Dedicated to Ben, who build the rainbow deck to beat all rainbow decks.

I'll continue my streak with some rainbow and domain cards thart don't quite make the cut a lot of the time.

Spirit of Resistance and Coalition Victory looked interesting when they were released with the rest of the Invasion set back in November 2000.  That faded within the next month or so as people realized that with just one set, a rainbow deck wasn't viable, let alone breaking both cards in a fast enough fashion to win games.

As the rest of the block showed itself to be even more rainbow oriented than Invasion did, more and more cards began to reveal themselves, making the deck viable.  Domain became the five color deck of choice, which left these cards unfortunately out.

Still, the rainbow deck remained a hidden threat, revolving around a stupid way of locking down your opponent, and embarassing your opponent through the "stupidest way to win."

Oh yes, I should probably tell you what both of these cards do before I go on with the deck list.

Spirit of Resistance is so fun, but is hard to get going.  It is a white enchantment with a casting cost of 2W, which reads "If you control a perminent of each color, prevent all damage that would be dealt to you."

Coalition Victory is just dumb.  It's so stupid because everyone hates loosing to it, and nobody ever expects it .  Coalition Victory's casting cost is outrageously undercosted for what it does, but still remarkably fair.  It costs 3GWRBU, and is a sorcery that reads, "If you control one of each basic land type, and a perminent of each color,  you win the game."

Now, with this style of deck, you're virtually playing a checker board of things that you normally wouldn't play.  First thing is first though, you need Cromat.  

No if's and's or but's here.  You need  Cromat, and I'll give you four reasons why.

First is because you're playing Coalition Victory.  He costs one of each color, thus making him the ultimate card to be coupled with Coaltion.

Two, he's big.  Amazingly big.  He's a 5/5 that does more things than a swiss army knife.  End of story.

Three is because it also flips the bill for Spirit of Resistance.  

Four is because I said so.  

Now, just because you play it doesn't mean you'll want to rely on it a lot of the times.  You need to put in a lot of new tricks, and a lot of cool things for  your deck.  This means that you'll be using everything from stupid combos to fun cards that everyone plays.

Draco is a normally stupid card that you can get going with all 5 colors.  Getting all 5 colors is usually no problem, so he can go in to be a normally imposiong threat.

One such combo that I've seen played is with Elfhame Sanctuary and Phyrexian Tyranny.  You bypass the Tyranny with Sanctuary.  By the time you start to draw cards, you have the mana to pay the two each time.

It's just another way of tying up your opponent's mana so thatr they have less for counters and other tricks on your turn.

The Scouting Trek-Clear the Land combo is also potent at getting your mana to multiply faster than normal.  This combo is up to you, but your musts are Lay of the Land and Harrow, Harrow especially.

You need to be able to get the mana you need, when you need it.  Truthefully, without Harrow, you won't be able to.  

Now, I'm going to give you the don't for this style of deck, since the rainbow deck is literally whatever meets your fancy.

Last Stand is a definite don't.  Never EVER play Last Stand.  The cards effect is too limited to help you, especially if you try to rush it.  

The next definite no are the Apprentice's and the Master's.  If you put these in, you realize that your deck is, well, to slow with a small multiple of the them.  Then you wind up centering your deck around those, and that deck is loopy at best.

The next don't are the tap lands.  The one of two colors is not worth it, especially since it comes into play tapped, and they don't help you since they aren't basic lands.

Last, but not least, is running fewer than 25 land.  You need to be able to access a lot of your land and be able to get it out as fast as possible, so you need a lot of it.  Anything less is offensive, and you probably will have a lot of mana problems.

Well, I guess I'll show you what Ben's deck looked like.  Keep in mind his deck was ruled by cards that ran in singles and doubles, like Spirit of Resistance and Coalition Victory.  Like I said about Ice Cave, those are your trump cards, your veritable ace's up your sleeve.  

They win you the game, or make it so your opponent cant win no matter what they did.

Ben's Rainbow Deck
Creatures (4)
2 Cromat
2 Draco

Spells (31)
4 Elfhame Sanctuary
4 Harrow
2 Phyrexian Tyranny
3 Spirit of Resistance
2 Coalition Victory
2 Fact or Fiction
1 Scouting Trek
2 Clear the Land
4 Fertile Ground
1 Planar Despair
2 Dismantiling Blow
4 Sterling Grove

Land (25)
2 Forsaken City
3 Terminal Morraine
6 Forest
4 Island
4 Plains
2 Mountain
4 Swamp

Again, and always, Counters will give this deck trouble.  Still, if you catch them off guard with a Spirit of Resistance and the insignificant cards like Tyranny and Grove, then you literally win.  That is possible, and it does happen quite often.  

I see Fires being faster than this deck, but beating it is still in the air.

The cool thing about this deck is that so much of the deck is insignificant that people will let it slide by, and regret it later  when you drop a Spirit of Resistance or something.  Which means that is has a chance againse every deck in the current format.

Just remember to have fun playing, and I'll catch you on the flip side with another stupid rare.

Over and Out,
John "The Happy Heretic" Hornberg

Remember my E-Mail promiseland85@hotmail.com if you have any questions, want some help with a deck, or just want me to break a stupid rare that I haven't yet.  If I don't reply, don't feel left out, I have many pressing concerns that need to be taken care of, like school.