Cromat

Five colors of mana up front buys you a 5/5, and then the real tax begins: every ability demands a second pair of colors, each pair on-theme for what those two colors do together. White-black murders whatever it is fighting; blue-red gives it the air; black-green regenerates it through removal; red-white pumps; blue-green tucks it back atop the library to dodge a worse fate. The conceit is that no single activation is worth much, but the card asks you to keep every color flowing just to access a buffet of small tools. That is the cost the body pays for: the 5/5 is fine, but the five-color identity is the whole tax, and the abilities only fully open up if your mana base already speaks every color at once. This is a capstone joke from the era obsessed with allied-and-enemy pairings and gold-card density, a creature built to demonstrate what a body looks like when it talks in all five colors and answers itself in pairs. Later five-color marquee creatures would chase raw power; this one chases completeness, a self-contained toolbox whose every blade points back at its own combat step.