I had thought about trying it, but the main problem is the lack of basics that the deck actually runs. Again, long term I want to get my hands on the 3 ABU duals for the deck, however at the moment I can't justify spending ~ $700 (if not more) on 3 cards. And with the amount of basic only ramp in the deck, I would be shooting myself in the foot if i only ran 1 or two of each (swamps are a bit of a special case :P). But yeah, the removal aspect is also a bit worrying, especially if somebody is running mass removal.

I personally don't even like recross the paths, I think it's a bad card, and with the amount of efficient ramp you have you could easily just replace it with something else entirely.

You could check if your playgroup would allow you to use collector's edition duals they are cheaper

I'm sure they'd be ok with it but even the collectors versions are like $100 each. And tbh, if I was going to spend that kind of cash, I'd rather just get the real ones. It'll just be a long term upgrade :P the plan it to get all of the pieces I want by the end of next year.

What do you think of Garruk, Apex Predator ? I know that he is 7cc, but with his abilities, I'm considering him for my deck (not sure if it's suitable), he is a good control planeswalker

I really like Garruk, Apex Predator , he seems like a lot of fun. That being said, I don't think he would add much to this deck. His -3 Ability is one of the only ones I would be intereseted in, and at that point, I would just prefer Vraska the Unseen as she can hit any non-land permanent. Again, Garruk's ult is cool but I very rarely attack so its a bit meh, whereas Vraska's ult is a win condition.

True, but his ult makes an opponent a target in multiplayer whereas vraska's ult makes you the target

Also true, however when I ult Vraska the Unseen it will be in combination with a recurred Time Warp and a Cyclonic Rift or previous turn Toxic Deluge to clear a path. There are a few things to remember when playing a combo deck:

• You will ALWAYS be a target. The faster your deck goes from zero to combo, the higher your baseline threat. All I need to combo off is Tooth and Nail , which means I will always be a target. Even with something like Garruk's Emblem in play.

• When you target another player, you make yourself a grudge target from them (usually at least)

• If you have to rely on other players to help you win, you are probably going to get beaten down by them then next turn.

• A win is a win. If thats what you're playing for then you're better off just winning.

The thing is with Garruk, If i sit down at a table with 3 other combo players, the card is not very good at all that entire game. It effectively becomes a 7 mana kill spell, which leaves little mana open for counterspells. At least with Vraska I can hit anything.

With a more casual deck, you're totally right, Garruk is great. But I just don't think he will help the deck enough to warrant taking something else out. I'm already at the point where I spend close to a week deliberating single card changes (short of the obvious ones which are just limited by funds). So what goes into the deck needs to make it that much better.

Epic!

Palinchron mana combo with

Forbidden Orchard + Massacre Wurm

Hate to be on the bad side of that :)

+1

I disagree with the inclusion of the Panorama lands. I understand there's probably some temptation to run them because it feels like you'll get ROI on Crucible, but you're not really doing yourself any favors with the ", , sac: get a tapped basic" effect.

Evolving Wilds is another iffy land, but it's passable because it doesn't really screw your tempo any more than you can afford.

You run a lot of expensive counterspells. Have you considered running any of the other spells instead? Same for your removal suite. I don't see Nature's Claim , which is one of EDH's best rock killers.

Having run creatures like Acidic Slime and Massacre Wurm in a very primitive version of Dominus - Dreamcrusher Edition, I can tell you that they're finicky. I personally don't like how much they cost and how little you get, but I suppose they have favorable interactions with Massacre Wurm .

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard seems like an unusual choice for this deck. It's pretty slow when you take into account the repeated cost and the summoning sickness.

Cheers for the feedback.

The plan long term is to swap all of the panoramas and the Evolving Wilds as well as two other lands (thus why I was asking about Reliquary Tower ) out for Misty Rainforest , Verdant Catacombs , Polluted Delta , Bloodstained Mire , Scalding Tarn and Wooded Foothills . I very much agree about the limitedness of the paoramas and now that they are coming down in price I should be replacing them very soon. For now I think that 6 will do, I might get round to running all 9 eventually but I think the deck won't technically need it.

As for the 2 cost counter spells, the best that come to mind are Memory Lapse , Remand , Mana Leak and Mana Drain . (technically also Force of Will ). I already have FoW and Mana Drain on my "to buy" list and my big beef is that the other ones aren't technically hard counters (Mana Leak is on the cusp though). as much as I like the cheapness of them, they only really buy me one turn and they effectively make it a 1-for-2. I know where you're coming from though, I just don't think the deck plays as aggressively as your build. Are there any though that you would recommend?

I was thinking of taking out Krosan Grip for Sultai Charm but do you think Nature's Claim would be the better call? with Acidic Slime , I run it because of the amount of creature based decks in my meta. the deathtouch can be quite a deterrent.

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is a bit more of a flovour card. You're right in that he is slower, but the benefit is that his ability is instant speed so after the initial downpayment, if I have 3 mana open just before my turn I can fetch a creature. And if people let him get high enough I can EOT Deadeye Navigator into main turn Palinchron . But at the end of the day, he's in because I just think its a great idea for a card (I know that's not the best reason to run something but he's just so cool).

The main benefit of counters is that they counter a spell for as long as you need it countered, which is to say for the turn during which you combo. Although some of them aren't hard counters, they interfere with your opponent's tempo enough for you to gain more of an advantage, and they can also serve as effective hard counters during your combo because there won't be a followup turn.

All of the counterspells currently in my deck have been tested at the competitive level and justified their own inclusions, so I'd start there.

I personally don't run Krosan Grip and will not be running Sultai Charm because of their high costs. In a slower deck, those cards might be more useful because you aren't as pressed for efficiency and time. I do highly recommend Nature's Claim , though. It's a very cheap and very fast way to answer many threats.

I would rather see Delay run over Remand . It's better if you're comboeing off, on the off-chance they'd be able to re-cast their disruption.

That's just my 2 cents.

@Epochalyptik: My only concern would be that the counters are much less powerful out of combo but I guess disrupting a player's tempo is worth the "not hard" counter. I wouldn't want to swap out all of my hard counters but replacing one or two of them could be worthwhile. ultimately, I think I just need a FoW too. As for Nature's Claim , I personally still feel more sold on the utility of Sultai Charm but I think I will have to keep an eye on Nature's Claim . Out of curiosity, have you playtested Unravel the Aether ? I haven't tried it but I've heard good things from people who have. Especially against God Generals.

@Lhurgyof: I think I would tend to agree with you on that too. Although the cantrip on Remand is awesome, I like the idea of a player not having access to the card they just played. Especially if you're trying to counter something like Swords to Plowshares or Dispel where it's only 1 mana to recast. The other one that I have my eye on is Memory Lapse . Unlike Delay it means that they still have to recast the spell investing more mana into it. But both of them make the spell "inaccessible" to the player directly after the counter resolves.

It's mostly a matter of intuition, to be honest. If you determine that the cost for the hard counters is affordable enough in your meta, you can certainly keep those cards. I'm partial to the counters because I play competitively, and the reduced cost is extremely important for resource budgeting. I can live with a Remand ed spell coming back next turn because I stagger the opponent's tempo and draw a card. Every counterspell has merits and shortcomings.

As for Unravel the Aether , I haven't personally tested it. I like it as a removal spell, though, and I definitely see its usefulness.

I'm not too fussed about the 3CMC its more the UU thats the problem. But I think a lot of it also boils back down to the issue of mana base. I knid of feel like the sooner I address that, the sooner these problems will be alleviated.

Cheers for the feedback btw, it helps to have people who've got experience with the cards as opposed to trying to validate whether something is good or not on paper wihout having to go through the whole rigmarole myself (although this isn't always a bad thing).

Yeah, the mana base is one of the main keys to the deck. Well, to any tricolor deck, really. Playing cards like Necropotence and Mana Drain so early in the game made me realize in a deeper sense that my deck just wouldn't function were it not for the optimized land base.

I feel like with so few artifacts, Academy Ruins isn't worth the slot. Maybe if you ran Mindslaver, but right now I feel like a colored mana source would be better than the utility.

@Lhurgyof: yeah, I've been umming and ahhing about Academy Ruins for a while. I think I've only used it a few times recently. Mind Slaver is nice but it's far too slow and spending 13 mana to shut down 1 player out of 3 is too expensive. I'd rather get value with something like Executioner's Capsule.

It was just a thought. I'd cut the land then.

I have a few suggestions: Rite of Replication, Time Warp, & Bribery.

If you want something else to abuse creatures entering the battlefield effects. Look no further, Rite of Replication your Eternal Witness/Archaeomancer get 5 spells (including Rite of Replication). Oh how about I grab Time Warp with that and another counterspell and w/e else you want... Let's take some extra turns...

So why don't you play Bribery? Who doesn't want to steal their opponents best creature unless your meta has a lot of Homeward Paths?

Fun Suggestion: Diluvian Primordial

It has some fun interactions if you can get 4-5 spells from your enemies to win the game. Playing the enemies' graveyard spells when ever you want with Deadeye Navigator would be awesome right?

@Mrironlight: Cheers for the suggestions. I used to run Time Warp in the deck, it was ok but 9/10 times felt like a dead draw. I would sit there, trying to get lots of value out of it, which I did in one or two games - but on the whole missed more than it hit.

As for Rite of Replication - the problem with this card is the mana cost. And on top of that most of my creatures are utility guys. copying them to get functionality is nice, but rarely would I actually kick the Rite (due to the fact I would have to tap out to do it) and at that point I'd rather just put a Phyrexian Metamorph back into the deck (which I have been considering for a while now anyway).

I had considered at a time running Bribery, however the biggest issue with this is that it relies on my opponents having good creatures. And then taking said creatures usually just pisses them off. I'd be better off running Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or something but then its just a big flashy creature, which doesn't actually help me a I don't really attack anyway. And yeah, Homeward Path is a bit of a thing.

Diluvian Primordial does seem fun, however for the cost I would much rather run a Chancellor of the Spires. It lets me abuse the instants and sorceries more. The other thing is, I try to avoid playing Deadeye Navigator outside of combo. There are a lot of really fun ETB effects you can pair him with, the card is a bit broken like that. As such, I highly doubt anybody would let it stick around for more than a turn if I played it just to get value. Sure, there would be times I would play it outside of combo, but those scenarios would be few and far between. If this were an ETB goodstuff deck, I would probably be running Chancellor/Diluvian already. But there is a very specific direction this deck is aimed.

As I said though, I really appreciate people recommending cards, so cheers again for the suggestions.

Hey man! Well your deck already looks fine. Your custom ban list makes it hard for me to suggest cards but i'll try my best.

Being a combo player myself, one thing i'd do differently is to use less control and focus on getting the combos out as early as possible.

What I did with my deck is to add some recursion in the form of Reanimate and Shallow Grave. Not only do they add resiliency to the deck but they can also be used as (pre) combo pieces. I do is tutor for Intuition, if it isn't already in my hand, and use it to grab the combo I stole from you Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker + Peregrine Drake . As long as you have 5 lands in play, any card the opponent chooses will still result to you comboing off.

Yawgmoth's Will is also another card you should consider using.

Also, redundancies might help. Since Palinchron is banned, Great Whale might work. Sure it doesn't combo with Phantasmal Image but it still works with Deadeye Navigator and the flicker combo. I'd take out Phantasmal Image and use the whale instead.

@Megalomania: Cheers for the suggestion, I hadn't even thought to use Great Whale! Normally, depending on the banlist, I just end up using my other competitive deck,

as it doesn't have any banned cards.

I used to run Reanimate in a much earlier build of the deck, which was much more graveyard based. My only problem with Reanimate is the hit to life total - I kill myself pretty quickly. But that being said, it is a very good card.

Yawgmoth's Will has been rattling around in my head for a while now. I know its really good. Like, stupidly good. But for some reason I have been on the fence about it for a long time. If I were to put it in the deck, what you you recommend taking out for it?

Why Psychic Strike? Just a simple 3cmc hard counter? Consider cutting it for Deprive. Also, Simic Signet seems underwhelming. Why not Thran Dynamo or Coalition Relic? Have you considered Abrupt Decay? I don't know why people think this card is bad in EDH - the most broken cards cost less than 3!

How has Yisan held up? I think he's too slow and haven't bothered playing him in my damia build. But I'm interested in hearing your experiences...

No Chord of Calling?