[Premium Article] Doomsday: The Puzzling -- Five Doomsday Puzzles to Blow Your Mind!

[Smmenen]

I have something very special to share. People have been regularly asking me about an update my Legacy Maniac Doomsday deck. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23925-Premium-Article-So-Many-Insane-Plays-%E2%80%93-The-Legacy-Doomsday-Device-Primer) I've tried to be responsive on forums and twitter, but here, finally, is the official update.

More importantly, I've been working on this special project for some time, and been wanting to do this, but only recently found the time. I have created five puzzles of increasing difficulty. It's been a labor of love. I really hope people enjoy this.

http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3228

Here's the teaser:


Stephen Menendian returns to (finally!) publish an update to his inspired Legacy Doomsday that many of you have been clamoring for! More importantly, he’s here to test your skills, challenge your knowledge of the format, and expand your mind as he takes you to your wit’s limit with five brilliant and progressively difficult puzzles.

Modeled after Mark Rosewater’s famous column, the “Puzzling,” these brain teasers will provide hours of entertainment as you examine the complex, intricate, mind-boggling possibilities with Doomsday! Each puzzle is based on game situations that might actually arise in Legacy tournaments. You’ll find yourself coming back to these puzzles over and over again for insight and fun! Beautifully rendered layouts and easy to follow narrative make this a article you cannot miss!


Introduction

As a lover of the game of Magic, I must also enjoy puzzles. Seen from a certain point of view, almost any game state within Magic can be viewed as a puzzle. You decipher relevant information from scattered clues. You employ deductive logic to eliminate choices and narrow your options. Induction, also, is a part of Magic: guessing what your opponent might have in hand based upon what is likely in their deck, and based on what they’ve played so far.

Every game state, every battlefield, and every scenario invites us to perceive more than is apparent – to delve below the surface, acquire insight, and thereby secure victory.

One of my favorite Duelist columns was Mark Rosewater’s The Puzzling. Inquest Magazine also featured a similar column. The most memorable columns presented situations so dire and grim that defeat seemed imminent, and nothing you could do would possibly prevent it.

Yet, as fun, intricate, and compelling as these exercises were, there was always an element of unreality to them. They resembled Magic, but they didn’t feel like a normal game of Magic. The situations were often so absurd and far-fetched that it strained the imagination to think that they might actually arise even in casual play. A good measure of suspension of disbelief accompanied most of the good Rosewater puzzles.

The best puzzles are the ones that not only stretch our minds and challenge our intellects, but do so in an environment or context that is believable and relevant. Fortunately, Eternal formats supply such a context.

The Eternal player, especially the combo pilot, can distill the basic elements of a game in the terms of a puzzle: an opponent’s countermagic and disruption, your limited mana and resources, and a single turn or two to manipulate your cards. These elements eliminate lines of play and narrow your decision trees to the most exacting and precise branch.

The relevant aspects of an opponent’s deck can often be reduced to a series of simple questions. What is your plan if your opponent has Force of Will? How do you beat a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben? How do you play around Tormod’s Crypt? And so on.

And so it is possible to devise puzzles that are not only challenging and interesting, but also realistic and pedagogical. For your entertainment and education I have devised five puzzles of increasing difficulty for the Legacy Doomsday pilot. One of my favorite aspects of the game is solving real world puzzles. I hope you enjoy these as much I would.

http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3228

[ramanujan]

Thanks for the update. I will buy it on Nov 2nd. I am indisposed until that time studying for hopefully my second to last actuarial exam.

Always good to see that you are still writing. I'll give my official opinion once I give your, presumably lengthy, article a good once over.

[Smmenen]

Thanks for the update. I will buy it on Nov 2nd. I am indisposed until that time studying for hopefully my second to last actuarial exam.

Always good to see that you are still writing. I'll give my official opinion once I give your, presumably lengthy, article a good once over.

Good luck on your actuarial exam. You may find that some of those analytical skills are applicable to these puzzles :p So doing them for fun should be a good way to reward yourself.

I intend to produce a few big articles a year, like this one. Creating puzzles of this kind of depth is a painstaking process, especially since the possibility for error is so great.

I hope people really take the time to savor these puzzles rather than rush through them.

If this article does well, I'll create a sequel to it. I already have some puzzle ideas in mind, but I wanted to see how folks enjoy this first. Puzzles aren't for everyone, so I tried to make them as relevant as possible, as the introductory teaser suggests. If you want to play Doomsday well, you could learn alot from this article (not to mention have my updated list).

[heathen]

I bought the article and am enjoying it, I just wish there was a way to discuss the puzzles without spoiling the content of the article. Any suggestions?

[Smmenen]

I bought the article and am enjoying it, I just wish there was a way to discuss the puzzles without spoiling the content of the article. Any suggestions?

If you can frame questions or discuss puzzles without spoiling them for people who haven't solved them yet (by asking general questions and referencing the puzzle number), feel free to do so here. Otherwise, feel free to tweet me on twitter.

[heathen]

This is probably a stupid question, but in the first problem, how are you able to construct your pile before Fireblast resolves? You said you cast Doomsday and then the opponent "announces a Fireblast." If you passed priority to let him put the Fireblast on the stack, wouldn't it resolve before Doomsday and then you're at 1 life after Doomsday resolves?

[Smmenen]

This is probably a stupid question, but in the first problem, how are you able to construct your pile before Fireblast resolves? You said you cast Doomsday and then the opponent "announces a Fireblast." If you passed priority to let him put the Fireblast on the stack, wouldn't it resolve before Doomsday and then you're at 1 life after Doomsday resolves?


The puzzle was a bit ambiguous, so we edited it yesterday to resolve that. The set up was that you cast Doomsdsay, it resolves, and your opponent casts Fireblast on you.

The idea was that you anticipated your opponent would try to cast Fireblast after Doomsday resolves, so you need to build a pile to defeat it, and can win even if they don't. In other words, you need to build a puzzle that has the capacity to defeat Fireblast because you anticipated that that was what your opponent might do since it was the only way you could lose this game.

[heathen]

The puzzle was a bit ambiguous, so we edited it yesterday to resolve that. The set up was that you cast Doomsdsay, it resolves, and your opponent casts Fireblast on you.

Okay that makes more sense. Are there any other edits that people who bought the earlier version of the article should be aware of?

[Smmenen]

Okay that makes more sense. Are there any other edits that people who bought the earlier version of the article should be aware of?

No, and the edit was extremely minor - just a few words changed to clarify the timing ambiguity.

[heathen]

No, and the edit was extremely minor - just a few words changed to clarify the timing ambiguity.

Good to know. Thanks for your responses.

[Smmenen]

Please let me know which puzzles you thought were most difficult, most interesting, and most skill-building.

[Smmenen]

Please let me know which puzzles you thought were most difficult, most interesting, and most skill-building.

Doug Linn pointed out that we should have shared some sense of what the puzzles look like. I took this screen shot from my Ipad 3 (btw, which is a great medium for reading this article).

http://i49.tinypic.com/1h6r0l.png

[Climax]

First of all, I have to say that I was pretty pleased by the article.

The puzzles were pretty entertaining.

To answer the questions:

The most interesting one for me was the first one. While playing DDFT you are pretty much dead in this situation. So at first I was pretty impressed when I found the solution.

Oddly the simplest one was the last one. (Maybe cuz I'm a strictly DDFT player and I use the trick pretty often).


The other ones are pretty standard game situations that happen while playing DD.


All in all, a great read. Was pretty entertaining.

Btw: Are you SteveMan on MWS? If so, weren't you satisfied with the Lim Dul's Vault? Cuz I've still the feeling that 4 DD is too few.

[Smmenen]

First of all, I have to say that I was pretty pleased by the article.

The puzzles were pretty entertaining.

All in all, a great read. Was pretty entertaining.



Glad you enjoyed it.

People who got this article really seem to like it and most folks really like the learning aspect to it.




To answer the questions:

The most interesting one for me was the first one.


While playing DDFT you are pretty much dead in this situation. So at first I was pretty impressed when I found the solution.



Fascinating. You are probably the only person who has said that so far :)




Oddly the simplest one was the last one. (Maybe cuz I'm a strictly DDFT player and I use the trick pretty often).


It's a little bit of an inside joke. Like Letterman's top 10 lists, the last one isn't necessarily the funniest. The 4th puzzle is probably the most difficult, from all the feedback we've received.




Btw: Are you SteveMan on MWS? If so, weren't you satisfied with the Lim Dul's Vault? Cuz I've still the feeling that 4 DD is too few.

I haven't been on MWS in years. Wasn't me. It's not even installed on any of my computers any more...

[Climax]

Fascinating. You are probably the only person who has said that so far :)


Yeah. I pretty much liked that one.



It's a little bit of an inside joke. Like Letterman's top 10 lists, the last one isn't necessarily the funniest. The 4th puzzle is probably the most difficult, from all the feedback we've received.


Argh. Now I feel not nearly as smart as before.



I haven't been on MWS in years. Wasn't me. It's not even installed on any of my computers any more...


Ah ok. Are you still satisfied with 4 Doomsdays as the only business spells?
Guess with the protection suite you've got more time than the common DDFT lists.

(Only tried your list on a tourney back in June or so. Don't even remember. Wasn't to pleased with the results but i guess this was because of a total lack of playtesting and rough MUs. But the article gave me a reason to try it again.
Unfortunatelly I#m from europe. So I won't be the person to Top8 the SCGO's. But hopefully will win some local tourneys. )

Thank you for your reply

[Smmenen]

Ah ok. Are you still satisfied with 4 Doomsdays as the only business spells?
Guess with the protection suite you've got more time than the common DDFT lists.

Well, I think it depends on what you mean by "Business." This issue was pretty extensively discussed in the original threat for the primer, but I've never found this to be an issue.

I sat down and tried to do a rigorous count, and something like 19 out of 20 goldfishes, following a very simple algorithm, I was able to find a Doomsday by turn 4.

The algorithm is simple:

1) Mulligan a hand that doesn't have: Doomsday, Ponder, Brainstorm or Top.

2) When playing Brainstorm, Ponder, and Top, use them to maximize the new cards seen at every step.

So, for example, don't Brainstorm into cards you've already seen with Top or Ponder. And make sure to use Fetchlands to see fresh cards with Top every time.

The explanation for this is very simple: the density of these search cards gives you a very high consistency to find a 4-of if you are relatively single-minded in your pursuit of it.

[Smmenen]

I got to play in my first Legacy tournament today since SCG Columbus at Origins. It was a GP Denver trial at Eudominia in Berkeley.

I split 1st/2nd place with the updated Doomday list and sideboard from this article. I only split because my finals opponent wanted the byes, and I knew I wouldn't be traveling to Denver for the Grand Prix.

Deck was absolutely insane. I probably used more than a few of the solutions from these puzzles :)

[Philipp2293]

Congratz on your finish. Are you gonna put up some more details?

Also, how do you think has Deathrite Shaman affected the deck so far?

[Smmenen]

I probably won't write a report, but I was paired up against a range of decks: RUG Delver, BUG, Death and Taxes, Aluren, High Tide, etc.

I will say that my deck is very difficult to play only because you have to know what your DDay pile is going to be at least a turn before you do it, or else you might not have the right mana in play.

The four keys to playing this deck are: 1) the pre-Doomsday Algorithm (which means, how to sequence Brainstorms, Ponders, and Tops), 2) When to play Doomsday (do you play it now? or wait until next turn, etc), and 3) Managing and developing your mana base (i.e. when to fetch, and what lands to fetch), and 4) Building the Doomsday piles (and manage your life). You should ideally win every game at 1-2 life, which means you are maximizing all of your resources.

A key to most Doomsday puzzles, however, is having a land be the last card. You really want to Doomsday with an unused Fetchland in play a huge amount of the time.

Predict was really, really good, as I knew it would be. The maindeck is improved over the deck I played at SCG. Again, I played the exact updated decklist that was published in this Puzzle article.

I haven't played alot agaisnt Deathrite Shaman yet, but it's no harder to play around than a Tormod's Crypt. It's fairly simple to beat and play around.

[pandaman]

Steven, not a lot of people are playing your deck, so I would love to read a report. Also, as your article is premium content there is no dedicated thread for discussion, so the chances to read about how the deck performs are few and far between. I have read both your articles and would like to see how Flusterstorm and Chain of Vapor went for you.

[Smmenen]

Steven, not a lot of people are playing your deck, so I would love to read a report. Also, as your article is premium content there is no dedicated thread for discussion, so the chances to read about how the deck performs are few and far between. I have read both your articles and would like to see how Flusterstorm and Chain of Vapor went for you.

Flusterstorm has been all-star: It stops High Tide in its tracks, is good against RUG for stopping the cards you cards you care about, nails Show and Tell, and slows Reanimator. It's pretty good in almost every matchup as well.

Chain has rarely come up, but it allows you to do so many interesting and useful things.

[.dk]

I've had a tough time against High Tide with this deck, really. It seems that it usually comes down to who can go off first. I've had a few occasions where I've gotten into flusterstorm wars with my High Tide opponent, both to protect my combo, as well as disrupt theirs. The math starts to become kind of insane... Outside of that, however, Flusterstorm has been great in my testing. Trumps pretty much every non-flusterstorm counterspell out there.

I also feel like with the amount of discard that is entering the format right now, Divert might be a real card again. I haven't tested it against the BUG decks, but I could see it having some pretty great value, and can let you still use your Brainstorms proactively to find Doomsday.

[Smmenen]

That's difficult to me to understand, because I've never lost to High Tide after facing it three times in tournament now, but I have some advice.

First, I think you are may be playing /approaching the matchup wrong. Don't worry about trying to combo out. Just play a hard control role. The difference between a deck like High Tide and a combo deck like Reanimator is that High Tide takes a lot of resources to go off. If you get them to play a bunch of thier spells, it takes many turn for them to set up again. Just use your cantrips and Topping to find countermagic and set up a huge counter-wall. They can't beat that. USe Probes to mold the perfect hand to set up traps. For example if you know that they are going to pay High Tide and then Turnabout to untap their lands, don't counter the High Tide -- counter the Turnabout.

Once you've depleted their hand, then you should try to hardcast Dday. Shuffling back Rituals -- dont even bother with them. Once they are spent, you should be able to easily hardcast Dday off of 3 Seas and win this or the following turn.

Second, bring in at least 1-2 Cabal Therapies, if not both Therapies and a few Bobs, both to generate card advantage and to flashback Therapy, which really does The Rape High Tide. Keep at least 3 Dark Rituals in post-board for turn one Therapy/Top + Bob.

***

The main complaint I've heard from people playing this deck is the RUG matchup. I've not lost to RUG in tournament, although I did lose a very close game 3 to UR Delver at the SCG Open (after really miscuing game 1 -- which I should have won).

The key to the RUG matchup is realizing you are going to use your life as a resource, so you should plan to end the game at 1-2 life. WHen you play Dday, you will be at 8-13 life, which means, post-Dday, you will be at 4-6 life. You probably will use some combination of Force/Fetch/Probe post-Dday to win, so you should end every game at 1-2 life.

[.dk]

That's fair - against most high tide builds that is probably fine. We have a local High Tide player that packs a lot of countermagic as well - including 3 flusterstorms main - which make taking the control role a bit harder. Likely your advice is correct in most cases though. I run a petal in my list, so if I can T1/2 Ritual into Doomsday with 1 protection spell, that is usually game as High Tide won't keep a hand with just a bunch of countermagic and no business for them to win. I agree that Therapies and Bobs are usually pretty killer post board, since High Tide can't attack your life total.

RUG hasn't usually felt that awful to me. Spellskite does SO much work in that matchup - my biggest problem there is usually finding DDay quickly enough to still have enough life left for Probe post DD. Mulligans are key in this matchup to give yourself the best chance of getting DD in hand, or a good chance to find it quickly (Ponders and Tops...)

[thra1l]

Hi,

I have really enjoyed the puzzle article so far (and the Primer, for that matter). I do have a question: on puzzle number 4, it shows that a Flusterstorm is in hand. However it shows that the Flusterstorms were boarded out for this puzzle. This is the only one I haven't solved, merely because I want to make sure everything is correct before I attempt to solve it.

I would love to see more articles like this for this deck; I'm really enjoying it.

-Jacob

Edit - typo

[Smmenen]

Hi,

I have really enjoyed the puzzle article so far (and the Primer, for that matter). I do have a question: on puzzle number 4, it shows that a Flusterstorm is in hand. However it shows that the Flusterstorms were boarded out for this puzzle. This is the only one I haven't solved, merely because I want to make sure everything is correct before I attempt to solve it.

I would love to see more articles like this for this deck; I'm really enjoying it.

-Jacob

Edit - typo

Yes, it won't change the hypo. Just follow what the blurb says, and not the image. Thanks for your interest in this article! I'm really glad folks enjoyed it...


Stephen

[Smmenen]

That's fair - against most high tide builds that is probably fine. We have a local High Tide player that packs a lot of countermagic as well - including 3 flusterstorms main - which make taking the control role a bit harder. )


One of my testing partners is Danny Friedman, who plays 3 flusterstorm high Tide, and I crush him with this deck. All you do is play a hard control role, and it's impossible for them to win. They have to resolve High Tide to win, and even if you don't counter the High Tide, they basically need to resolve a Time Spiral, which is easy to counter. Then you've 2-for-1ed them with your countermagic. If they wait too long, then you combo out before they can.