5 Color Endless Runes

Hey guys, it's been along time. You might have asked yourselves when I post some jank again, and rejoice! The time is right.  Also, about what happened: Turned out 3 turns Azorius Hammertime wins get boring and make you want to quit the game.

Anyway, today, we shall take a look at some janky combo that you guys might find fun. (Yes, I know, combo decks again!)

The main tactic

You get one, and you get one and you get one, and...

So, this deck works in a very easy way: Runeforge Champion diminishes the cost of any rune down to 1 colorless, while Transcendent Envoy reduces it to... nothing! Free runes for everyone! The best part about runes is that they inherently give you 1 draw. Obviously, the color scheme won't matter once you cast Runeforge Champion: This becomes a basic white deck. The problem is just that a lot of stuff can happen before then, which is why lands matter.

Land base

I did this deck a few months ago, but never could really play it because of one reason: It is very expensive. Although white is very pronounced in this deck, it still requires multicolored lands to run. All lands are either pathways for quick casts, or triomes for mana coverage in case your Runeforge Champion gets yeeted or is hiding in your deck. It is however necessary if you want to raise the odds. Most pathways are white as well, since it is the primary color of the deck. Thus you can find Brightclimb Pathway, Branchloft Pathway etc. chilling next to a Savai Triome and an Indatha Triome. That way you can either cast your white creatures to get the combo rolling, or get all those runes early on.

Speaking of which, how do we best weaponize the high amount of runes and enchantments we get from this? Hrm....

Making runes hurt

Ok, let's not beat around the bush: The best way to boost the damage, since runes don't tend to give you a lot is All That Glitters and Kor Spiritdancer, since they scale the more enchantments are either on them or in play. The runes themselves mainly only serve for their keywords: Rune of Flight and Rune of Might gets damage through, while one might help avoiding some pesky creatures. Rune of Speed is just a nice surprise attack and gives a little damage boost. This works nicely, since Kor Spiritdancer also helps with draw. With drawing 2 cards, you don't have to fear getting stuck in your deck somewhere. There's also Archon of Sun's Grace, which feels a bit high cost in this deck, but could help you generate more tokens and maybe have more creatures you can enchant with deathtouch to make opponents think twice before attacking. That being said, what about the draw?

Endless runes? Endless draw

While hoping to draw Kor Spiritdancer seems okay, I also added Sram, Senior Edificer to get the endless runes combo going earlier. All of this helps you cycle through your deck faster and gives you more chance to find whatever you might need in your deck earlier.

A problem might be overdraw: Even with only Sram and the main combo done, you can find yourself discarding a lot at the end of the turn. I advise mainly discarding lands you don't need. That's why I recently added Midnight Clock and removed the old Portal of Sanctuary: The portal only prevented your runes and creature from dying during your turn while negating combat damage and you'd still have tons of clutter in your hand at the end of the turn. With 3 mana, it is also too high cost for this deck. Midnight Clock in the meantime easily shuffles your graveyard cards back and adds some mana. This helps you from self-milling and also is nice, since Kor Spiritdancer's threat level is so high, it gets instakilled if the opponent has the opportunity to do so. Same with anything carrying too many runes. 

How does it play?

Like any combo deck, very slowly at the start. As you set up, there's also the fear of having your combo broken through Shock, Lava Coil or any other red or black deck.

Once you're set up however, which can be as quickly as turn 3 if you got lucky with early Runeforge Champion and Transcendent Envoy, it is amazing: Watching the opponent question where the mana is coming from with all the hovering effects, holding on until you play that last rune that makes damage overflow - very nice.

I had some bad, some good time with handhate. It usually comes down to whether you manage to pull through and get a good hand at the start, or the opponent runs out of ways to annoy you as the card draw kicks in. This is also where Midnight Clock really does well. There was also some dimir mill that tried to exile my graveyard, yet couldn't keep up once the Kor Spiritdancer amassed enough enchantments.

Even though this deck draws a lot, I didn't find any problem with milling decks, since they don't tend to put up many defenses. I haven't played enough yet, but all I can say is, this is one fine meme-y jank pile. If you have the cards for it.

Anyway, that's it from me for now. As usual, stay fresh, stay cool and I'll see you next time maybe!