[Deck] 5c Fast Doomsday Tendrils

[ivanpei]

I couldn't find any recent doomsday threads other than the Shelldrazi one so I decided to start this one. Here's what I've been testing:

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Spells:44
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Orim's Chant
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
3 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Doomsday
1 Infernal Contract
1 Tendrils of Agony

Lands:16
1 Badlands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard:15
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Tropical Island
1 Duress
1 Gitaxian Probe
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Burning Wish
1 Pyroclasm
1 Doomsday
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Why this over Ant and Tes? There are a few reasons. Firstly both Ant and Tes need to win quickly due to life limitations from Ad Nauseum. In Ant, Ill Gotten Gains is terrible vs blue while digging for Infernal is very difficult when unlucky.

Tes imo is clunky because the Burning Wishes Can't hit Ad Nauseum which is the best combo enabler. Diminishing is random, iggy gives opponents counterspells and Burning Wish unfortunately RFGs itself. Past in Flames doesn't work with artifacts and ditto burning wish RFGs itself.

DDay received a massive boost from Probe lately and I've seen some lists. All play 4 probes and 4 tops which is understandable. However, I've come to prefer going topless (lol). The main reason why is speed. I've tried my best to make the deck faster by running more cantrips rather than tops. On theme, I'm running a full set of cabal rituals which speed up the deck and benefits from extra cantrips. Hitting threshold is not uncommon in this deck and can help win games.

I know that top is critical as a Zero cost draw into meditate/contract. That's why I have a probe in the board to wish for. This might seem like a hassle but it isn't. Unlike Infernal, you can't turn burning wish into a mana spell, so when you draw extra wishes, wishing for a cantrip is very useful.

The deck basically must have Dday + Probe to go off. Wish fetches both so it works out great. Also by playing more cantrips and cabal Ritual, a quick Wish into Empty the Warrens is a very effective alternate kill as well. Generally this deck plays more smoothly than both Ant and Tes from my experience.

2ndly, this deck is better against blue postboard. Against non wasteland blue decks, the storm plan goes out for the Shelldock plan. I've always felt that in Tes and Ant, when you cut cantrips and rituals for extra protection, the deck becomes ultra clunky. Sometimes you draw too much protection and you simply can't go off.

By boarding out the storm plan for the Eldrazi plan, the deck can run without that many rituals as it's a much less mana intensive combo. therefore, you can feel free to board in as much protection as possible. Against Counterbalance, you can hardcast dday through it and ride Shelldock ftw.

[Deviruchi]

Before lockdown:

1. You should post in this thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...hland-Tendrils
2. Check established decklists because your is very very wrong. 0 SDT? Srsly?

[ivanpei]

I've played the 4 SDT lists before. I know what I'm talking about. Try it, seriously it works. Speed of Cantrips + Cabal Ritual is very powerful, enough to offset SDT's long term consistency. Also, a 5C manabase lets you play Wish, Chant AND Decay/Xantids. Unfortunately that means insufficient fetches. This list can just support 5, so SDT's effectiveness is reduced. This is a pretty different build from the usual Doomsday lists.

[entity]

Care to share testing results? I'm really sceptical about dropping SDT and wishing for cantrip seems like a waste of Wish, but if results are promising, I might give it a try.
Also, why Infernal Contract over Ideas Unbound or Meditate? All you get is losing more life, and losing half your life twice isn't great when you can IU or Meditate without that.
And since I don't see another storm engine MD, there's no need for Tendrils MD - you shouldn't have a problem putting wish as a last card into DD pile :)

Also, posting on Storm Boards would probably be more productive.

[Asthereal]

Yeah someone should rename the Fetch Tendrils thread to Doomsday Tendrils or something.
I also don't really believe in Topless Doomsday. Top is kind of our main thing. But anyway if you think this is better, by all means try it.

Do you have test results, or a tournament report?

[FTW]

Interesting. So your point is Top is slower and with 5c (Wish, etc.) you have more versatility?

Yeah, would love to see results.

I can't imagine running Doomsday without Top. So many more piles go active with Top. You can cast it off ritual mana, use it over Probe when your life is dangerously low post-DD and you are worried about opponent having Bolt, use it to make piles that beat Ethersworn Canonist and/or Lodestone Golem and/or Thalia (if Top in play), etc. Do you find you have fewer piles to construct around hate pieces without Top?

[gregtron]

This is a joke, right? It looks like a bastardized mixture of TES and ANT with cards shaved for Doomsdays. I don't mean to sound rude, but judging from your list/card justifications, I'd wager that you don't have a lot of hours logged into any Legacy storm deck.

The idea that storm needs to "win quickly" is the first red flag. You pull the trigger when the coast is clear (or when you have to). Storm players who go all in as soon as possible are like Belcher players without free wins. And Iggy isn't even run in most maindecks since PiF was released specifically because of FoW, etc. Also, I don't see any reason to run Shelldock/Emmy now that Abrupt Decay exists. If a deck has Counterbalance for you, it probably has Wasteland, too.

And, man, you're casting Wish for Probe. That's a hail mary play, not a primary strategy.

[ivanpei]

Well I know the list looks really like a hybrid of everything, and that's probably the reason for the new thread. I am not a new storm player. I have played TES, ANT (since Mystical Tutor days and even pre Ad Nauseum Days with good old Ill Gotten Gains), Belcher and Also traditional + Shelldock Doomsday.

1. Why Infernal Contract? Off Cabal Ritual mana, its easier to cast if you are forced to use your blue mana to Brainstorm into the draw 4. Sometimes you don't have LED and you have to go off with Cabal Ritual. With 7 cards in the yard, cabal makes a lot of mana. Also infernal contract in your opening hand can be thrown out there early to draw you gas against slow decks. Generally the primary argument is ease to cast off Cabal Ritual.

2. MD Tendrils. Without any mana floating, you can combo off With A MD Tendrils. If you float at least 1 mana, I know You can do the Draw4, Petal, LED, LED, Wish pile, but without any floating mana, you have to go Draw 4, Petal, Ritual, Ritual, Tendrils. Basically the MD Tendrils lets you go off for 1 mana less. I think it's worth the slot.

3. No top. Yes this was an extremely extremely hard cut. I felt that without more fetches, Top was very very average. Also you don't have to wish for a cantrip. You can just use a standard cantrip to go off. It is just as a last resort when you are strapped for mana. So basically you are sacrificing the consistency of Fetchlands + Top for Cabal Rituals high power + 5 Colour manabase. Why am I convinced this tradeoff is worth it? From my TES experience, a 5c manabase is IMO the best for a Storm Combo deck. You like Chants which is basically a Timewalk against aggro and one of the best cards against blue. You also want Burning Wish so you can cut subpar tutors like LDV/Personal. You also want Green for Xantid Swarm which is the best SB anti blue card as well as Abrupt Decay which is champion vs counterbalance and hate bears.

4. Top tricks. Yes the deck misses the fancy piles with top. But with the massive mana Cabal Ritual Generates when treshed, spending a U for a cantrip to draw the Infernal is very easy to do, along with Wish for Wish For Tendrils (extra storm), since Cabal makes such a boatload of mana, it makes up for a lot of holes.

I believe that 5c is the way to go and in order to do that, you can't run as many fetchlands. As I started to add more Rainbow lands and cutted fethlands, Tops seemed less and less useful. I then cut them all together and went the Cabal Ritual route. If you are an ANT player you know how powerful these rituals are. They are the only + 3 rituals other than LED when threshed. Also with more rituals, a quick Burning wish into Empty the Warrens is equally effective.

I'd like you guys to at least run a couple of golfishes with it to see what I mean.

[Lemnear]

Why this over Ant and Tes? There are a few reasons. Firstly both Ant and Tes need to win quickly due to life limitations from Ad Nauseum.

That is plain nonsense on several instances, I refuse to list for now. Saying that Burnig Wish for Diminishing Returns is bad, but running it yourself to wish for G.Probe is hilarious. You can't hit on Ad Nauseam being bad cuz life-dependend, but adding Doomsday which results in a Loss against any deck with DRS or Lightning Bolt.

Shelldock/Emrakul ... Please. And you call TES clunky ...

[Tammit67]

Why this over Ant and Tes? There are a few reasons. Firstly both Ant and Tes need to win quickly due to life limitations from Ad Nauseum.

That is plain nonsense on several instances, I refuse to list for now.

It's ok, I'll do it for you:

• Tutor Chain
• Past in Flames
• Diminishing Returns
• Ill-gotten Gains

Besides that, I don't know if I can stomach cabal ritual, let alone skipping ideas unbound for Infernal contract. How do you expect to win against deathrite shaman or burn when you pay half your life total twice rounded up? Against lightning bolt, you have to be above 15 the entire time!

IMO you've taken some of the best points about doomsday (consistency, hard to disrupt manabase, maindeck answers to hate) and instead jammed more fast mana.

[emidln]

Cutting SDT slows the deck down, particularly with more black mana. Even without more black mana (which btw, Rain of Filth is better than Cabal Ritual, because you want to spending island to cast cantrips, not to cast Cabal Ritual), SDT allows you to suspend a cantrip. You don't even have to spin the thing. Preordain always costs U. This is a serious problem when you're trying to kill someone on turn 1 or 2 (not saying that you should be, but if you are, this is an issue). You're also missing the numerous times when LED + cantrips + SDT lets you cast stuff like Doomsday using LED mana. The BS+GP+SDT+LED corner case comes up a reasonable amount of time and you're just throwing it away.

Playing less than 4 probe in your maindeck when you're trying to kill ASAP by casting a card disadvantage tutor is absolutely awful. If you were really trying to speed up, you'd skip the bajillion Cabal Rit nonsense and play Street Wraith in addition to GP along with a small number of Personal Tutor.

Cutting IU slows the deck down by requiring more mana to win the game. BBBUU can kill your opponent when you're holding GP or SW. Even if you actually wanted to play a draw4 to take advantage of black mana, you want Meditate, not Infernal Contract/Cruel Bargain. The first blue mana is extremely easy. The second one is really hard without LED. The first 4 black mana are pretty reasonable to get. 5 shouldn't be an issue most of the time. But 6 black is actually just as hard to get as BBBUUU, if not harder (especially on a 5c manabase).

This all comes back to trying to speed up something that you don't actually understand. A competent Doomsday pilot knows how to make the deck more unstable to make it kill on turn 1 and turn 2 a little more often. We don't because it's been a historically bad tradeoff when facing down RUG and various Esper-ish decks. But when you do want to speed up, understanding what the limiting factors in the deck are is critical. You fundamentally need the following:

box A: BBB (this is conveniently provided by Dark Ritual, Rain of Filth with 3 total lands, or Cabal Ritual).
box B: Doomsday (no substitute for this)
box C: 2 draw spells + mana to cast them OR 1 draw spell + mana to cast it + 2 mana OR 1 brainstorm + U + spare cards

If you analyze box C, you'll find that the "+ mana to cast" clause becomes a limiting factor. It makes your cost go from 3 total to 5-6 total in most circumstances. If you just needed raw mana, more rituals would solve this, but if you look carefully, you actually tend to need U or UU to really work (especially without SDT or a full set of GP).

I'll also throw out that maindeck ToA isn't actually very useful unless you also want to play a maindeck Ill-Gotten Gains. This provides a couple convenient pass the turn piles that are unusually cheap. ToA itself only really provides a couple options relating to Brainstorm (but requires IU to execute properly) that can't be accomplished with Burning Wish->ToA.

[Koby]

It's ok, I'll do it for you:

• Tutor Chain
• Past in Flames
• Diminishing Returns
• Ill-gotten Gains

Cantrip chaining is one of my most favorite, under-appreciated Storming methods. It requires a Dark Ritual to start comboing, but cantrips can find all the needed pieces to begin it.

[emidln]

Cantrip chaining is one of my most favorite, under-appreciated Storming methods. It requires a Dark Ritual to start comboing, but cantrips can find all the needed pieces to begin it.

Snapcaster Mage is my favorite (outside of Doomsday) thus far. It's a storm engine in a box. It's not necessarily the best storm engine, but it's way more fun (and versatile).

[Bahamuth]

I was gonna come in here with some comments, but then emidln basically covered everything I wanted to say better.

[ivanpei]

I'm taking this advice seriously. And I do see the limitations.

Any constructive suggestions on how to make a 5c top-less Doomsday better? If not feel free to laugh it off and lock the thread.

[Anusien]

Why is your goal to make a Top-less Doomsday deck, instead of the best Doomsday deck possible?

You choose Infernal Contract over Meditate/Ideas Unbound because of the reduced need for blue mana. You say you can support this because of Cabal Ritual's extra mana production. Doesn't Top take advantage of that extra produced mana and reduce your need for blue even further?

I understand the desire to take an idea (in this case, Top-less Doomsday) to its logical extreme. It allows you to push past local maximums and help find an absolute maximum. You have two problems with your approach here:
1) The "Try it, it works". I understand it's difficult to get useful, reasoned feedback on a forum. People will immediately say, "Have you tested it?" The only answer to that is that you need to have tested it, or to follow point 2 below.
2) Address the issue head-on. Say, "Yeah, this is like a normal Doomsday list, except I think I've identified problem X" (in this case, either being slow because of the need to spend extra mana in setup turns spinning Top, or an over-reliance on blue mana). You don't need to spend your time saying, "Oh yeah we have this sweet Shelldock Isle plan TES doesn't have." We can tell that. You need to say, "The list is experimental, but I think this problem fixes it because of A, B and C." The flip side is that you need to be obvious that you understand the downfalls in this plan. In this case, it seems like you have identified a potential problem (I don't have the experience with the deck to say if it's a real problem), but you don't have a clear handle on the tradeoffs (unable to use Top to substitute for a blue cantrip).