Painbow precon upgrade guide

A deck called Painbow ships without a single painland. Sixteen of its thirty-nine lands enter tapped instead, and that's where most of this upgrade goes.

Jared Carthalion is a five-mana planeswalker who makes a 3/3 Kavu every turn, and the Kavu is all colours. That one word does more work than anything else on the card. It's what switches on Knight of New Alara, what lives through Iridian Maelstrom, and what lets Faeburrow Elder tap for five. 37 of the box's 61 nonland cards are multicoloured, commander included, and twelve of them are all five colours.

The hard part is casting them. The box fixes colours by spending tempo: all ten tri-lands, all five of the old Mirage fetchlands and Krosan Verge, which makes sixteen lands you can't use on the turn they arrive. A deck that needs five colours before its commander does anything should pay for fixing. It shouldn't pay this much.

What are the best Painbow upgrades?

Mana at the top, because nothing lower down works until it does. Prices are Scryfall market prices for the default printings, checked 10 September 2026.

1. Six painlands, $5.00 for all of them. Adarkar Wastes, Battlefield Forge, Caves of Koilos, Shivan Reef, Sulfurous Springs and Underground River. They take the place of seven lands that entered tapped or made only colourless mana (the seventh slot goes to a spell), and every one of them taps for a colour on the turn it lands.
2. Bloom Tender, $13.34. Two mana, and once Jared or a single Kavu is on the battlefield it taps for all five colours.
3. Heroic Intervention, $15.96. The only card in the box that can keep a board from being destroyed costs seven mana.
4. Sol Ring, $1.54. The box doesn't include one.
5. Joiner Adept, $7.97. Every land you control taps for any colour, and a painland tapped that way stops hurting.
6. Assassin's Trophy, Maelstrom Pulse and Anguished Unmaking, $2.64 together. Three answers that deal with a permanent for good, and all three are multicoloured spells, which this deck pays you for casting.
7. Ramos, Dragon Engine, $0.44. A five-colour creature that grows on every multicoloured spell, then hands the counters back as ten mana.

All fourteen come to $46.89. The cuts are argued below, and the lands come first, because they're most of the story.

Jared is a five-colour permanent, and two druids can see him

Faeburrow Elder reads "for each color among permanents you control, add one mana of that color". In most decks that's two mana, because the Elder itself is green and white. Here it's five the moment Jared resolves, because a planeswalker is a permanent and Jared is every colour. The Elder also gets +1/+1 per colour, so on that same turn it's a 5/5 with vigilance.

The box ships one Elder. Bloom Tender has the identical mana ability for a mana less, and that's why it's second on the list above. A Kavu token counts as well. If Jared gets attacked off the table, the Kavus he left behind keep both druids tapping for five.

Keep the ten tri-lands, lose the five Mirage fetches

A five-colour deck has to pay for fixing somewhere, and a tri-land is a fair price: one slow turn, then three colours for the rest of the game. All ten stay. Two cards in the box make them better than they look, too. Tiller Engine untaps any land that enters tapped, and Archelos, Lagoon Mystic makes other permanents enter untapped for as long as he's untapped himself.

The five Mirage fetches are a worse deal. Bad River, Flood Plain, Grasslands, Mountain Valley and Rocky Tar Pit each enter tapped, then sacrifice themselves to find a land of one of two basic types. What a turn of tempo buys you is one land that makes two colours at most, where a tri-land would have given you three.

Krosan Verge is the slowest land in the box. It enters tapped, taps for colourless, and wants {2} and a sacrifice to fetch a Forest and a Plains, both tapped. Crystal Quarry does enter untapped, but it's colourless until you pay five, and Cascading Cataracts already does that job while being indestructible. Those seven leave, six painlands and one spell arrive, and the land count settles at 38.

One land that stays deserves a warning. Murmuring Bosk enters untapped only if you reveal a Treefolk from your hand, and the only Treefolk in the hundred is Faeburrow Elder. In practice it's an eleventh tri-land, and I'd play it as one.

Six painlands, and none of them make green

Adarkar Wastes, Battlefield Forge, Caves of Koilos, Shivan Reef, Sulfurous Springs and Underground River are the six painlands that don't tap for green, so white, blue, black and red each appear on exactly three of them. Green was already the best-supplied colour in the box, and every ramp sorcery in the deck is green, so a hand with green in it tends to go and find the rest.

Black and white go from 25 sources to 29. Blue and red go from 24 to 28. Green holds at 27. Time Wipe is the one card that asks for two of the same colour early, {W}{W} by turn five, and the chance of having that on the play goes from 82.4% to 89.2%.

A painland pings you for a point each time it makes coloured mana. At forty life, in a deck with no bracket floor, I'll take that. Joiner Adept switches the ping off anyway: the ability it gives your lands taps for any colour with no damage attached, and it turns the tri-lands and the basics into five-colour lands at the same time.

If the budget were bigger, the land I'd buy next is Mana Confluence at $35.59. It's untapped and makes any colour, and it costs more than seven times what the six painlands do together, which is why it isn't on the list.

Every Kavu is an 8/8 next to Knight of New Alara

Knight of New Alara gives each other multicoloured creature +1/+1 for each of its colours. A Kavu has five, so it goes from 3/3 to 8/8 with trample. Jared's -3 then puts five +1/+1 counters on each of up to two creatures, and again the five comes from counting colours. The commander rewards the same property twice, and eight creatures in the upgraded ninety-nine share it: Chromanticore, O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami, Fusion Elemental, Maelstrom Archangel, Two-Headed Hellkite, Fallaji Wayfarer, Primeval Spawn and Ramos, Dragon Engine.

That's also the full list of creatures that survive Iridian Maelstrom, which destroys each creature that isn't all colours. On a board of Kavus it's a one-sided wipe for five mana, and it's the reason I'm keeping it while two of the other sweepers go.

Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile makes a 4/4 flying Angel whenever you cast a spell that's all colours. Jared counts every time he's cast from the command zone, and so do eleven cards in the ninety-nine.

Six ways to kill creatures in bulk, in a deck that makes one a turn

Count the sweepers by hand and the box has six: Duneblast, Merciless Eviction, Time Wipe, Iridian Maelstrom, Radiant Flames and Lavalanche. For a commander that puts a creature on the battlefield every turn, that's two too many.

• Radiant Flames deals damage equal to the number of colours spent to cast it, and it costs three mana, so the most it can ever deal is 3. That's exactly enough to kill every Kavu you have.
• Duneblast is seven mana to keep one creature. Time Wipe does much the same for five, and Merciless Eviction exiles instead of destroying.
• Lavalanche stays. It only hits one player and their creatures, so it plays like removal with a finisher attached, not like a sweeper.

Five more spells come out:

• Transguild Courier is all colours, and that holds on the stack too, so it makes a Jenson Angel and fires Mana Cannons for five. It's still a 3/3 for four with no other text, and Ramos does the same colour tricks while growing. Fusion Elemental is the other vanilla five-colour creature, and it stays: an 8/8 for five is a real body, and next to the Knight it's a 13/13.
• Obsidian Obelisk enters tapped and makes coloured mana only for multicoloured spells. Sol Ring costs one and doesn't ask what you're casting.
• Explosive Vegetation and Migration Path are the same four-mana card, except that Migration Path can cycle for {2} when you'd rather have a card. One is plenty in a list with fifteen ramp pieces.
• Selvala, Explorer Returned draws a card for every player at the table, and all her mana is green. Joiner Adept is a mana cheaper and fixes every land you own.
• Echoing Truth sends one permanent back to hand for a turn. Assassin's Trophy, Maelstrom Pulse and Anguished Unmaking get rid of one for good, and because each of them is multicoloured, each also makes a Hero of Precinct One token and fires Mana Cannons for two.

Unite the Coalition costs seven, and I'm keeping it anyway. Choose the phase-out mode five times and it hides five of your permanents at instant speed, Jared included, which makes it the only card in the box that can save a board from a wipe. It's an all-colours spell for Jenson on top of that. Maelstrom Nexus stays because it gives cascade to the first spell you cast in each turn, not just in yours, so a charm cast on an opponent's turn cascades too. And Abundant Growth is an Aura, but it enchants a land: one mana draws a card and makes that land tap for any colour.

The upgraded mana, counted

Always-tapped lands fall from sixteen to ten, and all ten are tri-lands. Untapped lands go from seventeen to twenty-two. The land count drops from 39 to 38, still at the top of the normal range, and with ramp going from fourteen pieces to fifteen I'm comfortable there.

Average mana value falls from 3.63 to 3.51. Spot removal goes from seven cards to ten. Card draw is untouched at thirteen. Nothing added is a Game Changer, so the upgraded list sets no bracket floor, the same as the box.

The upgraded decklist

All fourteen swaps applied, 100 cards. Hover any card name on the page to see the card and what it costs today.

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FAQ

Does a Kavu token survive Iridian Maelstrom?

Yes. The token Jared makes is all colours, and Iridian Maelstrom only destroys creatures that aren't. Chromanticore, O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami, Fusion Elemental, Maelstrom Archangel, Two-Headed Hellkite, Fallaji Wayfarer, Primeval Spawn and, in the upgraded list, Ramos, Dragon Engine survive it as well. Jared is a planeswalker, so the wipe never touches him.

How does Painbow play straight out of the box?

Slowly. It runs 39 lands, 16 of which always enter tapped, and its average mana value is 3.63. It isn't short of things to do: fourteen ramp pieces and thirteen draw spells, both above the normal range of eight to twelve. It has no Game Changers, so it belongs at a Bracket 1 or 2 table.

Is Joiner Adept worth it once the painlands are in?

Yes, and the two help each other. Joiner Adept gives every land you control "{T}: Add one mana of any color", and that ability deals no damage, so a painland tapped through it costs you nothing. It also turns the ten tri-lands, the eleven basics and Cascading Cataracts into five-colour lands.

Would Coalition Victory win games in this deck?

It could. It wins if you control a land of each basic land type and a creature of each colour, and one Kavu token is a creature of every colour on its own. The basics and the five battle lands carry all five land types between them. The catch is that Coalition Victory is a Game Changer, so adding it takes the deck from no bracket floor to Bracket 3. I left it off for that reason. It's $5.34 if your table already plays at 3.

What do the fourteen swaps cost?

$46.89 at Scryfall market prices for the default printings, checked 10 September 2026. Heroic Intervention ($15.96) and Bloom Tender ($13.34) are $29.30 of that, and the six painlands together are $5.00. Teferi's Protection would be the stronger protection spell at $49.54, and it's also a Game Changer, so it's out for price and for bracket.

Is Transguild Courier a five-colour spell for Jenson Carthalion?

Yes. Its "is all colors" line works in every zone, including on the stack, so casting it makes Jenson's 4/4 Angel and fires Mana Cannons for five. Fallaji Wayfarer works the same way. I cut the Courier anyway, because a 3/3 for four with no other text isn't worth a slot once Ramos, Dragon Engine is doing the same job.