I own three Gaea's Cradles.

The deck was successful at 36 lands, but I agree that 36 is the minimum (for any deck, not just tricolor). I would sooner run Gaea's Cradle than Mana Confluence, but I suppose Mana Confluence doesn't kill me like City of Brass does; I can avoid the damage by using Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

That must be nice...

And yeah, that's why I suggested Mana Confluence over City of Brass. You can get the same benefit with Gaea's Cradle and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help mitigate the fact that you might not have creatures in play.

Ironically, including Gaea's Cradle is more of a selling point for keeping Dryad Arbor in the deck, however I think you should be fine. This is another reason I really like Chromatic Lantern though, it fixes both Cradle and Confluence, however I understand that it's a bit slow in this deck.

@ Epochalyptik & enpc:

Land counts are quite situation. Commanders that like mana rocks (IE, Brago, King Eternal) operate best at 28-29 lands when built correctly. Even the better Derevi, Empyrial Tactician keep to a high of 30 lands. I personally have never built an EDH deck that wanted more than 35 lands, 3-color or otherwise. It's partially meta-dependent though.

Also, cool deck. Best Damia list I've seen in a while. +1 from me!

NarejED: Land counts are situational to a point. While you can push lower limits with some commanders, I disagree with running a count as low as what you're suggesting.

At 29 lands, statistically you will draw a land 1 in every 3.4 cards. This means statisically you will have 2 lands in your opening hand and draw your next at card 11 (well technically 10.2 but since we are working with integers). This is turn 4 without any card advantage. Already you have run into the issue of missing a land drop on turn 3. While you can fill this in with mana rocks, you are now having to pay for resources (i.e. to get +1 mana per turn you have had to invest mana). And that's assuming you have hit a <2 CMC rock. At this point you're not actually ramping, you're merely "keeping up".

Compare that to 36 lands, which is 1 in every 2.75 lands. This means you draw your land 3 on turn 2. So now you have a land to play on turn 3. combine that with ramp and you're now ahead. It also means you can happily run cards like Mox Diamond knowing that you're ahppy to pitch a land as you have enough.

And all of this is assuming you get an average hand. Which, if you've played enough games will know that while you get some good hands, you get lousy ones too. And if you're not Partial Paris mulliganing (which none of my playgroups do) then your hand is only keepable if you get the lands to play it, otherwise you take a whole new one which again is a gamble. And on top of that, most decks are played with, shuffled and then played with again. This causes lands to clump, maning you can go 6-7 cards without seeing a single land.

While any deck can do well with a good hand, the mark of a well designed deck is that it can do well wih a poor opening hand. That's why I run 36-37 lands and 15-20 dedicated ramp effects on top of that. I'm doing what I can to reduce that chances of getting a slow opening hand.

Don't get me wrong, I can see the appeal of running a lower land count. It means you can put more stuff in your deck. Every player has been there as some point "if I just cut a few lands" however this statement is dangerous. Ramp is super important however without the initial mana to play it is no good. And it doesn't count as ramp if after 4 turns you're no better off than the person who didn't ramp but just consistently hit his/her land drops. Except that he/she has been able to play things each turn.

Also, while you have listed some commanders who can run a lower land count, these are both exceptions to the rule.

@ enpc I can definitely see running more lands if you're playing in a group that doesn't allow partial Paris mulligans. However, if you're playing by the OFFICIAL American Commander rules (as of 2009), you can mulligan quite aggressively to get the needed early game cards, thus allowing you to build a slightly higher risk list. If you're giving advice based on a minority, non-legal form of EDH, that could be harmful to newer players just getting into Commander who are actually playing by the sanctioned rules.

NarejED: Regardless of whether or not I use partial Paris mulligans, the logic still holds up. Even with pp mulligans I would not go lower than 35 lands.

You shouldn't be building a deck knowing that you will need to mulligan every opening hand.

This deck will not function with a land count below 30. Almost no decks will. It functions optimally with between 36-40 lands.

This deck is built to capitalize on exploration effects to get more lands onto the field rather than rely solely on mana rocks. That's a large part of the reason the deck is so successful; lands are much harder to interfere with and they cost you nothing to play. There also aren't enough good ramp rocks to fill the gap. So without a higher land count, this deck's ramp package doesn't work.

It's also worth noting that the end game plan of this deck is to cast Tooth and Nail and go infinite with Palinchron, which means the operating cost of the combo is somewhat higher than the operating cost of other decks' win conditions.

Discussion reset. Let's see if we can get this to 700!

SECOND!

So Epoch, when are you going to flush out your sideboard? Seems pretty lonely in there right now.

Any idea what you would add there?

The deck doesn't currently have a real sideboard. I suppose I could build one. Not really sure what I might need, though. It's been so long since I played.

Mainboard Living Wish to get Spawnsire of Ulamog getting Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, It That Betrays, Desolation Twin, Void Winnower, Oblivion Sower, Pathrazer of Ulamog and Eldrazi Conscription (to go on Damia). They'll never see it coming.

That sounds wonderful, I would do that if I played this deck just to annoy people and/or make them cry (my enemies, that is)

Have you considered Sire of Stagnation over Consecrated Sphinx? It seems like a relevant body, great card draw, and decent deck disruption.

Sire of Stagnation is certainly a good card, but I don't think it's really a replacement for Consecrated Sphinx. The deck disruption is not very relevant except perhaps for those corner cases where, by chance, it happens to exile a win condition. In terms of draw power, it is worse than Consecrated Sphinx. You aren't guaranteed to get a trigger per turn (players can choose not to play a land, but they can't choose not to draw a card for their draw step), and the likelihood of getting multiple triggers per turn tends to favor Consecrated Sphinx. Consecrated Sphinx's ability is also a may ability, which can be useful in corner cases.

I'm not really concerned about how large the bodies are because this deck does not attack and rarely has to block.

Now, these are just initial reactions. I don't have test time with Sire of Stagnation. But, on paper, it seems worse than Consecrated Sphinx in the chosen capacity.

Maringam You can't always depend on someone dropping a land, you CAN always depend on someone drawing at least one card.

There isn't an EDH deck that doesn't have a draw engine as well so chances are you are going to be drawing 4 cards per turn.

I know that Epoch never acknowledges his attack step but evasion is also a thing, sire doesn't have flying so I'm not sure +1/+1 beats flying.

Inb4 Obstinate Familiar.

klone13 /sigh....

Thats fair.

If nekusar is in your meta then...

what would you suggest against to fight an arccum dagson deck?

Okay, Firstly, I've been playing Damia combo for over a year now in competitive play using your primer. I did make a few changes I think you would appreciate though. I play Walk the Aeons as an alternate win condition. Walk + Azusa + Crucible is infinite turns. I also use Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers. 7 Lands and Palinchron is infite mana. I'm also quite fond of Villainous Wealth as a win-con/utility. Trickbind > Stifle any day. And in my meta, creature decks are a huge problem for me so I had to add in evacuation as a backup for damnation.

@knight611: There are a couple of approaches. You could run dedicated answers if it's the largest or only threat in your meta. However, I think the best answer is to include more permanent-facing removal as well as to play a more defensive control game. Arcum can potentially go off before this deck does, so you may need to adjust your tempo to allow for things like Abrupt Decay. You can play some efficient artifact hate in Crumble and Oxidize. Krosan Grip is also on the table, but it's very expensive to cast. I think, though, that shutting down Arcum is really a matter of killing the general because the ability can be used at instant speed once it's online.

@Krosanbronze: Good to hear that you've been playing the deck (or a variant of it, anyway). But I can't help but feel that some of the substitutions you've made are subpar, especially at the competitive level.

Walk the Aeons is an expensive card to run as a utility, and it's only really valuable if you have Crucible of Worlds and Azusa, Lost but Seeking. And if you're at a point where you can tutor the pieces to that combo, you could have already executed another combo.

Cabal Coffers was cut three years ago when Primeval Titan was banned. It's not good on its own; you really need to have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the field before Cabal Coffers is even worth playing. And the interaction is not strong enough early enough to justify inclusion if both lands can't be tutored simultaneously.

Villainous Wealth is, as I explain in the primer, not really a good card for this deck (or even for competitive in general). It's unreliable and expensive as a utility spell, it doesn't necessarily guarantee you the win when played as a combo finisher, and it doesn't win you the game any differently than Blue Sun's Zenith does.

Trickbind vs Stifle comes down to your meta and your personal preferences. Stifle's main benefit is its low cost, whereas Trickbind's main benefits are its split second and one-turn shutdown. Both are certainly good cards.

I think you would want to play Toxic Deluge before Evacuation. It's a cheaper answer to more board states, and the fact that it actually kills things rather than giving them back to your opponents makes it a more permanent answer as well.

Villainous Wealth is a blast to play and resolve in a casual metagame. But so is Prophet of Kruphix.

Thanks for the ideas, deffinitly will have to test them. I am giving Frontier Siege a try. I saw it in your maybe board and im on a hunt of hidden or overlook tech for decks. something that people aren't prepared for. My Deck if you care to look. I am also trying Sultai Charm, I am a fan of the flexibility and its instant speed. The cost is very high without a doubt but have to try it.

@EpochalyptikWhile I respect your comments and have seen the downsides to the deck first hand, I am firm with my current decklist aside from Tezzeret's Gambit. I cannot come up with a better draw spell that I don't have. I understand what you mean about Villainous Wealth and Evacuation being too heavy and not strong enough but with my meta they're the best suited cards I have. Most of the other players are a variant of combo or aggressive decks. If you have any suggestions, here's the link to my list with credits to you in the description.