@enpc: Reliquary Tower is powerful enough to warrant inclusion. It's great with Necropotence and Sylvan Library as well as with Consecrated Sphinx (which you mentioned). Although it doesn't interact with Damia at all, it's still plenty powerful, and it taps for mana on its own (which is a big deal in this deck).

As for the lands, it's a difficult question to answer. The check lands have potential as sort of a "fourth cycle" -- an addition to the shocks, ABURs, and fetches. Without the ABURs, however, they are less consistent. The abundance of dual-BLT lands in this deck is what makes (or would make) them powerful.

I used to play the filter lands, but I cut them because I hated having to pay mana into them in order to get mana back. That requirement meant they weren't any good as independent sources of colored mana, even though they do offer strong filter abilities. They might serve you well if you have a less finely tuned variant of the deck, but I don't find them reliable and independent enough for competitive play in this list.

There's something to be said for casting CC spells more consistently with 6 (7 if you count Cavern of Souls ) colorless lands in the deck. I feel like you could safely cut Cephalid Coliseum for Hinterland Harbor or Flooded Grove , but that comes from not having played the deck much at all and not seeing how gaining no card advantage is a good thing.

Filters also have the added benefit of letting you actually play Cryptic Command , which is awesome.

@GlistenerAgent: Cephalid Coliseum is good because it allows you to filter three. I'll gladly draw three cards and throw the most irrelevant three into the graveyard. I've used this effect to capitalize on Eternal Witness 's and Crucible of Worlds 's abilities. Even when I'm filtering without setting up a great interaction, it's still advantage by selection. Card advantage needn't be measured purely by numbers. A player who uses a tutor to find a specific card has still generated advantage by doing so, even though the number of cards in his or her hand is the same afterward. The life loss from Cephalid Coliseum 's mana ability is typically irrelevant, and the fact that it taps for is a huge bonus.

Also, the filters don't justify or allow the inclusion of Cryptic Command . That logic is more applicable in 60-card formats, where playsets of a specific card can greatly increase your access to certain resources. EDH is a different story. The filters aren't fetchable, and they don't provide enough fixing on their own to justify their own inclusion let alone the inclusion of an expensive, saturated spell. This deck did, at one point, run both the filters and Cryptic Command , and I didn't find them to work as well as they should.

@Epochalyptik: Good to know. Currently I'm running Greed and Phyrexian Arena over Necropotence so I'm in the boat of having a higher flow of less cards.

If you had a moment and were happy to I would really appreciate your thoughts on the land base for my deck until I can get my hands on some ABU duals: Damia Morgendorffer

@Epochalyptik: Awesome deck! I really like how fast it is. Could you check out my Maelstrom Wanderer deck and maybe give me a few suggestions?

I currently built most of this deck,( with a few proxies), I'm having trouble though, i seem to run out of a hand very quickly and am unable to win turn 4-5, Not giving up, i know i need to constantly practice. Any tips?

How do you feel about Courser of Kruphix ? A 2/4 body for 3 isn't bad, and then the extra mana and life never hurts.

It doesn't actually ramp you, which is why I don't think it would be that great in this deck. Gaining small amounts of life is almost useless, the 2/4 body isn't relevant, and I figure revealing the top card is as harmful as it is helpful.

@imarockyou: Did you make any changes? If so, what were they?

@TheGamer: I've answered this before, but the post was probably eaten by the last update. Courser of Kruphix doesn't do anything important. It's a nerfed Oracle of Mul Daya that doesn't actually ramp. There isn't really any "extra mana," and I'd rather be dumping lands from my hand anyway so I can replace them with Damia's ability. Also, the 2/4 body is irrelevant in EDH. If someone's going to kill my creature, its toughness is irrelevant. I almost never swing with anything, either.

Overall, a card has to provide solid advantage to make it into this deck. I can't justify playing cards that are only kind of good.

It seems like you kinda run out of cards until Damia can trigger. I was playtesting and it was really dissapointing to get infinite mana and not be able to win that turn.

Have you considered something like Greed , Necropotence , or even Erebos, God of the Dead to draw more cards?

Another wincon that I use in all of my blue decks is Capsize . It wins with infinte mana almost as easily as Venser and it definitely seems worth a slot.

@Karimzamrini: At no point should you ever be generating infinite mana if you don't have a win condition immediately available. You may be playing the deck incorrectly. Sometimes, you will need to tutor for a win condition or wait an extra turn. Don't launch right into a combo that will sit on the table, vulnerable, until you can do something with it.

I already run Necropotence . Greed and Erebos, God of the Dead are expensive and inefficient.

Capsize was cut a while ago. Although it's a decent option with infinite mana, it's too expensive as a general utility spell. With the exception of Palinchron , all of my combo pieces can serve individually as utility cards. It's not a good idea to rely on combo-only cards (e.g. Exsanguinate ) or otherwise limited cards.

Makes sense! Thanks for explaining

@Epochalyptik, still haven't forgotten about this deck! Anyways, i was just wondering about Spell Snare . It counters a lot of stuff (Counterspell suite, tutor suite, misc.). I feel as though it would do very well in here. It does do well in my mono blue v-clique deck, especially since it is so cheap.

I know you have not posted your Rafiq deck because you do not want to make the changes necessary to optimize it. I am struggling with building a Bant deck. A deck built by you, even budget, would help me focus my card selection. I wish you would reconsider. As far as Damia, is Time Stretch permanently removed from the list? I also have won off of being able to draw into a win con with the extra turns. In addition, it provides a fallback should Palinchron be exiled.

@miracleHat: I haven't had a chance to do any testing, so anything at this point is purely theoretical.

@Frank_Glascock: If you have a decklist up, I'll help you with it. Alternatively, I can answer questions about Bant theory and card selection (ask on my wall). I'm still reluctant to post my own list, though.

I haven't tested the deck since Time Stretch was cut. It has always guaranteed a win for me. However, it's very expensive, which means it's always a dead card in the opening hand and subsequent draws.

Would Abundance work to prevent you from drawing extra lands? Or is the manna cost to restrictive and would Treasure Cruise be good?

Villainous Wealth for how debilitating it is and its ability to nearly deck a player out with infinite mana and also give you enough advantage to win the game with its stolen cards? Once you have infinite mana leave a player with only a few cards left in their library, then just swing or combo out with whatever else you have stolen from them or have out on the board. I do like the deck and I'm unsure of how worth it is for Villainous to be included but it seems powerful enough, especially with infinite mana combos.

i would recommend yisan from mtg15

@atgarnett: Abundance is unnecessary in this deck. The mana cost is too high and the filtering is unnecessary because I still want a mix of lands and nonlands.

@8BitNecromancer: Villainous Wealth is a bad choice for this deck. When I have infinite mana I want to be able to win immediately. Villainous Wealth doesn't give me the win in multiplayer, and it isn't a viable utility spell. See comments #73-79.

@deathclan: Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is unnecessary in this deck. The mana and activation costs are too high and the ability is too slow.

Also, please link cards when you suggest them

What about Treasure Cruise ?

Treasure Cruise isn't really worthwhile. I'd need to delve all seven to get the insane advantage it could theoretically offer, and I generally don't want to exile that many cards from my yard. The lands are useful because of Crucible of Worlds , and the nonlands are useful because of the other recursion effects. I could probably justify delving for three or four by mid to late game, but that doesn't really make Treasure Cruise any more attractive than something like Jace's Ingenuity .

Okay thanks

@Epochalyptik, I made no changes to the deck. The deck Has soo many choices and sometimes idk when to set up or not, or to play this or not...I think it'll come to me with more playtesting

If you like, I can walk you through the deck on Skype or something. I've already done that with another user. Basically, field any questions you have and I'll do my best to answer them.

You'll definitely get use to the deck over time if you think about your choice and how the board state should (and does) affect them. This is not an easy deck to pick up and learn, but you can get the hang of it.

Still a bit confused on how Villainous Wealth does automatically win in multiplayer, especially when another strategy you named to win the game is milling them out with an infinite mana Blue Sun's Zenith . If you have infinite mana couldn't you leave an opponent with just one card left in their entire deck, leaving you to play literally every single card in their deck at once, allowing any number of combos in their deck, any number of creatures in their deck, and almost certainly taking a player out of the match? In the games I've tested with decks similar to this its almost always won the game. Just confused and looking for clarification more than anything. Its by no means a perfect card or overpowered but as a killing blow its brutally effective.