Wombo Combo - Best Five-Color Combos in EDH
(Sliver Queen | Art by Ron Spencer)
One Color Pie, Please
Welcome back to Wombo Combo, the series where we explore the most popular EDH combo cards in each color identity using data from EDHREC and Commander Spellbook.
Last time, we finished our look at the three-color identities with Naya. The natural progression would be to do four-color cards, but there simply are not that may to choose from. There are only 14 EDH legal 4-color cards, and not all of them are combo worthy.
With that in mind, I've decided to look at five-color cards this edition, and ask for your opinions on whether we should next do a 4-color article or skip it and go straight into colorless. Let me know your thoughts below, as well as in the Commander Spellbook Discord. With that being said, let us turn our attention back to five-color cards!
Five-color takes all the colors that Magic has to offer and puts them into a delicious and eclectic color pie. Five-color cards can be very powerful, especially in EDH where a five-color strategy is more viable than other formats.
Because five-color cards have access to all colors, they can encompass a wide variety of deck building strategies - from legendary matters, to superfriends, to kindred decks and much more. Let's take the pie under the microscope for closer inspection.
#10: Widespread Thieving
Deck Inclusions: 6,606 decks (2.114%)
Widespread Thieving is a member of the Hideaway cycle, and gives you a Treasure token whenever you cast a multicolored spell. With a cheap multicolored spell, this allows you to reimburse a significant portion of the spell's casting cost.
Enter the Doctor Who card Heaven Sent, which is a two-mana spell that gets one mana back from Widespread Thieving, and has the ability to recur itself thanks to its third chapter ability.
For this, Barbara Wright can allow you to skip directly to this chapter ability for an easy loop with a copy of Widespread Thieving to get two Treasures each time, resulting in an opponent eventually losing the game.
#9: Jegantha, the Wellspring
Deck Inclusions: 1,349 as commander (#876); 4,458 as companion (#2); 19,881 as card (6.411%)
Jegantha, the Wellspring is one of the least restrictive companions that are legal in EDH, and has a really strong ability to go alongside it. Having a strong mana dork available at all times is a strong advantage to a Jegantha companion, keeping in mind the restriction to mana costs, of course.
Jegantha works in some of the traditional mana dork combos, like with Freed from the Real, but is mainly useful to loop paying five-color costs. One such cost is that of Najeela, the Blade-Blossom which also untaps Jegantha if you give it vigilance and attack with it.
Another is Horde of Notions, and using Chakram Retriever to untap Jegantha. If you prefer enchantments, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin is also a solid choice. For a five-color deck, Jegantha provides great value while also being a solid combo piece.
#8: Garth One-Eye
Deck Inclusions: 4,149 as commander (#325); 5,521 as card (1.78%)
If you've ever wanted to play Black Lotus in EDH without needing to rule 0, then Garth One-Eye is the card for you. Garth has a unique ability that taps to allow you to cast some of Magic's most iconic cards - including the extremely powerful and fabled Black Lotus.
The only caveat is you can only cast the cards once per each instance of Garth, which makes it a bit more involved to create a combo. Cards like Displacer Kitten and Deadeye Navigator allow you to continuously blink Garth to reset the cards you can cast with it.
Adding a simple haste enabler then allows Garth to tap again, cast Black Lotus and blink itself. You can also steal Garth's ability using Quicksilver Elemental which can keep getting separate instances of the ability to keep making more Black Loti.
#7: Codie, Vociferous Codex
Deck Inclusions: 5,624 as commander (#219); 196 as card (0.063%)
Codie, Vociferous Codex is a strong option for storm/magecraft decks, but has a massive drawback in doing so. Being unable to cast permanent spells can be a hard pill to swallow for any deck, as it limits you solely to lands, instants, and sorceries. If your entire gameplan is centered around Codie, however, it can be an extremely strong commander, allowing you to get free mana and spells cast.
You can use Codie similar to Jegantha as a mana dork, alongside Voltaic Construct and an ability reducer like Zirda, the Dawnwaker, but keep in mind you have to either cast Codie last or cheat the other cards out.
Another option is Chain Stasis to keep targeting Codie and copying it. With infinite Codie triggers waiting, cast an instant or sorcery and cast every instant or sorcery in your deck below that mana value for free.
#6: Morophon, the Boundless
Deck Inclusions: 9,847 as commander (#80); 40,239 as card (12.874%)
Morophon, the Boundless is one of the premier choices for kindred decks - especially for types without a good kindred commander. Morophon provides an anthem effect while also providing a large cost reduction for colored creatures of a set type (or changelings). This works perfectly with self-bouncing creatures like Cavern Harpy by reducing their cost to zero for an easy combo.
This reduction can also make other combos viable, such as one involving Grinning Ignus or Worldheart Phoenix. Morophon also has high synergy with Jodah, Archmage Eternal, allowing any creature of the chosen type to cost zero regardless of their true mana cost. A strong kindred deck piece, alongside a strong combo piece, makes Morophon a great option for any kindred focused deck.
#5: Rukarumel, Biologist
Deck Inclusions: 2,718 as commander (#513); 2,918 as card (1.282%)
Rukarumel, Biologist is a card designed for both Sliver decks and for type changer decks, and can be a great include or commander in both. Type changers are excellent to turn cards like Requiem Angel or Bishop of Wings into easy infinite combo engines.
Cards like Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm also benefit from them by making every nontoken creature a Dragon to get a free copy of any creature entering under your control. The World Tree works in a similar fashion - fetching every creature in your library. Because Slivers have communal abilities, making everything a Sliver can have massive benefits on its own, including giving them replicate with Hatchery Sliver.
#4: Kenrith, the Returned King
Deck Inclusions: 21,449 as commander (#4); 11,392 as card (3.673%)
Kenrith, the Returned King is an extremely popular commander with a large skill set, making him a good commander for any style of deck. With the amount of utility Kenrith has, it shouldn't come as a surprise that he also has high combo utility. The last ability is great for recursion combos alongside cards like Composite Golem (which we'll talk about next) or Peregrine Drake.
The lifegain from the third ability can be used with Crystalline Crawler and Light of Promise to get infinite lifegain. His second ability can also be used with Crystalline Crawler if a counter doubler is available. Kenrith is also the perfect payoff card for a combo, giving you infinite card draw, lifegain, recursion among other benefits.
#3: Composite Golem
Deck Inclusions: 1,725 decks (0.556%)
Composite Golem can serve as mana storage, taking six generic mana and allowing you to get one of each color out of it at a later time. With recursion style effects, and the help of some cost reducers, this effect also makes Composite Golem a good candidate for an infinite combo.
Kenrith, the Returned King can take Composite Golem out of the graveyard for a simple two-card combo. Making tokens using Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink is also an option alongside an untapper. You can also use Cogwork Assembler for another infinite token option, or Othelm, Sigardian Outcast for recursion.
Composite Golem may not be a stunner card on its own, but with just one or two extra cards, it can turn into a strong combo piece, giving you infinite mana to cast your favorite game-ending spell.
#2: Sliver Queen
Deck Inclusions: 1,452 as commander (#835); 9,203 as card (2.944%)
Sliver Queen is a staple card in Sliver decks and five color token decks. For just two mana, you create a 1/1 Sliver token, and that's without tapping Sliver Queen to do so. Slivers having many communal effects means that for two mana you can get a ridiculously strong token and keep making more.
Even without other Slivers, two mana for a token is very strong with cards like Ashnod's Altar and Mana Echoes. Basal Sliver allows the Slivers to sacrifice themselves for more mana to make another.
Other options also exist if you include token doublers, including sacrificing them to Phyrexian Altar, or tapping them via Gemhide Sliver and a haste enabler. While Sliver Queen is an expensive card, it can be a great inclusion for your next Sliver and/or token deck.
#1: Najeela, the Blade-Blossom
Deck Inclusions: 10,744 as commander (#67); 8,357 as card (2.664%)
Our #1 five color card is the combat engine Najeela, the Blade-Blossom - one of the premier combo cards for infinite combats. Najeela takes one mana of each color and gives you another combat phase in return. There are a large number of ways to get infinite combats using Najeela.
A common way is to take a mana dork like Jegantha, as we talked about earlier, and give it vigilance. Other ways include making tokens (such as Desert Warfare) and sacrificing them to Phyrexian Altar to sustain the mana. There are many other cards that can take advantage of the combat to make the appropriate mana, like Druids' Repository, Old Gnawbone and Bear Umbra.
Najeela also has the ability to make Warrior creature tokens, allowing you to scale your combat damage each combat phase, leading to a brutal defeat for your opponents. If you like hand-to-hand combat, Najeela is the perfect combo commander for your next five color deck.
Honorable Mentions
If you are still hungry for some different five color combo cards, check out some others below:
1. Tazri, Stalwart Survivor: Gives creatures a tap ability, and works great with creatures with untap abilities such as Knacksaw Clique.
2. Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch: A popular choice for Myr themed decks that has the ability to untap all Myrs, which is useful for Najeela combos. Also has the ability to make more Myrs, which can be sacrificed to Ashnod's Altar to fund some combos.
3. Chamber Sentry: Creatures with 0-cost are easy targets for infinite ETB and death trigger combos, working well with cards like Enduring Renewal.
Thank you very much for reading this edition of Wombo Combo, and don't forget to check out Commander Spellbook for more EDH combos and visit the Commander Spellbook Discord to vote on the next edition of Wombo Combo. Until next time, happy comboing!
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Ethan Coover
Ethan has been an avid EDH player since 2014 with the release of Core Set 2015. In 2021, he joined the Commander Spellbook project as an editor, and later a head-editor and moderator, and has assisted in the curation, updating and/or uploading of over 10,000 unique EDH combos. In his spare time, Ethan loves coming up with new jank EDH lines, playing video games, and going for long walks.
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