This is another deck in my battlebox, a collection of reasonably well-balanced budget decks for people to pick up and play at group meetings.

Before we get to the meat of this deck, let’s talk Bolts, because they haven’t appeared in a battlebox list yet.

Bolts are the quintessenial aggro-control card: A card that as simply as possible can keep you alive by removing your opponent’s threats when you’re on the back foot, and can remove, well, your opponent when you’re in the lead. As part of the original “Boon” cycle of “3-for-1” cards that included Ancestral Recall at their most absurd and Healing Salve at their most disappointing, Lightning Bolt is one of the most influential cards in the game, generating entire archetypes, and is partly responsible for giving us the 4-of-each-card rule, which is why you now need a second card that’s almost identical:

Four of each of these cards in your deck is more than your opponent’s starting life total, which is a good enough reason to consider building around them. Even though the current premier control deck of the format sometimes maindecks a couple Lightning Bolts, there is a certain class of deck that will want a full playset of Lightning Bolt, even at the expense of playing other forms of removal that it can cast, like Swords to Plowshares.

I knew the Battlebox would need at least one Bolt deck in it, and I wanted something other than the typical Sligh or Goblins list. At first I had thrown together a Lestree Zoo deck with the usual Arabian suspects, but that deck doesn’t function without dual lands, and proxies aren’t exactly in keeping with the spirit of a budget battlebox. But a recent tweak to the Titania’s Orb deck I posted a while back presented a solution: Rainbow Vale, Fellwar Stone, and Land Tax make for an incredible mana fixing and card advantage engine. Give them a Rainbow Vale and not only are you guaranteed to have your colors with the Fellwar Stone, but you are likely getting to Land Tax as well.

Once we’re on a plan to fire Land Tax as often as possible, Sylvan Library becomes very powerful, letting us see three new cards each turn. And if we’re overloading on enchantments, we might as well add another friend of the Tax man:

Tax–Edge is nothing new, of course. Most often you either see builds that play as a combo deck or go in a very controlling direction. But I wanted to take a different tack, which led me to a tremendously fun 4-color deck filled with little beaters and a Land’s Edge finish.

A Budget Starting Point

4 Savannah Lions

4 White Knight

2 Argothian Pixies

2 Preacher

3 Serra Angel

1 Sindbad

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Chain Lightning

2 Psionic Blast

2 Disenchant

2 Swords to Plowshares

1 Dust to Dust

1 Balance

3 Land Tax

2 Sylvan Library

2 Land’s Edge

3 Fellwar Stone

4 City of Brass

2 Rainbow Vale

8 Plains

1 Forest

2 Mountain

2 Mishra’s Factory

1 Strip Mine

And here it is sleeved up and ready to play:

Given the current prices of Land Tax, Sylvan Library, and Preacher, having multiple copies of each is pushing my usual limits on a battlebox deck’s budget, but it’s hard to cut any copies of them without changing the deck. Fortunately Land Tax was recently reprinted, and Preacher isn’t vital to the deck’s function. If you need to prioritize, the Land Taxes are the most important card.

The main plan is typical of an aggressive deck: Either get in for some early damage, and, if they deal with those, throw burn spells at your opponent’s face until they’re crispy; or use the numerous removal spells to keep getting in damage with the little guys. As an aggro-control deck, you can switch gears when you need to, and you have a powerful card selection engine to help break stalemates. And given the amount of burn in the deck, taking out an opponent even above ten life is not out of the question.

I had the single Swords to Plowshares and the two Psionic Blasts in mind to take care of angels and vampires, but I didn’t want to go too high on the Swords maindeck — Bolt is good enough most of the time, and each Swords to Plowshares can represent another attack step.

Without Taigas and Savannahs, Kird Apes aren’t reliably 2/3s, and we want white mana early, so Savannah Lions are our best one-drop. Since the deck was primarily white, our best option at two mana was White Knight. We don’t quite have enough white mana to make Order of Leitbur reliably bigger, and the extra point of toughness comes in handy against Icatian Javalineers.

The next decision was what to do for more two-drops. Argothian Pixies are very much a metagame choice. There are games where the first strike on Elvish Archers would be better, but since most decks in the format, including most of my Battlebox decks, run a full set of Factories, Pixies get through for damage a little more often and make up for White Knight’s shortcomings there.

Preacher and Sindbad round out the little creatures. Sindbad is, of course, exceptional with Sylvan Library, drawing past nonbasics that can’t be taxed and clearing out the chaff when we don’t have a Land Tax to shuffle. I thought he might be worth a couple style points, even if he might not be an optimal card choice. There are times when he’s just another warm body, but there are also games where you have Sylvan Library out and he takes over the game. There are also times when you really just want to draw a land at all costs and he gets you one step closer.

This deck seemed like the right place to put Preacher maindeck in the Battlebox. Anyone who’s been on the wrong side of Preacher, Seasinger, or Old Man of the Sea without a piece of removal in hand knows how miserable that can be.

Finally, since we often have a lot of lands with no Edge in sight, I wanted another payoff for the extra mana: Serra Angel is the clean-up crew. A 5-mana angel is at cross purposes with holding lands for Land Tax and Land’s Edge, but fortunately the deck has a lot of control over its game plan. If you think an Angel is going to outclass what your opponent is doing, go with the Angel plan. If you think Tax-Edge is going to be your best route to victory, hold the Angels.

A Little Bit of Matchup Analysis (More Than Usual!)

Land’s Edge is often a surprise and can sometimes simply steal the first game. However, that’s not exactly sporting, so there’s value in testing with the opponent knowing the game plan.

Some quick test matchups against Battlebox decks showed that while the mana was typically very solid, the deck did have some problems with pure aggro decks that could operate underneath the Land Tax. The battlebox White Weenie deck, for instance, can generally outclass this deck’s creatures in the 1-3 mana range and has Javalineers, which kill the Pixies and Lions. But when the opponent can’t do too much about its game plan, this deck does very well. Without Disenchants, and facing down this much removal, the Merfolk are swimming upstream. And while The Machine (the updated version with Thallids) can steal a game or two with giant creatures, it has a slow plan overall, giving the Rainbow’s Edge deck plenty of time to assemble the Tax–Edge combo. Also, the large number of bolts and the maindeck Dust to Dust (with all the time in the world to find it) give this deck a small edge against my Titania’s Orb prison build even if the Deserts in that deck are a major pain in the behind. (It’s nice to have another aggressive deck in the box that can take down the prison deck, given how strong prison is against the White Weenie, Machine, and Merfolk.)

I’ve also played several matchups outside of the battlebox. Naya Bazaar Zoo played out much like the White Weenie deck, since they can stay under the Tax. If Trolls+Disks decks can get into the late game with a healthy life total they’re likely to pull it out, but the matchup feels fair. Less close was a match against Power Monolith; this deck doesn’t have quite enough maindeck disenchants and strip mines to keep them off their game plan.

Given test games, I would first want to sideboard one or two mass removal effects like Wrath of God, Earthquake, or Fireball (possibly even a Hurricane) for faster aggro decks. I would also like to have one or two more Disenchant-type effects. I think an Ivory Tower or two makes perfect sense, and Circle of Protection: Red might not be needed. Finally, I know I want at least one Armageddon. The sideboard options are mostly wide open, since there are plenty of ways to get all five colors.

In an event under Eternal Central rules I would probably also increase the number of Strip Mines available between the maindeck and sideboard. (I usually allow two at most in a battlebox deck.) I wouldn’t use Blood Moon in the Battlebox, but cutting the blue cards for Blood Moon in the sideboard, or even one in the maindeck, is perfectly fine.

If the maindeck gets adjusted further, it will most likely be to tilt the matchup toward being better against some of the other aggro decks right out of the gate, but I like how balanced it is right now.

Other Cards Worth Considering

This is one of the few multicolor builds that isn’t greatly improved simply by adding some dual lands. You’d probably still want two mountains and one forest to land tax for, and City of Brass and Rainbow Vale are both better than any combination of dual lands given the color requirements of the deck. So you might be looking at, at most, one or two white duals in place of two plains, letting you use Land Tax three times throughout the game for maximum value (assuming you didn’t draw any basics).

What do radically improve the deck are mana rocks. Moxes take up space for basic lands, but the fewer actual lands you need to commit to the board, the more often you get to land tax. I would say that if anyone with all the high-end old school cards is looking to fully power a deck like this, though, there are other similar decks like Naya Bazaar Zoo and less-similar decks like Randy Beuler’s Tax-Edge control deck that are almost certainly more competitive than even a powered version of this.

All the blue power can be played, too. I would, however, suggest changing the Forest to an Island; I think casting Ancestral Recall and Time Walk are are a bit more important than Pixies and Libraries. Timetwister is a maybe — see the notes about Wheel of Fortune.

There are also a lot of 1- and 2-ofs in the deck. On the one hand, this probably indicates that the deck needs more tuning (although some I’ve already explained are there for fun). Almost any cards in the deck can be replaced to round out the numbers. More Disenchants or Chain Lightnings, for instance, would both be good against different groups of decks.

With that out of the way, here’s a smattering of candidates, likely and unlikely, that haven’t already been mentioned:

Blood Moon. Even maindeck. While this might require adding an Island or cutting the blue cards, Land Tax is one of the best ways to play multiple colors and still play Blood Moon. I didn’t test this (I don’t own the card), but it has a proven track record in Land Tax decks that include red. Armageddon is a slightly more general “answer” to problem lands, but it’s a one-shot deal. However, it also resets the land counts, so if you overplayed and want to tax, blowing up the world it can help that happen. I prefer Armageddon in the sideboard for this sort of deck — it’s not as powerful here as it is in White Weenie or ErhnieGeddon.

You can cast it fairly reliably (even Fellwar Stone alone will sometimes do it considering that black mana is fairly common in Old School), so Demonic Tutor has a place. It’s currently above my budget limit for a single card (having passed $30 in all but the worst condition), so it didn’t make the cut. Simply take out your least favorite card and it will slot right in.

The deck produces green mana and beats down, so Erhnam Djinn should be considered. I decided that I wanted to keep the curve very low except for the Angels, which were just a better choice overall for all the big creature slots. He might be worth throwing in the sideboard to go bigger against other weenie decks, but I didn’t get around to testing it.

My first draft had Icatian Javalineers as an extra 1-drop, but they didn’t quite do enough for me. They might be a really solid choice if you see a lot of weenie decks around, but you give up a little power against control decks when you use them.

Another 2-drop I tried but quickly abandoned was Order of Leitbur. They are less mana efficient than Elvish Archers if first strike is needed, and require a lot of white mana to reach their full potential, so supporting them is difficult, but they can punch through Factories (and live), and on turns where you’re just passing with mana up, they could be doing extra damage. I think this deck is a little short of consistent extra white mana for them to do their usual good work.

I like Regrowth in most of my green decks when I can’t play more than 4 of something that I really want to cast as often as possible (e.g. Giant Growth in the Green Skies deck), but this is one case where I’m not convinced it belongs. My thinking is that despite the many 1-ofs, many cards are much the same as any other. And while a Lightning Bolt is better than a Chain Lightning, a Chain Lightning is better than a Lightning Bolt that costs 1G plus R. As a build that doesn’t rely on any truly broken restricted cards, this deck can’t abuse Regrowth, which will just take the slot of a card with more immediate impact. This isn’t the first Green-and-x deck I’ve left it out of — I also cut it from The Machine.

Serendib Efreet could be splashed instead of the other blue cards. This was another card, like Erhnam, that I simply decided to give a pass for this build, though there are some intricacies of the Fellwar Stone–Rainow Vale engine that made me settle on Psionic Blast over Efreets as well. I’ve got nothing against it (though some people consider playing it to be boring at this point), but I think the Psionic Blast is ultimately more important. If I were going to fit them in, I would probably change the forest into an Island and cut the Pixies instead. For a deck running blue power, you’ll probably already have shifted the mana a little more toward blue, so this should be a little easier to cast.

Thunder Spirit is worth considering for the 3-spot if you own them. If you’re not expecting a lot of creatures, you can play it in place of Preacher. It’s decent in combat, too, though, so if you would rather race than try to get clever, perhaps it’s better than Preacher anyway! It also goes well with Earthquake if you’re sideboarding those. I don’t own a playset of these, so I didn’t really test them, but sleeve ’em if you’ve got ’em.

Wheel of Fortune (and Timetwister, if you have it): Draw 7s have a special place in any deck chock full of bolts. This deck can certainly empty its hand of new threats drawn very quickly. They can also draw into more lands to fling with Land’s Edge. If you’ve used Land Tax a couple times, the quality of cards drawn is likely to be very high. When I played UWR weenie in Type 1 a long (long) time ago, I played both draw 7s and resolving one often won me the game. However, this is not the fastest deck on the block, so chances are that when this is cast, a control opponent is not still waiting to cast a big answer card that they haven’t gotten the mana for. This deck also seeks to out-manipulate other aggro decks, so their seven new cards could easily get them back in the game. Finally, since you usually want to hold onto some lands to throw them at the last minute, discarding them to Wheel of Fortune might not be wise. There are enough pros and cons that I think playing these comes down to player preference. Personally, I would sideboard the Wheel of Fortune.

Where to Go From Here

Usually I post an alternate build for a deck here. In this case, I think what’s worth taking away from this deck is Fellwar Stone–Rainbow Vale (plus Land Tax if the deck has white mana) as inexpensive mana fixing in a deck that can’t or doesn’t want to play Birds of Paradise. The main things to remember about this as an engine is:

It will not reliably give you two of a color. The Fellwar only gives you any color when the Vale has passed to an opponent. So for this reason it’s best to shy away from many cards with two of a color in their cost. Instants, especially 1-cc instants, are better than Sorceries or creatures in your splash colors. Note that the engine could allow you to splash two of the most important cards in Old School, Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares, very easily. The Vale gets passed at the end of the turn, so if you play a Fellwar Stone off a Rainbow Vale, you’ll get your any-color mana on your opponent’s turn. They might pass the Vale back, or maybe you can wait a turn, but why take that chance? Instants also give you ways to pass the Vale on your opponent’s turn, which is a subtle reason for choosing Psionic Blast over Serendib Efreet. Fellwar Stone is still good on its own, but Rainbow Vale is not. I would treat Rainbow Vales 3 and 4 as a spell, not a land, and 2 very much feels like the correct number. You typically would like to draw one copy but not multiples if you can help it. Strip Mine becomes worse as a tempo or mana denial play if you are using Rainbow Vale. This is one reason the Rainbow’s Edge deck only plays one Strip Mine. There are some lands that are too dangerous to leave in play so don’t leave home without the Strips, but you may need to rethink how you’re using them.

With those restrictions in mind, there is certainly some more deck design space worth exploring with this engine.