Five Color Vehicles with Kyodai

Posted on April 5, 2022

Hello happy people! Now that we just got a bunch of new vehicles in Neon Dynasty, this is a good time to do a deep dive into a Five Color Commander deck built around vehicles. We used to have two color combos in the game, mono-White (Sram) and Boros (Depala). Now we have Orzhov, Azorius, and mono-Blue (Katsumasa) added to the deck and that means that every color save green has a take on vees. We even have a vehicle that can be in your Command Zone. Nice stuff!

The good thing about five color vehicles is that we won't have to worry about mana as much since many of these cards won't require any investment of actual colored mana, since they are all colorless.

Are vehicles viable in Commander? They are certainly a popular subtheme. There are 6,006 decks with that theme registered over at EDHREC.com. But there aren't any Five Color options in the archetype, so we'll be digging into new ground. But there are many problems with them. First, they require a crew, which can be multiple people, and that is subject to mass removal. Second, artifacts are pretty vulnerable to accidental mass removal like Vandalblast that wrecks you but was aimed at bigger threats.

Another issue is that the mana cost reduction for their enhanced power and toughness over other dorks forces players to jump through crew hoops for additional damage but that's less valuable in a 40-life format. 120 life to take out in a four-player game. Getting a 2-mana 3/3 flyer that can punch for crew 1 might be great in Limited and in Standard, but in Commander it's not really going to matter as much.

That means that vehicles, while fun, are always going to be on a lower end of power in Commander until some Commander specific Vehicle and support are printed, the kind that dial up their power in multiplayer.

So...who am I building around today? Who is my placeholder for this brew?

As you know, I have a need for protection from removal sweeping and pinpoint, so having Kyodai in the Command Zone is nice and we can flash it out in response to a Damnation that will kill our key Pilot or an Akroma's Vengeance to protect a key vehicle. However, note that Kyodai does not give itself indestructible so it'll die if we cannot save it. It's also a flying, flashable 3 power for crew purposes which works on a ton of cards. Now note that you are telling people you can save a key permanent so that they can play around it, but it's not bad as a first line of defense.

Ready for our deep dive?

Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel

Let's begin with the God of the Voyage and the ship that comes with our God. As you can see, the God is a fine way to add card draw to this deck as you can exile it, and then landfall voyage counters which will draw those cards when Cosima returns from the long vacation. And Cosima crews 2 so you might just want to drop the front side to crew a key Vehicle. But this card slot is dedicated to The Omenkeel! I have 21 vehicles in here, and I also tossed in Access Tunnel and Rogue's Passage to help get in combat damage hits with cards like the Omenkeel.

This pair of mythic vehicles adds a lot the options in your deck. The former mythic rare can be crewed by Kyodai and many others, plus when it smashes face you can dig five cards and reveal and draw a historic card from them, which could be a lot of card flow! The latter mythic is a 5 mana 6/5 flyer also with crew 3. On arrival it can Lightning Bolt a creature or planeswalker, which is nice creature control here. You can also Bolt when it swings. Good pair of cards!

Parhelion is a game winner, albeit expensive. Pay it once, and it'll replace itself. When it swings, you make two 4/4 flying vigilance Angel tokens that are also attacking, pretty nice for the price. And that can win a lot of games very quickly. The Chariot is a powerful card in Standard, four mana for a 4/4 crew 4 vehicle that creates two 2/2 Cats on arrival. When it swings you can copy a token, which could be the Parhelion's Angel tokens, or Pilots we can make in a few places as well, and you can cast it in your pre-combat phase, crew it with the Cats, swing, make another Cat and keep on keeping on. Good token making pair!

Let's check out these two Vehicles! The Karve is a nice 3-drop 4/4 that can ramp the top card of your library to the battlefield tapped if it's a land. Good stuff for the mana needs. Then we have the Sub, with both offering card flow and will enjoy being under the aforementioned Access Tunnel and Rogue's Passage. Nice!

The Colossus has a high crew cost of 4 but you can spend two mana to crew up another vehicle for the turn. It's a nice way to make sure that your vehicles can swing even if you do not have crew to tap or after a Day of Judgment effect. It's really strong here! Katsumasa is a flyer that can spend three mana to animate a non-creature artifact unitl a 1/1 flyer if it's not a vehicle and turns a vehicle into its base stats and swings with more mana activations. I have built a Katsumasa Commander deck here. Good pair!

Let's move to some support cards.

Since we need crew, I added in support cards and removal that make creatures, like this duo of counters. The Denied is a 5-drop Counterspell and when it counters you make a number of 1/1 flying Thopter tokens equal to its casting cost, that could be a few, and if you are out of Cats you can copy them with the Chariot. The Genesis can also create a token on countering, this time it goes up instead of wide and makes an X/X Ooze equal to the casting cost of the countered spell. Again, nice target for copying from the Chariot. I also tossed in creature counters like Draining Whelk and Mystic Snake.

Why is Nicol Bolas, the Ravager here? The front side is a nice 4/4 for four mana that flies and crews nicely, and then on arrival will force all foes to discard. Then you can spend 7 mana to flip him to our only planeswalker in the brew and then he arrives with 7 loyalty, and you can +2 to draw a pair of cards, and -3 to shoot a dork or 'walker for a massive 10 damage! You can -4 him to Zombify a creature or planeswalker from any graveyard. Good way of securing a win later in the game. I loved the discard so I tossed in Virus Beetle that can discard on arrival and counts as an artifact.

I tossed in this Vindicate on a stick, and it's a 5/5 so it can crew everything nicely and ably. It's a bit mana-intensive, but we need bodies to remain, and you can crew anything with this 5/5 flyer or just swing. It's nice to have removal of things on sticks. I also tossed in Acidic Slime, Duplicant, Reclamation Sage, Ravenous Chupacabra and Shriekmaw that also add to my removal suite and leave behind bodies.

Let's look at some lands!

Each of these are Commander powerhouses. As the sweeping removal happens, we'll lose vehicles at a quick clip. Enter the Ruins. You can tap this land and two mana to reload a graveyard bound artifact like a key vehicle to the top of your library. This also works well with destroyed mana rocks and things like a dead Virus Beetle or Solemn Simulacrum. It's a bit of a combo with land fetches that sacrifice and recur for more land ramping. You can also sacrifice the Fair to tutor for the best vehicle for a given situation. Or if you need cards grab your own Mind's Eye.

The Tree is a great land in Commander, but it has a Five Color Identity which preludes it from getting too used. It taps for Green, and then when you have at least 6 lands they all can tap for any color of mana, and that's pretty strong here. I wish it were legendary given the "The" title. The Hangar is a land that can tap for any color of mana for Vehicles and Pilots only. You can tap the land and three mana to crew up a cool vehicle for the turn, which is great after a Blasphemous Act style mass removal spell killed dorks but left you your artifacts. Cool pair!

Look at this pair of 2/2 uncommon flyers! The Mechanaut is a bit harder to cast with two mana of different colors but just a 2/2 for two mana and it drops the cost of your artifacts by a generic mana. You can drop a 3-drop mana rock on the third turn with a mana open, for example. The Familiar is 4 mana but it's colorless and it cares about anything that's historic so your leader will get a cost. Both are artifacts for synergies like Academy Ruins and will tap to crew for 2. Good stuff!

Check out these two Azorius vehicles. The uncommon will create a 1/1 Pilot that crews at 3/1 when you swing with a vehicle. Note that this only triggers once per attack no matter how many swing. The mythic is a 4-mana 8/8 that is harder to crew with an 8 cost, but you can tap it and a mana to draw two, discard one, and make a 1/1 Pilot that also crews as a 3/1. That's strong card flow here, and each of these are good options to clone with the Chariot.

Let's check out these game-changing rares. The Core is a bit small, but you can spend 5 mana and exile four other vehicles plus itself (21 of them) or artifact dorks (6 of them). Hard, but doable. If you do you make a 10/10 Mechtitan Construct that will have a metric ton of evergreen abilities. When the token is answered by bounce, exiling, tucking or destroying, the cards exiled, other than this, will come back tapped. Note that the token is legendary so you cannot clone it with the Chariot. Good stuff!

The Bankbuster is getting big play in Standard right now. A 2-drop, 4/4, crew 3, and three charge counters. You can tap two, it, and remove a counter to draw a card, nice card flow. Three cards from one. Then when you run out of charge counters you make a Treasure token and can churn out another 1/1 Pilot that crews as a 3/1. Good pair for the deck!

The Mech is a 4-mana 5/5 with menace and a big crew of 4. It's a bit high, but on arrival to the battlefield you can shoot a critter or walker of the planes for double damage of your vees, so that's at least 2 damage without any other vees under your control, which will things like Mother of Runes, Karmic Guide, Birds of Paradise, Blood Artist and Flametongue Kavu. Good stuff. And the Surveyor is a three-mana flying 3/4 for crew 2, which is nice. And then when it swings you can fetch out a basic Plains from your deck to the battlefield tapped, if your attacked target has more lands than you. Good stuff!

We'll finish with a pair of three-power vehicles! The first is a 3/1 with crew 3 that, on arrival, will Clone an opposing creature which will become a vehicle with crew 3 to swing with. Pretty good and in a multiplayer game you are likely to have some good options. The second is 3/4 flying with crew 3 as well that can, when crewed, can crew up another vehicle to swing at your foes! Good stuff for the win!

Ready for my deck list? I got you!