MTG Salvation

there are two huge issues i am seeing here...your curve is way too high, and you do not have any ways to recur damia. for the current list, vorosh might be a better general.

damia wants a lower curve to cycle through the deck quick enough. he cheaper your spells are, the more you can play. the more spells you play, the more cards you draw. stuff like snuff out and nature's claim are huge in damia. they are easily better than other spot removal because of how cheap they are.

damia recursion is also very important from what i have seen through testing. she is a 7 cmc general. a few deaths and it will become nearly impossible to cast her again. stuff like volrath's stronghold is clutch in keeping her as cheap as possible. run reanimator effects for her. you wont regret it.

one other key point i would like to make, i dont like "couterspell" damia. i run lots of removal and a decent package of cheap counterspells, but not enough to over do it. somewhere around 8 or so is more than enough in my opinion. it lets you play more spells to empty out your hand without wasting "removal" on things that arent that detrimental to your game plan.

then again, thats just how i do it. it works out really well for me.

EDIT: oh, on the topic of finishers, SHE is a finisher! throw an empyrial plate or diviner's wand on that chick and go to town!

Rhystic Study and Academy Ruins seem like fine additions as ruins doesn't strain mana base and has value and rhystic study is there for when damia isn't.

Holistic Wisdom to trade one answer for another?

Thanks for the suggestions all. My mana curve is 3.3 last time I checked the breakdown and with all the ramp I feel the curve is pretty fast. There are some cards I've been considering swapping out like sever the Bloodline in and duplicant out.

I also run a few other draw spells so I'm not totally reliant on Damia, because to tell you the truth she's fragile and not the best draw engine unless you can protect her, hence the counterspells. But either way she's plan b more than anything. I had stronghold in there but I never used it once so I took it out. Thinking of readding for the synergy with Phantasmal image keeping a general out of the game.

Also I'm not trying to go the voltron route because there's much better things I could be doing in BUG.

Also where I play everyone just pays the 1 for thyself study and attacks you so I'm not a dan of that card. And I don't know if I have enough artifacts to make ruins worthwhile.

And last but not least on the topic of reccursion I feel like I may have a little but too much as is but I've been thinking of running snapcaster Mage but I hate the artwork. I just hate having a hand full of reccursion and somebody has a tormod's crypt out just waiting for me to try something. I feel the recursion I already have is pretty good.

you're missing the best card in the deck: life from the loam

I've been thinking about removing Skyshroud Claim for LFTL. I might as well go ahead and make the change now. Thanks!

I'm not sure how Life from the Loam is that great without a full spread of LD sac lands and spells to get those lands like Realms Uncharted and Sylvan Scrying + a whole strategy based on Exploration, Oracle, or Azusa.
I do run Oracle but thought of cutting her because the curve on Damia is so low that aggresive ramp isn't necessary. Fetch sorcery and Sac Snake seem efficient enough. I guess these are primarily run to keep your hand from clogging up with land and thereby screwing up Damia? eh. Seems like a clunky way to try to make your general useful. I think I'd rather just draw moar cards and discard down the slag and keep playing with the table than mess around with so much combo tech. The beauty of Damia is that she's interactive.

If I wanted to go play in my bin, I'd play Mimeoplasm.

Outside of GY shenanigans, I do know that LftL has some confusing synergy with Sylvan Library, but every time I read about it and try to understand I can hear brain cells screaming as they burst and die.

Are you dredging mostly just to get Snapcaster, Yawgmoth's Will, E Witness, and Regrowth targets? If that be the case, I think I'd rather just play Intuition.

Even without every LD land in existence in OP's list (the OP runs Wasteland and Strip Mine), LftL with fetchlands still provides tremendous card advantage by guaranteeing you a land drop every turn. Dredging it usually churns out more lands which can get returned to your hand as unending fodder for a Forbid softlock.
Regarding your last point, I think you would run BOTH Intuition and LftL. Intuition is a one-card combo that removes the need for running Realms Uncharted, as you would ideally Intuition for LftL and your 2 favourite lands (although you would have 2 less choices).

I see. I was wondering what those 9 fetchlands were doing in there. I half expected to see a bloodghast + skullclamp engine with all those, but I had overlooked the Forbid softlock. This must go nicely with Capsize + Seedborn Muse. Both combos have alot of gas.

So yeah, here's what I'm seeing from LftL in Damia:
1) Recurring LD with Strip Mine and Wasteland
2) Recurring Fetchlands for mana-fixing and land drops
3) Dredge fuel for Forbid softlock
4) Dredge for recursion/flashback targets

I guess I'm pretty sold on the card. Unfortunately, the cards it really interacts with the best come with really depressing price tags.

Sorry for the late response. I'm working on several decks so sometimes I forget to respond. Basically the fetches are for color fixing but another great interaction is with lotus cobra, which gives me two mana of any color without even having to tap anything. I added life from the loam so there's another way to hit land drops,recur creeping tarpit or just strip mine lands. It also adds protection against LD.

About bloodghast,I'm not sold on combos with weak cards in a non mono black deck, especially if they don't do something insane. At least if youre running mono or heavy black there a bunch more tutors that are playable. Skullclamp is great in colors that lack draw but that's not a issue here since I'm running blue,black plus I have damia. Most of the time why not just grab necropotence instead?

Tooth and Nail is a one-card win condition, if you're willing to run Eternal Witness, Palinchron, Phyrexian Metamorph, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger and Oona, Queen of the Fae in the deck. You can repeatedly cast Metamorph as Palinchron to generate infinite mana and exile everyone's libraries.

Thank you for your response.

I'm well aware of that combo. It was originally posted by Wildfire who I gave credit to in my opening post. Tooth and nail was dropped in favor of lowering the curve to make the deck more efficient. If this were a strictly multiplayer deck I would reconsider it but I do a lot of dueling against good decks as well as play multiplayer so I wanted to lower my curve and increase efficiency.

Quote from nutterbutter

Tooth and nail was dropped in favor of lowering the curve to make the deck more efficient. If this were a strictly multiplayer deck I would reconsider it but I do a lot of dueling against good decks as well as play multiplayer so I wanted to lower my curve and increase efficiency.

TBH, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around your line of thinking on this one. You have 99 cards in your library. Adding one high cmc silver bullet will hardly dilute the build. The card is basically a win, even without the combo. If you dedicate that one slot to a more "efficient" spell, what you essentially end up with is a build that streamlines to nothing but more streamlines, which is particularly unfun for anyone that likes to get more than one game in over a two hour period.

I run the full T&N combo which brings in Palinchron, Vorinclex, and Oona - x3 high cmc creatures who's value outside the combo is pretty limited. (I don't count E Witness and Metamorph as "wasted slots" as they are basically BUG goodstuff.) I very rarely see any of the three on a draw, and if I do, it doesn't exactly hurt my chances of winning that much. If I find T&N with 11 mana, I usually win. Period.

Now, I'm not trying to sell you on the combo as that is a matter of personal preference, but a T&N for Sphinx and Seedborn is just plain sick. I'm sure your Damia build will be plenty efficient with 98 other "efficient" cards in your library. Just sayin..

I guess the reason you don't understand my logic is I wasn't completely clear on how I use the deck. When you're dueling against a general like zur the enchanter or name other random degenerate general and you top deck vorinclex or TaN you might as well have drawn nothing at all, because odds are if you've gotten to enough mana to cast this and haven't disrupted their plans you've probably lost already. I not only play this deck in multiplayer but I dual against 1v1 dedicated decks. I see building a deck designed for this but to also function in multiplayer a particularly challenging and fun proposition. In dueling cheap efficient spells are a necessity and then your draw effects equate to massive explosions of cheap powerful spells. The draw equals bombs here because you'll be playing a crap ton of spells. While tooth and nail is a great spell it's not necessary in this build.

So I'm stongly considering adding tooth and nail, triskekion plus Mikaeus, The Unhallowed for an instant win combo. My only concern is that I'll be drastically messing with the curve and damaging my 1v1 effectiveness, but it's quicker than exsanguinate. Thoughts?

Quote from nutterbutter

So I'm stongly considering adding tooth and nail, triskekion plus Mikaeus, The Unhallowed for an instant win combo. My only concern is that I'll be drastically messing with the curve and damaging my 1v1 effectiveness, but it's quicker than exsanguinate. Thoughts?

I thought about this too, and probably will try it out just for fun, but I really think it belongs in Mimeo instead. It fits in nicely with the Trisk + Lord of Extinction combo. I think an enwined T&N for Seedborn + CSphinx is almost better in Damia though. It doesn't win the game outright, but it usually does end up winning and without a hail of boos. Then again, this deck list is competitive, so this build is not really designed to make friends.
As far as Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in Mimeo or Damia outside the combo, I'm really not clear yet on his value. Bloodghast + Skullclamp engine maybe? Is undying useful enough to the BUG generals to warrant removing counter spells to make room?

Well I could take out batterskull for one of the pieces and exsanguinate for tooth and nail. Undying would be cool with a couple of the creatures like glen elandra archmage. Not sure what else I would take out. I sometimes wonder if I have too many counters. Skullclamp is an idea.

Got to play a game with this last week. Basically flew under the radar, then once people saw I was getting out of hand exsanguinated to give myself some breathing room and after that played draw go with the whole table while recurring exsanguinate and casting it over and over for the win. I'm going to take out batterskull for time warp and lotus cobra for exploration. I could use another strong win condition and I hate casting Damia and getting hand clogged with lands, so these changes should help that.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I also removed grim tutor to play in my X-D deck. Added reanimate. If it ends up being too much of a problem not having it, I'll add it back in.

Quote from Aeon-Phoenix

So yeah, here's what I'm seeing from LftL in Damia:
1) Recurring LD with Strip Mine and Wasteland
2) Recurring Fetchlands for mana-fixing and land drops
3) Dredge fuel for Forbid softlock
4) Dredge for recursion/flashback targets

I guess I'm pretty sold on the card. Unfortunately, the cards it really interacts with the best come with really depressing price tags.

I hear ya. Being poor and not being able to buy the duals, fetches, or other related nonbasics makes optimal deckbuilding (which includes being able to abuse LftL to its fullest extent) rather difficult.

I am liking the deck.

It's not your usually Damia build. It's not Wizards tribal, not re-animation, graveyard combo, nor infinite combo. Just plain old trusty control. BUG Control is always good, very dependable :).

Sorry to necro this, but are you not including intuition for any reason?

Hello!

I'm starting to play with a decklist of Damia, would like some opinion, can you help me?
(My decklist is like yours, the difference is that the curve is a little bigger. Not really like to use combos win, I prefer to extend the game)

I use Blue Sun's Zenith or Necropotence ? any guesses?
it seems to me that the life you lose a lot of life to her...

I'm thinking of adding Scavenging Ooze, but do not know if it is so necessary. What do you think of it?

Thanks