Damia, Sage of Dredge

[Aggro_zombies]

Updates.

Kokusho left for being not good enough. I mean, he was okay, and the life was certainly welcome, but he drew a lot of hate and it was not as easy to turn him into a slow-acting Exsanguinate as I'd hoped. I could probably pull it off with Urborg and Cabal Coffers, but yawn - that combo is still worse than Mike+Trike as far as killing everyone is concerned and I am not overly fond of running Coffers in a deck that isn't primarily black for stylistic reasons.

Return to Ravnica brought a number of cards with it, despite Scavenge being a terrible mechanic in this format. DRS is useful and Chromatic Lantern gives me perfect mana, although my manabase was already fairly stable; I guess it's protection from Blood Moon and related effects. I've since soured on Korozda Guildmage since it came out: the Saproling ability does not often make enough creatures to justify its four mana cost since most of my creatures are small, and the intimidate ability suffers from my meta being saturated with G/x decks. I think I'll keep it for now but am open to replacing it with a better two-drop, possibly from the next set.

Gatecrash brought actual nothing, though. I tried both Duskmantle Guildmage and Ogre Slumlord, but neither was good enough; the former had two corner-case abilities and the latter ended up not being the improvement on Golgari Germination I'd wanted due primarily to not surviving sweepers and costing five. I briefly considered Consuming Aberration, but there are at least a dozen five-drops this deck wants to run, and it can't accommodate them all. I don't know which of my current suite of fives Aberration is an improvement over, so it remains benched for now.

I'm looking for a replacement for Mind Shatter that causes discard but can hit multiple people. I want more discard, actually, but don't have enough room, so I'm limiting it to four slots for now.

[Kuma]

I'm looking for a replacement for Mind Shatter that causes discard but can hit multiple people. I want more discard, actually, but don't have enough room, so I'm limiting it to four slots for now.

Myojin of Night's Reach? Cabal Conditioning?

[Aggro_zombies]

Myojin of Night's Reach? Cabal Conditioning?

Hmm, both of those are rather pricey, mana-wise. Myojin is the better of the two in terms of synergy with the rest of the deck, but I can't Pod for her and then use her ability (and really, I don't want to Pod Sheoldred into a 5/2 basically ever).

As awful as it sounds, Delirium Skeins might be what I'm looking for. The card is relatively cheap, hits multiple cards from each opponent, and it's easy for me to negate the -3 to myself through either recursion or drawing with Damia.

The real question, I guess, is whether I want to partially hit people's hands early or whether I want to completely get rid of them late. Skeins does the former and Myojin does the latter. I'm still not sure which I want more since all of my current discard is relatively late-game right now.

[Tog]

Have you considered using Attunement as a dredge discard outlet and dredge enabler? It's a reusable ability that allows you place cards where you want them while seeing new cards.

[Aggro_zombies]

Have you considered using Attunement as a dredge discard outlet and dredge enabler? It's a reusable ability that allows you place cards where you want them while seeing new cards.

I would consider it if I didn't have a Bazaar, but I don't currently feel the need for more dredge enablers. If you don't have a Bazaar, though, it's worth looking into Attunement.

[Aggro_zombies]

So, the new legend rules for M14 have me kind of down on clone effects right now, since I can't use them to get rid of hexproof/shroud generals anymore. DGM didn't really have anything I wanted to add when it first came out, but now I'm considering cutting the following: Phantasmal Image, Korozda Guildmage, Beast Within.

Those three slots can be replaced by basically any of the following:

More Removal: Abyssal Gatekeeper, Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Black Sun's Zenith, Gaze of Granite. Basically, I want to cut Beast Within because it's always so-so at what it does, and add in another removal spell to keep my removal count consistent. Gatekeeper has done okay in the past, but the fact that it occasionally results in me 2-for-1'ing myself can be frustrating. Savra might be slightly short sacrifice outlets, but if I have one she'll trigger off of most of my creatures. BSZ and Gaze are sort of the same thing; BSZ deals with indestructible creatures, while Gaze hits non-creatures as well. I'm inclined to try BSZ first just because I don't feel a ton of need to have my Wrath be a Pernicious Deed activation.

More Tutor/Draw: Buried Alive, Notion Thief. Thief would be sick in a different meta but there are just not enough Consecrated Sphinxes around here. It might still be okay because there's an Edric deck or two, but a 3/1 body for four isn't super attractive. Buried Alive is one of those cards that's been on the cusp for a long time now - I kind of want to try it just to see, but the issue is that I will most often go for three utility guys, or two utility guys and a Genesis. But who knows.

Other: Silverglade Pathfinder, Scavenging Ooze, Myojin of Night's Reach, Consuming Aberration. Pathfinder is ramp that lets me put dredge cards into the graveyard early, but might be a little too weak. I would run the Harrow spellshaper over it, but that guy is in my tertiary color (blue). Ooze just gives me an extra way to shut down Clone-on-Legends-with-CiP/Death-Triggers loops, and was fine if unexciting when it was in here last. Myojin gives me another late-game discard option, but the troll in me kind of wants to run Mindslicer instead. Aberration gives me an alternate path to victory against some of the particularly turtle-y decks, but is otherwise (likely) just big and dumb.

A quick search of the currently-spoiled M14 cards doesn't reveal anything I'd want to add.

I'll have to think about what I want in there for a bit, but feedback is appreciated.

[Kuma]

Thief would be sick in a different meta but there are just not enough Consecrated Sphinxes around here.

If you have Notion Thief, and your opponent has Consecrated Sphinx, they can just choose to keep "drawing" for your Notion Thief draws until you're decked. However, it's pretty good if you have a piece of spot removal and can kill their Consecrated Sphinx after drawing like 70 cards.

[Aggro_zombies]

If you have Notion Thief, and your opponent has Consecrated Sphinx, they can just choose to keep "drawing" for your Notion Thief draws until you're decked. However, it's pretty good if you have a piece of spot removal and can kill their Consecrated Sphinx after drawing like 70 cards.

Yeah, that I knew. I can also just sacrifice my Notion Thief at some point if I don't have the removal. My issue with the card is that I feel like it would either be fantastic (nice Recurring Insight lol) or really terrible. The way I play this deck, I don't usually have four mana open to respond to a draw spell with Thief, and people will just hold their draw spells until Thief dies (pretty easy to kill a one toughness creature). Chains of Mephistopheles would probably be much better for this sort of punish-draws effect, and my deck can break the symmetry to a certain degree, but I'm not sure I really want that effect all that much. I guess it makes my Mind Twists better, but...

EDIT: I should add that I'm also considering Deadeye Navigator now. If I added one, I would probably also add a few more creatures with CiP abilities - stuff that's eternally on the cusp like Wood Elves and the like. I'm also considering breaking my long-standing "blue deck with no counters" rule for this build to run Mystic Snake and Glen Elendra Archmage, but those would be things I would include only after adding DEN.

[Tog]

If you're considering using Deadeye Navigator, something else you might want to consider is Ghostly Flicker. With Eternal Witness and Archeaomancer, you can repetitively abuse CIP abilities. As it stands though, I don't think you have enough creatures with CIP abilities to abuse either.

I'm a big fan of Buried Alive in any deck that abuses the graveyard. I know you're not running Reassembling Skeletons but I love it. You have a lot of quality sacrifice outlets which can make use of the Skeletons (Marauder, Slum Reaper, Attrition, Drowned Rusalka, Skullclamp, Birthing Pod, Tortured Existence, Dread Return, Sadistic Hypnotist). Plus it's a great blocker, doubly so with Wonder in the yard.

Good find in the Silverglade Pathfinder. Lands tend to be the only permanents you can rely on in EDH. Although Dreamscape Artist is in your splash color, it might still be worthwhile. It works to power Life from the Loam and Worm Harvest while developing your mana base. The opportunity cost for three colors with all the fixing available to you is minimal.

Of the other cards you've listed, I only have experience with Savra but it seems like a poor fit for the deck. You don't run enough black creatures for her to be worthwhile. Having a 2/2 that does nothing unless you've got a sacrifice outlet seem bad.

[FTW]

How do you protect Damia? Do people not try to remove her? In my circle, anything that says "draw 3-7 cards a turn" has a huge target on its back....

[Aggro_zombies]

Kira can protect her from targeted removal, but she's not essential for this deck to function. There are plenty of games where I don't even cast her, either because I forget (this deck was Vorosh for a long time and he wasn't that hot) or because I don't need to.