Coalition Victory

9/25/2006 When Coalition Victory resolves, it checks for the five basic land types (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest) and the five colors (white, blue, black, red, green). If a single land has multiple types and/or a single creature is multiple colors, it will count all those types and/or colors.

But, with regards to the Heralds of the Shards of Alara set:

10/1/2008 To activate the ability, you must sacrifice three different creatures. You can't sacrifice just one three-colored creature, for example.
10/1/2008 You may sacrifice multicolored creatures as part of the cost of the search ability. If you sacrifice a multicolored creature this way, specify which part of the cost that creature is satisfying.
10/1/2008 You may sacrifice the Herald itself to help pay for the cost of its ability.


Seems strange that the rulings are different between the Heralds and Coalition Victory.

So the Fusion Elemental trick actually does work?

Yeap. Years ago people used to sacrifice a Sliver Queen or Sliver Overlord to pull off this trick. The most efficient way I can think of to get a 5 colour creature into play is to cast a Transguild Courier. Interesting that it is a 5 colour creature but only costs 4 colourless to cast.