Out of curiosity, what do you often search for with Intuition? Do you go right for your combo pieces and then some recursion or do you try to overlap their uses(like tutoring for P.Image, Deadeye and Ghostly Flicker)? Obviously it depends on what you already have and the board state, but if you had no combo pieces currently in hand/on the field, what are some example Intuition piles you would go for?

Might be simpler to ask what are some common Intuition piles you find yourself searching for across several games?

It's very difficult to describe how to use Intuition because Intuition is, well, intuitive. You have to make a call based on what you know about the current game state and what you think will position you best in the turns to come.

Sometimes I Intuition for three free counterspells. Other times, I get three tutors.

I rarely attempt to find combo pieces with Intuition because I prefer to use Tooth and Nail as my enabler. Having to reveal my combo pieces and then dig them out of the graveyard is a much slower, clunkier, and more vulnerable approach.

That is helpful, thanks. I guess it all just comes back to redundancy. Why give your opponent a choice when you can essentially present them with 3 identical cards(in function). I only ask because I'm working on a Damia deck of my own with an attempt to incorporate the old ProsBloom combo(because I'm a sucker for old combos) and properly using Intuition in a new deck is a bit of a challenge. Your primer and specific card explanations were very helpful in making cuts though so thanks again.

What are your thoughts on preordain and ponder ? They seem incredibly effective in leaning down the deck and digging for what you need. Along with that, clique and survival as additional utility that plays nice with your volrath and cradle. I've been able to survival into teferi into tooth and nail several times. Survival baits removal like no tomorrow and clique is just.. well. You know how good it is.

Leyline seems hella mediocre though.

Ponder and Preordain are ineffective in Commander. They don't really offer a necessary utility, and their effects aren't significant enough to warrant inclusion. Brainstorm is better, and it was tested and did not make the cut.

Vendilion Clique is alright, but it's a single-target effect and costs . I feel that it would be more economical to play other cards.

Survival of the Fittest has theoretically gotten more appealing because this deck now runs more creatures than it did a few years back, but I don't know whether it's worth playing over other tutors. How/when do you normally play it, and to what effect?

It depends on the opening hand of course, but I usually pitch dorks to find azusa / oracle (I get priority when they resolve), find combo pieces, or find utility like snapcaster / e wit / clique when it's necessary. The fact that it's instant is incredible in finding what I need. The game ender would usually be to pitch a creature for Teferi, cast him, and then combo out. Survival + volrath allows me to dig for any creature that I need.v

I like it. +1

I feel like at the point where you're wanting to survival into an EOT Teferi then you'd be better off just running Chord of Calling. After all, its the same mana cost as playing the survival, tutoring and then hard casting Teferi except that you can convoke and don't need triple blue.

It also means you don't need a creature in hand as fodder. I run survival in my Saffi Eriksdotter deck and while its not as efficient on draw card, I find that I run into issues with not having a creature to pitch when I run 29 of them.

And chances are if you have necro or sphinx down, you're going to hit some of your tutors very quickly which means TaN becomes a easy to find spell.

Survival of the Fittest only truly shines in Renaimator decks like Karador and Mimeoplasm, where it can be used to set up a next-turn win, or simply to fill the graveyard with bodies while simultaneously pulling needed creatures out of the deck. It's also fairly useful in fast creature-heavy combo decks that require 1-2 creatures to combo out with. Dominus, despite typically winning via Deadeye loops, isn't quite creature-heavy enough to merit its inclusion. That, and your tutor suite is already large enough thanks to having access to black that Survival becomes redundant and sub-par. If you're looking for another creature tutor, I would agree with enpc and say that a card that gives instant gratification like Chord of Calling would likely be a better choice.

Your deck looks awesome :D

I'm definitely gonna make a Damia commander deck now.

Without trying to sound like a lap dog I have to say that every time I look at this deck it is an inspiration. It meets all of the criteria of a well balanced and finely tuned deck and the methodology and precision have inspired so many of my decks. Even a casual player can look at this list and appreciate the work and research that has gone into it. I just wanted you to know that. Thank you for sharing it

Do you find (or at least did you when you played the deck) that you get much use out of Riptide Laboratory's ability? I know you can bounce Snapcaster Mage which is a decent play but did you actually find yourself doing this or did it just tap for mana?

I am sure tasigur has come up before. I am curious what people think of him as a BUG general. I am giving him some testing and finding that while my opponents do get the choice with a deck of good cards i tend to get back something useful. it also provides a mana sink that is readily available when it is time to combo off and it lets you get all of your nonland cards to your hand. Damia is much more satisfying to get running, the card draw is really amazing but getting her their always seems to be a problem without flashing her out before my turn and that is way to easy to see coming.

@enpc: Riptide Laboratory is usually used for mana. Its ability is just available as a utility.

@knight611: Tasigur is covered in the primer under "Why Damia?"

I'm not sure if this has come up before past resets but how does this deck do against the recent Boonweaver Giant deck?

Hey quick question, is negate good enough? Seems like it is strictly better than split decision (unless you want the fork effect) and hits many of the pieces of interaction against you.

I suppose that's largely a political decision, and I'd need to actually test this deck anymore before I could make a call one way or the other. Negate is better if you're playing the hard denial game whereas Split Decision tempts you with the possibility of copying a utility spell for more acceleration.

I suppose the fact that Negate hits a wider range of targets and always counters does give it the overall advantage, so I'll probably slot it in the end. Good pick.

@Magnivore: I'm not all that familiar with the Boonweaver Giant deck, but I suppose it's mostly a matter of outpacing or outcontrolling that deck (as it is with other top-tier competitive decks). Countering Pattern of Rebirth or Boonweaver Giant (whichever is played first) is enough to at least stall the deck a bit, but there's no "permanent" answer to all recursion of those pieces.

I'm sure it's been mentioned a thousand times before, but why no Abrupt Decay?

Abrupt Decay is good if it works with your meta but the taregts it can hit are limited. while alot of 3 or less cmc permanents are good targets but if they last a couple turns the damage has been. the thing you want to get with are to high of a cmc.

The other thing is that Abrupt Decay will more often than not be unable to hit combo pieces, so while it's uncounterable it won't help stopping a player from winning.

Pretty much what they said. Abrupt Decay isn't relevant enough to justify the cost; I prefer 1-drop removal.

Added the Godfather theme for shits and giggles.

I'm certain it's been brought up before, but Pernicious Deed really would make an excellent addition to the deck. It's a board wipe that both hits difficult-to-reach things like enchantments AND gives options; two extremely valuable features in EDH. It can be absolutely backbreaking against certain Tier 1 decks like Zur, Brago, and Derevi. Meanwhile, your strategy isn't terribly reliant on any of the three things Deed hits, with most low-cost nonland permanents being mainly used for ramp. Sacking it for 3 or 4 will usually clear the board of all forms of pesky things without setting you back in any serious way.

I agree it is good but while it is an enchantment you cant expect it to stay around until you next turn very often its not just 3 or 4 its closer to 6 or 7 which is tough. that said its still good if there is a wide range of different types of permanents in your group because it is a nice blanket effect that can scale to problems.

The biggest problem I have with Pernicious Deed is that at the lower end of the curve you really only hit a few mana rocks and while that's good against artifact heavy decks, it will most likely set you back as much as it does them.

At middle ranged stuff, you're probably hitting utility creatures, most of which probably are based around ETB so while you're hitting a few bodies, the cards have probable already done their thing.

At high costed stuff, you're paying the same kind of ball park as for Cyclonic Rift which just seems like the more potent play in most circumstances. And not to mention the deck's tutor suite is more suited to hit instants than enchantments.