I'm not sure Progenitus is a good example of "awesome but impractical". The entry argues that it's very difficult to ever play this card because it's very hard to get two mana of all five colors, and that it's "hard to cheat on this cost".
Yes, Progenitus cannot be summoned "straight" in a practical game because nobody will use lands (or any other mana-creating cards) of all five colors. If this was the only way to summon it, it would indeed be truly "awesome but impractical". However, it's perfectly possible to "cheat" on the mana cost, and it isn't even hard. For example you can use Elvish Piper to reduce the cost to one green mana (in which case it just becomes a question of keeping her alive for a full round, or somehow giving her haste, besides having an untapped forest). There is also a multitude of other ways to get Progenitus to the battlefield without having to pay two mana of each color.
So at most this would be a case of YMMV.
Edited by Warp Hide / Show Replies
Yes, I think that's a fair point. Progenitus has seen non-trivial amounts of play in Eternal formats as a target for cards like Show and Tell and Hypergenesis, and some of those decks have even been top contenders. He belongs to a category of ridiculous creatures that cost a lot of mana and can't be reanimated, true, but he's also one of the strongest choices out of that category alongside Blightsteel Colossus and Emrakul.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
There are several edits on this page that appear to be done by people who have no idea how to build/play a 5 color deck. Contrary to popular opinion, a well made 5 color deck can be absolutely devastating. Or, rather, could be back when I played the game regularly. I suppose the game has probably evolved quite a bit since the last time I built a deck (Kamigawa I think?) But I played several devastating 5 color decks even before Invasion came along and made them much easier to build. Most of the time with 5 color decks I had 3-4 different colors available to me on the first turn, and occasionally with a lucky draw I had all 5 colors available to me on turn one.
Bottom line, 4 and even 5 color cards are perfectly practical in a deck that's built around them. It's only when people who don't know how to build and play 5 color decks (which includes most players, but especially Spikes, in my experience) that they become impractical.