All-American Heroes

Various color combinations have various names. Some easy ones are the mono colored decks: White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, and Colorless. However, there are 20 different 2-3 color combinations you can have for your deck, with most of them actually being used! Then up top there are another 6 color combinations in the 5 4-color decks and a five-color deck. I really have no idea what to call the 4 color decks, and naming a 5 color deck is something I just did earlier in this half of the scentence.

Shards of Alara gave us easy names for the 3 colors found together with Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, and Naya. These are all terms I have heard people use for their decks. For the 2 colored decks, we can look to Ravnica block:

WU - Azorius
WB - Orzhov
UB - Dimir
UR - Izzet
BR - Rakdos
BG - Golgari
RG - Gruul
RW - Boros
GW - Selesnya
GU - Simic

Now how many of these have you actually heard people use? I know I usually call allied-color pairs by their colors (UW Control, GR Ramp, GW Tokens). That leaves the 5 enemy-colored pairs, of which I have only ever heard Boros, Izzet, and Simic get used outside of the plane of Ravnica. A couple years ago, there was BW Tokens, and I honestly have no idea what the nickname of GB is. Then, finally we have the triple colored decks which have an allied pair in addition to their common enemy:

UWR
BUG
BRW
RGU
GWB

A UWR deck came out when Jund was the boogeyman called USA Control (Red, white, and blue). Also, at the Zendikar block constructed event monster was called a RUG deck. Recently, we have also had a Black/Blue/Green deck called Dredge-Uh-Vine, but it's colors were never locked in, I like to call that a BUG deck. Lastly, we have 2 triple color decks that are sadly unnamed because no one plays them. If you have any ideas for what to name BRW and GWB, post a comment.

However, I didn't come here just to talk about naming colors, we're here to play them! But to play spells, you need to have a solid manabase that allows you to get the colors you need. Often time, a deck can be amazing until you realize your manabase is really weak and you will never be able to cast your spells. Here's my take on manabases:

Single color - This is probably going to be the toughest manabase you have ever put together. It requires hours and hours of grinding out tiny percentages and can cause the worst headache you have ever felt. Just kidding, these are easy. For a budget version, just toss in 20 - 25 basics depending on what your deck requires. However, you can get fancy by tossing in fetch lands to thin your deck of lands, and then you can play a suite of "spell lands" like Tectonic Edge and Mystifying. Don't forget! Mono-colored decks have a man-land too if you want, Dread Statuary.

Allied Dual Color - There are 5 sets in standard right now, of them 4 have a cycle of Dual Lands, leaving Rise of the Eldrazi as the odd set out. It's probably impossible to get color-skrewed if you do it right. You can have 16 dual lands, which gives you plenty of room for the same spell lands you could get if you were mono-colored, although I wouldn't suggest Dread Statuary because it costs more to activate than 3 of the lands, and only Celestial Connelaide costs more.

Enemy Dual Color - We lost the shard lands from Shards which helped, but we still have the Zendikar fetch lands, plus we have 8 Terramorphic Expanses if you have harsh color requirements. I haven't had any problems with this color base so far.

Shards - I have not been able to make this work at all! I mentioned previously that I was changing the Bant Allies deck to UW, and while I said I would, I haven't actually done it yet. It's simply not working, and more often than not I find myself with a color missing (and conveniently that's always the color in my hand), and I feel the effort isn't worth the reward. Unless you have a solid plan to color fix, then steer clear of this. Jund's biggest problem in it's day and age was it's weak mana (which is why Spreading Seas was nuts against it). Bant was only good with mana because it ran 4x Lotus Cobra, 4x Birds of Paradise, and 4x Noble Hierarch. Naya also ran Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise to fix its color strains.

Allied pair with the friend everyone hangs out with but no one actually likes - This is much easier in my opinion than having a shard. Thanks to the Zendikar fetch lands, you can easily get your color requirements down without losing tempo. Let's say I run USA. I would have 4x Arid Mesa, 4x Scalding Tarn, 8x UW option lands, and go from there. If your sold on having a 3 color deck, this is how you should configure it, whether it's BUG, RUG, USA, GWB, or BRW (the last 2 still need a name!)

4 Color - Read what I wrote about Shards, and then double the impossibility

5 Color - Do you even want to cast spells? 5 color control only worked because there were 10 pain lands in 10th edition, 5 shard lands in Shard of Alara, and 22 lands that produced different colors of mana in Llorwyn/Shadowmoor. That's 37 total, or enough to have a solid 26-land mana base without ever having to repeat any lands. I doubt that will ever happen again in the near future, and so a 5 color standard deck won't happen either.

So how am I going to tie the title of this article in with everything that I have rambled about so far with mana bases? Well, I have been looking that that allies deck again, and thought maybe a USA Allies deck would be better. Artifacts are undoubtedly going to be a bigger player in standard this next year, and there is an ally who can stop any artifact deck cold, Tuktuk Scrapper. This guy, if untouched can wreak havok on any deck that runs even just a couple artifacts. 4 mana will kill an artifact, deal at least 1 damage to the player, and then leave you with a 2/2 to battle with. Also in red, we gain access to Akoum Battlesinger, and if you want to push your curve Kazuul Warlord. However, red also has almost all of the removal spells in standard, alongside black. We can play our Lightning Bolts, Arc Trails, Burst Lightnings, Flame Slashes, and Flings. I think if any deck is going to run Fling, it's going to be an ally deck. So many of your creatures become huge quickly, that a fling can push in an extra 6-7 damage and finish your opponent off.

As I have been talking about, the mana for this deck is much easier in the USA build than the previous Bant Build. Green had only provided me with color fixing/ramp and another dude. Here's a tip for deckbuilding, you never splash green to make your mana more consistant, it just makes things worse for you.

Another random thought  have before signing off is that Tunnel Ignus is probably a good main-deck card. Almost every deck plays fetch lands, and then there's our new boogey man, GR/Eldrazi Ramp. While I doubt Ramp will be as oppressive as Jund because Jund had way more card advantage and much less hate, it's still the deck to think about when you're building a new deck. The only deck that Tunnel Ignus will be dead against will probably be UW Control, and that's what the sideboard is for.

That's it from me to ----- BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!

I was actually about to end this post for real, but then I looked at my open tabs and remembered one more thing I want to talk about. Wizards announced today the new Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons! To this date, Wizards has printed 153 Knights and 91 Dragons. The description also mentioned goblins on the dragon side, which makes me think the dragons will be mono-red (or some combination of Jund which includes red, but probably mono-red), and the knights will mono-white. Here's 2 cards I'm predicting for the Dragon side: Hunted Dragon and Varacious Dragon, and on the Knight Side I'm picking Knight Exemplar. Right now, I think this will be a quantity vs quality battle. White Weenie vs Big Red. It's a little unfortunate that we get 2 White Weenie decks in the same year though... we just got Elspeth vs Tezzeret. Regardless, I think this one should be cool, and break the trend of tribal Duel Decks being much less cool than the Planeswalker ones.

Another thing to think about: Planeswalker Duel Decks can set up for the upcoming block (Elspeth and Tezerett are both supposed to be in Scars) but the tribal one can make you think about next block. Last spring we had PHYREXIA vs the coalition. Maybe "Shake" is going to have some hardcore oldschool magical flavor to it? I can't wait to find out! (Oh wait, Mirroden Beseiged hasn't even come out yet....)

Anyways, that's all for today, until next time, don't make a janky mana base! Oh, and stay classy