With any deck you start with what I believe to be the most important aspect of any deck, the mana base. The land base is the source of another one of the names for this deck, Reflecting Pool Control, because it uses the synergy of the vivid/filter lands with reflecting pool to solve any conceivable color issues the deck may have.

The meat of any deck is the creatures. In comparison to some decks like Blightning or even fairies, 5 Color Control plays an extremely tight creature base. First it plays the ever useful Plumeveil. Plumeveil is such a good card for several reasons, firstly it is an amazingly efficient creature, a 4/4 flyer with flash for 3 mana, that’s all kinds of good, Second, since it has flash it’s either an amazing combat trick or something very relevant to bring in at end of turn. The last reason Plumeveil is so good in this deck is because of the extremely nice synergy it has with the decks only other creature, Wall of Reverence. Named Wall of Relevance by Gabe Nassif after his epic Pro tour win it has proven how deserved this name is again and again. With a Plumeveil in play a 1/6 wall that is ridiculously hard to deal with gaining 4 life a turn, yea I would say that’s pretty relevant.

Now, the most important part of a control deck and easily the part that varies the most, the instants. Firstly, the counter spell suite of Broken Ambitions and Cryptic Command. Broken Ambitions, due to the fact that it gets progressively better the more mana you have it never really runs out of gas. Cryptic Command, because of the sheer power level of the card it does anything and everything you could ever want with a single spell. The removal exists in the form of the combat trick of agony warp and the uncounterable board sweeping power of Volcanic Fallout. There is also Wild Ricochet with the ability to turn around an opposing Cruel Ultimatum can certainly not be underestimated. Last but certainly not least Esper Charm, enchantment hate, discard, and card draw all in just one card. How can you ask for better cards than these?

Planeswalkers, not a large portion of 5 color control, but an extremely relevant portion nonetheless. Jace Beleren is an extremely powerful planeswalker as an ever-present source of increasing card advantage (arguably the most important aspect of any control deck). Ajani Vengeant on the other hand will just single handedly win games if it resolves.

The sorceries in 5cc are some of the most powerful in standard right now. Banefire as an uncounterable fireball has the ability to decisively end some games. We also have Cruel Ultimatum a card that causes such a major one sided tempo loss that it nearly always results in the five color control deck winning in just a few more turns.

The sideboard is another key part of any key deck building process. There are Pithing Needles to shut off the ever-annoying man lands, most notably Mutavault. More removal to bring in against the aggro decks in the format, usually against boat brew or Blightning[/card] beat down. Finally against the control mirror there are Negates, Wild Ricochet, and Wydwen.

The truth is that Five Color Control has no real bad matchups in this meta game.

Against Blightning they just have to make sure to keep removal, sweep the board when necessary and eventually just overwhelm their opponent with seemingly insurmountable card advantage.

When playing against boat brew and b/w tokens 5cc has basically the same game plan. Make sure they don’t get three or more creatures to open up the windbrisk heights activation. Make sure you don’t get overwhelmed with tokens from Bitterblossom, just playing conservatively until they can drop a game ending threat and finish the game decisively.

Fairies is a rather simple matchup for five color. Make sure Bitterblossom doesn’t get out of hand Volcanic Fallout when necessary and then end the game decisively with your bomb of choice.

The mirror match is probably the most important match for five color to prepare for. They have to find ways to get their opponent to tap out so they can play their relevant threats. This is a very long game with the first 3-4 turns being devoted to resource buildup. This matchup will ultimately come down to who can draw more cards and disrupt the most threats.

All in all five color control is easily the deck to beat in standard at this time. It is the strongest force and it looks to be staying strong for our summer standard season.