Happy little article about Doomsday

[Noctalor]

(I didn't knew where to post this "article", hope its fine here )

Hi, Ivan here, I've been playing Doomsday for the last four years and I've tried most versions.
I've already wrote a primer for italian community (here (http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&p=520182&sid=f064a9da22c689de7b04b21a1132d20a#p520182)) and many times people asked me for an English version, it took time to get it done but here we go :smile:.

Let's start talking about our main goal while playing Doomsday, the card gives us the power to cast five Vampiric Tutor in a row, so it's great at enabling combos, Doomsday can in fact work both as a storm deck winning with Tendrils of Agony and as a simple one card combo deck winning by a pile containing Shelldock Isle and Emrakul, The Aeons Thorn or just with a Laboratory Maniac.

Decklist

So here it is a quick description of most of the card that the deck tend to play

The core of the deck, that should likely never be changed, is composed by a massive amount of cantrips, we need to cantrip after we cast Doomsday to make the engine work, so we usually play the fullset of Brainstorm, Ponder and Gitaxian Probe, Sensei's Divining Top is also a 4x in all Doomsday lists, top is likely the single most important card, having it on board helps comboing off by a huge amount.

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

A core part of the deck is mana accelleration, we usually play far less mana than other storm decks because Doomsday is able to bring us all the mana we need (generally by fetching a couple of Lion's Eye Diamonds) but we still need some fast mana, we usually play the full set of Dark Ritual, getting BBB helps casting Doomsday a lot, and the full set of Lion's Eye Diamond because we can really abuse the card in our piles with the help of Top, we also play a couple of Lotus Petals or at least one in case we need a free mana source in a pile and we also play a single copy of Rain of Filth because we would lilely play 8 Dark Rituals, so 5 is better than 4, maybe considering RoF a core part is a bit of a stretch, but the card is just so good there is no reason to not play it.

4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1/2 Lotus Petal

Then we have to pick up our tutor, the main choices are Burning Wish, Dark Petition or no tutors at all.
Burning Wish is far more used than Dark Petition, it's pretty good because it allows to generate a free spell in our piles, it grants the pros and cons of a wishboard but requires to splash red and cant support a second engine such as Past in Flames (having to remove the wish makes it pretty bad both in tutor chains and in pif kills).
Dark Petition has the advantage to fully support Past in Flames, it doesn't require a splash but the main problems with the card are that it requires more rituals because we have to get five mana without LEDs (so it's usually played supported with Cabal Rituals), it makes us really soft to Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void, and we cant really afford to cast it and not going off in the same turn.
Of course if we play Petition we have to play a maindeck Tendrils, doing so is really helpful in some situations (it open us to more piles) while if we go for Burning Wish we free a maindeck slot but we lose a few piles (but we also gain a lot more in the process getting to play with a wishboard).

Im not sure if a version is just better than the other, both have clear weakness and adventages, Id suggest to try both of them and then pick one.

Is worth mentioning that Infernal Tutor is just bad with Doomsday, as i said we usually need at least a cantrip in hand after we cast [cards]Doomsday[cards] to go off unless we have a Top in play, so we dont really want to go hellbent.
Also, is important to understand that Doomsday and Ad Nauseam dont really work well togheter, Nauseam wants way more mana than Doomsday needs and Doomsdays are a 3 casting cost pretty bad with Nauseam, i wouldnt suggest to play a DDANT list.

So

3/4 Burning Wish
3 Doomsday
(SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony)

or

3/4 Dark Petition
4 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
0/1 Past in Flames
2/4 Cabal Ritual

If we go for no tutors we are supposed to play even more cantrips, so we end up playing with a bunch of Preordains, generally no tutors lists are playable only in a slow enviroment, control decks won't punish us for having little to no business and just a lot of manipolation, but faster deck will definitely wreck us before we can setup our combo most of the times.

A single one off of a big draw spell is a key component for our engine to work properly, our plan is in fact to cast Doomsday, and put on top of our pile that big draw spell, cantrip into in, draw the full pile and win from there.
The main draw spell we play are Ideas Unbound, Meditate, Infernal Contract and Act on Impulse.
Over time Ideas Unbound proved to be the best draw spell we could possibly play, drawing 3 cards and not 4 is surprisingly better at setting up piles, IU has by far more potential than the draw 4, we must play it in Burning Wish lists (because we dont really want to have the wish in hand, LEDs are going to pay its mana cost so cantrip into it is much better) but we can go for draw 4 if we play maindeck tendrils.

Is important to understand that chaning our draw spell alters how the deck have to be played tremendously, so be careful.

So, as we saw Ideas Unbound and Meditate are the 2 main big draws, Infernal Contract (or Cruel Bargain) and Act on Impulse are instead good sideboard cards, we can board them in if needed to fight against Red Elemental Blasts, Pyroblasts and Spell Snares.

So

1 Ideas Unbound

or

1 Meditate

In the end we have to play a good amount of disruption, even if we are sometimes able to pull fast combos off we are a slowish combo (our average combo turn is 3/4) so we must be able to fight abainst counterspells and hate in general, we usually play 6/7 discard spells maindeck and a wishable one in the board.
The main choices are of course Duress and Cabal Therapy

3/4 Duress
3/4 Cabal Therapy

And that makes the core of the deck, we have to pick our last slots, we have plenty of options

Laboratory Maniac: Amazing against all the decks able to stop our storm combo, LabMan can easily fight though Leylines of Sanctity, Gaddock and is really good in all the pass the turn piles (PTTP)

Chromatic Sphere: A tech card that may look useless if not understanded, the Shpere acts as a cantrip so is ok for comboing but is main role is just to draw a card while we have our LabMan out, the draw effect is part of the mana ability, so nothing can respond to it, so if we have the Maniac out and we activate the Sphere the game ends, no matter what.
8/1/2008: This is a mana ability, which means it can be activated as part of the process of casting a spell or activating another ability. If that happens you get the mana right away, but you don't get to look at the drawn card until you have finished casting that spell or activating that ability.

Ill-Gotten Gains: Is actually better than Past in Flames in standard lists, it anables various piles (mostly needed if we have to ramp up our Tendrils to huge amounts) and should be considered only if we play Silences or Autumn's Veil as protections

Autumn's Veil: We discovered the card a while back, it's pretty good if you want to play a pseudo Silence but you cant afford to splash white, the main uses for a Silence in our deck are Ill-Gotten Gains and Time Spiral piles.

Chain of Vapor: Pretty good maindeck solution to most hatebears, we can put it in our piles so is much more meaningful than the lone CoV you could have seen in bad ANT lists, we have a specific pile that is able to abuse CoV both for ramp up the storm and for solve an hatebear.

Street Wraith: Can be played along with LabMan to have a free instant draw spell in case we have not enough mana to pull off the CSphere pile.

Unearth: Some lists aim to reanimate the Maniac, usually going for a counter shell and being ledless, because that's the easiest way to get the LabMan in play whitout free lotuses, check Menedian's work if you want to go deeper on the topic.
Thought Scour/Mental Note/Predict: Are the tools used to Entomb our Maniac in those decks

So here we have to basic list I would recomend to beginners as a solid starting point


Burning Wish Doomsday

2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
2 Lotus Petal
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Doomsday
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Burning Wish
1 Rain of Filth
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Chromatic Sphere

Or

Dark Petition Doomsday

2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
4 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Doomsday
1 Past in Flames
4 Dark Petition
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Meditate

Let's have a quick talk about white Doomsday, the deck is not bad at all, white gives us the power to play Silence and Orim's Chant as protections, and that's pretty good by itself, but we also get to play with Serenity as a real hoser against stax decks and Terminus, a card able to dismantle hatebears decks, is also huge to consider a transformational side bringin in a full set of Monastery Mentors, we can abuse the card to its max power because we have tops and plenty of cantrips, the card usually gets out of control in a single untap, and most of our opponents wont be prepared to face such a savage assault from a combo deck (also lets not forget that our silences can easily counter miracles, so we have counterplay against Terminus), if we want to go for the Mentor route i would suggest to play Silences and Cabal Therapy as protection, Therapy is great with monks and prowness.


Sideboard

We also have a lot of options for our sideboard, if we play Burning Wish it will always start with a copy of Doomsday and a Tendrils of Agony, we then have to chose our wishboard, the possible targets are disruption spells such as Void Snare, Massacre, Pyroclasm, Meltdown, Reverent Silence and discards, business like Time Spiral, Empty the Warrens (we aren't a good EtW deck but we can make use of it), Ill-Gotten Gains and big draw spells.

Beside our wishboard we are going to play most of the usual cards storm plays to deal with trouble, Abrupt Decay and Krosan Grip are a must against Counterbalance and lock pieces, a Chain of Vapor must be in the 75, all bounces could be used so Echoing Truth, Hurkyl's Recall, Rebuild and Wipe Away are an option, Dread of Night and Sulfur Elemental are good as usual and we can also chose to pick green sweeties such as Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm, in a super slow meta City of Solitude is an option.

We also get to play cards unusual for tipical storm lists, Flusterstorm is huge for us, being able to shut down most of the other combo deck floathing a fluster on top is huge and play flusters is one of the best way to fight them in the first place, it also deals well with most tempo decks.
We dont really have to be scared playing fluster in a LED deck, most people will fire their countermagic on our doomsday, so way before we crack our diamonds.

Of course we can go for a creature based sideboard, Young Pyromancer and Dark Confidant are an option.

Our last big package in the sideboard is the Shelldock Isle combo, we can easily setup a Shelldock into Emrakul thanks to Doomsday, it's important to note that the Shelldock Isle will cast the Emrakul, so we are going to get our extra turn, we usually have no problem winning attacking once or twice with the biggest dude in MTG, I suggest to play at least a Flusterstorm if we play this package, having a counter on steroids can help our Eldrazi to do his job through most hate.

So this is how a standard sideboard may look like
1 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Infernal Contract
1 Time Spiral
1 Void Snare
1 Massacre
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Flusterstorm
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Abrupt Decay

For a Wish list and

1 Doomsday
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Dread of Night
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Xantid Swarm



I won't spend much time talking about match ups hare, they depend too heavily on how our list is tuned and whatever i say will eventually get outdeted anyway, Im just going to sort all Mus in 3 big groups, the nightmares, the fair and the dream MUs

Nightmares
Eldrazi
MUD
Stax
Eidolon Burn
Dredge
Reanimator
Belcher
All Spells
Tin Fins
Painters

Fair
Delvers
Death & Taxes
Miracle
Aggro Loam
Show and Tell
Infect
High Tide
Chalice Merfolks
ANT
Elves

Dream
Enchantress
Maverik
Lands
Abzan
Ramp
Nif Fit
Tribal


So basicly we suck against heavy lock decks, we have game against standard decks and we punish deck with little to no interaction with our gameplan or slow decks in general.



Tips and tricks

This section could be useful for those approaching the deck, the amount of skill that have to be learned to play Doomsday is huge and its easy to miss small things here and there.

1) As i said Chromatic Sphere is a mana ability, nothing can be played in response to its effect

2) Doomsday life loss is rounded up, we're going to lose casting Doomsday at 1 hp

3) Doomsday's piles must countain 5 cards if possible, we cant chose to use less cards

4) Aven Mindcensor will force Doomsday to pick our top 4 cards, but we still can chose card in our graveyard

5) Shelldock Isle's Hideaway is a triggered ability, it can be stifled, the hided card will be removed face down, our opponent won't be able to look at it, any deck can contain less than 20 cards, it hasn't to be ours.

6) Casting timing are ignored by Shelldock Isle, we can use its effect to cast a Burning Wish in our opponent turn for example

7) If you never played storm at all, dont forget that storm will consider each spell casted in the turn, so the spell casted from our opponent will be counted, storm is a triggered ability so it can be stifled

8) Many small little tricks can be done using Sensei's Divining Top, is important to understand that if we have a draw (any draw, our drow for the turn or a cantrip for example) and ve have :1: we can spin the top before we draw, drawing the card on top and then casting the top, getting a free spell, for example if we have 8 spells in hand and we are ready to tendril we can spin the top in our unkeep, drawing the card on top (9 spells) and then we will draw our top for the turn (10 spells) and this is true anytime we have a draw and a spare mana.
Also if we have two tops we can spin them and cast them as long as we can spend mana, with 2 tops in play and 2 leds we can generate six free spells.

9) A trick that any Top player should know is the "look, in reponse fetch one", you should play like that if you plan to fetch and then look you top 3 for sure because doing so even if you top get destroyed with the fetch ability on the stack you can still spin it, resolve the fetch and then look at you top 3, if you just fetch you have no way to look what will be on the top of your library after the fetch resolves!

10) Spinning the top in the unkeep is a smart move if we have a spare mana to spend and we want to be sure it wont get destroyed with [cards]Doomsday[cards] on the stack, that could easily ruin our day!

11) Another trick you can do with tops is to look the top 3 and spin in response, you will then draw you top card and get to look the top 3 after, its useful if you dont want to re-draw that top the turn after

12) Remember that Silences can be used as pseudo time walks, casting them in our opponent unkeep will likely prevent him from doing anything relevant in his turn

13) If you go for Emrakul piles a good measure to avoid getting decked is to put Laboratory Maniac or a Doomsday as you bottom card of the pile, this way you can easily avoid to lose in case 2 swings from emrakul aren't enough by casting Maniac or just by creating a new 5 cards deck


Quiz

At our friday night there is this guy, hating storm, trying his best to play the hardest possible counter to it but always losing against us.

Our opponent board contains:
1 Karakas
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Aether Vial @2
1 Elesh Norn
2 Aegis of The Gods
1 Deathrite Shaman tapped
1 Phyrexian Revoker naming Sensei's Divining Top
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Stoneforge Mystic equipped with an Umezawa's Jitte @4
3 Swords to Plowshares in hand

In response to the revoker we look our top3: Ponder, Lion's Eye Diamond and Doomsday, we place the LED as the last one, Ponder in the middle and Doomsday on top, we untap and draw it.
Our board contains:
1 Badland
1 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Shelldock Isle hiding a Laboratory Maniac
1 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Dark Ritual
1 Doomsday
1 Burning Wish
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Lotus Petal

In hand.

Win from there.

https://i.gyazo.com/af50f1fcc9f924afb40e16692eaab531.png

Answer:
1) Dark Ritual
2) Dark Ritual
3) Doomsday
TOP
Brainstorm
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Burning Wish
Chromatic Sphere
BOTTOM
4) Burning Wish (Void Snare)
5) Gitaxian Probe
6) Brainstorm (2 Lion's Eye Diamond in hand, Lotus Petal, Void Snare and Sphere on top)
7) Lion's Eye Diamond
8) Lion's Eye Diamond
9) Burning Wish – Crack diamonds (Act on Impulse)
10) Act on impulse
11) Void snare (Elesh Norn)
12) Lotus Petal
13) Chromatic Sphere
14) Activate Shelldock Isle
15) Activate Chromatic Sphere




We are again at our friday night, our opponent knows us and decided to do his best to make us suffer.
He's playing a legacy martyr deck, based on gaining life as much as possible and preventing his storm opponent from winning, e already played and Extract on our Laboratory Maniac and he is ready to gain tons of hp, he is confident he's going to win, while he's laughting at us we have to find the most creative way to crush his soul

Our opponent board contains:
3 Martyr of Sands
4 Tundra

1 Stifle in hand
5 Troll white cards in hand

Our board contains
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Swamp
1 Island
2 Volcanic Island

1 Gitaxian Probe
2 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
1 Doomsday
1 Duress
1 Act on Impulse

Not only we are going to win, but we'll find a way to win without casting Massacre, using Tendrils of Agony only once, and without spinning a top into another one, F/*k that kid!

https://i.gyazo.com/26b351bbbd58d5121184b3b88fd2db39.png

Answer:
1) Rain of Filth
2) Sac Swamp – Dark Ritual
3) Doomsday
TOP
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Doomsday
Burning Wish
Ideas Unbound
BOTTOM
4) Lion's Eye Diamond
5) Lion's Eye Diamond
6) Tap lands for UUR then sac them for BBB
7) Cabal Therapy on Stifle
8) Cast Gitaxian Probe (paying hp)
9) Lion's Eye Diamond
10) Act on Impulse floating UU – Crack two LEDs for BBBUUU
11) Lion's Eye Diamond
12) Doomsday
TOP
Ideas Unbound
Lion's Eye Diamond
Gitaxian Probe
Doomsday
Lion's Eye Diamond
BOTTOM
13) Spin Top – Ideas Unbound
14) Lion's Eye Diamond
15) Sensei's Divining Top
16) Gitaxian Probe (paying mana) – Crack a led for BBB
17) Doomsday
TOP
Ideas Unbound
Lion's Eye Diamond
Gitaxian Probe
Doomsday
Lion's Eye Diamond
BOTTOM
18) Spin Top – Ideas Unbound
19) Lion's Eye Diamond
18) Sensei's Divining Top
19) Gitaxian Probe (paying mana) – Crack a led for BBB
20) Doomsday
TOP
Ideas Unbound
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Gitaxian Probe
Lion's Eye Diamond
BOTTOM
21) Spin Top – Ideas Unbound
22) Lion's Eye Diamond
23) Lion's Eye Diamond
24) Sensei's Dinining Top – Crack a LED for UUU
25) Spin Top – Gitaxian Probe (paying mana)
26) Sensei's Divining Top
27) Spin Top – Lion's Eye Diamond – Crack LEDs for BBBRRR
28) Burning Wish (Tendrils of Agony)
29) Tendrils of Agony for 60


The last game made our opponent run away in tear, he was young and he never expected to get wreckt that hard, he called his father crying and now he came to our local shop, ready to get revenge for his son, playing an hate deck himself!

Our opponent board contains:
1 Batterskull and his germ
1 True-Name Nemesis naming us
1 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Tapped lands
1 Karakas untapped

1 Phantasmal Image
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mother of Runes

In his hand

Our board contains:

1 Tapped Island
1 Underground Sea
1 volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island

We have in our hand:
2 Brainstorm
2 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Doomsday
1 Act on Impulse
1 Lotus Petal

We are resolving a brainstorm so we still have to put two card on top!

Do you best to win from there!

https://i.gyazo.com/1f1f692578105c438dec8db8c0ca49b9.png

Answer:
1) Put on top Doomsday and Act on Impulse
2) Lion's Eye Diamond
3) Lion'e Eye Diamond
4) Lotus Petal
5) Brainstorm - Brainstorm in response – Crack led in Reponse for BBBRRR
6) Doomsday
TOP
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Burning Wish
Cabal Therapy
Burning Wish
BOTTOM
7) Act of impulse
8) Lion's Eye Diamond
9) Lion's Eye Diamond
10) Burning Wish (Time Spiral) – Crack LEDs for UUUUUU
11) Time Spiral
12) Cabal Therapy (Force of Will)
13) Lotus Petal
14) Lion's Eye Diamond
15) Lion's Eye Diamond
16) Burning Wish (Tendrils of Agony)
17) Tendrils of Agony

[Noctalor]

Yo, hope the translation isnt that bad.

Also here on the original article you can find probably the best pile section on the web, im sorry but im unable to copy it on this forum because there are like 3000 pictures and 11 is the cap here
Click (http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&p=520182&sid=f064a9da22c689de7b04b21a1132d20a#p520182)

I dont expect much discussion, no one cares about doomsday, but maybe this could be helpful for someone :smile:

[Lemnear]

Fair
Delvers
Death & Taxes
Miracle
Aggro Loam
Show and Tell
Infect
High Tide
Chalice Merfolks
ANT
Elves

Dream
Enchantress
Maverik
Lands
Abzan
Ramp
Nif Fit
Tribal


I have no fucking clue how one can label Chalice, Counterbalance or Thalia good matchups if you play up to 29 1cc spells.

P.S.: Testing this deck against Soul Sisters is the standard for Legacy testing? Really?

[Noctalor]

I have no fucking clue how one can label Chalice, Counterbalance or Thalia good matchups if you play up to 29 1cc spells.

P.S.: Testing this deck against Soul Sisters is the standard for Legacy testing? Really?

Well, you should consider the quiz section, as a quiz section, the idea is to try to combo in a certain situation, forcing you to think outside the box, of course you wont face martyr life often, but you could need to storm for 40 damage.

Also, fair mu are all the ones that can be beated frequently, ltes say the 40/60 to 60/40 mu, miracles isnt a good mu for any storm, but is much better than painters for us for example, most of the fair mu are not even that good, the good ones are in another group in fact, but most of the fair mu are the ones you can 100% beat if you prepare for it.

[Lemnear]

A puzzle section about comboing out in totally unreasonable, crafted gamestates has zero value. Don't see any point here.

Whats the base the author claims beating the fair matchups? Does he refer to the usual speed advantage storm has (kill before hate comes down)? Is he aware that Doomsday is a full turn slower than ANT with a realistic average critical turn around 3-4?

[Shaman]

Very good article, I enjoyed this in its original version and this translation is very well made. I do agree Miracle is a fair match up, expecially if you play prepared for it (Shelldock/Emrakul). Moving to Monastery Mentor post board is a strong move.

[Dice_Box]

(I didn't knew where to post this "article", hope its fine here )
Here is perfect. I shall read this later on. Looks like fun.

[ESG]

A puzzle section about comboing out in totally unreasonable, crafted gamestates has zero value. Don't see any point here.

I think the puzzles are fine. People interested in combo decks can benefit from considering hypothetical situations like this. Tier 3 decks like Soul Sisters aren't common to encounter, but the exercise is really about having to generate enough storm to win through a cushion of 50(+) life, and that could happen in other ways than Martyr of Sands. Contemplating such lines is good practice and helps a player recognize those lines later in a tournament situation when time is much stricter. I would welcome additional puzzles, especially more that involve multiple pieces of hate/disruption.

Noctalor, thank you for your article.

[Lemnear]

I think the puzzles are fine. People interested in combo decks can benefit from considering hypothetical situations like this. Tier 3 decks like Soul Sisters aren't common to encounter, but the exercise is really about having to generate enough storm to win through a cushion of 50(+) life, and that could happen in other ways than Martyr of Sands. Contemplating such lines is good practice and helps a player recognize those lines later in a tournament situation when time is much stricter. I would welcome additional puzzles, especially more that involve multiple pieces of hate/disruption.

Noctalor, thank you for your article.

That is misleading again. He could play PIF in the side to beat that lifecount with any storm variant, but opts to save these slots for durdly stuff like Shelldock (because no one counters the Ritual/Doomsday, right? Lol) and TimeSpiral (No one plays softcounters?) and then comes up with a scenario of "asume I have the combo in hand, a bazillion mana, full life and my opponent is a goldfish doing nothing in 4+ turns". Its the combination of a questionable build with ridiculous crafted gamestates to proof a point, which make me cringe. I remember the last time one made similar on this site with "Legacy TPS" running several Gifts Ungiven in his Storm list stubbornly claiming that having 9+ mana in blue/red/black is no big deal by turn 2-3 for his deck in order to combo off. Acting like softcounters, Chalice, Thalia, Discard and the like is no vital part of the metagame is close to lying to the reader in regards to the article and the "puzzles".

P.S.: I don't understand the stunt to beat 50+ life with Tendrils rather than with LabMan

[Ogh!]

Great article! Thank you, Noctalor!

Also, thank you for the new puzzles. Although not everybody seems to understand their value, I'm sure most intellectually advanced storm pilots do.

[Lemnear]

Although not everybody seems to understand their value, I'm sure most intellectually advanced storm pilots do.

Lol. Most advanced storm pilots don't pick such a pile first ;)

[Ogh!]

Lol. Most advanced storm pilots don't pick such a pile first ;)

Certainly. However, that doesn't take away the fun from solving doomsday puzzles as that is independent of your deck choice :)

[Noctalor]

Lol. Most advanced storm pilots don't pick such a pile first ;)

I honestly miss your point.

In the soul sister scenario you have to go for multiple doomsdays, doing so it fairly common with the deck but is usually pretty hard to understand at first, that quiz could be beneficial for those who want to learn the deck.

Also some people could just have fun trying to solve it even if they dont really want to play doomsday at all, many people did in the italian community and had fun back then.



Pif in side in Doomsday is thrash, if you think otherwise you have no experience with the deck at all, but it shouldnt be that hard to catch that a deck with wishes and 4 rituals wont pif well.

Time spiral as a wish target is common if you expect a black based metagame, you can sit on a top and some lands looking for a ritual/led and a burning wish and reset multiple pieces of discard, is good even if you spiral into counters, i mean, is a sideboard slot much more meaningful than a lone grapeshot in tes.

Also doomsday is probably the best storm to fight miracles paired with grinding station, as we all know Top is a beast in the MU and we have the fullset, having to just let resolve Doomsday i much easier than having to do a full combo, and you get to play in a ledless fashion postboard with flusterstroms of your own too.


Most of your claims are just dumb, made just to be edgy, no one ever claimed that the deck is in a tier1 spot, but some people will try it anyway and the read could be helpful :rolleyes:

[Shaman]

Its the combination of a questionable build with ridiculous crafted gamestates to proof a point, which make me cringe.

You cringe for nothing since these examples don't want to prove any point but your ability to find the solution.
Once you solve them, I guess you are on your way to be a better player with any other deck you choose to play.

[dte]

Great article & puzzles, some of us have fun.
Do not listen to Lemnear too much, last time I read him writing about doomsday he wanted to replace SDT by street wraith.

In your first puzzle, you grab cards with DD while there is an aven on the battlefield.
So, playing only cards that see play in DD:

tap bayou, DR*2, tap badlands for R, BW for void snare, tap island for U, void snare on Aven, doomsday.
volcanic & SI untap, B in pool.
Top/IU-LED-karakas-GP-sphere/bottom
play LP, GP into IU, play IU (B in pool)
Draw LED, karakas, GP.
karakas Elesh, LED, GP into chromatic sphere.
win.

A more fun way would be to wish into Act of Treason to grab Elesh, kill is board of bad guys and then decide how to win (your top is freed, so ToA and labman piles are easy). But act of treason is not common in DD lists.

[dte]

Also in your last puzzle, you can eschew Time spiral to avoid to lose to FoW*2, surgical extraction, or whatever hate:

You put back act and doomsday, play LED*2 and LP
play BS, resp BS, resp crack LEDs for RRRBBB (USea and LP untap)
Play DD for top Labman/LED/BS/blank*2 bottom
play act of impulse.
Play LED, Labman and BS, win.

You even have 1 additional mana and 2 free slots in your pile.

[Lemnear]

Do not listen to Lemnear too much, last time I read him writing about doomsday he wanted to replace SDT by street wraith.

As said, telling half the story is almost lying. I suggested replacing some of the slower, grindy parts and Wishes of the deck with DIG THROUGH TIME at the time it was legal. If you followes the Fetchland Tendrils thread, you might have noticed players had success with the DTT build


In the soul sister scenario you have to go for multiple doomsdays, doing so it fairly common with the deck but is usually pretty hard to understand at first, that quiz could be beneficial for those who want to learn the deck.

I think, if you want to teach people, you should do it based on the common decks in the format, not some tier 3 fun.dec. Tell new players how to beat Delver and common hate.


Also some people could just have fun trying to solve it even if they dont really want to play doomsday at all, many people did in the italian community and had fun back then.

It depends on if you expect to sell the whole section as a "fun to figure out puzzle" or if its presented as "look! The deck can beat anything". At the end of an article praising the deck, it appears to be the later


Pif in side in Doomsday is thrash, if you think otherwise you have no experience with the deck at all, but it shouldnt be that hard to catch that a deck with wishes and 4 rituals wont pif well.

Didn't you present us a list with PIF quoting the article? Did I or the writer of the article specify the build we talk about?


Time spiral as a wish target is common if you expect a black based metagame, you can sit on a top and some lands looking for a ritual/led and a burning wish and reset multiple pieces of discard, is good even if you spiral into counters, i mean, is a sideboard slot much more meaningful than a lone grapeshot in tes.

I have no clue, why you point at grapeshot at this point. Did I argue for the card at any point? No. Did I sleeve it up in the last years? No. Try another strawmen like Diminishing Returns which was played in TES 2012 and cut because there are plenty of scenarios with your opponent straight up profit from the move. BW->TS is 8 mana against discard and possible landdestruction. DimRet was cut years ago because that "miraculous comeback" is magical christmas land stuff


Also doomsday is probably the best storm to fight miracles paired with grinding station, as we all know Top is a beast in the MU and we have the fullset, having to just let resolve Doomsday i much easier than having to do a full combo, and you get to play in a ledless fashion postboard with flusterstroms of your own too.

Top isn't winning you the game and you can watch GP Prague final game 2 to witness that fact. You are illusional, if you think your Top+Decay is better than Top+Counterbalance+Flusterstorm


Most of your claims are just dumb, made just to be edgy, no one ever claimed that the deck is in a tier1 spot, but some people will try it anyway and the read could be helpful :rolleyes:

Please. Your arguments are along "an 8 mana play will save me against discard + landdestruction!", so I would not start a battle over the "dumbest argument" in this thread. Its not about what kind of tier doomsday is, or what exact build people pick up, but about the article not adressing how to approach the current metagame, but straight up ignores any common hate/deck when elaborating its gameplan, scenarios and own strenght/weaknesses.

[Noctalor]

It depends on if you expect to sell the whole section as a "fun to figure out puzzle" or if its presented as "look! The deck can beat anything". At the end of an article praising the deck, it appears to be the later

I never said once those quiz are here to show the unlimited power of the almighty Doomsday, you can look it up on the dictionary and this

To test the knowledge of by posing questions

You can keep going with this nonsense but there is no point.




Didn't you present us a list with PIF quoting the article? Did I or the writer of the article specify the build we talk about?

In that scenario you are playing a burning wish list, is like if you post a quiz about how to win with pif in ant in a really intense situation and the edgy guy replies "i would rather play burning wish for empty the warrens here! TES is much better boys!", pointless.



I have no clue, why you point at grapeshot at this point. Did I argue for the card at any point? No. Did I sleeve it up in the last years? No. Try another strawmen like Diminishing Returns which was played in TES 2012 and cut because there are plenty of scenarios with your opponent straight up profit from the move. BW->TS is 8 mana against discard and possible landdestruction. DimRet was cut years ago because that "miraculous comeback" is magical christmas land stuff

I point at a card, played fairly commonly in a storm build that gets used like 1 game out of 10, spiral has the same purpose, if you know something about doomsday (im pretty sure you dont actually) you should also know the implications of time spirals in pass the turn piles and that the card is almost needed in non labman builds



Top isn't winning you the game and you can watch GP Prague final game 2 to witness that fact. You are illusional, if you think your Top+Decay is better than Top+Counterbalance+Flusterstorm

Lmao, have you seen the full match or just the game where storm lost?
If i remember correctly rodrigo won 2 out of 3 games, and he won both the games where he started with top, he lost the one where he didn't, you exaple is perfect showcasing how top IS amazing against miracles, also you could try to be a bit more reasoneble and know a topic before you try to teach lessons :smile:


Please. Your arguments are along "an 8 mana play will save me against discard + landdestruction!", so I would not start a battle over the "dumbest argument" in this thread. Its not about what kind of tier doomsday is, or what exact build people pick up, but about the article not adressing how to approach the current metagame, but straight up ignores any common hate/deck when elaborating its gameplan, scenarios and own strenght/weaknesses.

The article is a translation people asked me to do because it contains priceless infomations for those starting with the deck (mainly the pile section, sucks that i cant report that here), its pointless to look at meta interactions because the deck can be played in many ways and based on the list you get much different results, the forum is the place for that, the article is a starting point for those who want to start playing doomsday or are intersted in the concept, it wont make you a pro player by itself.

Uh you also won for sure the "dumbest argument" here with your togores's final reference, that's signature material bro

[dte]

I have no fucking clue

Yes, indeed.
That's quoting half of the story ;)


As said, telling half the story is almost lying. I suggested replacing some of the slower, grindy parts and Wishes of the deck with DIG THROUGH TIME at the time it was legal. If you followes the Fetchland Tendrils thread, you might have noticed players had success with the DTT build.

DTT was a legit proposition, no discussion about that.
I am referring about the proposal to replace in these lists SDT by SW. And no, DTT does not justify it in any way.
The successes you're talking about are with lists featuring a playset of top, aren't they? Isn't backing your proposal to remove top with these a half-story?

SDT is grindy, but calling it slow is a lack of understanding of the deck's mechanics, as it also represents a stored draw and helps building storm.

[Ogh!]

I think, if you want to teach people, you should do it based on the common decks in the format, not some tier 3 fun.dec. Tell new players how to beat Delver and common hate.


He could have constructed a puzzle vs. D&T or Stoneblade that includes 3 past attacks of a Germ token equipped with Batterskull. Sometimes a StP in hand + a creature with power X on your opponent's side is enough to stop the standard piles and forces the DD-player to think about different piles. The puzzle demonstrates how to generate a high(er) amount of storm with the deck and involves analytical thinking that improves your overall problem solving capabilities.

If you have a look at the Italian post you can even find DD piles for CotV @ 0 which may be more common than having to generate more than 9 storm prior to casting Tendrils.

His post (especially in connection with the piles in the Italian Board) is very valuable for new and experienced DD players.



It depends on if you expect to sell the whole section as a "fun to figure out puzzle" or if its presented as "look! The deck can beat anything". At the end of an article praising the deck, it appears to be the later


I'm amazed. Just no. Where's the praise in your opinion?

[DireNTropy]

A few comments

GP Finals Match
If I recall correctly, Togores actually made a misplay that cost him the 2nd game (casting two Decays on angel tokens), and he had a winning hand the next turn if he had saved one Decay (although this would have robbed us of an epic game 3).

Here is Togores's comment on that game: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27161-DTB-ANT-(Ad-Nauseam-Tendrils)-Storm-Combo&p=954658&viewfull=1#post954658

Sensei's Divining Top vs. Miracles
If I resolve a Top against Miracles I feel like I have a decent chance of taking the game, even preboard (no Decays and no Flusterstorms), since it becomes a race between their glacial clock and my ability to find my Tendrils of Agony. This does not apply in Burning Wish builds where a good Miracles player will just leave a combination of CMC 2 and 3 on top (to stop Burning Wish and Lab Maniac/Doomsday respectively).

Also, Top shaves an initial mana source off of the combo turn, and is usually required in turn-2 wins (Top + Doomsday + Cantrip/LED + Dark Ritual). This requirement is not dissimilar from other storm decks comboing on turn 2 (Tutor + 3 rituals/LED), replacing 1 fast mana with a cantrip as well as allowing a cantrip to turn into an LED.

Lotus Petal
I never understood why this storm deck does not want to play the full playset. In my opinion, the decision to play 1-2 contributes to the common impression that Doomsday is a much slower deck. We commonly need 3 initial mana sources to combo off, 4-5 if Dark Ritual is not found, and not playing a full playset slows the deck down by integer numbers of turns. In addition, we already play a minimum of 15 lands + 4 Tops, which allows us to make land drops late in grindy matchups (e.g. Miracles).

Non-blue Chalice/Thalia Decks Pre-board
The game does become much more difficult if a Chalice or Thalia is resolved. However, Doomsday has some tools to fight these decks preboard, including a maindeck bounce spell (Hurkyl's Recall or Decay) that can be tutored for with Doomsday and Burning Wish for removal.

I would also classify most of these decks as a Fair matchup since in general they play 4 copies of a 2 CMC lock-piece and pair it with a somewhat slow clock (Eldrazi is the exception since they also run Thought-Knot Seers and present a very fast clock).

First, they will only see a 4-of roughly 50% of the time in the top 10 cards. Second, we have a large chance to take the card on turn 1 with discard (I have been testing Thoughtseizes for this reason since Doomsday does not generally care much about the life-loss), so a majority of the time these decks provide little meaningful interaction.

Puzzles
Puzzles are fun. However, I would argue that the learning to cantrip properly is much more important than remembering piles for corner-cases. These puzzles are good for helping learn Doomsday piles on the fly though.

[Doishy]

Loving the fact that DD is getting some love here. I took it to Prague for my first big comp REL event and went 4-4 managing to beat DnT, Belcher, Oops all Spells and Shardless BUG. Lost to Grixis Delver, Elves (due to misplay), Deathblade and Sneak and Show (down to the best brainstorm ever seen :P ).

[Lemnear]

DTT was a legit proposition, no discussion about that.
I am referring about the proposal to replace in these lists SDT by SW. And no, DTT does not justify it in any way.
The successes you're talking about are with lists featuring a playset of top, aren't they? Isn't backing your proposal to remove top with these a half-story?

SDT is grindy, but calling it slow is a lack of understanding of the deck's mechanics, as it also represents a stored draw and helps building storm.

You claimed, I suggested to replace Top with Street Wraith, which is simply not true. I cut a color, included DTT and accelerated the deck which optionally included Street Wraith to feed Delve, thin out the deck while remaining theoretisch same number of cantrip effects (SDT vs SW). "T1 Top, T2 use SDT in upkeep" is a very slow path I don't think fitting well with DTT, but thats not the point I want to discuss here

[Dice_Box]

"Happy" little article. Very conflicted thread.

[wolfstorm]

I'm confused how your answer for the first puzzle wins when the opponent still has three swords to plowshares, doesn't he just swords the labman in response to the sphere drawing a card?

[emidln]

I'm confused how your answer for the first puzzle wins when the opponent still has three swords to plowshares, doesn't he just swords the labman in response to the sphere drawing a card?

The draw on Chromatic Sphere doesn't use the stack. You draw as part of the mana ability.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

A Doomsday list finished 7th in the SCG Legacy Classic Dallas, just saying :) also no Delver variant or Miracles in Top 8, very strange meta :really: