Epoch- I see you're considering a "Wish" card. These cards don't work in EDH tournament because of the following rule (found under "Play"):

"Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Spawnsire, Research, Ring of Ma'ruf) do not function in Commander without prior agreement on their scope from the playgroup."

You could consider Merchant Scroll since it fetches one your win-cons and nearly all of your instances are blue anyway.

Merchant Scroll isn't a bad card, but it's not particularly useful in this deck. It could only really find Blue Sun's Zenith, Lim-Dul's Vault, or a counterspell. As a 2-drop sorcery, it's also somewhat slow for how little value it finds. Granted, it could be used to find a free counterspell, but it's not any better in that respect than many of the other, more flexible tutors available.

Formalized the JTMS and Voidslime cuts for Diabolic Intent and Pongify. Now if only I had a group to test with anymore.

Online? Or is the politics aspect particularly important for you?

I don't really like playing online. I think better with paper cards, and there's no chance for UI clunkiness or bugginess.

Wouldn't Pongify fall under "Control" more than "Utility". Also, noticed the swap in with Toxic Deluge - it's a solid card and I don't think you'll regret it.

Out of curiosity, have you considered Peregrine Drake over say Diabolic Intent? while I get that Intent can fetch you TaN, Peregrine Drake provides redundancy to your wincon (as the deck pivots entirely on Palinchron combo wise). That or Great Whale, though I think Peregrine Drake is the more solid of the two.

I'd love to play with you Epoch, I could learn so much.

If I didn't live in the boonies though.....

If Deadeye Navigator ever got banned, how would that affect the power-level of the deck? How would you adjust?

@enpc: You make a good point with Peregrine Drake. I guess my problem with it has traditionally been that it can't go infinite with anything other than Deadeye Navigator. Same with Great Whale. Of the two, though, Peregrine Drake is the choice.

@Indigoindigo: Deadeye Navigator is one of the core cards of the deck, unfortunately. It drives the infinite mana combo and also facilitates many of the deck's engines and win conditions (e.g., bouncing Rune-Scarred Demon to tutor the deck, bouncing Venser, Shaper Savant to bounce all permanents opponents control).

That said, you could, in theory, just substitute some other card for it and run the same engine because you can still combo Palinchron and Phantasmal Image. The play there is to Tooth and Nail for Palinchron and Rune-Scarred Demon, then tutor Phantasmal Image. (You can't put both Palinchron and Phantasmal Image onto the field simultaneously because Phantasmal Image can't copy anything that isn't already on the field.) You go infinite, then copy Rune-Scarred Demon and tutor your win condition.

I'm leery about that course of action because it means you're really running with no suitable backups. You'd want a backup infinite mana combo, but that means running another utility card that doesn't really interact with the other cards in the deck.

Peregrine Drake never really feels bad to play; I think in this deck the list is a lot tighter over the three colors that it may not be necessary, but say in my simic that has both more space because of and a lack of what black brings to the table, it becomes more of a no brainer.

Certainly, it could fit in here if you needed the added consistency, but if the meta already has a tough time dealing with what you're bringing to the table as is, it's likely not necessary.

I highly recommend Frontier Siege. The testing i have done has been really promising. It provides just enough mana to keep enough lands untapped to keep things under control and keep moving forward towards your win. If unanswered for 2 or 3 turns with a decent draw source it really charges ahead. Yes it is four mana and i have had people remove it be fore my next turn but having them use it on something like that vs a combo piece, even better if it gets countered

@Silverf1sh: To clarify, this deck doesn't play its combo pieces individually. The only time Palinchron or even a Peregrine Drake would come out is through or immediately after a Tooth and Nail. So I'll address your comment in the context of "play" meaning "include."

Peregrine Drake wouldn't be a bad choice because it is, as you suggest, extra security. Its inclusion is not so much dependent on whether the meta can typically handle the deck's main game plan as it is on whether the meta can possibly handle the deck's main game plan. Even the most consistent or powerful decks encounter suboptimal scenarios where your primary pieces get removed or are unavailable for one reason or another, and those are the times at which it really would pay to have an alternative ready. One of the weaknesses of this deck is that it currently relies very heavily on Palinchron. There's a single point of failure when it comes to the infinite mana combo. That on its own is enough to make an alternate piece a consideration.

@knight611: I never did get the chance to test Frontier Siege, but I'm wary of adding cards in the 4-drop slot. The issue with paying that much in this deck is that it really sets you back in terms of tempo. It's very difficult to play a 4-drop and have it come down (1) early enough to have a meaningful impact on the game and (2) without costing you too much to bring online. So my concern going in is really that there's no convenient time to really play something like Frontier Siege. I actually cut Jace, the Mind Sculptor for the same reason: CMC 4 is just a very bad place on this deck's mana curve, and it's very awkward to play around it.

Just did the math. It would cost me $3900 to upgrade to foils and promos of most of the remaining cards in my paper list, and that's with Unhinged basics and Expedition lands. And it's not counting the paper cards that need to be replaced to match the online list.

Then you just need to petition WotC to print some foil ABURs.

your right about the 4 drop spot. I dropped Jace for the same reason. This does refund half of its mana cost which helps. Sadly I feel that my results arent very good right now because my deck has been giving very awkward lately and tripping on itself.

Epochalyptik: Which cards are you currently missing from the list (ignoring promos/foils)?

Also, wouldn't running unhinged lands mean you go back to regular basics instead of snow-covered ones? Or has it not been relevant?

As for the earlier comment about Peregrine Drake, this is also why I highly recommend Ghostly Flicker. I also run Archaeomancer in my list over Snapcaster Mage because for me the repeatability is important (that and snapcasters are expensive).

Just something to think about I guess (I appreciate that I've recommended this before).

Oh, and have you figured out what to do with the Dryad Arbor?

@enpc: I'm still missing Hinterland Harbor, Carpet of Flowers, Toxic Deluge, and Diabolic Intent.

And yes, the switch to UNH basics would mean losing the snow-covered basics, but those are more of a cutesy tech answer to anybody playing monocolor ramp with Extraplanar Lens (which isn't highly common at the tournament level) than a "serious" design choice. I haven't found them to be relevant or irrelevant yet.

Ghostly Flicker is another option, and I think maybe the solution is to run both Peregrine Drake and Ghostly Flicker for the overall resilience boost. Eternal Witness is sufficient to enable a Ghostly Flicker combo (which is a backup combo anyway), so I don't think Archaeomancer is really necessary. The question really is what to drop for them. I think I can get away with cutting Diabolic Intent (despite having not tested it) because the other tutors in the deck are quite solid. But nothing in this list is really an obvious choice, which is why improving the deck is such a process.

As for Dryad Arbor, I think I might replace it with Gaea's Cradle. With Dryad Arbor, you get one guaranteed turn of tempo loss because Dryad Arbor has summoning sickness, and you also risk sweepers killing one of your lands. With Gaea's Cradle, you get a more even distribution of chances for tempo loss across turns depending on when you play your creatures and how many you play. In recent goldfishing, I realized that the number of creatures I play is often 0 until Damia or the combo turn. I admittedly didn't do many test games, but it's still cause for some concern over Gaea's Cradle's viability.

With what you say about Gaea's Cradle how relable is Diabolic Intent? I am currently considering putting Intent in my deck but i have a similiar situation where i dont any creatures for the most part until i go to combo off.

A very good example on how to properly write an amazing deck description, will use it for future reference :)

Dude, why settle for unhinged when you could have Guru or judge promo full art lands? It's only a couple hundred more dollars.

Figag: You may as well get some Summer Magic Islands :P

They don't come in foil but they go for $600 a piece NM/M.

I cant help but wonder if Tasigur, the Golden Fang would be better than Damia as a commander. Have you given this any thought?

I addressed Tasigur in previous updates.

The long and short of it is that Tasigur offers almost nothing to the deck in terms of sustain. The last ability is only really relevant if I have infinite mana, at which point I can recur everything from my yard. But Tasigur doesn't actually help me get to the late game. Outside of a combo, it's just a more expensive and inefficient recursion spell. Damia, on the other hand, actually provides midgame sustain that helps to carry this deck to the combo turns.

I'm having trouble deciding whether or not to put Necropotence back into my deck. People in my group tend to drop everything they are doing whenever I play necro and prepare for whatever it is I might do next. Do you find yourself in a similar situation? How do you deal with it?

(I think you probably have, but I will ask anyways.)

Have you thought about transmutating for one of your WinCons, (particulary Blue Sun's Zenith)?