Kenrith - Rainbow Stairwell

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bobthefunny
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Post by bobthefunny » 4 years ago

I saw @Treamayne 's post about Rainbow Stairwell EDH, and figured this would be an intriguing deck building challenge to follow.

Cromat was my first Commander when I started EDH, which was full of jank and goodstuff, and I've been wanting to rebuild a deck in that vein for a while. I figure this will be an interesting space to try out. (I just realized the Bringer cycle costs 9, and that makes me very sad.) In the end, I have decided to go with Kenrith, the Returned King as his abilities help shore up a lot of weaknesses, and he places well into the Rainbow Stairwell theme.

What is Rainbow Stairwell EDH

Rainbow Stairwell EDH is a set of strict deckbuilding constraints, where the deck must have exactly one card at each CMC 1-8 in each color and colorless, 8 utility lands, 5 of each basic, and 1 10-land cycle of multicolor lands. Read more on the Post by Treamayne.
SPOILER
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Treamayne wrote:
4 years ago
Rainbow Stairwell EDH

This format variation is a blended format with Rainbow Stairwell

Rainbow Stairwell

Rainbow Stairwell is a 60/61 card singleton format where:

- 1 card of each CMC (1-6) in each "color" (WUBRG-Colorless) for 36 cards.
- Traditionally, no multi-color or hybrid cards are allowed
-- Variants allow Hybrid to slot in either of their color
-- Variants allow the "Colorless" 1-6 to become either "Gold" or "Colorless/Gold" depending on what the playgroup wants

Land: (this is easily the most contentious portion of the format in my experience)
One of the following schemes
Traditional
- 3 of each basic land and 1 10-card cycle of duals for 61 Card decks
Alternates:
- 5 of each basic land for 61 cards
- 4 of each basic and 4 non-basics of choice for 60 cards

-----

Rainbow Stairwell EDH

In addition to the EDH deck construction rules, Rainbow Stairwell EDH requires:
- General with WUBRG CI
- 5 of each basic land
- 1 cycle (10) of multi-color lands (e.g. Rav Gate Cycle, Khans life lands, or Shock lands for more affluent players)
- 8 "Any color"/Colorless/Utility lands
- 8 Colorless CMC 1-8
- 8 White CMC 1-8
- 8 Blue CMC 1-8
- 8 Black CMC 1-8
- 8 Red CMC 1-8
- 8 Green CMC 1-8
- 8 Gold CMC 1-8

Discussion points:
- Playgroups should decide if all players must use the same "cycle" of duals
- Playgroups should decide if cards should slot only by casting cost or Color Identity (e.g. Embodiment of Spring as U or Gold due to it's GU Color ID )
- Playgroups should decide if they want to allow Hybrid Cards to slot only in the gold category or in either of their Hybrid categories (e.g Worldpurge as W or U and/or Gold)
- Playgroups should decide if they want to change the CMC ranges
--Alternates include CMC 0-7 or sliding scale (where any category must be 8 consecutive CMC, but not all colors must match - e.g. W 1-8, U 0-7, B 2-9, etc...)
- Playgroups shoud decide if X spells are allowed or not, and if they will have their own slot or fill their CMC slot (e.g. all Categories 1-7, X - or - a card like Tribal Unity could simply fill the 3 CMC green slot)

Building the Deck

My first immediate thought is that with an even color distribution, and even CMC distribution across those colors, the first challenge is ensuring you have the color of mana available to play the spells you want. With even land distribution, this makes it very difficult to skew in any favorable way, so we probably want to skew our lower drops across multiple colors towards being able to fix lands to an extent. Green tends to be rather easy on the ramp, but if we don't have a Forest to start (since there's an even distribution of lands), that doesn't help. White luckily has some tools as well, with Land Tax or Tithe on 1, and Oreskos Explorer on 2. We probably want to avoid double symbols, like Knight of the White Orchid on the lower costs, until we can get some fixing in place. Artifacts can also help, with Wayfarer's Bauble on 1, but then we have to make a choice between Sword of the Animist or something like Arcane Signet on 2.

Multicolor slots can help skew the color shift, especially with Hybrid symbols, which might be able to help skew some of the early ramp into other colors. Multicolor 1 slot essentially must be hybrid, and will be quite interesting of a slot to fill. Deathrite Shaman looks nice, though we likely won't have any fetchlands ourselves, as that's probably not the best 10 land cycle to pull up for this. With things like Wood Elves or the white cards getting lands by type, OG duals would be 'best', but as I don't have all of those, Shocks could fit in quite well. Other than that, the lands that come in untapped based on basics could be nice, due to the high amount of basics we will have.

Also something to consider in deckbuilding is that some colors will be very dry up at the 7-8 CMC range, possibly giving us easier slots filled in there, and allowing us to then see what else is missing. This is also a great area to see if we can find alternate costs, or cost reductions, such as delve, emerge, or convoke, to reduce the cost to be playable earlier in the game.

We also have to take into consideration our removal package. Most efficient wraths will be between the 4-6 slot in white and black, and most removal will be in the 2-4 slot. Also, if we use White's 1 drop for ramp/fixing, then we can't use it for Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile.

Let's also talk about Kenrith, the Returned King as a creature. Part of his allure is his smorgasboard of abilities. Kenrith can help shore up any weaknesses we have, whether it be card draw, or recovery, or even just making big things have haste and trample, negating a lot of need for equipment. This means we we have him out, we can safely leave mana open on some turns for interaction, and make use of his abilities if not needed.

Lets start putting in a few placeholders, and see where we can go from there:
Some ramp, removal, and early includes
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Decklist

Green

1 Wood Elves (or farhaven elf)
1 Terastodon (or woodfall primus)

Lands - 43

5 Plains (5)
5 Island (5)
5 Swamp (5)
5 Mountain (5)
5 Forest (5)

Placeholder 10 land cycle - gates?

Placeholder 8 Utility lands
Approximate Total Cost:

Right now this gives me 12ish early ramp/fixing. Some of it is temporary, or one shot, but is a good starting point. I think Sword of the Animist will be better than the signets, as there aren't any CMC levels we're trying to skip over, and the high basic count in the deck is just begging to be searched up. Adding Dreamscape Artist gives me fixing in green, blue, white, and colorless, which should help regardless of what lands I open in my hand with. I'm tempted to add something in black, like Liliana's Shade to round it out.

A few threats at the 8 cost were relatively easy to slot in, as there simply aren't that many choices at that level. For the most part they translated into the upper end of the curve of beats, with some cost reduction on a few of them to make the curve not so oppressive.

Birthing Pod Seems like a natural inclusion into this style of deckbuilding.

I now want to focus on draw and removal effects. I want these effects across multiple colors, and again, I want to keep mana symbols at the lower end down, if possible. Phyrexian Arena is a powerful continuous effect, but I question whether it will be reliable. By 5 cost however, we can afford bb for Bloodgift Demon.
Nezumi Graverobber helps with GY control, and also eventually turns into recursion, and a threat on his own. Rout, Merciless Eviction, and Realm-Cloaked Giant pick up our wrath slots. The giant is nice, as it fills in multiple slots in our curve. lightning Bolt, Murderous Rider, and Tragic Slip pick up our cheap creature removal, and Acidic Slime, and Return to Dust handle our enchantments and artifacts.

White has plenty of 6 cost wraths, but I wanted to spread out the colors a bit, and I also wanted to reserve the 6 slot for the possibility of Sun Titan. Although we have a lot of low cost spells, the Titan should still have plenty of available targets to look at.

I wanted to add Guardian Project, but sadly that competes with Birthing Pod, which I feel is the stronger add. Instead, we've picked up a variety of card draw, and card draw types, across most colors. This also let me finish off several colors, as there was only a card or two left behind in each one.

Now the final pass to add some more draw effects, smooth out the creature numbers, and complete the deck, and we'll have a deck!
Decklist

Lands - 43

5 Plains (5)
5 Island (5)
5 Swamp (5)
5 Mountain (5)
5 Forest (5)
Approximate Total Cost:


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