For a bit now, I’ve been wanting to jam together a bunch of my favorite cards into one hideous concoction. Specifically, I’ve been enjoying playing Rock decks of late, but you know what’s been missing?
Hellkites.
And Void.
So why not just jam everything together into one black-red-green mash that has the best of all three colors and their respective combinations? And if you’re doing that, why not go ahead and have a legendary Elf Warrior as part of your manabase instead of those wimpy little birds? What, after all, could be cooler than Radha, some dragons, some planeswalkers, Voiding away your opponent’s field and hand, and then Profane Commanding them out of the game?

I haven’t had a chance to play this yet — I hope to next week. The basic idea is the usual Rock concept of a mix of removal and disruption, with Thoughtseize, Void, and Liliana as disruption, and Shriekmaw, Eyeblight’s Ending, Void, and Profane Command as removal. It should also be able to accelerate into a Hellkite to the head from time to time.
One of the nice features of a black-red-green color mix with elves as mana support is that the mana base is pretty clean and pain-free. I have a total of five painlands in there, along with four gainlands. In a midrange-control build that isn’t trying to rush people super-aggressively, I’m fine with giving people life in bits and pieces. The only significant downside to this manabase is how nearly dead this deck is to a Magus of the Moon. If one of those resolves, I have to hope to have or draw into a Hellkite or Chandra to kill the damn thing and turn my game back on.
But I’m okay with that.