As I work through writing about Legendary creatures from Lorwyn Eclipsed (ECL), I've managed to hit upon some really strong commanders along with some much less potent ones.

I picked up both precons from ECL, but I wasn't all that excited about reworking the decks. On top of that, I haven't had as much chance to play lately, hampered by a combination of bad New England weather and my car being in the shop.

I always try to find something to latch onto when I brew up a new deck, even if I know it's just for a column and I'm not going to be building it in paper. I retooled the Blight Curse deck with some creatures with Undying, but I was stuck without any real inspiration for how to rework Dance of the Elements.

That inspiration eventually came in the form of a question I've asked myself a handful of times over the years. Let's dive in.

Why would anyone play cards with Converge in Commander?

Converge is a mechanic from Battle for Zendikar that gives you a benefit that scales to the number of colors used to cast a spell. It is a precursor to Vivid, a keyword from Lorwyn Eclipsed that cares about the number of colors among permanents you control.

For many years, every time I'd be going through cards and came across the phrase "the number of colors used to cast this spell" I would dismiss it immediately as useless. Now that we have two mechanics that care about playing lots of colors, I decided it would be fun to brew up an experiment around how a deck chock full of Converge and Vivid cards would play.

The first question is a simple one - what Commander should I use to lead a "Vivid Convergence" deck?

The answer is both obvious and convenient. I decided to go with one of the five-color legends from the Dance of the Elements preconstructed Commander deck.

Mass of Mysteries is the "face card" for its precon deck, so it's a convenient choice if I decide to build this in paper. It's got all five colors in its mana cost and it's a decent 5/5 body. It has First Strike, Vigilance, and Trample. It can also give an Elemental I control Myriad at the beginning of combat on my turn, so I'll lean into that creature type a little when I build this list.

My intention is not to just swap out a few cards from the precon, even though I am leaning on one of the deck's featured keywords.

My focus is going to be entirely around being able to make and have all five colors whenever I need them. That means running a few extra 5/c permanents and making sure I can create all five colors when I'm casting a spell with Converge.

I don't yet know if that will result in anything resembling a strong Commander deck, but that's why this is an experiment. I expect this list will probably end up in Bracket 2.

Building Around Converge

Converge isn't the worst mechanic. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I always dismissed it whenever I came across a card with Converge.

Maybe I was building a lot of mono-colored decks at the time. Maybe I was just failing to look at the best-case scenario of being able to cast the spell with as many different colors as possible. Whatever the reason for my negative reaction back in the day, I'm leaning into the mechanic now.

It's worth noting that there are 18 cards with the Converge keyword, and I threw them all into the first draft of this deck.

Some creatures, like Crystalline Crawler, Glinting Creeper, Skyrider Elf, and Tajuru Stalwart, will get +1/+1 counters when they enter depending on the number of colors spent to cast them.

There are a couple of burn spells - Kaleidoscorch and Radiant Flames - that will push out damage based on the colors spent to cast them. There are also token generators - Sweep the Skies and Unified Front - that will create creature tokens the same way.

There are Converge spells for pretty much everything, but a few are worth putting a spotlight on.

Exert Influence is a poor man's theft spell, letting me gain control of a target creature if its power is less than or equal to the number of colors of mana spent to cast it. I'm capped at stealing creatures with 5 or less power so, I'll need to produce all five colors to get the most out of this Sorcery spell. I was surprised to not find a single Converge-flavored Act of Treason spell in my search. If such a spell exists and just doesn't use the Converge keyword, I wasn't able to find it.

Card draw is crucial to any truly successful Commander deck, and I was able to find a couple of draw spells that work with Converge. Brilliant Spectrum is a four-mana Blue Sorcery that will have me draw X cards where X is the number of colors used to cast it. The only downside is that I'll also have to discard two cards. Painful Truths is a three-mana Black Sorcery that will have me draw X cards and lose X life, where X is the number of colors of mana spent casting it.

There is one new card with Converge that I was able to run in this list. Uncle's Musings is a Green Sorcery that will return X permanent cards from my graveyard to my hand where X is the number of colors spent to cast it. The biggest problem with a lot of Converge spells is that they often have a casting cost that prevents you from paying all five colors. Uncle's Musings costs , so the most I'll ever get is three permanents.

This mechanic is at its best in cards like Sweep the Skies, where there is an X in the casting cost. If you can scale a spell up or down based on how many colors you have available, that spell becomes much more flexible and much more useful. With many of these Converge cards, you are locked into a casting cost under 5 mana.

The real trick with a Converge themed deck is going to be making sure you can generate all five colors. That's not incredibly hard, but it's worth a mention.

I'm running Chromatic Lantern, Chromatic Orrery, and Joiner Adept in this brew. Those first two are mana rocks that give you some flexibility with your colors, and that last one is just an Elf Druid that lets your lands tap for any color of mana. It's barely playable in most decks but, in this list, it's a potential early blocker and helps increase the chances that I'll get the most out of my Converge subtheme.

I'm also running a few mana dorks that can tap for any color. Birds of Paradise, Faeburrow Elder, and Bloom Tender are all auto-includes in a deck like this, but I also threw in a few less familiar faces. Utopia Tree is a two-mana 0/2 Plant that taps for any color. It's joined by Sylvan Caryatid and Ilysian Caryatid, but my focus on mana dorks pretty much ends there.

Leyline of the Guildpact is an Enchantment that deserves a mention. It costs 4 mana, but those pips call for hybrid mana, so there is a lot of flexibility in how I pay for it. If this Leyline is in my opening hand, I can simply begin the game with it on the battlefield.

It doesn't do much except fix all my color problems. While it's in play under my control each nonland permanent I control is all colors, and my lands have all basic land types. That's irrelevant in some decks, but very helpful in today's list.

A Little Less Vivid

My first thought was that I would build this list with as many cards that have Convergence and Vivid as possible. Then I thought about all those Vivid lands that enter the battlefield tapped with charge counters.

I quickly decided that I'll already be sledding uphill and I didn't want to make my life even more difficult with a cycle of lands that enter tapped. That means my list isn't as vivid as it could be, but I am going to run as many cards with the Vivid keyword as possible.

Vivid is a brand-new keyword, though if you told me it was as old as Lorwyn I would have believed you. If a card has Vivid, it cares about the number of colors among permanents you control. The Elf Druid mana dork Bloom Tender had its Oracle text updated to have Vivid, as it taps for a mana for each color among permanents you control. Other than this one, all of the cards with Vivid are from Lorwyn Eclipsed.

They aren't all amazing, but there are a few worth calling out.

Elemental Spectacle is a six-mana Green sorcery that will give me 5/5 red and green Elemental creature tokens equal to the number of colors among permanents I control. Then I'll gain life equal to the number of creatures I control. In a best case scenario, I'll be gaining at least five life and putting 25 power worth of Elementals into play.

Shinestriker isn't just flying circles around a fabulous rainbow, it's also going to draw me cards equal to the number of colors among permanents I control. It's just a 3/3 for a hefty 6 mana, but if it draws me five cards that makes it a slightly better Mulldrifter.

If you've noticed that a lot of these cards are a bit over costed, you're not wrong. For 7 mana some people think you should be able to outright win the game.

With Aurora Awakener your 7 mana will get you a 7/7 Giant Druid with Trample and a great Enter the Battlefield Ability. When it enters, I get to reveal cards from the top of my library until I reveal X permanent cards where X is the number of colors among permanents I control. I'll put any number of those permanents onto the battlefield.

If X is five, that could be amazing or just a minor upgrade to your board presence.

As with Converge, I'm seeing that there is a lot of variety in the Lorwyn Eclipsed Vivid cards.

Wildvine Pummeler is a seven-mana 6/5 Giant Berserker with Reach and Trample that costs 1 less to cast for each color among permanents I control. Prismabasher is a six-mana 6/6 Elemental with Trample which gives up to X target creatures +X/+X until end of turn where X is the number of colors among permanents I control. Shimmercreep has menace and will enter and have each opponent lose X life and I'll gain X life where X is the number of colors among permanents I control. None of these are game-breaking, even if X equals 5, but they're all decent.

I expect to lean on my commander to make sure I've got all five colors among permanents I control, but I've got a few other options to help make sure that isn't a problem. I'm running Horde of Notions, which is also in the Dance of the Elements precon, along with Omnath, Locus of All, and Transguild Courier, a four-mana Golem with an odd ability.

Its party trick is simply that "Transguild Courier is all colors". I decided not to run Sphinx of the Guildpact, a seven-mana 5/5 Sphinx with flying and Hexproof from single-color spells. It's also all colors, but it didn't really do enough to warrant its inclusion in today's list.

Vivid Convergence

I expect that I'd need to play this list a bit to determine exactly how I'd want to tune it up. Any first draft is going to have cards that overperform and underperform. I thought about adding Panharmonicon and Yarok, the Desecrated, both of which can double my ETB triggers.

The only issue is that while the Vivid triggers would work with that, many of the Converge triggers only care about the colors spent casting the spell. I've got more Converge than Vivid in this deck so those trigger doublers aren't just auto-includes.

To be fair, I did say this deck is something of an experiment.

It's worth noting that I considered also adding Domain cards to this list. Domain is a keyword from the Invasion block that looks at the number of basic land types among lands you control. Lands aren't colors, so while it might have worked in a five-color deck, I decided it was a half-step too far away from the main theme of the deck.

I also already had over thirty cards with Converge or Vivid, and there wasn't room for another possibly bad mechanic to add into the mix.

Mass of Mysteries Vivid Convergence | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mass of Mysteries

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Aurora Awakener
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Bloom Tender
• 1 Crystalline Crawler
• 1 Explosive Prodigy
• 1 Faeburrow Elder
• 1 Glinting Creeper
• 1 Glister Bairn
• 1 Horde of Notions
• 1 Ilysian Caryatid
• 1 Joiner Adept
• 1 Kithkeeper
• 1 Luminollusk
• 1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Omnath, Locus of All
• 1 Prismabasher
• 1 Radiant Epicure
• 1 Sanar, Innovative First-Year
• 1 Shimmercreep
• 1 Shinestriker
• 1 Skyrider Elf
• 1 Squawkroaster
• 1 Sylvan Caryatid
• 1 Tajuru Stalwart
• 1 Transguild Courier
• 1 Utopia Tree
• 1 Wildvine Pummeler
• 1 Woodland Wanderer

• Instants (11)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Generous Gift
• 1 Infuse with the Elements
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Rime Chill
• 1 Roilmage's Trick
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (16)
• 1 Brilliant Spectrum
• 1 Bring to Light
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Distant Melody
• 1 Elemental Spectacle
• 1 Exert Influence
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Kaleidoscorch
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Painful Truths
• 1 Prismatic Ending
• 1 Radiant Flames
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Sweep the Skies
• 1 Uncle's Musings
• 1 Unified Front

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Leyline of the Guildpact
• 1 Prism Array
• 1 Prismatic Undercurrents

• Artifacts (3)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Chromatic Orrery

• Lands (37)
• 7 Forest
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 3 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Forbidden Orchard
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Sea of Clouds
• 1 Spectator Seating
• 1 Spire Garden
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Training Center
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium
• 1 Vault of Champions

Buy This Deck Export text

If you wanted to tune this list down, I'd probably start by looking at lowering the budget. It's not a hard and fast rule that lowering the budget of a deck will also drop its power, but just replacing all of the Battlebond Lands with Bounce Lands or a mix of Vivid and Cycling Lands would slow things down and drop the overall cost.

Chromatic Orrery, Birds of Paradise, and Swan Song are also strong cards that are more expensive than the average and could be replaced by weaker, cheaper alternatives.

To tune this list up you'd probably want to play the deck and identify which of the Vivid and Converge cards seem to be worth the mana you're spending to cast them.

My insistence on leaning so heavily into this theme came at the expense of card draw, interaction, and board wipes. If you removed a few of those weaker on-theme cards, you might have room for more of the basics. I still think that adhering to a "Vivid Convergence" theme puts a real ceiling on the deck's power level.

Early Results

I was able to get this list into a game with my online Tabletop Simulator group. I was very up front that the list was probably underpowered, and that turned out to be true.

I was up against a well-tuned Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury deck that was firmly in Bracket 3, running a strong elfball game plan, but with no combo finishers. The other two opponents were playing what was probably a Bracket 2 Hermes, Overseer of Elpis deck and a Ferrafor, Young Yew list that might have been Bracket 3, but that's just a guess on my part.

I got out to a surprisingly fast start, with an early Utopia Tree and Birds of Paradise. I was able to play a turn-four Squawkroaster and a turn-five Mass of Mysteries.

That set me up to be able to send a double-striking 5/4 with Myriad into battle for a bunch of turns in a row, forcing both the Freyalise and Hermes players to lose creature tokens as chump blockers.

The deck's biggest challenge ended up being a relative lack of card draw, which didn't really surprise me. I use the term "relative" because by the end of the game both the Freyalise and Ferrafor player had been able to draw upwards of 30 cards in a single turn.

Hermes and I were basically playing Bracket 2 decks and feeling hopelessly outclassed. We hadn't had a power level discussion before the game, and even if we had, I wouldn't have switched decks as I wanted to have a game to look at for this column.

The Ferrafor player ended up playing a Spike Weaver, which can be used to fog combat damage by removing a +1/+1 counter. He already had an overwhelming board, and a seemingly endless source of fogs seemed to set him up for an inevitable victory.

Unfamiliar with my deck, I missed the fact that I had an Explosive Prodigy in play and could have given it Myriad with my commander, swung with it, and used the ETB triggers from the Myriad copies to attempt to blow up the Spike Weaver.

In my defense, Tabletop Simulator is an environment where it's easy to miss the sorts of details that you can easily catch when playing in paper. It's possible to zoom in on cards, but I was somewhat mentally checked out in the face of two Bracket 3 decks (Freyalise and Ferrafor) that were beyond anything my deck could match. Elves, Hydras and Saprolings were everywhere and, with each passing turn, they were only getting bigger.

Once it was clear I had to find a way to get rid of Ferrafor's fog machine (Spike Weaver) for anyone else to have a chance, I assumed he would kill me first to preserve that option.

For some reason, he let me live, though it's likely that was because he had pulled into a way to protect that key piece. The high point of the late game for me was being able to give Explosive Prodigy Myriad at the beginning of combat with Mass of Mysteries, swing with Prodigy, and aim all the ETB damage at Spike Weaver.

The Ferrafor player responded with a Heroic Intervention, and I was able to counter that with the Swan Song I had just drawn into.

On the Freyalise player's turn, it became clear how different a strong Bracket 3 deck's late game is compared to a Bracket 2 deck. My best-case scenario was going to be eking out a win with my Elementals or a mix of just the right Converge spells. The Freyalise player used a Kindred Summons to pump out nine more elves and was able to generate a ton of mana to swing at everyone for the win on the back of an Overwhelming Stampede.

Nobody else had any response. I had nine open mana and a Hail Mary. I played a Roilmage's Trick for 4 mana to give his +30/+30ish Elves -4/-0 until end of turn, and more importantly, to draw a card.

With 5 mana left, if I were to pull into Aetherize or Aetherspouts, I could save the table.

I drew the top card of my library. It was a Chromatic Orrery. We then got murdered by an overwhelming Elf stampede.

It was a frustrating game in many ways, but I was sanguine about the fact that I knew I'd probably be underpowered for the table and winning would be a long shot. I do hate to be on a Bracket 2 deck watching a pair of Bracket 3 decks each drawing a third of their libraries and then putting out a repeatable fog effect like Spike Weaver.

It feels bad but, in reality, I've had my share of games where I was probably coming in too hot for the table and ran away with the game.

What goes around comes around and, that night, it was my turn to get stomped.

Final Thoughts

My biggest takeaway from the test game is that Converge is a pretty weak mechanic, but it's completely playable in Bracket 2, and probably in Bracket 3 under the right conditions.

Vivid is stronger and plays well with Mass of Mysteries in the command zone. The precon list seems to only have 2 cards with Vivid, so upgrading that list with more cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed and leaning into that keyword would probably work.

My buddies were charitable about my little experiment of a deck and were impressed with how well Squawkroaster impacted the early game. We had a good conversation afterwards, as the Freyalise player was very new to the game, and was playing a list put together by the Ferrafor player (notably, the two decks that drew 30+ cards in a turn).

Our goal is to have more balanced games, and we recognized that it would be more fun for everyone if we did a better job at having parity between all of the decks at the table.

I'm glad I did this little experiment, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you plan on playing against other Bracket 2 decks. Even then, I expect you'll have your share of good and bad games, but that's somewhat as it should be.

No deck should be constantly running away with the win if you're playing against decks of the same power level. The real challenge is both in finding that balance and keeping your composure when you're hopelessly outmatched.

I wouldn't say that I was hopelessly outmatched in my sample game, but definitely up against a real challenge that night.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!