Choosing Your Commander - 5-color Options

Last, but certainly not least, we will look at and discuss the various 5-color legendary creatures available to play as your commander.  My guess is that 5-color commanders have been very popular since the beginning of the format, not only for their powerful effects but for the access they give you to any card ever printed.  Some players have been known to run a 5-color commander with no intention of ever casting it just so they had access to as many different cards as possible.  With the color-fixing technology now available, playing 5 colors can actually be quite easy to make work with your mana base so there is little reason to avoid these gems as your general. 


Atogatog:  One of the more amusing commander options, Atogatog obviously requires some amount of adherence to Atog tribal to be of any good use.  There are 11 other Atogs to choose from, plus Mistform Ultimus and 20+ creatures with Changeling available so its not too far out of the question that such a deck is possible.  If you are looking for a bit of a challenge, Atogatog might be a fun one to tackle.

Child of Alara:  Since Child of Alara was released in Conflux, it has remained a 5-color "Good Stuff" commander of choice due to its ability to sweep the board if anyone dares destroy it.  Of course, that means letting it go to the graveyard instead of the command zone, but utilizing reanimation or recursion strategies to replay Child of Alara can ensure that you always have access to a reset button whenever things might get out of hand.

Cromat:  For a creature that seemingly does so much, Cromat actually does so little of any significance that I don't see myself ever wanting to use him as a commander.







Horde of Notions:
I love Horde of Notions not only for its brutal efficiency and elegant design but also for the fact that Elementals are actually a very good tribe with many powerful cards that people want to play anyway.  We will be paying close attention to any creature that has been given the Elemental creature type as we go through each set, as it is one of those creature types that randomly pops up all the time without people even noticing much.

Karona, False God:  I have seen some decks that use Karona in them, but I have not really seen any that use her as the general to good effect.  I guess that if you use it and sacrifice it after you are done attacking then you can mitigate its drawback significantly, but that is not the kind of commander that I would personally like to build around.

Progenitus:  You would think that a creature with "Protection from Everything" would be a lot more resilient to removal, but in a format where Wrath and Sacrifice effects are fairly common you would be surprised as to how many things Progenitus doesn't really have protection from.

Reaper King:  Scarecrow tribal is definitely NOT a deck that I can recommend, even with 25 other options available.  However it is hard to deny that the ability to destroy any permanent as an "enters the battlefield" effect is very, very powerful.  The key to a fun Reaper King deck is to get creative with generating Scarecrow tokens with cards like Riptide Replicator, or to bounce or blink you Scarecrows with cards like Erratic Portal or Flicker (Note: Its a shame that Scarecrows cannot be bounced with Cloudstone Curio, as Curio only applies to non-artifact permanents and every non-Changeling Scarecrow is an artifact creature).  I think that Reaper King is one of those cards that is a perfect cross between powerful ability with almost no support cards.  This gives you something you have to work hard to acheive, but rewards you greatly once you have done so.




Scion of the Ur-Dragon:
Part creature tutor, part clone effect... Scion of the Ur-Dragon makes good use of both parts to be the centerpeice of a Dragon deck that can dole out damage in huge chunks once it gets going.  The nice thing about it is that you don't need to play too many Dragons to make Scion a really good Dragon-tribal enabler, which opens up decks space for reanimation and graveyard recursion of the Dragons that Scion fetches.  I would think that the hard part would be to try and pare down the long list of good Dragons to the select few you would want to run.  Scion is also the 5-color commander of choice for the so-called "Hermit Druid" combo decks that utilize Scion as a Plan B in case their main combo is disrupted.

Sliver Legion:  Absolutely awesome personal Coat of Arms for your Sliver army, yet it fails to make the commander slot for such a deck.  If you are playing Sliver tribal, then Sliver Legion will always make the maindeck, but it won't be your commander.

Sliver Overlord:  Of the three options you have for a Sliver tribal deck commander, Sliver Overlord is the best of the bunch.  Not only can he fetch the other two when you want them, but he can make sure that any Sliver you want or need is always on hand.  Because such a deck can be very susceptible to Wrath effects, it is important that you have a general like Sliver Overlord that can generate card advantage and continue to build up your Sliver army.

Sliver Queen:  The orignal 5-color general, Sliver Queen is a personal one-woman army of destruction especially when combined with some of the better Sliver enablers in the game.  She also can create infinite loops with all the usual suspects; Ashnod's Altar or Basal Sliver + Heartstone gets you infinite mana; throw in Gemhide Sliver (plus Haste enabler) or Earthcraft for infinite Slivers and colored mana; throw in Acidic Sliver for infinite damage, etc.  And the beauty of it all is that all the peices are tutorable with Sliver Overlord.