Am I missing something, or is there a reason that City of Brass isn't included in the land base?

@coleman984: I cut Krosan Grip a while ago because I didn't like the mana cost. I can see your argument for Deglamer , though. I just wonder whether it's worthwhile to have Deglamer in addition to, or instead of, Nature's Claim .

@Orbrunner: City of Brass is a fine card, but I don't really want to kill myself when I go infinite. With Deadeye Navigator and Palinchron , I need to tap three lands per cycle to go infinite. With Phantasmal Image , I need to do seven. Because I get a large portion of my mana from artifacts, especially in the early game, there's a good chance that running City of Brass will come back to haunt me at an inconvenient time.

I actually tested City of Brass a while ago and cut it because it felt unnecessary. Of my other life loss lands, Ancient Tomb actually ramps, and Boseiju, Who Shelters All is an anti-control utility.

You run seven forests. How in gods name could Utopia Sprawl help here?

@vishnarg And 9 fetch lands...

I forgot that part.......... I also forgot that this deck is the pinnacle of stupidly expensive ones.

Deglamer vs. Nature's Claim :

Deglamer avoids indestructible, and tucks the target, while not giving the opponent an extra 4 life.

Nature's Claim costs less to cast, allowing or more freedom of casting on your turn, and enables a (highly situational, but still possible) lifegain loop involving Deadeye-EWit.

Personally, I would go with Nature's Claim over Deglamer, because in the vast majority of matchups in which it is relevant to be killing artifacts/enchantments, the lower cost makes Claim superior. In addition, it is unnecessary to run more than one artifact/enchantment hate spell, as it can already be recurred through a variety of methods, and dedicating another slot to that takes away a slot from something else.

@Orbrunner: The 4 life from Nature's Claim is completely negligible in almost every case. The lifegain loop is also irrelevant (and very convoluted). I agree with the meat of your argument, though.

Something that i just realized about dropping Time Stretch is that you would be losing one of your primary win conditions. Also, adding Prophet of Kruphix do the don't suggest part of your description might be necessary (it has been suggested many times).

@Epochalyptik I would say yes to run Deglamer over Nature's Claim but there are times where it could matter on the recursion front that something not go to the graveyard. And it costs 1 colorless so if you need to make it uncounterable you can with Boseiju, Who Shelters All where you can't with Nature's Claim.

I'm curious how much work Tolaria West does for the deck. There's no doubt that it's a solid tutor (difficult to counter, grabs any land/Pact of Negation /Mana Crypt ), but is it worth paying 3 mana at sorcery speed? I'm also assuming it's rarely played as a land due to entering the battlefield tapped.

Do you think you should maybe put a few more basics in? Seems like your in trouble if your opponent drops an early Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon .

How does Misdirection and Dispel play here? I can't bring myself to put it in my own EDH deck.

Also when did Sensei's Divining Top come out of the equation? It's such a very powerful card but never gets played in high level competitive decks and I think I'm missing why.

vishnarg, would you happen to be taking your sample of competitive decks from mtgtop8.com? They use the duel commander format, which top is banned in. Otherwise, top would be in most of them.

@TheCommonFig: You are correct in your assumption that I rarely play Tolaria West as a land. I find that the transmute ability does justify Tolaria West 's inclusion because it allows the card to function as ramp (by finding Mana Crypt ), a land tutor (especially to get utility lands like Boseiju, Who Shelters All ), and a counterspell tutor (by finding Pact of Negation ). The fact that transmute is an ability means the effect can only be countered by a very small group of cards. This, in turn, means I am likelier to get what I need.

@BawwPixels: I do rely quite heavily on nonbasics, and Blood Moon is one of the cards that threatens this deck most. I've been looking for ways to combat it, and I'm leaning more and more toward including Living Wish and moving some of my less important utility lands into a sideboard.

Unfortunately, Blood Moon is very difficult to answer except by countering.

@vishnarg: Misdirection is a great spell. It thwarts counterspells because I can redirect them to Misdirection itself, and it helps defeat removal spells. Dispel is good for protecting Damia and my combos. It's a great card to have during counter wars.

Sensei's Divining Top is still in the deck, and I have no plans to remove it in the near future. I suspect that most of the decks that don't include it either can't afford it or are playing by French rules

What are your thoughts on running Toxic Deluge over Damnation ? Deluge is one mana cheaper, kills indestructible (admittedly, there are very few indestructible creatures worth running), and gives some flexibility by letting you set the X value. The only downside I see to it is that you already have a fair number of cards that you lose life to (fetches, shocks, Boseiju, FoW, Ancient Tomb, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Vampiric Tutor, Necropotence, etc.). Would those ever cause enough life loss to interfere with the Deluge? Or conversely, could the Deluge cause you to miss some of those effects later in the game?

Apologies for few card links -- I'm on my phone.

Life is a resource, never be afraid to use it! I would run Toxic Deluge over Damnation just for the -1 cmc.

If you had to sacrifice green, how would you go about building a competitive U/B combo-control deck able to compete with this list?

@TheCommonFig: I haven't been able to playtest this deck in a while. I suspect Toxic Deluge will take Damnation 's slot, but I can't make the final choice without playing a few games first.

@YerpyMoose: It's not that simple. Green is an integral part of this deck because it was designed to be an integral part of this deck. If you transition to UB, you lose the massive amount of ramp power that green provides, and you also lose Tooth and Nail .

If you desperately want to go UB, you might try an Oona, Queen of the Fae or Vela the Night-Clad deck. Both of those general can take advantage of infinite combos.

I personally think mono-blue would be better than UB, though. You lose some tutor power, but mono-blue is faster and better at comboing that UB. Arcum Dagsson and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir are the go-to generals.

I meant stylistically similar. You could simply run a mono-u list with Oona at the helm with a Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith wincon. I've seen an "undefeated" mono-U list by MTG_Player that fit the bill, using Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur as the commander. Eh, seems interesting enough. I'll look into it.

I noticed that you commented earlier that you have trouble with Blood Moon . Do you have similar trouble with Back to Basics ? What of tutor-hosers such as Stranglehold and Mindlock Orb ? If so, how do you seek to remedy said troubles?

Counterspells are my primary line of defense against those cards. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do against them. If a Mindlock Orb or Stranglehold or Aven Mindcensor resolves, then I have to play around it until I draw into an answer. Likely, that means filtering my hand as much and as often as possible with Damia.

As for the nonbasic land hosers, they kind of wreck this deck. I can't change the fact that this deck is dependent on nonbasics - it's the nonbasics that make it consistent enough to win so early and so often. I may end up using Living Wish and moving many of the less essential utility lands to the sideboard in favor of more basics (especially because the Crucible+fetch interaction tends to deplete my deck of fetchable lands pretty quickly).

How does Living Wish work in EDH where there are no sideboards?

EDH does have sideboards.

yes, you sideboard after having commanders revealed, and prior to the game. It's a little different. Plus it is only 10 cards instead of 15.

just a question maybe stupid but in what way is Grim Tutor better than Sylvan Scrying ? i mean they are both sorcery speed but the tutor costs 1 more mana and 3 life.....