Rukarumel is merely a combo piece in the command zone, most of the time. So unless we’re getting value or winning the game with her, she’ll sit in the command zone most of the time already.

(Sometimes!)Minamo, School At Water’s Edge: Okay, so I HAVE been including this card into many, many brews. Not only does it untap Gaea’s Cradle and give pseudo-vigilance to your Legendary creatures, it breaks The One Ring almost as hard as Aphetto Alchemist. One game I managed to land The One Ring, Aphetto Alchemist, AND Minamo at the same time, and within 2-3 turns I had drawn most of my deck. I really want to include this back in, because it DOES produce blue mana and enters untapped. But the demands of 5c mana bases are pretty rough, so it’s one of those “borderline include” cards right now, enjoying spots in the lists with more than just The One Ring to abuse.

Cephalid Coliseum: I do really like Cephalid, even though it’s a untapped one color pain land that requires Threshold to use well. But I’ve also seen this land blow out Thassa’s Oracle wins, fill Graveyards for Breaches, and other such neat lines. So while it’s too narrow for our use here, I do really stand by it in blue 2-3 or monocolor lists. It’s one of those gotcha cards that REALLY shines when it works.

Dryad Arbor: Mid unless you’re running Green Sun’s Zenith. Note how most of our combo pieces are colorless artifacts, or red/blue pirates and dwarves? Yeah…

Eiganjo, Seat of The Empire: A good removal ability, but too contextual and only generating white mana makes it a tough inclusion due to the heavier reliance of Rainbow upon Sultai colors over the Boros ends of the deck, although it’s more likely than the red equivalent.

Flamekin Village: Having haste with certain combos in certain lines of some builds actually does do some good work. And while it only makes red mana, you can sometimes cheat it in untapped, especially if you’re running Risen Reef and Flamekin Harbinger shenanigans. I want this card to be better than it is, as I fucking love land utility, but even cards like Rhythm of the Wild do more work by making our Turntimber lines faster and protecting them simultaneously. The other haste lands are worse in that most only tap for colorless, too.

Homeward Path: Are you finding that you get Gilded Draked a lot? Well, that’s like the one reason to run this, I guess. I’ve cut it in and out depending on the meta I run into. But every time it hurts a little as another colorless land in a Rainbow deck. As somebody who loves colorless almost as much as Rainbow, it’s like oil and water, you know? Great separately, but they tend not to mix well other than superficially outside artifact heavy lists.

Boseiju, That Shelters All: This only really protects your tutors, counterspells, and Thassa’s Oracle wincons. And it costs too much damn life for just colorless mana. While I like how much anti-counter tech this deck has access to, another colorless land is tough for the mana base. I’d rather have this in my Talion Dimir brews or the like where it can do consistent work. I’m surprised it doesn’t see more consistent play in decks like Grixis Turbo Naus that need key cards to resolve no matter what, but seeing as those decklists are often even greedier than even my greedy AF deckbuilding tendencies… Meh?

(Sometimes!)Mutavault: Okay, so Mutavault was actually a staple in this deck up until recently in several brews. Mostly it was because it could pump Malcolm, and Magda triggers for a single mana. As I’m also on Cryptolith Rites and a few other rainbow fixing cards, there were some cute tech pieces I could do with it for extra value or fixing. Unfortunately with fixing the pips and doing analysis on mana generation, it became another casualty of rainbow fixing in most decklists. I do want to find a cut to get it back in, as having more reliable Malcolm or Magda triggers is always useful, as is filtering colorless mana into Rainbow mana in various ways.

Riptide Laboratory: Originally, I included this purely to give myself the ability to bounce Rukarumel or other important Changelings to my hand, either to reset the Conspiracy effect to a new type, or to dodge removal. I might still playtest it in the glass cannon or treasure builds, especially if it can do dumb double Docksides and the like. But for now it’s cut as yet another colorless land, even in many glass cannon brews. (Update: Some Rukarumel lists are indeed running it now!)

Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth: These are mono-color lands that fix everybody. While I like that they can make awkward lands like Ancient Tomb or Fetches under Opposition Agent better, helping opponents is rarely a good thing. I’m also not running much “Forest” tech to make it a worthwhile inclusion. It’s more for Gaea’s Cradle shenanigans and the like in mono green.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Same problems as Yavimaya. Unless you’re doing Cabal Coffers bullshit or other such strategies, (and why would you be in 5c?) It’s often useless and at times helps your opponents mana fix.

Treasure Vault: We covered this a bit already. Currently I’m not running Treasure Vault in many of my lists. While one can argue that it “technically” makes Rainbow mana, which we like, and generates Treasures, which we also like, being a colorless mana generator most of the time is a downside, as is sadly the artifact typing, due to the prevalence of cards like Collector Ouphe. Aphetto Alchemist isn’t enough to save this one. If I hadn’t just cut my Kinnan lines from several playtest lists recently, I might have considered it. But I’d be annoyed to have to find three cuts for a Kinnan, Basalt, and Treasure Vault. So it’ll probably stay out until I jam Intruder Alarm loops or some such bullshit to break Rukarumel’s sliver generation ability. (Update: I’ve covered pretty much every build by now, as per the 19 decklists up top.)

Mystic Sanctuary: We’re not really running Ghostly Flicker or Extra Turns spells in this deck. Nor do we have the intense island-heavy land base to have it enter untapped outside our few OG duals. So while yes it is a fetchable Island, let’s keep this to the Azorius and Simic turns decks, shall we?

Animal Sanctuary: A colorless untapped land that can pump your creatures of VERY specific types with +1/+1 counters for three mana? Save this one for the Changeling lists and similar builds that can support it. Also fucks your mana fixing, so very meh.

Contested Cliffs: Now, the “Beast” tribe actually does have some pretty cute cards, despite the WOTC design team abandoning the tribe since the mid or early aughts. This is one of them of note. For Gruul mana and this land tapped, you can make one of your beast type creatures (Changelings most of the time) fight something. While normally I’d be pretty mid on this effect, as Arena exists as a land card on it’s own… In changeling builds this counts as more removal in your land base, which I’m a fan of, even if it fucks your Rainbow fixing. Plus it taps for colorless, which Arena doesn’t do.

Elephant Graveyard: A colorless untapped land that can save your Changelings from removal is okay I guess, although you know what I’m going to say about Rainbow mana fixing already… Plus most CEDH creature removal is via things like bounce effects or exile effects ranging from Swords To Plowshares to Chain of Vapor. So another mid card outside of Changeling brews.

Seaside Haven: Now, a Bird Tribal land with an identical costing style and colorless generation to Contested Cliffs that can sacrifice Bird creatures for cards is intriguing to say the least. But again, you’ll find that most of these super Tribe specific lands I’m only running in my Changeling build for a reason.

Swarmyard: While a wider typing niche than the aforementioned Elephant Graveyard in terms of what it protects, it suffers all the same ups and downs as that synonym land. Thus, you know what I’m going to say about it if you’re not on a heavy Changeling brew…

Unholy Grotto: This thing pitches Zombies back to your topdeck for slightly cheaper than Volrath’s Stronghold. But in most cases outside Zombie or Changeling Tribal specifically, Volrath’s Stronghold is just better because it hits all creatures without any hoops to jump. If you’re considering this land because you need more rescursion in your Rukarumel or Tribal decklists, I’d advise running Volrath’s instead as the better card that can also integrate with some cute Legendary tech stuff.

Wirewood Lodge: A classic Elfball combo piece, Wirewood lodge benefits from running key combo elves, as well as abusing certain Changeling untap effects. It craves Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, or Quirion Ranger/Wirewood Parasite. You can also do some pretty neat things with cards like Amoeboid Changeling and the like, for example. Obviously being a colorless untapped land is a negative, and if a given Tribal decklist isn’t running enough Elf or Changeling support, this quickly becomes a rather useless card outside of “gotcha” blocking in combat perhaps.

Mount Doom: I’m VERY interested in Mount Doom. Which might seem strange for a Legendary Rakdos pain land. However, while the mana generation abilities are mediocre at best, the other two abilities stapled to this land are where it truly shines – as you know already of my love for lands that fill multiple niches or needs in a deck. The second ability – four mana (including the Mount Doom itself tapping) to do one damage to each opponent is usually pretty mediocre as well unless you’re rocking a Seedborn Muse or similar effect. The exception is against meta decks that abuse things like Ad Nauseam, Peer Into the Abyss, Sylvan Library, and the like. Often, Turbo Naus players will jam themselves right down to single digit life totals, and with a helpful Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, or the various Black Tutors that can whittle down that life total even more, Mount Doom has provided me a clock against these sorts of decks more than once if they can’t immediately get there! But the second ability is ALSO rather insignificant when compared to the third and final ability, the true Coup De Grace. For a stupid amount of mana, and the extra cost of sacrificing both the land itself and a legendary artifact, you can choose two creatures to survive and then wipe the rest off the board! A board wipe on a land is why I’m interested in this card most of all, although the need for a Mox Opal, Mox Amber, The One Ring, or the like makes it a fairly hard cost to guarantee. As of now, I’m running it in my artifact heavy brews of Rukarumel that can support the heavy Legendary artifact sacrifice cost for the third ability. I’m hoping that with enough consistency in the 99 for such, Mount Doom with a Crop Rotation or the like can provide a consistent board wipe in the land base, allowing me to cut cards like Toxic Deluge, etc. from some lists.

Artifact Lands: As you can see by my various decklists, I’m only running these in the Artifact and Treasure heavy builds of Rukarumel that have additional kill conditions like Nettlecyst or Cranial Plating on Rukarumel to provide the ability to kill with commander damage. They also help pump some cute OG play patterns like Prototype Portal dumping a free land every turn (especially with like 15-20 artifact lands now available to imprint on it!) Add an Unwinding clock or the like for even stupider value grinding.

Alchemist’s Refuge: Playing at Flash speed can be very important, as the veteran players who have played against decks like Shimmer Myr Zur in the past can attest to. Being able to snap win at instant speed on top of your opponent’s win attempts will ALWAYS be useful. The problem is slotting enough Flash enablers into the right lists that can actually win at instant speed. The printing and addition of Progenitor’s Icon as both a Rainbow Rock for fixing that also provides Tribal-Specific Flash really pushes out the old staple land options for Flash that I still run even in my 2023 Animar lists (which can win at Instant speed quite easily via creature combos.) The “Instant” Tribal version of Rukarumel runs these sort of Flash lands in addition to the Icon, but as ever – Rainbow players need to be VERY careful that they don’t fuck up their Rainbow Mana fixing with too many colorless sources outside of artifact heavy colorless brews. Overall, Alchemist’s Refuge and Emergence Zone are the better of the three due to giving most of your spells Flash, whereass Winding Canyons only hits creatures.

Winding Canyons: Untapped and colorless-generating – if we weren’t in Rainbow, I might run this in more of my decklists. Especially so when we consider how heavy into creature combo winlines Rukarumel is by default. But only hitting creatures makes this land slightly worse than the other two options of Alchemist’s Refuge and Emergence Zone.

Emergence Zone: One mana and a crack isn’t bad to play at Flash speed for the rest of the turn. Many CEDH decks do sneak this thing in to provide themselves more opportunities for jumping on a win out of nowhere. Still, while better than Winding Canyons, I’d rather have Alchemist’s Refuge over Emergence Zone, as it costs more and requires more mana fixing, but sacrifices less overall.

Others: Yeah yeah, I know how many tribal lands there are. But this primer is already pushing 40k words, (Update: Way more than that now) so we have to crop the edges somewhere, right? Feel free to have your own discourse in your local playgroups about the best janky tech-tribal utility lands, okay? Or just look at the specific decklists for suggestions or possible includes. Maybe I’ll come back and add more to this later, on yet another pass. Who knows.

Mana Dorks & Mana Rocks:

I’m torn! A deck with so many Treasure generating permanents seems to want to lean into these broken little WUBRG generators. (Update: See the Token Tribal and Treasure Tribal lists for more.) But simultaneously, a well-tutored Collector Ouphe WILL then subsequently make you cry salty tears. This deck really struggles against artifact stax for obvious reasons. As a sort of compromise, I’ve included lots of the fast mana rocks, as well as a plethora of Rainbow mana generating dorks as best I can manage to try and fill the gaps and dodge various hate pieces via diversification. At least in the more streamlined builds. One of the issues I’ve run into with this is that once you’ve already established your board and pushed into the midrange game, Mana Rocks and Mana Dorks, as well as lands become rather dead draws unless you have a Survival of The Fittest or similar to pitch them to.

Thus, while in early builds I leaned heavily into Treasure generating permanents, especially ones with other intercrossed CEDH wincons, in more recent brews I’ve backed away from Treasure somewhat. Part of this might be the sheer amount of fucking stax I find myself playing into on the Cockatrice side of the CEDH discord sometimes, often with 2-3 staxx decks frequent in a pod in addition to the auto include pieces one runs in most upscaled 5c Rainbow brews these days such as Drannith Magistrate, Opposition Agent, and Dauthi Voidwalker. Perhaps this is because stax is often much cheaper to build in paper, and subsequently newer players might find it as a good inroad into CEDH play when making the leap from casual EDH? I don’t know. I just know that Magda, Malcolm, and the like fold to Treasure hate pretty hard and only the jankier glass cannon brews can pivot around such hate pieces easily, whereas the streamlined build struggles. Magda does love her treasures, though! Sandbagging a Smothering Tithe for a couple rotations whilst holding a Magda in the hand for when you have 10+ treasures can lead to easy wins if your opponents don’t know the deck’s play lines.

Mana Rocks:

(Most)Progenitor’s Icon: A brand new Caves of Ixalan card, this is a three mana Rainbow rock that declares a creature type when it hits the field. Tapping the rock lets you cast your next tribal creature type of the named kind as if it had flash, suddenly opening up several instant speed possibilities that weren’t available to Tribal decks prior. I absolutely love cards that fill multiple niches. This checks both Tribal support AND Rainbow mana production/fixing.

(Both)Chrome Mox: Free, fast Rainbow mana is worth its weight in gold in most 5c decks, and Chrome Mox scales somewhat better in terms of fixing, the more dual-color cards you run in any given brew. Trust me, it feels really good in the janky brew to toss a Sliver Overlord and have a T1 Rainbow mana rock for zero mana. Prepare for Chrome Mox jokes regarding card assessment for the rest of this fucking primer. Sorry, I guess?

(Streamlined Only)Lotus Petal: Having a piece of Rainbow fast mana is rather important, but Lotus Petal does become a bit of a dead draw late game as with most rocks. I’ve kept it in the streamlined CEDH builds for faster starts and fixing. But the deck isn’t on Underworld Breach as discussed before, so… Eh? *insert shrug here*

(Both)Mana Crypt: Do we really need to ask why we play Mana Crypt as an inclusion in almost every single CEDH deck? Aphetto Alchemist just juices it even more. Just pray your flips are lucky!

(Both)Mox Diamond: Speedy Rainbow fixing is worth its weight in gold! Remember? Long live Mox Diamond.

(Both)Mox Opal: While sometimes you do see the sad, stranded Mox Opal early in the game, a deck with so many Treasure cards would be loath to avoid a Rainbow mana rock for zero mana, surely? Running both The One Ring and Mox Opal makes me want to try playtesting Mount Doom… (Update: Pretty fucking funny thus far!)

(Both)Mana Vault: This is actually kind of questionable in many 5c decks, and many of my brews don’t run it due to pip intensity across the Rainbow. However, with cards like Aphetto Alchemist to pair with, it gets very good, very quick. Well worth an include if you’re running certain key Magda pieces.

(Both)Sol Ring: Another auto include in most CEDH and EDH decks. Also capable of being abused somewhat with Aphetto Alchemist. Why hasn’t the RC banned this piece of shit already to promote deck diversity across EDH? They murder Golos – but leave Dockside Extortionist, Underworld Breach, Sol Ring, and Thassa’s Oracle untouched?! I want whatever the RC is smoking… I mean, jokes aside – RIP Sheldon, of course. But I fundamentally still disagree with many of his beliefs about the EDH and CEDH formats and associated banlist approaches, which are undoubtedly lingering across the RC and affect the format heavily even now.

(Both)Arcane Signet: Fixing is important, so the deck does lean heavily on Arcane Signet for those speedy Ancient Tomb, Mana Crypt, and Mana Vault starts. While Fellwar can be hit and miss, Arcane Signet is the new “Sol Ring of 5c,” you could say.

(Streamlined Only)Fellwar Stone: The streamlined decks do often run Fellwar for sake of acceleration speed. But it’s dead if you’re on the play, and has all the same drawbacks as Exotic Orchard, obviously.

(Both)Clock of Omens: Not technically a mana rock, I’ve often found that Clock of Omens can serve as an excellent way of either storing or multiplying your mana stores. With the large number of Treasure generators in the deck, your regular mana rocks can be used multiple times a turn while saving the Treasures for use on a later turn, in addition to all the combo shenanigans it enables alongside Magda. Don’t count out dropping an early Clock of Omens alongside some mana rocks and watching it churn away happily for you. (Update: One of the most busted things you can do with Treasure heavy brews that also run The One Ring is to use your treasures and other artifact tokens from Myrel, Mirrex, etc, for Clock of Omen activations on The One Ring. Between Clock of Omens, Aphetto Alchemist, and Minamo, not even counting all the artifact tech available, I’ve frequently used The One Ring to draw 50+ cards in a single turn before. Just beware of Collector Ouphe, Null Rod, and Stony Silence!)

Basalt Monolith: I’ve been playtesting Kinnan lines every so often. Currently they’re cut in and out depending on the brew, but the additional synergies between Basalt Monolith and cards like Clock of Omens and Aphetto Alchemist do have me pondering new rounds of playtesting in some brews.

Grim Monolith: This thing has the same boons and problems as both Mana Vault and Basalt Monolith. Glad I made money off mine back in the day! Aphetto Alchemist makes this thing WAY better, but unfortunately Rainbow-heavy 5c decks outside of artifact brews don’t really need intense colorless acceleration, they need Rainbow fixing more reliably. Maybe a treasure build can break it better.

Lion’s Eye Diamond: This thing is much worse in decks without Underworld Breach lines. Like a lot worse. I know it’s a bit of a cheeky trap, in that it’s a zero mana rock that taps for a lot of Rainbow, but don’t be fooled – it’s often absolutely useless in decks that don’t benefit immensely by immediately just running everything out and dumping the Lion’s Eye into their commander after the hand is played to board. And pitching my beautiful hand drawn from the amazing 5c 99 for a Rukarumel feels fucking horrid in this deck. You should only see it in my more Underworld Breach or Treasure-heavy lines.

Signets: I mean, yeah. You can run them. Sure. I balanced many of my builds out between rocks and dorks to avoid getting completely blown out by Collector Ouphes or Cursed Totems 50/50, but if you want to double down to artifact town, you could build your Rukarumel deck that way too.

Ashnod’s Altar, Phyrexian Altar, KCI, Etc: Many of the traditional Conspiracy loops from a decade ago run these sorts of aristocrat-like “sacrifice for mana” effects. I considered expanding on some of the classic graveyard aristocrats lines like Nim Deathmantle and the like in this primer, but ultimately had to acknowledge that this isn’t the best graveyard list (Update: Although I DO now have a Sacrifice Loop build of Rukarumel at the top.) Xathrid Necromancer, Bishop of Wings, and Rotlung Reanimator are some of the cards that all go infinite with any board-based Conspiracy Effect plus a sacrifice outlet. Unfortunately, these sorts of lines are a bit bloated for CEDH, and often too colorless-heavy, so I’ve mostly cut them entirely for core combo support. (Update: Outside the Sacrifice Loop decklist specifically.) The idea of tapping an Ashnod’s Altar for something with a Clock of Omens is kind of cute.

Cloudstone Curio: Specifically, we’re talking about the various Dockside Extortionist, or Bloom Tender plus haste lines that can generate infinite mana when we talk about Cloudstone Curio loops. I WAS on Cloudstone in early brews of the deck, both to be able to reset Rukarumel’s named type, but also to abuse the ETB effects like Imperial Recruiter and the like. As I cut more and more ETB effects to try and dodge Torpor Orb blowouts, the Cloudstone eventually got cut too, even with Dockside being so phenomenal with it. However, I’ve been curious about revisiting Cloudstone Curio in some of my Garth lists to double down on ETB shenanigans. (Update: There is now an ETB and Flicker based Rukarumel Decklist, available at the very top.)

Realmbreaker, The Invasion Tree: Technically, Realmbreaker DOES ramp you mana by stealing your opponents’ lands. Not only does this mean you can possibly fix your mana a little from an entirely colorless card and its colorless effect, but it slots into the same win con lines as The World Tree without requiring double WUBRG to crank. While I ran this in many lists for a long time, I’ve only recently cut it from some simply because the ramp effect isn’t quite good enough mana acceleration or fixing to justify a card that only matters when you have ten mana and a Conspiracy effect, most of the time. The artifact brews feature it sometimes, alongside that sweet sweet Mount Doom. Having an Unwinding Clock, Clock of Omens, or other artifact untap and cost reducer effects to use it multiple times a rotation definitely makes it much better!

Mox Amber: Pretty specific in use, this thing only manages to make it into the lists that can guarantee mana generation from it. Or lists I’m trying to make Mount Doom work in. Overall, I’m pretty meh on this card, as it can be amazing in the right T1 or T2 hand, and a completely dead card that feeds Docksides the rest of the time.

Collector’s Vault: A looting effect for 4 mana is pretty mediocre. HOWEVER… This thing is a colorless artifact that produces a treasure on each loot, meaning it serves as a Rainbow mana fixing piece in addition to turning over cards in your hand. Unfortunately, the 4 colorless cost to get the first treasure and loot means this has mostly been relegated to the artifact and treasure brews, where token doubling effects and the like can get more value from cards like this.

Dragon’s Hoard: Another Rainbow rock that only gets really good in a deck with changelings or other such tech that can abuse the card draw effect. Right now it’s only included in the Changeling heavy lists that can really get a lot of value from it.

Amulet of Vigor: Not directly a source of mana, Amulet of Vigor is one of those corner case cards that allows your taplands and the like to gain some faster tempo. Sadly, I’ve only found places for this in the artifact heavy brews utilizing a lot of indestructible artifact taplands. I guess it can also be one of those corner case cards to get out from certain stax effects like Root Maze, Archon of Emeria, two Thalia versions, and the like.

Tiller Engine: Same pros and cons as Amulet of Vigor, but specific to lands. I guess it can also tap down your opponent’s permanents for easier attacks as well? Meh overall, and only a consideration in decks abusing classic Amulet of Vigor loops a la Amulet Titan.

Digiridoo: Again, not a source of mana persay, but a way to cheat in your Changelings quickly and easily while bypassing counterspells. I’m not going to bother covering all these sorts of cards like Quicksilver Amulet or the like. They all have the same pros and cons, and are obviously better in decks that can abuse specific Card or Tribal typing. Many are way too much mana for the boon they provide.

Cryptic Gateway: This is currently holding a spot in exactly ONE Rukarumel brew. And that’s The Intruder Alarm build for the obvious combos of dumping your whole hand of creatures for free with zero counterspell opportunities. Most of the time, this thing is pretty mediocre at five mana.

Prototype Portal: This thing is an ancient piece of artifact tech for imprinting artifact lands or zero cost mana rock artifacts to ramp, and hilariously despite nobody playing it anymore, the addition of so many artifact lands in recent years has made it more reliable than ever. It gets even more degenerate when you add cards like Clock of Omens or Unwinding Clock into the mix where you’re landing four land drops per single rotation. Sadly, with Collector Ouphe adding to the number of artifact hate pieces you’ll run into, this and the artifact land shenanigans have only found themselves homes in the artifact and treasure brews.

Aether Vial: A modern classic, I’m currently only running this in one or two of the combat brews, to guarantee consistent dodging of countermagic and keep a flash speed way to drop creatures. It can be a really cute card, but obviously takes a lot of knowledge about your exact creature mana curve and some wind up time to hit the right number. obviously cheating creatures into play costs you no mana, so…

Mana Dorks & Other Mana:

(Both)Birds of Paradise: One of the best Rainbow dorks ever to exist. Possibly an auto include in Rainbow at this point, although I’m sure that’s debatable depending on the brew favoring artifacts or dorks. Being a flier is relevant more often than you’d think. (The Malcolm mirror matches are hilarious – blocking Malcolms with BoPs and gilded draking enemy Malcolms is dumb and also hilarious.) Plus it can turn sideways for a Magda treasure in a pinch!

(Streamlined Only)Deathrite Shaman: I have a love hate relationship with this card, stemming from Modern before it got banned. (Fuck you, Tobin.) Joked about as the best Planeswalker, of course. Hilariously, it is one of the few mana generating abilities in the game you CAN respond to on the stack. But while it can generate Rainbow mana, be cast for one of two colors, AND attack graveyards, do damage, and gain life, it’s also very easy for your opponents to fuck you over on. And trust me – good CEDH players will actively conspire so as not to feed your Deathrite with fetches or the like until they absolutely have to. Due to the prevalence of Underworld Breach at high level TEDH – it’s very much an auto-include in the CEDH streamlined build, and given up in the jankier glass cannon build in favor of Tribal synergizing dorks.

(Both)Delighted Halfling: A rainbow dork that makes your Rainbow commanders uncounterable? Two toughness butt that avoids one damage pings? Sign me up. This thing is a new auto-include in pretty much every 5c deck these days. Makes playing WUBRG commanders way fucking easier. More effects like this for Rainbow specific support, WOTC. Knocked it out of the park! (See? I CAN praise WOTC.)

(Streamlined Only)Ignoble Hierarch: I value my one mana dorks more, the faster I want a CEDH deck to be. Whereas the jankier glass cannon brew can afford to mix up a few dorks for flavor, the streamlined build cannot. Plus the exalted triggers become more relevant than you might think, especially for Malcolm or Magda swings. I always love these things in my various Najeela tech shenanigans for easier swings, so they’re usually a close follow-up to the one mana rainbow dorks in many of my 5c builds, adjusting preference between the two based on deck pipping.

(Streamlined Only)Noble Hierarch: The original flavor of Hierarch. I wish they’d print more of these, like a Naya one. Same pros and cons as Ignoble. But in Bant instead of Jund. Dead cards late game unless you’re pitching them to a Survival of the Fittest or swinging them as dwarves and pirates.

(Both)Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer: A deck called Gay Pirates would be kinda fucked if it didn’t include one of the most busted and annoying pirates ever to be printed? The bane of formats where it can be played as a four-of. Ragavan counts as a Rainbow dork in this deck, for obvious reasons. He can also absolutely tilt a game if you get anything good off the topdeck exile. Plus he can trigger Magda and Malcolm, only needing a Conspiracy effect for one of them. Yep. I like to imagine that every time WOTC designs a busted new Treasure card, they just go to the parking garage and have a big smoke session beforehand. Just get completely blazed in the car park. That must be how cards like Ragavan get printed, right? Good for WOTC. I’m glad they get to have fun at work. Bless their hearts.

(Both)Bloom Tender: I know this card is way more busted in Garth One Eye due to haste and flicker lines. But hey, if there’s a clear benefit to running WUBRG commanders, it’s that quasi-devotion cards like Bloom Tender and Faeburrow Elder get way better as includes, seeing as they become two mana for WUBRG and the like. Especially if you have stupid cards like Aphetto Alchemist to get double WUBRB for nearly fucking NOTHING!

(Both)Aphetto Alchemist: I’ve already covered this card pretty well in prior sections. Treat it as a two mana mana dork whenever you have mana rocks or mana dorks available to you on board. (Although I wouldn’t include it in your color pip math just because it’s not 100% reliable without something useful to untap. I like to underestimate the value of cards at first and playtest them to see the real effect. This has done real well thus far, but I know I’ll eventually get burned somehow by drawing it sans any high-value targets, or perhaps any targets at all. As I have negative luck, this will surely be soon, no?)

(Both)Cryptolith Rite: You know what’s way fucking nicer than having to attack with Magda? Tapping Magda for Rainbow mana, and getting a Treasure just because. As most of the creatures in our deck are combo pieces that just sit there until all the puzzle pieces assemble together, being able to tap our relatively useless creatures for Rainbow mana is incredible for two mana, only one of which is green. Not to mention it actually allows Rukarumel to do something with her usually useless fucking Pirate-Dwarf-Slivers, in slowly ramping away. (Update: Some brews are running the “new” Cryptolith Rite, Elven Chorus – which gives quasi draw as well.)

(Both)Carpet of Flowers: Let’s be real fucking honest. Due to cards like Rhystic Study and the suite of free counterspells, blue is one of the best fucking colors in CEDH. And if folks are playing high level CEDH, they’re likely rocking fetches and OG duals for their mana fixing, possibly with some Shocks or utility lands like Mystic Sanctuary as backup. Chances of you getting Carpet Mana are high in most TEDH and higher level CEDH pods, because there will likely be some blue. Often these days, I try to play out the other ramp I have first and sandbag the Carpet for a few turns to bait out a few islands. But it’s hard to remember the last game where Carpet didn’t actively produce at least one Rainbow mana for me at least every turn, which for one green makes it effectively a mana dork in my eyes. Thus, it’s become an auto include in most of my 5c decks due to the excellent fixing at worst. Plus it has some sick T1 tech with lots of one drops. Great card. Much better than the other color hate cards we see sometimes in CEDH. I really wish they were all equal, but comparing a Compost or the like just doesn’t feel the same, you know? Perhaps Compost could come back in 2023 with all the Dimir decks spamming Thassa’s Oracle or jamming Ad Nauseam shit, perhaps.

(Both)Dockside Extortionist: I talked about this stupid broken fucking card for paragraphs and paragraphs up above in a prior section. Just go back and reread it. You can put a bookmark here or something. I’ll wait. #bandockside #banoracle #bannaus #banbreach

(Both)Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator: We’ve gone over all the combo lines, yes. But never forget that Malcolm is a consistent source of Rainbow ramp as long as you can connect with any Pirates, least of all himself in the air. If you have the opportunity to jam him T1 or T2, you probably should for the pure mana acceleration he provides. Then try to land a Conspiracy effect and swing for three Treasures every turn if you can! Many games see me grinding treasures early with cards like Malcolm, while either sandbagging or tutoring into the Magda shortly after you hit five treasures.

(Both)Magda, Brazen Outlaw: Harder to connect with for mana due to her itty bitty one toughness butt sometimes, I prefer some of the other ways of tapping her in this deck, like Cryptolith Rites, to really double down on the mana acceleration she provides. The new Breeches might make it easier for her to connect cleanly in the future, but be sure to take advantage of early game empty boards for whatever Magda value you can get before bigger blockers hit the field. Sometimes I find myself grinding value with Malcolm in the air as Magda just chills on the ground due to no clean swings. And I don’t want to run any stupid Vehicle tech just for one stupid Dwarf that already has like a billion synergy lines in the deck. (Maybe the Rainbow mana dork/rock ones, I dunno.)

(Streamlined Only)An Offer You Can’t Refuse: It feels reaaaaaaaal good to counter one of your own spells to either fix your mana or accelerate off a useless Mox Diamond or Chrome Mox. I really love spells that can fill multiple niches, and Offer does it well, being a fairly wide counter spell in terms of targets, and also a source of mana ramp and fixing. The glass cannon build doesn’t run more than three counters I think, it’s all gas instead. Hell, one of them is Muddle the Mixture, as a tutor first and a counterspell second.

(Both)Smothering Tithe: Dear god I cannot stress how busted this thing is in this deck. Not only is it very easy to rush out T1 or T2 with the right acceleration pieces, it allows you to simultaneously accelerate yourself AND grind midrange by going “death and taxes” on your opponents. (I’ve had both a Tithe and a Rhystic out at the same time and FUCK was I a god damned SUPERVILLAIN!) Not only does this fuel your two main combo lines in the deck, Malcolm and Magda, it synergizes with many, many other cards in the deck. In almost every other CEDH deck I would scoff at it as a Casual EDH card at four mana. Not in these lists. It’s fucking incredible. You’d have to be an idiot to cut it with all the playtest game value it’s gleaned.

(Streamlined Only)Elvish Spirit Guide: A one card, one green mana ritual. Seeing how heavily Rainbow relies on green for dorks and mana acceleration outside of Treasure – Elvish is the far superior choice to Simian. Still, there have been some pretty insane starts thus far in the streamlined CEDH list involving spirit guides and mana rock acceleration being dropped T1. I cut them from the glass cannon build in favor of more thematic Tribal mana acceleration.

(Streamlined Only)Simian Spirit Guide: Same as the Elvish Spirit Guide, but in a less useful color outside of jamming a Dockside, which is often irrelevant early on T1 when there are no artifacts to reap value from anyways. Still, it does become relevant that they are creatures, because that means they can be tutored for, and pitched to Survival of the Fittest.

(Janky Only)Gemhide Sliver: For the glass cannon build, I really leaned into the overlapping Tribal synergies. In lieu of one mana dorks and pitchable mana generators in more restricted colors, I’ve included both two mana Slivers that turn your Slivers into Rainbow Mana Dorks. It fixes better than the spirit guides or hierarchs, and actually gives Rukarumel a reason to invest in 1/1 colorless Sliver tokens on an on-par basis with the majority of three mana colorless Rainbow rocks. As the current janky brew runs Sliver Overlord and Harmonic Sliver (and is considering putting Necrotic Sliver back in as well) it actually makes sense to run them! Depending on how these two mana rainbow dorks perform, I may even swap them into the streamlined build to ensure better Rainbow fixing and play “gotcha” on opponents with Harmonic Sliver tech.

(Janky Only)Manaweft Sliver: These Slivers have been relevant for getting me out of a mana fixing jam several times in playtesting. The janky glass cannon list runs more double-pipped tutor and combo pieces, so the Rainbow generation is much more relevant! Very close to playtesting these in the streamlined CEDH brew. They’ve been awesome so far in the janky glass cannon brew.

(Janky Only)Nissa, Resurgent Animist: I’m playtesting the new Nissa, despite still needing a paper copy for my casual 5c Horde of Notions/Jegantha The Wellspring casual Elementals EDH deck. She’s a three mana Lotus Cobra, which is already very welcome in 5c for Rainbow fixing, especially in a format where you’re running ten fetchlands and can actually use her to accelerate somewhat. But all your fetchlands ALSO tutor you either a mana dork or a combo piece to hand, depending on what lines the deck is running such as Turntimber Ranger. Early brews experimented with Ashaya and Quirion Ranger, but they’re too obtuse and “green” for us in Rainbow, despite Rainbow decks being predominantly green in terms of pie slices There’s a fuck-ton of potential for this new Nissa in Rainbow lists if we dig deeper into land shenanigans. I know many mono green lists use it to easily assemble Quirion Ranger and Ashaya for infinite mana. But tribal angles would likely be a little different, perhaps. That’s the difficulty of cards like Nissa, they’re very good generically as effects already, but you can really break them even further if you commit to abusing their specific abilities.

Ornithopter of Paradise: I’ve cut this mana dork from both lists for now, despite being a colorless Rainbow source, which most 5c decks want in spades. Unfortunately, in a deck full of Treasure effects, Ornithopter doesn’t offer any Tribal synergies we care about. Nor is it as efficient as many of the dorks we can jam on turn one. His two toughness butt is nice, but even with a Conspiracy effect it can’t activate Malcolm, which is a bummer. I guess it can untap with Clock of Omens? Which still doesn’t feel like it has a place here. Perhaps in the artifact brew that can splash lots of colorless despite a Rainbow identity? Who knows.

(Janky Only)Breeches, Eager Pillager: Breeches actually has done very well in playtesting as both a Rainbow mana generator as well as a means of gaining some card advantage and forcing through Malcolm or Magda attacks. A 3/3 first striker for one red and two colorless is also pretty rad as he stops Najeela and other commanders that need to have clean attacks. The main downside is that you only get the three triggers once each no matter how many pirates you swing with. He’s still an amazing Pirate and will likely nail down his place in both decklists as a solid include. And as of writing, we’re still in the middle of spoiler season for the newest Ixalan set, so there could be even more tribal or pirate tech yet to be spoiled that find slots in this Gay pirates deck!

(Janky Only)Risen Reef: Elementals is one of my favorite fucking tribes. I’ve played 5c Elementals in Modern, EDH, and Standard with great success for the most part. Risen Reef was singlehandedly the card that allowed the Elemental creature type to stand on its own, after a decade of slapping Lorwyn cards together while making kissy noises and praying they might work. Thus far, I’ve been playtesting it in the glass cannon build, and often my play lines become: Jam Risen Reef, Jam Rukarumel on Elemental, ???, PROFIT. Seriously. I am very close to running it in the streamlined build because it’s a three mana cantrip you can pitch to Chrome Mox for Simic. When I start playtesting cards like Flamekin Harbinger, which can also be broken to grab any creature in the deck with the same Conspiracy effect on board, the Risen Reef gets even scarier and more consistent. Still, it’s a mere 1/1 so it often feels kind of bad to jam unprotected for three mana unless you have a Steely Resolve or your own preferred brands of protection. Expect much more playtesting before the jury is out on Risen Reef in any Tribal Tribal build. I’m fucking rooting for it though!

Grim Hireling: Grim Hireling is one of those cards that, similar to modal spells, fills multiple niches within a deck. At 4 mana it’s a bit pricey on the normal CEDH curve, but a 3/2 body that guarantees two Treasures per combat damaged opponent is incredible in such a Rainbow mana hungry deck. Additionally, it does fill that secondary role of creature removal, which is limited to Sorcery speed, mind you. Feelings and performances have been mixed thus far, with lists hosting Najeela being able to count it as a combo piece as well in one very specific scenario where you have clean repeatable swings on all three opponents. (It’s definitely no Derevi!) Still, this deck is heavy on the treasure, so this will very likely show up in the treasure Tribal brew of Rukarumel.

Professional Facebreaker: While three mana with only one red pip is a little easier to rush out than Grim Hireling, Professional Facebreaker comes with a few casual boons. Firstly, being a sturdy menace creature with a static triggered effect means that it can drop after you’ve already raced out a few other creatures, preferably Pirates or Dwarves, ensuring immediate recoup of mana costs. And if not, it can swing itself rather freely with the Menace regardless, a turn later. One day, I might build a specific version of this deck that goes all-in on the Treasure cards. Fuck Collector Ouphe though… I’m sure that build will include both Professional Facebreaker AND Grim Hireling. One final note – Warrior typing does synergize with Najeela should you be running her and/or the Grim Hireling in the 99. You run into issues of deck bloat here, because certain packages like Najeela often want you to run their combo and synergy pieces. Derevi, Facebreaker, Hireling, etc. etc. It can be a tough choice between the “fewest card” combo packages which can be a bit of a trap, while also considering synergy between other parts of your 99 such as the Treasure suite – as some synergies can go exponential rather easily. (And then at what point do you just start running dumb shit like Cranial Plating or Nettlecyst just to Alpha strike people with your commander due to the stupid amounts of Treasure?)

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy: Kinnan lines can really be a simple toss of the coin in this list. (Fuck you Krarkashima, I hate playing against you so god damn much.) Kinnan does all the things you want: Buffing your plethora of Treasure effects to give you more mana, all your various rocks and dorks in the deck, and also given vast quantities of mana from either infinite mana lines or simple Treasure overloads, it can jam out your most important combo pieces, Malcolm and Magda, while avoiding counterspells. Add in a Basalt Monolith and suddenly you have infinite mana, and then that would really promote having a Treasure Vault in the deck, too. Kinnan is one of those cards I really want to keep in the 99, but the fatty Kinnan packages keep getting cut for cards that are lower to the ground or wider in their role application.

Faeburrow Elder: The shittier Bloom Tender in some regards, I have mixed feelings about Faeburrow Elder. Pros include being pitchable to Chrome Mox and tapping for rainbow reliably with Rukarumel on board. Cons include being three fucking mana for a base two mana dork, and not having a ton of Treefolk Tribal in the deck at the moment. (Although I have been experimenting and playtesting with Treefolk Harbinger to grab changelings and forests.) The idea of a 5/5 Vigilance beater, I do like – as with a Conspiracy effect it makes for an excellent Pirate (but not Dwarf) attacker. But as with the other cards I need to playtest more, I think this might simply be better in some of my other 5c decks, despite amazing synergies with Aphetto Alchemist. (Have I mentioned that I like Aphetto Alchemist a lot, everybody? Just reminding you. Being helpful. “McRae stans Aphetto Alchemist.”)

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician: When I run Najeela, I tend to run Derevi, just for the easily assembled combo win line. It can lead to meandering, then including Grim Hireling, etc. But I often find myself loving Derevi for other reasons. For example, Derevi plus The One Ring can be an insane card draw engine. Many of the deck’s mana positive attack and combat damage triggers can also go ham. And Derevi’s ETB also gives Dockside loops something to do in tapping down opponents and untapping your own permanents forever. While Bant can be tough to assemble, early game Derevis can accelerate you entire turns at a time. I’ve currently cut it for now, as only the jankier list is running Najeela. But with a third more Treasure-heavy build, I’d like to add Derevi back in and see what happens. I also just want to play it because it breaks The One Ring even harder. Just to prove a point about how busted that card is. Maybe in another build, another day…

Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff: Lotho has been a bit of a mixed bag for me thus far. Some games he’s been a steady source of Rainbow mana. Others, opponents have purposely played as if there’s a Rule of Law effect on board just to deny you mana. While the Treasure synergies in the deck prompt me to playtest him more as a 2 mana “mana dork” of sorts, being able to pitch him to Chrome Mox is also handy. (Honestly, who gives a fuck about Chrome Mox, though? This is like the thirteenth time I’ve vamped a card based on this shit.)

Displacer Kitten: Technically, Displacer Kitten isn’t a great source of mana generation. But if you have mana rocks that enter untapped, non creature spells cast will “technically” accelerate your mana. Four mana is a bit pricey, but when you understand how many combos there are with this damn kitty, from Teferi 2 card infinites to “mana rock dancing” or Dockside double-downs, it becomes VERY enticing to run. Sadly, in more recent builds I’ve moved away from ETB creatures for more Instant and Sorcery cards for similar roles, making Displacer Kitten a cut for now. If you really want to break this lovely cat, go read my Garth One Eye primer over on McRaeWrites.com. It’s so much fucking shorter than this one, seriously. Then again, this is The Rainbow Bible after all.

Dark Ritual: Yes, we’re on Opposition Agent. But we’re also not on Ad Nauseam OR Peer Into The Abyss, so we have no real reason to run this shit other than the rare chance you get to one mana Oppo “gotcha” somebody. Which while hilarious, is such a fucking corner case that we really shouldn’t be trying to stunt so hard.

Cabal Ritual: Same shit as above.

Every Other Ritual: See above.

Devoted Druid + Loops: Infinite Green mana is better for commanders that can use it well. Like Kenrith. Devoted Druid lines are kind of useless in this deck for the most part with so few outlets for the infinite mana aside from dumb OG shit like Intruder Alarm loops with Rukarumel. The new one mana white enchantment that combos with this thing also combos with Magda, possibly? I dunno. Maybe another brew can use these lines better somehow.

Smuggler’s Share: I’ve playtested this a little bit. The big problem is that opponents will usually play around it. I’ve had a couple of games where Rhystic Studies and land shenanigans have fed it quite a bit, but I’ve also had games where opponents play around it and thus you get jack shit. Overall mediocre thus far despite this deck’s hard-on for treasure generators. Maybe in the treasure tribal build?

Black Market Connections: Similar to Smuggler’s Share, the allure of this card, and the reason for it being included and then cut a dozen times, is that it does everything we want. It makes Treasure. It draws cards. And it makes Changelings that can trigger Malcolm, Magda, or any other janky Tribal shit we’ve got. But 6 life is still a big ask each turn, and without some lifegain synergies, I feel like it just invites our opponents to beat us to death most of the time, similar to playing Ad Nauseam, or having a Mana Crypt or Sylvan library on board. Maybe the treasure tribal build can gain enough life somehow to mitigate the cost?

Mana Echoes: Trust me. I want to run Mana Echoes in any brew I can of this commander. But four mana is a lot to ask for something that only produces colorless mana, no matter how much. (And Mana Echoes can chunk out like 20+ colorless mana EASILY.) The more mana sinks in colorless that one adds to the deck, the more of an include it can justify itself as. But aside from cards like Realmbreaker, there aren’t really many unless we flip the brew around to care. And most of our Malcolm and Magda wincons just kill our opponents outright anyways or win us the game, which means Mana Echoes often ends up as a win more card no matter what. I can see this being an all-star in the colorless-heavy treasure tribal variant, though!

Freed From The Real/Pemmin’s Aura + Any Rainbow Dork + Kinnan: We’ve talked about Kinnan already. The main draw of adding the many Kinnan lines that exist is suddenly having an infinite mana outlet available, to jam all our creatures onto the board and win. But I really think those sorts of Kinnan lines belong in decks like Sisay and Kenrith who can put the many different infinite mana combos to good use in winning. Otherwise we have to tutor Kinnan to match whatever pieces we get, which gets us into the weeds a bit when we could just be tutoring Magda to win more efficiently.

Spiteful Banditry: I’ve been playtesting this card in and out of both lists as a board wipe for the times when Rukarumel’s board has been picked apart already or has failed to materialize. We are running a creature deck after all. While the one Treasure for the board wipe, the scalability, and the subsequent value of possible Treasures later on when opponents have creatures die is enticing… The fact that our deck is a board-presence heavy creature list makes this card less and less worth it if we’re wiping our own value. I WOULD like to see how it runs as an early game wipe against enemy dorks before committing to the board yourself, though. Bit of a cute sandbag play one could use against green decks.

Intruder Alarm: The jankier list is just crying out for me to use Intruder Alarm with all the “straight to board” creature tutors. Rukarumel actually does work with Intruder Alarm loops in a lot of ways. Sadly, untapping your opponents’ creatures and providing blockers and value can be a bit annoying or messy when you need to attack with Magda or Malcolm. One day I might double down and see what happens with an even crazier “wannabe twiddlestorm” brew. But then you just end up playing Shrieking Drake, Earthcraft, and Aluren loops like it’s 2013. Ahhhh, nostalgia. FUCK!

Stimulus Package: Treasure and token tech, this only found a home in the more token and treasure centric brews for obvious reasons.

Prosperous Partnership: See above with Stimulus Package. It’s a lot better in some ways, especially in the Intruder Alarm brews that can really break “tap as cost” cards like this.

Priest of Titania: Depending on the pod matchups, this could be a much better card than I give it credit, considering it’s been one of those fringe-playable CEDH cards on and off around the elfball and dork metas for a long time. As of right now, it only has a home in the Elfball and Changeling brews that can guarantee it lots of good value even without considering the elves our opponents might play.

Harabaz Druid: Ally Tribal is pretty hit or miss a lot of the time, with some all-stars like Turntimber Ranger and Tuk Tuk Scrapper and the like. Too oppressive for Casual EDH and not good enough for CEDH most of the time. But similar to Priest of Titania with elves, we only want to run these sorts of dorks in decklists that can support them on their own. We always want more Rainbow fixing in Rukarumel, yes, but for two mana, the druid typing for Gilt-Leaf Archdruid shenanigans is second to the scaling extra mana for every Ally creature. Having a conspiracy effect in the command zone helps, but really only the Changeling or Activated Ability and Intruder Alarms lists can really abuse these sorts of cards to the degree they can be considered CEDH playable. Or if your brew is focusing hard on Turntimber Ranger loops.

Gyre Sage: Another context specific card, Gyre Sage is an OG classic I played even in pre-release. It obviously gets better the more you can break it, either via proliferation/+1/+1 counters or otherwise. However, it fits into several nice creature types, for both Elfball and Gilt-Leaf Archdruid shenanigans, and Intruder Alarm can obviously do some cool shit with Rukarumel and cards like this, many interactions going infinite quite easily.

Incubation Druid: Same pros and cons as Gyre Sage, but with the ability to pump itself for more mana built in via an activated rather than triggered ability. Rainbow though most of the time, which is better in a lot of ways, even if the ceiling is higher on Gyre Sage.

Faeburrow Elder: There is something to be said for Bloom Tender and Faeburrow Elder loops with a Rainbow Permanent, a flicker loop, and haste. It wins games for sure. But such loops involve a lot more pieces than Dockside and Emiel or Barrin by itself. So this often gets cut unless it can be broken, a la Intruder Alarm or Faces of The Past.

Gilt-Lead Archdruid: This is not traditional mana ramp, not by a long shot. Instead, with any guarantee of Druid typing (which is easy when your commander is a walking Conspiracy effect) it instead becomes a multifaceted draw engine, and hardcore stax piece. With enough creatures or tokens, you can easily steal the entirety of an opponent’s landbase with a single instant speed activation, which is often a death knell to CEDH in decks without artifact fast mana support. Cons include being five mana, but the upsides in the right list can make this a must-answer bomb. Right now it’s in the specific lists that can break it, such as Changelings and similar brews. I’d only suggest it in brews that can guarantee enough creatures to hit that magic “seven” number, or “five” if you consider Rukarumel and Gilt-Leaf in the tally.

Training Grounds/Zirda/Agatha: These are great cards, don’t get me wrong. But save them for your Thrasios lines most of the time. I’m only running them in the Activated Ability Tribal brews mostly for obvious reasons.

Faces Of The Past: Another wannabe Intruder Alarm, this thing scales in utility based on a variety of factors, including available mana dorks and a reliable sacrifice outlet like Skullclamp or the like. Goes in some of the same lists Intruder Alarm does for obvious reasons, as these cards can go infinite with Rukarumel quite easily, being the first Commander that can break these two blue enchantments so hard.

Seeker of Skybreak: The backup combo piece for Magda/Aphetto Alchemist/Conspiracy lines, this can also untap your mana dorks or attackers, I guess? I think if you include this in your Rukarumel brew, it’s for Magda reasons and not as a sub-par untapper.

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician: Some of the combat brews are on Derevi, as including Najeela makes it hard not to add in cards like Grim Hireling and Derevi to ensure the ability to infinite combo combat kill. But oft-forgotten, Derevi is a great mana accelerator on her own, ensuring that free beats result in extra mana, or even quasi vigilance. One of those preference cards depending on the mana needs of the brew, perhaps.

Meria, Scholar of Antiquity: This thing only has a home in some of the artifact and stax brews because it can only reliably farm green mana from actual artifacts and not treasures, which the various brews of the deck make in spades. Most of the time perfectly meh.

Urza, Lord High Artificer: Better than Meria by leaps and bounds – allowing for token artifacts to tap for mana and also creating an incredible body on ETB. He also does provide a sink for infinite mana. Again, he only finds a home in lists that can really abuse his various abilities, such as the token, treasure, artifact, and flicker builds of Rukarumel.

Druid’s Repository/Nature’s Will/Sword of Feast & Famine/Etc.: Obviously all of these cards get a hell of a lot better if you’re running outlets for them like Najeela. They also require you to connect on your opponent, which is obviously something optimized for in Combat builds, but ignored in the more combo-favorable brews. Still great sources of mana usually, allowing for awesome acceleration even despite higher costs to use. Cue the “Casual” jokes from people who refuse to respect four mana enchantments that can ramp you 4-5+ mana every turn, providing a second main phase with a bunch of mana.

Gimli of the Glittering Caves: This is a neat card I completely missed shortly after Lord Of The Rings launched. It’s a Dwarf, which Magda obviously likes. But it’s also a 1/1 Double Striker that can easily grow with each Legendary you dump out. AND it generates a treasure on both instances of double strike’s combat damage. So within a turn rotation, it gets you two Rainbow mana back for fixing and hoarding towards Magda’s five treasure cost. I’ve relegated it to the more combat heavy brews for obvious reasons, but it’s a card that has very rarely been a dead draw, providing all sorts of utility, even if as a first strike blocker back home on defense. So yes, “and my axe,” because you can guarantee that every Magda helmed mono red deck is rocking this guy now – seeing as he can generate three treasures a turn.

Gloin, Dwarf Emissary: Another three mana dwarf, he can hang fine in any list with Magda lines, and I bet as per above that many Magda decks are already playtesting these new additions to dwarven treasure tribal. Having access to the Goad effect in CEDH is an incredible political tool, oddly, forcing bad Tymna swings, etc. And a single treasure and tap for a Goad is a surprisingly low cost. Obviously, any treasure generator like Gloin will find a home in treasure, artifact, and token brews that can ensure consistent treasure generation and goads. And unlike Gimli above, Gloin’s goad replaces itself if Magda is already on the board. Great stuff. The power creep in these Universes Beyond products has been absolutely insane. I remember thinking 40K was pushed, but hot damn if LOTR didn’t blow it out of the water with the power creep. Only thing I hate is that the spelling on some of these LOTR cards uses vowels and consonants we don’t often use in English, making searching them in databases like gatherer stupidly annoying.

Gadrak, Crown-Scourge: He’s pretty specific to decks with sacrifice shenanigans or token slash treasure value. Perfectly mediocre in a lot of contexts, but when he can be consistent, having a handy dandy 5/4 flyer that generates the odd treasure is pretty cool, NGL. Save him for the treasure or artifact brews.

Jolene, The Plunder Queen: Jolene has consistently done work in the Treasure Tribal brew of Rukarumel thus far in playtesting. Her Treasure Doubling effect becomes much more relevant than her ability to generate two treasures on attack, and when you somehow land a Smothering Tithe at the same time, it’s great. I never like feeding my opponents, but it does disincentivize folks to swing at you a little, and it’s such a great card to feed your Magda lines in the right brews.

Revel In Riches: This card says: “Win the game” in some paraphrasing, so it must be good, right? Well, in the Treasure Tribal and Token Tribal brews that can sustain this card to drop, table, and win, it’s great. The streamlined lists don’t have enough Treasure generation to use this well, though. Sacrifice loop traditional Conspiracy combos could also use this somehow, obviously. But even I wouldn’t really try to run a Grave Pact in CEDH. I’m crazy, but not that crazy.

Giada, Font of Hope: So, this has found a pretty great niche in the Changeling Tribal build of Rukarumel, but obviously in most builds it seems silly to waste a Conspiracy effect on “Angel” just for some counters. So it’s pretty limited in the specific brews it can fit into.

Katilda, Dawnheart Prime: Same issues as Giada, despite being wider in regards to what it can hit right away, tapping for mana herself at least in Selesnya. It’s in the Human Tribal and Changeling Tribal lists, I believe, as there it can fill the same niche as Cryptolith Rite. if you’re ever pumping mana into her second ability, something has probably gone very wrong.

Heronblade Elite: Same Human Tribal specific niche as Katilda, albeit one that scales better and more consistently or frequently. Obviously this card gets better with Intruder Alarm or similar shenanigans. But I guess it can also be a great beater in a pinch? Shout out to all the mono green lists that use this card as a combo piece.

Ixalli’s Lorekeeper: A new one mana Rainbow dork, but they had to type it for Dinosaurs. OF COURSE they did. Well, guess what? Changelings are fucking Dinosaurs. So are creatures you type to Dinosaur. But I don’t ever want to waste a Conspiracy effect on “Dinosaur,” so this card will only ever have a spot in Changeling-full brews.

Pitiless Plunderer: Obviously this is a well-known combo piece for both aristocrats and treasure loops. So this thing shows up in the Treasure and Sacrifice loop brews, obviously. There are too many combos to name with cards like this. Use it at your own build and discretion, as four mana is a reach in formats like this unless we’re talking Ad Nauseam or some shit.

Roaming Throne: This thing doesn’t generate mana, but rather acts as a 4/4 warded single type changeling that doubles your triggered abilities. Obviously this improves many effects (or all effects in a deck with any Conspiracy effect) that DO generate you mana, from Malcolm and Magda, to Dockside Extortionist or Lotho. I cannot believe how much of a banger this card is for Rukarumel builds of all types. I can see even Winota and Najeela lists playing this, because doubling triggers is almost always going to be amazing considering how pushed ETB effects have been in the last few years.

Card Advantage & Tutor Suites (AKA “Yeeeeeeeee.”):

I might be a sworn pacifist, but I’ll bare knuckle box anybody who tries to argue with me that mana acceleration is better than card advantage or card selection. Marquess of Queensberry Rules. I’d always rather have 15 cards in hand with three mana, than fifteen mana and three cards. Fight me about it.

One of the biggest differences between the two (Update: Many) decks is that the streamlined versions run fewer janky tutors, in order to jam countermagic into the list. But the glass cannon brews are so chock full of tutor effects, it’s kind of ridiculous. Some people love jamming every possible playable tutor into a list to ensure redundancy, but I’ve actually moved back to favoring broken card draw instead, due to the prevalence of Opposition Agent and the like. I’d rather tap The One Ring 2-3 times a turn and draw a fifth of my deck than get caught with my pants down by an Opposition Agent on my Vampiric Tutor, you know?

That all being said, I’ve opted for the classic tutor suites in Instant and Sorcery tutors for the streamlined builds, as being able to hide your lines can be quite useful at grabbing snap wins out of thin air after opponents have wasted countermagic or Silence effects. Your card advantage engines and tutors are some of the most important cards in any given CEDH deck – seeing as how they’re replacements for your other best cards, reducing the cards you need to draw to win. This is why Blue and Black are the best colors to play in CEDH right now. They provide you the best types of resources that outrank others like mana acceleration in Green. (Plus CEDH runs a fuckload of fast mana anyways, right? Even Green mana acceleration is meh.) As these sorts of cards and pieces and lines are your bread and butter in CEDH, let’s take a moment to talk about some of these CEDH fundamentals that most good players should already know.

Winning in CEDH, as many veteran players know – is about spotting and abusing “win windows.” Especially in Blue and Black, the best colors in CEDH that prefer playing at Instant speed… That means keeping as much information secret from your opponents as possible is better and better the higher your level of play. I do prefer the Cowboy Magic approach of jamming permanents that accrue ever increasing value, of course. When every card you play is a bomb requiring an answer, (a specialty of Rainbow magic,) opponents often run out of answers, even in formats like CEDH with tons of interaction from multiple players. Many solid Rainbow commanders like Kenrith and Sisay are mostly creature combos after all.

But playing that Cowboy Magic way gives your opponents increasing amounts of knowledge about your lines, strategies, and possible win-cons. The more you have visible on the board, the less you usually have secret in your hand. It’s why Winota, the newer Ellivere, and such similar decks are so easy to punch in the face with one or two pieces of interaction – all the relevant pieces are permanents. And the heavy creature-meta right now in CEDH is also leading people to run cards like Toxic Deluge or even Blasphemous Act in increasing frequency, to blow out decks like Kinnan and the like which commit heavily to the board. You throw one piece of removal at them the moment their commander tries to land and they fold like a cheap suit. The epitome of a “class cannon.”

Rainbow decks are no such fools. There’s a reason you’ve watched four and five color magic dominate EDH since the invention of “Partner,” with decks like Tymna Kraum or other Partner combos enabling classic “4/5c goodstuff pile” style Magic. Note how the best partners that see lots of play either draw you cards or accrue you mana? Many respective 4c and 5c decklists view their commanders as merely extra support, meaning they can play on into a midrange gameplan if say, a Tymna or Kraum gets removed once or twice. (I cannot count the number of rookie or poor players that have their early game “must land” commander like Kinnan answered and immediately scoop in response.) This is especially true in a deck like Rukarumel where your Commander is just a sub-par backup Conspiracy Effect for when you don’t draw your much better Conspiracy effects which cast for cheaper and often do more. I should probably respect her as the first Commander to ever be able to break Intruder Alarm so well, but sorry bae, you’re just another Changeling effect on a stick to me.

One of the other benefits of playing a non-meta fringe deck like this, is that you can sneak wins beneath your opponents’ noses, with many of them underestimating Rukarumel as a durdly Casual EDH deck at first glance rather than an aggressive combo deck with several interchangeable pieces and lines to fall back on when one gets stymied. Dropping a Malcolm, Magda, or the like and snap combo winning on unprepared opponents is something you will grow to relish. Unfortunately for myself, many CEDH circles know I can play at a fairly high level, so I get bodied often regardless of what list I’m on at the time. Perhaps you can experience the joy of the “gottem” on my behalf.

Now that we’ve rehashed some CEDH basics, let’s look at the card advantage and tutor engines available to us in 5c, and in Tribal Rainbow magic specifically.

Card Advantage (Draw):

(Both)Esper Sentinel: We’ve discussed the sneaky little lines with Magda up above, but Esper Sentinel remains an auto-include in White for card advantage, especially early game. A fun little piece of tech is that Magda buffs the Esper’s power to help ensure card draws if they’re out at the same time with Conspiracy on Dwarf, not that it comes up much. (And by then you’re probably about to win the game with Magda.) Otherwise, Esper often farms both cards via the classic death and taxes model, as well as Treasures when typed to a Pirate or Dwarf. Get you a robot man that can do both.

(Both)Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer: We’ve gushed about Ragavan in the mana section already as a Rainbow Dork. But he also impulse draws (Steals? Better Fateseals?) from whichever opponent you hit. I really wish they would keyword this bullshit as “Steal 1” or some shit just so we could be honest about the kinds of players that enjoy stealing free value from their opponents with giddy glee that enrages every other player at the table. I should note that while saying this that I 100% have a Yasova Dragonclaw “Steal n’ Sac” Casual list that I pull out to punish and experientially educate shitty or antisocial EDH players. So I’m just as guilty or evil I guess. Anyways, back to “Monke.” While usually your hits will be shit, owing to the fact that 33% of the cards in the deck will be dead land cards regardless, sometimes you rip a Mana Crypt or the like and feel reaaaaaaal smug. It can accelerate you stupid amounts ahead of your opponents if you manage to hit bombs you can actually use. When choosing Ragavan swings, try to avoid the stax decks full of effects that fuck 4/5c combos, and aim for other 4c and 5c players with the maximum amount of quality or value to hit. (They’re probably just as goodstuff as your 5c pile after all.) Second choices are any black decks, hoping to hit their mana acceleration or black tutor suites. The best part about Rukarumel, is that nobody will usually be able to use your Tribal combos as well, so when folks are familiar with the deck you’ll be able to dodge Raggy and the like with ease and a tiny bit of politicking.

(Streamlined Only)Dauthi Voidwalker: Dauthi is kinda busted, and the only reason I end up cutting it from many of my Rainbow brews is because of the double black pipping. It hates on the Graveyard and fucks over Underworld Breach and the like, and ALSO accrues card advantage AND selection! You’d be surprised how foolishly people will throw amazing shit into a Dauthi, and the number of times you can go for a win protected by a free Dauthi counterspell is more than you might think. Being a shadow unblockable attacker also matters for us in regards to Malcolm and Magda swings if we don’t have anything of value exiled under it yet. I’m running multiple pieces of graveyard hate in the streamlined brew as anti-Breach tech. Dauthi is so close to being one of those auto include cards, even in many Rainbow lists…

(Both)Talion, The Kindly Lord: Listen, I’ve built this commander already, which you can find if you go hunt around on my Moxfield. But I don’t think people realize how much fucking value this card provides in MANY brews. Talion might be the newest Dimir to Rainbow auto include card. Thus far in playtesting, Talion has rarely drawn less than 6 cards every time he resolves when naming one or two. My basic Talion rule has been thus: Early game you name “one.” After T3 or so, you name “two.” In addition to the added benefits of damage against opponents and being a fairly large flying attacker to swing with as a Pirate or Dwarf, Talion can also hang back and block most common flying attackers in CEDH quite handily outside of Ledger Shredder or Kraum. If you can fit Talion in your CEDH deck, you should. This card is a more reliable Rhystic Study, and I wish I was joking.

(Both)The One Ring: We’ve already explored how ridiculously good this thing is, especially in any deck with untap shenanigans like ours to tap it multiple times a turn. Another auto include in pretty much every CEDH deck for the rest of time, or until WOTC prints so much artifact hate that cards like this simply can’t function. Which won’t ever happen, because as long as Mark Rosewater works at WOTC, there will always be pushed artifacts, all the way back to brown town decks. So never. You’ll be running this fucking Ring until you die, motherfuckers. Weep about it. And let’s not even START on the degenerate shit you can do with certain bounce loops to ensure you have permanent protection as a player. I mean… FUCK. Did I mention it’s fucking indestructible?

(Both)Mystic Remora: DO NOT FEED THE FUCKING FISH. Unless it’s your fish, and you’re trying to trick or fool opponents into doing so. This thing is an auto include in every blue deck for a reason, and that reason is because for 1-2 mana, you can draw upwards of 4 cards. It’s as if Ancestral Recall was never banned! Hooray! Cards like this and Rhystic Study are why I think every “High Tier” (Heavy fucking sarcasm on those air quotes there folks) CEDH deck should be running blue. Seriously. Get that non-blue shit out of here. Fucking stax players, thinking they can stop me from playing Magic. Fools. It will always be a razor’s edge choice on whether your ability to play your own lines risks drawing your opponents the cards they need to win – tilting a game state in their favor egregiously. I honestly cannot tell you where that line is between denying the best resource in the game of card advantage and playing your spells, because the context of the board or game will always matter. Are you trying to feed a third party opponent cards to draw a counterspell and stop another win attempt on the stack? Etc. Etc. Rhystic and Mystic and Smothering Tithe are here to stay. Hilariously though, some cute tech in this deck is that Mayhem Devil DOES trigger from any Mystic Remora being sacrificed, including yours, which has allowed me to ping people’s dorks with extreme prejudice when they can’t pay for their fish! Use that information for great evil, my dark apprentices…

(Both)Rhystic Study: The better Mystic Remora. People could write novellas just on this fucking card and the various play patterns in produces. I would say the entirety of the CEDH meta is based around this card right now. Look at every stupid database decklist in blue and you’ll find one of these puppies. (I have my own cackles at the qualitative follies of the CEDH database, but that’s for another time.) Now, because everybody already knows how good Rhystic Study is, and how much of an auto-include it is already, I’m going to tell you that when I first learned about Rhystic Study from my old roommate (Love you Tobin, sorry for using you for so many bits), I started speccing on this card HARD. I bought every copy I could in the Vancouver area for years from seven dollars each to twelve or thirteen Canadian. When I sold them, long after the majority of the playerbase realized how busted it was as a card? (*Insert money sounds here.*) Yes, I am the evil collector that made your game unplayable due to cost. But that’s why these days I say – proxy everything into the ground! Playing CEDH on Cockatrice is by far a superior experience to paper Magic, anyways. More efficient. Has an action log. Easier to catch cheaters, etc. Anyways, Rhystic Study is an automatic include in every blue deck, goobers. Don’t try to fight me on this. All of CEDH bows to this fucking thing. Same payment conundrums as up above. Bahhhhhhhh.

(Janky Only)Breeches, Eager Pillager: New Breeches can impulse draw 1 on attack, that’s neat. And being a 3/3 first striker means the swing will often go uncontested. Plus Pirate shit. So good stuff, all told. He still gets cut from some brews for being three mana, though.

(Both)Glint-Horn Buccaneer: I mean, don’t forget that as long as you have two mana and this thing is swinging, you can loot and deal damage! It’s no Ledger Shredder, but for a combo piece without the other half at times, it’s not so bad, you know?

(Janky Only)Realmwalker: I actually have really high hopes for Realmwalker. In addition to being a changeling that checks the box for all your Tribal strategies, it can often be tutored quite handily. While not a pure source of card draw or even impulse draw, it does let you see what’s coming for your topdeck, and can give access to every creature in your deck as a castable card if you land a Conspiracy effect together with it. It’s done great in the glass cannon builds, and I’m really wanting to find a slot in the main lists as well, although that proves tough. I think the more Risen Reef tech I run, the more valuable this card becomes.

(Janky Only)Risen Reef: We’ve talked about Risen Reef already as a mana accelerator, so the only thing I’ll note here is that Risen Reef DOES get around card draw punishment, being a “put it hand” effect after you look at the card if it isn’t a land dropping tapped. It does great work in the glass cannon builds, and if I had a build that was more focused on ETBs via Dockside loops or Cloudstone Curio and the like, (Update: Which there now is…) I might include it in that as a way to draw your deck and then smash down an oracle win. It kind of has a few partner cards it wants to play like Flamekin Harbinger to ensure consistency, but there are only a hundred slots in any given deck, you know? Still, Risen Reef is lurking on the edges of inclusion constantly – as a better Thrasios at times with Conspiracy on Elemental and enough creatures to jam out. How funny is that? The dream would be to use Dockside and Risen Reef with Cloudstone Curio to draw the deck and jam a Thassa’s Oracle for win, I think.

(Janky Only)Liliana’s Contract: We’ve talked about this as a combo win condition in the janky brews of the deck that rely more on left field two-card combos. But it’s also just five mana and four life for four cards, which isn’t bad if you can ramp that high in a given decklist. Obviously you’ll only play it often if you can win the game with it, but there have been plenty of playtest games thus far where it’s just dropped for cards and then sat there doing nothing until somebody blows it up in fear. Which is pretty okay if you’re drawing four and baiting a piece of removal at the same time at worst, and winning the game with it at best. Pretty wide range between floor and ceiling, I’d say. As with every card that says “win the game” on it, these are always such cute cards to include, because the number of times I’ve won with them has been non-zero. And they scare the fuck out of people, which can lead to panic decisions by opponents that end up helping you or wasting good cards.

Smuggler’s Share: We talked about this fucking thing already. On boards with Rhystic Study and the like, phenomenal card draw. Most of the time a brick I’ve found, as opponents try to play around it somewhat to deny value, making you look silly with your three mana brick enchantment. But perhaps it’s because some of those games also had Lotho or Rule of Law effects, so maybe the jury is still out on this thing as a Rainbow mana fixer and source of card draw.

Black Market Connections: Six life and three mana for everything we want in this deck is a real hard bargain to say no to. But getting beaten to death shortly after a couple rotations of this thing is kinda scary. Somebody smarter than I can run the math on three mana and twelve life for two Treasures, two cards, and a couple three two changelings. Maybe it’s worth it in some Treasure heavy build or something. I just keep moving away from high risk high reward cards more and more these days, preferring the midrange grind.

Archivist of Oghma: I was really big on this card when it first got printed, as everybody else was sleeping on it. The prevalence of tutors and fetches in the format often juice Archivist by at least 3-4 cards, making it very good mana for card draw. Additionally, in this deck it can be retyped to whatever we need and turned sideways whenever we want. Unfortunately, it’s been cut for now from many Rukarumel lists. Perhaps if the deck needs more card draw over tutor action, I’ll throw it back in one of the builds. People playing around it sure does suck.

Underworld Breach: I wrote a whole fucking subsection on this card. We all know how good, albeit fragile it can be. Just hit Ctrl + F and type in “Breach” to go read that section again. Yes, it technically reads as a card advantage card because it gives you access to your graveyard. Yes, that counts as card advantage to me, just like impulse draws do, even if they’re some diminishing return percentage of a single real card draw. Rukarumel doesn’t run it in most builds because she doesn’t run much Graveyard shit at all, and cards like Underworld Breach really get better when they synergize with other graveyard heavy lines. It’s all about the lego process of playing Rainbow in which you’re more prone to slot in or slot out certain packages because they play well with specific other lines in neat ways. And ultimately, aside from the plethora of Rainbow auto includes, it’s an individual autonomous process, deckbuilding. Play whatever fucking lines you want as long as they sing in harmony, you know? Jam underworld Breach, don’t, I don’t give a fuck. But I also don’t give a fuck about stanning or policing cards like these, either.

Dark Confidant: Poor Bob. RIP. “Here lies a victim of power creep.”

Faerie Mastermind: This is very close to an auto include in most blue mirror matches, with Rhystic Study and Remora feeding the ever loving shit out of it. The One Ring being in every CEDH deck has made it even better, same as god damn Thada Adel. However, there are also some other cute tech pieces it can do as both a flying attacker AND a flash creature in this list. Finally, it can hold Thassa’s Oracle hostage for four additional mana, which is pretty fucking funny. This deck appreciates evasive attackers on a low curve that can later become Pirates or Dwarves, so this thing is tough not to include in many Rainbow lists these days, especially creature lists that run Gaea’s Cradle and the like. (Wait, why AM I off this in some lists at the moment? I should put this back in the streamlined ones at least to punt Thassa’s win attempts more often.)

Ledger Shredder: I cannot stress how much I like Ledger Shredder as a looting effect AND a flying creature that often becomes swole AF. In Garth, some of the best fucking plays I’ve ever made involved pitching an Anger to a Ledger Shredder effect to turn on haste and win the game with a single card in hand. Additionally, in our Ad Nauseam and Mana Crypt swollen CEDH meta, engorged as they are on life totals, Ledger Shredder can often apply some solid pressure to black decks gearing up for a fat Ad Nauseam. Any card that shits all over annoying, predictable Ad Nauseam is a solid inclusion in my books. God that card is so boring. Fuck! Anywho, Ledger Shredder is a pro in Gay Pirates for all the same reasons Faerie Mastermind and Talion are – it’s another flying attacker that can potentially generate us Treasure. Unfortunately, a simple looting effect is kinda meh over the aforementioned cards which are better at drawing us cards. I do love me a fat fucking bird though. (Somebody photoshop me an obese Ledger Shredder and I’ll include in this fucking primer, I swear as a fat person myself.)

Ghostly Pilferer: Honestly, I really like Ghostly Pilferer. It’s a card that can swing through in this specific deck for triggers under Conspiracy, and can also draw us cards off Commanders, Underworld Breaches, and beyond. Two mana is also not terrible! Unfortunately, opponents can play around it by adjusting their lines, and if there’s a Breach on the field you’re probably already losing, unless the damn Pilferer draws you into an answer. This is one of those fringe CEDH cards that I’m surprised doesn’t see more play.

Hedron Detonator: It wins the game as a Malcolm combo and technically serves as Impulse “Draw 1” for two Treasures and a tap, which is overcosted for the most part unless you have a billion Treasures already. Just remember it only hits one opponent at a time, so I think the impulse draw isn’t really worth it unless we’re all in on Malcolm with all four copies of the effect. Makes our Smothering Tithe and Dockside scarier, I guess? That’s kinda funny.

Professional Face Breaker: Yes, in addition to being a warrior and pumping out up to three mana a turn cycle, Facebreaker also exiles a single Treasure to impulse draw, which is pretty fucking sick when you have Dockside loops or the like to draw your whole deck and jam a Thassa’s Oracle. In a more Treasure focused brew, I’d include it as a mana generator, a Tribal card, and a card advantage engine/wincon with infinite Treasure loops. As many of the current brews are more focused on the Conspiracy lines, I’ll save Facebreaker for a third “Double Down To Treasure Town!” style brew. It’ll get absolutely fucked by a single Collector Ouphe, but we’ll have fun until it happens right? (Update: Yeah yeah, see the decklists at the top.)

Tymna, The Weaver: There’s a reason everybody plays her in the command zone, and the appeal of drawing three cards a turn, mostly with the deck’s possible cheap flying creatures, is high. Still, aside from being a Chrome pitch (lol, that again) she’s also stuck on the ground herself, and I’d always much rather have a Rhystic or Talion or some such shit over Tymna, unless it was a combat heavy variant of the deck. Because that’s the problem with Rainbow, you can run a similar deck a hundred different ways. Then again, I’d rather just jam a Toski – he’s a much better card than Tymna in most aspects for card draw. (Don’t let the Vancouver CEDH scene hear me shitting on Tymna, even in the 99, or they’ll lose their fucking shit.)

Breeches, Brazen Plunderer: I did include Breeches in the 99 in many early builds of this deck, hoping he would provide some card advantage. Unfortunately, Breeches is far better as a guaranteed accessible card in the command zone over a four mana 3/3 in the 99. So unfortunately unless I double down on purely Pirate Tribal over the flexibility Tribal Tribal provides, he likely will be outpaced by his new better printing in favor of better four drops that provide more card advantage or value. (Update: There’s a Pirates Brew of course.)

Oakhame Adversary: A warrior fit for Najeela. Can’t remember if I run this in my Najeela list, even. Unfortunately, the deathtouch guaranteeing card draw is often mediocre if you can’t take advantage of the card’s built in cost reduction. I’d rather just run a Toski in most situations if I need these sorts of Coastal piracy effects for more card draw.

Species Specialist: I feel this is sort of a trap card for this deck. Firstly, we’re not running many aristocrat style lines or packages, since we’ve cut the excess ashnod’s altar and other OG Conspiracy lines in most brews already. And the combos or synergies we still have in the deck want to remain on the board to ensure they can keep grinding us value. I’m sure there are certain pod matchups that will swing this thing from highly useless to pure gold, but for two black pips and four mana total, there are cheaper draw engines, even if the allure of running more Tribal tech is high in a Conspiracy deck.

Toski, Bearer of Secrets: Everybody who has watched Season 2 of The Brewery knows that my cohost Joseph named his new Pomeranian after this stupid squirrel. But regardless of that adorable little furry bastard, I actually REALLY like Toski as a card. He’s got two different kinds of built in protection, being both uncounterable AND indestructible. Additionally, at four mana he still only needs one green pip, an easy stretch for Rainbow decks that have primarily green bases. So not only is he a Coastal Piracy effect that can feed you cards himself, it makes committing creatures to the board feel better and better. I’ve had enormous success with Toski in decks like Jodah and Najeela, where he frequently refills your hand right after you’ve dumped it out onto the field. Toski isn’t quite at auto-include status for me, but he does find himself making it into more and more of my green creature combat focused brews for his insane and easy to obtain card advantage, seeing as he can often cantrip himself a turn after landing at least.

Gitaxian Probe: This card got banned in a different format for a reason. Being able to play free spells is usually busted. (Fuck you Krarkashima, you piece of shit. I hate you so much, you antisocial piece of shit.) Being able to see your opponent’s hand to check for interaction is also usually busted. Cantripping for free a la Street Wraith? You now have Grixis Death Shadow Players in Modern everywhere slavering like fucking dogs. Unfortunately, in this deck I’d rather have another counterspell than a guarantee of no interaction in a single opponent’s hand. Save this shit for your degenerate and annoying to play against Krarkashima pestilence. (And know that everybody you play Krarkashima against, hates you. And it’s entirely your fault for the choices you’ve made.)

Jeska’s Will: Some streamlined versions of this deck are already on and off Fierce Guardianship and Deflecting Swat at the moment, and I wonder if such builds are low enough to the ground, and cast Rukarumel often enough, to justify Jeska’s Will as an include. At worst, it’s often a very good ritual spell. At best, it digs you deeper and gives you something to spend the red mana on. But five mana commanders, especially WUBRG CMC commanders, really struggle to run the “Commander on field” free spells over cheap one mana blue interaction. Yes, technically this is a card advantage card. But with both Deflecting Swat and Fierce Guardianship already on the Rukarumel streamlined builds chopping block, I doubt this will find a place without Underworld Breach shenanigans or some other way of breaking it.

Timetwister: You could retool half this deck and run Isochron Scepter loops and Swan Song and all that fun stuff. But that might be best saved for a Treasure or artifact heavy build of this deck that really can abuse artifacts to a greater extent. Otherwise, it does serve as a quasi source of both card draw and recursion as this deck doesn’t have a lot of graveyard manipulation. Then again, you have the issue of wheels and bloat – You’re going to be inclined to run Notion Thief or synonyms the more wheels you have, especially with most decks already on Orcish Bowmaster in black. And secondly, Rainbow lists are tight enough, so no matter how small, some packages still require entirely different deck building strategies or interlocking packages. Plus there’s the whole “refilling your opponents’ hands” for free thing, which is only ever useful when maybe wheeling an opponent out of a known tutored win attempt.

Wheel of Fortune (And basically every other wheel): Same as Timetwister, except we all know Wheels are a backup card for Breach lines, and obviously better suited to Grixis decks that run Breach lines and wheel shenanigans. The other thing with wheels is that refilling your opponents hands is usually a TERRIBLE idea, especially if they’re not in blue and struggle with card advantage already! Why feed your enemies? I tend not to run them these days in CEDH unless I’m in Izzet or some other Red Guild color pairing. Obviously if you run Breach, you run the graveyard pitching wheels most likely, because you’re winning the game at that point.

Temur Ascendancy: Haste is enticing in the glass cannon builds to give some combos the ability to kill on the same turn they pop off. Drawing cards is also enticing. But four is just so much harder to ensure than three, and at some point you’re better off just jamming a fucking Guardian project if you can guarantee enough creature drops, you know? Pitches nice to Chrome Mox though.

Whirlwind of Thought: I really like this card. Unfortunately I haven’t quite found a way to really break it in CEDH yet outside of some fringe Jeskai cantrip and ritual shenanigans. Also four mana is tough, even if it does feed Chrome Mox well.

Sylvan Library: I have a love-hate relationship with Sylvan library. Many consider it an auto include in every green list, simply for being a Mirri’s Guile on steroids. Unfortunately, it also invites every deck at the table to beat the shit out of you as you “Take eight, feel great” every turn. My problem is that I often get blazed as hell every time I play CEDH to handicap myself for a better challenge and to tolerate slow playing motherfuckers better. That also leads to me drawing my card by rote every turn and forgetting the fucking Sylvan trigger. So this might be the only card in all of my Magic experience that I will tell you not to play if you smoke weed or drink while playing MTG – for your own good. Plus it can feed the shit out of certain cards like Orcish Bowmasters, obviously.

Dress Down: It punts Thassa’s Oracle and a lot of other creature card wins at Instant speed for two mana, which I like. It also cantrips, which I like as well. So really I guess this one is entirely a preference piece comparable to your counterspell suite. Another card I have no interest in learning the layer timing for, especially where a Thassa’s Oracle ETB is concerned. Fuck layers. All my other judge homies hate layers.

Compost (And Insight): I wish I could tell you that Compost and Insight were as good as Carpet of Flowers in terms of the OG color hate cards. Compost is much better than Insight, due to the prevalence of black as a tutoring color in CEDH, and certain pods will juice it so hard you will wonder why you ever cut it. (Ever see a K’rrik player juice a Compost?) Green’s a close second to Blue/Black as an included color these days for Thassa’s wincons. But two pods later, in a stax and control laden hell devoid of black, you will dead draw it early as a punishment for your hubris. Then you will realize the nature of the meta, as an ever changing and evolving thing in which people will play whatever they want, and don’t give two shits about what might be optimal in a greater meta of the format. Thus, you’ll cut them to ensure predictability, even though the ceilings on these cards are still crazy high. The times in which they are fucking useless will remind you why certain ensured consistency is worth playing suboptimally at times, in terms of card choice.

Veil of Summer: Yes, it can cantrip, and it protects your shit. But we’re in Rainbow. We have access to counterspells and Silence effects, which are often just… Better? So save it for the green heavy brews outside blue, homies.

Skullclamp: The great Skullclamp debate of this deck has been raging since I first opted to explore Conspiracy.deck earlier in 2023. At first glance, the commander seems like the perfect fit for a Skullclamp, and we’re even running cards like Urza’s Saga that can tutor it and other bangers like Sensei’s Divining Top out! Unfortunately, the slivers are rarely relevant as anything other than swingers to farm Tribal triggers, or simple mana dorks under various tap effects. I do like the idea of late game drawing a Skullclamp and pitching all my mana dorks in exchange for cards when I need it, as do I like the idea of playtesting it in the sliver-heavy jank builds where the Rukarumel tokens become much more useful around cards like Harmonic Sliver and Necrotic Sliver. Still, my love of this broken fucking card will always have me trying to jam it into any token deck I play. Really, any decks that even remotely want to slap it on a creature in the hopes of two cards a rotation. I have a problem, and it’s gotta do with the clamps.

Sensei’s Divining Top: I did playtest this in the various brews of this deck that run Counterbalance, as anybody who knows Counterbalance also knows that Sensei’s plus Counterbalance can be one of the most frustrating things to play against in all of existence. Especially when the damn top itself can always guarantee the one pip counter just by tapping. I really like top, because the ability to dig a little deeper, and draw one card, often becomes more relevant the more topdeck tutors you run in a given build. All of a sudden your normally poopy cards like Imperial Seal and Sylvan Tutor look a lot better with immediate access to what’s been tutored in the same turn. We’ll see. If it gets a spot anywhere it’ll be in the streamlined builds to try and double down on Counterbalance abuse – I’m trying to run as many “free” counterspells as possible in such builds, and breaking one of them even harder is enticing with everything top does. Only downside is the question of deck bloat, again, as the moment you include top, you often want to try jamming an Aetherflux Reservoir or Bolas’ Citadel to have yet another game winning combo line. This deck loves colorless too much already, so going even further into heavy-colorless lines might be better in the Treasure Tribal versions of this commander, as ever.

Scroll Rack: Sorry folks, despite this thing being great back in the day, I do think that outside of artifact decks that can break it, it’s perfectly mediocre and entirely up to player choice.

Memory Jar: Take everything I said about wheels and make it more expensive, but only colorless to cast. Again, maybe the artifact heavy brew will use this for some degeneracy of some sort.

Kraum, Ludevic’s Opus: Could you jam a Kraum happily into the 99 of this deck? Sure could. He’s a flying 4/4 hasty attacker which can easily be turned into a Pirate or Dwarf as needed. He also draws you cards reliably unless your opponents choose to play with an imaginary Rule of Law. There’s a fucking reason Tymna Kraum is so prevalent these days with such bomb card draw access in the command zone, eh? He’s been a banger every time I’ve cast him in Jodah, for example, even in the 99.

Winona, Joiner of Forces: Winota doesn’t really work well with Conspiracy effects, considering most coat both your field and deck, so naming Human is kind of useless entirely. I’m sure you could justify her inclusion with enough humans in the 99, as many of our main combo attackers are dwarves or pirates in best case scenarios. But for four mana, she mostly pitches to Chrome Mox I surmise. (This joke will never die.)

(Janky only)Atla Palani: Atla isn’t conventional or traditional card advantage, she’s just pure value in terms of farming creatures onto the board for relatively little cost. I haven’t had a chance to really break her yet, by dropping a Conspiracy on “Egg” before a board wipe or such, but having every single one of your creatures swing freely for fear of egg value is a neat political play. I’m hoping to get to playtest her more in the near future, as she’s been one of those cards that seems to never get drawn when I want to see how she plays. Also, as with all the other multicolor cards, yes, she pitches to Chrome Mox. As a final note, I think she could be phenomenal in brews using the older aristocrats style Conspiracy lines with Ashnod’s Altar loops and similar such effects.

Divining Witch: This is almost more of a tutor effect than a card advantage effect, a la the OG Demonic Consultation. But technically it loots in a kinky sort of way? Only worth playing if you’re heavy into the Thassa’s Oracle lines and don’t mind getting blown out by going all in here and there. I do mind, myself.

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy: We’ve already talked about Kinnan way too much in this primer. I’m really only including it here because the big fat ability can generate value straight to board. Same exact shit as Atla Palani, really. (AKA pitches to Chrome Mox. Everything pitches to Chrome Mox)

Gilt-Leaf Archdruid: A five mana “Druid-Only” draw engine is only mentionable in Changeling or more glass cannon brews. However, the secondary ability to steal a landbase is enticing enough that decklists with enough creatures to use the secondary effect will definitely call “Druid” on a Conspiracy effect at least once or twice to farm some card draw on top. One of those “gotcha” cards that people will never forget you blowing them out with.

Yuriko, The Tiger’s Shadow: Card advantage and freebie damage is neat, but only when you can guarantee lots of connections. Save this for the decks that are combat focused, or which can go wide with enough Yuriko triggers to make her worthwhile, as she obviously doesn’t farm very many triggers by herself without changeling support otherwise.

Tutor & Tutor Adjacent:

I’ll note here that I’m not going to repeat most of the Tribal-specific creature tutors that tutor directly to the board already covered in a previous section. We’ll just be talking about the regular bunch you see in CEDH and some outliers. I’m sure I’ll miss some somewhere and have to come back to annotate or edit this damn thing later.

(Both)Magda, Brazen Outlaw: We’ve talked about Magda enough. But she’s an Instant speed tutor as long as you don’t have a Cursed Totem ruin your day. Yep.

(Streamlined Only)Ranger-Captain of Eos: This is only in the streamlined build largely because it fits two roles, primarily holding up a Silence effect for either win attempts or stopping win attempts. In this deck specifically, it does grab our Universal Automaton as a combo piece for Magda, though, so I’ve chosen to include it in the streamlined CEDH build but replace it in the more glass cannon Tribal combo versions.

(Streamlined only)Imperial Seal: If we’re running things like Sensei’s Divining Top this card suddenly becomes much better. However, it’ll always be that reliable T1 Mana Crypt or Dockside grab a lot of the time. It’s been cut in the jankier glass cannon builds for more Tribal or creature based tutors instead, remaining in the streamlined CEDH brew to ensure some secrecy or hidden information.

(Both)Demonic Tutor: The best tutor in the game, perhaps? I don’t know if a single black CEDH deck in existence can avoid running DT at this point, it’s so much of an auto include…

(Streamlined Only)Praetor’s Grasp: Two black pips and Sorcery speed is a lot to ask for a three mana tutor. However, the unique nature of said tutor in giving you a choice of three decks to tutor from, potentially in colors that enable faster wins? That’s worth playing in the streamlined CEDH lists. Grabbing a Thassa’s, Dockside, or Tainted pact for three mana will never be a BAD play per say, unless there’s a Drannith Magistrate on board to punt such a thing.

(Janky Only)Birthing Pod: It’s a reliable, repeatable tutor. One of the problems with Birthing Pod lines is that they usually lean heavily towards Kiki Jiki combos, due to the ease with which most Kiki combo pieces untap the Birthing Pod to keep digging a la classic Blood Pod strategies. And in Rainbow you can run every single Kiki Jiki combo piece, from Hyrax Tower Scout to Village Bell Ringer to Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch. Were I to do a more Treasure or twiddlestorm heavy brew of this list, I might dive deeper into Kiki lines. (Update: Yep.) For now it’s barely holding a spot in the jankier brews due to a preference for creature based Tribal tutor that can’t be locked down by Null Rod effects, which is more prevalent than Cursed Totem, often. Still, depending on the streamlined brews’ tutor consistency, I may slot both Pyre of Heroes and Birthing Pod back in to smooth out the number of tutors even further, ensuring more access to them in any given hand.

(Janky Only)Pyre of Heroes: A cheaper Birthing Pod is amazing, especially one that can turf any creature – for any other creature in the deck as long as you have a Conspiracy effect. Some of the early game plays and strategies with this thing have been awesome thus far, but I’m dreading the day I draw it dead without access to a Conspiracy effect or a creature to pitch. Most of the combo piece Creatures being two or three mana makes these sorts of tutors very appealing for a deck full of dorks though! Finally, I haven’t gotten a chance to see how Clock of Omens or Aphetto Alchemist plays with these tapping artifact based creature tutors, so they could be better than I think given the right board state. (Update: Have won multiple games by untapping and double pitching Pyre of Heroes OR Birthing Pod, a la Blood Pod lists of yore.)

(Janky Only)Sliver Overlord: I’ve discussed Sliver Overlord already when we talked about Amoeboid Changeling as a Conspiracy effect way back at the beginning of this primer. In addition to being VERY pitchable to Chrome Mox, he can tutor out your changelings to hand, or steal creatures from your opponents, no gilded drake needed. The tech is classic sliver tech, with the more known sliver synergies such as Harmonic Sliver, Necrotic Sliver, and the mana dork slivers in the jankier glass cannon lists. The more sliver tech, the more Sliver Overlord and Amoeboid Changeling feel like no brainer includes as oddball gotcha synergies. Overlord also gets better with Training Ground effects, obviously.

(Both)Survival of the Fittest: This thing is an auto include in any green creature based combo list. It grabs all our main wincons such as Thassa, Malcolm, and Magda, and anything else we might need to back it up or bait out counterspells with. Two mana for a one green repeatable discard tutor is incredible in my Garth deck for cycling Anger, and it’s just as good here where you can pitch more useless Pirates or Changelings for better pieces at Instant speed. Beware Opposition Agent! People will line them up for the end step that you save your Survival trigger for.

(Both)Muddle The Mixture: I honestly think Muddle The Mixture should see way more play. Despite being narrow in scope and yet the same cost as classic Counterspell, in many of my decks it primarily serves as a three mana, yet two CMC tutor that can’t be counterspelled. And again, nobody plays Stifle anymore, so it’s mostly home free in the tutoring regard. Filling both a countermagic slot and a tutor slot for the most common CEDH wincons of Thassa’s Oracle and Dockside Extortionist, while ALSO grabbing Magda in this specific brew is amazing.

(Both)Enlightened Tutor: This deck is pretty heavy on the artifacts. And ensuring a turn two Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe will often be very strong in terms of accelerating you beyond your opponents. As stated before, this gets even better with cards like Sensei’s Divining Top for immediate access.

(Both)Vampiric Tutor: The best of the one mana topdeck tutors due to being the widest in terms of scope. Another auto include in every black deck. Not much more to say about this card that hasn’t been said in however many years, you know?

(Both)Worldly Tutor: Specific to creatures, this becomes an auto include in most decks running Oracle or Dockside already. In this deck with multiple creature based win lines? Definitely necessary.

(Streamlined Only)Mystical Tutor: This card is great, but the deck would much prefer creature or artifact tutors instead, unfortunately. It still makes an appearance in the streamlined CEDH brews to grab bits and pieces we need such as Thassa combo cards or the like.

(Janky Only)Sylvan Tutor: Sylvan Tutor is still well costed for what it does. But in a world of Opposition Agents, Ragavans, Winds of Rebuke, and the like, Sorcery speed topdeck tutors are hard to justify without some way to immediately pick them up such as a Sensei’s or some other card draw engine. Thus it’s only made it into the glass cannon builds sparingly for now due to how fast and greedy that build is for specific creatures.

(Streamlined Only)Eladamri’s Call: I like Eladamri’s Call a lot, and no, not just because it pitches nicely to Chrome Mox this time! It’s an Instant speed tutor for two mana, which a lot of the time can lead into snap wins by saving it until the end step of the opponent just before you. The tough fixing of the card does make it less enticing than the single pip tutors, but hey, it’s an Instant speed creature tutor that tutors to hand, so it ain’t bad! Obviously in the jankier glass cannon brews I’ve cut it for “tutor on a stick” effects instead.

(Both)Tainted Pact: A lot of people get so swept up in using Tainted Pact as a Thassa’s Oracle combo piece, that they forget we were running this thing in our Zur builds over a decade ago! It just grabs the next best thing you were going to draw in your deck most of the time, but in a pinch never forget that Tainted Pact can also masquerade as a Silence or Counterspell when you need it most. It also quasi-tutors specific combo pieces, as long as you’re okay with pitching possibly most of your deck to exile for it. Cards with multiple uses or roles are worth their weight in gold, never forget that. (RIP Modern Mardu Pyromancer, the last “fair” Modern deck that cared about modal cards.)

(Streamlined Only)Demonic Consultation: It’s all in, baby. That’s what I hate about this card, as I have such naturally inverse levels of luck that the card I want from a Consult is consistently in the bottom five of the deck, or the top six of it and I then deck myself. I blame it on the Blood Curse drinking my damn luck. Regardless, I’ve removed it from the jankier builds for more Tribal tutors, so I only run both in the more streamlined CEDH brews for Oracle. I just prefer cards that help me win based on talent or my own plays, not ones that can make me lose to shitty RNG. I’m sure somebody will try to crucify me for saying this, but oh well. If you really want to double down on Thassa lines, just run Laboratory Maniac and that three blue pip Jace, you cowards!

(Both)Inventor’s Fair: We chatted about this already in the land base section. It’s indeed a tutor on a land, a rare breed of Magic card that we need to cherish as the busted fucking thing it is! I’ll never be sure if the Legendary tag is really gonna be relevant, though.

(Both)Urza’s Saga: Same as the previous entry, we’ve chatted about this in a previous section. I’m just going to point at how decks like Tron wanna run three or four-ofs of this card as proof it’s incredible for artifact combo and general acceleration. Does feed Docksides though, sadly. And people will line up their Opposition Agent or Aven Mindcensor to coincide with your Saga in the rotation, I guarantee it like that shitty insurance commercial.

(Both)Wishclaw Talisman: This is a pretty solid tutor most of the time. When you start doing shit like using Aphetto Alchemist and Clock of Omens with the tap ability still on the stack to get two or three tutors while feeding your opponents a useless Dockside feeder? Even fucking better. Yeehaw. Haven’t lived the three crank Wishclaw Talisman dream yet, but one day somebody playing Rukarumel will, dammit!

Realmbreaker, The Invasion Tree: We’ve chatted about why this card is currently cut on and off, but I do feel that a two card combo with the commander that can dump out every creature in your deck onto the field for ten plus mana is still worth considering. I’m rooting for it to find a space in perhaps more artifact centric brews, or a brew with more infinite mana loops to fuel such shenanigans reliably outside of Smothering Tithe grinding or Docksides and the like.

The World Tree: We’ve covered this card enough already. It fixes you for Rainbow, it taps for green regardless, and with enough mana and a Conspiracy effect, it tutors your entire creature base to board and wins you the game at Instant speed. Not bad for a stupid fucking tribal tutor land, eh?

Idyllic Tutor: Three mana is a lot, even if it tutors right to hand. I dunno. There are arguments to be made for and against higher mana cost versus hidden information in hand for your tutors, I guess? In the Treasure Tribal artifact heavy brews of this I might prototype, this would find a spot more easily. Maybe the Intruder Alarm brews? Overall pretty mid.

Fabricate (And all the artifact tutors): Same as the last card, really. The artifact tutors in general are plentiful in blue and many of them also tutor the card straight to the board!

Zur The Enchanter: I was actively playtesting Zur in the jankier builds for a long while, almost entirely because he ensured an easy Conspiracy Effect could land protest-free in Arcane Adaptation or Unnatural Selection. However, every single one of the other enchantments tutorable in both brews of this list are bangers, from Survival of the Fittest to open up another tutor line, or a simple Rhystic or Mystic to nab some card draw. Hell, in 5c graveyard heavy decks you can even grab Breach with it! But best of all… It pitches to Chrome Mox. As an OG Zur player of over a decade ago, I still really like Zur, and I’d like for him to come back, even if only as a goodstuff card in my Jodah and/or Tribal lists as an evasive flying Pirate or Dwarf – grinding away value. (Has anybody grabbed Urza’s Saga with Zur yet? I’ve never seen it. Does Saga help his viability? Poor power crept out OG bastard. Let’s take a minute of silence here for my homie Zur, whose lore is bonkers.)

Shared Summons: Two creature tutors to hand for five mana? That’s aight, considering many of our deck’s combos only consist of two creatures for the most part. Unfortunately, there are many tutors for cheaper, and this might be a card best saved for the Treasure-heavy brews that can support casting it more quickly. Instant speed tutors will always quirk my eyebrow, though. The one with the scar. Full Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson aughts vibes. Met him once. He seemed annoyed that a twelve year old wrestling fan would be asking for his autograph as he ate a wrap on the set of Walking Tall.

Chord of Calling: While the number of creatures on board in this deck is usually fairly high, so the convoke is more accessible… Three green pips is still a big ask, even in Rainbow lists that tend to shift green like all of mine. I do like Instant speed tutors to board though! They can jam stax answers or the like in response to what your opponents are trying to get away with. Still, the tutor field is already so tight in 5c! I guess it gives the stupid Rukarumel Slivers more to do, potentially?

Tooth and Nail: Does this easily assemble many of our combos for something stupid like 9 mana? Yes, yes it does. Is it fucking 9 mana? Also yes. Unless you’re rocking a billion Treasures consistently, there are easier tutors to cast in modern times my dudes. Let us merely reminisce about the good times so long ago when Tooth and Nail won us many, many games of EDH.

Eldritch Evolution: I know the real value in these sorts of cards is that your opponents have to respond to them before they know what you’re going to tutor out directly to the battlefield. You can politick this hard, or bait out answers. Many Thassa’s Oracles have dodged the relevant countermagic with this sort of shit as a result. Still, three mana, two of which are green pipped, and having to sacrifice a creature appropriately as a cost before the spell even resolves is pretty tough. I’d almost prefer the “tutors on a stick” Tribal cards or Birthing Pod/Pyre of Heroes in many instances for repeatability and consistency of the same damn effect in a wider range of cheap grabs.

Neoform: Same issues as Eldritch Evolution, but at least you can pitch it to Chrome Mox in a pinch. Also, Eldritch Evolution is better in some ways, as if board states or lines change, you have the option to grab X+2 OR a lesser CMC creature, as where Neoform can be a bit harder to get value out of when interacted around, being locked into X+1. I guess it throws a counter on the creature, which is nice?

Time of Need: I was on this in many early brews of Rukarumel, largely because it’s a two mana tutor that grabs both Magda and Malcolm to hand. However, as the deck often pivots to Thassa’s Oracle lines as a faster and more aggressive win con, especially in the streamlined list – I found myself shifting back to the more reliable and cheaper one mana topdeck tutors instead. This card is no Demonic Tutor, but it’s still really fucking good in Legendary heavy decks like my Jodah builds. Worth a look depending on your Legendary creature density in more lists than one across much of Rainbow CEDH.

Green Sun’s Zenith: We talked about this regarding Dryad Arbor already. I did try and make the deck a little more green at one point, with some of these green pieces of tech from simpler times. Still, most of the deck’s win cons are in Red and Blue, not green persay. So it does get cut, sadly, despite being a lovely recurrable tutor in most decks.

Gamble: “Red Entomb” goes the old joke, and many people in the CEDH scene have seen me use it in Garth as exactly that – a last card in the hand, to pitch Anger or get an Underworld Breach going. As far as one mana tutors go, Gamble is surprisingly good in blue decks that can inflate the chances of keeping what you tutor for – by overfilling the hand. Still, Sorcery speed is tough in 5c Rainbow, where you have access to all of the best tutors across all the colors. Red’s one claim to fame in CEDH in regards to tutors, (Outside maybe Godo and Imperial Recruiter?) just isn’t good enough to include unless we’re opting for graveyard synergies that can truly break it properly.

Cateran Summons: Another SUPER cute one mana tutor, this thing only ever grabs Changelings, usually. Unless you’re on the jankier brews and running any of the various Mercenary tutors on a stick like Cateran Assassin. There are simply better tutors, I suppose, unless you’re willing to increase the number of changelings by a large margin?

Flamekin Harbinger: I can’t remember if I covered this in the creature tutor section or not. Risen Reef or Changeling grabs like Mirror Entity are pretty much the main reason to run this card in any Tribal Tribal deck, both as a way of ensuring you get it to hand in the early game for more acceleration, or the other way around, having already named Elemental on a Conspiracy and landed a Reef to then get double value from the Flamekin harbinger that ETBs and grabs whatever you want in the deck to hand in terms of creatures for a single mana. Being a top deck tutor at Sorcery speed is a downside, but cards like this prompt me to want to run Skullclamp and the like, to double, triple, or even quadruple the value that cards like this provide. The dream would be to get a free tutor to hand with the ETB, then continue to tap or attack for mana before getting skullclamped away, all in one go. In my casual Elementals EDH deck with Horde/Jegantha at the helm? It does fucking WORK! Does in my 5c Modern Elementals too with a couple Aether Vials. Great card for one mana. Really want to run it in both brews somehow with the Reef. THE REEF! The best Elemental card ever printed.

Treefolk Harbinger: While Elementals have far more playable Tribal centric cards than Treefolk, I do have a soft spot for this typing as a former lumberjack of a decade ago. The plus side to this guy is that in addition to nabbing your changelings as treefolk, it can also fix your mana by topdecking the appropriate OG dual with forest typing. I think these cards would be better in a more parasitic ETB brew with Cloudstone loops, Emiel, Dockside, and the like, but I very strongly want to run them as one mana all stars in both brews, seeing as both one drop ETB creature Tribal tutors grab the Universal Automaton for the Magda combo at least! Plus, on the odd chance you’re running Faeburrow Elder, it also tutors that?

Spellseeker: We all know this card in the various CEDH diasporas. It’s a classic tutor for Thassa’s Oracle combo pieces, or for countermagic to stop win attempts. Skullclampable, flickerable, and basic bitch ass typing make it pretty easy to justify running. Plus it loops with Riptide Laboratory, which is a cute Tribal interaction nobody expects. Unfortunately, the current streamlined builds have cut most of the sidebar ETB effects to dodge the plethora of Torpor Orbs I’ve run face first into recently. If you want to see some dumb ETB bullshit with this card, take a look at my Garth One Eye primer and the various archetype decklists on Moxfield and McRaeWrites.com under “The Brewery.” (Update: Or The Rukarumel ETB Flicker list at the top.)

Imperial Recruiter: Nabs Dockside, Thassa, and more. Skullclampable AF. All the same pros and cons of Spellseeker and Recruiter of the Guard. In a future build more focused on Displacer Kitten, Cloudstone Curio, or the like, I’ll definitely be rocking the ETB tutor trio. (Update: Which I did do, of course.)

Recruiter of the Guard: Subjectively worse than Imperial Recruiter in terms of staple creature combos, it does grab some dumb shit like Opposition Agent. Again, if your personal brand or flavor is ETB abuse, go right ahead and lean that way, please! (I’m not going to bloat this primer even further by breaking down ALL 5c deck archetypes unless somebody pays me to. This fucking primer is already half the size of one of my regular Science Fiction books FFS. I’m pretty sure it breaks the record for longest CEDH Primer ever written, hilariously. But hey, I want it to be a useful Rainbow resource for aspiring 5c CEDH and Tribal players primarily, you know?)

Captain Sisay: Surprisingly Chrome Moxable. For four mana, she does do some ridiculous shit once you start getting into twiddlestorm shenanigans. And this Sisay gets double value with Aphetto Alchemist/Seeker of Skybreak, in addition to being stupid as fuck with Intruder Alarm. While she does grab both Malcolm and Magda, as well as a handful of others, I’ve cut her for now from many builds until I build some twiddlestorm bullshit that can break her properly, or lean towards more Jodah-esque Legendary Tribal brews. That’s all unless I jam the Minamo back in or some such sneaky tech lines.

Protean Hulk (And Hulk Lines): Fuck you Flash, never come back. Protean Hulk rewards graveyard synergies, just like Breach, remember? So in another lifetime, maybe I’ll build a hulk pile graveyard hell 5c list with all the stupid fucking Hermit Druid tech and such. Maybe. Probably not for a while. I already brew far too much CEDH. I still have pulpy sci fi books to write, after all.

Hoarding Broodlord (And Saw In Half): Two cards that tutor and help cast most of the two card win cons in whatever brew you’re rocking? Not bad. But even with the convoke help, Broodlord is a tough card to justify unless you’re running Entomb tech that can cheat him out for almost no mana, or a creature heavy brew for the former. Again, clearly a more graveyard or black-heavy package to slot in when you’re on aristocrat or graveyard tech.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded: Leave this shit for Spleen. Again, if you’re rocking Asmodeus, the Archfiend, or any of those sorts of Necrotic Ooze, reanimator, or black leaning recursion lines, you’re probably also on Razaketh, because I’m certainly not paying three fucking black mana for an eight drop in a fucking Rainbow deck, that’s for sure. I don’t even give a shit about how that was a run-on sentence. Get that triple-pipped shit out of my Rainbow pile!

Intuition: See: Underworld Breach. Granted, it can assemble multiple win lines OR grab three counterspells or removal pieces, ensuring you get at least one. A rather mediocre tutor without graveyard synergies, the same as most Necrotic Ooze and Underworld Breach lines. Run it if you’re running Breach, etc. etc. (or just go play fucking Grixis Turbo Naus or Blue Farm already, fuck.)

Crop Rotation: As this deck has some specific tutor and Tribal tech available to it on lands, this card actually gets better when it can grab cards like Cavern of Souls, cheating it into the role of protection in addition to the usual fixing or acceleration via Gaea’s Cradle. When you start adding specific abusable packages like Riptide Laboratory and ETB Wizards like Spellseeker and Archaeomancer, there are some very fascinating directions you could take Crop Rotation within the Tribal/Typal sphere. Maybe I’ll playtest it a little more in the months to come to see how well it plays in the late game as well as early game. It does definitely promote inclusion of the newest Nissa, though…

Diabolic Intent: The strictly worse version of Demonic Tutor that thrives more in creature, graveyard, or Breach decks. While we do have a lot of creatures in the list, which has prompted me to playtest it in the more streamlined versions, I’d likely only play it again if I dipped further into the tech around making 1/1 Slivers as easy pitches and recurring the same tutors from graveyard somehow in Wizard-adjacent tech along Wizard Tribal lines.

Profane Tutor: We’re not Codie, who can cast this thing for free. So unless you want to set up a tutor to be easily spotted, watched, and countered when it does cast, it’s mediocre. (or just go play Rhinos in Modern if you want to cast free shit just to stunt!)

Uncage The Menagerie, Weird Harvest, Etc: Fuck Weird Harvest. Stripping Animar down to the bare bones ripped away a lot of the interlocking synergies of many of the deck’s cards, and made the list more boring to play due to fewer overall interlacing interactions. Plus, why the hell would you give your opponents tutors that could be answers when you could just rock Birthing Pod or creature tutor bullshit instead? I know Temur is pretty shitty in CEDH, but come on. Have some respect for us competitive Animar players of over a decade ago. Anyways, these are high ceiling cards, yes, but also kind of mid when you realize we have access to all of the tutor effects in the entirety of Magic: The Gathering for the most part. Let mono green play these silly little cards. And let me play Animar how I want, motherfuckers. Yes, all of that means they’re cut from Rukarumel and most Rainbow piles.

Invasion of Ikoria: This thing cheats out Thassa’s Oracle or Dockside Extortionist like it’s NOTHING! Plus, your opponents have to counter the battle/Sorcery rather than the card being tutored, which keeps that win con in your deck for later, very similar to the Eldritch Evolution and Neoform archetype of tutor. Still, these are hit and miss. Two green pips plus an X cost means they can scale, but are annoying to cast in the very early game. They do recur cards from the graveyard, so you can kind of count them as reanimation and tutors simultaneously, but again, the more you use your graveyard or fill it even, the more you should be playing graveyard synergies, friend. Additionally, the battle can flip into a fucking 7/5 reach creature that allows your swings to “ignore blocks” for the most part via Thorn Elemental text or some shit. Not bad for a new card archetype, damn.

Finale of Devastation: Unlike its newer cousin above, Finale has a slightly different angle or benefit than the battle version. While it also counts as both recursion from graveyard and a tutor simultaneously, same as the twin, infinite mana pumped into it can end games, when you loop a Dockside for a billion mana and subsequently swing with hasted creatures of infinite proportions. This card is more at home in Sisay or Kenrith lists that can better abuse infinite mana loops, as the moment our deck obtains infinite mana, we should also be simultaneously killing the table anyways with a variety of much easier to use effects, preferably at Instant speed. I do promote people running both Battle and Finale in their 5c decks a lot for all the modalities and angles they offer you, if you can pay the higher cost for a tutor.

Wargate: I love this OG Alara era piece of shit. Look how well it pitches to Chrome Mox while also slapping a permanent onto the battlefield! If you care about your land tech, it definitely deserves a look as a three mana tutor that dumps a land onto the battlefield to ensure fixing or utility tech, I guess? But really, let us ask ourselves… Is Bant mana worth dropping a Gaea’s Cradle as an extra land drop at Sorcery speed? We shall ponder this question forever. Only Richard Garfield could know… (Somebody show me some sick Wargate tech, plz.)

Grim Tutor: Somewhat overcosted for what it does in comparison to the better Demonic Tutor, double black pips is the only thing holding Grim Tutor from having a place in more Rainbow decks as a reliable tutor-anything to hand card. The playability of Demonic Tutor over this card really speaks to how thin the lines are in CEDH between playable or not. But as ever, I’m trying to challenge these sorts of norms.

Unmarked Grave, Entomb, Buried Alive, Etc: See all the comments about graveyard synergies and strategies being an archetype you kinda have to commit to in a decklist to get the most value from. Look at my Garth lists if you want to see some cute Entomb tech. Or just go play Kenrith who can actually abuse Graveyard shit with even better value via Training Grounds and the like? I feel like Kenrith is currently the best Graveyard synergy Rainbow commander, no? Y’all can roast me on Social Media for this one if I’m wrong. (But ONLY this one, okay?)

Nature’s Lore/Three Visits: I’ve actually seen more and more people use Nature’s Lore and Three Visits in CEDH over traditional mana rocks – due to the increasing prevalence of Collector Ouphe effects. After all, it can grab any Forest typed land, including various utility forests, triomes, Shocks, and OG Duals. While it folds to the same deck search stax effects as everything else, what used to be a joke card in CEDH outside of decks like Aesi and Tatyova turns is becoming more and more relevant due to the lack of much land hate outside Blood Moon effects. Maybe I should have included these in the mana section, but fuck it. Here we are, okay?

Moggcatcher, Seahunter, etc: We covered these way up above. They’re great in decks that use tools like Intruder Alarm to force multiply your pieces. They also grab some of the useful changelings and key CEDH pieces like Dockside and the like. Play them at your leisure, although often you’ll struggle to land and tap for 7 mana before T4-T5 at best. Great in the glass cannon brews, though!

Urza’s Saga: Another land we’ve covered before. The tutor on this thing is handy as fuck, grabbing everything from Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, to even Skullclamp, Runed Stalactite and Universal Automaton. Unfamiliar opponents will assume a Sol Ring or Mana Crypt in your Rukarumel builds. Snap win with a sudden Runed Stalactite Conspiracy combo out of nowhere and watch people respect the deck real damn quick.

Tribal Bullshit (AKA “The Juice.”):

Let’s take a moment here to appreciate the true joy of Rukarumel and Conspiracy Tribal, AKA “Tribal Tribal” as it was over the years. Some of these secret tech cards will blow your opponents away the first time you leverage them correctly, and I hope respect grows for Rukarumel and the Conspiracy archetype as folks find all sorts of cute Tribal tech to integrate in their own unique brews.

Roaming Throne: This thing is a house for every single Tribal deck that can abuse Triggered Abilities. I foresee it quickly becoming an include as a perfectly capable “quasi-changeling” in many brews, from Winota, Najeela, and Ellivere – to even old decks like Derevi. Ward 2 is pretty great for a 4/4 for four beater hatebear the rest of the time, although I’m waiting for the day I rock a doubled Dockside with it to live the dream. Obviously, a good card for most single-tribe Tribal decks becomes a complete house in a Rukarumel Conspiracy deck. It also rides that line of “just” too annoying to remove, meaning it’ll ride said line on lots of removal as enemies wait for better targets. I’m excited to see how much of the overall CEDH meta this squeezes into, as people try to double Tymna triggers and the like off it.

Magda + Dwarf Tribal: I’ve said more than enough about Magda lines up above. I think different brews can indeed accomodate some of the better Dwarves, such as the new LOTR set bangers. But the rest of the time, the best changelings will do that same work with better overall effects most of the time. Name “Dwarf” when you have the Magda, not when you’re riding half a Pirate line.

Malcolm + Pirate Tribal: I honestly don’t know why WOTC decided to push Pirates as a tribe so hard and then proceed to print some of the most broken cards ever for it, utilizing the even more busted mechanic of Treasure and pushing that too. But the number of VERY playable Pirate CEDH cards keeps rising – Malcolm, Breeches, (And the two new printings,) Fransisco, which people are already trying to break with Walking Ballista and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, Kitesail Larcenist, Dockside Extortionist, the list just keeps growing and growing. Pirates are a very powerful Izzet and Grixis tribe, that can really shine in Conspiracy decks that ensure we can break the most broken of pirates. See the Pirate Tribal variant (Which I’m not actually a big fan of, honestly,) if you want to see all the cool Pirate tech.

Amoeboid Changeling: This thing is neat. It works right out of the box with both our Magda and Malcolm lines, and while not as wide-reaching as Mirror Entity, it can still easily fill the role of Pirate converter for our Malcolm treasure win lines. It blows up Phantasmal Images, it combos with Sliver Overlord and many of the silly Sliver lines in jankier Rukarumel brews, hell – it does almost all of the things our deck wants to do. I’m extremely excited for even more Changeling tech into the future, as Kaldheim was incredible for the tribe and the newest Ixalan set has juiced Tribal Tribal even further!

Sliver Tech (Harmonic, Necrotic, Gemhide, Manaweft, Etc.): I’ll be the first to admit it – Slivers are not CEDH. Not even the most classic of Sliver Queen bullshit. But in our more oddball Rukarumel brews, some of the more integral Slivers can still find a home. The problem with slivers is as it ever was: Slivers get exponentially better the more Slivers there are. Unfortunately, even with the best Changeling and Tribal support, Slivers are simply not fast enough over much better combat based decks like Winota, Najeela, Ellivere and the like. Still, the parasitic nature does draw some brews into running the sliver Rainbow mana dorks for Rainbow fixing, albeit overcosted, and the Harmonic and Necrotic for excellent sources of spot removal. Now, I’d rather just run a straight up Aura Shards over Harmonic Sliver most days, but there’s likely something to be said as Necrotic can ping absolutely anything, and improves in brews with cost reduction for activated abilities. That suddenly makes both Rukarumel and Necrotic a helluva lot better. I still do plan on building a Sliver-heavy Rukarumel brew, but it’ll likely be a pillow fort style of brew with the better Changelings over the more mediocre Slivers. Sadly, Queen, Legion, Hivelord, and even Overlord get passed over in the 99 of most Rukarumel brews outside those abusing the old Amoeboid Changeling/Sliver Overlord combos.

Progenitor’s Icon: I’m super excited for this thing, as out of nowhere it gives us a Rainbow Mana Rock that gifts the ability to sandbag our creatures or win at instant speed. I love playing at Flash speed, and this thing has already provided some very interesting play lines.

Harabaz Druid/Priest of Titania/Heronblade Elite, Etc: These cards are solid includes in many Tribal lists. But they do require some committment in wasting a Conspiracy effect on a mediocre tribe just to gain specific value, or by scaling slowly over time where possible. Obviously, the more changelings, the better, as then you can support some of these more left-field pieces of Tribal tech.

Steely Resolve: You have never seen Blue players sweat harder than staring me down as I use a Cavern of Souls to cast a game-winning combo piece onto a board with Steely Resolve shroud protection. It’s as close to untouchable you will ever come in CEDH. Revel in that feeling, for few CEDH decks can stax out their opponents from interacting so hard across multiple vectors.

Mutavault: I had initially considered this manland as a simple Malcolm and Magda attacker, that acted as colorless mana at the same time when needed. Unfortunately, in all my Rukarumel games, I’ve never drawn it at a very relevant time, and it has languished away as a mana source in lieu of any sick Tribal value as hoped. I likely just need a thousand more playtests across the various Rukarumel archetypes to truly see the worth, as I often knee-jerk cut it in favor of more Rainbow fixing.

Mana Echoes: We covered this before, but this thing thrives in specific archetypes of Tribal deck that can efficiently utilize lots of colorless mana. Flicker and ETB variants especially love this thing, although token decks often get a kick out of it too, as OG Marath players know all too well. A lot of mana, so only include this where you can truly abuse it via infinite combos and the like.

Risen Reef: This card is good enough that I frequently consider building an Elementals Rukarumel brew as a CEDH deck just to see how well it can keep up. Including some other pivotal Elemental cards in the mixture plus a slew of solid Changelings makes for some interesting times, I bet! This thing is an all-star, cantripping or ramping by itself, and then accruing more value from there.

Atla Palani, Nest Tender: I know folks have tried running Atla Palani as a mediocre Tribal combo commander with Mirror Entity and similar cards. She’s another card that I haven’t been able to test properly in the brews that can really benefit – such as the token and Intruder Alarm brews. I hope I can get some good data soon. I wonder if Egg Tribal is a viable Tribe? (I doubt it.)

Winota, Joiner of Forces: Now, Winota IS included in several builds of Rukarumel that utilize combat, and also have a fairly good spread of human and non human creatures. We’ll never want to play a Conspiracy effect on “Human” though, as it bricks all of our creatures on board in regards to Winota triggers. There are some other cool things I’m sure you can do with Winota, but overall I’d rather be winning with Malcolm or Magda lines.

Najeela, The Blade Blossom: It’s really hard not to include Najeela purely as a great win condition in a deck that can turn everything into a Warrior to drastically reduce Najeela’s lethality clock countdown. For those who don’t know, it takes Najeela about seven turns on average to kill an entire board with combat damage without additional help or abuse of her ability. Grim Hireling is a neat source of Rainbow Fixing as an infinite combo possibility for Najeela, crossing with Magda or Malcolm pieces. But Derevi is a harder include as a Najeela combo card without ways to abuse her. I think Najeela could live pretty happily in many brews of Rukarumel Gay Pirates though, combo cards or not.

Myrel, Shield of Argive: Listen, I understand that Myrel is technically Soldier Tribal, and so yes you can also ramp up her lethality clock pretty quick a la Najeela and the Warrior type. But I often only ever see Myrel as a Silence on a stick. So I guess both reasoning lines could justify her inclusion, even at the higher end at four mana. (But let’s be honest, I already run Pact Mana bases, and I hate Ad Nauseam, so…)

Gilt-Leaf Archdruid: This thing is the ultimate cheeky play that can also tilt an entire gamestate out of nowhere with the right cards. Obviously it draws cards, which is a plus. But it also has that nifty “tap seven druids to yoink somebody’s entire land base.” That’s the real piece I’m interested in, over an overcosted Guardian Project. Now, this card OBVIOUSLY works better in brews with either a plethora of Conspiracy effects so you can jam one on “Druid” and not feel so bad, or creature heavy Rukarumel builds with lots of Changelings or Druids that can easily jam seven critters. If we do count Rukarumel as our “Conspiracy” effect here, The Gilt Leaf and Ruka brings it down to five nontoken creatures you need to start yoinking one landbase a turn. It’s not MLD. It’s somehow worse… How many opponents can say they lost a game of Magic because somebody STOLE THEIR MANA BASE?

Turntimber Ranger: The classic OG Conspiracy combo piece, this thing gets better with cheaper, newer Conspiracy blanket effects like Arcane Adaptation or Maskwood Nexus. It also provides a faster snap win through combat if you have haste, meaning it thrives more in the combat brews at times. Still, this thing was a terror of OG EDH for a reason. Respect the classics, especially because modern era players have no idea what the fuck you’re doing, and will often underestimate or miss your many, MANY infinite combos completely.

Liliana’s Contract: Another card that says “win the game” on it, eh? One that draws four cards for five mana and four life regardless, and suddenly becomes much more practical with Rukarumel in the command zone? Four creatures is pretty easy to hit, especially since Rukarumel can provide half of that number in many situations with her Sliver generation. If this thing was four mana, it’d be an auto-include in every Rukarumel deck. At five mana, it sees play in the creature heavy lists that can easily support a win with it, or some of the cheekier builds that jam several of these oldschool two card combos for what was good mana back in the day. I’ve won way too many games of CEDH with this card in playtesting, telling me that despite the entire CEDH meta being creature heavy, people still aren’t running enough targeted removal or wipes. Toxic Deluge or Fire Covenant is a perfectly acceptable include in the modern CEDH meta. Hell, I’ve even seen some people run Blasphemous Act or Vanquish The Horde, IN CEDH! So yeah, Contract is a pretty fucking great card in this deck for the same mana as an Ad Nauseam. (I mean, Ad Nauseam digs you the cards to win the game, which this does shittily. But does Ad Nauseam read “win the game?” I think not.)

Spellstutter Sprite: Now, this is a card that has actually seen some play in some formats, and I really do want to run it in my Talion list, as a two mana flash creature that counters 2 cmc or less is pretty silly. In the Changelings brew, this card is a fucking house of a counterspell. In other brews, the idea of naming Faerie seems ridiculous unless you’ve dipped real heavy into that tribe, like a Faerie mod of Rukarumel or some shit. Granted, the tribe does keep getting better and better, and there is some real janky oldschool tech out there like Glen Elendra Archmage locks or the simple power of a Faerie Mastermind. If somebody could make cards like Sower of Temptation or Bitterblossom playable in CEDH, I’d buy that person a steak dinner.

Realmbreaker, The Invasion Tree: We’ve covered up above why this thing is so good with Conspiracy Effects, yes? The cost is mediocre, the activation cost of the first ability is mediocre, and the ability itself feeds Underworld Breach, despite ramping you by stealing the best lands available in the bin. But for a single Conspiracy blanket effect and ten colorless mana – this card wins you the fucking game at instant speed. When people shit on it, especially in these Dockside heavy metas we find ourselves in, I cannot help but laugh. Cheap mana in Rainbow has never been more plentiful – and will continue to improve with time via inevitable Rainbow power creep. With Rukarumel in the command zone as a Conspiracy effect, this suddenly becomes an easy to achieve two card combo despite the high mana cost.

The World Tree: Again, Conspiracy and this fucking land often have sweet, sweet, romantic sexytimes. It dumps every creature in the deck onto the board, which wins you the game at instant speed. No shit this is good, despite being a tapped mono green land that fixes you in the midgame.

Sliver Hive/Ally Encampment/Tribal Lands Etc: Now, we’ve talked about some of these. And there are actually a ton of Tribe-specific lands if you hunt for them. You’ll find the best of them in my Changeling Tribal deck, as it often becomes the only Rukarumel brew that can sustain the incredible Tribe-specific cards with any consistency. Granted, Maskwood Nexus fixing everything into Changelings does reduce this problem somewhat, but I’ve still abstained in my more streamlined Rukarumel brews as I would rather dump my Conspiracy effects on “Pirate” or “Dwarf” rather than on shit like “Dragon” or “Ally.” Some of the utility Tribal lands are fucking amazing, and cards like Constested Cliffs have done far more work than I can give them credit in such a Creature-heavy meta as we find ourselves in.

Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch/Galvanizer Myr/Myr Tech: Somebody, live the dream and make this playable. I tried to jam Urtet at least into some specific brews that could benefit from a dash of colorless artifact Tribal. (Despite the sea of Collector Ouphes and Dockside Extortionists we face these days.) But I’m not sure if a Myr-focused Rukarumel brew could make it out of EDH into CEDH territory… I guess that’s the joy of this commander, though. There are a hundred different ways to build her at all power scales, and some Tribes will push her closer or further from CEDH territory based on the individual brewer and brewing goal. Myr could be a dope tribe for Conspiracy to fuck with though, as there are old Myr Welder lines and all sorts of silly bullshit you can do with certain artifact loops.

Taurean Mauler: I’ll be honest. This thing usually does get lots of free beats, even without any built in evasion. Part of my stupid Timmy heart wants to jam this thing in every Rukarumel brew just so I can use it to beat the shit out of Grixis Ad Nauseam players. Unfortunately, aside from triggering all your Tribal shit, it’s just a Changeling beat stick, really. So run it as appropriate in the correct builds for it.

Mirror Entity: I punted this thing so fucking hard the first few months of Rukarumel brewing and playtesting. As in, I completely forgot that in addition to being a changeling who can mess around with base power and toughness – it turns all your creatures into Changelings for a turn. How fucking embarassing, eh? Same story with Unnatural Selection! Obviously, the Changeling keyword along with being a Conspiracy effect on a stick immediately made this thing an auto-include in almost every brew, joining the Magda combo piece Universal Automaton as the only guaranteed auto-include Changelings in most of my Rukarumel decklists. Anyways, this thing is fucking great. Dump a Dockside, crank your creatures into 10/10s, and kill people with combat damage – something unexpected outside of Winota, Ellivere, or Najeela style decks. Or just make your Malcolm pinger combo pieces into Pirates for the win that way, I guess.

Realmwalker: I really do like a topdeck checker, especially one that has the changeling keyword and also a sturdy body with the ability to topdeck cast one specific type of creature. The more of these one runs, the more useful Counterbalance and Sensei’s Divining Top sounds. So close to making it in many Rukarumel builds, and probably should be counted as card draw or selection, but often cut at the very last second, to my dismay.

Bloodline Pretender: This is the backup Magda piece other than Universal Automaton or a Conspiracy effect for an Esper Sentinel. It does grow pretty reliably if you can land and commit to an early creature type, providing great blocks or beats, which has become more relevant in playtesting than one might think, especially against Tymna decks. Still, three mana is a lot for such a meh effect, even if Magda does love this thing to death.

Dragon Tempest: Listen, I’m not gonna tell you that a two mana Enchantment that progressively bolts the board and face higher and higher is bad. In the changeling brews of this deck, this thing is a fucking house. It also does some other dumb fucking things we like a lot, like giving Malcolm haste? The problem, as always, is the number of creatures of said type versus the number of good Tribe-specific cards we can run. In the changeling list, we’re running every single one of these goodstuff motherfuckers! In other lists, we’d have to do the math to work out how many creatures can fuel it to efficiency enough for an include.

Black Market Connections: Again, this does everything Malcolm and Magda want. It creates Dwarves slash Pirates (pronounced “Pee-Rat-Ay”) to trigger our main wincon lines, it feeds us treasure for said lines, and it draws us cards. The problem, predictably, is that punching yourself for six in the face every main phase can attract things like beats, no matter how menacingly you posture those damn 3/2 chnagelings.

Scion of Oona: In the changeling brews of this, cards like these have criss-cross pillow-forted hard enough to make my whole damn board immune to everything but board wipes. It feels real good when your opponents are helpless to stop you or interact with your board. Scion of Oona is one of those shroud effects that can pump and drop at instant speed, playing really well with cards like Talion, Kindly Lord, Spellstutter Sprite, and the like. Plus it’s an easy Malcolm or Magda attacker having Flying, so worst case it can often thrive under a Conspiracy effect named appropriately.

Lord of the Unreal: I do believe this is the best of these Pillow Fort cards you can find. A single Conspiracy effect on Illusion renders both it, and your whole board Hexproof, vastly superior to Shroud as you can thus still target your own creatures for combo shenanigans. Plus it’s a Lord, too? Which is kinda funny? Two Blue as a cost is the only downside. But it is a Human Wizard, so there’s plenty of ways in such Tribes to dump it other ways.

Drogskol Captain: Eh, for three mana, the only thing this Azorius bastard gets you over Lord of the Unreal is Flying. Plus it doesn’t cover itself with a Conspiracy, which kinda sucks. Spirits are definitely a tribe to explore, though, as they got a ton of neat new tricks the last few times we went to Innistrad. Rattlechains, Spell Queller, etc.

Knight Exemplar: Indestructible is a dime a dozen in Rainbow. Take your pick, really. Knight, Soldier, and Human are the sorts of tribes with lots of classical support and a ton of weird oddball cards that are much better in concert than one might think.

Eladamri, Lord of Leaves: Unfortunately, this motherfucker HAS been errata-ed to say “Other Elves” which means he needs some cross-cover to completely lock out your opponents from interacting with you. Still, for two mana, Shroud for most of a board ain’t bad. I mean, there’s a reason most Rukarumel brews should already be running Steely Resolve, right?

Shapesharer: This is one of those interesting Changelings that I really underestimated at first. It’s a cheap changeling with garbage stats, which is mid at best. But the ability to become a clone of any creature on the board until the end of the turn? Well, it has some very cute lines one wouldn’t expect – such as dissuading swings at you for fear of a instant speed clone and block. Then you can save said mana for whatever instant speed answers or tutors you need. Often, there will be great commanders to nab temporary copies of, and of course – this thing fuels Malcolm, Magda, and more in regards to Tribal Shenanigans. I’m likely going to try and push a Changeling-heavy brew into a top-tier CEDH list, with the appropriate staple Rainbow cards alongside some spicier includes. This card is one that makes me believe it’s possible.

Unsettled Mariner: Two mana for Ward 1. A changeling for your Tribal shenanigans. That’s it. I often end up cutting this card as a goodstuff pillow fort card at the last second.

Devout Chaplain: Removal on a stick, at what would normally be an exorbitant cost of three tapped creatures including itself. With a Human Commander, a bunch of good Humans, and various Changelings on top of Conspiracy effects? This becomes much easier to ensure, becoming a shotgun blast a turn at the scariest Artifact or Enchantment on board.

Captivating Vampire: This poor bastard has gotten cut from most lists recently, even the Changeling heavy ones. Three mana is meh for a Lord effect to start with, and we’re really only interested in the “Tap five vampires to yoink a creature” effect. He didn’t get much playtesting, but two black pips is a big ask in many Rainbow lists, and having four other creatures seems excessive – for only two more creatures a Gilt-Leaf can yoink an entire land base! Seems better than one creature steal a turn, one opponents can see and remove when they catch you nearing the required number.

Chameleon Colossus: I love this thing. It’s very similar to Taurean Mauler, in that it’s just a changeling beat stick at the end of the day. Protection from Black is actually rather valuable in CEDH, though. And the ability to easily pump for 16+ swings without even considering the plethora of Lord effects in Tribal Magic? Daaaaaaaamn.

Dragon’s Hoard: Again, some of these cards clearly cry out for a Changeling-heavy creature base to make them truly valuable. A Rainbow Rock for three is perfectly meh, so it’s the tapping for a card with each Dragon you can drop that I’m more interested in. Again, if we can fuel the effect efficiently and consistently enough, we can run it. If not, we’ll either add more Changelings/Dragon Tribal in that particular brew, or stick or the easier to achieve and fuel Malcolm/Magda lines.

Peer Pressure: This thing is a fucking bomb, considering some of the most common tribes of Magic are things like “Human,” “Elf,” and the like. With Changelings, it doesn’t even fucking matter what type you pick, because you’re probably going to be fine with either a Maskwood Nexus or one of them puppies. I haven’t gotten to blow anyone out completely with it yet, stealing an entire board or the like – but I have definitely used it to steal Commanders of value to grind with. Your Talion? More like OUR Talion. You can abuse this thing to bully your playgroups in thirty different ways. People hate Steal effects. Because it’s anti-social as fuck, even if it’s very good.

Mass Appeal: Conspiracy effects make this variable in it’s worth based on the size of your board. I think I’d rather stick with the tried and tested draw engines in Rainbow like Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, or Talion, Kindly Lord. Still, it’s one mana cheaper than Distant Melody, so there’s that I guess?

Distant Melody: More precise in targeting, but a wider application than Mass Appeal, and one more mana as a penance for it. Again, this gets better in Combat-heavy go-wide versions of Rukarumel, where Najeela, Winota, and other free value engines can juice cards like this to hit upwards of ten cards drawn at a time.

Reaper King: Listen, if you want to be the fucking villain, as a Cartoon Supervillain myself, I understand. But you have to be prepared to be the bad guy if you’re going to run monstrous hate pieces like this. The classic Reaper King combo was simply to cast the big version of Rite of Replication targeting Reaper King to destroy 25 permanents and force a scoop. In Changeling brews of Rukarumel, we can more easily guarantee the Lord effect and Permanent popping reliably, you fucking monster. This thing scales from 5-10 mana, so it doesn’t require much fixing if you’re rocking a more colorless minded manabase, or an Artifact heavy brew that can appreciate this thing being an Artifact. That being said, aside from Painter’s Servant combo lines – most Scarecrow tribal shenanigans outside of Reaper King itself are mostly garbage. So you’re not going to have much choice for this thing other than somehow landing ten plus mana for The Reaper King, a Conspiracy effect, and some source of creature drops, if you’re not just running enough Changelings to justify a five mana Permanent popper.

Mistform Shit: Listen, I wish the OG Mistform cards were good enough to hang, as some of them have pretty cool abilities, and cards like Maskform Nexus can do even more cool shit with them. But unfortunately, the vast majority are just horrendously overcosted, and thus unplayable even in Fringe EDH, much less any CEDH minded brew. Save these for your casual decks, folks – unless there’s some amazing combo line in Mistform tribal that I don’t know about?

Imagecrafter: A one use Conspiracy for a single creature, with a horrendous body and mediocre cost when we have better cards like Mirror Entity, Unnatural Selection, or even Amoeboid Changling, which at least gives all types and is all types itself. If you’re jonesing for redundant Conspiracy effects, I understand, but this should be an easy cut if you’re trying to jam in counterspells or the like.

Rooftop Storm: Zombie Tribal DOES have some pretty neat cards, like wannabe Omni over here. For six mana, it’s still pretty high for free creature casts with a Conspiracy effect on Zombie. But the idea of having “draw your deck” creature jamming lines is pretty funny. So maybe somehow, someway, this will find a way into some Rukarumel deck, someday. I should note that there are many Zombie infinite loops involving cards like Rooftop Storm and other graveyard shenanigans like Gravecrawler. So there are plenty of lines you can tap into from Zombie Tribal if you lean that way.

Necroduality: Another solid Zombie Tribal card, this thing did have me seriously considering it in some key brews with fewer numbers of Legendary creatures and more valuable ETB doublers and the like. I can see some disgusting Dockside shenanigans with it and other cards favorable to such silly things. But naming Zombie just for double creatures while also requiring Changelings or a Conspiracy effect is offputting.

Shared Animosity: Is your Rukarumel deck a token or Combat deck? Then this thing will do some solid beater work and ensure the Grixis Turbo Naus decks will be panicking if they didn’t nab that T2-3 win and things have pushed midrange. becomes even better with cards like Toski to ensure even more creatures hit the field and pump things even harder. Some specific Tribal cards like Najeela just juice this thing in wonderful ways.

Coat of Arms: Kind of expensive for a card that unlike the more narrow Shared Animosity, can pump your opponents in unfortunate ways – considering how common some tribes are amongst Commanders and Dorks in the CEDH format. Still, in decks that can leverage it well, relying on shenanigans like Winota or Najeela, it can be a snappy card that really puts pressure on the game, even through 40-life totals.

Changeling Outcast/Mothdust Changeling Etc: The cheaper Changelings often lack any additional extra value that I appreciate in order to run them over better Changelings at slightly high price points. Again, depending on the oddball tribal pieces you have in your own Rukarumel list, more or less changelings may be needed to ensure you’re not missing gross amounts of value. Outcast and Mothdust have seen a lot of play in Yuriko decks, but they can also be very useful here – providing unblockable changelings for our staple Malcolm, Magda, and other such effects.

Lin Sivvi/Moggcatcher/Cateran Assassin Etc: We’ve covered these way back when, but they do become very profitable if you can land a Conspiracy on the appropriate typing, especially when such a two card synergy allows you to often tutor ANY creature from your deck directly to the battlefield. I prefer the cards of this archetype that have additional effects or range, such as Cateran Assassin in terms of also filling removal niches, or Lin Sivvi providing both a scalable tutor as well as a cheap recovery from Graveyard engine for our creatures. Obviously, certain tribes provide better options out the gate without Conspiracy effects, such as Moggcatcher nabbing both Dockside Extortionist or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Two longtime CEDH staples. Seahunter can cheat Thassa’s Oracle past counterspells the same way. And Elves are a dime a dozen in terms of playable pieces in high level Magic. The major downside is the high cost, which becomes more bearable with Training Grounds and the like on the battlefield. Two colored pips on most of them is also a pain for us Rainbow players. Still, they’re good enough and win enough games for Tribal decks to ensure they see play, and Rukarumel juices them even more consistently.

Ayula, Queen Among Bears: Bear tribal is silly. But, a two mana bear that also allows fights and consistent pumps is worth looking at in Changeling heavy Rukarumel brews, or brews focused on Maskwood Nexus more than the generic Conspiracy blanket coating. Great Tribal card – count your changelings to decide on including it.

Ixalli’s Lorekeeper: I really wish this thing was at least typed to the Ixalan tribes rather than just Dinosaur, but sadly – it is a Dinosaur Rainbow mana dork through and through. Obviously this only pays for Changelings as a result. (Are you starting to see how many of these specific Tribal support cards seem to prefer a Changeling-heavy decklist?)

Giada, Font of Hope: Another mana dork with okay keywords and the ability to pump our Changelings or even just regular boards higher and higher with counters. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t run Giada in a deck without either every single “blanket” Conspiracy effect, or even better, you guessed it, in a Changeling heavy brew. (Almost like there’s a theme here: Tribal shit gets better with more tribal shit. It tends to go exponential in value.)

Katila, Dawnheart Prime: We covered this before, but Katilda does actually require a solid look as a mana dork. Not only does she guarantee more Selesnya colored mana from herself after landing, she enables Rukarumel to become a Rainbow rock, and enables the slew of other goodstuff humans across Magic to fix our Rainbow mana and accelerate us. Her second ability is absolutely just a mana sink if you have NOTHING else to do and beats are your only wincon option. Otherwise ignore it.

Digiridoo: A one mana artifact that cheats Changelings or Maskwood Nexus creatures into play for three colorless mana? Sick. Obviously you can see the unique corner cases where you can build this to be viable, right? By now, surely! Otherwise I guess with a Conspiracy on “Minotaur” it’s still aight enough. Even moreso if you have something like a Zirda in the brew.

Chatterfang, Squirrel General: Honestly, the whole changing our creatures into Squirrels to pitch to Chatterfang’s second ability is kinda meh overall. I know Chatterfang is tempting as one of the better Tribal cards, but this thing can only really sustain itself in specific token-heavy Rukarumel brews like the Token or Treasure variants. And Combat variants with Najeela and the like of course, where Warrior typing also comes into play. Overall, a solid card, and with the amount of Treasure involved in Magda and Malcolm lines, I can understand people jamming this thing as a removal piece in many decks, although I feel like Grim Hireling is a bit better at that job while also accelerating your Rainbow mana for cross-play lines with Malcolm and Magda.

Cryptic Gateway: There’s only one Rukarumel variant that can justify running this five mana artifact, and that’s the Intruder Alarm heavy variants for obvious reasons. the new creature entering untaps the two used to cheat it into play and the cycle continues as long as you have a Conspiracy effect out to ensure typing. Lots of combo utility with this thing, and it CAN be used in some neat ways like tapping Magda for free treasure without swings. Otherwise, I’d stay away, because there are much better things you can do in CEDH with five mana.

Belbe’s Portal: This thing is just a shittier Cryptic Gateway. Fuck off, because unless you’re running like Demon or Kraken Tribal, you can just fuck right off with this shit.

Urza’s Incubator: I know this thing can be a fucking bomb accelerator in the right contexts, having made my colorless Eldrazi decks of the last several years infinitely more playable in Casual EDH. Unfortunately, outside of Changeling decks that can reap the benefit without a Conspiracy Effect, jamming something like seven mana to reduce all your creature by two colorless seems subpar in the CEDH scene.

Icon of Ancestry: Meh, overcosted for the nab, which is all we care about anyways.

Rin and Seri, Inseparable: Now, there are some contexts, such as Changeling heavy brews that get both tokens on cast, where Rin and Seri could be playable. Perhaps the token brews? But they’re pretty mana intensive, even if they are a pretty good token generator and damage engine. I should play around more with this card, as I can see it being an all star in Skullclampy and other associated lists.

Miiryim, Sentinel Wyrm: I know this thing is pretty sick, as doubling shit for free and being warded is pretty legit. But six mana with a lot of fixing is haaaaaard. So save this for your Dragon tribal decks, I guess.

Archmage of Echoes: Again, too much mana for CEDH, unless you’re running a Faerie Tribal deck that would benefit from the type and plethora of solid ETBs.

Maskwood Nexus: This card is pretty much the holy grail of Tribal these days. Few cards can compare. Four colorless mana is easy for a Rainbow deck, especially one that benefits tremendously from everything being all types at all times, something few other Conspiracy effects do. PLUS it pumps out additional changelings for the event that the Maskwood Nexus gets annihilated. The blockers have also been relevant in many games of CEDH thus far – buying me time to combo out while some Stax or aggro combat deck tries to beat me to death. There have also been some silly corner cases like Phyrexian Censor where Maskwood Nexus let me ignore such a card completely.

Yuriko, The Tiger’s Shadow: Combat heavy Rukarumel decks love this thing, as it’s a great source of card advantage with the added benefit of extra damage. Wasting a Conspiracy effect on “Ninja” does feel kind of wasteful in most cases unless you have eight creatures swinging or something. But still, it grabs you enough cards consistently enough that any list with enough Changelings or Conspiracy effects do want to run it, even if at worst it only becomes Yuriko grinding a single trigger a turn herself.

Rivaz of the Claw: A pretty great card for Dragon tribal, but completely mediocre in any deck (you guessed it) without enough changelings.

Tovolar, Dire Overlord: Similar to Yuriko, I really like these three mana Commanders that draw cards consistently in the 99. Tovolar can guarantee a card on hit himself, and with a Conspiracy effect on board, guarantees even more cards, as well as an easy flip to gain additional access to a Kessig Wolf Run effect. Again, cards like this really do reward running a critical mass of Changelings, not all of which are good, obviously. But in combat decks that thrive on beats, Tovolar has an easy home.

Azami, Lady of Scrolls: I know Azami is a classically powerful Wizard Tribal commander in her own right. Unfortunately, five mana, and so much of it requiring blue, is a death knell for including her, even in the decks that can easily abuse her with more fast mana and changeling or conspiracy effects. Unfortunately, she’s been cut from almost every Rukarumel list, barring some Wizard heavy variant of the future.

Crib Swap: This thing is a classic Horde of Notions piece, as you can cast it repeatedly from Graveyard, albeit at an overcosted price. Despite the changeling text, most of our Tribal combos require permanents, so this thing gets cut even for Swords to Plowshares most often.

Nameless Inversion: Removal or a buff, depending. Same issues as Crib Swap.

And They Shall Know No Fear: If your local meta or playgroup tends to run a ton of wipes, this might garner a look. Unfortunately, the better CEDH players are going to choose cards like Toxic Deluge which ensure that even the Indestructible creatures go bye-bye. Thus this thing is an easy cut and a bit of a bait card unless you’re somehow alpha striking somebody with it or something.

Crux of Fate: If you named “Dragons” on any of your Conspiracy effects, or luckily already have a Maskwood Nexus or other piece of typing at instant speed, this can be a clever five mana one way board wipe. The rest of the time, it’s kind of overcosted, despite the novelty of easy-access one-sided board wipes in CEDH overall.

Coveted Prize: Okay, to be perfectly honest – I should really revisit this thing, as it does everything Beseech The Mirror does, but possibly cheaper and better. Obviously you’d need Changelings or a Maskwood Nexus to get true value from this thing. I guess a Mirror Entity could make it cheap as well provided you have enough creatures. Definitely warrants more playtesting, and perhaps a specific type of Rukarumel brew.

Raise the Palisade: Specific mass bounce. Kinda overcosted. Neat I guess?

Pact of the Serpent: Would you like to draw lots of cards for increasing amounts of life? If so, this thing is great. Downsides including scaling poorly early game, which is a big no no for CEDH, and requiring two Black pips in addition to a hefty board. This slot would be better used for an instant speed tutor or something instead, you know?

Haunting Voyage/Patriarch’s Bidding: Heavy mana cost, and requires you to fill your Graveyard or run enough stax and interaction to push a game further into midrange territory. Don’t play these – they’re a bit of a trap outside of some crazy Graveyard Recursion, Entomb, Dredge bullshit.

Vanquisher’s Banner: Draws cards, buffs our creatures, but costs five colorless mana? Motherfucker, I’d rather just play a Guardian Project or some shit, you know?

Herald’s Horn: Downcosting some tribes can make them much more playable, I can understand. Also – quasi card draw in terms of a gambled topdeck every turn is cute. But for three mana, I want this to do more. CEDH is a format full of The One Ring right now, so any artifact is shooting to be that level of playable at this point.

Multiclass Baldric: Another cute piece of party tech, something I haven’t delved into too deeply yet. I assume this sort of effect becomes more and more valuable the more consistently you can guarantee a party, which requires more intentional and specific deckbuilding for those specific types, rather than the quick and dirty approach most Malcolm Magda lines want to jam.

Kindred Discovery: Draws fuckloads of cards, but costs five mana, two of which is Blue. Ugh. Four mana, with only one Blue pip and this thing would have been a Tribal ALL-STAR.

Reflections of Littjara: Another free copy card, but sadly even more overcosted than cards like Necroduality, despite being more flexible in choice of typing.

Molten Echoes: Another card with a very neat effect that doesn’t quite feel worth it for four mana, two of which is Red. I guess the ETB brews of Rukarumel could break this more efficiently to justify an include.

Call To The Kindred: Trust me, being an enchantment on one creature already makes this thing sketchy and prone to getting 2:1-ed by a single piece of creature removal. It ain’t costed well enough for CEDH these days, either.

Descendants’ Path: Better than Call To The Kindred by a long shot, and easy to make even better with a single Changeling or the right Conspiracy effect on board. A three mana enchantment for the possibility of one freecasted creature a turn obviously becomes more or less desirable based on your unique build, especially the number of Conspiracy effects that coat the deck and the number of changelings, as it has been with most of these specific Tribal cards. Even with a Conspiracy effect, you’re also drawing roughly 30% creatures.

Endless Evil: Haven’t playtested it. But despite the ability to bring itself back, I dislike the fragile nature of aura enchantments post 2020.

Merrow Commerce: This can honestly find a few homes in the right Tribal decks. Untapping theoretically your whole board is just quasi-vigilance, but with enough activated or tap abilities, this thing can be more or less valuable.

Haunted One: Does your deck go wide and want to frequently swing out? If so, consider this. If not, or if you can’t abuse the Undying, leave this one to the weird Background lovers.

Taigam, Ojutai Master: Now, I know Taigam is a perfectly standalone CEDH commander, largely because he’s incredibly hard to interact with. But it’s not just Instants and Sorceries he can protect and gain value from in Tribal lists, it’s also any Changeling or a Conspiracied board with “Dragon” coating all zones, making all of your creatures uncounterable, an effect that we have in spades via Cavern of Souls and the like already. I’m really wanting to explore harder to interact with “Shell” style Rukarumel brews, with cards like Taigam and the various Board Hexproof/Shroud cards.

Nalia De’Arnise: This one only came on my radar extremely recently, as I somehow missed the better “Party” cards. I’m playtesting it in a brew or two thus far and want to see how easy it is to assemble a full party and start consistently pumping my board. Another topdeck checker is also cute as I’ve mentioned with Realmwalker and Conspicuous Snoop lines and the like.

Burakos, Squad Commander: Another party card that not only fills several typings and niches that Tribal decks care about, but also creates Treasure! Four mana is a bit of a stretch, so Burakos will have to be eased in to some brews for testing, to see if there’s enough Treasure generation to justify the higher cost.

Be’lakor, the Dark Master: Kinda overcosted, despite a pretty rad effect overall.

Sigarda (All of Them): There are what, three different Sigarda cards now? The four mana ones are much more playable than the OG, especially as they juice Humans and/or Angels simultaneously. Save it for the human or angel brews, folks. Even Giada is a hard “maybe” a lot of the time, and that’s in the Changeling heavy lists!

For the Ancestors: Collected Company at home for us Tribal enjoyers. Honestly, this thing looks like a great way to cherry pick through your deck for your Malcolm and Magda combo pieces, so it’s another card that will require more playtesting.

Cateran Summons: A one mana tutor to hand for any Changeling or for Cateran Assassin if you’re running it. A Conspiracy on “Mercenary” enables both this and all the specific Tribal tutor on a stick cards for Mercenary Tribal to go brrrrr much easier, although most are pretty garbage.

Chitter Spitter: This is in the Token tribal brew and nothing else, unfortunately. You can see why.

Horn of Gondor: A solid Human “wannabe Krenko” that costs mana to crank. While this would usually only see play in Human Tribal or Token decks, the ability to start the doubling from 5-10 creatures via a Conspiracy seems pretty rad.

Cat Tribal (Mainly the Artifact/Enchantment Destroyers?): Qasali Slinger and Feline Sovereign were indeed cards I looked at, providing ample Artifact and Enchantment hate reliably and consistently. Unfortunately, they cost much more than a simple Harmonic Sliver or Aura Shards do – so unless I’m doubling down on Rin and Seri or the like, these have mostly been pretty comfortable cuts.

Willow Priestess: If you look back through Magic’s long history, there are actually a number of playable Faerie Tribal cards, ranging mostly in Sultai colors. Obviously with enough Faeries to justify a Conspiracy effect on “Faerie,” Willow Priest just taps and dumps every creature in your deck out for free – dodging Counterspells. Rainbow Tribal Tribal seems to have so many cheat into play effects accessible to it, that it’s possible to play variants of this deck that never have to worry about Counterspells at all I bet.

Alpha Status: Cute, but super situational. If you want to Alpha Strike folks with Rukarumel, this is a good card for that – but expect a card like this to bait removal REAL well in a tasty two for one.

Crippling Fear: Potentially a one sided board wipe, I guess. But just like cards like Harsh Mercy or the like, they tend to be too narrow in scope for the mana they require.

Peppersmoke: Too narrow, even if it is a removal spell that sometimes cantrips.

Folk Hero: Better for cheaper Tribal commanders, we’d have to jam Rukarumel for WUBRG first, in addition to jamming this thing. But I guess with the Sliver creating ability it then ensures a card draw every turn, or multiple times a rotation if you hold it up at Instant speed. I’m sure somebody could easily break this better than me, though.

Harper Recruiter: Another party card that I didn’t discover until recently – this thing demands some playtesting, as it hits many of our best creatures in the deck across several tribes, even before considering Maskwood Nexus or Changelings or the like. It also becomes an excellent Malcolm and Magda attacker as a flying creature.

Mindblade Render: There are some okay Warrior cards, many seeing play in more Combat focused Najeela lists already. But card draw is card draw, I suppose.

Sakashima Or Clone Effects: The danger of a deck like this is having too much of a good thing. With clone effects, you need a good creature to clone. In Rainbow decks, we’re already playing all the best cards, meaning we can just run more bombs and power cards instead.

The Ur-Dragon: I know this was the old Changeling and Tribal Tribal Conspiracy commander everybody played before Rukarumel. But do I really have to tell you why this thing is garbage outside the command zone?

Lord of the Nazgul: I didn’t expect Wraith tribal in 2023, but here we are. Obviously, if you can get to nine wraiths, either via instants and sorceries, or Conspiracy effects, all of which isn’t impossible in many brews of Rukarumel, this makes for an easy 81 damage to swing. But five mana is as ever a big ask, and we usually have zero Ring Tempting tech, either. So only Instant and Sorcery heavy builds can use this methinks.

Rohgahh, Kher Keep Overlord: This is one of the better kobolds they’ve printed after Rograkh and a few more recent additions. In the right Tribal brew it can pump out awesome things, such as with a Maskwood Nexus or Changelings – getting both Kobolds and Dragons theoretically with every cast. Overcosted for CEDH though.

Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes: Another CEDH deck commander at the helm, obviously we can benefit pretty handsomely if we type our creatures to “Hamster.” But if you’re going that far out of your way, shouldn’t you run other card advantage and ping engines instead?

Herald of Hoofbeats: Sure, unblockable, (Sorry, “Shadow,” I mean “Skulk,” Errrr, “Fear.” No? “Intimidate?” Wait! “Horsemanship!”) is pretty rad and useful in the Combat brews where cards like Najeela and Winota can get magic free swings. For four mana, this is a cut in most other Tribal brews.

Sylvia Brightspear: Again, some Tribes tend to have cuter pieces than others, such as Dragon tribal having a non dragon that gives Double Strike to Dragons, I guess. Three mana makes it mediocre.

Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign: This does a lot of really nice things for us, but six mana and two blue pips is too much of an ask, sorry.

Shelob, Child of Ungoliant: Same issues as Unesh above. Too much mana, despite being some neat Tribal abilities.

Ingenious Infiltrator (And other Draw card on combat damage Tribal pieces): It’s aight. There are cheaper and more reliable sources of card draw in Rainbow though. Remember that CEDH is about keeping only the best, and separates the wheat from the chaff.

Flame of Anor: A weird Wizard tribal spell, but actually pretty good for a mere three mana, provided you have Rukarumel or someone to help ensure the better “choose two” effect.

Whelming Wave: Another potentially one sided board wipe provided you have a Maskwood Nexus or the like, but perfectly mediocre if you can’t ensure it hits your opponents and not you.

The Bears of Littjara: For three mana, this does do a lot, but it also scales with the number of Shapeshifters you have. So most of the time pretty mid.

Others: If I missed any “must-discuss” Tribal support cards or specific Tribe bombs, yell at me on Blue Sky or Discord or something. Remember I’m shooting for CEDH power levels, despite how left field Tribal Tribal seems to be. So they have to be good enough to mention.

Staxx, Removal, Interaction, & Countermagic Suites (AKA “Dear Opponents, Politely, Get Fucked.”):

CEDH at the highest levels almost requires that every deck have blue for countermagic, or some other method of ensuring they can prevent or stop their opponents from dropping dangerous spells and permanents. OG Magda lists pivot between stax and combo strategies. White relies on heavy abuse of Rule of Law and Silence effects to fuck with opponents. The list goes on.

To be completely honest, I despise playing stax. Maybe it’s because I know how tilting and salt inducing it can be, especially if the stax player is subsequently slow playing like hell. Playing Stax takes somebody who truly doesn’t give two fucks about being toxic or anti-social in order to win. You know: The real shit-eating types who give zero fucks about how much “fun” the other players are having in this Social format. (Although you could argue the CEDH “philosophy” poo-poos this.) So aside from the stax pieces we’ll cover here, I’m not going to touch the greater or wider realm of stax outside of a couple very specific exemptions. If we tried to cover all of stax, we’d be here all day.

Yeah, fuck that. This shit is long enough, no matter how much of a better Rainbow CEDH player it’s gonna make you.

Staxx Pieces, Removal, “Death & Taxes” Cards, & Silence Effects:

Anyone who has played CEDH with me in the last year or so is well aware of how much I hate stax, or cards like Ad Nauseam, for bringing the flow of games to a screeching fucking halt. While I like to believe I have legendary patience, I do value my time and experiences more than the physical act of playing Magic – meaning I am more than happy to scoop and play another game if a stax deck has sufficiently locked down the board and stopped players from doing anything. I understand playing to your outs, but I refuse to sit there for an hour and a half playing draw-go like an asshole. ESPECIALLY against “winconless” stax.

Still, in depressing fashion, even 5c Rainbow decks have some stax-style auto includes these days. To all my fellow stax haters, I’m sorry. We’ve become what we hated most: Abusers of toxic but mathematically good play patterns that annoy the shit out of our opponents.

Anywho:

(Both)Esper Sentinel: We’ve talked about the card advantage, but what we need to consider for the effectiveness of our “death and taxes” style effects like OG Thalia and the like, is how much tempo it robs from our opponents – paying mana and denying us cards. Card advantage is already a good enough reason to run a card. But draining mana away from your opponents slows them down in the long run while you cast whatever you want freely. Go read my “Tempo For Dummies” Magic article if you have no idea what the fuck tempo is. (How the fuck could you wind up reading this CEDH Primer without knowing what tempo is? That’s almost impressive. I’m assuming a high EDH knowledge base to read this thing.)

(Streamlined Only)Dauthi Voidwalker: Graveyard hate is good in CEDH. We’ve talked about this already. If you can tolerate 2 black pips, run this thing in most Rainbow lists that can, purely to hate on Breach and decimate a third of the Turbo CEDH meta’s lines.

(Both)Drannith Magistrate: An auto include in white, which shuts down enemy commanders as a primary hit. Hitting exile and graveyard casts is just icing on the cake. While gilded drake is still the bane of this thing, an early Drannith can tilt entire CEDH games in a snap or buy you much needed time to angle for your own winning combo.

(Both)Gilded Drake: Another auto include in blue, simply often to steal commanders of value from opponents as a tried and true commander hate card. I cannot tell you the pure joy I experience when running up against a Magda deck or any Malcolm/x shenanigans with a gilded drake in reach via tutor… Saves me having to risk my own copy of Malcolm or Magda, because I can just use yours! Thanks buddy! It’s “our Malcolm” now.

(Both)Orcish Bowmasters: Yep. We’ve discussed this thing. While it’s at the most dangerous with a wheel on the stack for 22 damage and a 22/22 orc, the pinging down of multiple creatures on board with Rhystic Study effects or other card draw like The One Ring has fucked so many games for or against me at this point I’m just resigned to trying to kill the damn thing ASAP if it ever resolves unless I cut some real shady deals. This deck really folds to creature hate that accrues free value like Orcish Bowmasters. Keep that in mind even as you try to abuse your own Bowmaster as a Dockside loop outlet or something.

(Both)Mayhem Devil: Using Mayhem Devil as both a 3/3 attacker to punch down life totals AND a pinger effect to get rid of enemy dorks and value creatures is dope. You don’t realize how oppressive it can be just as a casual card sitting on board due to the number of fetches and other “sacrifice as cost” abilities being played in CEDH. A small blessing on a card that would otherwise just be a combo piece.

(Both)The One Ring: The protection this gives has been relevant quite often in my CEDH experience. While resetting the ring often feels wrong due to sunk cost fallacy, I kind of like the idea of bouncing it back to hand to recast every turn for permanent protection and a card each turn somehow. Which old repeatable bounce tech can hit The One Ring every turn, though? Maybe I’ll explore it in the Treasure focused brew as a cheeky anti-combat line.

(Both)Steely Resolve: At first I was skeptical that Steely Resolve would provide enough consistent Shroud protection on all of my creatures. But with the plethora of Conspiracy effects in the deck, it’s been golden every time it’s dropped, especially when paired with cards like Cavern of Souls which allow you to shoot for your creature combos with zero opportunity for disruption from opponents. I did do the math to see how many of my own abilities targeted creatures that might be shrouded, and after cutting Emiel and the last of the excessive Dockside loops from several of the current lists, the damage is pretty minimal. If you want to run more Dockside loops and other lines that target your own creatures, you may want to cut this, but I’m telling you – it’s real fucking good protection in this format against everything other than field nukes or Cyclonic Rifts. (Granted, due to the heavy creature meta in CEDH right now, a lot of decks ARE choosing to run cards like Toxic Deluge or even Winds of Abandon again as a response.)

(Both)Smothering Tithe: “Paying the 2?” Death and Taxes is a game of tempo, literal death by a thousand cuts as you speed up and each opponent slows down, one mana at a time. This card provides Treasures for Magda, a tax on our opponents, and Rainbow mana acceleration. There’s a reason it’s in the list.

(Both)Rhystic Study: “Paying the 1?” Same exact shit as Smothering Tithe, in that these are actually also death and taxes cards disguised as card draw and mana acceleration.

(Both)Mystic Remora: “Paying the 4?” See above. Auto include AF in blue.

(Both)Boseiju, Who Endures: We’ve covered why this is good up above. It feels really good to have multiple interaction or removal pieces in land base slots. Thank you Neon Dynasty – you were a great set for EDH. Another win for WOTC.

(Both)Cavern of Souls: Uncounterable Creatures are good, especially when you Rainbow fix for them according to type. Combo with Steely Resolve to make your opponents tear their hair out as shrouded and uncounterable creatures ruin their day.

(Both)Otawara, Soaring City: Same as new Boseiju. Great fucking card, especially when you can bounce your own Dockside and such with it.

(Streamlined Only)Silence: I treat Silence as both an offensive card, in that it can be cast on Upkeep or in response to a combo attempt, but also defensively, to ensure your own combos resolve without rude interruptions. The glass cannon builds are often all about jamming out one of many different interchangeable or adjustable combo lines, so only the streamlined builds run Silence for now, mostly as an anti-win measure in the early game.

(Streamlined Only)Ranger-Captain of Eos: I like Ranger Cap much more than Grand Abolisher, despite only being able to crack once in most events. They both suck at two white pips to cast in Rainbow, but only this guy can stop an opponent from winning! And protect your own combo wins of course. Better than Grand Abolisher only protecting your own turns and nothing else.

(Both)Opposition Agent: Do I really need to lecture you on why Opposition Agent should be an auto include in every black deck due to the enormous number of tutor suites played in the CEDH format? Just shut up and fucking run it. Then add the damn Aven Mindcensor too if it’s still not enough for your meta.

(Janky Only)Amoeboid Changeling: Amoeboid Changeling’s first and second ability rarely matters offensively against decks other than Najeela or Winota. It’s moreso the looming Sliver Overlord combo that truly staxxes out our opponents, as with a Training Grounds or such, stealing creatures becomes painfully easy. It gets better when you realize that you can tutor the Amoeboid Changeling with the Overlord as an easy to ensure two card combo. Your local meta will begin to run Homeward path real quick once you gotcha them with this two card combo a few times to steal all their shit.

(Janky Only)Sliver Overlord: Just read the entry above this one, and you’ll get the gist of why it fits in stax or control mindsets. Pitches to Chrome Mox, etc. etc.

(Janky Only)Rathi Assassin: I’m still playtesting the various “creature tutor to battlefield on a stick” cards. Still, I’m a sucker for multiple niches or roles being filled by the same card. I don’t like how many black pips this thing costs, but hey, destroying tapped nonblack creatures is a nice extra ability on a card you’re mostly just playing as a free-ish tutor for your changelings. Could be even better with Intruder Alarm shenanigans too, I guess.

(Both)Cyclonic Rift: Another card I specced on and made bank with back in the day, I’m glad that it still sees regular play so many years after Return to Ravnica. Both a single target bounce as well as a one sided board bounce, the only way it could get any better is if it could target your own creatures, perhaps. Use this on stax pieces and problem game winning enemy combos, or simply disrupt the entire enemy board before your game winning turn. If you want to be really fucking mean, use a Gilded Drake to steal somebody’s shit, then Cyclonic Rift it back to your hand when they try and swing it at you as the ultimate stunt/flex play. (Before stealing the second best thing on board.)

Time Sieve: I was playtesting Time Sieve and a few other artifact combos in the jankier glass cannon builds of this commander recently, and while the ceiling for the card is crazy high, pitching Treasures for extra turns by the boatload… It rarely showed up at a good time. And *gasp* it’s an artifact so it can’t pitch to Chrome Mox!!! With Magda, this becomes a main win con, as opponents will usually scoop at infinite turns the moment you can produce five treasures a turn reliably. But it does somewhat feel like a win more card that I should be saving for the Treasure or Artifact heavy brews of Rukarumel that also run Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry loops or something. I mean, I haven’t busted this thing since my Sharuum days, after all. And now Tivit is just a better Sharuum, right?

Toxic Deluge, Fire Covenant, Etc: We’re a creature deck, so despite me playtesting that one Treasure a turn producing red sweeper, we don’t want to lose all the creature permanent value we’ve committed to board unless it’s drastically undercutting an opponent about to win the game. Yes I know that Fire Covenant is a Chrome Moxable one sided instant sweeper. It’s not terrible despite the life loss. They’re still mostly cut for now, but we’ll see what the creature meta percentage is like in the coming months.

Grand Abolisher: I like Ranger Captain of Eos, and even Myrel, Shield of Argive more than I like Grand Abolisher, despite hitting all the things we want to hit when we’re trying to win the game. I guess I just want more value from my silence effects, by being both offensive and defensive, or being hidden information at Instant speed. SOMETHING! Plus, two white for a 2/2? The power creep, eh?

Vexing Shusher: In terms of the tech you can perform with Vexing Shusher, I like it quite a lot as a card. Being able to protect your own spells is good. Being able to protect your opponents’ spells from being countered while they’re stopping win attempts on the stack? Fucking phenomenal. I do feel like Vexing Shusher has been power crept out of play a bit, aside from her home turf in Gruul. In an earlier build of the glass cannon brews, I replaced all my counterspells with anti-counter effects to varying success. Against stax, control, and midrange decks, they were incredible. Against turbo, I was fucking useless as other blue players around me dove on win attempt “grenades.” Sitting there with your thumb up your ass can be a conundrum. Perhaps I’ll include some of the anti counter effects eventually, for posterity.

Rhythm of the Wild: In addition to protecting your creature spells from being countered, Rhythm can slap counters on them or give them haste, which can actually matter quite a lot in Bloom Tender-Emiel or other such mana dork loops. I’m sure there’s a build of Rukarumel that does run Rhythm, but it isn’t the two of four ideas built thus far. (Update: It found a home in some brews for sure.) I want to include it for the Turntimber Ranger lines so badly, but finding a cut would be a real struggle.

Destiny Spinner: Same problems as both Vexing Shusher and Rhythm. It’s an excellent defensive card, but often you need cards that can serve both offensive, disruptive, and defensive protective roles as a situation changes. Green decks without blue run these effects because they have few other options. After all, the only Instant speed OG green counterspell is limited to hitting auras I think? (Props if you know the name. Heh.)

Allosaurus Shepherd: Someone, somewhere, will build a Rukarumel deck with a fuck ton of elfball synergies. (Update: It was me, of course.)Then they can live their dream of killing people with a hundred elven dinosaurs. Green loves this card. Rainbow shrugs at it. We are not the same.

(Janky Only)Harmonic Sliver: This card has done a fuck ton of work for me in early brews of this deck, especially where stax pieces are concerned. Many of my Thassa’s Oracle win attempts have only been possible with the destruction of a Rule of Law effect thanks to this lithe motherfucker. Plus the commander can synergize with this card by ensuring a new Aura Shards/Harmonic Sliver trigger for three mana every turn, plus the option to go full nuclear (which is a terrible fucking idea) and name Slivers with your Conspiracy effects – like my scrub ass playing Sliver Overlord EDH in the 2010 era. While it’s been cut from the janky lists for better cards like Cyclonic Rift for now, the synergies with the two Rainbow dork slivers and Sliver overlord in the glass cannon combo brew have been pretty hilarious, and make me want to run the 5 Sliver mini package in any of the Rukarumel brews I can. (Update: Several builds play with both the two Rainbow dork Slivers, as well as Harmonic, Necrotic, and Overlord.)

Necrotic Sliver: Necrotic Sliver is a great card, and has paved the way for many of my wins a decade ago when I was a fucking noob who played Sliver Tribal in EDH like a fucking scrub with my shitty little Sliver overlord deck. Three mana is a lot to ask in CEDH, both as a casting cost and an ability activation, but in the jankier lists where I’m already running Training Grounds, and soon possibly the Simic creature synonym Biomancer’s Familiar, Necrotic Sliver looks better and better, which is of course the Sliver trap – that allure of exponential value and endless critical mass. CEDH ain’t got time for that shit, you know? Go play slivers in casual EDH where you can slap down a new Sliver a turn until somebody board wipes you and you cry like a fucking child. (Speaking from lived experience.)

Crib Swap: In my casual EDH Elementals deck, this card is a banger, because I can cast it from graveyard every turn for WUBRG. In this deck, even the Tribal tutors can’t make great use of it outside of Cateran Summons or such. I’m sure there are some spellslinger heavy Rainbow brews out there that could get good recursive value out of Crib Swap with cards like Wort, Boggart Auntie. But just like Nameless Inversion, which I’ve omitted for similar reasons, Crib Swap is perfectly mid, even for a changeling card! You have to build around it pretty heavy to get it to work well, when the better alternatives of Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile are just… Sitting there.

Abrupt Decay: If you find yourself running into a lot of stax pieces, especially around your artifact lines, run this, as it hits every single Collector Ouphe effect I can think of off the top of my head. Guaranteed removal is very much worth the two mana Golgari cost, partially leading to this card being very very good in Standard when I played the prerelease for RTR block. (I missed Dragon’s Maze though, fuck that garbage set that’s only redeemable for printing Shocks and Mazes End.) Overall, a hard to fix card that can only be stopped by Mindbreak Trap is pretty rad, albeit only for smaller problems.

Assassin’s Trophy: Same shit as Abrupt Decay, but wider range. Also counterable, which is a con. I remember selling a foil of this thing after a prerelease for like eighty bucks, once.

Ephemerate: In flicker and ETB heavy lists – on cards like Imperial Recruiter and the like, I would be very tempted to run Ephemerate, both as a source of ETB value AND as a defensive answer to targeted removal. You could even do some really dumb shit in artifact heavy lists with Godo and the like, which could be hilarious. But alas, Ephemerate is one of the earliest cards that gets cut for pure Rainbow value includes, I find. This is one of Tobin’s favorite cards, especially in his old Bant Modern Soulherder deck, so I feel like I need to respect it somehow? Obviously this counts as interaction, but not removal or stax, persay.

Swords to Plowshares: I know I need to run more removal. THANKS. Fuck, I know how I should always run at least the one white mana exile creature spells in most of my decks, but I keep cutting them for sick flavor cards, you know? I’m a victim of my own genius. Or addiction to jank.

Path To Exile: The only new thing to note that wasn’t said above is that Path to Exile fucks Rainbow decks like us that usually don’t run even a single basic land. It’s also kinda feels bad for stuff like Assassin’s Trophy too. One of the small curses of Rainbow decks which are usually running Tainted Pact mana bases for Rainbow fixing purposes.

Aura Shards: When I run this in the 99 of both builds, it tends to always feel really, really good. When I run Harmonic Sliver AND Aura Shards, it feels really really REALLY good. The large number of creatures we run, often 30 or more, leads to the decimation of enemy fast mana – in a format that relies heavily on cards like Crypt, Vault, Signets, Mox, and the like. People don’t expect artifact hate from artifact decks, often. All the Treasure generation seems to be an excellent smokescreen for a commander that can guarantee a Sliver every turn for the trigger. I’ve cut it for now, but maybe I’ll add it back because it pitches well to Chrome Mox. (Update: This puppy is just as savage as Aura Shards in the right brews, and has decimated some opponents.)

Aven Mindcensor: Not quite as brutal as Opposition Agent, one sided tutor hate against your opponents is a very powerful effect in this format full of tutors. I’ve wanted to run this card several times in whichever of the builds I could find a reason to. Unfortunately, despite being a flying attacker for Pirate and Dwarf shenanigans, there are better hate cards, you know? At least Oppo lets you steal shit rather than just punt it.

(Streamlined Only)Deathrite Shaman: We’ve chatted about this guy before, but he does serve as a stax piece in terms of handy Instant speed graveyard hate. Sometimes opponents will try to use reanimation style effects, and you’ll be happy that you have the chance to exile the creature out from under the targeting to stymy things like Razaketh, Dockside, or Thassa recursions. Or discourage such shit. Same goes for instants and sorceries, although there aren’t many lands worth hitting unless you’re facing land deck strip mine lock shenanigans. Rainbow dork though, woo! And you know what it pitches to… That’s right, there’s a Chrome Moxable scale now, bitches. This bit will never die. You’ll have to pry it from my cold dead hands, like the Chrome Mox itself. (Which I do not own a genuine copy of, and likely may never will.)

Force of Vigor: It’s a good removal spell, don’t get me wrong. I just think in decks like this with lots of creatures, cards like Aura Shards or Harmonic Sliver provide more overall value, despite the ability to sandbag the removal a little better like this can. Would do well in a spellslinger style deck that could grab it back consistently, perhaps. But otherwise I can drop creatures frequently enough to make the two Aura Shards effects trigger more often.

Chain of Vapor: A solid removal piece for most problems in your way, Chain often gets cut in Rainbow for more wide hitting removal pieces that can’t be blown back on you if your opponent has more lands than lines. Bouncing Dockside always feels real good, though. Terrible Chrome Mox pitch. Only one color.

Delayed Blast Fireball: This thing has won me some games in the Izzet Pirates brew. Unfortunately, as far as sweepers go, I think I’d rather just jam the Treasure-generating Red enchantment or a Toxic Deluge or something. In Rainbow, it’s a very tough inclusion. We have access to much better.

Other Instants and Sorceries: I know there’s Pongify, Resculpt, Chaos Warp, etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately, you can only jam so much into a one hundred card deck! Still, it’s your version of Rukarumel, so run whatever your favorite pieces may be as you will, you know? We try to break metas in my primers, after all.

Counterspell Suite (AKA “Daddy Says No.”):

Anybody can be “daddy” with the right counterspells. Now, this may read as a bit of a guide to the cheap or free counterspells available in a Rainbow mana base, almost all exclusively in blue for maximum value. I tend to prefer the ones I can cast for free first and foremost, and secondly select for width of range/targets as a second pass. There are more counterspells than you can shake a stick at, and even a mono blue CEDH deck won’t be running them all.

Henceforth:

(Both)Pact of Negation: One of the best, only stopped by a Chalice of the Void on zero most of the time. (Update: Or Boromir and the like, I guess.) If it gets countered, you never usually care because then you don’t have to pay five on the next upkeep, or you’re just losing the game. Most lists run it as the least “needy” of the free counterspells. I wish I could count the number of times an opponent has backstabbed me and blown up a rock or something of mine after I’ve saved the board from a fucking win attempt. The number is above five at least, surely. Still, it’s your choice whether you want to be the motherfucking supervillain who Pacts a win condition when you know you can’t pay for it. Fuck politesse, you can also 100% go out with a fucking nuke at the person that fucked you if you want. Fuels my Supervillain vibes, at least. Just pretend you’re Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, where if you get your ass kicked and go out swinging, it makes you stronger the next time. (Update: Or people can just start running Stifle or Angel’s Grace tech again to do the OG tech of stifling/negating their Pact trigger.)

(Streamlined Only)An Offer You Can’t Refuse: In addition to the strange Rainbow fixing or acceleration shit you can do with this thing, it’s a one blue mana counterspell that hits non creatures, which is a good majority of the card types! I tend to prefer counterspells that are wider in what they hit, choosing “noncreature” counterspells over ones like Swan Song restricted to fewer targets. My hierarchy is 1. Free? 2. Wide? 3. Dreamcrushes efficiently?

(Streamlined Only)Flusterstorm: The pro to this thing is that it’s rarely ever able to be paid for or stopped due to the unique Storm keywording on this one of a kind counterspell. (Stifle is funny AF though.) Being one blue mana doesn’t hurt. The con is that it’s pretty fucking narrow in range, only hitting Instants and Sorceries… You know how I feel about narrow spells. Which is that they’re icky.

(Streamlined Only)Mental Misstep: Solid free counterspell that hits many interesting targets in CEDH, from one mana tutors to Demonic Consultation. Unfortunately, only hitting 1 CMC means targets are pretty narrow, so I’d usually just want to have a counterspell I can pay a blue or two for, and counter whatever I want. I actively prefer Swan Song or An Offer You Can’t Refuse over this thing, when deciding down the line of Counterspell cut potentials.

(Streamlined Only)Swan Song: One mana is still good value for a counterspell, even one restricted as this is to three card types. Still, in my more aggressive CEDH brews, I like to run both the cheap one mana counterspells as well as the free suite for density of effect. Plus if you want to jam Isochron Scepter in any given list, it also does Timetwister-loop-shit of course. But that’s for people like me who want to relive the heyday of winning with IsoRev Swan Song Timetwister loops. (Not that I remember how to do them since I last brewed Kinnan on release.)

(Both)Muddle The Mixture: Two blue is a lot to ask for a counterspell that only hits Instants and Sorceries. But having a three mana ability based tutor effect stapled to it more than makes up for this by giving this card multiple roles in a deck, especially in a format like CEDH where two mana creatures are king. As most Rainbow decks lean heavy towards Sultai already, I would strongly consider every Rainbow player running this card, if only to grab Thassa’s Oracle or Dockside Extortionist without any non-Stifle counter effect or Oppo/Aven looming. Abilities are easier to resolve in CEDH these days. It becomes much better and more reliable as a tutor than a counterspell, while still being a great card to sandbag in the event that an opponent goes for an unprotected win attempt. I’ve cut Muddle so many times from so many lists, and somehow the multimodal nature of it keeps me coming right back. Solid Rainbow include. I keep returning to it as a common Counterspell due to the multimodality of it.

(Streamlined Only)Deflecting Swat: I actually cut both this and Fierce Guardianship from the streamlined builds of the list. Sometimes I’d rather have a one blue counterspell over a card or two that only counts as free if I’ve already committed Rukarumel early for WUBRG, which is a lot of mana, even for this format. Deflecting Swat is an incredible card even for three mana, fucking over counterspells and all sorts of removal, though. So for now, it’s holding a spot okay on and off. I would say that for Rainbow commanders that are easier to jam out like Najeela or Sisay, these are auto-include cards in almost every Rainbow brew due to the incredible consistency and mana advantage they provide.

(Streamlined Only)Fierce Guardianship: Obviously, Fierce Guardianship is better than Deflecting Swat by a large margin due to being a noncreature counterspell. Even casting it for a single blue and some colorless doesn’t feel egregious. Still, my WUBRG CMC commanders like Jodah, Garth, and Rukarumel really struggle to justify them over cheaper counterspells or simply anti-counter tech, which is an ongoing debate for Rukarumel as most of our win con lines are Creatures. Even in decks that want to jam a five cost Rainbow commander ASAP, it’s a tough decision. And while more Counterspells is usually better, these do get cut often from many of my weightier Rainbow lists.

(Streamlined Only)Force of Negation: Not as wide as Force of Will, and also more finicky as to the free casting. For a three mana spell that requires two blue, I guess you can’t ask for much better these days as it also exiles the target. So for now it’s included in most of my Rainbow, free countermagic packages. It gets cut at times for cheaper or more multimodal cards as Rainbow can sometimes find it hard to find blue pitches for the two Force cards.

(Streamlined Only)Force of Will: Better than Force of Negation, but not quite as situationally good as Pact of Negation, Force is still an auto include in most blue-heavy Rainbow lists for good reason, even if it doesn’t exile the target to be all fancy and shit. Sometimes we like our free counterspells “classique.”

(Both)Mindbreak Trap: Mindbreak Trap is possibly one of the best “countermagic” spells currently in game. Not only does it feed off the Ad Nauseam and Underworld Breach meta like a fucking leech with all their fast Ritual spells and multi-spell turns, the fact that it exiles any number of spells on the stack rather than counters to graveyard often becomes very fucking relevant. Four mana, including two blue pips is kind of rough for Rainbow decks that prefer single pip cards, but you never feel bad casting this card, especially if your opponent’s win con is lucky number three being cast that turn. More of an offensive card than a defensive card due to being worse in some ways to use on your own turn to protect a win without excess mana, but anybody who browses my Moxfield knows I tend to include Mindbreak Trap over even the two Forces in my more bare bones Rainbow lists. It tends to get around a lot.

(Streamlined Only)Counterbalance: Counterbalance is a classic card that I feel I’ve disrespected by ignoring for so long, despite playing it a long time ago in commanders like Zur. Some players prefer hidden information above all else in their game, especially in Grixis colors that tend to want to snap off all at once for the win. But the true value of this card is not that it’s the same cost as a traditional counterspell… As annoying as two blue pips is to cast in Rainbow. The true value actually lies in being an additive stax effect – forcing your opponents to play around it to avoid you from gaining free counterspells against them for relatively low costs each time other than a revealed card or two. Instead of looking at Counterbalance as a card that forces you to play with your draws revealed, I would implore you to run it as sometimes upwards of five free counterspells as well. Depending on your pet CEDH cards and preferred draw machines, you can also make Counterbalance much easier to guarantee or abuse, with cards like Sensei’s Divining Top, Sylvan Library, and even Mirri’s Guile. Hell, even Noxious Revival and other topdeck recursion cards can make for some cheeky lines. Unfortunately, as I suck at remembering my own Sylvan Library triggers, I’ve moved away from both it and Sensei’s Divining Top, despite the reliability of such tricks improving with the printing of Urza’s Saga. “Rainbow Bloat” also kicks in hard, as the moment you run a Sensei’s Divining Top, it’s only a few more cards towards Bolas Citadel or Aetherflux lines. All packages best saved for decks going heavy into Treasure or artifact synergies. The ADHD brain likes to make connections via Pattern Recognition, but sometimes in the hopes of min-maxing every single card in your deck, you can forget to hone your focus in brewing. Thus, Counterbalance is making a comeback in many of my Rainbow Brews as a multiple counterspell machine and quasi stax piece, and perhaps some other packages will make appearances soon in different brews. Maaaaaybe. Ever hear of the most annoying card ever to be printed? Zur’s Weirding?

Mana Drain: Costed identically to the OG Counterspell, many CEDH players count Mana Drain as both a counterspell and a piece of mana acceleration. Colorless is hard to utilize well in Rainbow lists without any commander or outlet to pump it into, and while we do have Rukarumel’s sliver tokens in these brews I guess, it’s better off in the colorless heavy artifact Rainbow lists which can fix more easily with the plethora of available Treasure generation.

Miscast: So many people love this card, but I fucking hate it so much. Primarily because of how narrow it is. Even for a single Blue mana it becomes a dead card if your opponent has the mana to pay for it, or is winning with a creature or artifact combo. Save it for two color blue-plus lists that need the counterspell density to win counterspell wars. Keep it the fuck out of Rainbow and run free noncreature hitting counterspells at least, if not the counterspells that hit every spell guaranteed regardless of card type. Is it too much to ask for you to hold up two blue to say no?

Dispel: A hell of a lot better than Miscast, but also restricted to Instants, so this thing is kind of just good for punting tutors, Ad Nauseam, and those sorts of usual suspects, although it does feel good to stop a Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact to save the game from ending. As with many of the narrower counterspells that hit fewer targets, I relegate these to my two color blue lists that do the counterspell war thing and try to win with excess through wars of attrition. Rainbow has too many of the bombs listed throughout this primer to run instead.

Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Blue, Hydroblast, Etc.: By now, you know I dislike narrow targeting. These are pretty fucking narrow. In Rainbow, we don’t need to run cards that Red sans-blue decks have to, like these stupid pieces of anti-blue or anti-red counter and destruction tech. While I do think there’s an argument to be made for “percentage of the meta in blue” to justify these cards more or less, if you suggest I include the anti-red tech in my Rainbow brews, I’ll just laugh in your face most likely, a la the J.K. Simmons Spiderman meme. The only reaaaaaaal feelsgood targets are like… Dockside Extortionist and Underworld Breach, friends. Come on. Get real.

Stern Scolding: Another one blue mana counterspell, I actually like this thing a whole fucking lot due to how low the stats curve is in formats like these – Modern and TEDH/CEDH. Thassa’s Oracle, Dockside Extortionist, and many, many other creatures exist in a format where a power OR toughness of two or less is the norm. How many mana dorks are there in that category? How many tutor creatures or combo pieces on sticks? When you stop to think about how many common creatures this card hits in the CEDH format, especially when you add in Commanders themselves, you realize it might be worth playing. Not only is the number of creature targetable counterspells rather low, as WOTC has opted to print “noncreature” counterspells more frequently in recent years at any good costing, this thing stops some of the most common win cons across most of the color pie on creatures. In a time where the meta is flooded with creature strategy and board presence heavy decks like this one, no less. Good shit all told.

Arcane Denial: One of the earliest rules of Magic I learned in my early years playing EDH in like 2011 using borrowed decks, was not to give opponents choice or free value. The ancient modus operandi of Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, and now Smothering Tithe has hopefully taught enough players the importance of not giving free value to opponents over the decades. Thus, as a player I feel very torn on this spell. Two mana, with a single blue pip for a counterspell that hits everything is not bad, AND it technically cantrips itself?! The egregious drawback is that you’re giving your opponents two free cards in exchange for their spell. I think Offer is more appealing as mana is worth less in terms of resource hierarchy than card advantage. At least to me, learned from my ancient days playing Yu Gi Oh and the like as a teenager pre-serious Magic. Thus, Arcane Denial is like an artist’s muse, drifting so close as to be included, but often cut unless I have a way to punish my opponents for drawing cards in the given archetype I’ve chosen to play.

Counterspell: The classic. The only thing I’ll say is that I purposely played an OLD AF Counterspell (the one with the orange moustache dude) from a heavy-played binder, purely because somebody had sharpied “WINK” on it, and I loved the ability to wink at my friends as I countered their shit like the stupid fucking troll I am. It hits everything, it’s two blue mana total, I mean what else the fuck do you want, here? This is literally the baseline of the archetype.

Dovin’s Veto: An uncounterable counterspell is fucking awesome. PLUS, and you know what I’m going to say next… It pitches to Chrome Mox! Huzzah! Still, Rainbow hates this guild pipped shit, and it often ends up being a dead card due to casting difficulty. Maybe I’ll try to slot it into the Treasure Tribal build due to easier access to Rainbow fixing. Hitting noncreature is a good spread, though! I really like Dovin’s Veto a lot, even if nobody plays it, even me.

Drown in the Loch: You know how much I love multimodal spells, and I do have a soft spot for Drown In The Loch due to Standard experiences with it. Still, being reliant on graveyard size AND being Dimir mana makes it a tough justification, even if it can counter a lot of things or blow them up as needed. Pitches to Chrome Mox though. Sure does.

Negate: This is a very good card, and because it’s only a single blue pip, I would actually recommend running this as one of your additional counterspells after you’ve found slots for the freebies and one drop best-ofs. It’s a classic reprint every few years for a reason, folks. Few Rainbow decks can go wrong running this beauty. *Insert googled Steve Irwin “beauty” clip here.*

Cursecatcher: Some of these are a bit of a joke include, but to be fair, this is a Merfolk we can tutor out at Instant speed with a Seahunter and such in the glass cannon build, so despite being SO easy to pay for in this format, a staple of Merfolk Tribal in Modern can’t be too terrible, right? Hell, I even played it in standard or some shit when it got reprinted in Ixalan for a bit! Gotcha-countering somebody with a creature tutor to board would be pretty fucking sick, right?

Judge’s Familiar: This card was a banger in 2012-ish whenever Return To Ravnica came out. It fucked my day up so many times. But it’s a flying attacker that can crack to pull a gotcha on your opponents as a creature based counterspell, so it’s here as a consideration at least? Plus… Pitches to Chrome Mox bitches!

Minor Misstep: I stanned this card super hard when it came out. I DO still think in the CEDH format full of 1 and 0 CMC cards, it can definitely have a place, especially against key early creatures and Pact and the like. Unfortunately, that place is going to be in mono blue or other heavy blue spellslinger decks with a reliance on counterspells over other forms of interaction. Not any Rainbow list. Sorry little friend, I did have high hopes for you. I still do in the right lists.

Siren Stormtamer: A flying Pirate for Malcolm triggers that can also pop itself to protect said Malcolm will always be useful to us. Unfortunately, it has diminishing returns when we jam Malcolm into the 99 in favor of the Conspiracy combo piece in the command zone instead. Can still have a place in more Pirate-centric brews that lean on Malcolm or Pirate lines over keeping the flexibility that Conspiracy lines provide.

Spell Pierce: I don’t like this card. I think it often becomes a dead fucking card after like… Turn 3. But some people love the shit out of it! And it did see play in some of my Modern decks over the years. So perhaps if you’re in mono blue or something you can maybe find a place for it. Cut it from Rainbow ASAP.

Spell Snare: Another sleeper that has come back in force, even in some Rainbow lists, purely because it hits a good majority of the format. Thassa’s Oracle, Dockside, Tainted Pact, Underworld Breach, the list goes on. I’ve watched some people be idiots in their casting of it, same as with Mental or Minor Misstep, jumping on the very first thing it can counter, overeager. Often it comes back to bite them in the ass when a real threat drops sometime soon after. But if you think you’re clever enough to use this card well, by all means, include it in your various brews!

Stubborn Denial: I have died to Stubborn Denial in Grixis Death Shadow so many times in Modern. Obviously, this card scales as better or worse almost entirely on your Commander choices, being amazing in decks with Kraum, for instance. In Rukarumel, we have fewer big creatures to get the better variant of the spell, so it’s usually cut. Still, I would recommend this spell to most Blue dipping lists that can ensure a four power creature on board rather consistently.

Others: Yep, they exist. Sure do.

Playing The Deck (AKA “Making Things Go Brrr.”):

Holy shit! That was a lot of card by card analysis, huh? Hopefully by now you’re getting a pretty good grasp on both Tribal Tribal and Rainbow Magic more generally, especially the goodstuff, auto-include, and flexibility philosophies. My goal after all is to improve your Tribal and Rainbow play by the end of this. Even if you only come out with a basic idea of the most common Rainbow cards playable in CEDH, that’s enough to get started and brewing, rather than forced into the netdecking that most folks promote to newbies.

EDH vs. CEDH vs. TEDH (And They’re All Still Called “Commander.”):

Now, there’s a specific distinction we have to make, between EDH, CEDH, and TEDH. Three very different kettles of fish when it comes to playing both Rainbow and Tribal decklists. I’d argue that they’re different unique formats, really. Casual EDH as most people know it is very battlecruiser-heavy. Winning out of the blue with combos or infinite loops is often frowned upon, as folks tend to treat that format more like Texas Hold ‘Em Poker, in that tables can be as much social events as a gaming event. I don’t begrudge people their “Thursday Night Poker” vibe, but I tend to prefer playing at the CEDH and TEDH level for the most part myself. Not that I don’t enjoy a good Timmy-Swing sideways to murder somebody once in a while.

When we talk about CEDH, we might still be describing kitchen tables, or random Cockatrice games, or any other variant such as Spell Table or the like. That is to say, the only difference from the scenario of EDH to CEDH is the power level and the philosophy – that winning is a good thing, to be achieved at all costs. Both are social formats, but… In CEDH, you play to your outs, and you bring the fucking heat. The power level is expected to be near the maximum possible as of current in the game or format. The CEDH meta and environment is actually where I prefer to play. Contrasting CEDH and TEDH – the difference there is that unlike CEDH and EDH, TEDH or tournament play loses that social aspect – as there are often very tangible prizes on the line the larger a CEDH tournament is. Self-interest reigns over the social aspect unless the person has no need for prizing (like that motherfucker Post Malone. Why do you think he plays fucking No Ban List CEDH? He bought the 1/1 The One Ring for two milly. Cash for daaaaays.) People usually bring decklists and brews designed to win fast, and win efficiently. There is little to no room to play left-field jank in the TEDH format or scene. While you are still playing as optimally as possible, the addition of “stakes” (which any other writer or comedian will understand) eliminates the casual or social aspect in most aspects.

I obviously have a brew of Rukarumel Gay Pirates that can hang with the “Tier One” decks like Tymna Kraum, Kinnan, and Rogsi and the like, (and any streamlined or optimized Rainbow list can, despite what some CEDH doofuses might tell you.) But I simultaneously also understand that if I want to take Rukarumel and any brew of Tribal Tribal to actual tournaments, the optimized decklist is the one I need to bring over one of the more oddball glass cannon brews. (And considering most tournaments are paper tournaments, I’m definitely not going to waste my time building anything but the streamlined and maybe one other list in paper, ever.) I muse about the social aspects of Magic: The Gathering a lot, and the classic mismatching of Commander power levels is one of the biggest strife areas around – between EDH, CEDH, and TEDH. Not that I can forget that even casual EDH players randomly do very well in CEDH or TEDH at times with casual EDH decks, as the CEDH meta is more focused on instant speed interaction and combo-based wins, sometimes folding to more unexpected off-meta battlecruisery beatdown decks.

All this means that both your deckbuilding and strategy will be different going into TEDH scenarios compared to even the highest quality kitchen table CEDH matches. For TEDH, adjust your mulligans to match a faster, more interactive scene, full of Turbo Naus – whereas in more online Cockatrice heavy metas, I tend to see a lot more stax, especially in Naya or Abzan colors. (Although I should acknowledge that stax is much cheaper to assemble in paper than the standard menu of Grixis-plus, so new to CEDH/TEDH players do often start there.)

The Brass Tacks of Playing Rukarumel Tribal Tribal:

So, how the hell does this all fit together? We’ve covered all the basics – win con lines, card advantage plus tutors, mana bases, and interaction/oppression suites. Hopefully by now you have a solid idea of how a Rainbow deck runs, as well as an idea about some of the auto include pieces and their functions. With enough harping, you’ll spot some of the cards that are becoming auto includes and the various associated play patterns with those specific lines, cards, or packages. All that’s left is to talk a little bit about mulligans, play patterns specific to Rukarumel, and common lockouts for the deck for you as a player, seeing as I can’t predict every meta you might run into. That means I have to make an educated guess across the whole CEDH meta.

If you’ve read the Garth One Eye primer, you already know some of what’s coming. Please note – some of these things are pretty common to most Rainbow decks, especially those that rely on Treasure for fixing, so be aware that sometimes you will just hit bad matchups against multiple stax decks simultaneously, and no matter how good Rainbow and 5c is at grinding, it’s often still going to be an uphill slog. But I guess that’s the nature of CEDH, right? Due to the whole Stax/Midrange/Turbo game of rock/paper/scissors. You’re going to have bad matchups eventually, even if stax and hard control shows up much less frequently at TEDH events due to the issues with round timing and the like.

We’re almost there, friends. I hope you’ve enjoyed this strange journey with me across the lands of 5c Rainbow.

Mulligans:

Early keeps in most Rainbow CEDH decks should include three things:

Early lands and/or ramp that ensures consistent paths towards mana acceleration and/or fixing depending on the keep. Rainbow is very fixing intensive. Don’t forget that. Pay extra close attention to your playable cards and needed color pipping versus color generation.
A tutor, a combo piece, or one or more card advantage engines to get you towards said tutors or combo pieces.
Either counterspells for stopping wins by speedier Turbo decks if in the pod, or some sort of disruption to hamper or slow your opponents down – some of these include Drannith, Oppo, etc. Tempo is always very important in competitive formats and should lead many of your decisions.

Obviously, this changes depending on your pod or meta, and this advice wouldn’t be bad advice for a wide majority of CEDH decks out there, generic as it fucking is for any format with lots of tutors. If you run up against a ton of Kraum Tymna or Ad Nauseam heavy Grixis decks, try to mulligan more aggressively to ensure you can keep up with them or kill/counter their pieces. They’ll surely be faster than your creature on the board loops so you’ll often have to rely on Thassa’s Oracle as your primary win condition in such environments if you can’t shut them down early. Never forget that this deck’s more streamlined versions can get a T1-T3 Oracle win quite handily. Don’t be afraid to lean on easier lines like these, as many opponents will often be expecting only jank from you as if you don’t know exactly why you’re playing Rukarumel in CEDH. Take advantage of their ignorance or underestimation of you and Rukarumel as much as you can. If you’re up against a slower stax deck that is going to try and slow you down, hunt for hands that can either counterspell annoying stax pieces like Null Rod when they first try to land, or for removal pieces like Harmonic Sliver or Aura Shards to consistently blow up their shit and keep them on the back foot as you jam increasing amounts of creature value onto the board. As a midrange creature combo deck, Rukarumel can grind quite happily against a single stax deck however, and it’s when you must break parity on two or more stax players that things can get messy.

From my experience, TEDH and regular CEDH as said before are slightly different beasts. There are the obvious fringe eccentric deck builders like myself who enjoy breaking metas or trying new commanders that most of CEDH overlooks. But in much of TEDH you should expect to run up frequently against high-color decks, often in Grixis colors that can snag wins as fast as possible to push through wins towards early swiss points before later rounds. RogSi and other Grixis Turbo Nauseam matchups in Round 1 have been so damn common since I came back to CEDH yet again a year or two ago. It can be infuriating watching folks bring truly bad jank up against these sorts of decks. Many times other players will watch you fight them valiantly, all while twiddling their nose hair because they’re non-blue like fools – in a tournament power level.

I truly do believe that you should be playing Blue and Black to have a decent chance of winning in CEDH and TEDH these days. And that does make me sad as a Rainbow player.

Moving Towards A Win:

Without a doubt, Magda is a faster, and easier to achieve line than Malcolm in some respects. And the greatest downside of the CEDH Streamlined list in relation to this is that while the jankier glass cannon brews often have several backup lines to utilize, in the Streamlined lists you’re limited to your three primary lines of Malcolm, Magda, or Thassa’s Oracle due to all the extra interaction you’re packing. This means that hands that can drop Magda early without needing to tutor are often more enticing than hands with Malcolm early on. Learn to pivot between Malcolm, Magda, and Thassa’s Oracle lines quickly and smoothly as they get stymied or interrupted. Steely Resolve and similar cards will help immensely with this.

Still, the reliability of Malcolm is his multiple synonym pieces for his combos, with more cards to draw leading to winning you the game. As you have Rukarumel in the command zone, what normally would be a three card combo becomes much easier to ensure for yourself. There’s only one Malcolm of course – but there are 4-5 ping effects, and 10+ Conspiracy effects available to us to slot into the various combo requirements of our various Rukarumel brews. Additionally, don’t discount the huge impact of one or two Malcolm pingers with a loaded Dockside, especially with silly cards like Roaming Throne and the like. I’ve done upwards of 60 damage with a single Dockside before in various Rukarumel builds. Kills Ad nauseam decks real fast. Magda on the other hand has few redundant backup pieces outside her Artifact Changeling or “enters as” options, so if your Clock of Omens gets exiled, you’re right back to square one, grinding Treasures for Magda value like a chump. In a sense, this means you’ll often have to commit early to either Magda or Malcolm, and while Magda seems the better choice, without backup like a Smothering Tithe or Dockside to feed her, Malcolm tends to be a little better and more consistent as a line overall. Still, certain Rukarumel builds do have backup wincons or value grinds for Magda, such as the Realmbreaker or Time Sieve lines.

In many games with excellent mulligans, you will often be able to “double dip” your win lines, by moving towards an easy to access two blue, one black Thassa’s Oracle win with or without protection while sandbagging your other lines, all whilst building up mana. It can be very frustrating for an opponent to waste all of their interaction on a Thassa or Pact win attempt only for you to dump Malcolm and Rukarumel the following turn, then threaten a win while also farming two or three Treasures a turn at minimum.

The fact that this deck can go faster or grind midrange if it needs to is a boon, as with most 4c and Rainbow decks. While you can be vulnerable to early win attempts, it’s usually beneficial for you to wind up in blue heavy pods where the faster Turbo decks can get blown out on their win attempts first and you can then angle to be second or third in terms of the flagrant threats on board or win attempts needing answers. Still, Turbo will always be the enemy of us midrange decks, no matter what we do.

Finally, remember that this deck is one of the most variable you’ll find in Rainbow, capable of slotting in or out numerous packages from throughout Magic to aim for weaker points in your meta. The huge amount of Tribal cards that would be otherwise unplayable outside of regular EDH to shape and sculpt your playstyle is quite nice, even if cutting a Rukarumel brew subsequently becomes hellish. And of course, if you want to bring your specific Tribal Tribal brew to tournaments or higher power CEDH pods, ensure you use the various “auto-includes” discussed throughout this primer as a baseline!

Problem Cards (AKA “Killshot Cards.”):

In Rainbow CEDH lists you will often find that the very cards that are included to make 5c more playable, become very weak to specific stax or disruption effects. Dockside Extortionist versus Stony Silence is a great example. Similar to how we’ve done before in The Garth Primer, we’ll break down some of the more annoying ones you should be on the lookout for. This will be similar somewhat to the Garth One Eye primer, save for the prevalence of ETBs in that deck that fold to Hushbringer effects. As our combos are mostly initiated by damage or combat triggers, we often sidestep that problem in Rukarumel. These cards will still undoubtedly be hellish for any Rainbow deck you try to pilot in many contexts.

And so:

Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Back to Basics, Etc.: As with most 4c and 5c CEDH decklists, unless you manage to get some early sources of mana rock or mana dork fixing, a Blood Moon will blow you entirely out of the water. It’s why I originally modded my Malcolm/Breeches list to be a trolly Blue Moon list to shut down decks like Blue Farm. With some tech in this deck in the mainboard or considering pile, you don’t have to worry much – as per Aura Shards and Harmonic Sliver if they’re in your own personal list. Still, any Blue Moon package will threaten your deck’s very life, making matchups against decks like Winota much more difficult if you can’t follow the normal procedure of blowing out the Winota so the deck can’t function and subsequently they dump a Magus of the Moon on top of you out of nowhere.

Rule of Law effects: Honestly, all of your creature combos can operate fine through most Rule of Law Effects, aside from requiring you to spread the casting of the combo pieces themselves out over a few turns. You can even sandbag the Malcolm for last if your pinger has a second artifact to drop or a clean attack! I’ve even considered running a Deafening Silence in some of the lists just to force midrange grinding or early removal. Still, RoL does shut down our Thassa’s Oracle lines unless we bend over backwards with a Tainted pact or something, so for the most part we just stay away from RoL effects entirely, and hope they don’t blow our Oracle lines out instead. If somebody jams one early, just pivot to your artifact and creature lines that cheat things into play without casting them, such as Magda, depending on the brews of Rukarumel you run and which lines you have access to.

Aven Mindcensor or Opposition Agent: Most of your combo pieces are in the 99 of your deck. Obviously you need your tutors to work. Rukarumel is just this deck’s version of the Pokemon “Ditto.” Heh. Ditto. Additionally, Rainbow relies so heavily on fetches and OG duals that we fall victim to these cards quite easily. Unfortunately, aside from watching for the three mana required to telegraph these, (damn you Dark Ritual and Oppo!) there’s a reason I’ve considered jamming Aven Mindcensor into the streamlined list just to have another Opposition Agent synonym backup facing the other way.

Sanctum Prelate: Since this deck runs so many important 2 drops, you have a very good chance of most Sanctum Prelates landing on “2.” After all, two drops are a wide majority of some decks in the format, and such a Prelate play definitely bricks some Thassa’s lines and tons of our best noncreature cards. Luckily, I haven’t seen a ton of Sanctum Prelates these days outside of heavy white stax lists.

Containment Priest: This card blows out the jankier glass cannon builds much better than the streamlined version, largely because the streamlined CEDH version uses more hand and topdeck tutors than cheeky tutor on a stick effects that cheat things directly into play. If you’re running the streamlined decklist, you’re mostly laughing, here. But don’t doubt that some lines in some brews will shut down under this thing. It stops Intruder Alarm Rukarumel loops, for instance.

Cursed Totem or Linvala effects: Cursed Totem effects are interesting, because it shuts down our Magda lines while leaving our Malcolm lines untouched – being triggered abilities and all in lieu of activated abilities. There have been plenty of times thus far where I’ve leaned into more accessible Magda lines, only to be punished with a Cursed Totem after I’ve used whatever tutors available to me to grab Magda. But, this is a Rainbow deck that, unlike Kenrith, Sisay, or Garth, doesn’t really fold to Cursed Totem too badly. I do see the new Drana and Linvala making it into more and more decks as both hate, reliable swings, and infrequently a Welder Myr or Necrotic Ooze sort of line. She’s tough for us to run ourselves due to the insane pipping. But for now be thankful that stax decks don’t often draw the ability, alongside ETB, and other similar hate pieces all at the same time.

Stony Silence, Collector Ouphe, Null Rod, etc.: These without a doubt are the most dangerous threats to your deck, fucking over one of your three combo lines in the main streamlined CEDH lists and also annihilating all your Treasure tech in the deck in one fell swoop. These cards are why I’ve been leaning more towards jamming Aura Shards and Harmonic Sliver, even in the streamlined brews. Again, for this deck with so much Treasure and artifact synergy, these are some of the most dangerous effects for us in all of Magic. I cannot stress it enough. Part of why I’ve stubbornly kept many of the mana dorks in the list has been purely to be able to grind if these card effects hit the board, as almost every modern green or white stax list eschews artifacts in favor of dorks and these hate pieces – specifically to attack the stupid amounts of fast mana in the format. Prepare for tons of artifact hate, even though many of the Malcolm lines only need the treasures to enter, and not crack for mana.

Gilded Drake: The inclusion of Steely Resolve was partially due to getting fucked over by Gilded Drakes. Having your Malcolm or Magda stolen sucks, and the almost auto-inclusion of Gilded Drake in every blue list has pushed me to even want to run Homeward Path in some of my 5c lists due to it being such a powerful effect. While I have done some cheeky “Cyclonic Rift my own Gilded Drake” shenanigans before, the big threat here for us is not having Steely Resolve or some other protection source down and getting your best pieces yoinked out from under you. A small silver lining is that Rukarumel will never be stolen, and we have enough backup Conspiracy effects in the deck to not give two shits if she is, anyways.

Yasharn, Sigarda, other anti-sacrifice effects, etc.: These attack our fetch lands, Treasures, and some key tutor effects. There aren’t many answers outside of pure removal spells, as many of these effects are rather big in terms of power and toughness. Just as dangerous as artifact hate in many ways, so be extremely cautious about letting these effects resolve if you have the countermagic to stop them.

Targeted Removal: Malcolm and Magda both being easily destroyed, low toughness targets, means that even simple old cards like Lightning Bolt can blow you out sometimes. The inclusion of Steely Resolve has really helped this, leading to me even playtesting Zur The Enchanter and the like to ensure easy access to both Tribal enchantment protection and the enchantment Conspiracy effects. Still, make sure you have some countermagic, (or hexproof and shroud tech as backups) in your list to at least try and cover your board from disruption. After all, the deck doesn’t run a ton of recursion, even if we’re not talking about Swords to Plowshares or Path To Exile, so protecting your winning combo line pieces is much more important than in other decks. Luckily Rainbow alone as a color identity has all the tools to ensure we don’t get fucked with.

Field Nukes: We’re a creature deck, as evidenced by the Gaea’s Cradle and various Conspiracy effects to add types to our creatures. Fucking duh. That means that a single Toxic Deluge or any similar card can ruin your day entirely, possibly killing some of your winning lines. Keep counterspells on hand for this shit, as there isn’t much you can do about them in this deck otherwise.

Creature Damage: It really sucks when somebody resolves an Orcish Bowmasters or their own Mayhem Devil, and then proceeds to slowly ping your board to bloody ribbons. Most of our creatures and creature combos involve lower toughness critters, so direct damage can be problematic. Yet another reason why I’ve included Steely Resolve in this list, whilst running few to no ETBs in favor of Sorcery or Instant tutor equivalents.

The Rainbow Bible (AKA “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.”):

Playing 5c Magic scratches a very specific itch for me, and from a playstyle perspective I understand why. This section has less to do specifically with Rukarumel, and is more broadly a look at Rainbow philosophy, something that takes a lot of Magic experience to apply and play appropriately unless you’re a pretty smart cookie. It takes a lot to be a competent Rainbow mage, after all. Who do you think you are? Feldon? (What I wouldn’t give for a solid Rainbow Feldon commander!)

As has been said so many times, by both myself and others, five color Magic is what the highest levels of Magic leans towards. In No Ban List CEDH, aside from specific banned commanders like Leovold or Rofellos, most piles tend to lean towards Rainbow, purely because of the number of cheap or free color fixing cards there are. I truly believe that Golos shouldn’t have been banned, because he’s not quite as egregious as say Kraum/Tymna as a commander in some ways. Still, we can all see the real reason for the banning of Golos – he provided too much easy value in a colorless cost shell that could fix whatever colors you needed. I’d like to believe that one of the original reasons for the banning of the OG power nine was due to how easily one could fix Rainbow mana in such a way. Just a hunch though.

Golos aside, additionally, with the printing of the Partner mechanic in 2016 and some of the degenerately powerful partners produced, it feels like an objectively bad decision to play less than 4c or 5c for simple card quality in the CEDH format. The draw and other value engines provided in four and five color Magic are simply too good to ignore unless we’re abusing a specific mechanic or playstyle like say Winota. Hell, even the attempts of WOTC to make white a better and more appealing color in EDH as a whole has even produced new auto-includes for us Rainbow mages like Esper Sentinel! (After over a decade of everybody knowing that Boros was the shittiest color combination in EDH due to low amounts of ramp and card draw, the two most important resources in the game.)

Let’s look at the math. As of this Rainbow primer, there are over 28,000 unique Magic cards within Magic: The Gathering. As EDH and CEDH are eternal formats, the vast majority of all cards ever printed are legal within these formats. Let’s pretend, or assume for the sake of ease, that all of the five colors of Magic are roughly equal in terms of number – largely because we know how WOTC does print runs and assigns slots to be designed – accounting for X or Y cards of each color in every set, balanced mostly around the set’s identity or color approaches. If you want to see a good visual of this, check out Mythic Spoiler during the middle of spoiler season – they assign the slots so you can see the set filling in as more cards are spoiled in each color.

Ballpark math – dividing 28,000 by five gives you 5,600 cards per color in the color pie. That means that while a mono blue CEDH deck like Emry or Urza only has to consider roughly five to six thousand cards total when deck building, for Rainbow decks this number is five times greater. Now, we can do the specific math to break things down by Mythic, Rare, or even Uncommon rarity, or even do an analysis to boil down the most effective, consistent, and playable cards in each color to a smaller and smaller pool with each pass. In case you were wondering how aggregation resources like EDHREC.com worked? They kind of do this by scanning all the decklists they can find and providing averages or other data for how often cards are included. EDHREC provides the most commonly played cards, providing a sorting service for you based on other players’ data.

This is where the math nerds really take over, by grinding quantitative data to try and build the most efficient Rube Goldberg Machine via card choices. As I’ve covered many times in this Primer and guide to Rainbow, many cards are becoming auto-inclusions due to the insane power, efficiency, or modality they provide to us in Rainbow. Remember me rambling about Orcish Bowmasters, The One Ring, and Talion, Kindly Lord way up above? The list keeps getting smaller and smaller unless we do our best to look for value in places that break the inevitable winnowing.

Now, you can use all these numbers to jump to conclusions if you want. Assessing, ranking, and valuing 28,000 cards is going to be harder than only looking at 5,600 after all. Does that mean Rainbow players are going to be better versed in Magic than players that exclusively play mono color decks? Honestly? Who fucking knows. That sort of data would require a university level study to determine, most likely. I am still surprised though that more Rainbow players I encounter don’t have insane 100-500 card considering piles or sideboards purely because of the various packages, archetypes, or individually deemed “auto includes” one might have in a given playgroup. While EDH has no official sideboard… My Rainbow sideboard/considering cards frequently have many of the cards discussed in this primer, so I can quickly slot, say; an Underworld Breach package back into any given deck throughout playtesting should I want to. (People do find it strange that I brew in Cockatrice and import over to Moxfield to check pips afterwards based on “vibes.” That’s Pattern Recognition for you.)

Perhaps that’s the greatest challenge in piloting Rainbow decks – that the Rainbow Bloat effect becomes very real. It can be frustrating to make cuts when you have so many awesome archetypes, packages, and strategies available to you, after all. Who wouldn’t want to jam them all?

One way of adapting yourself to avoid falling into Rainbow Bloat is to choose general deck archetypes very carefully. Underworld Breach is again a great example. In decks with lots of rituals, fetches, and other such Graveyard or Mill synergies, Underworld Breach lines become much better and more efficient, leading to even my own decisions as a potential opponent to cut playable cards like Realmbreaker for fear of giving them just enough cards in graveyard to start their loop and kill me.

Rainbow is indeed playing with the idea of everything in Magic all at once, and often it takes some players many years before they can get a good enough grasp on each color to move upwards in terms of card pool and the subsequent decisions that come with expanding your horizons as a Magic player. Maybe playing in the various Ravnica blocks brainwashed me as MaRo intended. (This is a joke, duh. Don’t sue me for defamation.)

If I ever manage to get rich enough to buy WOTC or hell, even Hasbro itself, I’m going to make sure that somebody is looking out for Rainbow as a color identity, somewhere.

Also, as a final fun fact, did you know that technically there are additional colors denoted by MTG cards? In addition to “Purple” mana being playtested in the 90s which never materialized, the card “Water Gun Balloon Game” creates Pink tokens! The other “un” card “Avatar of You” can also be brown, if your eyes are that color!

I do love my color pie! I always eat the whole fucking thing at once.

Outro (AKA “I’ll Love You Forever.”):

It’s been a long road to get here. Honestly, most of my sci fi books I sell for actual money are about 100,000 words long, give or take. And this primer is looking at around half that number of words. A primer that’s like half of a real book. So this definitely holds the record for the longest CEDH “primer” ever written, not that it isn’t a full resource rather than a simple “primer.” Except nobody would buy this if I published it as an actual book. Too niche of a topic. Also, WOTC would sue me for the images, most likely. Or send the fucking Pinkertons after me.

But hell, after all that – I clearly do love playing 5c Rainbow piles in Magic. Enough to write this Rainbow Bible. A Rainbow Tribal Tribal primer two or three times the length of the legendary CEDH Gitrog Monster primer. (Believe me, I know there’s no award or record for this shit. I’ve gotten more shit for writing this than praise, because the CEDH community can often be toxic as fuck. Stay humble, stay hungry, folks.)

Honestly, I hope that you come to love playing the entirety of Magic that is 5c Rainbow, too. Rainbow Bible or not. There’s nothing like having access to every single card in a thirty year old game when playing, something that other TCGs I’ve played like Yu Gi Oh struggle to replicate. Perhaps the very notion of the color pie is what helps MTG stand out from the crowd, despite a lot of folks exploring new products like Flesh and Blood (Which I know literally nothing about.)

All I can say is that I tend to love excess, in regards to jank, or competition, or anything. If I want art, I want it to gut punch me emotionally regardless of the emotion. If I want Magic, I want extremely competent players who can force me to play at my very best and who give me the truest thrill of challenge. I’m already pretty open about how I smoke weed to purposely handicap myself and improve the challenge whenever I play CEDH, after all.

I know this game, especially the social aspect, can suck. For many, the CEDH community can appear pretty toxic, from the blatant know-it-all-ism, to the extremely strong opinions on what is ideal, most efficient, or “best,” to the general vibe of the community – seeming to be people constantly shitting on each other, even if in “friendly” contexts. But fuck, even said opinions on strategy, card quality, or strength are often flawed. Something that is unfortunately still up to qualitative interpretation as we have no computer-generated mathematical “solution” to the game as of yet. Nor do I think we will anytime soon. (Watch computers and machine learning then break MTG within a year of publishing this. Hah!)

That’s all to say that despite the pods where you will run into hypercompetitive, egotistical assholes, there are lots of chill pods too. Not everybody is that motherfucker at FNM who sits there flicking or shuffling their hand and jamming cards in hardcore silence. Some of the pros I’ve grinded against in the past few years have actually turned out to be funny, chill people who are good enough to give me a run for my money. I appreciate that a ton, rather than experiencing these obsessive win-crazed maniacs I expected (from what MTG media often is, in wannabe esports fashion. Errybody is farming clout or trying to nail the hottest new takes.)

But I do really like the game that Richard Garfield made. Most of my philosophies are similar to Richard himself! Yet many of my philosophies about MTG still clash with many folks in the various scenes, often because I refuse to acknowledge the business side of things for fear of ruining the actual game itself. I’m very wary of the content creation/media production side of the MTG community due to the knowledge as a creator myself of the money flows involved. (And that’s after playing Producer on The Brewery – guilty as well.) I’m also very pro proxy, after making thousands off the reserved list as a reformed filthy-card-speculator MTGfinance-bro. People still in the money and collection aspects of the game really dislike people like me who can point to various abuses of the secondary markets over the years. Even local game stores have capitalism aims that trump any love of the game itself at the end of the day, you know? We can’t be naive, and must become more aware of these sorts of issues within Magic. Huge props to the hobby stores that have unionized, for example!

As ever, I want Magic to be as accessible to as many fucking people as possible, for as cheap as we can get it. It’s for selfish reasons of course, because nurturing new talent promotes better high level play and gives me young greenhorns to sharpen myself on in true grinder fashion. (I fucking hate grinder mentality, but I do love me some high level competition!) I might be a bit of a hermit, hiding away and churning out art, but even I can appreciate the whole “gathering” part of MTG after all.

As we ride off into the sunset together, you and me, I’d like to wish you strength and luck for your journey ahead. I’m pulling for you, motherfucker. And I hope this primer was useful to you as both a specific decklist primer for Rukarumel Gay Pirates, but also a sort of general Rainbow Bible of common cards, strategies, win conditions, or just general Rainbow vibes. Not to mention that after reading this in entirety, you can consider yourself a Tribal Tribal pro!

As a final goodbye, let me wish you just one thing:

“I hope you have as much fun playing this deck as I did, be it tomorrow, or a hundred years from now.”

Now, let’s get the fuck out of here. Go play some Magic, you darling new little Rainbow mage, you.

-McRae

McRae’s MTG Corner: The Rainbow Bible. (AKA The Rukarumel “Gay Pirates!” Tribal Tribal CEDH Primer.)

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McRae’s MTG Corner: The Rainbow Bible. (AKA The Rukarumel “Gay Pirates!” Tribal Tribal CEDH Primer.)

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