You can give cards multiple tags. There's one in the deck, but it serves multiple purposes.

Would Baleful StrixBe viable here? It's an automatic two for one. Also, why no Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time? And would the frf card Temporal Trespass be good or is the triple blue too difficult to achieve?

@Chubbub: Baleful Strix isn't really a two-for-one. Combat rarely exists at the competitive multiplayer level (infinite tokens aside), and a deathtouching blocker isn't really a good removal card. Baleful Strix just doesn't do much in EDH.

I haven't yet tested Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time. I remain skeptical, but I'm open to the option.

Triple blue is very easy to get in this deck. I usually have it by the second or third turn. However, I'm not a fan of power cards that exile themselves, especially if they cost quite a bit. Delve 8 isn't the best thing to be doing with my graveyard, and Temporal Trespass really isn't economical unless you're delving as much as possible.

I know that many stores will follow the optional rule of 10 card side boards to quote mtgcommander.net "Players may bring a 10 card sideboard in addition to their 99 cards and 1 Commander. After Commanders are announced, players have 3 minutes to make 1-for-1 substitutions to their deck. Any cards not played as part of the deck may be retrieved by "wishes". " are you going to construct a side board for this deck?

I could, I suppose. If I were to start playing it seriously again, I'd probably have some cards I'd bring along just in case.

Damn, this is probably the type of list I want to work my Mimeo list up to eventually.

How does your Damia list hold up vs other T1 generals like Hermit Druid, Zur, and Sharuum?

What are your thoughts on the new counter spell "neutralizing blast" (1 colorless + 1 blue, counter target multicolor spell)

@Jaytron: You might want to be careful there. The Mimeoplasm can work with this shell but you'll need to modify the shell itself in some ways. The deck relies on the draw power Damia provides in order to refill its hand in Stage II. It's also not reanimator oriented.

As for matchups, they go back and forth. The Tier 1 competitive decks are all very good, and games often come down to draws and plays rather than pure deck design or archetype favor.

That said, this deck is not optimized for 1v1 games, and Zur often puts too much pressure on it in that respect.

@The-Xellos: It doesn't seem that useful. It's limited to countering some generals (mono blue does have a competitive presence, so Neutralizing Blast isn't a catch-all) and some utility spells. The problem is that most staples and wincons tend to be monocolored. Negate would probably be better.

YAY I GAVE THE 400TH UPVOTE!

Oona, Queen of the Fae would give you another wincon for infinite mana.

I know that you said Mikaeus is not good for this deck, but Mikaeus, the Unhallowed+Woodfall Primus+Altar of Dementia has been really fun in my BUG deck.

@rob_shifflett: If Mikaeus, the Unhallowed as used, Epoch may as well just use Triskelion as you need less bits to make the combo work (more free cards in the deck left over) and Tooth and Nail can fetch both the combo pieces then.

@rob_shifflett: The problem with those cards is that they don't really fit into the deck very well. One of the things that helps make the deck so resilient is that most of the win conditions double as utility cards if they have to. I don't like including cards like Oona, Queen of the Fae, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Woodfall Primus, or Altar of Dementia because they don't do that; these cards are ineffective as utility cards either due to cost or lack of power.

Of course, I don't deny that some of the alternate combos are fun to play. The problem is that I just don't have the space to include them in the deck because the list is already so tight.

Well Said.

Have you considered Meekstone at all? Given its low mana cost and that you are rarely swinging into the red zone it can shut down a fair amount of decks. I'm not sure how many aggro decks actually exist in a hyper competitive version of EDH, but could be a nice sideboard card.

@Jigsaw107: Meekstone doesn't really do much. Most competitive decks are combo decks, so there's very little combat during any given game. I'd rather not run a card to prevent further attacks or utility abilities if it doesn't do anything else; the utility is pretty marginal there.

Besides, I don't mind chumping with a utility creature if it keeps me alive for an extra turn to win the game.

No that makes sense. I play in a less competitive group so that's why I use it to try and stall time. Makes sense though given how many combo decks are out there.

Also, in case anyone was curious, this deck now has 2,194 comments (counting this one).

Any particular reason why Ancestral Vision Was not included in the list

It's slow.

I'll admit that I never did actually test it, but it would need to be a turn one play to even be justifiable. And that means I'm not playing a ramp dork (my main option would be to Mox Diamond the cost or land into Exploration into blue source to not screw my tempo).

Any later than that and I risk not even making it to the end of the suspend period. This deck likes to win in about five or six turns. If I drew it in the late game, I'd just be pitching it to Force of Will or something (which, in itself, isn't horrible, but it's not optimal if the card is otherwise dead).

with your ability to make large amounts of mana, what about Curse of the Swine, as it'll help get around people playing Avacyn, Angel of Hope for example, or just clear the board and leave everyone with just 2/2s

Avacyn, Angel of Hope is never played in heavy combo edh metas, and Curse of the Swine (while a personal favorite card of mine) is far too mana inefficient for a sorcery speed removal spell.

Avacyn, Angel of Hope isn't a threat to me. Either I kill everyone before I'm threatened or I bounce the threat and go on about my business.

My problems with Curse of the Swine are the cost and the speed. Toxic Deluge would be a better option, and it can still get rid of indestructible stuff.

What about Reality Shift then? It gives instant speed removal for cheap and the ability to potentially 2-for-1 them if the top card isn't a creature (especially with the prevelence of things like Mystical Tutor / Vampiric Tutor)?

I'd sooner run Pongify for spot removal. There are very few indestructible creatures that are even relevant in competitive EDH, so the reduced cost is more valuable than the ability to get past indestructibility.

Which is fair enough, however the other benefit is that when exiling a creautre it also can't be reanimated/returned from the graveyard. You used to run Beast Within yeah? did you ever have a problem with beasting something only to have the beast token swung into you repeatedly? in this case (and similar with Pongify), the fact that the creature is a 2/2 over a 3/3 is actually noticable when taking into account the average P/T of your creatures. Just something I've come across. Thoughts?