5-Color: Annual DoMT check up

About once a year I like to take a good hard look at my pet deck, see how it's developing, document the deck contents, and set goals for moving forward. In order to save space, I'm not going to post the whole deck here. If you would like the complete list, just email me for DoMT_2010, and I will send the file to you.

Barren Moor
Brainstorm
Coastal Tower
Cruel Edict
Elfhame Palace
Forest x2
Galepowder Mage
Guardian of the Guildpact
Hammerheim
Highway Robber
Island
Isochron Scepter
Merchant Scroll
Momentary Blink
Plains x2
Recollect
Salt Marsh
Secluded Steppe
Sylvan Scrying
Tolaria West
Urborg
Watchwolf
Worldheart Phoenix

The list above is the cards that were removed from DoMT over the course of the last three months. Of these, there is really only one I will continue to consider, Brainstorm, which could easily find it’s way back in. The rest are pretty clear upgrades of lands, or overly flashy effects. Isochron Scepter for example, was a great card, but had few valid targets with in DoMT, and generally drew to much hate to be effective. The next list shows the cards that went in to replace the ones removed above.

All Sun's Dawn
Angel of Despair
Arc-Slogger
Blatant Thievery
Captain of the Watch
Dragonskull Summit
Drowned Catacombs
Expedition Map
Garruk Wildspeaker
Glacial Fortress
Guided Passage
Henge of Ramos
Khalni Gem
Magma Phoenix
Marsh Flats
Misty Rainforest
Polymorph
Revilark
Rite of Replication
Rootbound Crag
Scalding Tarn
School of the Unseen
Soldevi Excavations
Sun Quan, Lord of Wu
Sunpetal Grove
Verdant Catacombs

I think you see now what I mean by pure upgrades. M10 dual lands, and fetchlands for outdated utility lands, and obsolete stuff like Coastal Tower, are just a step in the right direction for this deck. How did Arc-Slogger ever get removed in the first place? Several things from this list are on the fence, and could easily be moved out at a later date. I’ll just have to see what they do for
me.

Captain of the Watch- is card advantage enough o overcome the complete lack of synergy?
Guided Passage- are the worst cards in my deck enough of an advantage to keep this slot?
Henge of Ramos- color fixing that will be removed at some point.
Khalni Gem- reset lands for the win, or just bad color fixing?
Magma Phoenix- Graveyard recursion meets board clearing?
Polymorph- live the dream to Oath in a fattie?
School of the Unseen- utility or crap?
Soldevi Excavations- utility or crap?

I also will be placing an order very shortly for Bayou, Savannah, Plateau, Wooded Foothills, Windswept Heath, Wasteland, and Ghost Quarter. These are mostly to go in my newly created Legacy deck, but were on my shopping list for DoMT for some time. Most will pull double duty in both decks. This will give me 8/10ths of the Original Duals, and 7/10ths of the Fetchlands. This is such a huge upgrade over the manabase I had when I first started playing 5-color, when painlands were about the best thing I had. I should not be too hard to find space for these 7 fantastic lands. I really can not stress enough how important it is to spend money on your manabase when you are trying to build a collection, even a budget collection. These lands that sacrifice for utility, like fetch, and land destruction, just increase the value of My Life from the Loam, and Crucible of Worlds. These cards just get better and better in my deck, and the fact that others hate on them, just proves the point.

I was really surprised to see that my deck changed by roughly 10% in only three months. There has been a lot of discussion with in our play group recently about stagnant decks. I’m glad to find that my deck is changing more then I had realized. My goal for the next year, in addition to incorporating new Standard technology as it is released, is to get my last 2 dual lands, and my last 3 fetch lands. That will be another huge purchase, but should finish my one of manabase, and allow me to start growing my collection in other directions. DoMT is far and away my most played deck, and I just don’t see that changing any time soon. Standard remains pretty unexciting, so I’m really not sure were to go from there? Legacy and Extended (in that order) look to be the most interesting options for me, but I have plenty of time to set my course.