Painbow - Upgrade Guide
November 21, 2022 by
Scrap Trawlers 
(Jared Carthalion | Art by Manuel Castañón)
Stay Gold
Hello dear reader, and welcome to EDHREC’s Precon Upgrade series! This series has Partner With the Precon Primer series, where we thoroughly review the latest preconstructed decks. I’m Nick from the Scrap Trawlers, where we do EDH on a budget, and I previously reviewed the Painbow deck from the Dominaria United series of Commander decks. Today we're adding a little keratin to Jared's luscious locks to make the Painbow precon deck really shine. Before we begin, let's review the original decklist:
Painbow Precon
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Combing Through
Since we're working with all five colors, one of the first things I reviewed was the manabase. 24 lands that come into play tapped is a lot, but they go a long way to provide what you need when you need it. There are a couple neat interactions, like being able to fetch a Murmuring Bosk with things like Krosan Verge and Grasslands. While there's definitely room for improvement, the deck functions well as is. To save money, we won't add cards like City of Brass or Mana Confluence.
Ramp is an important aspect of many decks, and fixing is essential to those running multiple colors. A huge chunk of the precon is dedicated to achieving both. In fact, there’s so much ramp in here you could mistake this for a Landfall deck. We can trim some of the fat here.
The removal suite is a bit lopsided towards boardwipes, which is a great way to protect your planeswalker commander. However, we're still aiming to win via combat damage so too many of these fly in the face of our game plan.
The biggest miss in the deck is the lack of multicolored matters cards. 11 isn’t a lot, so this will be the main focus for upgrades. Along those lines, we'll stick with Jared Carthalion as the commander. With that being said, let’s get to it.
Additions
Starting with the most added card at a 45% inclusion rate, General Ferrous Rokiric comes down early and makes a 4/4 red and white golem token whenever you cast a multicolored spell. These tokens can be pumped into 6/6s with Jared's second ability, and Rokiric himself is surprisingly resilient thanks to his ability to dodge spot removal like Swords to Plowshares. Another solid creature is Moonveil Regent. With this, all your five colored spells, like Jared, also draw you five cards! It fits well on our mana curve so you can play this and slam Jared the very next turn. As a bonus, it can pick off another creature on it’s way to the graveyard. As if that weren't enough value, any multicolored spells you've discarded can be brought back with Jared’s third ability. Rounding out our multicolor matters suite, Widespread Thieving will net you a treasure for any multicolored spell you cast, and Tome of the Guildpact provides card draw and more ramp and fixing. Finally we have the criminally underplayed Civic Saber, showing up in just under 10 decks at the time of writing. This powerhouse equipment can add five power to your pentacolored creatures. Combine this with Jared's first and second abilities, and you're swinging with a 13/8 Trampling Kavu as early as turn 6! Even if Jared isn't around, an equipped Two-Headed Hellkite or Maelstrom Archangel become great finishers.
In: General Ferrous Rokiric, Moonveil Regent, Widespread Thieving, Tome of the Guildpact, Civic Saber
The stock list has a decent 11 single target removal spells, but let's add another. The Kami War is a five color Anguished Unmaking and Recoil on the front half, and a huge flamping beater with a Regrowth on the back. Sure, the removal is a little slow at sorcery speed, but the payoff is more than worth it. Checking the draw suite, we've 16 cards that draw one or more cards (not including Jared's third ability). Some are weaker than others, so we'll replace one with a tutor. Bring to Light is able to grab a whopping 40 cards from our deck, and also play them immediately! Whether you need an Iridian Maelstrom to clear the board or Faeburrow Elder to provide extra mana, the incredible flexibility of Bring to Light can't be overstated.
In: The Kami War, Bring to Light
Since we're a combat focused deck, providing haste to our creatures just makes sense. Fires of Yavimaya is a cheap enabler that's multicolored while not being too intensive, and provides a small power boost in a pinch. It would be great to turn some of our creatures like Archelos, Lagoon Mystic into five colors, so let's add Scuttlemutt to do just that! It's an easy to cast mana dork early on and ensures Jared's second ability doesn't go to waste.
In: Fires of Yavimaya, Scuttlemutt
Lastly, I wanted to add one more surprise haymaker. Planewide Celebration is perfect for this deck! The 2/2 Citizens are all colors, so Jared can turn them into 7/7s with ease. Since we're casting this in the late game, recurring any fallen permanents or gaining nearly half our starting life total back are always relevant modes. However, the best of the bunch is the Proliferate. With it, Jared regains his loyalty counters, you can supercharge your creatures with counters, and even flip The Kami War earlier! No part of this animal goes to waste, and I'm glad to see this Story Spotlight card finally has a home.
Cuts
We've expanded the multicolored matters theme, added some targeted removal and a tutor, made our existing creatures better, and added another card to help us close out the game. Now let's move to the cuts, starting with ramp. Selvala, Explorer Returned can make anywhere from 0-4 mana, and only green mana at that. Parley is a fun mechanic, but it's unnecessary here. Zaxara, the Exemplary performs a similar role. It's is great in a deck full of X spells. Unfortunately there’s only one in the entire deck (Lavalanche). While it always provides two mana, it's restricted to one color. Lastly, Explosive Vegetation comes out. It's a fine card, but we still have a ton of ramp and fixing, and most of those card do it better.
Out: Selvala, Explorer Returned, Zaxara, the Exemplary, Explosive Vegetation
Next is color fixing. A lot of our ramp already performs this role, so we'll remove the worst of the bunch. Abundant Growth comes down early and cantrips, but since most of our lands are coming into play tapped it's not as fast as it could be. Along those lines is Prophetic Prism which, while colorless, is just not very exciting. We'll end this section by chopping Path to the World Tree. It's a slower Rampant Growth with an ability that you'll never want to to spend 7 mana to activate.
Out: Abundant Growth, Prophetic Prism, Path to the World Tree
Depending on your criteria, there are almost 7 boardwipes in the precon. As previously stated, we don't want that many, so let's cut three. Radiant Flames is the cheapest of the bunch. I understand the appeal of Converge in a five color deck. While you could spend less colors of mana to deal less damage, you're eliminating vital blockers for Jared. Duneblast can go, too. While its three colors, 7 mana is a little too much for this effect. Time Wipe is also getting cut as the next "worst" option. The good news with this cut? Now you can play Jegantha, the Wellspring as a companion!
Out: Radiant Flames, Duneblast, Time Wipe
We need one more, and the final cut is a weird include. Atla Palani, Nest Tender is a sweet commander in her own right. She even has a home in the 99 of decks with tons of huge creatures you want to cheat out, like Mayael the Anima. In this deck, we have creatures on nearly every spot of our mana curve, but little top-deck manipulation, so on average the hatchlings won't provide much value. Imagine how big of a letdown it is spending a total of 6 mana to cast Atla and activate, make an egg and crack it, only to flip a Coiling Oracle (it's happened). That's just too many hoops to jump through for rotten eggs.
10 cards out and 10 in! Let's check out the finished product:
Painbow Precon Upgrade
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End of the Rainbow
These upgrades will only cost you around $6 at the time of writing. What do you think? Would you rather have Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile as the commander? What kind of changes would you make to the landbase? Do you think Converge is the most offensive keyword in Battle for Zendikar (just kidding it's Cohort)? Let me know in the comments! If you want to spend a little more on upgrades, check out the Precon Upgrades section right here on EDHREC. Thanks for reading! If you're looking for more Scrap Trawlers content, check us out on Twitter, Youtube, and Twitch! Until next time, dear reader, remember to budget...before you buy it.
Scrap Trawlers
Scrap Trawlers is a Magic: The Gathering budget EDH streaming and video group, with gameplay, deck techs, chats, and more. Catch our videos at youtube.com/scraptrawlers. Andy, Lenny, and Bert.
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