Deckbuilding in Magic: The Gathering is a funny thing. Sometimes it requires hours of testing and precision, slotting in just the right cards in just the right quantities to compete in the current metagame. Other times, all you need to do is jam 30 legendary creatures together and call it a day. This is the simple, yet effective, principle behind 5-Color Legends. While players have been enjoying this deck in Standard for a while now, it’s experiencing a comeback at the moment thanks to legends from MTG Final Fantasy.
With nearly 100 new legendary creatures in the set altogether, it’s not surprising that some have made the cut in this list. What is surprising is just how many have, and how well said lists are doing in the current meta. While its key pieces are rotating soon, this new evolution could be a worthy swansong for 5-Color Legends as a Standard deck.
A Well-Loved Recipe
Before we look at the new MTG Final Fantasy icons that are giving the deck new life, we should quickly recap exactly how 5-Color Legends works. This is a strategy built around three key cards: Jodah, the Unifier, Rona, Herald of Invasion, and Relic of Legends.
Jodah is an obvious one, and the main reason the deck is five-color in the first place. It provides an exponentially scaling buff to your board, provided your board is full of legends. It also lets your legendary creatures Cascade into other legendary creatures. This allows you to build some insurmountable boards very quickly indeed.
Rona and Relic are a bit of a matched set. Relic turns all of your legends into Hasty Birds of Paradise, since you tap them with Relic’s ability and not one of their own. Rona untaps itself whenever you cast a legendary creature, and can tap to loot. It’s a fine selection engine by itself, but with Relic out, it becomes a combo-esque ramp machine. Every legend you cast untaps Rona, which can then tap for more mana to cast more legends.
To capitalize on this core trio, 5-Color Legends tends to run nothing but legendary creatures outside of it. With Jodah providing card advantage and other legends offering enters abilities, the deck can function just fine without an interaction suite.
While it sounds counterintuitive for a deck with so many colors, 5-Color Legends tends to play like an Aggro deck for the most part. You build up a big board early and use Jodah’s overwhelming stat buff to win. Rona and Relic add extra explosive potential, but ultimately, it all goes towards this same end.
Spicy New MTG Final Fantasy Legends
That’s the general gist of the deck, now let’s look at how the new legends from MTG Final Fantasy fit in. We’ll be referring to Claudioh’s list above here, which finished 5-0 in today’s Standard League on MTGO.
A good chunk of the new Final Fantasy cards here are one-drops. These are particularly good in 5-Color Legends, since they’re essentially free to cast with Relic out. Cecil, Dark Knight and Zack Fair both show up as full playsets here. Cecil is just a well-statted creature for the early game, but Zack actually offers some welcome utility. Its sacrifice ability can be used to protect one of your more valuable legends in a pinch, like Jodah or Rona.
From here, it’s a Final Fantasy XVI fest. Joshua, Dion, and Jill all make appearances, at one, two, and three copies respectively. All three have pricey transform abilities you’ll probably never use, and also some handy enters effects to smooth things out. Jill is the best of these, bouncing any problem permanent to clear the way for your legendary onslaught.
Notably, all five of these new additions are Humans. This lets them play into the Human Typal sub-theme that 5-Color Legends tends to use. Cards like Jirina, Dauntless General and Sigarda, Font of Blessings offer extra advantages for sticking to the type. You can also make great use of Cavern of Souls, both to fix your mana and to get around countermagic.
Speaking of mana fixing, this deck also hugely appreciates the addition of Starting Town in Final Fantasy. Mana is an obvious hurdle for any five-color deck, and having access to another rainbow land alongside Cavern and Plaza of Heroes is a big deal. It’s not as flashy as the new creature additions, but it’ll probably win you more games.
Branching Story Paths
Claudioh’s Final Fantasy-flavored take on 5-Color Legends is a breath of fresh air in the rapidly stagnating new MTG Standard meta. Interestingly enough, it’s not the only variant of the deck doing well right now. Another 5-Color Legends list went 5-0 in today’s Standard League, this one piloted by Doggo10358.
This version eschews pretty much everything we said about Claudioh’s above. Not only does it play a reasonable mix of creatures and interaction, but it also doesn’t really function like an Aggro deck. Instead, this is more of a Midrange/Reanimator brew, hoping to win by bringing back Atraxa, Grand Unifier via Rakdos Joins Up.
5-Color Legends is actually set up pretty well for a Reanimator plan like this. Rona lets you easily dump your targets, and Inti, another staple in the deck, helps too. Rakdos Joins Up also serves as board wipe insurance, threatening to finish your opponent off with damage if they destroy your Jodah-boosted creatures.
As of right now, it’s hard to say which version of the deck is the stronger choice. Claudioh’s is lower to the ground, and likely more consistent. Doggo10358’s, on the other hand, lets you play a more balanced game of Magic against the other Midrange decks in the meta right now.
Whichever version of the deck you prefer, you’d better hurry up if you want to enjoy it in Standard. Come September, all three of the key pieces we discussed above are rotating out. This leaves a two-month window to see how good the new Final Fantasy cards feel with a Jodah behind them.
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