Hello awesome Commander fans! Way back when, the default casual format prior to Commander was the 250 deck format called Five Color, with 20 cards of each color and its own B&R list. (Today it's 300 cards and 25 of each color).

I was on the 5C Ruling Council that voted and talked at length about the format. Many of the "Commander Classics" I cite in my articles also dominated or were stronger in 5C. Today, I want to look at some classics and consider them for modern Commander circles. Remember this list is for Five Color Classics that aren't in Commander too like Fact or Fiction or Nevinyrral's Disk. This list can be for restricted, banned or just good stuff in fours.

Honorable Mention #1. (#13. Overall) - Divining Witch

Hitting at our first Honorable Mention spot is this guy on the B&R list restricted. She costs two for a 1/1 that taps with two and discards a card to Demonic Consultation. Already bonkers in Commander you can imagine how powerful a repeating effect can be in a bigger deck format with four of the card you are often grabbing. Because it's a fragile dork that taps and discards, we unbanned this figuring there were enough answers in the format and quickly rebanned her a short while later as this little Witch took over the format. Let our mistake be your gain and unleash her power!

Honorable Mention #2. (#12. Overall) - Thunderscape Battlemage

Ah yes, from the powerhouse restricted powerhouse to the forgotten Battlemages. This costs a base three mono-Red mana with kickers in Green and Black. For two Black you will Mind Rot a foe. For one Green you will destroy an enchantment. For both, for just six mana, you will be up three cards to one, all from your foes' side of the game. Not bad at all, but it's kickers, not ETB, so if flickered or Zombified it won't do them, you need to bounce or Raise Dead to get it again. This was worth it then even without support and today too! Try it out!

Honorable Mention #3. (#11. Overall) - Wild Research

Ah yes, the card so brokenly good it was banned, although no longer. Check out this three-drop mono-Red with White and Blue activations for two mana each. The White one will Tutor for an enchantment, toss it into your hand, and then discard randomly. The Blue one will grab an instant instead and same random discard. This is basically a reusable Gamble. If your instant is discarded, you can recast it with flashback/jumpstart like Chemister's Insight or make a bigger Accumulated Knowledge. You can recur discarded enchantments with Replenish et all or Hall of Heliod's Generosity. It's nasty and nastier with this broken engine that could!

#10. Thornscape Battlemage

Top Ten time with everyone's favorite Battlemage! This is an awesome Standard dominant take on the Battlemagi! This has cheap one-mana kickers. The Red one Shocks a target and the White one destroys an artifact. You'll often get a two for one by killing a small dork or planeswalker or and then an artifact for your five simple mana and leave behind this body! They are so strong at powering outa win for your team.

#9. Bringer of the Blue Dawn

Everyone's favorite (legal) Bringer! This costs nine base but five alternate cost with one of each mana. That latter color identity makes it only runnable in 5C Commander decks, but it's nasty there since in your upkeep you'll draw two more cards, so it's totally worth it! The alternate costs of this cycle mean that they are playable in Type Four since they are free without counting as your spell for the turn! Get this five-color identity powerhouse and break the card flow in half!

#8. Insidious Dreams

Banned in 5C yet never on the Commander watch list is this four cost instant mono-Black card! You discard any number of cards and then Tutor each one discarded. No life loss though. Discards for extra lands, dorks for recursion or flashback or getting threshold are awesome! I'm sure you can see why this powerhouse was banned! It's just brokenly good! Break it in your next Commander brew!

#7. Akroma, Angel of Vengeance

Ah yes, the highest charting dork that wins in the red zone is the lady that made Mono-White Control work in Standard! This 6/6 size legendary dork on an 8 mana harder to cast triple-White has all of the evergreen keywords from flying and trample - double evasion to haste and vigilance to swing now and not open up your defenses. She even has first strike and protection from two enemy colored commonly used removals for Murder and Chaos Warp. She dominated and people massaged their mana bases for her!

#6. Phyrexian Portal

A card so abusive when I began playing the format it was on the rare banned list, not restricted, and then when I joined the 5CRC and looked at the list I was wondering why based on power level alone, so I tried it unbanned and restricted, and it was sllloooow like Shahrazad and wasn't exactly downright abusive.

Your foe looks at the top ten cards and separates them into two piles. One pile gets exiled sight unseen, and you sort the other on top of your library and draw one. So all of that reviewing, draws you one card, but takes like one minute to resolve. And then the power of drawing was great, and the bigger and more redundant your deck the better this was due to the self-exiling. It's better the bigger your deck is and has never really made a footprint in Commander, so check it out and see what you can do with it!!!

#5. Academy Rector

Ah yes, the powerful legal in Commander Tinker for enchantments. This costs a bit pricey four mana for 1/2 dork with a death trigger to self-exile and then fetch out your nastiest enchantment for the situation. That could be anything from Future Sight in tournaments to Rhystic Study in multiplayer for card drawing, or Mirari's Wake for ramping in either. She doesn't require a sacrifice like Tinker and thus is not card disadvantage, but also harder to set up. Get your best enchantment for your deck or the situation!

#4. Holistic Wisdom

This recursive Regrowth machine is next!!! For three mana you'll drop, two mana to use and exile a card from your hand to Regrowth that type to your hand to play if a land or cast if not! There are basically two breaks here. The first is that you need that type to recur in your hand. So if you want to recast that Fact or Fiction you'll need an instant in your hand. That means you'll need a Commander deck with roughly even numbers of each card or just one/two you are built around. The next break is exiling, so you cannot use this on them again. The bigger your deck the more miner that break is. Who cares if you exile that Ponder to recast Demonic Tutor? Right? I think you can see the power here for modern Commander, right?

#3. Bringer of the Black Dawn

Ah yes, the Bringer so powerful it's banned! All of the things about this cycle from the Blue one are true here! But instead of drawing two cards each turn for free, you'll Vampiric Tutor in your upkeep. Sure, you'll lose that life...but a free Tutor for just you every turn is salaciously sexy! You can win so fast with a reliable and recursive Tutor netting you all of the power and sides of a combo. Know what format cares about 2 life loss less than 20 life starting Five Color? 40 life Commander! I think you can make and break this all up and down!

#2. Parallel Thoughts

Our final banned card there but not in Commander is this five cost mono-Blue enchantment with an ETB ability to tutor for seven cards and shuffle them up and put them here! Then when you draw, you can take the top card of what you tutored for and draw it too. Why is it here? It's broken with draw 7 effects like Timetwister, Windfall or Wheel of Fortune! That way you'll insert, and draw a new set of seven from your deck not top. Also note this is card replacement not draw, like Abundance, so it's broken with Sylvan Library et all.

#1. Collective Restraint

Not banned, but a powerhouse there with domain makes this a nasty pillow fort effect! Your foes will have to pay equal to your basic land count to swing your way, rather than just two per like Windborn Muse or Propaganda. The more duals and tri lands like Jetmir's Garden you run, the more reliable this is, ditto land search like Farseek that plays into it. You will run and love the best domain card ever printed!

There you are! What did you think about my options to consider that used to dominate Five Color and still can with Commander? Swing back next week for more of these!