Hi all and welcome to another edition of the Daily Dose of Battle for Zendikar. Anyone who knows me as a deck builder knows that I like to play 3 and 4-color decks if possible. I often have a dream of playing 5-color decks that can actually be consistent and viable. Battle for Zendikar is going a long way to making this a reality thanks to a little something I like to call Converge. Converge is a mechanic that allows dreamers like myself to live the Magical Christmas Land of playing 5-color decks. Today we will be looking at some cards that will help us live that dream.
Gaining card advantage and being able to get all of your colors of land in play are very important. Let’s take a look at a card that will help us do that in Painful Truths.
Players who play black are no stranger to draw spells that do damage to them. Recently we have seen cards like Sign in Blood and Read the Bones be staples in decks. Painful Truths continues this tradition, but with a versatility not seen in the other cards. In most cases you will be able to draw 1 to 2 cards, but if you are playing a 5-color deck it should be very easy to draw 3 cards with this consistency. This allows you to draw more spells, and more importantly, make sure that you are able to hit your land drops on every turn.
Now that you’ve gained card advantage with Painful Truths, it’s time to control the battlefield. That’s where Exert Influence comes in.
In the history of Magic, gaining control of a target creature always comes with the ability to break that bond. Cards like Mind Control and Threads of Disloyalty are enchantments that if removed, will give control back to your opponent. Red Spells like Act of Treason allow you to gain control of a creature, but only until the end of the turn. There are creatures that allow you take control of target creature like Dragonlord Silumgar, but its power to control ends if Dragonlord Silumgar goes away. Exert Influence allows you gain control of target creature and no matter what happens after that, you are in control of that creature. That is unless your opponent also sees the power of Exert Influence and takes it back.
Playing Exert Influence in your crafty 5-color deck will allow you take control of pretty much any non-Eldrazi creature on the battlefield.
Sometimes though your opponent won’t have any good targets for your Exert Influence and you need to put out a big creature of your own. Well look who arrived just in time, its Woodland Wanderer.
Woodland Wanderer is a creature that shows you the power of playing 5-color decks as it will allow you to have a 6/6 Vigilance, Trample creature on turn 4! Even if the stars don’t align, having a 5/5 that you can attack and block with is huge. The ability to trample though small blockers like Eldrazi Scions should not be overlooked.
Converge is a mechanic that heavily rewards deckbuilding and I look forward to seeing how it helps spark the creativity of deck builders everywhere!
Thanks again for reading another edition of the Daily Dose of Battle for Zendikar! Have you signed up for your local prerelease event yet? If not, I recommend signing up now as spots are sure to fill up fast in anticipation of this new set and all of its Expeditions! See you tomorrow!
