Damia, Sage of BUG

[HammafistRoob]

This is basically Damia goodstuff, it's a combo/control deck designed specifically for 1v1, but it's also fairly strong in multiplayer if you bide your time. Meaning you're a combo deck first, with some decent control options thrown into the mix. In multiplayer however, it's very important to not go for your combo until you're either about to die or you're certain it will succeed. I'm very surprised more people don't play the Sage of Stone, she is insane.

To have success with a list like mine, you're first priority should be to resolve and protect the commander. Most of the time she draws you 3-5 cards EVERY turn, and no deck can deal with that if you manage to get to that point. Time for some lists...
~My current list that is sleeved up~

//COMMANDER-1
Damia, Sage of Stone

//LANDS-37
Command Tower
Creeping Tar Pit
Watery Grave
Underground Sea
Drowned Catacomb
Hinterland Harbor
Breeding Pool
Tropical Island
Bayou
Overgrown Tomb
Woodland Cemetery
Bloodstained Mire
Wooded Foothills
Verdant Catacombs
Polluted Delta
Flooded Strand
Ancient Tomb
Cephalid Coliseum
4 Swamp
7 Island
8 Forest

//WINNING-4
Tooth and Nail
Rite of Replication
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Triskelion

//RAMP-18
Solemn Simulacrum
Talisman of Dominance
Dimir Signet
Simic Signet
Golgari Signet
Mana Vault
Sol Ring
Gilded Lotus
Dark Ritual
Nature's Lore
Farseek
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Kodama's Reach
Cultivate
Exploration
Hunting Wilds
Skyshroud Claim
Search for Tomorrow

//DRAW&DIG-7
Sylvan Library
Phyrexian Arena
Sensei's Divining Top
Brainstorm
Ponder
Deep Analysis
Fact or Fiction

//TUTOR-9
Trinket Mage
Lim-Dul's Vault
Merchant Scroll
Mystical Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Tutor
Increasing Ambition
Mystical Teachings
Muddle the Mixture

//REMOVAL-6
Maelstrom Pulse
Beast Within
Go for the Throat
Cyclonic Rift
Damnation
Nature's Claim

//COUNTER&DISCARD-12
Mind Twist
Head Games
Thoughtseize
Duress
Dispel
Swan Song
Force of Will
Hinder
Spell Crumple
Voidslime
Counterspell
Negate

//UTILITY-6
Snapcaster Mage
Eternal Witness
Trygon Predator
Regrowth
Twincast
Pithing Needle

I'm still working on picking up stuff for it, and to make it 100% optimal I would have to dump loads of cash, that sadly, I don't have at the moment. If I did, however, my list would look more like this...

//LANDS-36
Creeping Tar Pit
Watery Grave
Underground Sea
Drowned Catacomb
Sunken Ruins
Flooded Grove
Hinterland Harbor
Breeding Pool
Tropical Island
Bayou
Overgrown Tomb
Woodland Cemetery
Twilight Mire
Bloodstained Mire
Wooded Foothills
Verdant Catacombs
Polluted Delta
Flooded Strand
Misty Rainforest
Scalding Tarn
Windswept Heath
Marsh Flats
Ancient Tomb
Cephalid Coliseum
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Dryad Arbor
Command Tower
2 Swamp
4 Island
3 Forest

//WINNING-4
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Triskelion
Tooth and Nail
Rite of Replication

//RAMP-17
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Sol Ring
Dark Ritual
Burgeoning
Exploration
Carpet of Flowers
Search for Tomorrow
Deathrite Shaman
Birds of Paradise
Talisman of Dominance
Lotus Cobra
Nature's Lore
Chromatic Lantern
Hunting Wilds
Skyshroud Claim
Gilded Lotus

//DRAW&DIG-8
Scroll Rack
Sensei's Divining Top
Brainstorm
Ponder
Sylvan Library
Necropotence
Phyrexian Arena
Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//TUTOR-10
Green Sun's Zenith
Mystical Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Imperial Seal
Demonic Tutor
Lim-Dul's Vault
Merchant Scroll
Trinket Mage
Muddle the Mixture
Mystical Teachings

//REMOVAL-5
Nature's Claim
Go for the Throat
Beast Within
Damnation
Cyclonic Rift

//COUNTER&DISCARD-11
Force of Will
Pact of Negation
Thoughtseize
Duress
Dispel
Swan Song
Counterspell
Mana Drain
Negate
Hinder
Spell Crumple

//UTILITY-8
Noxious Revival
Pithing Needle
Snapcaster Mage
Regrowth
Twincast
Eternal Witness
Phyrexian Metamorph
Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Anybody else play a similar deck? What have your experiences been with it? Do you have any suggestions? Thanks

[Megadeus]

Mana drain into tooth and nail seems strong

[FTW]

Deck seems strong.

Personally I find it bad form to play 1v1 EDH and not use a 1v1 banlist. T1 fetch into dual, Mana Crypt, Trinket Mage into Sol Ring. You're not losing that game. Does your group usually play 1v1 EDH with those bomby cards?

Perhaps more relevant in the multiplayer matches is stuff like Prophet of Kruphix, Future Sight, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Being able to hold counterspells open and then cast everything EOT is pretty amazing.

I would want Liliana of the Veil. Not only is she awesome, especially in 1v1, but she helps shrink your handsize if you have duds in hand so Damia can draw you into more gas.

A single Temporal Mastery is probably good with all those topdeck tutors and some library manipuation/Brainstorming to put it there.

[HammafistRoob]

Deck seems strong.

Personally I find it bad form to play 1v1 EDH and not use a 1v1 banlist. T1 fetch into dual, Mana Crypt, Trinket Mage into SolRing. You're not losing that game. Does your group usually play 1v1 EDH with those bomby cards?

We all play Sol Ring since it's dirt cheap, but none of us own anything crazy like Mana Crypt or Imperial Seal. I think it's not that bad to play 1v1 with the multiplayer banlist, it just makes you have to adapt your list a bit by playing more answers for the broken artifacts. Speaking of I need to squeeze Abrupt Decay in here somewhere.

Perhaps more relevant in the multiplayer matches is stuff like Prophet of Kruphix, Future Sight, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Being able to hold counterspells open and then cast everything EOT is pretty amazing.

I used to play Prophet and Seedborn Muse but they didn't really pull their weight. They all felt too clunky for their effect(in this deck), maybe Terefri would be nice.

I would want Liliana of the Veil. Not only is she awesome, especially in 1v1, but she helps shrink your handsize if you have duds in hand so Damia can draw you into more gas.

I was thinking about her the other day, and I have one available to use. I gotta give her a try soon.

A single Temporal Mastery is probably good with all those topdeck tutors and some library manipuation/Brainstorming to put it there.

As of right now I only have one topdeck tutor, if I pick up a Vampiric soon then I would definitely add a Mastery in. Until then though I think that one stays on the bench. Thanks for the comment Dub.

[D@N]

I personally don't think you need imperial seal since black blue and green have the best tutors in the game and black especially has 3-5 awesome tutors for less then $30. The other cards I don't like are:

Brainstorm- with the size of edh decks looking at 3 is only mediocre, the only thing I would use this for is hiding a. Card from discard.

Ponder- see brainstorm minus the hiding part

The signets- mana ramp is great but you don't want to give opponents a target with their aura shards or artifact removal, since your playing green ramping with basic lands is much better since the only way to stop you is mld.

Dark ritual- playing out a 3 drop on turn one is good and all but I generally follow the "who's scariest third" rule and it's u play anything big before anyone else list likely getting blown.

The discard- mind twist is alright but you don't want to spend mana to get the effects.

Carpet of flowers- I don't know what your meta is like but this kinda hate is really only worth playing if at least 2 other people at the table are playing heavy blue.

Try some of these,

Rhystic study- cheap to buy and play and will net you so many cards that you won't have to resolve your commander more then once a game, and few will be able to keep up with your card advantage.

Painful quandary- this is repeatable discard that you have to pay for once sure it may get blown up but if you can protect it a bit then it will do work.

Praetors council- nothing is more back breaking to opponents then for them to struggle to find a way to destroy something of yours just for you to recur it again and again. The no max hand size is really nice as well if your drawing lots of cards from commander or anything else.

Sprouting vines- since you want to play burgeoning nothing sucks more then not having lands to play out. This will ensure that you can have drops for the next 4-5 turns if you play it right.

Decree of pain and All is dust- I can't count the number of times I've wreathed the board and drawn bad a full grip with decree, and the look on peoples faces after making them sac their indestructible dudes is priceless when casting aids.

Bribery and Treachery- both let you steal other players fatties and since it doesn't look like you want to do more then tooth and nail for mike and Ike then you might need some defence before you get to 9.

You might also want to run some more creatures with some good abilities to fall back on, woodfall primus, terastodon, ixodron and mulldrifter are all fine cards and will give you more play if someone starts feeling like they want to jesters cap you out of the game early.

[HammafistRoob]

I personally don't think you need imperial seal since black blue and green have the best tutors in the game and black especially has 3-5 awesome tutors for less then $30. The other cards I don't like are:

Brainstorm- with the size of edh decks looking at 3 is only mediocre, the only thing I would use this for is hiding a. Card from discard.

Brainstorm has good synergy with my commander via tossing useless lands back into the deck. Granted I need a shuffle effect but I'm playing a zillion of those.

Ponder- see brainstorm minus the hiding part.

Ponder is sorta lackluster here. I can't really backup my reasoning on this one.

The signets- mana ramp is great but you don't want to give opponents a target with their aura shards or artifact removal, since your playing green ramping with basic lands is much better since the only way to stop you is mld.

The Signets are basically just filler slots at the moment. I need to find some of the better fixers and the last 4 fetches so I can finally add Deathrite. I do kinda like the Signets though since they're colorless fixers.

Dark ritual- playing out a 3 drop on turn one is good and all but I generally follow the "who's scariest third" rule and it's u play anything big before anyone else list likely getting blown.

Ritual helps to power out an early Damia/Tooth and Nail with mana open for backup counters. It's probably bad in multiplayer but it's been pretty good in 1v1 games.

The discard- mind twist is alright but you don't want to spend mana to get the effects.

Duress and Thoughtseize are awesome in 1v1, but not so much in multiplayer. I find play a lot more 1v1 though so I like having them. Mind Twist is sorta a high variance slot even in 1v1. Sometimes it's a blowout and other times it's a terrible topdeck. I'm not the biggest fan of it honestly.

Carpet of flowers- I don't know what your meta is like but this kinda hate is really only worth playing if at least 2 other people at the table are playing heavy blue.

Carpet of Flowers isn't hate, it's extremely broken ramp. Almost every deck I play against is blue, so.... profit?

Try some of these,

Rhystic study- cheap to buy and play and will net you so many cards that you won't have to resolve your commander more then once a game, and few will be able to keep up with your card advantage.

I don't know about this logic. I used to play it and I found it to be just a one sided Sphere of Resistance. It's also a very poor topdeck when I'm behind and I'm not sure the deck can afford any more of those (I'm looking at you ramp).

Painful quandary- this is repeatable discard that you have to pay for once sure it may get blown up but if you can protect it a bit then it will do work.

What exactly does this do for me though? It doesn't matter if it eats 30 life from my opponent because it doesn't get me any closer to winning.

Praetors council- nothing is more back breaking to opponents then for them to struggle to find a way to destroy something of yours just for you to recur it again and again. The no max hand size is really nice as well if your drawing lots of cards from commander or anything else.

I thought about Counsel, but I think it's not what I need here. No max hand size is practically irrelevant unless I have Necropotence, which means I'd be winning anyways.

Sprouting vines- since you want to play burgeoning nothing sucks more then not having lands to play out. This will ensure that you can have drops for the next 4-5 turns if you play it right.

Burgeoning basically acts as a second Exploration. Sure Vines would be good with those two but it's kinda a nonbo with my commander. The whole point of playing Exploration and Burgeoning is to help mitigate the land mass that compiles in your hand when drawing 5 cards a turn. Jace, Necropotence, Oracle, Brainstorm, and Coliseum also help here.

Decree of pain and All is dust- I can't count the number of times I've wreathed the board and drawn bad a full grip with decree, and the look on peoples faces after making them sac their indestructible dudes is priceless when casting aids.

These ones are just too clunky for my liking. I'm putting an honest effort in to lower my mana curve as much as possible to keep the consistency up. Nothing is worse than having to mull because your hand is all fat. I'm also playing the best sweeper ever and it's blue.

Bribery and Treachery- both let you steal other players fatties and since it doesn't look like you want to do more then tooth and nail for mike and Ike then you might need some defence before you get to 9.

I'm not huge on Bribery honestly. It feels so bad when they just bounce the creature back to their own hand I just can't play it. Treachery is good but I'm not sure where to fit it in. I have a Commander and Rite of Replication as well. I'm also adding Jace and Kiora soon which can easily end games.


You might also want to run some more creatures with some good abilities to fall back on, woodfall primus, terastodon, ixodron and mulldrifter are all fine cards and will give you more play if someone starts feeling like they want to jesters cap you out of the game early.

Meh, I don't really like any of the options for creatures. They all take too long to finish people off. I used to play Mulldrifter and Replication on him was quite rediculous. I also copied someone's Avenger of Zendikar, got 50 tokens (he only got like 5 cuz mana rocks), then played and cracked a fetch next turn and swung for like 500. Twas epic. Almost as epic as people scooping to Replication on Sylvan Primordial :,(. Or Sun Titan, or some crazy Eldrazi, okay there's a lot of things that are good when they come in fives.

[D@N]

Ya I don't play a lot of 1v1 it is true but just playing tooth + nail and rite is just begging for ppl to start playing extract and sad sac against u. I think you might have to think if you want to make this deck 1v1 or multi as some choices make sense and some don't to me.