I don't mind repeat recommendations. If anything, they affirm that the cards in the maybeboard deserve to be there.

For Autumn's Veil, I just wonder whether it has a more favorable impact over a larger number of games than, say, a counterspell. Autumn's Veil is great for protecting the combo turn whereas a counterspell is generally useful at any stage of the game. It's also likely that Autumn's Veil itself will be countered because it acts as a surrogate combo piece in terms of threat level. If an opponent is relying on countermagic to stop me, he or she has to counter Autumn's Veil or lose the game. I wonder whether just casting Tooth and Nail and spending that extra mana fueling a counterspell to counter their counterspell would be more productive.

So in that scenario, say you cast Autumn's Veil, they attempt to Counterspell. You remand them, the counter you were saving to protect the combo, they have two options...counter that, and then hope someone else can stop you assuming you have no more answers, or they hold onto a counterspell they can no longer cast on you. You combo off and win. To be honest, if an opponent is holding more answers than that, you were going to have a bad time anyway. The only scenario I see this spell being useless is when none of your opponents play these colors. And then you don't need the protection it provides anyway. The other colors have MUCH less interaction with your combo. And your standard counter suite can hinder that as per usual.

The thing is that in that scenario, assuming Autumn's Veil's place is taken by a counterspell, it would be equally effective to begin the combo and then counterspell their response to it. In that case, you'd actually have the extra counterspell (because you're not preemptively casting something and leaving it open to a counterspell) and would be able to stop something that Autumn's Veil potentially wouldn't.

Of course, this level of argument is theoretical and isn't a substitute for playtesting, but I wonder what I would even cut in order to run Autumn's Veil.

I played with Autumn's Veil for a time, before switching it up to add to my land base. Veil works great at what you're theoretically trying to get it to do, but other times it can feel kinda clunky in your hand. I still side it in when I know I'm podding against majority combo decks, but knowing that you're likely not using a sideboard I would say it's definitely a choice that's made easier in playtesting than discussion.

May I suggest you take out Spell Pierce for something? Just for the time being, it seemed like one of the less powerful effects in your deck (since in most games, will be trivial in EDH).

In its place, Forbid, Capsize, Ghostly Flicker, Autumn's Veil could possibly work?

@FAMOUSWATERMELON: Spell Pierce is a counter war-oriented card. It's meant to give me the edge during the combo turn or when an opponent taps out; the isn't going to be payable at the points at which I'm casting it.

I don't like Forbid. While it's alright in theory for casual and semicompetitive Damia decks, it's expensive in general and prohibitively expensive to buy back. It ends up being a Cancel with slightly higher, but equally unrealized potential.

Capsize used to be in the deck a long time ago, but I decided that it's too expensive as a utility spell and unnecessary as a combo finisher (Venser, Shaper Savant is sufficient).

Ghostly Flicker is in the deck, but I forgot to remove the copy from the maybeboard.

I think the comment got lost in the discussion but what're your thoughts on Kiora's Follower now that you're adding Gaea's Cradle?

I don't think Kiora's Follower is worth it. Speaking strictly in terms of cost, the economy of 2-drop cards is much poorer compared to 1-drop creatures (which is why the deck focuses so heavily on the 1-drop slot).

(Prepare for theory.)

When you have a card with CMC N, what ends up happening in control decks is that casting that card can either be done on turn N (if it's early in the game and you can afford to tap out) or any subsequent turn. But tapping almost all the way out out on turn N+1 leaves you with vastly fewer options because it takes away plays of CMC N+1 and makes it difficult to cast multiple cards with CMC

Let's look at an example:
We have Arbor Elf, Deathrite Shaman, Counterspell, Kiora's Follower, and Crucible of Worlds. We'll ignore the lands in hand and assume perfect fixing so we can focus on these cards.

1. On turn 1, you want to cast either Arbor Elf or Deathrite Shaman. Let's assume our turn 1 land is a Command Tower and that there are no fetches in yards yet, so the ramp abilities of these creatures are not currently relevant.
2. On turn 2, you could cast Kiora's Follower or leave mana open for Counterspell. Either play requires you to commit all of your available mana. You could also cast the remaining CMC 1 utility creature.
3. On turn 3, you could cast Crucible of Worlds or, assuming you still have any permutation of these cards in hand, you could cast Kiora's Follower and a CMC 1 utility creature or leave mana open for counterspell and cast a CMC 1 utility creature.
4. On turn 4, it becomes possible to cast Kiora's Follower and Counterspell on the same turn

Of course, a real game would mean that you're drawing cards and responding to developing board states, so you would have even more options and decisions to make.

This theory scales with ramp, so you're really making decisions based on the mana available to you each turn and in future turns. Assuming the turn 1 land in the above scenario were a Tropical Island, you could potentially make the turn 3 decision on turn 2.

(As an aside, this is why I focus so heavily on ramp: it accelerates the deck such that you can commit more resources sooner and make more plays than you normally could at any given time.)

So in this sense, Kiora's Follower is somewhat dangerous because it costs more and therefore (1) comes down later and (2) interferes with plays on N and N+1 mana whereas Arbor Elf, while less functional, is more economical in more situations.

Additionally, I haven't found Gaea's Cradle to be so outrageously powerful that it warrants slight building around, and, although it untaps mana rocks and other permanents as well, Kiora's Follower doesn't seem to be economical enough to include.

I apply this logic to each of my decisions for cards with CMC 2+, which is why I hesitate more to include a card if it's more expensive.

@ Epochalyptik

I found ONE possible solution to land hate, and it only works on targeted land hate, which you do not deal with very often by my guess.

Skyshroud Blessing

...and it's so situational and not even really that good for your deck. :\

I mean, it's awesome! ...just not, "What you are doing good."

Or Chill because it's the red player doing that... except it's also a wasted slot. :\

(Also: Super tempted to build a mono-red deck who's entire point is to just mess with competitive EDH players.)

That said: Voidslime any good to you for those awkward corner cases? I realize it's a 3 mana counterspell, but it also fills that "space" where a Trickbind might go but is more relevant now. I realize you've already cut it once before, but that is legit the last answer I have to your only real weakness.

I'd LOVE to see a Price of Progress resolve in your meta. It's, like, the best mono-red "counter spell" to all those nasty control decks.

Pssst: I'm "that guy" in my meta. ;D

What does everyone think of Split Decision? It's a hard answer in a counter war, and it doesn't seem bad in other scenarios.

It's one of my favourite counterspells, but you need to play politics or it can backfire. In a counter war however, its a win win.

I like it a lot. It should at least be tested.

My thinking is that any spell worth casting Split Decision on will be beneficial to me to either copy or counter. Against an obvious combo piece or enabler, it should be a counterspell (the other players will likely be intelligent enough to not want to lose), whereas against a utility spell it would provide advantage to me or keep an opponent down.

I could theoretically slot it over Memory Lapse, which has the same mana cost.

I cut it for some other stuff more specific to my deck, but I had originally used it over memory lapse and had no lingering doubts over having done it.

While Memory Lapse creates a tempo swing, they still have access to the apell countered, albeit a turn later. I think Split Decision is a more permanent answer.

Any reason why you're not running Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time, they can help dig for combo pieces very effectively and given that 1/3-1/2 of your deck is non-permanents/things that get sacrificed, you could probably either of them fairly consistently. I don't think you'd want both, but I've found one or the other to be quite effective in combo/control decks.

@Vasseer: Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time are certainly good cards, but I don't know if they're worth running over any of the other cards in the deck. To be fair, I haven't tested either card, but they're largely late-game cards that I wouldn't really want to cast without completely delving, and even with delve I have to be careful not to turn off recursion engines unnecessarily.

I could theoretically swap one of them for Lim-Dul's Vault because they actually put cards into my hand; Dig Through Time seems like the best option in that respect given that it's an instant.

On the topic of Dig Through Time and Lim-Dul's Vault, I have to say that after playing both they serve different purposes. If you can, I would recommend running both but I think that vault is still the better card as its reach is much further.

As for Kiora's Follower, I actually think you should cut Leyline of Anticipation for it. Here is my thinking about it:

• you mentioned that you only really use leyline if its in your opening hand, other than that its a pitch spell for Force of Will and Misdirection. Follower being blue means it fills this criterion also if needs be.

• follower is green, meaning it can be fetched with GSZ for additional ramp options if required.

• follower is also a creature which ups your creature count for cradle and simultaneously doubles its value.

• combined with a turn 1 Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, it means a turn 3 Damia assuming correct fixing.

• with Top it is basically 1 mana draw an extra card each turn.

And sure I get the whole "3 mana turn 2 vs 4 mana turn 3" and timing surrounding tapping out being important, however you still have to make the call about it for cards like Grim Monolith or even to some extent Nature's Lore or Three Visits. While you get one mana open that you could conceivably play a mana dork with, at that point you're also tapping out. But I you leave the man open, you're then talking about 4 "counter "spells you can cast; Stifle, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm and Dispel. I can maybe see you using pierce go shutdown a ramp play but that then comes down to the situation. And sure,the is Nature's Claim but again is situational.

And in the case of swapping out leyline for it, you're not slowing down on ramp anyway, you're just adding more.

I really like the idea of Split Decision, its something that i will be trying to find a place for very soon. What are everyone's thoughts on Spell Shrivel it is three mana yes but only a single blue. it exiles if they don't, so it can remove problem spells that abused.

Spell Shrivel isn't worth playing, in my opinion. In most cases, you'll care more about having an economical counter effect rather than about exiling the spell you're countering, and there are better 3-drop exile counters than Spell Shrivel.

Since all the infinite combos are running around... Helix Pinnacle?

My two cents on Pinnacle; it's nice, but it falls to the same waiting until upkeep problem that Defense of the Heart does. Now the shroud helps a lot with that, but I still saw it get blown away quite a bit.

The problem with Helix Pinnacle is that it doesn't do anything outside of the combo. It's not a good card for this deck at all.

Part of what makes this deck strong is that it plays wincons that have applicability outside of the combo. I don't include cards that are only useful as finishers because they don't add to the other dimensions of the deck's function. Helix Pinnacle is only a mana sink, and it doesn't win on the spot anyway. There are no situations in which it's more advantageous to play it over something that's already in the deck.

Also, it may seem lowly but Urborg Elf could be used for cheap, versatile ramp.