What do you think of this card? Stinks that it is a sorcery and it is a chance card. Spell Mastery shouldn't be that hard to get though

Why don't you run Nephalia Drownyard to have another way to win with palinchron deadeye combo?

That's not a guaranteed win (Eldrazi). Besides it's not useful in any other situation.

What about Damnable Pact? It is a decent draw card if you need to draw, and it can be used as a kill spell with the Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron combo

@The-Xellos: This deck won't include it. Sorcery speed severely limits Animist's Awakening's potential, and the ROI of its effect is very low when you account for the chance inherent in its design.

@Leopleradon: Mill is an unreliable win condition in EDH, and Nephalia Drownyard means I'd need to run another land that can't produce colored mana. It doesn't really do anything necessary for the deck's success.

@Antonius_Cleus: As a sorcery that doesn't make itself reusable (compared to the instant speed and reshuffle effect of Blue Sun's Zenith), Damnable Pact comes up pretty short on value. It doesn't do anything that isn't already done more effectively and efficiently by other cards in the deck.

I hope you do not mind, in writing a primer for my deck I used your summary on the workings of Tooth and Nail, as we run it about the same way. I included proper linking to your user account as well. It's not quite finished yet, I'm currently finishing the last few odds and ends, but if you disagree with your writing being there, please notify me and I will take it down.

Thank you!

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-04-15-fear-the-old-blood/

Feel free to use the info! And if you have any questions, ask.

You know thinking about it, I do have a thought to send your way; how would you deal with combo decks going off faster than yours?

Outside of counters, I tried to think of other ways to stop a combo deck that gets pieces together first, or at least something to give me time to catch up. In my meta, there's a lot of Deadeye centered comboing out, so I've been playing with Overburden at the moment since I can just use venser to bounce it when I'm ready at the cost of one land while screwing them on lands to bounce Palinchron with, but I'm curious to see whether you'd have a better idea to try out.

To give you better perspective on my choices, I'm running Simic to your BUG.

is there any reason not to run tainted pact?

@Silverf1sh: I generally rely on countermagic to outplay faster decks; I tend not to be the kind of player who sides in or mainboards answers for specific threats. Then again, I also haven't played in a very long time, and maybe that option is realistic in your meta.

Overburden isn't bad. It's a cheap answer, but it's also relatively easy to answer in its own right considering it needs to be played preemptively and it just sits on the field afterward.

You could run Stifle and Trickbind to snipe critical abilities. You could also try increasing the speed of your own deck if there's room to do so.

@anvindr: Tainted Pact is just too much of a gamble. I don't mind exiling cards for a good cause, but Tainted Pact is just worse than a tutor. If I hit one of my combo pieces before I want it, then I have to either take it when I don't need it or exile it and switch to a backup strategy. Neither of those is optimal, and I don't really have a way to guarantee that this situation won't happen.

Fair enough, I suppose I could use trickbind over overburden for now and see where it goes.

I remember you mentioning a while ago how you were looking for good removal. Reality Shift is pulling some serious weight for me, in that regard. I like it much more than Pongify, for example, even with the +1 CMC because of the importance of exile vs. recursion/avacyn/things like that.

Anyway, this deck is legendary. Keep thinking about it.

What are your thoughts on Jace, Vryn's Prodigy? Paramount was praising it a lot in his review of origins, though I think his damia list is a lot different than yours is.

Here's his review powerpoint:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bgvirp6gaw876b1/EDH%20Review%20-%20Magic%20Origins.pptx?dl=0

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip doesn't offer anything to the deck. The draw ability is inefficient and slow, and none of Jace, Telepath Unbound  ^Flip's abilities are critical or even overwhelmingly useful.

If you want to copy and paste or summarize the arguments made in favor of it, I'll address them specifically, but I don't really feel like downloading and digging through a PowerPoint for them.

I've been a naga/gorgon type fan for a while, so when I saw Damia, I wanted to build a deck, but I could never get it fast enough... I decided to try out my own version of this deck, and I thought I'd get some input on certain cards.

Abundance I think this is a good mid game card. Once you have your mana base, you can make sure the seven cards you draw are free of lands (or have just as many lands as you would want).

See the Unwritten up to two free creatures?

Great Whale Sort of for redundancy. Like Palinchron, but doesnt bounce back, still combo's with Deadeye Navigator

Villainous Wealth I'm just in love with this card... Exile an opponents deck, then cast any spells in that deck.. If that player is also playing with a combo, you can use his combo to possibly win

Echo Mage and Meletis Charlatan copy wincon spells in multiplayer, copy tutors, copy dispels.

Rhystic Study Draw cards early, can combo with burgeoning (draw lands during opponents turn, and play them)

Reanimate/Stitch Together/Animate Dead My last deck was Child of Alara Recursion, so I kinda fell in love with these guys. Get expensive creatures from the graveyard for cheap.

I also notice there isn't much destruction. Go for the Throat is good, and Putrefy seems dual purposed.thoughts?

Abundance is ok in a more casual environment, but I don't think it's significant in any way. It's honestly quite good to draw a few lands because your Exploration effects allow you to turn that into immediate advantage.

See the Unwritten is underwhelming. It's a 6-drop that you have to toolbox to make useful. Else you have no control over how impactful it is.

Great Whale is fine if you need the redundancy,but I think Peregrine Drake is more economical as a backup. I suppose it depends. Great Whale is analogous to Palinchron and allows you enough mana to cast Deadeye Navigator if you Tooth and Nail another creature like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.

Villainous Wealth has been suggested numerous times since it came out, and I've dismissed it each time. It doesn't win on the spot, it doesn't guarantee a win, it only deals with one opponent, and it doesn't give you meaningful advantage if used as a noncombo utility spell.

Echo Mage and it's ill are poor investments. Sure, you can copy your game-winning spells, but your inner Timmy is getting the better of you. If the spells win the game on their own when used correctly, why include mechanisms to copy them? Especially if those mechanisms are uneconomical and require lots of setup.

Rhystic Study was cut a very long time ago. CMC 3 is an awkward place in the curve for this deck, and you could be playing better things at that point. I also think Mystic Remora happens to be more powerful as well as more economical.

You could certainly include reanimate on effects. I didn't go that route with this deck, though. If you were to include those spells, you'd probably want to shift to a graveyard strategy; those cards aren't really useful without a dedicated engine to capitalize on how cheaply they can get you your stuff. And one of the reasons I avoided that entirely is that I think Tooth and Nail, though expensive, is a much more dependable enabler.

You could include more removal. That is one of the deck's weak spots; it relies more on countermagic as a way to protect its combos and interfere with goings on in the meantime. Anything j don't counter is usually still inconsequential by the time I combo off. But if you find that threats tend to resolve and can't be overcome prior to your combo, then feel free to add more removal. Just keep in mind how much you're spending. 3 is a lot to drop just to kill something.

I'll vouch for Putrefy as a card. Personally, my favourite is Beast Within but both do a good job. Although 3 is a bit to spend, usually its either counter or kill something. And being able to dissuade a player from attacking you because they know you run after the fact removal is always great, especially when they swing someone else.

That being said, removal is better if you find your games going a bit longer. For the short 7 turn games, counterspells should be enough for the most part.

I used to run both is earlier iterations of this deck, but I found them uneconomical. It's simply too hard to hold 3 up without disrupting other components of your game plan, and it's difficult to justify doing so if you can already outpace most of the threats you'd need to answer.

That said, I again agree that those cards have their place in less competitive versions of this deck. If speed is not an issue, you have more room to play the slow control route.

After rereading through Paramount's assessment basically he's just on some sort of extra turns build so that's why he likes the new Jace.

Additionally, what are your thoughts on Grim Tutor as a budget substitute for Imp. Seal (I'm currently running personal tutor and it sucks)? Or should I just save up and eventually bite the bullet?

Even with extra turns, the new Jace is pretty underwhelming. I just don't believe that it adds valuable utility to a Commander deck.

Grim Tutor is good, but the high mana cost (compared to the deck's other tutors) means it's rather slow to play. Whether it's worth saving for Imperial Seal is a personal call. The latter is much better and is a staple in the optimized list, but you need to decide whether the extra power is worth the extra hundreds of dollars to you.

I know I mentioned it a little while ago, but I can't remember what your thoughts were on Ghostly Flicker. I've been seriously impressed by it, both inside and outside of combo. It gives you extra value from both Eternal Witness and Snapcaster Mage, it doubles as a counterspell with Venser, Shaper Savant and it protects Damia, Sage of Stone from targetted removal. It's also good in combo when you don't have any of your wincon pieces in hand since you need 10 mana to TaN for all 3, but with ghostly flicker you can do it with 9. Get Palinchron and Rune-Scarred Demon who in turn gets flicker, and get back 7 mana. Cast flicker targetting both RSD and Palinchron, going to 11 mana total (from the ETB) and getting Deadeye.

Have you thought about adding ad nauseam as an alternative draw engine and maybe retooling some things? The cmc of the deck is fairly low. I'm just saying this because I saw a zur ad nauseam deck that was pretty good and 40 life makes it pretty broken.

@enpc: Based on what you've said, it seems like a good option. The fact that it also goes infinite with Palinchron and Eternal Witness is pretty strong. It warrants testing, that's for sure.

@mrshadow: Zur relies on no high-cost pieces. All of my combo pieces are extremely expensive. Ad Nauseam is basically : Draw 3-4 cards and lose 3-18 life, depending on how lucky you are. I can't see it being effective here because the deck already requires you to pay a fair amount of life (6-15 on average just for lands and tutors). Necropotence is a better version that requires less mana and less life. Although you typically don't get killed by combat in competitive multiplayer, you do risk quite a bit by chunking yourself down on one spell that doesn't necessarily promise proportional returns.

Hey Epoch, there is a primer hub if you wanted to add it to your deck.