@m12fox: Combat isn't really a huge part of the game for me. I rarely find myself getting attacked for any appreciable amount, and there are removal spells to deal with the occasional voltron deck (and Damnation hits hexproof generals in case I'm going up against Sigarda or something similar). If those creatures had functions outside of combat, then they would be more viable in this deck.

Ive play tested this deck a couple of times, and it doesn't seem to hold up well in a 1v1 environment. It loses to very aggro strategy and it loses to very hardcore control decks. As your competive setting is pods it is very strong, however Rakdos Aggro upsets it too much and kills it far to quickly, Clique Control beats it in the counterspell war, Geist Of Saint Traft is far to quick, and infect can crush it before it gets off the ground, but only in 1v1. For your Pod setting very strong but i feel that a dedicated combo deck would be able to out race it. Not sure on how to improve it, but very well done.

Have you considered Impulse ?

Cavern of Souls is great!

Wizards, Humans or Illusions, it does its work.

How about Trinket Mage and Realms Uncharted ?

Don't know what to replace though.

@gromly42: I could see the deck being outraced in 1v1 by some voltron builds. It's optimized for 4-man tournament pods and my normal 1v1 matchup is the mirror. Did you notice any problems in the playtesting process?

@BX223Hunter: Impulse doesn't really seem very good. card:Sensei's Divining Top and the innumerable fetches/tutors do essentially the same thing.

@eros123eros: Trinket Mage isn't really as good as the other ramp cards in the deck. If I didn't have access to green, it would be more of a consideration. Realms Uncharted is also a little underwhelming. It doesn't put any of the lands on the battlefield and it's only really useful when I have Crucible of Worlds and either Oracle of Mul Daya or Azusa, Lost but Seeking .

have you looked at Defense of the Heart ? That would be an auto win for you with your infinite mana combos

Defense of the Heart used to be in the deck, but it wasn't very reliable. There's no guarantee an opponent will control three or more creatures before the final turn, and the enchantment is hard to protect. It has to be cast at sorcery speed unless I have Leyline of Anticipation or card:Alchemist's Refuge.

one of the major issues that i pinipointed was the lack of Ramp, your early turns are fairly lack luster, and with green as a color i feel that you should be playing more early ramp cards. the ones you have are Very strong but can be disrupted by an opponent who knows your list/played against it before, it also has a distinct lack of board wipes, you have strong pinpoint removal but say a opponent lands Edric or Momir Vig they can easily land a multiple threats on that single turn that you simply cannot deal with(unless you have infinite mana, but you should have won by then). Damnation and Pernicious Deed are just 2 cards, maybe a Lifes Finale or perhaps a Black Suns Zenith. Another card that might be useful due to your creature based combos is Chord Of Calling, or Perhaps a Worldly Tutor. Also if a deck can assemble a better consistent draw engine( Clique Decks as an Example) then they will win in the control game and so Speed is a major Issue for this Deck. Perhaps look at some of the French Lists for Edric and for Zur both of which are very fast and very strong(so strong edric was banned recently). Edric is currently my worst Matchup, both for my infect deck and my Combo/control Memnarch Deck,

I don't typically run into scenarios where board wipes are really necessary. A lot of the threats end up getting countered or hit by one of the few spot removal spells.

I would like the deck to be a bit faster, but I'm not sure what other ramp to include or what to drop to make room for any ramp that I find.

Chord of Calling and Worldly Tutor are kind of limited. I would rather use Tooth and Nail or general purpose tutors to find my combo pieces because they are more efficient and flexible.

I'm in the same position over draw power as I am over ramp. I just don't know what else I could include and at what cost.

My knowledge on EDH is limited but I can see Nephalia Drownyard being very useful in here. It can disrupt a card:Sensei's Divining Top or any tutor that puts cards on top of their library like Vampiric Tutor .

Before I cleaned up the comment section, that was one of the cards being discussed. I see its utility, but I think the hefty activation cost (tapping four lands total) is too steep to really be of use in this deck. I opted for Cavern of Souls instead.

How does Voidslime work for you? I assume well, as you would have cut it if it didn't, but I don't know, I feel there are plenty of better counterspells. It does have the benefit of hitting abilities, but a Trickbind stops them flat, and for the rest of the turn. It's more narrow though. Thoughts?

Also, Hinder but no Spell Crumple?

I like Voidslime because it's not strictly a Stifle ; it has the flexibility of a counterspell as well (clearly), which makes it useful all the time. There may not always be an ability that's worth countering, but there will always be spells worth countering. Where Stifle or Trickbind could be a dead card waiting for an ability to trigger or be activated, Voidslime has the flexibility and viability to constantly be usable. I also find that the mana cost isn't too prohibitive, since the land base is very stable.

I prefer Hinder because I have graveyard interactions (Snapcaster Mage , Eternal Witness ). Hinder can potentially be used again whereas Spell Crumple would go tot he bottom of my library to never be seen again unless I use a precious tutor to find it.

I'm not trying to suggest you nix Hinder for Crumple but rather have them both. Having two of your counters fuck over their graveyard interactions is pretty good, with the obvious benefit of tucking commanders as well.

I'm not sure what I would drop to run Spell Crumple , though. The list is pretty tight as it is.

I have a strong feeling that Burgeoning would be great in here, but I'm also stuck as to say what it should replace. I want to suggest you replace Exploration , since they have the same cmc, and since you play multiplayer more often, you can be dropping much more land if each of your opponents hits at least one land drop a turn, which would empty your hand of lands to draw more cards on your upkeep, but it seems that you prefer Exploration 's reliability because the only factor is if you have two lands in hand, not your opponent's hand or decisions.

The reason I currently run Exploration instead of Burgeoning is, as you said, it makes the extra lands immediately available and not dependent upon my opponents playing their own lands. Additionally, Exploration works with Crucible of Worlds and Oracle of Mul Daya whereas Burgeoning requires the extra lands to come from my hand.

You have probably already considered this, but Jace, Architect of Thought ? Obviously, the debuff on attacks isn't huge, but you have access to pseudo FoF that gives your opponent less leverage, and if you dedicate him to going ultimate, you can rob your opponents of combo pieces and have ridiculous knowledge of their deck strategy. The chief downside is that you can't have Jace and Jace both out.

I was hoping that you could clarify something for me in regards to the Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Mana Web combo. How do the rules for EDH handle the the productions of illegal mana colors? If a mono-blue deck steals control of a Dimir Signet and activates it, does the signet produce 1 colorless and 1 blue mana, or does it produce a blue and a black mana and then a replacement effect triggers and changes the black mana to a colorless one? The wording on MTGCommander is a little vague on just how that is supposed to be handled. The reason why I ask is even if Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth caused a UG deck's lands to count as swamps, are the lands actually capable of producing black mana under the rules of EDH and thus all get tapped down by Mana Web ?

$1400!!!

:(

@SaberTech The important thing to notice here is the wording on Mana Web . It says "...all lands he or she controls that can produce any type of mana that land can produce." Since all lands are swamps they all can produce B, whether they do or not is irrelevant.

Another thing to look at is in the EDH rules. "A deck may not generate mana outside its colours. If an effect would generate mana of an illegal colour, it generates colourless mana instead." This creates a replacement effect due to the wording "...instead." as can be seen in the wording on other examples of replacement effects, Doubling Season for example, uses the words "instead".

@Ohthenoises It's the idea that there is a triggered effect that changes the mana type that confuses me. Mana abilities don't go on the stack so at what point would a replacement effect be able to trigger to change the mana before it was already in your mana pool? I was under the impression that the rules meant that is was impossible for source you control to produce mana outside of your general's colors within an EDH game.

Edit: I was under the impression that the rules meant that it was impossible for sources you control to produce a color of mana outside of your general's colors within an EDH game, and that if you were somehow able to produce mana of an illegal color that mana would be produced as colorless.

There's a ruling for this actually but I'll post it to your wall rather than derail the thread further.