Premodern: 5 Color Wish Control - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

In 2008, Gabriel Nassif made history with a topdecked Cruel Ultimatum. The deck he piloted, dubbed Cruel Control, was a five-color pile that only existed because the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block had reprinted Reflecting Pool and introduced a cycle of lands—the Vivid Lands—whose text allowed for an unintentional synergy, making it easy to access all five colors of Magic quickly enough to pay, in sequence, the costs of Esper Charm, Cryptic Command, Broodmate Dragon, and Cruel Ultimatum.

Nearly twenty years later, in an environment where Cruel Ultimatum was still far from existing, player Kiiiittyman took advantage of Premodern's control shell combined with the synergies of Reflecting Pool with Seafloor Debris and Grand Coliseum to create his own version of Five-Color Control.

Maindeck

The mana base is the most important part of the list. We're not at the level of Cruel Control, which could pay high-colored mana demands every turn, but we leverage the same synergy of Reflecting Pool with lands that produce mana of any color through some condition, making it easier to access splashes and pay two-color costs from the sideboard.

Most of the list is in blue and white, with a light red splash. So we round out the mana base with Adarkar Wastes and Shivan Reef, plus Flooded Strand and Coastal Tower to make accessing those colors easier.

Counterspell and Absorb interact with the stack and ensure that problems we don't solve on the board stay off it. Absorb has the bonus of providing extra breathing room against Aggro.

For removal, Swords to Plowshares is the best Premodern has to offer in this category, and Fire // Ice deals with two small creatures with a single card, or turns into Tempo plays against larger threats or archetypes that are heavily mana-dependent.

Accumulated Knowledge replaces itself on the first copy and becomes a card advantage engine from the second onward, while synergizing with Fact or Fiction—one of the best resource engines we have in the format, especially against players less familiar with this archetype.

Decree of Justice is our main win condition. We're a strategy that naturally goes to the late game, so casting it to create two or more angels is an option, but we can also cycle it to protect ourselves from attackers or to get around the opponent's Counterspell.

Besides protecting us from Brain Freeze and serving as maindeck graveyard hate, Gaea's Blessing provides inevitability. One copy in the graveyard and another in hand or in the deck means we never lose to decking, even if the game goes on too long. This interaction also enables looping Decree of Justice every turn.

The star of the deck, Burning Wish, enables a toolbox in the sideboard to handle various situations in the current Metagame.

The Toolbox

For win conditions, we have an extra copy of Decree of Justice and a Haunting Echoes—capable of winning games when resolved in the late game against a Midrange or Control deck.

Gerrard's Wisdom provides extra breathing room against Aggro after we've filled our hand with Fact or Fiction or Accumulated Knowledge, while Deep Analysis is a valid target when we need more resources in the mirror.

To deal with artifacts and enchantments, we have Hull Breach as spot removal and Tranquility, which is better against Replenish or Enchantress.

For Aggro decks, we have sweepers. Wrath of God is more comprehensive and complements the maindeck copies, while Pyroclasm is the cheapest against Aggro. Slice and Dice can handle several 1/1 Elves or Soldier tokens from Decree of Justice while drawing a card with Cycling, ensuring resource parity.

Sideboard

Due to our toolbox, we have few sideboard slots and should dedicate them to what we expect to face most often. On Magic Online, it's common to run into Red Aggro variants (Sligh, Goblins) and Reanimator as they're fast decks that can finish five matches quickly.

Circle of Protection: Red solves the Red Aggro problem and can lock the opponent's clock for several turns in a row if we have mana available. Tormod's Crypt is the cheapest answer against Reanimator, while also being an efficient answer to Replenish and Psychatog.

Goblins

IN

OUT

Sligh

IN

OUT

Reanimator

IN

OUT

Replenish

IN

OUT

Psychatog

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!