Ok, Obelisk of Alara is slow and when I'm under pressure I prefer to cast creatures, but once I stabilize it can win me a game.

I replaced Brimaz, King of Oreskos with Maelstrom Archangel as I felt that I can ramp fast enough to stabilize or wipe the board so I don't really need Brimaz and Maelstrom can win games.

2bestest, I agree with you, the tap lands sometimes slow me down. Or even slow me down more often than not, but on the other side I don't have problems with mana colors. I have no idea how to make the mana base better so I went for the easiest route.

I dunno how to fit in another Darksteel Ingot. I already wish I could somehow fit in the 3rd Treasured Find.

So far I went 6-0 from yesterday, 3 of those games were against devour/sac Jund decks which seem to get popular.

You definitely need an Obelisk in five-color, no question; it's only a dead draw if you're winning and the versatility it provides gives you a ton of game in every matchup.

I think the taplands are a necessary evil because mana consistency is more important than speed for the Mythic Ramp strategy.

I don't think you need four Cultivates and three Ingots; I ran all seven in my initial Conflux build but that was before we had trilands. I think 25 land plus four Cultivate and maybe a single Ingot is the maximum amount of cards I would play that only serve to produce mana.

Hakeem your conflux though isn't as diverse on colors as his though.

Thought I'd share my Conflux creation...although, in all fairness, I took the best of everyone's deck and put it in here ...



Some notes on my build:

I chose Elvish Visionary over Satyr Wayfinder simply because I have enough mana filtering, I just wanted a good creature that drew me a card. Also, I seem to drop the worst cards in the graveyard. Haven't missed the Satyr yet.

10 Tri-Lands have been good...it gives me the right amount of multi-coloured mana without slowing me down too much. This along with the 4 Cultivates/2 Darksteel Ingots has been working out very well.

Graveborn Muse is straight tech...the damage dealt to me has only been relevant once, and that was because I forgot about the lifegain on Obelisk of Alara (doh!).

Speaking of the Obelisk, I chose to include both copies since Reclamation Sage has been showing up alot, especially in Jund. This lets me get the second copy out if it gets destroyed. If I have both out...watch out mamma. Auto-Include, as stated by Hakeem earlier.

Ground Assault is a must in the build...2 mana, kill pretty much anything (depending on your land count). Can't beat it. It gets the nod over Angelic Edict because you can use it turn 2 if needed, which is typically when the deck has the most issues.

Shadowborn Demon is basically removal/Timewalk, as few players attack into a 5/6 flyer. I think I have attacked with him once over the course of 20 games. Still the ability to kill anything other than Demons and the Baneslayer is pretty sexy.

Genesis Hydra is fantastic in this build...I won a recent game against a Goblin deck that had me to 2 when I cast it for X=5 and got a Baneslayer...

Currently, I am somewhere around 22-3 with this build.

Comments/suggestions welcome, as always.

So, I'm going to take this on a spin this weekend. I've been utilizing the MonKeem Ink-Treader build, and it's been stupendous. I wish to play conflux, so I'll report back, regarding the competition. Also, I replaced an Edict with another Genesis Hydra.

I haven't gotten to test it myself, let me know how it goes.

Just played my first duel against what appeared to be a run o' the mill B/W lifegain deck. I lucked out, in that my opponent was mana screwed for the first few turns of the game. I went down to about 12 life, before Wurming my way back and winning.

If Fusion Elemental isn't castable by the time you have 5-6 mana, I would definitely cut it. It was a card I wanted to test so let me know if it's consistently rotting in your hand like in that picture.

also, he dies to removal

I may sub him out completely for the edicts, then.

Second duel, managed to beat a crafty Selesnya Tokens deck. The pilot was clever, didn't overextend his hand, and was slowly building up his board state. I managed to hang in there by chump blocking, and forcing him to waste his pump spells to rescue his creatures from ground assault. Eventually, I had amassed enough for planar cleansing and then proceeded to drop bomb after bomb after bomb.

So I have a bit of a monstrosity to post here, but a little info on the progression of the deck first.

So I made the decision some time back that I wanted to make a creature-less control deck and see if I could make it work.

Red and White were the obvious first choices for colors for this sort of things, being the only colors with sweepers, which the deck often needs to just outright not die to some of the faster/wider decks in the format. It also allowed the use of Obelisk of Alara and Banefire as win-cons.

Blue was the obvious next step, giving access to both reliable draw, and counterspells.

The deck existed for awhile as Jeskai and actually did rather well considering the only win-cons the deck ran were Obelisk and Banefire.

I got bored recently and decided I wanted to jam another color into the deck. Black was the obvious choice, as it allowed the deck to use Obelisk of Alara as a source of repeatable removal, something it does very well. Black also allowed the deck to run Suffer the Past, giving it another potential non-creature win-con, and a viable way to mise against graveyard/reanimator/burn decks. It also allowed the deck to run a few copies of Tribute to Hunger, which round out the removal suite quite nicely.

So I added Black and played with the deck for awhile. No real mana issues, the added cards were working well in games, was overall very happy about the deck.

And then my overwhelming sense of greed made me want to run Resounding Thunder, and that same greed makes me refuse to play the card unless I have at least SOME method of cycling it.

So I looked into what it would take to jam that 5th color in (Green). After a little bit of mucking with the mana base, I realized I could add in Green with basically no downside. The mana base is just as stable at 5 colors as it was at 4 colors.

This obviously allowed me to run Resounding Thunder and be able to cycle it like I wanted. It also allowed the deck to run Treasured Find which has been outright amazing in the deck, often acting as extra copies of your sweepers (Anger of the Gods and Planar Cleansing), recycling your removal when needed, and getting back your win-cons should they get destroyed (Obelisk) or otherwise get ducked somehow (Banefire/Suffer the Past getting countered/hit with Safe Passage, or Lifegained out). The addition of Green also had the added bonus of allowing us to activate the Green ability on Obelisk. While this seems useless on it's face (since the deck runs no creatures), it does happen to combo very well with Reprisal allowing you to potentially use a removal spell that may otherwise be a dead card against the current board state. Good for taking out those critters that both Obelisk and Reprisal would miss on their own (like those pesky 3/3's).

Armillary Sphere, the Cycling on Traumatic Visions, and to a lesser extent Think Twice help you grab the mana you need when you need it and keep feeding you lands until you can effectively use Banefire/Suffer the Past to burn an opponent out or stick an Obelisk (which buries them in CA AND burns them out).

I have been extremely surprised by how well this has been working, so here it is, 5 Color Creature-less Control.



Beware: This deck is the epitome of derpy. Games will last a long time playing this!

Also, if I were to come up with a SB for this, Elixir of Immortality would be one of the first cards included. Just as an out to Mill decks (which are also looking to play the VERY long game like us). I just don't play against mill enough to have a huge concern for making this a Main Deck card though, especially since I have counterspells available and while the life gain is nice, cards like Tribute, Obelisk, and Suffer the Past fill the same role (often better) and are better positioned against the matchups where the lifegain would actually be worthwhile.

If you include Elixir of Immortality, then you should cut some or all Think Twice for Courier's Capsule because they won't exile. Sometimes it even provokes enemies to play their artifact destruction and your Obelisk of Alara might hold out longer because of that.

Initial basis for a SB looks something like this:

2x Elixir of Immortality
2x Solemn Offering
2x Negate
1x Dissolve
4x Inspiration
1x Tribute to Hunger
1x Suffer the Past
2x Arrest


Elixir gives us an out to dedicated Mill decks and other control decks that want to play the REALLY long game like us.

Inspiration can come in to replace Think Twice when we sub in Elixir, allowing us to recycle that draw. Can also come in in any matchup where we feel we need more draw.

Solemn Offering comes in against decks running Obelisk/Bone-Wand, and possibly against Artifact decks to provide more redundancy in removal.

Negate comes in against control decks looking to play the very long game like us (to counter stuff like Suffer/Obelisk/Bone-Wand) and possibly against Aura heavy decks (although the deck should probably have enough removal and be able to not tap out enough to make auras not an issue).

Dissolve comes in against Reanimator decks looking to recycle bombs over and over that give value even if removed (Wurm/Runescarred/Grislebrand/Inferno Titan/etc) and any deck looking to Ramp/Stall into Cozy Leg.

Tribute comes in against those decks looking to drop huge bombs, functioning as removal as well as life gain to keep us alive till we can close out a game.

Suffer comes in against Reanimator and Cozy Leg decks as another permanent way to get rid of those annoying threats.

Arrest is the only thing I am not 100% sure on. I figured it may be nice for the deck to have another form of removal that doesn't just directly send the creature to the yard, that said, it is overall pretty bad with Anger of the Gods and Planar Cleansing. May be worthwhile in matchups against tap out control decks though, as it is more removal for the bombs they drop, and these are the decks you are probably going to be siding out your sweepers for anyways (since the only creatures they are likely to be playing are their finishers). Could be decent against Reanimator decks as well.

Just challenged myself to make a 5 colour deck that did something different from the majority, and I came up with this bag of strangeness...



The theme is creatures that are hard to kill, in addition to having lots of kill myself. That way I can win a battle of attrition, also helped by having lots of lifegain.

Nothing in my deck has less than a toughness of 4, so can't be killed by Ulcerate, Shock, Dead Weight or Anger of the Gods. Also, nothing has a power over 3, so can't be killed by Reprisal, with the exception of Stormbreath, who of course has protection from White though. My 13 kills spells (if you count Obelisks) should though mean I can win the board regularly. Especially as nothing in my deck will die to my own board wipe except the Giants if I have more than two creatures out.

Manabase needs work, though I want to keep a decent amount of Guildates so the Gatekeepers can some off.

Currently testing, and doing well, though nothing too spectacular.

Loving the concept behind it! I am sure nothing SPECTACULAR will happen with this type of deck.. It is just pinging away with creatures who are tough to remove so there isn't much room for WOW factor moments here. But I would like to think that would also be the case on the opponents end against this deck too.

Love the creativity. I knew you weren't done here.. Magic is crack..

Thanks! As you probably know, I like conceptual decks that try to have a unique strategy rather than decks that focus on curve at the expense of originality. Unfortunately the pool's too shallow to do this in anything other than 5 colour. I could add Sanguine Bond or Angelic Accord, but my lifegain isn't completely consistent, and more something to make me harder to kill.

I was going to give away my 360 to a nephew, but they got a console for Christmas, so it wasn't needed.

Only playing Magic at the moment, and even then rarely. Just waiting for Bloodbourne then I'll get a PS3. Just killing time with the 360 at the moment.

Yet another person waiting on Bloodbourne! That (and to a lesser extent Guilty Gear Xrd) were the main deciding factors in the next gen console debate for me. I have had some good times with my Xbox 360, but Sony has won my heart again.

I will not be happy with PS4 until they port Allstars Battle Royale or make a second one! ><

Ok, so modifying a little. The Palisade Giants aren't really needed, and often cause conflict with Anger of the Gods. I mainly put them in as I was running out of creatures that fit the bill of less than 3 power and greater than 3 toughness. However, I then realised I could just include Mercurial Pretender, which with the self-bounce can generate more draw and lifegain!

Still considering adding in a lifegain enchantment, but am struggling for what to cut if I do. Also, I don't want to be a clunky 5-colour lifegain deck, when they do just fine in 2 or 3 colours. I'd rather be my own beast. With that in mind, Warstorm Surge is a possibility.

If someone want to try playing a Conflux Good Stuff deck, here's my updated list:



I don't use single target removal except Angelic Edict because I believe, that my creatures or mass removal will take care of everthing else. I really enjoy playing this deck, although I think that the Dune-Brood deck, that this deck eveolved into is better.