Well you could be right about the Draining Whelk , but it's a often a large beater that has to be dealt with.

I was wondering if you ever tried Forbid in here. It's obviously quite broken with Damia, Sage of Stone . And if you have, why'd you cut it? Other counterspells have other utility uses, I get that (except for Counterspell itself). But its reusability is also quite precious (especially one-on-one).

btw, that last guy was probably either trolling or didn't really go though the deck carefully, hahah. Weird...

Forbid is alright but I never find anything I would want to discard to buy it back. Pitching a single card to Force of Will is painful enough. I suppose the double discard isn't the worst thing in the world but I have sufficient control to make me think it isn't worth it. If I could pay life to buy it back instead of just discarding it'd be an auto-include (and unspeakably unfair).

I would strongly suggest the additions of Forbid and Phantasmal Image to your list.

Forbid is the card that I would argue has better synergy with Damia than any other card does. The way your deck is situated it would abuse Forbid to the near fullest extent. You are using Consecrated Sphinx plus plenty of other draw, and you are running Vedalken Orrery, Leyline of Anticipation, and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. All of this combines for a very oppressive position for your opponents when you use Forbid properly. Remember that Force of Will nets you card disadvantage of 2 while Forbid nets you 1.

Phantasmal Image is a very strong card on its own and the fact that you are running Palinchron almost begs the card for inclusion. Remember that Phantasmal Image copying Palinchron = Infinite Mana

I would also suggest cheapening your mana ramp and adding cards like Three Visits and Sakura-Tribe Elder.

It is also my opinion that you are running too few lands and have posting my reasoning in response to your comment on my Damia build.

I see no reason to use Three Visits and Sakura-Tribe Elder . I don't need to crowd the deck with too many low-cost ramp spells and I already run card:Nature's Lore. Plus Sakura-Tribe Elder only finds basic lands.

The land count has not disappointed me and with my experiences playing this deck I believe adding more would be disadvantageous.

While Force of Will is a nonrecoverable spell and Forbid has buyback, Force of Will also has the advantage of being able to be cast for 0 mana. Forbid requires the discarding of two cards if it is to be used to its fullest potential and I typically don't find myself wanting to do that because I have a lot of advantage and combo pieces in hand. I will pay attention to my next games to see if Forbid has a time and place in my deck but I will not add it until I am sure.

Phantasmal Image is okay but Phyrexian Metamorph does the same things and then some. While Phyrexian Metamorph doesn't instantly create infinite mana with Palinchron , several of the other creatures in the deck do that in addition to providing extra utility.

What do you usually abuse with card:Yawgmoth's Will?

To be honest, I haven't often cast card:Yawgmoth's Will (it's never in hand), but it's nice to recur a tutor or counterspell to win or save the game. It offers some utility in that regard and also allows the reuse of creatures, although that hasn't been as big a deal in my experience. It's not the strongest card in the deck, so if there's an improvement to be made I could conceive of cutting card:Yawgmoth's Will for it.

have you thought about card:Lim-Dul's Vault? if played right, it basically lets you stack your deck and then you can draw into your combos quick for the win.

Funny you should say that. I just traded for one at SCG DC yesterday and haven't updated the deck yet.

As a side note, I played two EDH side events and won the second pod. I lost the first one due to heavy color screw and a misplay on my last turn. If the color screw persists over the next few games, I will need to rethink the mana base.

I have been thinking about dropping Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger . I never use it outside of the combo and it is too expensive to be a practical creature to cast. Even if I were to resolve it and attempt to get some extra mana on the next turn, it would likely die before then and I'd be tapped out and down a card.

A friend of mine who pilots a deck very similar to this one (and with whom I work on the list) recently added Intuition , which I find to be interesting. It has potential as a game winner if you find Tooth and Nail /win spell and two recursion cards.

Intuition is a crazy powerful card. I run it in a sharuum edh. Basically if the card resolves its game over, cause all the pieces you need are either in the graveyard ready to be brought back or in your hand. And at instant speed nonetheless. It'd be worth at least playtesting.

I was wondering why you decided to do Phyrexian Arena over Necropotence for this deck?

The triple black tends to be annoying to get, since I'm usually searching up blue lands. It's not impossible, but I don't like to have more than double black before double green because nothing else in the deck requires more than that.

What would you drop for Intuition ? I'm thinking Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger or Vedalken Orrery , but the latter has proven to be more useful than the former.

Ok finally. I actually just created account because I'd like to ask you a couple of questions.

Firstly, what is the average level of decks you have come up against in competitive edh games? The reason I ask is I'm currently working on a casual Arcum Dagsson deck - casual because there are no competitive competitions where I live and my group frowns upon decks good enough to win every game (I've had a couple of generals banned from play). But as I construct the deck I can see very easy ways to make it a highly competitive deck - I'd say a turn 2 Arcum common enough (turn 3 slowest).

Secondly, if you were competing against other equally stacked decks, using Arcum as my example, do you find you can keep up with a deck that combos off turn 4-5 every game? (on average - because draws are of course always random). I ask I know Arcum can go into full lock down by turn 3-4 on a good draw and your deck seems a bit slower - AKA not accelerated by artifacts. Baring in mind of course, that a competitive Arcum deck would also be running Force of Will and IMO Daze doesn't go astray either for competitive games.

Thirdly, more of a comment really. In casual play my group has banned me from playing Mimeoplasm. I did substitute it for Damia (who is of course amazing). The reason Mimeoplasm was banned was because he interferes with most creature-combo decks, is almost always amazing value for general, and when you have no other cards you can just recast him over and over. Just a comment.

Finally, have you ever played against an equally competitive Zur deck? I know my budget Zur deck had probably a 90-95% win rate casually (I stress budget - maybe $20 spent at max on the deck, and had a pauper mana base)

And just to add - I agree with your analysis that Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is clunky. I cut it even from casual play with little removal for the same reasons you talk about earlier. Sometimes he gets you mana, most times he gets you killed, and every time you board him you become enemy #1 on the board. He also rarely turns out to be game winning. I've found a card like Living Death to win more games than Vorinclex. But then my deck is also built a bit more budget so living death works to the higher creature base.

@ Wolf101 - you said this deck "seems a bit slower - AKA not accelerated by artifacts". Did you look at the deck first? Half of his artifacts are mana producers. Some of the best in the game I might add. plus another handful of acceleration cards.

@Wolf101: Since this build combos off a bit slower than decks like Arcum, I added heavy control elements to the build. I have not yet fought something like Arcum or Zur (mainly because those decks don't exist in my meta); I expect it to be quite a challenge if I ever encounter one in an event. I've played against a Teferi Pool-lock deck and beaten it quite handily with the counterspells stabilizing the early game. Hinder is a blowout if it resolves on Teferi.

I do have to side with squire1 on the mana comment, though. There is a solid amount of artifact-based ramp and the rocks match the rest of my mana curve quite nicely. It's not a full-on hit list of every mana rock ever printed, but it gets the job done.

@squire1: I did see the mana acceleration that is the deck. My query was more one about consistency against decks of equal standard, than the deck being slower than the average deck. I do see mana crypt, dynamo and sol ring. But there are other cheap artifacts which accelerate as well which really push other decks to turn 3-5 wins with great consistency. I'm talking about cards like Mana Vault and depending the the deck, even signets help with some turn 1 acceleration. There are obviously others too but I don't feel its necessary to really list them all out.

IMO Zur has the best opportunity to really compete against miscellaneous stacked deck - but thats because of Zur's natural ability to sideboard enchantment answers and use them with consistency. But getting into that sort of discussion really delves far too deep into theory crafting without need.

As Epochalyptik says, those decks aren't in his metagame so there's not need to worry about it.

@Epochalyptik: I really approve of the control elements in your deck. It is always a consideration that equally stacked decks would have the same, but that's really neither here nor there. I'm not a big fan of the Teferi-pool deck. The combo is one of the most solid in the game IMO, but the deck tends to lack the consistency of others.

I'd say all up, the deck you have listed is easily one of the best I've seen. Have you tried Living Death . As I said before, I've found it a great mid-late game draw that ends a game instantly. But my deck is completely different in nature, and not as good overall.

Even though the decks aren't in my meta, it doesn't hurt to be prepared to face them. I want this list to be as resilient and consistent as possible.

Living Death seems a bit one-dimensional. I don't often see my key creatures in my yard (I usually don't even cast them until the turn I win). On the rare occasions one of them does hit the yard, Eternal Witness and card:Volrath's Stronghold are enough to bring them back. On top of that, Witness and Stronghold serve additional purposes.

I'd swap the vorinclex for Intuition . My experience with vorinclex is that he's never around long enough to be of any use since a card with that much advantage usually becomes a huge target really quickly, meaning you waste counter-spells or other cards on him to keep him around rather than setting up the combo.

also with Intuition , only one opponent gets to see the card, making for some interesting politics.

cards*

@alexsmith21

That is incorrect. Check the Oracle wording of Intuition :

Search your library for any three cards and reveal them. Target opponent chooses one. Put that card into your hand and the rest into your graveyard. Then shuffle your library.

You reveal the cards to all players, then a single opponent chooses the one to put in your hand.

@Epochalyptik As I said before, I have only just begun working on my Arcum deck and I don't intend to make it competitive. I'm actually going for a bit of tribal Myr for giggles with some cool utility artifacts. If you're interested in the sort of deck I'm talking about competitively, the best one I've found in the forums is at:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=341574

The builder explains why it is he plays certain cards and how the deck operates. He also theory crafts a little regarding his experiences against other very fast combo decks.

@alexsmithI agree with everything about Vorinclex. I also recommend Intuition as an excellent game ending card.

I'm also playing a Damia EDH and would like to know what you think about Omniscience . I think it's a pretty good card and combos well with cards like Eternal Witness to cast multiple great spells (Time Stretch , etc.) for free.

Omniscience seems only average. It doesn't work with Exsanguinate and you would still need to pay the buyback cost of Capsize . This means that it only really works with the other bounce combos and recursion loops, which is not enough to justify its massive price tag. Mana has never been a problem for me anyway; I usually win the turn I get 10 mana.