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BUG combo control
Designed to draw on the power and interactions available within BUG for incredible resilience, consistency, and brutality. Developed for a highly competitive multiplayer environment (tournament pods) but holds up extremely well in 1v1.
Combos:
Infinite Mana:
Primary Win Conditions:
Control Interactions:
There are far more interactions than that in the deck, but they are more dependent on board state in that they require more cards to be on the field and are easier to disrupt.
Sideboard: cards that are currently in the deck but are being considered for replacement.
Maybeboard: cards that are currently not in the deck and are being considered for inclusion.
Regarding My Meta
This deck is meant to be played in highly competitive environments. I play to win, and there are no house rules. It's by-the-books, tournament-level gameplay and the deck needs to be operating flawlessly at the highest level to survive. Therefore, I will not include any cards that lack power or synergy with the rest of the deck.
Event history:
Other Notes
Please do NOT suggest the following cards. They are suggested all too often, and they aren't viable in this deck.
This deck is performing well, but I still feel that it should be faster and more consistent. Maybe I'm just greedy.
Speaking of greed, I have a list of cards to acquire.
This deck keeps getting faster and faster. Recent changes:
Cut:
Bribery
Cryptic Command
Leyline of Anticipation
Pernicious Deed
Phyrexian Arena
Seedborn Muse
Thran Dynamo
Added:
Brainstorm
Arcane Denial
Deathrite Shaman
Arbor Elf
Abrupt Decay
Birds of Paradise
Remand
I had the opportunity today to play a couple games with this deck, and I also spent a good deal of time speaking with its codesigner. He has opted to drop many of the expensive counterspells and ramp cards in favor of their faster counterparts. He also runs a few mana dorks - a choice with which I don't necessarily agree. However, I more frequently play in multiplayer pods, so I face a higher risk of playing against sweepers.
I cut the filter lands for basics because, after talking with my friend, I realized they weren't always optimal. Running two of each basic allows me to squeeze a few extra uses out of my fetches. I also upgraded the basics into snow-covered basics in case I run into anyone using snow lands any Extraplanar Lens .
Finally, I dropped Survival of the Fittest for Lotus Cobra . I don't run enough creatures for Survival of the Fittest to really do what I need it to do, and Lotus Cobra is stupid with nine fetches, Nature's Lore , Skyshoud Claim, and three Exploration effects.
I'm considering dropping
In the wake of the RC's horrendous decision to ban Primeval Titan , I have made the following changes to the deck:
Cut:
Added:
Dropping some of the cards I've come to question for some cards that hold the Promise of Power .
Cut:
Added:
Vesuva is really great with your deck. Tolaria West is, in my opinion, useless. Chromatic Lantern shouldn't be here with all of those dual lands. Rhystic Study is too powerful in tournament pods. And also, play Lotus Petal and Farseek ! Farseek can be used to search Watery Grave , which is the most effective shockland in your deck, and just pay 2 life, your shockland enters untapped.
Hope this helps you. I am currently building a budget-friendly BUG Damia, with Peregrine Drake , and lots of budget tutors like Beseech the Queen , Diabolic Revelation , and Jarad's Orders . Any suggestions on what to add?
Vesuva is too slow, and there aren't any lands worth copying.
Tolaria West is an amazing tutor. While it does ETB tapped if played as a land, it also searches for Pact of Negation , Mana Crypt , and all of my other lands.
Chromatic Lantern is here mainly because I run a large number of colorless-only lands. It's something I have often considered dropping, but I haven't yet decided on it.
Rhystic Study is too slow. I should be ramping into a turn-2 or turn-3 Damia, and Rhystic Study quickly declines in usefulness after the early turns.
Lotus Petal is a possibility, but I don't really know if it really is effective enough. Dark Ritual , the closest card currently in the deck, at least gives two extra mana and can help me get to a much earlier Damia. Thoughts?
Farseek mandates that the dual land come in tapped whereas Nature's Lore and similar spells do not. A shock land found with Farseek enters tapped regardless of whether or not you pay 2 life. Also, I would argue that Breeding Pool is the most effective shockland; I typically get U/G duals first because they support draw, ramp, and control. Black is mostly an accent color that supports tutoring, and I get B/X duals as I need them.
Do you have a link to your deck?
Lion's Eye Diamond works great with your commander and is a great ramp card
The problem with LED is that I'm forced to discard my hand as part of the mana ability's resolution (meaning I instantaneously discard everything). Also, LED's ability has a strange timing restriction that disallows it from being activated during the payment stage of the casting or activation process - it can only be activated any time you could cast an instant. As such, I can't use LED to cast anything from my hand. It would only be useful for casting Damia, but it would also mean I am without countermagic to defend her. If something happened to her before her ability resolved, I would be without a hand or general (i.e. I lose the game).
Vorosh, the Hunter isn't ideal for this deck. I rarely ever attack, so a creature that's only good in combat is a no-go.
What about adding Time Warp and Walk the Aeons as a faster combo towards infinite turns?
Forbid would be a great addition to the counters in this deck too - being able to counter spells over and over is pure card advantage.
Jace, Memory Adept could be another draw engine and possible win condition for the deck.
Although I understand you can't always rely on your creatures to connect, Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Fire and Ice are certainly worth considering.
If you could reliably get the mana for it, Plasm Capture would act as a second Mana Drain for the deck.
Repeal could act as another form of removal, though expensive. The cantrip may well be worth it.
Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox could help with ramp.
Alchemist's Refuge gives an option to give your spells flash, which can really come in handy.
Acidic Slime when flickered with Deadeye Navigator could help lock down your opponents and acts as reusable removal.
If you could have a look at my Release the Mimeoplasm deck when you have the time (though it doesn't run the same commander and is quite different in win conditions, it does run the same colours and some of the same cards. It's not meant to be quite as competitive and it's more budget than yours though), I need to scale it down to 100 cards and I'm always looking for more suggestions I may have missed.
Temporal Manipulation is better than Time Warp .
Walk the Aeons is bad; I don't want to sacrifice three islands to take another turn.
Forbid is also bad; I don't want to discard two cards to counter a spell. Even though I can replace the discarded cards with Damia's ability, I don't want to put myself at the disadvantage of having to discard them.
Jace, Memory Adept is too slow and expensive to do anything for this deck.
Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Fire and Ice aren't really relevant to this deck. I rarely attack at all, so including cards that depend on combat would be a waste of deck space.
Plasm Capture is too color-saturated to be reliable. Although it's strong, it isn't practical.
Repeal isn't really relevant to this deck at all. I would sooner run Boomerang or Into the Roil .
Mox Diamond is questionable. It's something I would need to test because I don't actually know outright whether it would be worth pursuing.
Chrome Mox is not good enough. There are very few multicolored cards in the deck, and there are fewer cards I would want to pitch to it.
Alchemist's Refuge used to be in the deck, but I cut it to play Cavern of Souls . The ability was kind of expensive.
Acidic Slime is too expensive to be playable. It's worse than Beast Within unless I have Deadeye Navigator , but I don't even play Deadeye Navigator until the turn on which I win.
Walk the Aeons and Forbid don't require you to pay their additional costs. They give you the option of paying them if you want the card back so you can use it again - and the option to do so is always an upside.
Without buyback, those cards are still just worse versions of things I already play (or would play, in the case of Walk the Aeons versus Temporal Manipulation ).
| Date added | 1 year |
| Last updated | 2 days |
| Legal formats | Commander / EDH, Vintage |
| Sets | |
| Cards | 99 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.80 |
| Top rank | #2 on 2012-08-19 |
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Epochalyptik says...
I reset the discussion on this page to make everything a bit cleaner. Also, I need these cards for this deck.
May 11, 2013 7:04 p.m.