Rainbow Stairwell
Earlier this month, in my ongoing blog I posted a deck based on a format that has gotten received something of a resurgence recently in Magic Online. The popularity of this format has people asking what this new format is all about, how do I build a deck, and what cards are legal or not in this format. I believe that a primer is in order about this renewed casual format called Rainbow Stairwell to help answer your questions.
Rainbow Stairwell is an excellent way to get into either Singleton/Highlander or Prismatic casual play without requiring the expense needed to get the expensive cards for a Singleton deck or the sheer number of cards for a Prismatic deck. The basis of this casual format is to combine parts of both formats into a new hybrid casual format.
A Rainbow Stairwell deck has 60 cards with no sideboard, and is Singleton legal. There are 4 of each basic lands and four other miscellaneous lands that can be whatever you need them to be. This leaves 36 other cards that are separated into six cards from each color in the wheel and six artifacts. Of each of the six cards in a certain 'color,' if you count artifacts as a color, will have one card each with an ascending order of converted casting costs from 1 to 6 total mana.
Because of the nature of this format, no multi-colored (gold) cards, split cards, or cards that have X in any costs on the card (be it in it's casting or in it's abilities) are allowed. There may be other cards that are banned according to house rules, so ask beforehand. On Magic Online, all Beacons, Pulses, and Wishes are banned on top of the accepted banned list for Online Singleton. All other mechanics are legal.
Here's my own Rainbow Stairwell deck which I'll use to illustrate how one looks.
The lands include the standard 4 Plains, Islands, Swamps, Mountains, and Forests. The four remaining lands are as follows:
Mirrodin's Core (A more manageable Multi-colored land in this format)
Stalking Stones (Land that turns into a spare 3/3 crit)
Forbidden Orchard (A different kind of City of Brass. Those spirits shouldn't be any problem if you manage them right.)
Darksteel Citadel (Mostly for filler until I get a better land.)
I would have put City of Brass on there if I didn't trade them all for better cards. Oh well, I didn't feel like taking one to the head every time I tap it anyway.
Now for the actual cards, starting from White and working clockwise, and I'll put them in order of casting costs. What I did was make a salad with some of the mechanics from my favorite mechanics from various blocks topped up with four of the Kamigawa Dragons. I'll be nursing it from time to time.
White:
W: Weathered Wayfarer (A good one-drop which will help you get land when you're behind)
1W: Ray of Revelation (Enchantment hate with a G Flashback. It found some play in my UG Madness deck)
2W: Terachi's Grasp (Disenchant plus Life Gain)
2WW: Alter's Light (More Disenchant)
4W: Second Thoughts (Attacker Removal)
4WW: Yoshi, the Morning Star (5/5 Flier, can tap away an opponent's day when dead)
Blue:
U: Slight of Hand (Quick Library manipulation)
1U: Merfolk Looter (Deep digger. I find that getting into your bombs as soon as you can is a virtue)
2U: Prodigal Sorcerer (Tim has his roles here, if for nothing else than to keep those pesky 1/1 spirits the other guys get from my Orchard at bay)
2UU: Mythic Restraints (Instant-speed Shackles)
4U: Meloku the Clouded Mirror (I got this on a lark trying to find a toolbox for my snake deck...I better stop getting people interested in my Brainburst blog here...but Rabbit dude here has a spot in this spot: I seen him toss a bunch of 1/1s my way many times.)
5U: Keiga, the Tide Star (5/5 Flier, can Confiscate the crit who killed him)
Black:
B: Lose Hope (if the -1/-1 doesn't help me, the Scry feature certainly will.)
1B: Nezumi Graverobber (Since I don't have the black Kamigawa dragon, I had to find other crits to put in black. Fortunately the Rats' Nest precon I bought for Umezawa's Jitte found a second purpose)
2B: Rend Flesh. (Takes down every non-spirit creature. There's a lot of those floating around, and some or them are even black or artifact crits)
3B: Zombify (Used to bring back one of my Dragons, or some other creature card, from the Graveyard)
4B: Throat Slitter (Nobody would expect me to play with a Ninjutsu card in my deck, wouldn't they?)
5B: Pull Under (This card will take down any creature in this format)
Red:
R: Firebolt (Flashback, on the other hand, is a mechanic people expect me to play with.)
1R: Magma Jet (Shock with the Scry mechanic)
2R: Smash (Cantrip artifact-hate, and there's a lot of artifacts in this format)
3R: Lightning Bolt (You're looking at someone who is notorious of using Fireball to finish Prismatic games. Since XR is illegal, I'll stock up on the Direct Damage elsewhere)
3RR: Lightning Surge (...like having a copy that includes Threshold and Flashback)
5R: Rusei, the Falling Star (5/5 Flier, Starstorms for 5 when dead)
Green:
G: Lay of the Land (When you're playing decks with five colors, you'll need all the mana fixing you can get. I tend to use cards that can tutor the lands I need.)
1G: Rampant Growth (See Lay of the Land)
2G: Harrow (dittos)
3G: Explosive Vegetation (dittos)
2GGG: Kodama of the North Tree (Untargetable 8/3 that Tramples. Goon)
3GGG: Jugan, the Rising Star (5/5 flier that becomes pants to a friend when dead)
Artifacts:
1: Wayfarer's Bauble (More land tutoring)
2: Umezawa's Jitte (It's been a bomb in tournament constructed decks, and it'll be a bomb here, and since I now have two: I've gotta stop plugging my blogs: I figure it's better than putting Lightning Greaves in here)
3: Darksteel Ignot (An Indestructible item that acts like a Bird can't hurt)
4: Etched Oracle (Not to mention a Sunburst crit who can do a deep digging)
5: Mind's Eye (Or drawing cards during other people's turn.)
6: Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang (This sword, however, can hurt people. Either by itself when it transforms into a sword or when another creature grabs hold of it.)
The key in Rainbow Stairwell decks is to balance your own crits with spells that will answer to the other player's threats. While this deck is fitting into the Singleton format, you need to think in a Prismatic sense when building this deck.
There's another thing to keep in mind, while the nonland spells are set in stone: six cards from each of the six 'colors' (including artifacts) each with a spell for each casting cost from 1 to 6: the land selection is in debate. Wizards has a forum at http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=336529 that tells of different styles of this format. What I posted above here is known as the 4/4 style, where there's four of every basic land and four additional lands, which is common for MTGO. There is also two other styles, such as a 3/2 style where there are three each basic lands and two of each bi-color lands, as well as a style that uses 3 each of the basic lands, a full cycle of non-basic lands, and four more miscellaneous lands. In my final version I decided to go this latter route and splice in a set of 8th edition taplands for the deck I'm showcasing here.
As you would notice in the referred forum topic and elsewhere if you searched for this format, the debate on how to treat lands and which cards are legal or not is still in the air, and no clear cut standard is visible in Rainbow Stairwell as of this typing. It is my hopes that I can return with further research, more sample decklists, and reports on any and all standards used in this format that's returning to the Magic: The Gathering scene.
David "Daveykins FoxFire" Gonterman
FoxStudiosDavid@MTGO