[Deck] Fetchland Tendrils

[mistercakes]

I do see the appeal to use BW as a way to get a probe to draw into the pile as it also adds one extra storm count. If drawn into IU it requires BBB+1R+UU to get things going, i find it quite mana intensive.

not really sure what situation would require you to get the draw 1 out of the sb, but if that were a situation that mana isn't too hard with a dark ritual/RoF and an LED.

been playing gitaxian probe a very long time, if you are playing 3 cabal therapy maindeck (as you probably should), there is no reason not to play 4 probes maindeck.

[elroy]

In my experience the best use of Edge is when you have SDT in play and Doomsday plus Wish in hand. This allows you to set up a double cantrip pile for BBB + 1R only.

This comes up more often when you play 4 wishes and the 7 discard version as you tend to use Probe earlier to check for therapy.

[nevilshute]

It also does come up that you have a Burning Wish, a Doomsday, a Dark Ritual and an LED in hand but no top in play and no other draw-spell in hand. It might still be an issue to go off in the same turn as you'd need the extra R1, but sometimes you can and other times you just need to wish for Edge, pass the turn and then go off on the following turn. (You could argue, that then you might just as well cast Doomsday now, pass the turn, and win. But I'd rather win the turn I resolve Doomsday if at all possible.

Actually, this is the all-defining reason to run Edge I think. If you feel like this never comes up or only so rarely as to not be able to excuse the sideboard slot, fair enough. I'm not convinced one way or the other atm, but am keeping it in for now.

[the driver]

It also does come up that you have a Burning Wish, a Doomsday, a Dark Ritual and an LED in hand but no top in play and no other draw-spell in hand. It might still be an issue to go off in the same turn as you'd need the extra R1, but sometimes you can and other times you just need to wish for Edge, pass the turn and then go off on the following turn. (You could argue, that then you might just as well cast Doomsday now, pass the turn, and win. But I'd rather win the turn I resolve Doomsday if at all possible.

Actually, this is the all-defining reason to run Edge I think. If you feel like this never comes up or only so rarely as to not be able to excuse the sideboard slot, fair enough. I'm not convinced one way or the other atm, but am keeping it in for now.

I think most people look to Wish --> Infernal Contract in that scenario but with as many Lightning Bolts as there are these days sometimes you can't afford to spend the extra life. For the very brief time I tested Edge I most often used it in double cantrip type scenarios.

I kept a stack of cards that are "sideboard candidates" and Edge is one of them. I think it is a card worth considering and one worth remembering that it exists. I just find it hard to justify over other options that will answer or protect me from my opponents sideboard in post board games.

[Namida]

In my experience the best use of Edge is when you have SDT in play and Doomsday plus Wish in hand. This allows you to set up a double cantrip pile for BBB + 1R only.

This comes up more often when you play 4 wishes and the 7 discard version as you tend to use Probe earlier to check for therapy.

LED, Lotus Petal, LED, LED, Burning Wish does the same thing for the same cost if you have an Infernal Contract in your board, plays around red blasts, and doesn't require you to play Edge of Autumn in your sideboard.


It also does come up that you have a Burning Wish, a Doomsday, a Dark Ritual and an LED in hand but no top in play and no other draw-spell in hand. It might still be an issue to go off in the same turn as you'd need the extra R1, but sometimes you can and other times you just need to wish for Edge, pass the turn and then go off on the following turn. (You could argue, that then you might just as well cast Doomsday now, pass the turn, and win. But I'd rather win the turn I resolve Doomsday if at all possible.

Actually, this is the all-defining reason to run Edge I think. If you feel like this never comes up or only so rarely as to not be able to excuse the sideboard slot, fair enough. I'm not convinced one way or the other atm, but am keeping it in for now.

In the case where you have Doomsday, Ritual, Wish, LED and you want to go off all in the same turn, then Lotus Petal, LED, LED, Gitaxian Probe, Burning Wish wins the game for the cost of being able to cast Burning Wish (by using your LED mana to cast Infernal Contract).

I understand not wanting to lock yourself in by casting Doomsday and then passing the turn, but I feel like "Wish for Edge of Autumn, pass the turn" opens you up to a lot of the same things that "Doomsday, pass the turn" would. Doomsday is certainly more dangerous, but I'm not certain how often it comes up that you would need to choose between the two and you actually end up dodging a bullet by having the option to Wish for Edge.

[elroy]

LED, Lotus Petal, LED, LED, Burning Wish does the same thing for the same cost if you have an Infernal Contract in your board, plays around red blasts, and doesn't require you to play Edge of Autumn in your sideboard.

Clearly showing up my lack of ability to build piles right there... well I'm definitely in the no Edge camp now.

[mistercakes]

Clearly showing up my lack of ability to build piles right there... well I'm definitely in the no Edge camp now.

is there a win now pile if the only spell you can cast post doomsday is infernal contract with no mana left over, and win with only lab maniac. i know the generic pile for BW is LED LED LP SDT BW. is there one for lab maniac? if there is one, how much is the minimum mana (including life if you are using gitaxian probes)

edit: i do see led, lp, gp, sdt, lab man, but i was trying to figure out a pile would require you to win on the spot at 4 life (pre doomsday) i'm not sure there's another pile available. anyway if anyone can come up with one, however wonky it is, let me know!

i saw this on another forum,

Me: 2x U. Sea, Island, Volc, in play. Doomsday, Gitaxian Probe, Gitaxian Probe, LED in hand. I draw Rain of Filth. I’m at 4 life. opponent has null rod, can't pass the turn (will die). infernal contract is in deck (post game 1)

Chain of vapor in the deck as well. is there a way of winning here without using chain of vapor (to ignore the null rod) and winning with lab man? not interested in storm combo here, as it was already discovered.


thanks!
-Rob

[the driver]

is there a win now pile if the only spell you can cast post doomsday is infernal contract with no mana left over, and win with only lab maniac. i know the generic pile for BW is LED LED LP SDT BW. is there one for lab maniac? if there is one, how much is the minimum mana (including life if you are using gitaxian probes)

edit: i do see led, lp, gp, sdt, lab man, but i was trying to figure out a pile would require you to win on the spot at 4 life (pre doomsday) i'm not sure there's another pile available. anyway if anyone can come up with one, however wonky it is, let me know!

I'm pretty sure if you have no mana floating or lands open or cards in hand or other cards in play (Top, petal, etc), you have to play the above pile. So it wouldn't work with 4 life pre Doomsday and you would need extra life. Obviously cards in hand, stuff in play, etc changes things.


i saw this on another forum,

Me: 2x U. Sea, Island, Volc, in play. Doomsday, Gitaxian Probe, Gitaxian Probe, LED in hand. I draw Rain of Filth. I’m at 4 life. opponent has null rod, can't pass the turn (will die). infernal contract is in deck (post game 1)

Chain of vapor in the deck as well. is there a way of winning here without using chain of vapor (to ignore the null rod) and winning with lab man? not interested in storm combo here, as it was already discovered.



I'm curious about this one as well. I tried building a variety of piles using Ideas Unbound and Brainstorm but kept coming up short a U mana or when I put Island in the pile I needed a draw.

With Chain of Vapor the obvious pile is,
Chain of Vapor
Ideas Unbound
Lab Man
Dark Ritual
Sensei's Top

[mistercakes]

I'm pretty sure if you have no mana floating or lands open or cards in hand or other cards in play (Top, petal, etc), you have to play the above pile. So it wouldn't work with 4 life pre Doomsday and you would need extra life. Obviously cards in hand, stuff in play, etc changes things.



I'm curious about this one as well. I tried building a variety of piles using Ideas Unbound and Brainstorm but kept coming up short a U mana or when I put Island in the pile I needed a draw.

With Chain of Vapor the obvious pile is,
Chain of Vapor
Ideas Unbound
Lab Man
Dark Ritual
Sensei's Top

i guess the question was more in case that you haven't sided in your chain of vapor, you could argue that you have burning wish for the m15 sorcery. it just wouldn't be obvious for me to side in a bounce spell vs RU delver unless if 2 null rod was standard in all sbs, i guess you could argue that blood moon is rampant enough as well...i'd rather bring in the abrupt decays if they don't have wasteland anyway, as they won't really have any clock vs you and it can hit hate. (except blood moon without floating mana).

[the driver]

i guess the question was more in case that you haven't sided in your chain of vapor, you could argue that you have burning wish for the m15 sorcery. it just wouldn't be obvious for me to side in a bounce spell vs RU delver unless if 2 null rod was standard in all sbs, i guess you could argue that blood moon is rampant enough as well...i'd rather bring in the abrupt decays if they don't have wasteland anyway, as they won't really have any clock vs you and it can hit hate. (except blood moon without floating mana).

That's fair. The scenario you posted was actually from my game 3 at GPNJ and in which I scouted Null Rod game 2.

I don't think I'd side in Decays against U/R Delver. Young Pyromancer can muscle through them and I think I'd rather just strip their hand with discard. Not only does that get rid of counterspells, Bolts, or Cruises but it also removes gas for Young Pyromancer and Swiftspear. Even with Decays they can be a threat since Swifty has haste and Pyro can pump tokens out immediately. If you don't have the mana for Decay exactly then it could be a moot point next turn. I never feel like I have time with all the burn. Just my experience.

I'm actually inclined to go back to maindeck chain. That has fallen out of favor for Lab Man these days but I'm just not feeling that switch anymore. All just my preference and it doesn't feel "wrong".

[emidln]

You're actually a mana short to BW->U-bounce (costs 1RUU (GP+BW+Bounce)). Even Pulverize wouldn't really help (assuming you had another Volc) due to the contention with Rain of Filth.

I guess a better question would be why Lab Man is in the deck against UR Delver, the only deck in the format playing 10ish ways of killing lab man plus hasty threats and pyrostatic pillars/eidolons to get you if you pass the turn.

[Namida]

I've been doing a little testing with emidln's current list, and I have a question about how to side against Miracles. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I'm stumped--I feel like I have tons of cards I want to bring in, but not enough cards to take out. From the list, I want to side in Treasure Cruise, Cruel Bargain, all the Abrupt Decays, and the Tropical Islands. I don't know if I want to side in both Tropical Islands because Miracle decks not playing Wasteland means I might get away with such a low number of green sources, and I don't know what land I would cut for the second Tropical Island (some Miracle players randomly have Blood Moon so I don't want to take out both of my Islands; maybe side out a Volcanic Island?) Gitaxian Probe comes out anytime I bring in Cruel Bargain, and an LED comes out because the game is going to take long enough for me to find one if I need it, but past that, I'm not sure what the best cuts are. All I know is that I don't want to cut any business spells, but an argument can be made for shaving somewhere in your fast mana, your disruption (discard spells), or your cantrips. What cards would you consider to be the weakest ones against a Miracle deck?

[mistercakes]

You're actually a mana short to BW->U-bounce (costs 1RUU (GP+BW+Bounce)). Even Pulverize wouldn't really help (assuming you had another Volc) due to the contention with Rain of Filth.

I guess a better question would be why Lab Man is in the deck against UR Delver, the only deck in the format playing 10ish ways of killing lab man plus hasty threats and pyrostatic pillars/eidolons to get you if you pass the turn.

that's a great question. i don't think i would have lab man in the deck after game 1, BUUUTTTTT i likes me a puzzle.

[Mhenlo]

I've been doing a little testing with emidln's current list, and I have a question about how to side against Miracles. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I'm stumped--I feel like I have tons of cards I want to bring in, but not enough cards to take out. From the list, I want to side in Treasure Cruise, Cruel Bargain, all the Abrupt Decays, and the Tropical Islands. I don't know if I want to side in both Tropical Islands because Miracle decks not playing Wasteland means I might get away with such a low number of green sources, and I don't know what land I would cut for the second Tropical Island (some Miracle players randomly have Blood Moon so I don't want to take out both of my Islands; maybe side out a Volcanic Island?) Gitaxian Probe comes out anytime I bring in Cruel Bargain, and an LED comes out because the game is going to take long enough for me to find one if I need it, but past that, I'm not sure what the best cuts are. All I know is that I don't want to cut any business spells, but an argument can be made for shaving somewhere in your fast mana, your disruption (discard spells), or your cantrips. What cards would you consider to be the weakest ones against a Miracle deck?

You only need to side in 1 Trop because they don't have Wasteland so you don't have to worry about having your only green source Wastelanded. I run a slightly different list than Emidln's, but if I ran his I would SB.
+1 Treasure Cruise, +1 Bargain, +1 Thoughtseize, +4 Decay, +1 Trop
-1 Chromatic Sphere, -1 LED, -2 Ponder, -3 Therapy, -1 USea(or Island if you know they don't have Blood Moon)

[Wombo Combo]

Someone wrote a pretty good primer on salvation: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/combo/581031-primer-doomsday-fetchland-tendrils

[death]

There are typos. The current list shows Rain of Tears, black version of Stone Rain. It should be Rain of Filth.

[death]

The current decklist and sideboard are spot on. Would like to find out your thoughts on replacing 1 Massacre with 1 Anger of the Gods or Drown in Sorrow as wish target to sweep Teeg, Thalia, Spirit, Canonist and Mom in a single spell instead of relying on Abrupt Decay + Massacre against Maverick?

[Namida]

I think that Abrupt Decay and Massacre is probably enough in the current meta, because the only thing you'd have a different mass removal spell in your sideboard for would be specifically Teeg plus another hatebear, and Teeg decks aren't popular enough right now for me to think that I need a dedicated answer for it. Also, if I were going to play a 3 mana mass removal spell, it'd be Virtue's Ruin or Toxic Deluge. You might have issues getting to four mana (thinking of Thalia) before an opponent gets a Jitte or other equipment active to basically shut off cards like Drown in Sorrow, so you want a card that absolutely kills hatebears dead.

[Kathal]

The current decklist and sideboard are spot on. Would like to find out your thoughts on replacing 1 Massacre with 1 Anger of the Gods or Drown in Sorrow as wish target to sweep Teeg, Thalia, Spirit, Canonist and Mom in a single spell instead of relying on Abrupt Decay + Massacre against Maverick?

I would play Toxic Deluge over Anger and Sorrow, since you can kill everything he has and it has the easiest mana requirements.

Greetings,
Kathal

[Pox22]

If I were to play a second sweeper, I would play Pyroclasm. But I think Maniac largely obviates the need for it--since Maniac dodges Teeg and other hate just fine, which is what you're trying to accomplish with that spot.

Maniac has the benefit of beating other hate and enabling piles that otherwise wouldn't work. Doomsday with two cantrips was always awkward with just Burning Wish, but it's an easy pile with Maniac.

[emidln]

Doomsday with two cantrips (one being SDT) is LED, IU, LED, LED, BW and costs whatever your non-SDT cantrip costs. Without SDT as one of the cantrips, it's LED, IU, LP, LED, BW and costs your cantrips + 1. In general, winning costs 2 plus the cost of drawing into the pile and each additional cantrip nets you 1-2 mana.

[P-E]

Emidln, some tests against ug infect? Speaking of last ross' s list with 3 waste md 4 stifle.

[wonderPreaux]

Emidln, some tests against ug infect? Speaking of last ross' s list with 3 waste md 4 stifle.

I would tend to think you're advantaged in that sort of scenario. Infect is pretty much a bad tempo list with a possible combo finish, so, just play it like a tempo and keep your head up when you're Duressing so as to not get one-shot. You would end up having to rely more on basics and Therapy to clear Stifles/Invigorates, for instance, and be aware that you can possibly be "gotten" by Stifle on flipping top/cracking fetches.

[P-E]

discarding is nice but it enables faster become immense

[wonderPreaux]

discarding is nice but it enables faster become immense

That is a 1-of, maybe 2-of, and you can generally play around it by timing discard correctly. For example, let's say I'm Therapying Stifles, if I do that on my combo turn, Become Immense doesn't Become An Issue. Or if you come in with a Probe and see only 1 creature turn 1, yes Therapying it gives them a card for Delve, but it could also buy you several turns. Trading discard enables Threshold in ANT mirrors, same concept, but if you're crippling them with discard, you're probably getting the good value regardless.

[the driver]

Also if you are on the Silence/Chant plan you can buy the time you need and they have to decide whether to blow permission to enable their "combo" or protect against yours. Then you get the extra man you need to ignore Daze and Spell Pierce.

As someone said Infect feels like a tempo style opponent and the Silences/Chants shine a bit more in those matchups. At least for me.

[Howishotgun]

What would be the piles that I should learn by heart for a new person learning this deck?

[entreri_fans]

What would be the piles that I should learn by heart for a new person learning this deck?

Hi, I think you can learn single cantrip pile and double cantrip piles first, which you will use 90% of all the time.

Here is a good primer for you to learn DDFT, which is on mtgsalvation, it also includes bounce piles (Chain of Vapor piles). Although recently most DDFT lists have dropped CoV for Lab Maniac, bounce piles are still useful to learn.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/combo/581031-primer-doomsday-fetchland-tendrils

[sawatarix]

has there been a discussion about silence vs. cabal therapy ?

I'm far from a Doomsday expert so i was wondering which kind of protection you prefer and why.
It seems that in a metagame without that many wastelands as it is now, a whitesplash for chants looks appealing.

[Kidbails]

has there been a discussion about silence vs. cabal therapy ?

I'm far from a Doomsday expert so i was wondering which kind of protection you prefer and why.
It seems that in a metagame without that many wastelands as it is now, a whitesplash for chants looks appealing.

I play a combination of the two. I have 3 Duress & 2 Cabal Therapy, and I play 2 Silence as the last protection off of a single Tundra. I made the decision specific to my local metagame, and would perhaps revise when taking the deck to a big tournament. But I like it a lot when playing locally.

[the driver]

has there been a discussion about silence vs. cabal therapy ?

I'm far from a Doomsday expert so i was wondering which kind of protection you prefer and why.
It seems that in a metagame without that many wastelands as it is now, a whitesplash for chants looks appealing.

There has been a lot of discussion about it in the past. There is a whole thread about on Stormboards if you are interested.

Typically it is a metagame call. One package usually has an edge over the other in some matchups. That being said, some people have objective and subjective reasons for chants vs discard beyond just metagame. Wasteland isn't awful for the UBRWg DDFT since you can fetch the basics and the deck functions well off those.

Discard gives you more information on your opponents hand which can help sculpt your decision tree (urgency, angles of disruption, foreshadowing the need for an answer, etc). Chants have advantages in beating certain hatecards, ie an opponent who has Stifle, Surgical Extraction, Pryoblast, Hydroblast is easy for Silence but could be tough for Duress.

This is all obvious stuff that I'm sure you get. I typically favor the setups on either end of the spectrum of 7 chants or 7 discard. I've found the splits to be kind of clunky. There are certainly some good arguments for them. I just like having clearer mana requirement priorities. In matchups when you need to fetch basics you then have to decide whether you need swamp over plains.

[Mhenlo]

On the topic of Chants vs Discard. I'd like to actually discuss it here, instead of every time someone posts something telling them to just go to stormboards. Chants are better against Dredge (can chant on draw step after the Dredge, then race), Storm (obvious), Stifle/Surgical/Pyroblast/Snare/Flusterstorm(Delver), IMO Burn but that is debatable(Chants can stop Blasts/Bolts post DD and can Chant walk Eidolon/Race).

Discard is better against Hymns, Show and Tell and CB. It also is generally better in an Unknown format where just having 11 MD cards to gain info is important. Discard makes the deck slightly faster because you can use discard the turn before comboing off, chants don't work well with pass the turn piles. Discard as protection is better against hatebears but chant walking and Karakas helps enough that I don't think one is better than the other at it. Chants are better with Time Spiral though.

One major reason why I used to play chants is because of the ability to pretend to be Miracles and the significantly better RUG Delver match up. Going Strand/Delta to Island/Plains/Tundra or even just Karakas into SDT makes everyone thing you are Miracles, then you cast a Turn 3 Chant and kill them.
I didn't always run a Plains, but almost always did, I cut it when Treasure Cruise became popular and RUG Delver/Wasteland became less popular, then I eventually switched to discard, and ran 3-4 Silence with 3-4 Duress and 1 CT in the SB. I have tested all chants and therapies for an EtW strat that wasn't great.

I currently am on Discard because of the metagame and it is better with Treasure Cruse, also Young Pyromancer with Cabal Therapy is fun.

[Lemnear]

Chants are crap against storm. Who is running the full combo right against an unknown blue deck? Discard and Probes unveil your tech to Dodge it by either picking it and combo off or by stripping you off one of your combo components to delay your critical turn and deal with Silence later, while the Players with Silence has no information about his/her opponents hand and preferable sequencing of cantrips/disruption throughout the game (especially relevant in the combo mirror)

[nevilshute]

Chants are crap against storm. Who is running the full combo right against an unknown blue deck? Discard and Probes unveil your tech to Dodge it by either picking it and combo off or by stripping you off one of your combo components to delay your critical turn and deal with Silence later, while the Players with Silence has no information about his/her opponents hand and preferable sequencing of cantrips/disruption throughout the game (especially relevant in the combo mirror)

I get what you are saying. And while I do think people have a tendancy to overrate Silence in the storm matchup (Past in Flames says hello) I do think Silence effects have an edge over discard spells in combination with Sensei's Divining Top. A Silence floating on top with an active top is hard to beat for storm,

[sawatarix]

Wow, a basic Plains only for Silence? Rock solid vs Wasteland but otherwise pretty useless if you want to cast anything other than silence.
Same for Karakas.

right now discard is a rare type of hate and more people start to play decks with only countermagic as their choice of disruption.
So Silence makes perfect sense here as it dodges all kinds of specific countermagic such as spell snare/pyroblast/hydroblast.

[the driver]

Wow, a basic Plains only for Silence? Rock solid vs Wasteland but otherwise pretty useless if you want to cast anything other than silence.
Same for Karakas.

right now discard is a rare type of hate and more people start to play decks with only countermagic as their choice of disruption.
So Silence makes perfect sense here as it dodges all kinds of specific countermagic such as spell snare/pyroblast/hydroblast.

Plains isn't always only for Silence since sometimes people opt for a package of 4 Silence & 3 Orim's Chant. Also in the past the white addition has opened the door for white cards out of the sideboard such as Grand Abolisher, Serenity, and others. With as many cantrips as DDFT runs and as many lands the deck can have (up to 18) a single plains isn't that disruptive.

Karakas is there less to cast Silence or white cards and more to hedge against certain hatecards (hatebears, griselbrand, etc). It serves as a fantastic option to add to your Doomsday piles if necessary. Mass Karakas, 3 in the 75, was considered a viable approach during certain metagames not so long ago.

The manabase is UBRWg DDFT is actually reasonably smooth.

Back on the topic of chants vs discard - right now I'm in the 7 chant camp. I run extra cantrips and I like being able to be slightly more aggressive with cantrips in the early turns and sling chants when I'm ready later. Slower approach but so far so good.

[Togores]

Wow, a basic Plains only for Silence? Rock solid vs Wasteland but otherwise pretty useless if you want to cast anything other than silence.
Same for Karakas.

right now discard is a rare type of hate and more people start to play decks with only countermagic as their choice of disruption.
So Silence makes perfect sense here as it dodges all kinds of specific countermagic such as spell snare/pyroblast/hydroblast.

Kai, back then the basic plains was quite good, to grind wastelands countermagic decks, just by overloading them with chants.
was usual that you just fetch for plains at the start and then just with the basic plains and without fetching more to trigger styfle begin to chant a rug deck to dead without letting him wastland your only White source.
its quite good, In a 7x chant build the plains was cool.
Played it back ago.
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=7561&iddeck=54923

[sawatarix]

The helm of awakening and grapeshot combo in the sideboard looks pretty sweet, when do board them in?

[Togores]

I had them back in as a second option, usualy vs maverik. It was able to win thru cannonist and tegg.
Did it a few times. And also as a plan b vs decks that could tempve your win options. And grapeshot kills hatebears.
Like dd pile pass.
Including if no sensei on this cards:
Sensei
Sensei
Helm
Grapeshot
Survive.
In my opp turn brainstorm
Im my turn play helm. Then spin into infinite the senseis. Look with one and now draw grapshot and win.

This combo dodges a cannonista and a tegg in play.

[Mhenlo]

Chants are your best card against storm. They can't combo off if you have a Silence you can combo off if they have a discard. How do they combo off if you float a Chant on top off your deck with SDT?

Lab Maniac has kinda replaced Helm Grapeshot because it is cheeper to win through a Teeg, it can't win through a Cannonist, but you can make a pile where CoV is the top card and make a PtT pile.

[flrn]

If you go back to playing Chants/Silence, you might as well just play UBwg again with Ill-Gotten Gains and Infernals.

[sawatarix]

Thx alot,

Doomsday is maybe the coolest deck out there but honestly, is there at least one reason to play it over other stormdecks like ANT or TES.
I have been piloting both decks for a long period of time now and had also success with them. Now it is time to explore more complicated decks and DDFT seems like the ideal deck to toy around.
I'm still in the learning process and although i've learned a few kill lines the deck doesn't feel as powerful as the other stormdeck mostly because it is slower by a turn or two and the doomsday lifeloss especially if you pass the turn afterwards.

[Lemnear]

Thx alot,

Doomsday is maybe the coolest deck out there but honestly, is there at least one reason to play it over other stormdecks like ANT or TES.
I have been piloting both decks for a long period of time now and had also success with them. Now it is time to explore more complicated decks and DDFT seems like the ideal deck to toy around.
I'm still in the learning process and although i've learned a few kill lines the deck doesn't feel as powerful as the other stormdeck mostly because it is slower by a turn or two and the doomsday lifeloss especially if you pass the turn afterwards.

The main issue with Doomsday is that you need an additional card for most combo-lines compared to other storm variants, which is basically the draw-into-the-pile card. I sure don't need to tell you the significant difference between needing mana + a combo card (IT/AN/PIF) and needing mana + combo card (doomsday) + draw-in (Ponder/BS/Probe/SDT) with the later Construct also limiting the playability of LED. Being slower and still life-dependant (lightning bolt post-doomsday!) is another downside compared to ANT and the Maniac-kill is iffy with Lightning Bolts, Sudden Shocks and REBs in the metagame

[the driver]

Thx alot,

Doomsday is maybe the coolest deck out there but honestly, is there at least one reason to play it over other stormdecks like ANT or TES.
I have been piloting both decks for a long period of time now and had also success with them. Now it is time to explore more complicated decks and DDFT seems like the ideal deck to toy around.
I'm still in the learning process and although i've learned a few kill lines the deck doesn't feel as powerful as the other stormdeck mostly because it is slower by a turn or two and the doomsday lifeloss especially if you pass the turn afterwards.

I think you've partly answered your own question ;)

It is easy to get into a pissing contest about which storm deck is better. In my opinion DDFT is the most rewarding to learn and to play well. I can remember distinct times when after a play session I literally felt "better" with the deck.

There are objective arguments for the deck such as the deck has the potential to win in scenarios where others can't. DDFT also generally has a higher level of card quality which helps make it more consistent and more resilient, especially in grindy match-ups. Naturally there are some trade-offs for these benefits. But, the deck isn't as slow as people make it out to be. Just keep practicing.

[bennotsi]

I'm still in the learning process and although i've learned a few kill lines the deck doesn't feel as powerful as the other stormdeck mostly because it is slower by a turn or two and the doomsday lifeloss especially if you pass the turn afterwards.


The main issue with Doomsday is that you need an additional card for most combo-lines compared to other storm variants, which is basically the draw-into-the-pile card.

I've been playing Doomsday for a very long time and reading false statements about the deck like these over and over again is quite annoying. (I have to say, the only reason that I bother to respond is because I value both of your contributions to the ANT and TES threads on this forum).

Sawatrix, if you are on average two turns slower with Doomsday than with ANT then clearly something is wrong. Since you are still learning how to play to the deck, I hate to say this, but I think this is from the fact that you need more practice.

Lemnear, come on, be reasonable. With Doomsday you most commonly win from Dark Ritual, Doomsday, LED, and either SDT in play or GP in hand. Comparing to ANT, how can you win from just Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, LED? With two mana you can go for Ad Nauseam, which isn't a guaranteed kill like Doomsday. If you want to go for PiF than you need at least another ritual, which is also a card. There are quite a few hands from which Doomsday can win faster than ANT (if you replace the Infernal Tutor in hand with a Doomsday), because the cantrip is part of the combo. Where in ANT you would have to cast that cantrip and hope to find a particular combo piece first.

I believe that the real reason that Doomsday is (on average) not faster than ANT is because it's secondary business spell (Burning Wish) is off-color. Burning Wish is however irreplaceable if you want to win with storm, because it allows you to generate 6 storm from a 5 card pile and not play Tendrils main. Without Burning Wish, I wouldn't even try to win with Tendrils.

If you want to really learn how to play the deck, thread carefully. Doomsday has ruined other storm decks for me. I can't play ANT or TES anymore without thinking "if this Infernal Tutor was a Doomsday, I would have just won with this hand". However, the main reason for me to play Doomsday is simply consistency. The number of occasions that the deck truly craps all over itself occur much less frequently for me with Doomsday than with ANT or TES. I stress that this is my personal experience, although I believe that I have played all three decks enough to arrive at a statistic that I can trust.

I'm not interested in starting a full storm deck versus storm deck discussion which regularly plague the ANT and TES threads. I know the advantages and disadvantages of all. And I'm certainly not trying to convince anyone to play Doomsday.

[Mhenlo]

The main difference is that Doomsday lists run more library manipulation and less rituals because draw spells can be used to make a DD Pile cheeper, so basically you get a more consistent deck at the cost of the speed of rituals. I personally think DD can be just as fast as ANT. Current Doomsday lists have been running Treasure Cruise which other storm decks can't use because it messes with Past in Flames and Ad Nauseam.

[bennotsi]

The main difference is that Doomsday lists run more library manipulation and less rituals because draw spells can be used to make a DD Pile cheeper, so basically you get a more consistent deck at the cost of the speed of rituals.

I disagree with this, you are oversimplifying things by a very large margin. Most ANT lists play 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe and 3 (sometimes 4) slots of some combination of Preordain and SDT. By comparison, Doomsday's 4 BS 4 Ponder 4 GP 4 SDT are hardly significantly more library manipulation. This single slot difference does not explain why Doomsday runs 5 rituals against ANT's 8 or 1 to 3 Lotus Petals instead of 4. Also, in contrast to what you are suggesting, increasing the number of rituals won't speedup Doomsday, you'll just end up with black mana without a meaningful way to spend it. And finally, I can not believe you would call this the 'main' difference.

[wonderPreaux]

Sawatrix, if you are on average two turns slower with Doomsday than with ANT then clearly something is wrong. Since you are still learning how to play to the deck, I hate to say this, but I think this is from the fact that you need more practice.

Lemnear, come on, be reasonable. With Doomsday you most commonly win from Dark Ritual, Doomsday, LED, and either SDT in play or GP in hand. Comparing to ANT, how can you win from just Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, LED? With two mana you can go for Ad Nauseam, which isn't a guaranteed kill like Doomsday. If you want to go for PiF than you need at least another ritual, which is also a card. There are quite a few hands from which Doomsday can win faster than ANT (if you replace the Infernal Tutor in hand with a Doomsday), because the cantrip is part of the combo. Where in ANT you would have to cast that cantrip and hope to find a particular combo piece first.

I believe that the real reason that Doomsday is (on average) not faster than ANT is because it's secondary business spell (Burning Wish) is off-color. Burning Wish is however irreplaceable if you want to win with storm, because it allows you to generate 6 storm from a 5 card pile and not play Tendrils main. Without Burning Wish, I wouldn't even try to win with Tendrils.

I gotta agree with ben here. In my initial goldfishing, I've been impressed at how much speed you can coax out of this deck. Granted, the fastest hands typically require some mix of Dark Ritual and Doomsday, but that's not significantly less likely than Tutor+LED, and certainly closer once you factor in the need for additional LED/Rituals for ANT to combo t1, whereas Doomsday can use LEDs or Probes. If people would be ok with me using standardized lists for each, I could actual do some math on how close the numbers are for t1/t2 kills. This doesn't even factor in that you don't randomly die to Ad Nauseam when you're playing Doomsday, so your early kills are guaranteed, whereas a certain amount of the time you will just die to Ad Nauseam.

[Mhenlo]

I disagree with this, you are oversimplifying things by a very large margin. Most ANT lists play 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe and 3 (sometimes 4) slots of some combination of Preordain and SDT. By comparison, Doomsday's 4 BS 4 Ponder 4 GP 4 SDT are hardly significantly more library manipulation. This single slot difference does not explain why Doomsday runs 5 rituals against ANT's 8 or 1 to 3 Lotus Petals instead of 4. Also, in contrast to what you are suggesting, increasing the number of rituals won't speedup Doomsday, you'll just end up with black mana without a meaningful way to spend it. And finally, I can not believe you would call this the 'main' difference.

It was an oversimplification, but how ANT runs Cabal Ritual and TES runs RoF, Doomsday runs SDT, and Doomsday needs less mana and more draw spells to combo off was pretty much the point i was trying to make, I should've just said that, at the time I was also think main difference in terms of deck lists not how they actually play. Doomsday also has Ideas Unbound and Burning Wish ->Treasure Cruise and MD Treasure Cruises to draw cards.

[flrn]

Doomsday has ruined other storm decks for me. I can't play ANT or TES anymore without thinking "if this Infernal Tutor was a Doomsday, I would have just won with this hand". However, the main reason for me to play Doomsday is simply consistency. The number of occasions that the deck truly craps all over itself occur much less frequently for me with Doomsday than with ANT or TES. I stress that this is my personal experience, although I believe that I have played all three decks enough to arrive at a statistic that I can trust.

You couldn't have put my experiences with ANT and TES in better words. I'm currently toying around with ANT and this is totally true. I also get the feeling, that I am not even faster with ANT, than I am with Doomsday, just because I'm more used to playing Doomsday and I propably don't see all the ANT lines.

[nevilshute]

I would like to give a big thumbs up to you, bennotsi, for deciding to post here. I would love for this thread to have more input from some of the seasoned DDFT players. I know there are the stormboards, and I have an account there, but I must admit to not checking in there one tenth of the time I do here. I get the impression I'm not alone on this.

I'd also like to touch on some of the fundamental things going on in regards to playing this deck and/or playing the other storm decks (ANT + TES). I hope you will indulge me :smile:

I'd like to preface this by saying that:

I've played ANT regularly and as my go-to deck for competitive play for about 2 years now. I would not consider myself an ANT expert per se, but I have a lot of experience with the deck and play it fairly competently and have also had decent results in bigger tournaments. I've been testing the waters with DDFT on and off for almost a year now, but with vast breaks. I have the most basic piles down as muscle memory in the same vein as I have most lines of play with ANT (how much mana needed of what color, in what situation, etc, etc). I would feel okay bringing DDFT to a small'ish competitive tournament but would expect to not do well. I would not, currently, bring the deck to a tournament with a lot on the line.

Okay.

I'd like to touch on some of my thoughts/concerns about DDFT then.

Why play it? (Why play storm at all?)`
I am only speaking for myself, but would like to think that some of my notions about this deck are shared by some, if not most. I think for many of us it started with some basic facination, either with the mathematical aspects of "count-to-ten" or the brutal coolness exuded by casting all those Dark Rituals, Lion's Eye Diamonds and Infernal Tutors.

So you start out playing ANT or TES. You are aware of Doomsday, but there is plenty to learn just playing ANT or TES so you kind of disregard Doomsday. Eventually you get good enough with ANT or TES and maybe one day you read something about Doomsday again, or watch someone play it. And you get interested. You read some more about it, but there is not that much both easily accessible and useful information about the card or deck in any recent legacy context. Once you read a bit / talk to people that may or may not have once seen someone play it, you get faced with the following postulations:

1) Doomsday is so hard to play, that you'd basically have to be autistic to have a shot and playing it well enough.

OR

2) Doomsday as a deck might once have been good, if exceptionally difficult, but that was back when it snowed every Christmas, it was Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve and Delver hadn't been printed. Today, it's simply not good enough to make it worth the effort to master and you are better off playing ANT or TES.

The doubt
So... doubt festers in you. You might try it out, but every time you run into a bad spell of games where you lose a lot, you begin to lose faith. You put it down again, thinking nah... it's just as well that I just keep trying to improve with ANT. It's never going to be worth it. If postulation 1 is true I'll never be good enough because I'm not Rainman. If postulation 2 is true it's even worse because I will be wasting my time trying to learn how to look cool but lose anyway.

For me, personally, I feel the greatest sense of doubt whenever someone tries to tell me that postulation 2 is true... that "hey look... the deck isn't even very good anymore... you're basically working hard for no particular reason as it's not even really competitive".

I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand. It is nice, however, to have someone come here with a lot of experience with the deck and share that experience... and illuminate to the rest of us, that this deck is actually still a viable strategy to pursue.

I would love to have it's advantages/disadvantages more fleshed out than is currently the case.

Yes, it's awesome that the combo is independant from the GY. Yes it's awesome that we have a built in protection from Gaddock Teeg and White Leyline. Yes, it's a drawback that it is harder to learn than ANT or TES.

What about speed? Some seem to believe it is significantly slower than, say ANT (TES being the fastest of the three). Is that true? If yes, can you expand? If no, can you expand?

Thanks for reading!

[Lemnear]

First of all, Doomsday has the same strange mythos of being soooooo hard to play Gifts ungiven had in vintage with a lot of people over at TheManaDrain keep asking how to build piles and looking for 1-3 blueprint-piles to copy and ride on the back of it. We know what Gifts and the various Doomsday decks sure offer such standard piles, but you still have to be able to figure out what you need in certain situations. I don't know if it qualifies as "hard" if you have to alter your pilee by a card or so to get around a Teeg or Chalice, but most members of our League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have witnessed confusion about which target to pick off Wish, how to navigate around hate, which kill-mechanism to choose or struggles to maintain the gameplan (interpretation of roles). A classic example of the autopilot-syndrome is drawing yourself dead with Ad Nauseam instead of figuring out what you need to flip, the chances for flipping the desired card or considering the option to pass the turn with a stocked and and still a safe amount of lifepoints. Maybe this is more a TES problem with Chrome Moxen setting up that mental trap.

The appeal of Doomsday is that you play with a tutor for 5 cards and get around the use of the graveyard. This however comes with the cost of halfing your Lifepoints in a metagame full of agressive threats and Lightning Bolts, ergo putting the whole concept close to TES' pilots mindset rather than ANTs, with the later pilots safely using their lifepoints as resource for additional turns to play. With the ability to tutor for singleton solutions to problematic permanents and the printing of Lab Maniac, Doomsday got new tools to dodge certain angles of hate, other storm decks can only fight by overloading their postboard configuration with CoV or Decays.

The first question here is, how good and important the options to get around the graveyard are in fact, considering that ANT/TES have more Rituals for lethal Tutor Chains to dodge that issue while Doomsday has to rely on the namesake card and halfed life or Maniac all against decks running Bolts and (Fire)Blasts. I have a tough time considering the "graveyard-independancy-factor" in favor of Doomsday.

Because Doomsday is carddisadvantage compared to storm-engines ran these days (thus my talk about the SDT/Probe to draw into the pile), I feel that the only outstanding point of Doomsday is to ignore your opponents lifepoints and typical storm hate like Thorn/Thalia/MBT/Flusterstorm/Teeg/Leyline of Sanctity also on the back of Lab Maniac. Given that Lab Man still requires a resolved Doomsday (if not for tutoring then for emtpying the Library), I dunno, if we can really let this count as a strict advantage

The previous two points came to my mind after reading your postulation #2, so I wanted to share my thoughts (also as a former pilot of the deck). Speed is not an issue at all, despite the deck needs 3 components compared to ANTs/TES' 2

Enjoy the discussion :)

[mistercakes]

First of all, Doomsday has the same strange mythos of being soooooo hard to play Gifts ungiven had in vintage with a lot of people over at TheManaDrain keep asking how to build piles and looking for 1-3 blueprint-piles to copy and ride on the back of it. We know what Gifts and the various Doomsday decks sure offer such standard piles, but you still have to be able to figure out what you need in certain situations. I don't know if it qualifies as "hard" if you have to alter your pilee by a card or so to get around a Teeg or Chalice, but most members of our League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have witnessed confusion about which target to pick off Wish, how to navigate around hate, which kill-mechanism to choose or struggles to maintain the gameplan (interpretation of roles). A classic example of the autopilot-syndrome is drawing yourself dead with Ad Nauseam instead of figuring out what you need to flip, the chances for flipping the desired card or considering the option to pass the turn with a stocked and and still a safe amount of lifepoints. Maybe this is more a TES problem with Chrome Moxen setting up that mental trap.

The appeal of Doomsday is that you play with a tutor for 5 cards and get around the use of the graveyard. This however comes with the cost of halfing your Lifepoints in a metagame full of agressive threats and Lightning Bolts, ergo putting the whole concept close to TES' pilots mindset rather than ANTs, with the later pilots safely using their lifepoints as resource for additional turns to play. With the ability to tutor for singleton solutions to problematic permanents and the printing of Lab Maniac, Doomsday got new tools to dodge certain angles of hate, other storm decks can only fight by overloading their postboard configuration with CoV or Decays.

The first question here is, how good and important the options to get around the graveyard are in fact, considering that ANT/TES have more Rituals for lethal Tutor Chains to dodge that issue while Doomsday has to rely on the namesake card and halfed life or Maniac all against decks running Bolts and (Fire)Blasts. I have a tough time considering the "graveyard-independancy-factor" in favor of Doomsday.

Because Doomsday is carddisadvantage compared to storm-engines ran these days (thus my talk about the SDT/Probe to draw into the pile), I feel that the only outstanding point of Doomsday is to ignore your opponents lifepoints and typical storm hate like Thorn/Thalia/MBT/Flusterstorm/Teeg/Leyline of Sanctity also on the back of Lab Maniac. Given that Lab Man still requires a resolved Doomsday (if not for tutoring then for emtpying the Library), I dunno, if we can really let this count as a strict advantage

The previous two points came to my mind after reading your postulation #2, so I wanted to share my thoughts (also as a former pilot of the deck). Speed is not an issue at all, despite the deck needs 3 components compared to ANTs/TES' 2

Enjoy the discussion :)

I have been playing doomsday almost nonstop (including big tournaments) since I was introduced to it by that Karsten article on starcity. I've played more or less every combo deck since pros bloom and there's something very interesting about doomsday that I can't shrug off. The other storm decks in the format are a lot more obvious that they are storm decks in the first few turns. Doomsday on the other hand can pretend to be a miracles deck, and on top of that you are not as linear in your play style as the other combo decks.

The other main point about the consistency with this deck is SDT. The ability to constantly abuse shuffle effects and keep digging one card deeper gives it some more intrinsic value vs decks that really interact with your hand, or decks that put a clock with disruption.

Another appeal of doomsday is the opportunity to really pick apart your decisions in hindsight over the game to determine what your mistake was. I've done a lot of analysis with every deck I play, and I feel doomsday lends itself to that a lot more. (Despite having so many more decisions)

Anyway, Ben has contributed far and away the most for me, as I learned many of the piles from his document when I began playing with the deck. Thanks to that.


-Rob

[Lemnear]

I have been playing doomsday almost nonstop (including big tournaments) since I was introduced to it by that Karsten article on starcity. I've played more or less every combo deck since pros bloom and there's something very interesting about doomsday that I can't shrug off. The other storm decks in the format are a lot more obvious that they are storm decks in the first few turns. Doomsday on the other hand can pretend to be a miracles deck, and on top of that you are not as linear in your play style as the other combo decks.

The other main point about the consistency with this deck is SDT. The ability to constantly abuse shuffle effects and keep digging one card deeper gives it some more intrinsic value vs decks that really interact with your hand, or decks that put a clock with disruption.

Another appeal of doomsday is the opportunity to really pick apart your decisions in hindsight over the game to determine what your mistake was. I've done a lot of analysis with every deck I play, and I feel doomsday lends itself to that a lot more. (Despite having so many more decisions)

Anyway, Ben has contributed far and away the most for me, as I learned many of the piles from his document when I began playing with the deck. Thanks to that.


-Rob

I'm a bit careful with hinting to SDTs card-selection for combo as it it a real mana sink which gives your opponent time to sculpt a defense. It's a two edged sword if you run a combo which still depends on your life total (to an extend). I not convinced it has a spot in ANT for the same reason but prefer regular cantrips for feeding threshold.

Question to the folks: I can imagine that Doomsday is the only shell which can profit from several TCs in the list. I only have seen miser copies in MB and in the Wishboard and wonder if there's not more potential

[emidln]

Question to the folks: I can imagine that Doomsday is the only shell which can profit from several TCs in the list. I only have seen miser copies in MB and in the Wishboard and wonder if there's not more potential

The short answer is that you can probably play a 2nd TC over Chromatic Sphere. The wishable TC is actually backbreaking for opponents. I've actually wondered recently if a deck without lab man is viable playing 3 TC, 4 Wish and the same numbers of protection/accel/cantrips. I haven't had time to extensively test how the lack of Lab Man affects the aggression of the deck against the extra wins generated from being 30 cards deep into your deck on turn 6 (versus opponents who didn't realize they were playing Vintage). Simply going -CS, +TC#2 is going to affect your ability to pass the turn against UWR, but I haven't kept track of how many times I've done that in the last month or two. I suspect the answer is less than 10% of the time.

The long answer is that the deck becomes unable to shift from a fast combo deck to a slow combo deck (which is absolutely critical against decks like Delver) when you trim slots to fit the 3rd maindeck copy. Consider Doomsday built as such (referencing my recent lists that are UBRg with LM and TC md+sb):

Current Count, (range), type, (current cards)
17 (15-19) lands (Fetches, Sea, Volc, Island, Swamp)
10 (10-14) acceleration (DR, LED, RoF, LP)
18 (15-20) cantrips (BS, Ponder, SDT, GP, Chromatic Sphere, TC)
7 (6-12) protection (Duress, Therapy)
7 (6-10) business (DD, BW, IU)
1 (0-2) dead cards (LM)


Something to keep in mind, that other posters have alluded to and I've talked about quite extensively, is that Doomsday fundamentally trades cards in hand and cantrips for LEDs to reduce its actual mana requirements. In the same way that Dark Ritual is +2 net mana in Ad Nauseam, Ponder is +2 net mana in Doomsday (after Doomsday resolves). This is a fundamental tradeoff that lets Doomsday customize each game depending on the opponent's ability to interact. The same hand plays out into a grind where we play 8 vs 7 in some control matchups or a turn 2 kill vs an aggro deck. This is the shifting that I'm talking about, and it's something that is a huge advantage to Doomsday that very few other decks (in the history of magic) have ever had access to. It's not a combo-control deck, but it's a "fast combo"-"slow combo" deck. Playing cantrips had a number of upsides, like the ability to trim lands and the ability to play delve spells (and let's not forget the ability to get blown out by chalice @ 1).

Historically, these card type counts have varied for a number of reasons. Sometimes we can mix certain card types to our advantage (Karakas can cast a bunch of colorless stuff/activate SDT while bouncing hatebears; IU can setup as a super careful study, Chromatic Sphere plays around enemy interaction while cantripping) if using somewhat suboptimal cards for either type. Lab Man and Chromatic Sphere are a case study in mixing card types by playing an alternate win that lets us skip playing some disruption spells. By adding actual acceleration in the form of Lotus Petal or Cabal Ritual, we can increase our velocity for resolving Doomsday at the opportunity cost of drawing Lotus Petal or Cabal Ritual against a Force of Will deck.

When you go to trim past the Chromatic Sphere (and even at the Chromatic Sphere), you need to understand how it will affect the role the deck will play. Cutting Lab Man affects your ability to aggressively pass the turn, potentially with implications for sideboard slots and protection slots. as you slow the velocity of the deck, you’ll need more disruption. Cutting protection leaves you in the same position that UR Delver is in, with not enough disruption to consistently fight an aggressive opponent (your opponent being UR Delver, theirs being ANT and your former self). Cutting cantrips runs the risk of not feeding TC consistently (remembering that SDT doesn’t bin itself on purpose). Cutting acceleration will again affect velocity. Cutting lands runs the risk of more mulligans and less cantripping for business with more cantripping for lands (leading to cards like Daze being live).

[Mhenlo]

I'm a bit careful with hinting to SDTs card-selection for combo as it it a real mana sink which gives your opponent time to sculpt a defense. It's a two edged sword if you run a combo which still depends on your life total (to an extend). I not convinced it has a spot in ANT for the same reason but prefer regular cantrips for feeding threshold.

Question to the folks: I can imagine that Doomsday is the only shell which can profit from several TCs in the list. I only have seen miser copies in MB and in the Wishboard and wonder if there's not more potential

I have been running 2 TC main and 1 in the SB and it has made Natural Tendrils a more viable option, It was usually an extremely rare thing to happen in DDFT unless you Time Spiral.

[sillysam71]

I was thinking about more of an old school doomsday list at work and I threw together a UBWg list kinda like what I played at GP Columbus way back in 2010. I haven't tested it, so not sure how well it works, though. Maybe this is nostalgia and I'm just wanting to play more of an IGGy pop type doomsday list with chants, but what the hell.

3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Doomsday
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
3 Orim's Chant
3 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Treasure Cruise

Sideboard:

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Karakas
1 Laboratory Maniac
2 Massacre
2 Serenity
2 Xantid Swarm

Didn't put a whole lot of thought into the sideboard, just knew that I wanted Lab Man in the 75. Thoughts? Is something like this just strictly worse than more current lists? Maybe.

[Mhenlo]

I was thinking about more of an old school doomsday list at work and I threw together a UBWg list kinda like what I played at GP Columbus way back in 2010. I haven't tested it, so not sure how well it works, though. Maybe this is nostalgia and I'm just wanting to play more of an IGGy pop type doomsday list with chants, but what the hell.

3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Doomsday
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
3 Orim's Chant
3 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Treasure Cruise

Sideboard:

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Karakas
1 Laboratory Maniac
2 Massacre
2 Serenity
2 Xantid Swarm

Didn't put a whole lot of thought into the sideboard, just knew that I wanted Lab Man in the 75. Thoughts? Is something like this just strictly worse than more current lists? Maybe.

I think it could be useful in the right meta game but not right now. Discard is a better form of protection atm, TES doesn't even run chants now. With out Chants that makes Iggy almost unplayable, so you would just have to run chants which won't be as effective as discard. People are starting to run a decent amount of graveyard hate and which makes Iggy worse and the chance of getting Tendrils exiled. Iggy also requires you to run Infernal Tutors, MD Tendrils and Iggy which are dead cards and a worse Tutor than Burning Wish for Doomsday. None of these things make the deck anywhere near unplayable, just not really an optimal list.

[Kidbails]

Played in the SCG LA Premier IQ yesterday with DDFT. My list was as follows:

--Spells--
3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
2 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Ideas Unbound

--Lands--
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta

--SIDEBOARD--
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Doomsday
1 Time Spiral
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Infernal Contract
1 Massacre
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Cabal Therapy


2-4 Drop was my final record, pretty dismal. Losses were to Sneak and Show, Omni-Tell running Counterbalance out of the board, Manaless Dredge (pathetic loss), and Elves (Had the G3 win set up barring a topdecked Natural Order, but he topdecked it). I was pretty happy with the list, even though I'm not maindecking the Laboratory Maniac. Time Spiral was good all day, and I won one game with Empty the Warrens. I might experiment with something in the 4th Wish slot, as I was drawing more than I wanted all day.

All in all, fun Sunday but a pretty awful finish. It was probably some combination of player error (manaless dredge game mostly) and a few less-than-good matchups. The elves loss sucked the most.

[Dziga Murnau]

As there are quite a lot doomsday-riders in this thread and besides, is it possible to write a primer about nowadays DDFT? Opening post consists of 7-year-old decklists by emidln. Since then, I guess, many things have changed - so I ask, if all the changes can be summed up? I really love the card Doomsday is, but have no clue where to start with it in Legacy (in Vintage it's pretty easy, just Gush-Recall-Maniac most of time).

[wonderPreaux]

As there are quite a lot doomsday-riders in this thread and besides, is it possible to write a primer about nowadays DDFT? Opening post consists of 7-year-old decklists by emidln. Since then, I guess, many things have changed - so I ask, if all the changes can be summed up? I really love the card Doomsday is, but have no clue where to start with it in Legacy (in Vintage it's pretty easy, just Gush-Recall-Maniac most of time).

To be fair, our combo hasn't changed much since Gitaxian Probe: Ideas Unbound + LED+ Probe + LED + Wish

That's 5 storm, plus the storm count for the cantrip to draw IU, the doomsday itself, and ToA that you wish for, totals to 8 storm on it's own, just with the 2-card combo of Doomsday + cantrip. when you add in the Dark Ritual or other accelerator, in addition to whatever protection comes up, it's easy to reach lethal.

Against Teeg or something else, you can make a Lab Man pile too a la vintage, with the option to work a Chromatic Sphere in to blank some removal (though some people eschew the Sphere as it's pretty unexciting otherwise). These are often used as pass-the-turn piles, since they don't require storm count, but you could work them into the same turn as your Doomsday, in theory.

Pass-the-Turn: Ideas Unbound + LED + SDT + Probe + Lab Man (costs 1UU)

Pass-the-Turn (w/Sphere): Ideas Unbound + LED + Sphere + Probe + Lab Man (costs 2UU)

Given that Treasure Cruise is gone, and this was actually one of the lists best suited for it, some of the excitement in this thread died down. Dig Through Time doesn't seem to be as exciting, and atm I'm working on a list with Cabal Rituals and Jace the Mind Sculptors.

[Kathal]

As there are quite a lot doomsday-riders in this thread and besides, is it possible to write a primer about nowadays DDFT? Opening post consists of 7-year-old decklists by emidln. Since then, I guess, many things have changed - so I ask, if all the changes can be summed up? I really love the card Doomsday is, but have no clue where to start with it in Legacy (in Vintage it's pretty easy, just Gush-Recall-Maniac most of time).

MTGSalvation has a great one: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/combo/581031-primer-doomsday-fetchland-tendrils. It explains the basics pretty good. But from this point you kinda have to learn it on your own.

Greetings,
Kathal

[Kidbails]

Also, the storm boards are probably the best place for discussion of DDFT. If you don't have the link, its right here:

http://teamstormboards.proboards.com/

[Ancestral]

I would like to give a big thumbs up to you, bennotsi, for deciding to post here. I would love for this thread to have more input from some of the seasoned DDFT players. I know there are the stormboards, and I have an account there, but I must admit to not checking in there one tenth of the time I do here. I get the impression I'm not alone on this.

I'd also like to touch on some of the fundamental things going on in regards to playing this deck and/or playing the other storm decks (ANT + TES). I hope you will indulge me :smile:

I'd like to preface this by saying that:

I've played ANT regularly and as my go-to deck for competitive play for about 2 years now. I would not consider myself an ANT expert per se, but I have a lot of experience with the deck and play it fairly competently and have also had decent results in bigger tournaments. I've been testing the waters with DDFT on and off for almost a year now, but with vast breaks. I have the most basic piles down as muscle memory in the same vein as I have most lines of play with ANT (how much mana needed of what color, in what situation, etc, etc). I would feel okay bringing DDFT to a small'ish competitive tournament but would expect to not do well. I would not, currently, bring the deck to a tournament with a lot on the line.

Okay.

I'd like to touch on some of my thoughts/concerns about DDFT then.

Why play it? (Why play storm at all?)`
I am only speaking for myself, but would like to think that some of my notions about this deck are shared by some, if not most. I think for many of us it started with some basic facination, either with the mathematical aspects of "count-to-ten" or the brutal coolness exuded by casting all those Dark Rituals, Lion's Eye Diamonds and Infernal Tutors.

So you start out playing ANT or TES. You are aware of Doomsday, but there is plenty to learn just playing ANT or TES so you kind of disregard Doomsday. Eventually you get good enough with ANT or TES and maybe one day you read something about Doomsday again, or watch someone play it. And you get interested. You read some more about it, but there is not that much both easily accessible and useful information about the card or deck in any recent legacy context. Once you read a bit / talk to people that may or may not have once seen someone play it, you get faced with the following postulations:

1) Doomsday is so hard to play, that you'd basically have to be autistic to have a shot and playing it well enough.

OR

2) Doomsday as a deck might once have been good, if exceptionally difficult, but that was back when it snowed every Christmas, it was Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve and Delver hadn't been printed. Today, it's simply not good enough to make it worth the effort to master and you are better off playing ANT or TES.

The doubt
So... doubt festers in you. You might try it out, but every time you run into a bad spell of games where you lose a lot, you begin to lose faith. You put it down again, thinking nah... it's just as well that I just keep trying to improve with ANT. It's never going to be worth it. If postulation 1 is true I'll never be good enough because I'm not Rainman. If postulation 2 is true it's even worse because I will be wasting my time trying to learn how to look cool but lose anyway.

For me, personally, I feel the greatest sense of doubt whenever someone tries to tell me that postulation 2 is true... that "hey look... the deck isn't even very good anymore... you're basically working hard for no particular reason as it's not even really competitive".

I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand. It is nice, however, to have someone come here with a lot of experience with the deck and share that experience... and illuminate to the rest of us, that this deck is actually still a viable strategy to pursue.

I would love to have it's advantages/disadvantages more fleshed out than is currently the case.

Yes, it's awesome that the combo is independant from the GY. Yes it's awesome that we have a built in protection from Gaddock Teeg and White Leyline. Yes, it's a drawback that it is harder to learn than ANT or TES.

What about speed? Some seem to believe it is significantly slower than, say ANT (TES being the fastest of the three). Is that true? If yes, can you expand? If no, can you expand?

Thanks for reading!

i play doomsday with some interruptions for a year i guess, and i can relate 100% with your words when i started to learn the deck (still learning :p )! i have miracles (pimp !! :D play it for over 3 years now ) to play in big tournaments, but now i wanna get my second deck for GP´s and other tournaments with great prizes/attendence, and the chosen one has to be doomsday !

I think that this deck with a good pilot can achieve the same (or better ) results as ANT ( top8 gp´s, scg events, etc ), but it seems to me that people have fear to play this monstrosity in major tounaments for the reasons all people just said in this forum (hard to play, not rewarding enough, etc ). so i m here to try to "revive" the deck in this meta post-TC, and i think we can get great results with it :D i´ll share my list as a starting point (made it just to start practice and adjusting ) and i hope you guys help with it :)

Any opinion/suggestion/comment are wellcome, i just want to get better with this awesome deck and that this thread have more action :p


3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Flooded Strand
1 Badlands

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Rain of Filth
2 Lotus Petal
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault

SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Meltdown
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Laboratory Maniac
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Massacre
(2 slots )

about the deck: ´
1) lim-duls its worng wonderfully, as instant speed tutor it has been really impressive

2) chromatic sphere has been good too, cycles itself, filter mana, and provide the winning with lab post board.

3) i m not sure about silence/discards in this meta less agressive, but i think discards is more solid (even for mana base ) for start

4) only 16 lands, maybe i try 17 if with the test i have the need to get more land drops

thanks for reading and let´s the discussion begins :p

[Lemnear]

From a PM:

lets try to revive this awesome deck :D

best regards!

Guess this is best answered in the thread. There is no point in "reviving" a concept whichs problems are still the same since years and without any new printing which affect the deck or the issues it has between the carddisadvantage, the reliance on Doomsday itself (and the BBB cost of casting it), not being able to win w/o a hand and endless shit more. There is also absolutely no reason to play this as a Tendrils deck over having LabMan as the wincon (mainly because of adressing the problems with remaining hand/hatebears/stormcount) since the printing of Past in Flames which offered the life-independant win-con (compared to Ad Nauseam) Storm needed in order to go the long run in games. Ergo, the only reason to play with the card Doomsday atm is LabMan and it's ability to ignore life total and hatebears like Canonist/Thalia.

lim dul is another card like doomsday which is creating carddisadvantage and I see no reason to pile up the disadvantage first by trading discard for disruption and then by LDV and Doomsday. How many cards do you expect to have in hand to work with if you drop lands/SDT but need the motherfucking Dark Ritual + Doomday + a way to draw into the pile for a win-now pile to dodge the danger of dying to your opponents Delver + Lightning Bolt?

understand me right; if you are ok with dying to Bolt and stuff and run Rituals anyways (which do nothing in this deck unless you have DD as well), why not run more stable options to go the long run like Dark Confidant or try to accelerate your deck with Spoils of the Vault or Drift of Phantasms Transmute? Why has no one ever put time into the idea of adding Infernal Tutor to the LED+DR core to fetch Doomsday T1 and go for a topdeck-pile either finishing with drawing into LabMan or Shelldock? Why use a third color for fetching Doomsday and a wincon if options for both are in U/B? Why stick to the painfully slow and pointless gameplan of SDT/Doomsday/Tendrils which has so damn many weaknesses between opposing clocks/discard/hatebears? The point of playing Doomsday is giving a fuck about the common counterstrategies to combo decks and your list is an example of an idea which has proven to be not compeditive and needs to be abandoned in order to profit from Doomsday in a modern environment.

[Lejay]

I never read so many false statements on doomsday in one post.

[Lemnear]

I never read so many false statements on doomsday in one post.

You mean that Doomsday and LDV are both carddisadvantage, Jean? Or is it that Dark Rituals use is pretty limited aside casting Doomsday? Or that the deck isn't compeditive due to existing issues and alternatives? I wrote a lot here. Pick your points and tell me why DR+DD+SDT+BW is so well positioned in the current metagame.

[Ancestral]

You mean that Doomsday and LDV are both carddisadvantage, Jean? Or is it that Dark Rituals use is pretty limited aside casting Doomsday? Or that the deck isn't compeditive due to existing issues and alternatives? I wrote a lot here. Pick your points and tell me why DR+DD+SDT+BW is so well positioned in the current metagame.

i think you never play doomsday right? i value your opinion but since when doomsday is card disadvanage? and the deck is as much competitive as ant in my point of view, just need way more practice to pilot the deck well ! i understand that this version may not be the better at the momment and that´s why i posted here, but i can´t accept that doomsday isn´t competetive!!

and lejay, i think you are one of the most skilled players in legacy, and if you can put a little more info in your comment i´ll appriciate it a lot :D

[wonderPreaux]

Doomsday is card disadvantage because it doesnt return a card when you play it, unlike something like tutor. the fact that you usually weave card advantage into the pile (meditate/bargain/IU) mitigates this, but it is legitimately a problem

[Ancestral]

Doomsday is card disadvantage because it doesnt return a card when you play it, unlike something like tutor. the fact that you usually weave card advantage into the pile (meditate/bargain/IU) mitigates this, but it is legitimately a problem


i understand that literally its not advantage, but it tutors 5 cards of your deck... can´t be bad ahn :p

[Lemnear]

i understand that literally its not advantage, but it tutors 5 cards of your deck... can´t be bad ahn :p

It's a topdeck Tutor like LDV and the disadvantage adds up especially under considerations of spending Rituals or Petals to cast it in the first place. Other storm variants don't use LDV to Tutor for Ad Nauseam or PIF due to that reason. The Problem is that you create real carddisadvantage by casting Doomsday and try to resolve the Spell what makes up for the disadvantage after you already pushed all-in ... with less cards in hand to protect that spell or draw into the pile to begin with. If you use LDV to Tutor DD that's a whooping Virtual mulligan to 5 in regards to cards compared to your opponent and I doubt a compeditive deck can allow itself to do this even if we ignore the other problems (in particular: the storm iteration)

[Oceanwalker]

Carddisadvantage? If you cast Doomsday you win the game. Where is the disadvantage?

[Lejay]

There is no point in "reviving" a concept whichs problems are still the same since years and without any new printing which affect the deck or the issues it hasPersonnally I didn't stop playing the deck because of the "same problems for years", but rather because the format's power level increased a lot and I consider omnitell to be the best combo deck.

between the carddisadvantage, I don't see the point of the engine/main combo card making card disadvantage. It's a super tutor that converts your ressources into a win. By thinking exclusively in terms of card advantage or CD you would qualify show and tell as a card disadvantage card that doesn't deserve any play either.

the reliance on Doomsday itself (and the BBB cost of casting it), Thanks to burning wish you don't rely on doomsday that much. I was winning a decent amount of the time with Time spiral, empty the warrens and natural storm built by draw spells and/or sensei/sensei storm. All of these have been used in doomsday piles but it also is used to win without doomsday.
not being able to win w/o a hand and endless shit more. I won a ton of time without a hand, that's a strength of sensei.

There is also absolutely no reason to play this as a Tendrils deck over having LabMan as the wincon (mainly because of adressing the problems with remaining hand/hatebears/stormcount) Well I guess at least deathrite shaman and abrupt decay would be a start.

since the printing of Past in Flames which offered the life-independant win-con (compared to Ad Nauseam) Storm needed in order to go the long run in games. A relevant statement. Yes, I consider doomsday lost its main advantage over ANT. I haven't really played the storm decks these last two years but in my mind there was still match to determine the best deck, and if PiF storm gained the edge, it's not a big one.

Ergo, the only reason to play with the card Doomsday atm is LabMan and it's ability to ignore life total and hatebears like Canonist/Thalia.
I don't see how you can just "ignore" Canonist or Thalia with lab man. I doubt you will get enough mana to do everything or kill with just one spell. They have a board clocking you, they have removals, they have topdecks.
But running burning wish with the mandatory massacre would help.


lim dul is another card like doomsday which is creating carddisadvantage and I see no reason to pile up the disadvantage first by trading discard for disruption and then by LDV and Doomsday. How many cards do you expect to have in hand to work with if you drop lands/SDT but need the motherfucking Dark Ritual + Doomday + a way to draw into the pile for a win-now pile to dodge the danger of dying to your opponents Delver + Lightning Bolt?
I played LDV in something like 2010. Was decent but yes, I wouldn't play it. Ponders and wishes are just better.


understand me right; if you are ok with dying to Bolt and stuff I am not sure ad nauseam is immune to lightning bolt. If you answer "PiF" then we can find all kind of cards specifically screwing it. I almost always splashed white in doomsday and that negates a lot the post doomsday burn spell if your metagame has a lot of these. But it's still a fast deck and you don't have to be in bolt range in the first place, at least not much more than ANT/PiF storm.

and run Rituals anyways (which do nothing in this deck unless you have DD as well), If your dark rituals do things for you without any engine/storm spell you are way better than me. But in this deck rituals help also with burning wish, as it would with any other engine that could be/was in the deck.

why not run more stable options to go the long run like Dark Confidant I am sure you could answer that alone. But dark confidant is a slow card for this deck, it also is a creature which turns on all common removals.

or try to accelerate your deck with Spoils of the Vault or Drift of Phantasms Transmute? Both are garbage in any deck.

Why has no one ever put time into the idea of adding Infernal Tutor to the LED+DR core to fetch Doomsday T1 and go for a topdeck-pile either finishing with drawing into LabMan or Shelldock?
Infernal tutor has been played for years in doomsday. It was even in the first lists from emidln who was trying to find which split of DD/IT was the best and his conclusion was 0 IT - Max DD.
Lab man and shelldock have both been played a lot in DDFT, even if I personnally never liked Lab Man.

Why use a third color for fetching Doomsday and a wincon if options for both are in U/B? Burning not only fetches doomsday the combo turn like IT. It also fetches it pre combo, fetches other engines, fetches solutions and the most important, it makes the doomsday engine better just by being in the deck since playing BW-> ToA through double LED increases the storm count and provides many more turn one kills that would just deal 18 otherwise.

Why stick to the painfully slow and pointless gameplan of SDT/Doomsday/Tendrils which has so damn many weaknesses between opposing clocks/discard/hatebears? The point of playing Doomsday is giving a fuck about the common counterstrategies to combo decks and your list is an example of an idea which has proven to be not compeditive and needs to be abandoned in order to profit from Doomsday in a modern environment.So it's not even "not tier 1" which I could agree on, it's "proven non competitive". Well last time I played it in a big event it was in BoM 2012. Three doomsday players in the room among over 700 players. I lost in top 16 to a bad judge after beating numerous hate, you couldn't even believe it. The second player lost in top8. The last one made 7-2. If it has proven to be non competitive since then and you want me to believe you , you'll need some strong evidence or demonstration. Until then I'll consider that the main factors are the fact that so few people run it, and so few excellent players run this very demanding deck.
It was probably the best deck in the format before griselbrand's printing so I would bet on it still being a competitive deck. But you were probably already saying it was garbage at that time I guess.

[Ancestral]

most awesome answer above
thos

thank you so much for your thoughts about the deck and completly destroy those falsse statments ::D
after your answer i´m gonna try harder with the deck, and your sentence about the 3 players in BoM just confirms my thoughts about the deck, competetive for sure, but not many people plying it :)

about the deck i ll probably take out LDV :) you think it´s more viable to play with white now for silences or just keep BURg ? any other suggestions are wellcome :)

again, thanks a lot for the excellent answer lejay

[Pelikanudo]

I have to say something to defend this deck:

I think it is the unique combo deck that uses cantrips to reduce the mana invested to just combo - this is in deed a great thing.
I recognize some years have elapsed since I played the deck and when starting to playing the deck long time ago I just took it as a Case Study Deck- my goal was to reach a Top 8 and to stop to play it - I also remember that timeframe , also a friend of mine was happy to discover such Storm archetype - me and my frind reached several tops and people around us started to look in a strange way to us... there were normal people playing normal decks and then me and my friend talking about piles and strange things... I remember when I finished before him I quickly went to look his match up and the same occured backwards... we were the master of the universe... good era was that!

I could talk also in the name of my friend when I say that DDFT was likely the most difficult deck to play but it also was the best deck you could play to win a tournament with a moreless predictable metagame.

maybe someday I will take DDFT again to crush again my opp.. ha ha ha... but I'll need to invest some time to study the new piles etc etc...

I still enjoy playing TES the most and I like to predict the odds in thi but at least I dons deck... this for me is funnier and I won't say more easy to play, but at least I dont have to study the piles before the torunaments...

[Lemnear]

Personnally I didn't stop playing the deck because of the "same problems for years", but rather because the format's power level increased a lot and I consider omnitell to be the best combo deck.

in other words: the deck isn't able to compete on top level even among combo decks, which is what I said.


I don't see the point of the engine/main combo card making card disadvantage. It's a super tutor that converts your ressources into a win. By thinking exclusively in terms of card advantage or CD you would qualify show and tell as a card disadvantage card that doesn't deserve any play either.

there is a difference between "S&T + Threat" or "Dark Ritual + Doomsday + way to draw into the pile + having enough mana to do something + have a way to play around hate". Another aspect: S&T costs 3 total; how much total is a win-now-doomsday? Twice as much.


Thanks to burning wish you don't rely on doomsday that much. I was winning a decent amount of the time with Time spiral, empty the warrens and natural storm built by draw spells and/or sensei/sensei storm. All of these have been used in doomsday piles but it also is used to win without doomsday. I won a ton of time without a hand, that's a strength of sensei.

That is fair in regard to Burning wish to find a win aside the resolved Doomsday. The most wins I remember with the help of SDT came through Helm of Awakening ;)


A relevant statement. Yes, I consider doomsday lost its main advantage over ANT. I haven't really played the storm decks these last two years but in my mind there was still match to determine the best deck, and if PiF storm gained the edge, it's not a big one.

I consider this debatable, but I don't want to get lost in details about advantages of certain storm-buildarounds. It's about Doomsdays place in the evolving metagame and potential to ascend from it's "tier 2" status which I can't see without breaking out of a shell which imo didn't substantially changed for the last 5 years.


I don't see how you can just "ignore" Canonist or Thalia with lab man. I doubt you will get enough mana to do everything or kill with just one spell. They have a board clocking you, they have removals, they have topdecks.
But running burning wish with the mandatory massacre would help.

one of the main advantages of dismissing Ad Nauseam in storm is running Massacre postboard in your MB, and in this case including it in your DD piles to sweep the board and proceed with the compact LabMan plan. I'm well aware of the Wish as a tool to grab Massacre G1 as a TES player.


I played LDV in something like 2010. Was decent but yes, I wouldn't play it. Ponders and wishes are just better.

I can agree here.


I am not sure ad nauseam is immune to lightning bolt. If you answer "PiF" then we can find all kind of cards specifically screwing it. I almost always splashed white in doomsday and that negates a lot the post doomsday burn spell if your metagame has a lot of these. But it's still a fast deck and you don't have to be in bolt range in the first place, at least not much more than ANT/PiF storm.

Just between you and me: I have no clue why people kill themselves with Ad Nauseam other than greed or stupidity especially if they know their opponent is running Bolts. That's a mistake you maybe make once or twice as a beginner, but I don't know why that sticks as a stigma of playing Ad Nauseam. Point is that between PIF/AN/EtW storm has more than enough tools to deal with plenty of hate. Shut off the yard? Drop Goblins or cast AN. I could continue the list, but you get the idea. A big difference here however is that a card like PIF is pretty much counterproof compared to the post-Doomsday Ideas Unbound which adds up to the card-disadvantage of casring Doomsday and is a very critical moment.


If your dark rituals do things for you without any engine/storm spell you are way better than me. But in this deck rituals help also with burning wish, as it would with any other engine that could be/was in the deck.
I am sure you could answer that alone. But dark confidant is a slow card for this deck, it also is a creature which turns on all common removals.
Both are garbage in any deck.

The topic of Rituals is complex as I talked about in in context of a storm-less DD list OR potentially additional use for it by running more black spells like confidant to actually profit from the relative life-independant concept and more controlling nature.


Burning not only fetches doomsday the combo turn like IT. It also fetches it pre combo, fetches other engines, fetches solutions and the most important, it makes the doomsday engine better just by being in the deck since playing BW-> ToA through double LED increases the storm count and provides many more turn one kills that would just deal 18 otherwise.

I'm aware of the additional stormcount. Still dunno if that justifies the color-splash with returning Wastelands to the format.


So it's not even "not tier 1" which I could agree on, it's "proven non competitive". Well last time I played it in a big event it was in BoM 2012. Three doomsday players in the room among over 700 players. I lost in top 16 to a bad judge after beating numerous hate, you couldn't even believe it.

2012 is long passed and that's a problem for the ongoing discussion, i fear. I'd love to hear of that T16 match, but we should keep hat for GP Lille ;)


The second player lost in top8. The last one made 7-2. If it has proven to be non competitive since then and you want me to believe you , you'll need some strong evidence or demonstration. Until then I'll consider that the main factors are the fact that so few people run it, and so few excellent players run this very demanding deck.

we know, Its a myth that this deck is soooo complex to play. It only needs a thinking pilot with basic math skills to start with, but I agree that we have a numbers game here for tournament performances to really compare performances (which is also a known TES problem). I know about Tristans Top 8 during a time Maverick and Zoo were still Topdecks


It was probably the best deck in the format before griselbrand's printing so I would bet on it still being a competitive deck. But you were probably already saying it was garbage at that time I guess.

We have no more stuff like Goblins, Zoo or Maverick in the metagame, but saw plenty of new, powerful printings. We can't consider Doomsday retained its relative powerlevel to this day, simply to that fact and without ever changing anything. that is all.


thos

thank you so much for your thoughts about the deck and completly destroy those falsse statments ::D
after your answer i´m gonna try harder with the deck, and your sentence about the 3 players in BoM just confirms my thoughts about the deck, competetive for sure, but not many people plying it :)

about the deck i ll probably take out LDV :) you think it´s more viable to play with white now for silences or just keep BURg ? any other suggestions are wellcome :)

again, thanks a lot for the excellent answer lejay

This is is a totally pathetic post especially without bringing up anything to adress the discussion Jean-Mary and I have about Doomsdays position in the CURRENT metagame. If you consider results from 2012 to have any meaning for todays metagame, you might also want to argue that Zoo is a top deck against the current OmniTell/Miracles/Storm/Blade metagame, right?

the whitesplash and the Silences in this deck suffer the same problems which got them cutted in TES (unable to interact with dual-angle-hate)

[Oceanwalker]

Finished 3-1-1 last time i went to a local tournament with doomsday 3 weeks ago. Only 21 players and no real competitive level, but the deck felt strong nonetheless.

I played a 5-2 split between discard and chants and labmaniac main.

Heres a short report if anyone is interested:

Round 1: casual deck with arcane laboratory main 2:1
game 1: discarded arcane laboratory and won
game 2: he managed to land arcane laboratory, countered my chain of vapor and turned labman into a frog with Polymorphist's Jest in response to my brainstorm for the win :D
game 3: easy win

Round 2: Dark Maverick 2:0
game 1: i blindtherapy thalia but he had nothing
game 2: i abrupt decay thalia turn 3 and win turn 4

Round 3: Sneak Show 2:1
game 1: on the play i go turn 1 top, he goes turn 1 show and tell into griselbrand. I had the turn 2 kill but obviously lost to his counters
game 2 + 3: i rip his hand apart and both games he never could recover. One game i won with tendrils, the other with hardcast labman followed by a PTT-pile of GP, GP, BS, x, x

Round 4: Miracles 1:1
game 1: i had the turn 1 kill on the draw, i decided to go for it since i didn't want to lose to turn 2 counterbalance. He brainstormed in response to doomsday and found fow, countered doomsday followed by turn 2 counterbalance :D
game 2: during the game he had 3(!) copies of counterbalance online. I had top in play and managed to find all 3 abrupt decays along with a lot of discard + chant. At some point he only had 1 (unknown) card in hand. I decided to go for it and he destroyed my top with wear / tear in response to doomsday, leaving me with no draw spell and shutting down the tendrils plan. I made a PTT labman pile and won the turn after.
game 3: draw since we had no time left

Round 5: Dredge 0:2
game 1: he went crazy on turn 2 while i had the hand for a turn 3 win
game 2: on his turn 1 he flashbacked several therapys and reanimated iona while i had the hand for a turn 2 win


As i said before i'm aware that such a small event is far from competitive. Especially since i didn't face any delver deck and i consider delver decks to be the most difficult decks to beat for doomsday. (ant is way more favoured to fight through a ton of counters than doomsday with discard only)

So in my opinion the way to get a chance to win against blue decks (tempo and miracles) is to splash white for chants. But then again we are 4-color main and become weaker against stifle and wasteland. So i'm currently testing to cut burning wishes completly since i always hated half of my business spells to be some kind of off-color anyway (and cutting wishes already is a viable boarding plan against rug-delver for example). So why not go without them mainboard if we expect a lot of delver decks?
I think the worst parts about cutting wishes are the lost +1 stormcount in every tendrils pile and the decreased business spell count.
These issues could be solved to some extend by labmaniac and an increased cantrip count.

Advantages would be a way better tempo, miracles and storm matchup with chants while our manabase remains as stable as in Ubr doomsday. Furthermore we get a lot free slots in our sideboard to dedicate to non-blue matchups (terminus?) and to fight dual-angle-hate postboard more easily.

I know most players would never agree to cut burning wishes but for me it seems like a viable way to go in order to make it more competitive.

[Lemnear]

I don't see Silences/Chants an option in general atm. Against Miracles your main Problem is Counterbalance and that is unaffected by Silence/Chant and with the Dual-hate of either counter+discard or counter+hatebear in the current meta which the white-Splash of Silence/Chant can't get hold on.

[Ancestral]

This is is a totally pathetic post especially without bringing up anything to adress the discussion Jean-Mary and I have about Doomsdays position in the CURRENT metagame. If you consider results from 2012 to have any meaning for todays metagame, you might also want to argue that Zoo is a top deck against the current OmniTell/Miracles/Storm/Blade metagame, right?

the whitesplash and the Silences in this deck suffer the same problems which got them cutted in TES (unable to interact with dual-angle-hate)

i didn´t bring anything jsut because jean said all, and your statment about domsday/show and tell, have a pure lie, so doomsday have to fight trhough hate, and show and tell doesnt?

lemnear, you already said similar things in previous post when comparing decks, but i m not here to create a fight or focus on something less important than the deck, i would not respond to your meanless comments about any other topic than the deck itself ( your comment abbout my post was simply childish and not really usefull )

[Oceanwalker]

I don't see Silences/Chants an option in general atm. Against Miracles your main Problem is Counterbalance and that is unaffected by Silence/Chant and with the Dual-hate of either counter+discard or counter+hatebear in the current meta which the white-Splash of Silence/Chant can't get hold on.


Counterbalance is only a problem preboard. For that reason i would run only 2 silence main and board in 2-3 additional silence/chants along with 3 abrupt decay. This way the matchup is easily winable. But without chants you will likely lose to a floating counterspell.

Also decks like rug/burg delver with a lot of conditional disruption like stifle spell snare and REB sometimes are impossible to beat with discard.

[Ancestral]

Counterbalance is only a problem preboard. For that reason i would run only 2 silence main and board in 2-3 additional silence/chants along with 3 abrupt decay. This way the matchup is easily winable. But without chants you will likely lose to a floating counterspell.

Also decks like rug/burg delver with a lot of conditional disruption like stifle spell snare and REB sometimes are impossible to beat with discard.


yes silence its pretty good against rug dever essencially and miracles! i love to have that effect but agains delver its hard to mantain the collors up for everything between stifles/wastelands !

About the burning wish, i think i has to be a part of the deck, its pretty good, a bit slow but this deck can function good in a mid game :) And thanks for the report, its to see that some people play doomsday :D

[Doishy]

I know most players would never agree to cut burning wishes but for me it seems like a viable way to go in order to make it more competitive.

I've been testing heavily with a 0 BW build. It feels like it has advantages with the manabase and for a tad more streamlined play (am not missing the +1 storm) but the lack of pre-board answers to certain things like Thalia definitely hurts. The discussion on stormboards re: W for Terminus is a possible good way to combat this.
I have also been testing out as many DTT's as I can jam in and they do some serious work.

[sawatarix]

Nice to see freshness here again.

Doomsday is maybe one of the most unexplored Decks in Legacy so far and to be honest I'm also still in the learning process although I have a decent amount of experience with other storm decks like ANT and TES.

So, some questions regarding the deck design. PLease note that these ideas are just intuitive.

I feel like the deck goes off around turn 2-4 and you dont even have to use all your ressources like ant with led cracking which leads me to countermagic as our protection: flusterstorm ? This spell has been really powerful with senseis divining top to either protect our doomsday or to counter our opponents stuff (combo or discard,etc) proactively.

Another thing are the 2 lotus petals: Do we really need them? I sided them out a lot so i was thinking about tuning the deck more in a control-combo shell with 2 abrupt decays maindeck to combat counterbalance but also annoying permanents.
Remember that in legacy once the game goes beyond turn 2 we have to deal with all kind of stuff our opponent is slamming against us.



Greetings from Tokyo

Kai

[Namida]

Flusterstorm is good disruption, but bad protection. Of course, you can use it to force your Doomsday through, and a lot of people *should* be fighting over Doomsday because they won't know what five cards you would select, but this deck does use LED in a ton of piles and that'd be a problem if you run into anyone who opts to sandbag their disruption for any reason. I think it'd be a good card if you're playing Emrakul because that's the kind of pile that doesn't use LED and doesn't require you to do much else past resolve Doomsday, but I don't know how good Emrakul is these days. I like Flusterstorm as a sideboard card, and I'm actually considering playing it in my sideboard over Xantid Swarm (but I'm unsure because the biggest combo deck is Omniscience with Boseiju).

Other than the clash with LED, I don't like counters a whole lot in this deck because you can only play so much protection/disruption, and since Doomsday pretty much kills you if your plans get messed up after you cast it, I would rather be maxed out on cards that make me 100% sure that my opponent can't mess up my plans, like discard (for information) and chants (which literally say "your opponent can't cast spells).

I wouldn't play this deck without at least one Lotus Petal because it goes into a few piles. Burning Wish also does wonders against many things that opponents can be throwing at you, but you're not the first person I've seen suggest maindecking Abrupt Decay. I don't know if I'm on board with it, but Counterbalance is a real beating so I think it would make sense to try it.

Also, I imagine I'll be seeing you at GP Kyoto.

[sawatarix]

Interesting. Thank you for your quick response.

Yeah, when i first looked at the card doomsday the card itself reminded me at the card Show and Tell: You cast it and win the game 1 turn later or even in the same turn. Sneakshow uses Countermagic so i was curious if we can also adapt it. Even if we cant protect our spells after a resolved doomsday because of the leds in most of the lines as you said.

Hm, i think you already have had this topic in this thread but because there are not that many winning decklists on the internet post treasure cruise ban i would like to know which approach would be the best.
Does Dig Through Time get a home here?
What about PLaneswalker in our sideboard like Jace or even Counterbalance to make it a real controldeck against other combodecks? I mean we already have 4 Senseis Tops.

I have the feeling that it is also possible to swap the entire deck shell into a more controlish version with a doomsday finish, similar to the jeskai ascendency combo deck which have gotten quite popular these days.


PS: I will be at GP Kyoto with 2 Byes but also doing some coverage work for TokyoMTG.com on friday.

[nevilshute]

Interesting. Thank you for your quick response.

Yeah, when i first looked at the card doomsday the card itself reminded me at the card Show and Tell: You cast it and win the game 1 turn later or even in the same turn. Sneakshow uses Countermagic so i was curious if we can also adapt it. Even if we cant protect our spells after a resolved doomsday because of the leds in most of the lines as you said.

Hm, i think you already have had this topic in this thread but because there are not that many winning decklists on the internet post treasure cruise ban i would like to know which approach would be the best.
Does Dig Through Time get a home here?
What about PLaneswalker in our sideboard like Jace or even Counterbalance to make it a real controldeck against other combodecks? I mean we already have 4 Senseis Tops.

I have the feeling that it is also possible to swap the entire deck shell into a more controlish version with a doomsday finish, similar to the jeskai ascendency combo deck which have gotten quite popular these days.


PS: I will be at GP Kyoto with 2 Byes but also doing some coverage work for TokyoMTG.com on friday.

Hey Kai,

This is a bit of an aside, but do you know if there will coverage in English of the gp main event?

[Lemnear]

i didn´t bring anything jsut because jean said all, and your statment about domsday/show and tell, have a pure lie, so doomsday have to fight trhough hate, and show and tell doesnt?

Where did I "lie"? That S&T is a manawise a cheaper and more Compact Combo than Doomsday is a damn fact.

[sawatarix]

Hey Kai,

This is a bit of an aside, but do you know if there will coverage in English of the gp main event?

Hey Martin,

Unfortunately there is not. But i will do some coverage on Friday for TokyoMTG and we will upload them on our youtube channel.
So stay tuned ;)

[Ancestral]

Where did I "lie"? That S&T is a manawise a cheaper and more Compact Combo than Doomsday is a damn fact.



When you said the advantages you said that show and tell its just that and creature, and doomsday had to fight through hate, i m saying that snt has to fight trhough hate cards too and disruption, like any other combo deck.

[Lemnear]

When you said the advantages you said that show and tell its just that and creature, and doomsday had to fight through hate, i m saying that snt has to fight trhough hate cards too and disruption, like any other combo deck.

So you choose to ignore that pushing S&T (which is often paired with Boseiju these days) though Thalia, counterbalance, Wasteland, counters, etc. is miles easier than chaining 10 spells together (which need more mana to begin with) against the beforementioned cards?

There is no "lie" involved.

[emidln]

So you choose to ignore that pushing S&T (which is often paired with Boseiju these days) though Thalia, counterbalance, Wasteland, counters, etc. is miles easier than chaining 10 spells together (which need more mana to begin with) against the beforementioned cards?

There is no "lie" involved.

Just going to note that basically everything besides Omniscience isn't worth Showing into play in a variety of matchups. Having a card that is 2U, win the game is great, except when in a significant portion of your matchups it's actually "flip a coin, win the game". Dropping a legend into play hasn't been reliable in a long time. Omniscience (or Dream Halls which sees no play anymore) is still fairly reliable. SnT->Omniscience is also at least a three card combo, also typically requiring finding specific answers post-board prior to comboing.

ANT (including TES here) is still the most streamlined deck in Legacy and it's not even close. It has tradeoffs with Doomsday regarding rituals vs cantrip effects which affect things the decks can or cannot do vs hate, but both are way more reliable combos than any current Show and Tell strategy. Show and Tell has other benefits, but simply being a two card combo that instantly wins most matchups isn't actually one of them.

[iGrok]

Going for a tendrils kill against D&T seems... dumb. Shouldn't you be going for Lab Man there?
Their out is StP, and Jitte if they already have counters, and you should be able to deal with those through discard...

[Lemnear]

Just going to note that basically everything besides Omniscience isn't worth Showing into play in a variety of matchups. Having a card that is 2U, win the game is great, except when in a significant portion of your matchups it's actually "flip a coin, win the game". Dropping a legend into play hasn't been reliable in a long time. Omniscience (or Dream Halls which sees no play anymore) is still fairly reliable. SnT->Omniscience is also at least a three card combo, also typically requiring finding specific answers post-board prior to comboing.

ANT (including TES here) is still the most streamlined deck in Legacy and it's not even close. It has tradeoffs with Doomsday regarding rituals vs cantrip effects which affect things the decks can or cannot do vs hate, but both are way more reliable combos than any current Show and Tell strategy. Show and Tell has other benefits, but simply being a two card combo that instantly wins most matchups isn't actually one of them.

I guess it's fine to move further than S&T/SneakAttack + Emrakul/Griselbrand for discussing a plain two-card-combo not only for the sheer presence of Karakas or Containment Priest but to look at Omniscience, which is a three-card-combo ... at least technically, because the whole deck is full of cantrips and you can chain those for free with Omniscience in play to find what you need, which however would bring me back to the topic of mana and to the fact that even if Ritual + Doomsday resp. S&T + Omniscience resolve, there is still a giant gap of commitment done and/or resources needed to continue from here. There is a big difference between getting your Ideas Unbound (DDFT) countered or your DTT (OmniTell) taking passed turns, mana, Boseiju, lifeloss and plenty of other factors into account and I feel there isn't any significant edge over the formats other combo decks other than getting around 'yard-hate and comon storm-specific hate like Thalia/Canonist/Flusterstorm.

I'd support Kai's ideas about Counterbalance and especially DTT in here, not only because the function of Counterbalsnce+Top to break the combo mirror but also due to its ability to protect LabMan while DTT is a perfect option to grab missing combo parts while creating cardadvantage. The problem imo here comes with thinking a step further if you run a deck with so many cantrips and DTTs: Why grab DR+Doomsday over S&T+Omnicience?

#ComboStreamlined

[Namida]

Going for a tendrils kill against D&T seems... dumb. Shouldn't you be going for Lab Man there?
Their out is StP, and Jitte if they already have counters, and you should be able to deal with those through discard...

I could be missing something here, but I actually side out Maniac against Death and Taxes.

If we're assuming your opponent isn't a goldfish and not giving you infinite time to play around the "Taxes" part of their deck, then a topdecked Swords to Plowshares, Thalia, Phyrexian Revoker, Ethersworn Canonist, Wasteland, or Rishadan Port can make you look foolish if you build a pass the turn pile, and Tendrils is easier to make "win-now" piles with.

[iGrok]

Sure, a top-decked StP sucks, but it's not worth playing around, especially since post-board they should be boarding StP out.
[edit]: fucked up my math.

=======

After rereading a bit, seems like y'all are on non-wish lists. Personally I think that's a mistake, but yeah...

[wonderPreaux]

So, I too was invited to join this discussion. I was waiting around thinking on some of this, so I have to play a little bit of catch-up here, sorry.


Personnally I didn't stop playing the deck because of the "same problems for years", but rather because the format's power level increased a lot and I consider omnitell to be the best combo deck.

in other words: the deck isn't able to compete on top level even among combo decks, which is what I said.
I don't think it's really fair to brand Doomsday as non-competitive because it's not "the best combo deck". Gun to my head, I'd say Omni-Tell is probably at least a little better than ANT/TES a lot of the time as well, that didn't stop Storm from eclipsing SnT during Cruise format, and it doesn't stop a good Storm pilot from winning a fair amount. A lot of that has to do with the difference between "best combo" in the format and "2nd best" is probably that the interaction you dodge by playing Storm is of slightly lesser value that the interaction you expose yourself to, so overall it's a small net loss. IDK how damning that is, and there are likely metas where it's not even an issue. There's also the factor of some people just being good at playing certain decks, I recall a post in the TES thread a while back where Bryant said he didn't think TES was the best deck in the format, but it certainly was the best deck for him. If people only truly played the best deck for a given role, the format would just be something like Team America vs. Miracles vs. Omnitell - the format. The purpose of this thread should be about:
1) closing the gap between this deck and the "best combo deck" or advancing that gap if/when this is the best combo deck
2) helping people identify metagames or personal proficiency that invalidates the gap between this deck and the "best combo deck"
3) promoting the pinnacle of technical play from all users/developers of the deck because if no one is willing/able to use the deck when it has its time to shine, everyone has missed an opportunity


I don't see the point of the engine/main combo card making card disadvantage. It's a super tutor that converts your ressources into a win. By thinking exclusively in terms of card advantage or CD you would qualify show and tell as a card disadvantage card that doesn't deserve any play either.

there is a difference between "S&T + Threat" or "Dark Ritual + Doomsday + way to draw into the pile + having enough mana to do something + have a way to play around hate". Another aspect: S&T costs 3 total; how much total is a win-now-doomsday? Twice as much.
I feel like it's a bit unfair to compare the requirements of Doomsday to SnT here, especially the way you presented it. It's not as though SnT decks don't have to protect their combos too, and FoW is a pretty draining card to use for that purpose. Moreover, part of the reason that Omni-Tell is arguably stronger than Storm is that, yeah, you go "all-in" less and getting a SnT Forced or w/e still leaves you with 3 others, but that's an advantage it has over every Storm list, not just Doomsday. Further, a win-now Doomsday does cost 6, but a win-now PiF loop or Ad Nauseam is usually 7 and require just as many, if not more, piece to assemble than Doomsday. Going further, Doomsday can accelerate it's piles by using cantrips as make shift rituals through piled LEDs, so you can actually drop that pile cost down, whereas ANT/TES have to play plain accelerators which can become blank against hate/control scenarios. I don't think ANY storm deck can necessarily compete with Omni-Tell when it comes to committing less to a win, but Doomsday can certainly hang with the other storm decks.


Thanks to burning wish you don't rely on doomsday that much. I was winning a decent amount of the time with Time spiral, empty the warrens and natural storm built by draw spells and/or sensei/sensei storm. All of these have been used in doomsday piles but it also is used to win without doomsday.I won a ton of time without a hand, that's a strength of sensei.

That is fair in regard to Burning wish to find a win aside the resolved Doomsday. The most wins I remember with the help of SDT came through Helm of Awakening ;)
While some of the options that Lejay lists (EtW/Spiral) aren't used, Lejay does make a fair point about how well you can handle a grindy game. With the ability to make so many land drops, you can just put together a 2 card combo of Doomsday + cantrip and that alone can win you the game. Much like Omni-Tell, it's more like a 2.5 card combo as you would certainly want some other card there to jump start whatever it is you're doing, but I do think it's impressive how resilient Doomsday can be without necessarily relying on a graveyard or a life total.


A relevant statement. Yes, I consider doomsday lost its main advantage over ANT. I haven't really played the storm decks these last two years but in my mind there was still match to determine the best deck, and if PiF storm gained the edge, it's not a big one.

I consider this debatable, but I don't want to get lost in details about advantages of certain storm-buildarounds. It's about Doomsdays place in the evolving metagame and potential to ascend from it's "tier 2" status which I can't see without breaking out of a shell which imo didn't substantially changed for the last 5 years.
I can't help but feel a weird chicken and egg thing going on here. "This deck hasn't changed in 5 years, there's no point playing it" > "No one is playing this deck, so it hasn't changed in X years" repeat Ad Infinitum. Unfortunately, yes, there have been few relevant printings for Doomsday, but there are noteworthy cards. Dig through Time could be big, Lab Man... actually came out in the same set as PiF, yes? There's also design space that people just never looked at. I recently tried SB Jace and liked it, Sawatrix mentioned that and Counterbalance (though idk how good the latter might be, it didn't seem to do high tide any favors). There's nothing stopping older cards from coming in as well, a slight shift could accommodate a value PiF engine, you could also use Street Wraiths for a faster Doomsday deck, or even go for pure value with Night's Whisper a la vintage.


I am not sure ad nauseam is immune to lightning bolt. If you answer "PiF" then we can find all kind of cards specifically screwing it. I almost always splashed white in doomsday and that negates a lot the post doomsday burn spell if your metagame has a lot of these. But it's still a fast deck and you don't have to be in bolt range in the first place, at least not much more than ANT/PiF storm.

Just between you and me: I have no clue why people kill themselves with Ad Nauseam other than greed or stupidity especially if they know their opponent is running Bolts. That's a mistake you maybe make once or twice as a beginner, but I don't know why that sticks as a stigma of playing Ad Nauseam. Point is that between PIF/AN/EtW storm has more than enough tools to deal with plenty of hate. Shut off the yard? Drop Goblins or cast AN. I could continue the list, but you get the idea. A big difference here however is that a card like PIF is pretty much counterproof compared to the post-Doomsday Ideas Unbound which adds up to the card-disadvantage of casring Doomsday and is a very critical moment.
I think it's debatable to call PiF "counter-proof" when graveyard hate is so prevalent. There's also the issue that DRS eats both your yard and your life, hurting both your engines (he even profitably blocks Goblins!). PiF is certainly powerful though, and it is a massive step up compared to something like IGG. The difference that should really be highlighted is power versus precision, Ad Nauseam and EtW are way more powerful than a backup plan of trying a different DDay pile, for instance, but they introduce a lot of variability to your win. The high amount of incidental grave hate you run into is just a meta-driven variability that Past in Flames encounters. I still think Past in Flames and Ad Nauseam are some of the most powerful cards you can be playing, but I can't help but feel there is definite merit to "pick the exact five cards that win you the game here".


If your dark rituals do things for you without any engine/storm spell you are way better than me. But in this deck rituals help also with burning wish, as it would with any other engine that could be/was in the deck.
I am sure you could answer that alone. But dark confidant is a slow card for this deck, it also is a creature which turns on all common removals.

The topic of Rituals is complex as I talked about in in context of a storm-less DD list OR potentially additional use for it by running more black spells like confidant to actually profit from the relative life-independant concept and more controlling nature.
I'm not sure if Confidant is the card you want for this deck. Lab Man makes the cut as a creature here, but it literally wins the game and can do so with Chromatic Sphere to shield it from removal. There are a few good card advantage engines you can be running, though. DTT, Jace, Whisper etc. One thing I will say about Dark Ritual, and running Tendrils, is that you are afforded the ability to accelerate your combo more than OmniTell can with just Sol Lands (if we're still doing that comparison, iirc they don't run Lotus Petal) and you also have a way to win the game with out ever touching Doomsday, mainly by stringing a lot of spells into a wish for Tendrils (or I guess EtW if you run it). This is a pseudo-parallel to Lem's earlier point about having AdNaus/PiF/EtW as supplements to your game plan, running Storm in Doomsday is just affording yourself more options (i believe it is also more mana efficient than trying for a protected lab man pile when it comes to winning the same turn, but I could be wrong there).


Infernal tutor has been played for years in doomsday. It was even in the first lists from emidln who was trying to find which split of DD/IT was the best and his conclusion was 0 IT - Max DD.
Lab man and shelldock have both been played a lot in DDFT, even if I personnally never liked Lab Man. Burning not only fetches doomsday the combo turn like IT. It also fetches it pre combo, fetches other engines, fetches solutions and the most important, it makes the doomsday engine better just by being in the deck since playing BW-> ToA through double LED increases the storm count and provides many more turn one kills that would just deal 18 otherwise.

I'm aware of the additional stormcount. Still dunno if that justifies the color-splash with returning Wastelands to the format.
I think, given all the things Burning Wish does, it's probably worth the slots it takes up. Cutting the ~3 Wishes requires the addition of the other Doomsday and the ToA, so it only frees up one slot and you would need to likely change more than one other slot to add more cards to find your win condition. regarding the color splash and Wasteland vulnerability, I'm not sure it's much worse than TES or 2xPiF builds of ANT, you even have the occasional case of Chromatic Sphere making it playable off of all basics. I will add, though, that a maindeck ToA could be a decent card to have for fighting Miracles or Stoneblade.


(ant is way more favoured to fight through a ton of counters than doomsday with discard only)

So in my opinion the way to get a chance to win against blue decks (tempo and miracles) is to splash white for chants. But then again we are 4-color main and become weaker against stifle and wasteland. So i'm currently testing to cut burning wishes completly since i always hated half of my business spells to be some kind of off-color anyway (and cutting wishes already is a viable boarding plan against rug-delver for example). So why not go without them mainboard if we expect a lot of delver decks?
I think the worst parts about cutting wishes are the lost +1 stormcount in every tendrils pile and the decreased business spell count.
These issues could be solved to some extend by labmaniac and an increased cantrip count.

Advantages would be a way better tempo, miracles and storm matchup with chants while our manabase remains as stable as in Ubr doomsday. Furthermore we get a lot free slots in our sideboard to dedicate to non-blue matchups (terminus?) and to fight dual-angle-hate postboard more easily.

I know most players would never agree to cut burning wishes but for me it seems like a viable way to go in order to make it more competitive.
I disagree with your evaluation of chants and cutting wishes for them. your protection spells can be just as important to you as your business spells, so why is it ok that your protection is off color whereas half your business spells being off color isn't? Moreover, if you take out wishes, and then need to add in Tendrils and Doomsday, how is that one slot you save providing enough room for all the extra cantrips you may need to find Doomsdays and increase storm count, as you put it? I also don't see how this gives you a better storm matchup as your piles are now less efficient so that early kill piles would only deal 18 damage, you also lose the utility of Wishes being Doomsday OR Tendrils OR discard OR Cruel Bargain. For Miracles or Delver, I'm pretty sure the reason you side out Wishes there is for Spell Snare or Hydroblast, I think decreasing your count of threats against Miracles is likely the opposite of what you want to be doing. You also mention postboard solutions to dual-angle hate, do you mean discard? If you're using your sb as a round-about solution to a problem you introduce for yourself due to your main deck choices, how good can that choice really be?

This actually took me forever to write out, I have a lot on my mind about this deck. As I mentioned earlier, there is a ton of unexplored space here, and this deck can do some interesting things that other Storm lists can't. I won't try and sell it as the best combo deck, because it likely isn't, but i don't think its particularly unplayable.

[emidln]

Counterbalance is pretty bad in Doomsday unless you are facing another combo deck. The reason is that even if you assemble CB/SDT with 1/2/3 before your opponent has any threats (optimal scenario), you still need to find Duress/Theapy equal to the number of counters / removal spells they have to actually win the game. Consider this scenario:

Counterbalance+SDT in play, you cast Doomsday going for a Lab Man pile. We'll pretend for a moment that the only time they can break up the combo is when your draw spell is on the stack (although this isn't reality, and you'll likely need a boatload of mana and an extra SDT (maybe putting it in your pile) to keep Spell Pierce/REB dead while drawing through your pile). So you have a Lab Man in play, a Counterbalance in play, a SDT in play, and you go to win the game with SDT. Your opponent casts Swords to Plowshares. Now what?

For Counterbalance+SDT to have been effective you have to land it before your opponent has a reasonable threat (so basically only against combo decks that lack castable creatures) or have enough time to find additional draw spells/Duresses/mana to win through their removal anyway.

[l33twash0r]

So I'm new to this deck and been playing it only ~1 month or so and before this I started with SnT and then moved to Ad Nauseam & Ooops all my spells.

Just reading this now I started to wonder is this deck worth of the time it takes to learn in current meta? But I promised to myself I will learn this deck and will stick with it for sometime and try my best, but curious what you guys feel since there is so much arguing going on about other decks compared to this one.

[Ancestral]

So I'm new to this deck and been playing it only ~1 month or so and before this I started with SnT and then moved to Ad Nauseam & Ooops all my spells.

Just reading this now I started to wonder is this deck worth of the time it takes to learn in current meta? But I promised to myself I will learn this deck and will stick with it for sometime and try my best, but curious what you guys feel since there is so much arguing going on about other decks compared to this one.

the discussion about "best storm decks" i guess it will remain forever, this deck has his pros and cons, but now you have excelente players here tell their opinions on this so you got a good starting point to figure how is this deck works and is capacity for the current meta game! the deck is hard to play properly like everyone said, but i find it very rewarding, if you like combo deck (we can see that for you past decks :p ) i think oyu shuld give it a try, and then can share or thoughts about it ;)

[Oceanwalker]

I've been testing heavily with a 0 BW build. It feels like it has advantages with the manabase and for a tad more streamlined play (am not missing the +1 storm) but the lack of pre-board answers to certain things like Thalia definitely hurts. The discussion on stormboards re: W for Terminus is a possible good way to combat this.
I have also been testing out as many DTT's as I can jam in and they do some serious work.

I have tested DTT as well but i'm not sure if i really like it in doomsday. filling your graveyard as soon as possible isn't what DD wants to do. on the other hand it offers nice lines like cracking 2 LEDs in response to DTT during your turn, if you find DD and any cantrip among those seven cards you win. It also plays very well together with rain of filth.


I disagree with your evaluation of chants and cutting wishes for them. your protection spells can be just as important to you as your business spells, so why is it ok that your protection is off color whereas half your business spells being off color isn't? Moreover, if you take out wishes, and then need to add in Tendrils and Doomsday, how is that one slot you save providing enough room for all the extra cantrips you may need to find Doomsdays and increase storm count, as you put it? I also don't see how this gives you a better storm matchup as your piles are now less efficient so that early kill piles would only deal 18 damage, you also lose the utility of Wishes being Doomsday OR Tendrils OR discard OR Cruel Bargain. For Miracles or Delver, I'm pretty sure the reason you side out Wishes there is for Spell Snare or Hydroblast, I think decreasing your count of threats against Miracles is likely the opposite of what you want to be doing. You also mention postboard solutions to dual-angle hate, do you mean discard? If you're using your sb as a round-about solution to a problem you introduce for yourself due to your main deck choices, how good can that choice really be?

Thanks for your reply. You're right at some points, i will lose utility and will introduce the following new problem to the maindeck: no way to beat thalia (except maybe a one-off karakas). but burning wish is not very good at beating counterbalance or chalice either just like a non-wish build. once again, therefore you get a real sideboard to dedicate specific and reliable slots to any kind of permanent hate postboard, along with two angles of protection in form of discard AND chants.

Regarding the first turn kill. you can just build a basic maniac pile for the same requirements as the tendrils pile (land, ritual, DD, LED, probe) that wins on the spot.

[Chaam]

What do you guys think of taking a combo control approach? Basically making Doomsday into a control deck with a combo finish, akin to Menendian's Doomsday circa 2012?

Something like this:

Sorcery (23)
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Unearth
4 Doomsday

Instant (15)
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
2 Spell Pierce
1 Predict
4 Force of Will

Artifact (4)
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Creature (1)
1 Laboratory Maniac

Lands (17)
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
1 Dread of Night
2 Flusterstorm
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Dark Confidant
2 Massacre

[wonderPreaux]

Thanks for your reply. You're right at some points, i will lose utility and will introduce the following new problem to the maindeck: no way to beat thalia (except maybe a one-off karakas). but burning wish is not very good at beating counterbalance or chalice either just like a non-wish build. once again, therefore you get a real sideboard to dedicate specific and reliable slots to any kind of permanent hate postboard, along with two angles of protection in form of discard AND chants.
You can pack meltdown or w/e if you have a lot of artifacts in your meta, so yes, wish can hit chalice. moreover, discard is better at handling counterbalance/CotV, because you have a chance to preemptively remove the two. discard+wish has chances against a lot of things, whereas you have to shoot off chants and hope for the best when you play with white. why clutter your 75 with an abundance of protection hoping that between all of it you'll be ok, when you can just run a reasonable amount of discard and have a small number of wishable solutions?


Regarding the first turn kill. you can just build a basic maniac pile for the same requirements as the tendrils pile (land, ritual, DD, LED, probe) that wins on the spot.
Unless the opponent has removal. AFAIK, the protected labman pile costs 2UU. This isn't even considering how much worse it then becomes to open with the Maniac in hand, or to open the Tendrils in aggro matchups, for example.

[Namida]

Sure, a top-decked StP sucks, but it's not worth playing around, especially since post-board they should be boarding StP out.

Unless you win with a Tendrils pile that hides Laboratory Maniac at the bottom of the pile, then your opponent has the opportunity to look through your whole deck to see that you have a pretty significant creature in your deck worth keeping Swords in to hit.

It's not just a topdecked Swords though--If you pass the turn, it could easily be the case that you suddenly you don't have enough mana to build your pile that beats the Swords in your opponent's hand (Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Thalia), or that you can only cast the top card of your pile (Canonist), or that your opponent just turns off LED or something (Revoker) and then you're dead. I have no interest in making my game plan to try to find an opening to pass the turn when all of the aforementioned cards are commonly played. At the point where I have decided that I don't want to pass the turn, I can easily play around Swords by having no creatures in my deck because I don't think that Maniac is actually playing around anything except fringe sideboard cards which prevent me from casting a Tendrils targeting my opponent, and those cards can be bounced/destroyed.

I could be wrong though. Why do you think that Maniac is better than Tendrils here?

[Asthereal]

I am not actually sure OmniTell is better than Doomsday (or any other Storm variant, for that matter). OmniTell just draws so many awkward hands. The beauty of Doomsday is that it contains zero bad cards. All cards are easily cast. Where OmniTell can easily draw a hand with an average spell CMC of 10. Yes, I know you can mull those hands, but mulling all the time is not where I want to be, personally.

I am not the best Storm player by far, but I actually prefer Doomsday to OmniTell for tournament play.

[Lemnear]

I am not actually sure OmniTell is better than Doomsday (or any other Storm variant, for that matter). OmniTell just draws so many awkward hands. The beauty of Doomsday is that it contains zero bad cards. All cards are easily cast. Where OmniTell can easily draw a hand with an average spell CMC of 10. Yes, I know you can mull those hands, but mulling all the time is not where I want to be, personally.

I am not the best Storm player by far, but I actually prefer Doomsday to OmniTell for tournament play.

Those clunky draws were the reason players cutted Enter the Infinite and Dream Halls for more cantrips (Brainstorm) to fix sketchy hands. It's not that storm is guaranteed to evade hands w/o business but all mana or that you would call hands with double Wish/Doomsday exciting to open with.

Unrelated: For storm and S&T I'd say that any hand with land(s) and at least 1 cantrip is no Auto-mull

[dte]

Those clunky draws were the reason players cutted Enter the Infinite and Dream Halls for more cantrips (Brainstorm) to fix sketchy hands.

You probably meant Dig?
The first iterations of Omnitell with 4 Enter and 3 Dream Halls were already playing 4 brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 preordrain.

[Asthereal]

Those clunky draws were the reason players cutted Enter the Infinite and Dream Halls for more cantrips (Brainstorm) to fix sketchy hands. It's not that storm is guaranteed to evade hands w/o business but all mana or that you would call hands with double Wish/Doomsday exciting to open with.

Unrelated: For storm and S&T I'd say that any hand with land(s) and at least 1 cantrip is no Auto-mull
I know, but on average I draw better hands with the Storm decks than with OmniTell.
I'm not saying I have conclusive evidence. I would just like to point out I disagree with the statement that OmniTell is the best combo deck right now.

[Lemnear]

You probably meant Dig?
The first iterations of Omnitell with 4 Enter and 3 Dream Halls were already playing 4 brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 preordrain.

No, I just highlighted Brainstorm as the usual fix-that-bad-hand-spell.

It's off to consider a hand which contains 2-3 copies of high cmc cards an auto mulligan (or even argue with that happening THAT OFTEN), if not only the total number of these were chopped in half in current iterations of the deck, but the slots EtI and DH occupied are now filled with cheap cantrips (Probe+DTT) which can find S&T or Brainstorm to drop or get rid of those High cmc cards. Not even talking about FoW fodder.

Doomsday does not have such a high redundancy in my opinion and can't turn the second Wish or Doomsday in your opener into value like OmniTell can with FoW and the increased ability to grab Brainstorm.

Edit:

I know, but on average I draw better hands with the Storm decks than with OmniTell.
I'm not saying I have conclusive evidence. I would just like to point out I disagree with the statement that OmniTell is the best combo deck right now.

That's not surprising as storm decks are totally reduced concepts of mana + engine card/card that get engine card into your hand and the actual kill only being 1-2 cards in the whole deck. S&T decks have a much tougher time balancing mana + enablers + engines/killconditions creating clunky hands at times. SneakShow has more than 4 times the number of kill-conditions stuffed in their deck compared to storm.

[Doishy]

No, I just highlighted Brainstorm as the usual fix-that-bad-hand-spell.

Doomsday does not have such a high redundancy in my opinion and can't turn the second Wish or Doomsday in your opener into value like OmniTell can with FoW and the increased ability to grab Brainstorm.
.

In this example is Brainstorm being used as a 'catch all' term? It's just I cannot quite see the parallel you are trying to draw here (maybe rephrasing would help?). The only thing really missing from DDay is the lack of preordain. Wishes can still be used for value to grab any needed things to fight main deck hate or utility spells that are value in this case such as early discard. A second doomsday is also fine allowing another attempt to go off if the first one fails or as with any card it can be brain stormed away.

When you say increased value with FoW for SnT, are you meaning it is okay to have multiple in the opener which actively helps you or am I missing the point?

[Lemnear]

In this example is Brainstorm being used as a 'catch all' term? It's just I cannot quite see the parallel you are trying to draw here (maybe rephrasing would help?). The only thing really missing from DDay is the lack of preordain. Wishes can still be used for value to grab any needed things to fight main deck hate or utility spells that are value in this case such as early discard. A second doomsday is also fine allowing another attempt to go off if the first one fails or as with any card it can be brain stormed away.

When you say increased value with FoW for SnT, are you meaning it is okay to have multiple in the opener which actively helps you or am I missing the point?

I should indeed rephrase it. The talk was about high cmc cards like Omniscience, DTT and others bricking your hand especially if dawn in multiples and forcing you into mulligans, which I disagree with as I consider it really unlikely that these cards harm your gameplan (and ergo validate a mulligan) in a deck which can not only pitch additional copies of that blue high cmc cards to FoW, but also has a premium access to Brainstorm to shuffle them away thanks to the insane redundancy created by Ponder/Probe/Preordain and, to a lesser extend, DTT itself.

so I don't consider a starting grip containing, for example, a DTT and two copies of Omniscience an automatic mulligan or "bad" per se while a second Doomsday or Burning Wish has near to no value in a starting grip in DDFT, unless you can shuffle it away with a Brainstorm as well (but also have less options to find it in the first place unless you consider endless look-fetch-look with SDT an adequate and economic way to deal with the problem)

[dte]

Second DD or wish can have a great value.

If you run Shelldock, A doomsday should be countered if you have no waste. So the Doomsday draw a counter, in exactly the same way as S&T does. If they do not have the counter I do not really care about having an additional doomsday in hand while I have win the game.
It helps a lot against discard too (except cabal).

And wish can well be used to answer many things, or serve to a second attempt to go off if something goes wrong. So I disagree with your statement about "a second Doomsday or Burning Wish has near to no value in a starting grip in DDFT".

About mulligans, in my opinion in combo deck you usually mull hands which lack something (mana/cantrips/business) rather than a hand which have clunky elements.

[Lemnear]

Second DD or wish can have a great value.

If you run Shelldock, A doomsday should be countered if you have no waste. So the Doomsday draw a counter, in exactly the same way as S&T does. If they do not have the counter I do not really care about having an additional doomsday in hand while I have win the game.
It helps a lot against discard too (except cabal).

And wish can well be used to answer many things, or serve to a second attempt to go off if something goes wrong. So I disagree with your statement about "a second Doomsday or Burning Wish has near to no value in a starting grip in DDFT".

About mulligans, in my opinion in combo deck you usually mull hands which lack something (mana/cantrips/business) rather than a hand which have clunky elements.

In OmniTell you can basically keep any hand with mana and cantrips(s) to find what you are missing within three turns so lacking Combo Elements are no reason for a mulligan.

A second attempt to combo off via Wish is a strange argument as you most likely burn A BIT more cards and resources than the Wish alone to go off and the situations in which your opponent rather Fights over your Doomsday than your kill should be very limited.

[.dk]

A wish in hand can also reduce the cost of your pile when making a brainstorm pile, or used to make an IC pile as well allowing you to play around red blasts. Or as I'm sure you do in TES sometimes, wish for a discard spell for protection, and then cast DD.

[d0nkey]

Why is there so much storm bickering? Nobody cares who thinks which version of a storm deck is better. Play the one you have more fun playing.

I personally think ANT is better than TES, but you won't find me playing ANT unless you pry my burning wishes out of my cold dead hands.

I also think Doomsday is the most challenging deck I have ever picked up (at least legacy doomsday, vintage doomsday pales in comparison) and for that reason, I really enjoy shuffling up legacy doomsday. I'm not going to get on my soap box and preach about how it is the best storm deck ever; nor will I put people down for making the choice to play a diminishing returns in their sideboard.

Who gives a shit.

None of this bickering is doing the storm players any good, in any of these forums or facebook groups.

[wonderPreaux]

Why is there so much storm bickering? Nobody cares who thinks which version of a storm deck is better. Play the one you have more fun playing.

I personally think ANT is better than TES, but you won't find me playing ANT unless you pry my burning wishes out of my cold dead hands.

I also think Doomsday is the most challenging deck I have ever picked up (at least legacy doomsday, vintage doomsday pales in comparison) and for that reason, I really enjoy shuffling up legacy doomsday. I'm not going to get on my soap box and preach about how it is the best storm deck ever; nor will I put people down for making the choice to play a diminishing returns in their sideboard.

Who gives a shit.

None of this bickering is doing the storm players any good, in any of these forums or facebook groups.

The bickering, to a point, does serve an important purpose. If we were all just here for fun, there wouldn't be as much in the way of innovation, improvement or change. If you're not willing to tease out a deck's shortcomings or advantages compared to other builds or strategies, or you're not even "playing to win", then how can you make the most concerted effort to move anything forward?

To introduce a new point: has anyone played a build with a sb lab man as compared to a main deck one? I was thinking it might be nice to go into all g1s with zero "dead" cards, and also not show lab man in my rfg when i go off g1, but then with lab man gone you do lose some pass-the-turn piles, afaik. has anyone tested that change and if so, how did it seem to compare?

@lejay you also mentioned before that you arent a fan of lab maniac. would you mind explaining what you dislike about it?

[Ancestral]

The bickering, to a point, does serve an important purpose. If we were all just here for fun, there wouldn't be as much in the way of innovation, improvement or change. If you're not willing to tease out a deck's shortcomings or advantages compared to other builds or strategies, or you're not even "playing to win", then how can you make the most concerted effort to move anything forward?

To introduce a new point: has anyone played a build with a sb lab man as compared to a main deck one? I was thinking it might be nice to go into all g1s with zero "dead" cards, and also not show lab man in my rfg when i go off g1, but then with lab man gone you do lose some pass-the-turn piles, afaik. has anyone tested that change and if so, how did it seem to compare?

@lejay you also mentioned before that you arent a fan of lab maniac. would you mind explaining what you dislike about it?

i play that, g1 win only with storm, and in side i tested lab maniac and sheldock/emmy too, so 3 win cons possible g2, and its pretty nice, the option of winning by different angles can induze your opp in sb errors, and have great advantage about the hate they bring in !

[DireNTropy]

MTGO Daily Event

I've been trying a few different builds of Doomsday, including trying to accelerate with Mox Opal to mixed results (roughly a 50% win rate). This addition allowed for much faster velocity in cantripping and assembling the combo, while making Empty the Warrens much stronger, but also increased the inconsistency.
I recently tried adding Dig Through Time as a resilient, late-game engine, and entered a Daily Event on MTGO, finishing at 3-1 with consecutive punts in my match loss. I decided to go through the replays in detail (let me know if it's too much and noone is actually going to read it):

Round 1 - Infect

Game 1 - I lose the die roll and draw my opening 7:
Dig Through Time
Burning Wish
Silence
Dark Ritual
Misty Rainforest
Tundra
Swamp

A rather bad opener, which I probably should have mulliganed since it does nothing until turn 2 and needs to draw a cantrip. I keep anyways and see the opponent start with a turn 1 Noble Hierarch; I put him on infect and hope that my turn 4 combo IF I draw a cantrip is good enough. I draw a Burning Wish, play Misty Rainforest and pass. My opponent plays an Inkmoth Nexus into Blighted Agent and I draw a Sensei's Divining Top and Burning Wish for Doomsday. My opponent plays a second Noble Hierarch and hits me for 3 poison. I spin top and Cabal Therapy my opponent, naming Invigorate, and hit! I also see Daze and Force of Will, which is fine due to the Silence in hand. My opponent hits me for another 3 poison and I draw a Misty Rainforest and wish for a Cabal Therapy to take the Daze. My opponent hits me to 9 poison and has Force of Will + Unknown. I spin the top and draw Brainstorm, cast Silence and use the usual Cantrip + Top pile for the win.

Win - Turn 5 Silence + Doomsday (Cantrip + Top)
-2 Dig Through Time
+2 Xantid Swarm
I'm not sure how to sideboard against infect, but I treated it like Reanimator and figured that Dig Through Time is way too slow. Advice on this is welcome.

Game 2 - I draw my opening 7:
Doomsday
Burning Wish
Brainstorm
Gitaxian Probe
Xantid Swarm
Thoughtseize
Lotus Petal

If the Lotus Petal was a fetchland I think I keep this hand. I mulligan to:

Brainstorm
Ponder
Ponder
Polluted Delta
Volcanic Island
Swamp

Good Enough. My opponent starts off with turn 1 Glistener Elf and I draw a Doomsday and Ponder into a Gitaxian Probe, Dark Ritual, and Sensei's Divining Top. I keep the Gitaxian Probe with the top on the bottom and pass the turn. My opponent plays a fetchland into a Noble Hierarch and hits me for 2 poison. I draw a Dark Ritual and probe, seeing Force of Will, Blighted Agent, Glistener Elf, and Vines of Vastwood. I only have 1more turn to find protection with the combo in hand. I brainstorm into 2 lands and a Dark Ritual, putting 2 lands back, and play the top. My opponent hits me to 8 poison. I draw an LED. Since I must win this turn, I should first cast both Dark Rituals and Ponder, hoping to hit discard. Instead, I ponder first, finding a Thoughtseize, land, and Top, and I get my Dark Ritual Force of Willed. If I played it in the correct order, if my first Dark Ritual gets Forced, I Ponder instead into the land for the win.

Loss - Turn 3 PUNT

Game 3 - Hooray, on the play for the first time:
Sensei's Divining Top
Gitaxian Probe
Silence
Lotus Petal
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest
Bayou

I keep while my opponent Mulligans to 5. I play a Bayou into a Top and pass the turn. I activate Top, seeing LED, Silence, and Cabal Therapy. My opponent plays a Tropical Island and passes. I probe, seeing the following hand: Berserk, Brainstorm, Daze, Spell Pierce, and Flusterstorm. That's quite a mulligan to 5. I cast my freshly drawn Cabal Therapy into a Daze (this is probably incorrect). I play a land and pass, while my opponent brainstorms at my end step. My opponent plays a Glistener Elf and passes. I have a protected combo win here (opponent tapped out, 3 lands, Lotus Petal, Silence, Doomsday, LED, and Top), but decide not to do it because I don't like winning, instead drawing a Burning Wish. I instead probe, seeing Berserk, Force of Will, Brainstorm, Spell Pierce, and Flusterstorm. My opponent plays Invigorate and Berserk and I lose.

Loss - Turn 4 PUNT with protected win in hand

0-1 (1-2) should have been 1-0 (2-0). Great start to the event!


Round 2 - LED Dredge

Game 1 - I win the die roll and draw my opening 7:
Burning Wish
Brainstorm
Ponder
Silence
Silence
Cabal Therapy
Lion's Eye Diamond

Can't keep this obviously.

Doomsday
Burning Wish
Sensei's Divining Top
Gitaxian Probe
Silence
Swamp

Not a great 6, but this wins if I draw a Dark Ritual. I play a Top and pass. My opponent casts Breakthrough and flashes back faithless looting into Dread Return, making 6 zombie tokens and an 8/8 Golgari Grave-Troll, and flashes back Cabal Therapy. I figure out that I have to topdeck exactly a Dark Ritual without spinning Top (4 out of 54 cards), and decide to concede in response (maybe incorrect? Depends on how much Dredge sideboards against storm), hoping that my opponent sideboards for Nic Fit or some other fair deck.

Loss - Turn 1 Dredge
-1 Cabal Therapy
-2 Silence
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Grafdigger's Cage
I wish I had not cut the 2nd Grafdigger's Cage the night before. I bring in the Red Elemental Blasts to hit Breakthroughs and keep some silences as psuedo Time Walks.

Game 2: I draw my opening 7:
Sensei's Divining Top
Brainstorm
Brainstorm
Ponder
Gitaxian Probe
Red Elemental Blast
Misty Rainforest

I keep, hoping that my opponent is also seeing a super slow hand. I start off with a Top. My opponent casts Faithless looting, discarding a Grave-Troll and Stinkweed Imp. I Brainstorm and my hand is now Ponder, Probe, Silence, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Misty Rainforest. I play the land and say go. My opponent casts Breakthrough, hitting 2 Narcomoebas and a Cabal Therapy. I cast Silence in response to the Narcomoeba trigger (I should have cast Silence on upkeep). My opponent is now hellbent and I activate Top on my turn and draw a Misty Rainforest, and Ponder into a Doomsday and win with the usual Cantrip + Top pile.

Win - Turn 3 Doomsday (Cantrip + Top)

Game 3 - On the draw:
Ponder
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Lotus Petal
Polluted Delta
Polluted Delta
Tundra

I decide to mulligan, since the hand needs to topdeck a Doomsday (Ponder is my only cantrip)

Ideas Unbound
Sensei's Divining Top
Red Elemental Blast
Thoughtseize
Rain of Filth
Dark Ritual

Nope

Brainstorm
Ponder
Gitaxian Probe
Rain of Filth
Tundra

Not a bad mulligan to 5. My opponent keeps 7 and starts with a Gemstone Mine into a Faithless Looting, discarding Flame-Kin Zealot and Bridge from Below (I have a chance!). I draw Burning Wish and Ponder, seeing Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Doomsday. I shuffle it away since I have no initial black mana and draw a Polluted Delta. My opponent casts and LED and Careful Study, discarding Breakthrough and Narcomoeba, followed by another Faithless Looting, discarding a Golgari Thug and Cabal Therapy (this is probably the slowest 7 card hand I've seen from Dredge). I play Brainstorm on my main phase and my hand is now Burning Wish, Brainstorm, Probe, LED, LED, Polluted Delta. I play the land, both LEDs, and pass, holding up Brainstorm. My opponent casts Cabal Therapy, naming Doomsday, and flashes back Faithless Looting and Cabal Therapy. In response I brainstorm and put Gitaxian Probe and Burning Wish on top. My opponent surprisingly hits, naming Sensei's Divining Top. I probe into Burning Wish, cracking my LEDs, into Time Spiral and cast Silence into Doomsday for the win.

Win - Turn 3 Time Spiral into Silence + Doomsday (Cantrip + LED).

1-1 (2-1)

Round 3 - Esper Stoneblade

Game 1 - I lose the die roll and draw my opening 7:
Silence
Lotus Petal
Polluted Delta
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest
Underground Sea
Bayou

Nope

Brainstorm
Ponder
Thoughtseize
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Misty Rainforest

Solid. My opponent plays a Flooded Strand into a Tundra and Brainstorms. I draw a Dig Through Time. I'm worried that this is Miracles keeping a 1-land + Counterbalance hand (hoping to hit a land off of Brainstorm), and I crack Misty Rainforest for an Underground Sea and cast Thoughtseize, seeing Force of Will, Brainstorm, Snapcaster Mage, Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, and a Polluted Delta. I take Stoneforge Mystic, figuring that, without a clock, I have plenty of time to sculpt a hand to beat Force of Will, and since this is before sideboarding my card quality is better. I cast Brainstorm and my hand is Dig, Brainstorm, Ponder, Therapy, Dark Ritual, Polluted Delta. I cast Cabal Therapy, which is met with Force of Will, pitching Snapcaster Mage.

Long story short, I cast lots of discard spells into a Dig Through Time, finding enough for Silence into Burning Wish into Doomsday with Top in play.

Win - Turn 6 Silence + Burning Wish into Doomsday (Top + LED)
-1 Lotus Petal
-4 Silence
+1 Laboratory Maniac
+2 Xantid Swarm
+2 Red Elemental Blast
I think these games are going to be long, and the Red Elemental Blasts and Laboratory Maniac are for Meddling Mage.

Game 2: I draw my opening 7:
Sensei's Divining Top
Gitaxian Probe
Xantid Swarm
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lotus Petal

I am strangely not greedy today and mulligan into:

Doomsday
Burning Wish
Dark Ritual
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest
Bayou

My opponent starts with land, go. I draw a Dig Through Time and follow suit. My opponent casts a Stoneforge Mystic and I draw a Red Elemental Blast. I play a land and turn my Wish into a Cabal Therapy. My opponent passes and I draw and cast a Thoughtseize (opponent vials in a Batterskull), seeing Dig Through Time, Counterspell, Lingering Souls x2, Tasigur, and Sword of Fire and Ice. I take the sword (maybe my opponent should have vialed this in), and Therapy the Counterspell. I cast a Brainstorm and Dig Through Time, looking for a Silence and miss; my hand is now Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Ponder, Ponder, Red Elemental Blast. My opponent hits me to 5 life and I go for the double cantrip pile (I should have gone for a Laboratory Maniac win), but my opponent extirpates LED, so I likely lose regardless.

Loss - Turn 5 Doomsday (lose to Extirpate)

Game 3 - On the play:
Doomsday
Burning Wish
Sensei's Divining Top
Brainstorm
Xantid Swarm
Lion's Eye Diamond
Swamp

I start with Swamp into Top. My opponent Thoughtseizes my LED. I top into Probe and see a hand of Lingering Souls, Sword of Fire and Ice, Ponder, and 3 lands. I draw a fetchland and cast Xantid Swarm. My opponent Ponders and passes. I play a land and pass. My opponent plays a Stoneforge Mystic. I untap, attack with Xantid Swarm, cast Doomsday (without Ritual) and win with the usual Cantrip + Top pile.

Win - Turn 4 Doomsday (Cantrip + Top).

2-1 (2-1)


Round 4 - Shardless BUG

Game 1 - I win the die roll and draw my opening 7:
Doomsday
Doomsday
Doomsday
Burning Wish
Dig Through Time
Dark Ritual
Misty Rainforest

Nope

Sensei's Divining Top
Silence
Lotus Petal
Lotus Petal
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest

Solid. I fetch an Island and play Top. My opponent leads with a Verdant Catacombs and passes. I top into a dark ritual and play a Polluted Delta. My opponent plays a Tarmogoyf. I fetch for a swamp and see Doomsday, Probe, Ponder. I draw Probe, use Petal to cast Silence, and draw Doomsday with my Top and win with the usual 1 cantrip pile.

Win - Turn 3 Silence + into Doomsday (Probe)

-2 Silence
+2 Xantid Swarm
I expect Hymn to Tourach and Liliana, so Silences aren't as good. I expect Dig Through Time to be awesome.

Game 2: I draw my opening 7:
Dig Through Time
Brainstorm
Silence
Thoughtseize
Lion's Eye Diamond
Polluted Delta
Swamp

My opponent starts with land, go. I draw an Ideas Unbound and cast Thoughtseize, seeing Nihil Spellbomb, Shardless Agent x2, Ancestral Vision, Swamp, Bayou; I discard a Shardless Agent and play LED. My opponent casts a Phyrexian Revoker on LED. I draw a Dig and pass. My opponent plays a Shardless Agent into a Brainstorm. I draw a Burning Wish, Brainstorm, and wish for a Void Snare. My hand is now Dig, Probe, Silence, Xantid Swarm, Void Snare. My opponent plays Shardless Agent into Ancestral Visions. I cast Probe and see FoW, but no blue card and attempt to cast Dig Through Time. My opponent activates spellbomb and finds a blue card to FoW my Dig. I lose.

Loss - Turn 5

Game 3 - On the play:
Sensei's Divining Top
Brainstorm
Ponder
Gitaxian Probe
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest
Bayou

I start with Island into Top. My opponent plays a Nihil Spellbomb. I cast Brainstorm and Probe, seeing Hymn to Tourach, Liliana, Liliana, Dig Through Time, Shardless Agent, and Polluted Delta. I Thoughtseize the Hymn and play an LED; my hand is now Ponder, Probe, Petal. My opponent draws a card off of spellbomb and plays a land. I Probe and Brainstorm into Dig Through Time and Brainstorm, playing Petal. My opponent plays a Liliana and I discard Dig Through Time. I attempt to cast Doomsday by Brainstorming and cracking LED in response, but my opponent's unknown card is a Force of Will. My opponent casts Dig into a Tarmogoyf and I top into LED, Dark Ritual, REB. I draw LED and pass (at 7 after being hit by goyf). My opponent plays a Shardless into a Deathrite Shaman; I put a fetch on top of my library. I fetch and Top into a Dig Through Time (cracking LED for BBB in response), finding a Doomsday and cantrip and win with the usual 1 cantrip pile.
If my opponent had let the Doomsday resolve and instead counters the Ideas Unbound, I lose this match.

Win - Turn 6 Dig Through Time into Doomsday + Cantrip.

3-1 (2-1)

Props
-Mostly favorable matchups
-Dig Through Time

Slops
-8 Mulligans in 4 rounds (12 games)
-Mulliganing away 2 hands with Xantid Swarm + 0 Land
-Didn't get to Empty the Warrens
-Punts

Stats
-Won with Doomsday 7 times (3x Turn 3, 2x Turn 4, 1x Turn 5, 1x Turn 6)
-Cast Time Spiral 1 time (1 win)

TLDR
3-1 (7-5) in MTGO Daily Event
1-2 vs. Infect
2-1 vs. LED Dredge
2-1 vs. Esper Stoneblade
2-1 vs. Shardless BUG

Thanks for reading and I'll be interested in any feedback!

Here's the deck:

Mainboard

4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Dig Through Time

2x Thoughtseize
1x Cabal Therapy
4x Silence

3x Burning Wish
3x Doomsday
1x Ideas Unbound

1x Rain of Filth
4x Dark Ritual

4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tundra
1x Bayou
2x Island
1x Swamp

Sideboard

2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Xantid Swarm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Karakas
1x Laboratory Maniac

1x Void Snare
1x Cabal Therapy

1x Doomsday
1x Time Spiral
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony

[nevilshute]

Fantastic read. It is very much appreciated.

Just a few questions about your build:

- 4x silence with only 1 Tundra as a white producing land seems loose, have you tried other line ups with either Karakas main, a 2nd Tundra or a Scrubland?

- The land/petal count. Most lists I've seen will run 17-18 lands and 1-2 petals. Partly, I think, a concession to 4x top being more of a sink. Can you elaborate a bit on your thoughts on this?

[Lemnear]

DTT + Silence makes absolutely Zero sense. Discard is miles better to disrupt the opponent while feeding the graveyard and never causes issues with colors either.

[Niggurath]

DTT + Silence makes absolutely Zero sense. Discard is miles better to disrupt the opponent while feeding the graveyard and never causes issues with colors either.

Hey Lem, how would be your take on DDFT? Care to share a decklist?

[nevilshute]

DTT + Silence makes absolutely Zero sense. Discard is miles better to disrupt the opponent while feeding the graveyard and never causes issues with colors either.

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think this is false statement nonetheless. Discard makes DTT better than Silence makes DTT. But if DTT without discard but with Silence is still good enough to play then it does indeed make some amount of sense.

I'm not saying I would prioritize silence over discard. And making DTT worse is indeed one argument, but I think honing in on this particular card-to-card relationship is too narrow. It's a part of a bigger picture. Might even be as simple as a matter of personal playstyle / preference. And a DDFT deck with chant effects can still be a fine place to run a few DTTs. Know what I mean?

[Lemnear]

Hey Lem, how would be your take on DDFT? Care to share a decklist?

I have no list, but I would draft something with Street Wraith replacing SDT for speed and for maintaining the "free" draw post-DD in addition to Probe while feeding DTT (and make it castable by turn 3) to begin with; paired with a Deaths Shadow SB man-plan

just from the top of my head


edit:

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think this is false statement nonetheless. Discard makes DTT better than Silence makes DTT. But if DTT without discard but with Silence is still good enough to play then it does indeed make some amount of sense.

I'm not saying I would prioritize silence over discard. And making DTT worse is indeed one argument, but I think honing in on this particular card-to-card relationship is too narrow. It's a part of a bigger picture. Might even be as simple as a matter of personal playstyle / preference. And a DDFT deck with chant effects can still be a fine place to run a few DTTs. Know what I mean?

If we look at the bigger picture, we need to look at the manabase as well, which is a 5c fetch/dual monstrosity if you run Silence. Take the list as example with a single white Land to fetch which however has no application for the combo and is even paired with two Islands for whatever reason for a total of 9 spells which even need blue mana at all (aming them only 1 spell requiring UU)

I'm not the audience to buy the "playstyle" argument. I'm far too long involved in the game and decode this phrase as justification to play cute stuff

[sawatarix]

nice to see your positive result, DireNTropy.

I see you run 4 lotus petals and 15 lands, were you satisfied with them? There is also a nice synergy between petals and digs, that's for sure.
Because Dig is such a powerful setup spell (most of the time the card itself is gg) its acceptable to tune a deck around it.
So this also means more fetchlands instead of duallands and maybe more proactive discard.

[dte]

Thanks for the read DireNTropy. I would like to see this kind of detailled report again.

I also find that your manabase is light on fetchs, and indeed most of your mulls are because of NO-lands opener.

These two hands you mulled while with a fetch replacing a petal they were keepable:

Sensei's Divining Top
Gitaxian Probe
Xantid Swarm
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lotus Petal

Doomsday
Burning Wish
Brainstorm
Gitaxian Probe
Xantid Swarm
Thoughtseize
Lotus Petal

And this one would have been better imo with a fetch over one of the petal

Sensei's Divining Top
Silence
Lotus Petal
Lotus Petal
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest

So I would like to hear if you would be using the same ratio LP/fetchs?


@ Lemnar: It is very strange for me to read about wanting to cut SDT. For me it is a core card of the deck, and among the ones I prefer to see in my openning.

[Togores]

Sdt >>>>> streth wraith 100% sure

[Lemnear]

Sdt >>>>> streth wraith 100% sure

I'm not 100% convinced it's that easy given that SDT costs at least two mana to do anything in this deck and doesn't feed DTT which was the focus of the previous question. I'm not talking about the cards in a vacuum, but with a sole focus on assembling the combo asap.

Given that Miracles players toy with DTT for months and still did not found a way how the card should meaningful work with SDT together, I'm willing to think about a radical path to make DTT work as aggressice combo support, not only because I consider it a perfect (on-color) card to create CA and dig for Doomsday, but also due to the fact that increased speed and Doomsday being a "life-independant" engine, would make Wraith bearable

P.S. I'm known for slaying holy cows ;)

[dte]

SDT does wonders fighting against discard and allows a lot of easy and cheap piles to reach 10 storms. SW does not increase your storm count.

Add to this the reapeated look, choose, fetch, SDT is a very important card. The core card is doomsday, not DTT.

SW is really just a very weak probe, which does not allow you to see the opponent's hand, does not increase your storm count. Your goal is not to win T1 (even if it is possible), but to be able to win even against discard & counters.

[Lemnear]

SDT does wonders fighting against discard and allows a lot of easy and cheap piles to reach 10 storms. SW does not increase your storm count.

Add to this the reapeated look, choose, fetch, SDT is a very important card. The core card is doomsday, not DTT.

SW is really just a very weak probe, which does not allow you to see the opponent's hand, does not increase your storm count. Your goal is not to win T1 (even if it is possible), but to be able to win even against discard & counters.

your goal should be to win in the first 3-4 turns before your opponent establishes his gameplan. Have you read the tournament report above in this thread? Mostly Turn 5-6 combo attempts. I don't know if you want to be there while running combo in Legacy losing pretty likely even to aggro thanks to sketchy 4-color hands and SDT durdling

[dte]

MTGO Daily Event
Stats
-Won with Doomsday 7 times (3x Turn 3, 2x Turn 4, 1x Turn 5, 1x Turn 6)
-Cast Time Spiral 1 time (1 win)



your goal should be to win in the first 3-4 turns before your opponent establishes his gameplan. Have you read the tournament report above in this thread? Mostly Turn 5-6 combo attempts. I don't know if you want to be there while running combo in Legacy losing pretty likely even to aggro thanks to sketchy 4-color hands and SDT durdling

I think you overstated a bit :)
It is more turn 3-4 than 5-6, and usually with 1 to 2 Backups.

[Lemnear]

I think you overstated a bit :)
It is more turn 3-4 than 5-6, and usually with 1 to 2 Backups.

I don't think it's fair to ignore the games he lost for being too slow. At this point we're not even taking matchups or starting Grips into credit which I urge to do in Order to get an idea of how the speed (resp. the loss of it) affected the matches.

[P-E]

4 Sw+4 gp+2 dtt+4 petals+ 7 discards build is surprising idea.
Maybe it deserves a testing

The sad part is no more double dd pile etc

[dte]

"I don't think it's fair to ignore the games he lost for being too slow."

So to be more fair, let's have a look at all the losses.

In the first game, the 2 losses were due to mistakes, no lack of speed while being against the fastest aggro-tempo strategy in legacy.

Second game, the only loss is against a T1 win. Please note that the doomsday player wins T2 if he draws a DR. With SW instead of SDT, he cannot (only 18 life drained without the top recasted).

Third game, the loss is due to an extirpate effect (or the lack of a protection card).

Game four, the loss is due to a lack of a protection card.

But this is again a very small sample. On theory, there is another argument against the SW>SDT replacement: the lifeloss. Winning with DD with just SDT in play and probe in hand happens often. With SW instead, you need to be at at least 10 lifes or you kill yourself, vs 6 lifes with SDT. So you compensate your theoretically improved speed by a greater need for speed.

But again, the card selection that SDT brings is unmatched, as well as the number of piles the card enable.
I believe that if it was allowed, most DD players would play more than 4 SDT.

[DireNTropy]

Wow, I did not expect so much feedback; this is great! Many points were made, specifically about the manabase and choice of protection, that require discussing multiple concepts. As background, I enjoyed the most success playing The Epic Storm before trying to play Doomsday (I estimate that my non-optimal play is responsible for at least 1 in 4 match losses, 100% when trying to win with Laboratory Maniac). If the analysis below doesn't address a question or raises more, let me know! And as a disclaimer, I do not consider myself to be an expert at piloting this deck, so some of the following my be totally off due to my inexperience.


Mana requirements on the combo turn

Assembling the correct mana combination on the combo turn is the forefront question when constructing the manabase.

Assuming a Doomsday in hand, the most common configurations of wins and their requirements are (where Top implies a Sensei's Divining Top in play, add 1 if in hand):

Doomsday + Top: BBBUU1 + Protection
Doomsday + Cantrip: Cantrip + BBBUU + Protection
Doomsday + Top + Cantrip: Cantrip + BBB + Protection
Doomsday + Cantrip + Cantrip: Cantrip + Cantrip + BBBR + Protection

Having a Dark Ritual reduces the cost by BB and having an LED reduces the cost by either BBB (for sequences with Top in play and Cantripping into a Doomsday), or more commonly, by UUU.

Winning on the same turn by casting Burning Wish into Doomsday adds R1 to the mana requirement, but is usually supplemented by having a Top and an LED in play, leading to initial mana requirements of UUR2 or BR1 (with Dark Ritual).

Conclusion - fast starts (with a Dark Ritual) require initial mana producing most commonly BU or BUU in addition to the mana requirements of any protection spell.


Mana Requirements Building up to the Combo Turn

The most common plays building up to the combo turn are:
-playing a Sensei's Divining Top and activating it, which is optimized only by the number of fetchlands
-cantripping, which requires blue mana and is optimized by fetchlands
-Hand-checking, either through discard or probe
-disruption, either through discard or silence-walking the opponent

The above two sections suggest that fetching 1-2 blue-producing lands is the most important and at most 1 black-producing land (if discarding before the combo turn is important), hence why most of the dual lands are blue and the inclusion of 2 islands.


Silence vs. Discard

Blue Decks

Prior to the combo turn, discard is superior as it guarantees a 1 for 1 exchange for a counterspell. Casting Silence as bait is risky, but has a higher upside. Discard can also proactively stop a counterbalance or hate-bear (Duress is limited), and Silence is only capable of delaying a turn at the cost of card-disadvantage.

On the combo turn, however, I would argue that Silence is vastly superior as it forces the opponent to use resources (mana, pitch cards) to react, creating more bottlenecks for the opponent's interaction. For example, if the opponent has 1 untapped blue mana and a hand full of flusterstorms and spell pierces, 1 Silence wins that turn, whereas multiple discard spells are needed. This is especially important now that the occurrence of Counterspell and Snapcaster Mage (discard is especially bad here) seem to be on the rise. Silence is also far superior against Force of Will as it forces the 2 for 1 exchange. Finally, Silence stops any number of situational counterspells like Spell Snare, Red Elemental Blast, or Stifle.

Discard

Discard is generally stronger against opposing discard, except in the case the turn just before the combo turn where a silence on the opponent's upkeep can potentially stop multiple discard spells (at the cost of a Lotus Petal or exposing a land to Wasteland).

Non-blue Hate-Bears

Cabal Therapy against an opponent relying on a single hate-bear is the best case scenario for discard, which cannot stop a topdeck or multiple, different cards.

Exposing a land to Wasteland or using a Lotus Petal to 'time walk' the opponent is fine, as in non-blue matchups saving the Silence for the combo turn is unnecessary (barring Mindbreak Trap). I would argue that Silence has a slight edge in these matchups.

Artifact Destruction, Burn, and Extirpate

Silence is unquestionably superior here as it stops any number of these effects.

Disruption

In most cases discard is superior to Silence in disrupting the opponent's offensive strategy. The most obvious case where Silence is better is against storm, where hiding a Silence with a Top is very strong.

Time Spiral

Though rare, casting Silence into Burning Wish for Time Spiral is a line I have used, and Silence makes this much more effective against blue decks.


Conclusion - For Doomsday, having access to 1 Silence on the combo turn to clean up whatever discard wasn't able to take care of is optimal. I am in favor of a 3-4 split between Silence and discard (not sure which way). The on-color mana from choosing to play discard on the combo turn is less advantageous than in other decks due to the heavy black mana requirement of Doomsday itself. Having extra black mana is not common, and so, producing the additional white mana is not significantly more difficult than having to produce the additional black mana.



Manabase

White-producing Lands

In a majority of games, only one Silence will be cast, either on the combo turn against counterspell decks or on the upkeep of non-blue decks. In either case, having this land also producing blue is ideal as it enables cantripping during setup and casting silence on the combo turn or casting silence during setup and cantripping/casting Ideas Unbound during the combo turn.

In my experience, it is rare to encounter a game where fetching more than one white-producing land is required and the biggest weakness is naturally drawing the Tundra and having it be exposed to Wasteland. However, with the increased number of Lotus Petals, this is alleviated to some degree; see the next section.

Lotus Petal Count

Assuming that we are optimizing the deck for a turn 3 win, the ideal number of lands to see are 2 prior to the combo turn with a third land or lotus petal on the combo turn (Lotus Petal is usually stronger as it adds to the storm count). Any additional lands are a surplus and 'virtual' card disadvantage.

In more detail, we want to see at least one land in the opening 7, two by turn 2 (assuming that we see 10 cards by this turn, accounting for some instances where a cantrip is not cast), and a third land/petal by turn 3 (assuming 13 cards seen). With these rough assumptions, I find a peak at 14 lands leading to seeing 3 lands by turn 3. Given that we want to reduce 0-land opening hands and hands without Top or 1 non-blue land, I think the ideal number is 15-17 lands (a more rigorous analysis is required on this).

Roughly 30% of the time we will find 0 ritual effects (assuming 5 being played) in 13 cards, in which case, Lotus Petals are key in generating the 4-6 initial mana by turn 3-4 required to cast Doomsday + Cantrip + Ideas Unbound.

Finally, Lotus Petals help in alleviating the 3 different colors required to cast Silence + Doomsday + Cantrips and allow comboing with only basic islands in play.


Speed of the Deck

In this previous tournament report I believe the speed was much slower than my usual experiences with the deck. The deck can usually combo between turns 2-4, with occasional turn 1 wins (most commonly with Dark Ritual, LED, Doomsday, Probe). With protection, most wins occur between turns 3-4, and as with all storm decks, the combo turn is somewhat bimodal with turn 5+ wins not being uncommon due to the opponent having multiple counterspells or discard.

The inclusion of Dig Through Time necessarily slows down the speed of the deck since it is very rare to cast this on turn 2 or in addition to comboing on turn 3. The main reason to include this card is against control, where it can act as an additional protection spell by either drawing out a counterspell or finding protection/business. It may be better to keep these as sideboard cards or a 1-1 split between the mainboard and sideboard. Also, Dig Through Time is not supposed to be the focal point of the list; rather it is a supplement to help navigate through disruption-heavy matches.

[dte]

Thanks for this very interesting an well-argumented post.

There is just two things I would disagree with:



Mana requirements on the combo turn

Conclusion - fast starts (with a Dark Ritual) require initial mana producing most commonly BU or BUU in addition to the mana requirements of any protection spell.


I think in more than 95% of the cases I play IU with mana from LED, either because I had a LED earlier via SDT/Cantrips or because I have a cantrip+SDT/double cantrip pile.
With only 1 cantrip and no LED, it is often not that easy anyway to build 10 storms.

Half the protection cost B, and the cantrips you usually use to dig into your pile are often mostly GP and SDT that does not require U (because you often cast PN & BS prior to find combo & protection).

So it has always seemed to me that the principal mana requirement is Black, especially because if you do not have DR, you need BBB.




Mana Requirements Building up to the Combo Turn

The above two sections suggest that fetching 1-2 blue-producing lands is the most important and at most 1 black-producing land (if discarding before the combo turn is important), hence why most of the dual lands are blue and the inclusion of 2 islands.


To my mind we especially need 1 island, because the best cantripping sequence is T1 PN, T2 BS fetch. I can see the second one being good, but I'm not sure it is absolutely needed. Keep in mind that I never played with DTT, which increase your need for U.



Non-blue Hate-Bears

Cabal Therapy against an opponent relying on a single hate-bear is the best case scenario for discard, which cannot stop a topdeck or multiple, different cards.

Exposing a land to Wasteland or using a Lotus Petal to 'time walk' the opponent is fine, as in non-blue matchups saving the Silence for the combo turn is unnecessary (barring Mindbreak Trap). I would argue that Silence has a slight edge in these matchups.


I disagree here. Hatebears are mostly in D&T, and Cabal => Thalia is quite good, while fetching non basic to chant-walk them off playing it T2 is not often a very good option.
You have burn too, which play eidolon, and I prefer to play cabal => eidolon (which is probably THE card which make their hand keeepable, worth to mull for), while you will not usually want to chantwalk them T2.


Lotus Petal Count

Assuming that we are optimizing the deck for a turn 3 win, the ideal number of lands to see are 2 prior to the combo turn with a third land or lotus petal on the combo turn (Lotus Petal is usually stronger as it adds to the storm count). Any additional lands are a surplus and 'virtual' card disadvantage.
[/QUOTE]

I do not assume that I want to kill T3. If there is no real threat, why not improve your hand throught SDT? We have a great card selection tool which makes our hands getting much better with the time, I want to take full profit of it against U.decks. More lands is very good then, especially fetchlands.


In more detail, we want to see at least one land in the opening 7, two by turn 2 (assuming that we see 10 cards by this turn, accounting for some instances where a cantrip is not cast), and a third land/petal by turn 3 (assuming 13 cards seen). With these rough assumptions, I find a peak at 14 lands leading to seeing 3 lands by turn 3. Given that we want to reduce 0-land opening hands and hands without Top or 1 non-blue land, I think the ideal number is 15-17 lands (a more rigorous analysis is required on this).
[/QUOTE]

So as you play 15, it is a bit on the low side.

When you have seen 13 cards, you have 36% of chances to have seen less than 3 lands assuming a 14/60 ratio:
- 1 => 10.5 %
- 2 => 23.5%
- 3 => 28.7%
- 4 => 21.3%
- 5+ => 13.9%

So the peak is indeed for 3 lands on 13 cards, but the problem is that with 4 lands you still have 3 lands T3 (and a virtual CdA of 1), but whith 2 lands you are a bit more screwed. Additionnaly, you assume to have seen 13 cards T3, so you played some PN/BS => you can have easily get rid of the additional lands if you do not need them.

[dte]

Thanks for this very interesting an well-argumented post.

There is just two things I would disagree with:



Mana requirements on the combo turn

Conclusion - fast starts (with a Dark Ritual) require initial mana producing most commonly BU or BUU in addition to the mana requirements of any protection spell.


I think in more than 95% of the cases I play IU with mana from LED, either because I had a LED earlier via SDT/Cantrips or because I have a cantrip+SDT/double cantrip pile.
With only 1 cantrip and no LED, it is often not that easy anyway to build 10 storms.

Half the protection cost B, and the cantrips you usually use to dig into your pile are often mostly GP and SDT that does not require U (because you often cast PN & BS prior to find combo & protection).

So it has always seemed to me that the principal mana requirement is Black, especially because if you do not have DR, you need BBB.




Mana Requirements Building up to the Combo Turn

The above two sections suggest that fetching 1-2 blue-producing lands is the most important and at most 1 black-producing land (if discarding before the combo turn is important), hence why most of the dual lands are blue and the inclusion of 2 islands.


To my mind we especially need 1 island, because the best cantripping sequence is T1 PN, T2 BS fetch. I can see the second one being good, but I'm not sure it is absolutely needed. Keep in mind that I never played with DTT, which increase your need for U.



Non-blue Hate-Bears

Cabal Therapy against an opponent relying on a single hate-bear is the best case scenario for discard, which cannot stop a topdeck or multiple, different cards.

Exposing a land to Wasteland or using a Lotus Petal to 'time walk' the opponent is fine, as in non-blue matchups saving the Silence for the combo turn is unnecessary (barring Mindbreak Trap). I would argue that Silence has a slight edge in these matchups.


I disagree here. Hatebears are mostly in D&T, and Cabal => Thalia is quite good, while fetching non basic to chant-walk them off playing it T2 is not often a very good option.
You have burn too, which play eidolon, and I prefer to play cabal => eidolon (which is probably THE card which make their hand keeepable, worth to mull for), while you will not usually want to chantwalk them T2.



Lotus Petal Count

Assuming that we are optimizing the deck for a turn 3 win, the ideal number of lands to see are 2 prior to the combo turn with a third land or lotus petal on the combo turn (Lotus Petal is usually stronger as it adds to the storm count). Any additional lands are a surplus and 'virtual' card disadvantage.


I do not assume that I want to kill T3. If there is no real threat, why not improve your hand throught SDT? We have a great card selection tool which makes our hands getting much better with the time, I want to take full profit of it against U.decks. More lands is very good then, especially fetchlands.



In more detail, we want to see at least one land in the opening 7, two by turn 2 (assuming that we see 10 cards by this turn, accounting for some instances where a cantrip is not cast), and a third land/petal by turn 3 (assuming 13 cards seen). With these rough assumptions, I find a peak at 14 lands leading to seeing 3 lands by turn 3. Given that we want to reduce 0-land opening hands and hands without Top or 1 non-blue land, I think the ideal number is 15-17 lands (a more rigorous analysis is required on this).


So as you play 15, it is a bit on the low side.

When you have seen 13 cards, you have 36% of chances to have seen less than 3 lands assuming a 14/60 ratio:
- 1 => 10.5 %
- 2 => 23.5%
- 3 => 28.7%
- 4 => 21.3%
- 5+ => 13.9%

So the peak is indeed for 3 lands on 13 cards, but the problem is that with 4 lands you still have 3 lands T3 (and a virtual CdA of 1), but whith 2 lands you are a bit more screwed. Additionnaly, you assume to have seen 13 cards T3, so you played some PN/BS => you can have easily get rid of the additional lands if you do not need them.

[emidln]

I'm not 100% convinced it's that easy given that SDT costs at least two mana to do anything in this deck and doesn't feed DTT which was the focus of the previous question. I'm not talking about the cards in a vacuum, but with a sole focus on assembling the combo asap.

Given that Miracles players toy with DTT for months and still did not found a way how the card should meaningful work with SDT together, I'm willing to think about a radical path to make DTT work as aggressice combo support, not only because I consider it a perfect (on-color) card to create CA and dig for Doomsday, but also due to the fact that increased speed and Doomsday being a "life-independant" engine, would make Wraith bearable

P.S. I'm known for slaying holy cows ;)

Cows are holy based on faith. SDT is factually faster. I've explained this several times (most recently in the link below), but the gist is that this spell is a very common mode for SDT:

Stored Draw for Next Turn
1
Artifact
Tap, Sacrifice: Draw a Card

This post mentions the parameters for a successful Doomsday kill: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26671-Deck-5c-Fast-Doomsday-Tendrils&p=748941&viewfull=1#post748941

Box C there is a big deal if you're trying to kill early since you need to both maximize your draws AND minimize the mana needed beyond BBB. SDT is excellent at this. Its two other features (going to the top of your deck and thus increasing storm by 1) and its spin to rearrange are also features that contribute a lot (particularly against a live opponent).



If you're going to play Street Wraith (I'm not disagreeing with this fundamentally, I mentioned on Storm Boards that a 4 DTT 4 Street Wraith Doomsday deck might be superior to the Burning Wish version, particularly if you are killing with Lab Man most often), it should be in addition to SDT.


I think in more than 95% of the cases I play IU with mana from LED, either because I had a LED earlier via SDT/Cantrips or because I have a cantrip+SDT/double cantrip pile.
With only 1 cantrip and no LED, it is often not that easy anyway to build 10 storms.

You misunderstood what you're quoting. BU or BUU means B for Ritual, U for cantrip (because they have LED) and B for Ritual, U for cantrip, U for cantrip (because they're lacking LED or they have Probe into IU). You only seemed to acknowledge the BUU for Probe into IU case.


I believe that if it was allowed, most DD players would play more than 4 SDT.

I'm not 100% certain that 8 would be correct, but if I was told I could either play 4 or 8, but not another number, I would prefer to be playing 8. My win percentage when I stick an SDT is unreal.

[P-E]

Brandon do you have a list of your DTT SW build ?

[dte]

I'm interested as well by a DTT - SW list.
I searched into stormboards without finding it.

[wonderPreaux]

If you're going to play Street Wraith (I'm not disagreeing with this fundamentally, I mentioned on Storm Boards that a 4 DTT 4 Street Wraith Doomsday deck might be superior to the Burning Wish version, particularly if you are killing with Lab Man most often), it should be in addition to SDT.


Brandon do you have a list of your DTT SW build ?


I'm interested as well by a DTT - SW list.
I searched into stormboards without finding it.

I don't think you could actually play such a list. 4 DtT + 4 SW is a lot of cards, there's only 1 flex slot where people run a 4th wish/DtT/Meditate, where do you find the space? Even if you cut the Wish board, you would add in the Tendrils and Doomsday in your board, that opens 1 slot, 2 total. Let's say you just cut the Tendrils then and use Lab-Man only (you now have to spend more for a kill if you want to use Chromatic Sphere, you also pretty much can't cut Sphere, in all likelihood), that's 3 slots free, 4 if you then commit to not having the Lotus Petal either and just go for LED/Lab-Man kills (this has the side effect of making you slightly slower as well, because Petal does also play the role of accelerator in addition to having utility in piles.). So, after paring down your actual kill condition and maneuvers, there are 4 slots open.

What do you cut from there? Cutting protection seems bad, as you no longer have Wishes to back your discard, and you want to be crippling the opponent with discard so you have time/fuel to hit your Digs. That leaves lands, cantrips, and accelerants as possible cuts. With only 2 colors, and thus less need for duals, you can make the case to cut a land, but having a lot of fetches for your Top and Dig is important, so you probably only open 1 slot here, 5 total.

Cutting Rain, Ritual, or LED seems dubious at best. The former 5 are obviously good for making Doomsday actually playable, the latter synergizes well with Top, Wraith and, arguably, DtT. I think the most defensible cut would be a single LED, as it's value is diminished in a storm-less list. 6 slots open. From there, I can't really see wanting to cut any of the other card selection or drawing effects. So it ends there with 6 slots. Since it sounds miserable to open with multiple DtT, and Street Wraith is a worse Probe and the most combo-dependent for utility, I suppose a 3:3 split is the most realistic outcome here.

4 Doomsday
3 Dig Through Time
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Laboratory Maniac

3 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Chromatic Sphere

3 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress

4 Dark Ritual
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Rain of Filth

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Underground Sea

For a 4:4 DtT/Wraith list, it's probably only 2 cards off from this, barring some massive structural change. I don't really know if you'd call this list stronger, than the Wish version, though. *shrug* but hey, this was just my stream-of-thought/deductive reasoning, for all I know there's a great version of it out there.

[Lemnear]

I doubt you have to maintain such a density of disruption with so much draw for free/cheap. The same is possibly true for mana-acceleration

[wonderPreaux]

I doubt you have to maintain such a density of disruption with so much draw for free/cheap. The same is possibly true for mana-acceleration

In theory, you could cut Rain of Filth because it doesn't synergize with Lab Man's PtT piles, and using the extra slot for a Wraith would increase the LED/Wraith interactions to get you the 3 mana. Alternatively, you could cut LED for Wraith, in the sense that they're both somewhat synergy-driven cards and the marginal value of the nth copy probably does drop sharply (though, idk which one's value drops more rapidly), but I'm unsure about cutting discard. You'd want to strip opposing combo/CB w/e while you try and fuel/resolve Digs, at least that's my impression of it. I understand that Dig finding discard does make a lower amount of discard viable in the sense of protecting the combo, though. You could drop to 6 discard/2 LED for 4 Wraith 4 DtT, but thats definitely a less conservative cut and I don't know how clunky 4 Dig could get.

[Namida]

So I posted this on the Storm Boards too, but I played in a GPT for Kyoto yesterday.

There were 16 players. The whole room basically scouted itself after Round 1, so I can give you the breakdown of all of the Archetypes:

Dragon Stompy
Chalice Green
12 Post
Burn
UR Delver
RUG Delver
Enchantress
Infect
2 Omniscience
2 Dredge
2 Storm
1 Doomsday (me)

This is extremely out of the ordinary; combo isn’t popular here at all (especially Storm), but it was half the field today.

Here’s what I ended up playing:

3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Burning Wish
1 Laboratory Maniac
3 Doomsday

Sideboard
2 Tropical Island
1 Void Snare
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Xantid Swarm
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Cruel Bargain
1 Doomsday
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

The list is pretty stock as far as I know. Anyway, onto the matches.

Round 1 - 12 Post
Game 1, I Probe my opponent on Turn 1, see that he has nothing but lands, Expedition Map, and Emrakul, so he dies on turn 2.

Game 2, I play Xantid Swarm on Turn 1, and it resolves. Turn 2 before I attack, my opponent plays Crop Rotation to get a Cloudpost so he has two posts in play. I Probe and see that my opponent has Hydroblast and Trinisphere. However, the Probe finds the Dark Ritual I needed to kill my opponent on Turn 2 again. He frowns and shows me that he sided in 11 cards against me.

Round 2 - UW Omniscience
Game 1, I don’t know what my opponent is playing, so I keep a hand that has Doomsday, and mana. I only need to draw a cantrip to win. My opponent won the die roll, and I died on his second turn.

Game 2, I shred my opponent’s hand with Therapy on double Probe on turn one, and Xantid Swarm meets Force of Will pitching Force of Will, so he's pretty low on cards. The game reaches a point where I can cast Doomsday for a pass the turn pile and the only card my opponent has in his hand is a Meddling Mage. I decide to go for it and hope that my deck being weird would prevent my opponent from making a good call. He saw Ideas Unbound earlier in the game from a Probe, so on his turn he names that. He gets me down to one life with Meddling Mage attacking, but even without casting Ideas Unbound I’m able to just cast the Maniac and win.

Game 3, I make a play that costs me the game. At one point I cast Burning Wish for Cabal Therapy for my next turn. My opponent has a Top in play, and he uses it to hide Show and Tell and Emrakul. My opponent had basically nothing in hand, but I didn't have enough mana to win before Emrakul destroyed all my permanents. Burning Wish would have cantripped into my pile if I hadn't cast it earlier.

Round 3 – Burn
Game 1, is a close game where I win at 1 life. I know my opponent’s hand has Price of Progress, a Searing Blaze, and his topdeck. I’m dead when I cast Doomsday if he topdecked a burn spell and casts it along with the Price. I have four lands in play (one Dual), Probe and another Dual in hand, and Top in play. The pile I build is Ideas Unbound, Duress, Rain of Filth, LED, Burning Wish. My opponent doesn’t automatically kill me in response to Ideas Unbound like he should have, so I cast Duress to force him to use Price—-in response, he casts Fireblast to put me down to one life, and then casts Price to which I respond with Rain of Filth and sacrifice my Dual. I play my second Dual to cast the Probe in my hand to win the game.

Game 2, my opening hand has Dark Ritual, LED, Doomsday. I figure that if my opponent taps out on Turn 2 but doesn’t play Eidolon and I draw any cantrip, I win on my second turn. It was probably too risky, but...you’ll see what happened. My opponent plays Turn 1 Goblin Guide, and reveals a Ponder on my side. Turn 2 he plays a second Goblin Guide and a Lava Spike, so he’s dead. After the game he shows me that he had an Eidolon and just didn’t cast it! So yeah, people here don’t know shit about combo. My opponent also sided in Relic of Progenitus against me and left his Pyroblasts in the board. I literally stole both my games from this guy.

Round 4 - Infect
Game 1, he mulligans to five. He has no disruption other than a Spell Pierce that does nothing when I go off because I had topdecked a Dark Ritual for the turn. This is the only time Chromatic Sphere did anything all day, but it being a saved draw definitely saved me from dying because I was at 9 Poison the turn I went off.

Game 2, my opponent goes down to 5 life with Sylvan Library, and only has Noble Hierarchs for pressure. I teach him a lesson by killing him with a Natural Tendrils. I have Top in play, and I cast LED, LED, Doomsday to bait out his Spell Pierce, and flip my Top for the Burning Wish I had been floating on top to get Tendrils.

Round 5 - RUG Delver
I get paired down. I ask my opponent to concede to me because he has no chance of being in the Single Elimination rounds, but he declines because he’s friends with the other players who have a shot of making it. Can't be too upset about that.

Game 1, my opponent mulligans to 6, has no resistance, and dies on turn 2.

Game 2, I grind through all of my opponent’s Stifles and counterspells, but the coast is only finally clear of disruption when I’m at 6 life and my opponent has a Lightning Bolt in hand. Also of note is that my opponent both has Spell Snare and Grafdigger's Cage in his deck. I side out all of my two mana cards except Ideas Unbound and Grafdigger's Cage doesn't do anything against my deck. On my last turn, instead of casting Doomsday in some futile hope that my opponent is braindead enough to not cast a Bolt when I'm at 3 life, I cast Ideas Unbound to let it get countered by the Snare my opponent has had in hand all game, and make a big display of acting like I lost the game to the Spell Snare and Grafdigger’s Cage (none of the guys out here have poker faces so whining like this isn't as weird as it looks at first glance).

Game 3, I play Empty for 6 Goblins, and it takes my opponent’s life down pretty low before he plays a Tarmogoyf as a blocker. I finish the game by casting Ideas Unbound with LED mana floating to find my Tendrils of Agony. Also of note is that my opponent cast Surgical Extraction on Lotus Petal in response to Ideas Unbound, so he was not happy at all to see that I only play one *and* it cut me straight to my Tendrils.

So we cut to Top 4, which is UR Delver, the Omniscience player I faced before, me, and Storm.

Semifinals - UW Omniscience
Game 1, I lose to a fucked up hand on my opponent’s part. He’s the higher seed so he goes first and plays Island. I play Duress on my turn and see double Show and Tell, double Omniscience, Dig Through Time, City of Traitors. I lose my cool for a moment, but get my shit together and I take the Dig. My opponent puts Omniscience in play, and I put a land in play. He apparently has no action, so I Brainstorm at the end of the turn, and my hand is Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Ponder, Ponder, Land. On my turn, if I can find an LED I still win the game, but I don’t find one and I die to my opponent drawing Dig Through Time two turns later.

Game 2, I make my opponent discard most of his cards. At one point, my opponent’s hand is only Force of Will and lands. He draws for the turn, and on my turn I have Top in play, Dark Ritual, LED, LED, Doomsday with a Burning Wish on top. I cast Doomsday, and he thinks for a very long time about whether this Doomsday should resolve, but ultimately lets it happen. I decide that I can’t risk that he drew a blue card but wants to get me dead by breaking up my Doomsday pile. The pile I make is Duress, Cruel Bargain, Probe, Burning Wish, Laboratory Maniac. I pass the turn. He draws and passes his turn. I draw Duress, and I cast it. He Forces it. I crack my LEDs for Blue and Black (I actually made a mistake and said “Red and Black” in Japanese because that’s my habit at the end of Doomsday turns, but being the only non-Japanese person there meant my opponent understood when I showed him my next card), then I flip Top for Cruel Bargain, drawing Top, Probe, Wish, and Maniac. I cast Top, then I cast Maniac, and I cast Probe to win the game.

Game 3, my opponent opens on Leyline of Sanctity. His first play is City of Traitors, so his hand obviously has Show and Tell and something to put in if he just finds an Island. I need to find a Xantid Swarm before he finds his land, but that doesn’t happen so I lose.

All in all, I’m happy about how things turned out. My only losses were to Omniscience, which is the combo deck to beat in Japan, but the games were all really close and what I ended up losing to were cards that aren’t all that common for the deck (Sensei’s Top and Leyline).

[nevilshute]

Nice read Namida, grats on some good results.

How often would you estimate that you need to win through Lab Man? And also, when you do, how often are able to fit in the sphere? Could you walk us through a set up and execution of a lab man kill through sphere? In particular if you don't already have the sphere out or in hand but need to incorporate it in your DD pile.

[Namida]

The default pile for a Laboratory Maniac win with Chromatic Sphere is Ideas Unbound, LED, Gitaxian Probe, Chromatic Sphere, Laboratory Maniac. It costs 2UU after you cast Doomsday, and you can either use a cantrip to draw into this pile or you can pass the turn. You draw Ideas Unbound, cast it to draw LED, Probe, and Sphere. Cast Sphere and LED, then cast Probe and break the LED for mana to cast the Maniac off of LED mana. From there you just pay one mana to use Chromatic Sphere and since it's a mana ability it doesn't use the stack and can't be responded to.

Are you asking when exactly I opt for Laboratory Maniac? I don't know that I can put a useful figure on the number of times that I use Laboratory Maniac because I think it depends mainly on the decks that you're running into. For example, I only used Maniac against the Omniscience player at this event, but that's because I got paired against a bunch of decks where my life total would have been in jeopardy if I passed the turn. If I had been paired up against any of the Chalice players, or Enchantress, etc., I imagine I would have used Maniac a whole lot more. In the last GPT I went to, I played against Dragon Stompy, Pox, Jund, and MUD so I used Laboratory Maniac a whole lot during that event. In the same vein, I don't usually use Chromatic Sphere because my opponents usually don't play cards that it blanks. That's entirely because those sorts of decks don't usually show up in my metagame (in my last example, only Jund has removal and I've yet to have it matter). To be honest, only after like a year and a half did I finally get to use Chromatic Sphere to win the game against a Miracles player last week (and trying to explain the interaction in Japanese was quite the experience).

[Ragdoll]

Round 2 - UW Omniscience

Are there any decklists? I would like to see this list. If there's a possibility to see it pls tell where to find it :smile:

[Curtis Dittmar]

Tin Fins with the transformational Doomsday board is alot of fun. Just being able to Dark Ritual Doomsday is super powerful. But with the banning of Tresure Cruise,Stifle and Wasteland have made its way back into the meta.

Im aware how important Burning wish is for generating storm. So I think keeping 1 would be fine for that.

With that said,could a UB,4 DD,Tendrils list be valuable?

[Namida]

Tin Fins with the transformational Doomsday board is alot of fun. Just being able to Dark Ritual Doomsday is super powerful. But with the banning of Tresure Cruise,Stifle and Wasteland have made its way back into the meta.

Im aware how important Burning wish is for generating storm. So I think keeping 1 would be fine for that.

With that said,could a UB,4 DD,Tendrils list be valuable?

It's probably doable, but I'm not sure that what you lose from being able to cast Burning Wish is on the same level as what you gain from not playing red mana. What would your UB list look like?

[kombatkiwi]

What about playing DTT in something that looks like Menendian's Version?
There are a greater number of flexible slots, no LEDs etc

[Curtis Dittmar]

This is the Tin Fins list after the transformation.

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Git Probe
4 Top
2 LDV

4 Doomsday
1 IU
1 Pithing Needle
1 CoV (i play a Burning Wish instead)
1 Tendrils (I leave the Childron of Korlis)

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoutseize

1 Emrakul


4 Dark Ritual
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

1 Shelldock Isle
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
8 Fetch

I realize the power behind the stock DD list. But sometimes it just feels klunky. Iv always felt Ponder and Top are klunky together,id just like to play Top,Probe,Brainstorm. Burning Wish also can feel klunky (pre combo). I often went back and forth between 4 and 3 in the stock list.

As far as a list,i dont really know yet. I just know drawing Doomsday naturally feels better than wishing for it, the land i always want to have in play is Underground Sea and Ponder feels like it should be a card/s that makes the deck more aggressive.

What do you/anybody interested think?

[Namida]

Cantrips are so important for this deck that I've never gone below 15 in my maindeck since Gitaxian Probe was printed (granted, the card I cut was a Ponder, but I wouldn't ever think of just getting rid of all of them). Being able to draw into your piles is really important for being able to win without passing the turn; I also think that Ponder and Top play rather well together because Ponder can shuffle your deck for Top.

Naturally drawing Doomsday is better than Wishing for it most of the time, but playing 4 Doomsday feels worse to me than virtually playing 7 Doomsday because being able to find business is very important. Burning Wish being able to let you use LED mana to cast Doomsday also comes up all the time--when I was trying to play a more aggressive list, turn two Burning Wish breaking LED for Doomsday was how I tried to push my wins, and Top + Wish has allowed me to win most of the games I have played where my opponent had resolved a Blood Moon. If you're really committed to not playing blue, I suppose you can play Lim-Dul's Vault, but it really is a poor replacement. The issue is that Lim-Dul's Vault and Doomsday are both card disadvantage--the deck used to play LDV when it played Infernal Tutors and it was closer to ANT; however, that's because Vaulting for Infernal Tutor when you have just mana is a win when you untap, while Vaulting for Doomsday when you have just mana is a pass the turn pile and you basically double time walk yourself (you should win after that, but giving your opponent two turns to find a way to break that up after you've basically locked yourself into your plan is definitely not ideal).

The deck is pretty customizable so you can easily make the deck more aggressive if you want to. That being said, I spent some time trying to make the current version of the deck faster, and found that the deck doesn't really need to be more aggressive. Doomsday consistently wins by turn three, and it can frequently win on turn two with some turn one potential. That's not including the fact that if you base your list off of the post-sideboard deck, you're playing Emrakul in your deck so you can Dark Ritual into Doomsday on turn one if you really want to. Then again, I feel like the reason the deck isn't pressured into needing to win quickly is because you can Burning Wish for answers, but if you're working on not playing red I suppose that's not an option. The most aggressive version of the deck that I have seen was the old list back in the day that played Infernal Tutor and Ill-Gotten Gains because you could just turn one IGG Loop someone or you could set up turn one pass the turn piles with Tendrils if you had an IGG in your deck...but IGG is a poor draw (Past in Flames doesn't play well with Doomsday), Infernal Tutor is poor at enabling Doomsday, and you should already be crushing the opponents who you can safely slam a turn one Doomsday against.

If I were going to make any changes to what you're using as a base, I would go up to 16 land (with more basics), cut the Chrome Mox, cut a Lotus Petal or two, and add Rain of Filth and/or Cabal Ritual (since hitting BBB for Doomsday is really important and you want to be able to do that even when you have Island in play). I don't know that Pithing Needle needs a maindeck spot because the only cards I think you really care a lot about are Wasteland and Karakas for Emrakul, but I'm not even sure how good the Emrakul plan is these days. In fact, a lot of people are advocating playing Laboratory Maniac as the secondary win condition, so I would consider looking into that, too.

[Curtis Dittmar]

What about playing DTT in something that looks like Menendian's Version?
There areappreciatednumber of flexible slots, no LEDs etc

Looked around a bit and haven't found the version your referring to. If this could be linked or posted it would be appreciated.

[Ancestral]

Looked around a bit and haven't found the version your referring to. If this could be linked or posted it would be appreciated.

i think he is referring this one : http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11277&iddeck=82364

[anwei]

Yes. As reference, Menendian presented the deck in a premium article on eternal central (http://www.eternalcentral.com/so-many-insane-plays-the-legacy-doomsday-device-primer/), which a lot of discussion over the sensibility of trying to discuss an article that most people with an opinion didn't want to buy in order to evaluate the list. Instead of using LED for acceleration as storm as a win-con, this sort of Lab Man list uses countermagic as protection and a Lab Man kill. It occasionally shows up in smaller finishes, but has not made a big splash.

[FoolofaTook]

Yes. As reference, Menendian presented the deck in a premium article on eternal central (http://www.eternalcentral.com/so-many-insane-plays-the-legacy-doomsday-device-primer/), which a lot of discussion over the sensibility of trying to discuss an article that most people with an opinion didn't want to buy in order to evaluate the list. Instead of using LED for acceleration as storm as a win-con, this sort of Lab Man list uses countermagic as protection and a Lab Man kill. It occasionally shows up in smaller finishes, but has not made a big splash.

I tried building the Menedian list and playing it and found it to have the Aluren problem: you have to resolve Doomsday to win. There's no Plan B for when the opponent won't let you resolve Doomsday or you just don't find it in the course of the game.

[nevilshute]

I tried building the Menedian list and playing it and found it to have the Aluren problem: you have to resolve Doomsday to win. There's no Plan B for when the opponent won't let you resolve Doomsday or you just don't find it in the course of the game.

I've played the Menendian Lab Man UB list quite a bit and I actually didn't find the "only 4 key cards" to be a problem. Which is to say that I think you were able to find and cast a Doomsday an acceptable amount of the time. What I did find to be a weakness was the protection approach, ie. all the counter magic. As appealing as it is to be able to run forces, the card disadvantage is so taxing in a combo deck with a need of a certain amount resources to go off (the DD, a dark ritual most of the time and TWO draw effects), having to basically have an additional card is a problem.

On top of this, Menendian created his deck before the printing of Deathrite Shaman. While no one is saying you can't build a lab man pile that eschews the graveyard in Menendian's build, it is rather clumsy as you then need to draw and hard cast the lab creating a need for 2 extra mana. The mental note / predict + unearth combo is super elegant but is susceptible to graveyard hate. That was less of an issue back when Deathrite hadn't been printed yet but when like multiple top-tier decks are running 4 main deck Deathrites it means even more hoops to jump through.

[Curtis Dittmar]

The list does look interesting. But at that point id just stick with OmniTell.

[FoolofaTook]

I've played the Menendian Lab Man UB list quite a bit and I actually didn't find the "only 4 key cards" to be a problem. Which is to say that I think you were able to find and cast a Doomsday an acceptable amount of the time. What I did find to be a weakness was the protection approach, ie. all the counter magic. As appealing as it is to be able to run forces, the card disadvantage is so taxing in a combo deck with a need of a certain amount resources to go off (the DD, a dark ritual most of the time and TWO draw effects), having to basically have an additional card is a problem.

On top of this, Menendian created his deck before the printing of Deathrite Shaman. While no one is saying you can't build a lab man pile that eschews the graveyard in Menendian's build, it is rather clumsy as you then need to draw and hard cast the lab creating a need for 2 extra mana. The mental note / predict + unearth combo is super elegant but is susceptible to graveyard hate. That was less of an issue back when Deathrite hadn't been printed yet but when like multiple top-tier decks are running 4 main deck Deathrites it means even more hoops to jump through.

It's definitely a very powerful list when you find Doomsday. Maybe I'm just a bit unlucky with that type of list but I fail to find the key card about a third of the time and those are losses and then you get to the Legacy is a very powerful format problem and lose a significant portion of the games where you have it in the opening hand or find it quickly.

I guess my primary reservation is that against a smart player who knows what you are running the deck feels inconsistent. Drawing a handful of counters at the start often turns into a disaster and mulling away from them is often bad also. Pick your poison isn't my favorite way to play Magic.

It would be great if there was a Plan B in the list but that would cut down the counter density significantly and then it's really draw dependent.

[kombatkiwi]

3 Street Wraith
1 Laboratory Maniac

1 Call to the Netherworld
3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
4 Ponder

4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
2 Dig Through Time

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Lotus Petal

4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island

My interpretation of Dig-Wraith with 3 colours (plus 1 green source for the board)
Seems a bit wonky (not sure about the manabase)

I put a Call to the Netherworld in for the pile where you can win off 4 life 1 draw and UU mana if your deck has Street Wraith in it.
If you draw it during the game hopefully 3 Wraiths is enough for it to reliably be B and 2 life: Draw a card

Ideas
LED
Wraith
Call
Labman
(Use a draw to get Ideas, spend UU to cast ideas, cast LED, cycle the Street Wraith holding priority and crack the LED for UUU, madness the Call to get Wraith back, let cycling resolve to draw Labman, cast Labman with LED mana and then cycle Street Wraith again to win the game).

[Mhenlo]

3 Street Wraith
1 Laboratory Maniac

1 Call to the Netherworld
3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
4 Ponder

4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
2 Dig Through Time

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Lotus Petal

4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island

My interpretation of Dig-Wraith with 3 colours (plus 1 green source for the board)
Seems a bit wonky (not sure about the manabase)

I put a Call to the Netherworld in for the pile where you can win off 4 life 1 draw and UU mana if your deck has Street Wraith in it.
If you draw it during the game hopefully 3 Wraiths is enough for it to reliably be B and 2 life: Draw a card

Ideas
LED
Wraith
Call
Labman
(Use a draw to get Ideas, spend UU to cast ideas, cast LED, cycle the Street Wraith holding priority and crack the LED for UUU, madness the Call to get Wraith back, let cycling resolve to draw Labman, cast Labman with LED mana and then cycle Street Wraith again to win the game).

or just go
Ideas
LED
GP
LED
BW

and not have dead cards. There is a reason that people don't really play Street Wraith/Call, it doesn't really help that much and adds a dead card and uses sub par draw. If you are gonna try a Street Wraith version of the deck, I have had the most success running 4 Lotus Petals and 1 more DtTs, and cut BW and just go UB(still unsure about this part).

[kombatkiwi]

Yeah I guess it's a bit too cute.
I still don't know if straight UB would be the way to go but it certainly is tempting.

[leegoo]

I've done more than my fair share of messing around with lab man (and dtt) in Doomsday. Some thoughts

you want some number of LED, more than 1 but probably not 4. It just allows you to build realistic non-pass the turn piles without jank like call to the netherworld (or relying on your graveyard) chromatic sphere is bad enough. (i'm convinced you need it though)

You want 6-8 discard spells to work with 2-3 digs.

I liked 4 petals 4 dark rituals as acceleration. Street wraith is fine but definitely not a 4 of with 4 probes already. It is nice when you're winning though.

I still can't make it "better" than DDFT. Possibly easier on the pilot for a long day however, which is worth something.

[Curtis Dittmar]

I eneded up getting ahold of the LEDs and Volcs i needed for the night. So I took Namida's 60 and scrambled together a board of

2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed (actually really liked this idea)
2 Trop
3 Flusterstorm
2 Massacre
1 Tendrils
1 Infernal Contract
1 Doomsday
1 Void Snare (Was pretty impressed with this.I had a couple times against Reainimater where would would have been a blow out if it didn't get counterd)

3 Flusterstorms felt like a lil to much. Next time ill try 2.

From browsing forums the 2 Trops look to be a trend. Personally I felt like they where a wasted slot.
Namida,what do you take out for them anyway?

My Matchups where and went like so

Rd 1-BUG Delver (0/2)
I messed up on the kill both times and lost.

Rd 2-Reainimater (1/2)
It came down a close game 3. We where developing hands and he walks into my Flusterstorm. I have a Top in play and feel pretty good about the grindy game. He quickly overcomes the grindy game with DTT. DTT feels like a real problem for us or at least it did to me. Could the lab man and C Sphere be DTTs?

Rd 3-Jund (0/2)
G1 I of course mess up the kill. G2 went real good, he just the Abrupt Decay for my LabMan/Probe for the win.

Rd 4-manaless Dredge (2/0)
A nice fellow who had no idea what was getting into, lol.

In the end I had fun. And i plan to keep casting Doomsday!

[Namida]

You can probably cut down to one Tropical Island if you want. Against decks like Miracles and Show and Tell, you can easily get away with only siding in one Tropical Island for a basic Island--I normally side both basics out for both Trops unless I expect something wild to happen. I'm playing two Tropical Islands for some assurance against decks which I want to side Abrupt Decay against, since every one of those decks except Miracles is usually playing Wasteland. I normally side out a basic Island and Misty Rainforest for the two Trops in this situation. I feel like you could make an argument for siding out a Volcanic Island or something else, though.

What are you doing that is causing you to mess up the kill so often? Are you often trying to make new piles off of the top of your head, or are you just not thinking through your combo turn before you execute?

My games don't often feel like grind matches where we win after all the dust is settled--especially since your opponents are playing Dig Through Time. For me it's more a matter of using the discard to find an opening to stick Doomsday. Maybe it's just my meta, but that's why I think Laboratory Maniac is too important to cut, since it lets me build piles that don't require ten spells in a turn so the pile can just have discard and stuff in it. If you're actually playing reactive removal like Flusterstorm that you want to try to Dig to, I can see how Dig Through Time would be appealing. I just haven't tried it because its mana cost is a turn-off for me.

I won't lie, I've never had any of my opponents try to Abrupt Decay Maniac because they usually spend their post-Doomsday turn tapping out to try to pressure my resources (discard, or adding creatures to the board in case I'm just double-passing, etc) instead of keeping Decay up in hopes that it actually does something. Do you think there was anything you could have done to play around Decay?

[Curtis Dittmar]

Vs BUG Delver (g1) I Topped into IU,not thinking about drawing the Top. I was at 2 and did not have the mana to cast Top+Probe. G2 was simular.

Same kind of thing vs Jund G1. Definitely wasnt thinking the hole thing through.

Game 2 was more thought out. Jund plays Hymn,Thoughtseize and Lillie. In fear of losing my hand, I quickly set my self up for a Lab man pile.
The pile was

IU
Probe
Probe
LED
Lab man

Turns out he had nothing better to do than hold up Abrupt Decay :(

The thing about Reanimater is,there just faster. I feel its necessary to Duress them for a combo piece (especially after the guy is binned).
That means i still have to wait to fight the counters. Witch turns grindy. My Top was simply out classed by his DTT. DTT in Doomsday? Not sure,but im gonna try running 2.

[Namida]

I'm assuming that you're not making the mistake of blindly slamming Doomsday without planning your pile out ahead of time, so my advice is to just double-check your piles before you cast Doomsday to be sure that they meet your requirements for mana and Storm.

Against the Jund Opponent, it sounds like you were more afraid of your opponent's discard than you needed to be, which caused you to rush the combo out there when you really didn't need to. Discard alone is not good against this deck, since the sort of decks that usually employ that kind of strategy are not fast enough to kill you before you can play out enough lands/artifact mana to effectively make Doomsday a one-card combo. Basically, I think you may have made a mistake because your description of the game doesn't sound like one where you were forced to commit to a plan that risks losing to Abrupt Decay, since Tarmogoyf possibly making it awkward to pass the turn is really the only card Jund plays that would punish you for sitting there and building up as much mana as possible for when you inevitably draw your business.

From what I can tell, the gameplan of Reanimator normally doesn't include reaching enough mana or letting the game go long enough to make Dig Through Time a wise inclusion in the deck. In fact, I've been looking online and I don't see anyone playing Dig Through Time in their Reanimator decks, so you might just be unfortunate to have run into someone who has decided otherwise. That isn't to say that Dig Through Time isn't worth a shot, but I wouldn't add Dig Through Time to my deck if the main reason is because of one person playing a deck that happens to be randomly tuned to beat you, especially since the matchup is pretty bad either way.

[JPoJohnson]

I love the card Doomsday. I think it is one of the coolest cards that have been printed... but I struggle to ever come up with a strength that this deck has over any other combo deck. For those of you that have played it for a while, what would you say are some reasons to pick this deck over others (unbiased real reasons). I don't know enough about the deck to understand these reasons, but sure would love to!

[Curtis Dittmar]

Yeah DTT in Reanimater was a surprise. The thing I was trying to go towards was,alot of people are playing DTT/DTT decks. It worries me my Tops will be consistently be out classed by DTT/DTT decks.

I have been golfishing alot with 2 Dig Through Time over the Labman and Sphere. It always feels like if thats what im gonna be doing, the deck i should be on is Omni. So I took them out. Still thinking of what I what to play over Lab/Sphere. Also I dont like the 4th wish.

So id be looking at 3 flex spots. This may sound crazy, but could Pact Of Negotiation work in this deck? I know Daze has been tested, has PON?

@JPo
Theres a ton of Advantages that Doomsday has. You will notice them most after turn 2, sometimes 3.

The ANT thread has been discussing boarding in cretchers. Becoming more versatile with Grips, AD and City of Solitude. Deed was even mentioned (witch I liked). Maybe its just me but why wouldnt these plans be better in a shell that alredy has 4 Tops,17 land, doesnt need the yard and usually only has to cast 4 spells pre Doomsday?

[Namida]

It's fine to cut the 4th Wish. I like the 4th Wish because I can't think of a better replacement and I like having more win conditions in my deck so I can be a little faster, but I do think that it is a double edged sword because drawing multiple copies of Burning Wish or Doomsday can feel pretty bad.

Why do you want to cut Laboratory Maniac? The card has been pretty good for me, helping me win all the time when I don't have a cantrip or I can't feasibly try to win by casting 10 spells in a turn. In any case, if you're not playing Maniac I would probably say to play a Chain of Vapor in that spot since Maniac is the card that you use to beat permanent based hate.

What is your reasoning for wanting Pact of Negation? I'll explain why I think it's not good here. First off, I don't like blue protection in this deck at all because Doomsday kills you if your opponent can disrupt you after you cast it, and I feel like counterspells to protect your combo force you to go in blind hoping you have more protection than they have answers. This might be a non-issue since you're not cutting any of your spells that let you peek at your opponent's hand, but I still wouldn't feel comfortable going off with just a Pact as protection against the decks that you'd want to use Pact against. Also, counters and LED don't play well together in general, because LED makes you discard your hand (and your counter backup) before you can complete your combo turn. If your opponent gets wise to the fact that you're playing Pact of Negation, they can basically make it useless by waiting for you to crack an LED; I suppose you can "next-level" that plan by making piles that don't use LED, but that would slow you down and I think defeat the purpose of putting Pact in the deck. Pact of Negation is also unable to effectively protect Doomsday if you want to pass the turn. Cards like Daze and Flusterstorm makes sense because you use them to disrupt your opponent's plans more than to protect your combo--Pact of Negation can't do anything other than protect your Doomsday and it isn't even good at doing that.


I love the card Doomsday. I think it is one of the coolest cards that have been printed... but I struggle to ever come up with a strength that this deck has over any other combo deck. For those of you that have played it for a while, what would you say are some reasons to pick this deck over others (unbiased real reasons). I don't know enough about the deck to understand these reasons, but sure would love to!

I can tell you why I play Doomsday, but I'm not sure that I'm unbiased. Basically, most of the reasons I pick this deck over ANT are because I don't like having to play ANT cards. I'm not saying Doomsday is better (and I'm not good enough at playing ANT to actually argue about which deck is stronger) but I like that I get to play more lands since I'm not playing Infernal Tutor and I like that Doomsday makes all of your cantrips into LEDs instead of asking you to play a lot of Cabal Rituals and Lotus Petals to make your deck tick. You also get the added benefit of many people assuming that their strategy against ANT will also be effective against you which leads them to playing badly (for instance, I win at least one match in every tournament I attend where my opponent was leaning on graveyard hate to at least slow me down), though I assume that "your opponents making mistakes" is probably not at the top of the list of reasons to play this deck.

[Curtis Dittmar]

I just feal like there are losts of times where im going off with 4 lands in play,making it so I dont need LEDs until the Wish/Tendrils step. Thats where I feel free counters would be good. I do see your points though.

Played a few test games where i couldnt pass and i couldnt get to Ten aka wished i had Labrotory Maniac. So do understand why its good in the deck. I personly just dont like the 2 slots it takes up.

[Namida]

I just feal like there are losts of times where im going off with 4 lands in play,making it so I dont need LEDs until the Wish/Tendrils step. Thats where I feel free counters would be good. I do see your points though.

Played a few test games where i couldnt pass and i couldnt get to Ten aka wished i had Labrotory Maniac. So do understand why its good in the deck. I personly just dont like the 2 slots it takes up.

The point I'm making here is that Pact of Negation becomes completely worthless once your opponents know about it. Pact of Negation is very narrow in that it can only be cast if you're not going to pass the turn, only if your opponent is going to try to interact with the stack during your combo turn, and only if your opponent is so unaware of what you're doing that they *don't* know that they can just wait until you throw away your counterspell on your own.

You can probably get away with not playing Chromatic Sphere if you don't like it--I've only really used it once to beat removal. Laboratory Maniac has been pretty important for me, but it's also probably a fine sideboard card if you don't like it in your main since it's a pretty bad card in a few matchups too. I just keep running into matchups where Maniac is my best option, and I feel like one/two slots is a small price to pay for having the possibility to win through Chalice or Counterbalance in game 1.

[Curtis Dittmar]

To all the OG Doomsday ers.

When did you realize you where ready to take Doomsday to a large tournament/What requirements did you feel you had to meet?

[mistercakes]

To all the OG Doomsday ers.

When did you realize you where ready to take Doomsday to a large tournament/What requirements did you feel you had to meet?

just give your opponents the respect to make piles with a reasonable time, otherwise who cares b/c unless if you're a die hard tourney player, there's good chance you can scrub out with any other deck. so just make sure you can build simple piles in fast time. more difficult piles are always fine as everyone understands certain complexities.

:)

that being said, play in a bunch of 3 or 4 round tourneys first b/c the deck can be tiring if you aren't used to it.

i also generally play pretty fast, but with doomsday, many matches go to time. (almost never go to time w/ other decks, so be prepared to miss out on scheduled meals)

[Curtis Dittmar]

Appreciate it.





So I was practicing and came into a interesting situation. The starting 7 Dr, DD, Top, BS and 3 land. First thoughts where man if i was Emmy/Shelldock Id go for it right now :(

Turn one fetch islnad> Top

Turn 2 the card I draw is not relevant,fetch Swamp cast DR> DD tank for a while and come up with

Led
Iu
LED
LED
BW

Seemed the best option,but would like to know others.

[Ogh!]

So I was practicing and came into a interesting situation. The starting 7 Dr, DD, Top, BS and 3 land.

This is not an interesting situation. In fact, if you're on the play you'd always play a land and then Top. If you're on the draw you may want to play around Daze and play Top turn 2. It's so simple that I'd classify this (good) hand as a no-brainer.



Turn 2 the card I draw is not relevant,fetch Swamp cast DR> DD tank for a while and come up with

Led
Iu
LED
LED
BW

Seemed the best option,but would like to others.

This is the standard 2-cantrip pile that, together with the standard 1-cantrip pile (IU, LED, GP, LED, BW), is used in roughly 80% of all cases when DD resolves.

If you want to solve some interesting DD-puzzles I recommend Team Stormboards to you: http://teamstormboards.proboards.com

[emidln]

Along the speed recommendations, you need to make sure your opponent plays at a reasonable pace. Many people have no idea what is going on against you and will take a lot longer than normal. Make sure they don't slow-play you into a draw. I saw this a lot when I was playing physical magic. Despite being very fast with Doomsday (or even ANT, Omni, etc) I'd go to time because my opponents would boggart the clock.

[the driver]

Along the speed recommendations, you need to make sure your opponent plays at a reasonable pace. Many people have no idea what is going on against you and will take a lot longer than normal. Make sure they don't slow-play you into a draw. I saw this a lot when I was playing physical magic. Despite being very fast with Doomsday (or even ANT, Omni, etc) I'd go to time because my opponents would boggart the clock.

This is important advice. Especially during the combo people will "tank" even though they have no play. They are looking for you to make a mistake or just can't keep up with what is happening. I deliberately review along the away to try and mitigate this. Also if your opponent goes through your deck post DD, nearly everyone does, don't let that eat away at the clock.

[sillysam71]

I had a guy sort my entire deck post doomsday at worlds a few years ago. Looking back, I would call a judge on time, but it was a shelldock emmy pile that I knew he wouldn't know about and we had plenty of time. I won anyway.

I've also found that my opponent is usually the reason that I would get to time, for most of the reasons stated above. Just gotta push them along and call a judge if they're not cooperating.


To all the OG Doomsday ers.

When did you realize you where ready to take Doomsday to a large tournament/What requirements did you feel you had to meet?

My first Doomsday tournament was GP Columbus in...2008? Not the flash hulk one, the one Saito won with Merfolk and then got banned. Looking back, I feel like you're never ready for your first big tournament with DD, but it's an integral part to becoming ready. You can only goldfish so much. I basically just had a handful of basic piles memorized and that was it. You'll make a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but I feel like that's the only way to properly learn. Just go for it, dive in, relax and try to play tight. Think your plays through to minimize mistakes and walk your way through the combo so that your opponent doesn't get confused, make you start over, and then mess you up or something like that. Good luck.

[Kanti]

The new 5cc tutor looks very interesting considering Doomsday cost 3cc. If no one has seen it it's;

Dark Petition 3BB
Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. The shuffle your library.

Spell Mastery - If there are two or more instant and/or sorcery cards in your graveyard add BBB to your mana pool.

[Ancestral]

The new 5cc tutor looks very interesting considering Doomsday cost 3cc. If no one has seen it it's;

Dark Petition 3BB
Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. The shuffle your library.

Spell Mastery - If there are two or more instant and/or sorcery cards in your graveyard add BBB to your mana pool.

I m alreafy working on it for doomsday, not sure if its great but defentlt wprths the test! Perhaps i gonna test wih 2 maind+1side or 1mais+1side

[Ancestral]

The new 5cc tutor looks very interesting considering Doomsday cost 3cc. If no one has seen it it's;

Dark Petition 3BB
Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. The shuffle your library.

Spell Mastery - If there are two or more instant and/or sorcery cards in your graveyard add BBB to your mana pool.

I m alreafy working on it for doomsday, not sure if its great but defentlt wprths the test! Perhaps i gonna test wih 2 maind+1side or 1mais+1side

[Mhenlo]

Is this card better than Burning Wish is the real question. It would allow us to cut Red but then we have to run Tendrils main and don't have the utility of BW. IMO it helps ANT the most because that was the deck that was short on Tutors. I could see it making it easier to SB Doomsday in storm decks.

[Kathal]

My thoughts about the new Tutor:

If you want to play it, play it in the old German DDFT version, with Cabal Rit, Iggy and Tendrils main. Otherwise, you can't support the 5 Mana that easy. Furthermore, I doubt, that it would be better than the Burning Wish builds, simply because they "cost" the same amount of Mana, but the new Tutor needs a higher starting investment. Also, a Wish board is better atm (at least in my opinion) than a normal one.

The card might be playable in ANT, but even there I doubt it (it has to replace ADN, but the card isn't that great anymore).

Edit says: the best deck would be SPI for it, simply because they lack another tutor.

Greetings,
Kathal

[Namida]

I don't think this card is better than Burning Wish in the list I'm playing now. I agree that I'm not sure this deck currently has the mana to support a five mana spell; I enjoy how cantrips reduce the costs of our piles to play around soft counters, and the biggest problem I have with Dark Petition is that it's not that easy to pay five up front for the spell since we don't play many rituals, and it's hard to use LED mana for it unlike some of our other cards. I remember the brief stint playing Ad Nauseam in this deck and casting it was a pain.

The upsides I can see for Dark Petition over Burning Wish are that it's not red and that it can make two black mana into three (which shouldn't come up often anyway since it's a corner case that you can generate five mana but not three black). That being said...If this card ends up making a splash, I would assume that it's going to be a different build of Doomsday. This card isn't bad...if you don't want to play red, I think this card might be what you're looking for. One of the biggest issues people seem to have with straight UB Doomsday is that just four Doomsday isn't enough business and all of the other options were more situational or were card disadvantage. In this way, I'd say I'm not sure going back to the German list is the way to go--I feel like the strength of the current builds is that we're not required to play cards like IGG and Cabal Ritual.

Basically...I feel like there's some potential here; however, when I see this card I think "Five mana is a lot, but I also don't want to play a ton of Cabal Rituals to make this card good."

[the driver]

Until people start testing it is hard to say with certainty if Dark Petition is better than Burning Wish.

A wish board is also in some ways a double edged sword since often your answers are broader to get more utility (obviously a good thing) but sometimes are as potent as you would want (i.e. Massacre vs Dread of Night). At any rate this is all speculation.

I get the sense that I board out Wishes more often than others so I'm am probably slightly biased on being fine with cutting Wish. My starting point will be this,

17 Lands - include Karakas b/c no wishes
16 Cantrips - The usual
8 Disruption/Protection - inc Chain of Vapor b/c no wishes
Acceleration - 4 LED, 2 Petal, 4 Dark Rit, 1 Rain, 1 Cabal Rit
Business - 4 Doomsday, 1 Dark Petition, 1 Tendrils, 1 Ideas Unbound

Sideboard (very much just thoughts)
Labman or Shelldock + Emmy
Decays + Trop
Contract
Discard
Dread of Nights
Swarms
Mentors / Flusterstorm / Who knows?

Not exactly a massive shift. DP is the 5th Doomsday and I'm guessing that will be enough. Maindeck Tendrils isn't the worst since you have cheaper Brainstorm piles and can go for mini Tendrils more often (great vs Burn and Delver). I want to slowly adjust things to get a good feel how Game 1s feel and how the deck can leverage the card. Also want to see how I feel without the wishboard before I start really messing with the mainboard.

[flrn]

My thoughts about the new Tutor:

If you want to play it, play it in the old German DDFT version, with Cabal Rit, Iggy and Tendrils main. Otherwise, you can't support the 5 Mana that easy. Furthermore, I doubt, that it would be better than the Burning Wish builds, simply because they "cost" the same amount of Mana, but the new Tutor needs a higher starting investment. Also, a Wish board is better atm (at least in my opinion) than a normal one.

The card might be playable in ANT, but even there I doubt it (it has to replace ADN, but the card isn't that great anymore).

Edit says: the best deck would be SPI for it, simply because they lack another tutor.

Greetings,
Kathal

The point about playing the new tutor is, that you can cut red from the deck allowing you to play more basic lands, which will make you less vulnerable against Wasteland, which is just too good against the four colour versions including Burning Wish.

[Kanti]

What does a non-Wish version of Doomsday look like nowadays? Burning Wish is version is easy as I just look up Namida's recent posts, lol.

[Kidbails]

What does a non-Wish version of Doomsday look like nowadays? Burning Wish is version is easy as I just look up Namida's recent posts, lol.

This is the version that I'm testing with Dark Petition. No idea if it's good and the additional green source might be overkill but I think it needs more testing. Sideboard is a hot mess (tendrils could probably be cut, possibly the duress for higher impact cards)

Business
4x Doomsday
2x Dark Petition
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Laboratory Maniac
Cantrips
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Sensei's Divining Top
Mana
4x Dark Ritual
1x Rain of Filth
1x Cabal Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
Protection
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Duress
Lands
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
2x Island
2x Swamp

-Sideboard-
3x Xantid Swarm
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Dread of Night
2x Flusterstorm
1x Cruel Bargain
1x Duress
1x Tendrils of Agony


I've also considered playing a version that drops the green and plays white for silence effects and mentor out of the board. We can also play Karakas if we go white, though I'm considering a sideboard copy as it is. There was brief mention of testing terminus or entreat the angels as well, which I might try. Furthermore, I'd like to see if I can try playing a version that includes counterbalance (which I tried previously to very little success) and daze (which is very old tech). I doubt they'll be better than the discard package that we already play, but only testing will tell.

[Kanti]

So now my question is why wouldn’t you just run Infernal Tutor over Dark Petition? It's combo with LED is much better, and you can blank Daze and/or Spell Pierce.

[Namida]

Infernal Tutor doesn't play well with Doomsday wanting you to have access to cards in your hand, so you're basically required to have a Top in order to win immediately with Infernal Tutor, unless you start moving closer to ANT territory by adding more rituals and Past in Flames/Ill-Gotten Gains. The card combos well with LED, but is far worse at working together with most of the other cards in your deck.

[Kathal]

So now my question is why wouldn’t you just run Infernal Tutor over Dark Petition? It's combo with LED is much better, and you can blank Daze and/or Spell Pierce.

As Namida said, you are getting close to ANT, which is neither good nor bad. If you want to go this route, look at the old German DDFT lists. Here is my old list (by the way, that was before I played with GP, so it is older then 2 years, and I didn't copy the SB, cause completely outdated):


4 Doomsday
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Meditate
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top

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

4 Silence
3 Orim's Chant
1 Chain of Vapor

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Plains


Furthermore, I think, that something like this could be a good start for DP in DDFT. Although, Kidbails list looks already nice (I wouldn't play the Lab Man in the main and I would play a MD CoV).

Greetings,
Kathal

[Kidbails]

Although, Kidbails list looks already nice (I wouldn't play the Lab Man in the main and I would play a MD CoV).

I've found that either is fine. Chain of vapor I think is better at beating hate and lab man gives you the option for a faster pass the turn pile. I think it might be more important in a version without burning wish because we lose the option to make a pass the turn pile featuring time spiral, but I don't think that's a primary reason to have lab man instead. We still have the double doomsday option, I'm just terrible with double doomsday piles. Personal preference mostly.

[the driver]

This is what I'm running as a start. Similar to my sketch and close to Kidbails.

Business
4x Doomsday
1x Dark Petition
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ideas Unbound

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

Mana
4x Dark Ritual
1x Rain of Filth
1x Cabal Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
2x Lotus Petal

Protection
4x Silence
2x Duress
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Chain of Vapor

Lands
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Scrubland
1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Karakas

-Sideboard-
2x Tropical Island
2x Xantid Swarm
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Dread of Night
2x Flusterstorm
1x Infernal Contract
1x Duress
1x Lab Maniac

Going to test it a bunch soon. So far I haven't felt like I needed a 2nd Dark Petition but time will tell. The board is just a guess but I want to consider more options that also take advantage of Doomsday and hopefully fill the void of Wish --> Empty and Wish -->Time Sprial that I used often. Although, finding Doomsday more often may do that. It's fun trying the new card out.

[Kanti]

I don't see why you would want to ruin your mana-base to run Silence, when Therapy+Probe/other discard combos so nicely. I'd be inclined to go -4 Silence, +3 Cabal Therapy, -1 Lotus Petal, +2 Dig through Time. Since you're not going for quick LED>Wish taking out Petals is a decent idea for a better late-game.

Then you can go -1 Scrubland, -1 Tundra, -1 Plains, +1 Island, +1 Swamp, +1 Underground Sea for a super-solid mana-base, and you still have Karakas.

[the driver]

I don't see why you would want to ruin your mana-base to run Silence, when Therapy+Probe/other discard combos so nicely. I'd be inclined to go -4 Silence, +3 Cabal Therapy, -1 Lotus Petal, +2 Dig through Time. Since you're not going for quick LED>Wish taking out Petals is a decent idea for a better late-game.

Then you can go -1 Scrubland, -1 Tundra, -1 Plains, +1 Island, +1 Swamp, +1 Underground Sea for a super-solid mana-base, and you still have Karakas.

Considering I just cut red from that manabase, I'm feeling great! The mana is totally fine.

Silence vs discard has been debated in Doomsday for a while and theres plenty of posts on the pluses / minuses. I recently tried Silence and am not looking back.

[l33twash0r]

Considering I just cut red from that manabase, I'm feeling great! The mana is totally fine.

Silence vs discard has been debated in Doomsday for a while and theres plenty of posts on the pluses / minuses. I recently tried Silence and am not looking back.

What about Orim's Chant (http://magiccards.info/ps/en/11.html) instead of Silence?

[Namida]

It's basically choosing between having the ability to kick Orim's Chant and being able to cast your protection against opponents who can't be targeted.

[Togores]

Why now no one is building a dig version of doomsday. And even more if your not playing a cabal full version ?

[Lemnear]

Why now no one is building a dig version of doomsday. And even more if your not playing a cabal full version ?

You could run Cabal Ritual + Dark Petition or DTT + Street Wraith, but it looks like people in this thread still love SDT + Wish (+Silence) for whatever reason. Not worth your time Rodrigo and neither mine.

[Countertoplol]

You could run Cabal Ritual + Dark Petition or DTT + Street Wraith, but it looks like people in this thread still love SDT + Wish (+Silence) for whatever reason. Not worth your time Rodrigo and neither mine.

I get that you love to try to start arguments, but people are testing with cabal ritual + dark petition as we speak. It's been posted in this thread as well as stormboards. Also, most wish/SDT lists are running discard, not silence.

[Kanti]

Don't see why you would ever cut SDT from the deck. From reading your past posts here all you do is bang on about SW, a card that you probably have never tested in the deck. Since you have last spoken about SW, how has it performed for you vs SDT? I can only agree with your sentiments on Silence.

Anyhow, yes, DTT deserves some shout-outs here, though the UU is rough.

[Namida]

It isn't like people here aren't open to change. It remains to be seen if Dark Petition is the real deal here and worth playing Cabal Rituals again. I'll certainly try it out and if it works out I'd be sad to see my Burning Wishes go. It's just a pretty tall order to justify Dig Through Time and Street Wraith over Sensei's Top and Burning Wish. I mean, I guess you're still playing the same number of cantrips if you switch out Tops for Wraiths, but I like the versatility of playing cards that aren't just combo pieces and that's what I feel Street Wraith is.

Dig Through Time is powerful, but I feel like it requires you to jump through more hoops than Burning Wish does to get it to work, and Burning Wish contributes to a lot of the Turn 1-2 wins I get with this deck by being +1 Storm, which Dig Through Time can't do. That's probably fine if you don't want to win through Storm (Laboratory Maniac is plenty viable) or you don't care about being fast, but it seems like the main thing people complain about when they talk about Doomsday is that they can't get it to kill as quickly as ANT. Also, I don't think Cabal Ritual is a reason to play Dig Through Time. People originally started moving away from Cabal Ritual when Gitaxian Probe was printed because that made Ideas Unbound's double cantrip piles more appealing than playing Meditate and other Draw 4 spells because Ideas Unbound (+Burning Wish) casts more spells for the same amount of mana or less; Cabal Ritual's mana cost has a nasty habit of making you end up with BBBU and unable to cast Ideas Unbound in the same turn. I imagine there would be similar issues with Dig Through Time--frankly, the mana cost is the main reason the card was initially dismissed and playing more black intensive cards doesn't make that problem go away. In a nutshell, it feels kind of crazy to me to try to play BBB spells, spells that make BBB, and then multiple UU spells in your deck and then claim that this is the best configuration to go with--the power of Dig Through Time means nothing if you can hardly cast it. And really, I'm not even that hot on playing Cabal Ritual again in the first place--as I said before, I don't like playing a ton of cards that are mainly combo pieces; I enjoy that the deck gets away with a minimum number of fast mana since cantrips make mana after you stack your deck. I'm going to try it out, but Dark Petition would have to be pretty awesome for me to be happy about having more rituals in my deck.

[Squirrel]

Why now no one is building a dig version of doomsday. And even more if your not playing a cabal full version ?

I'm a storm addict, but in no way an expert in this deck, but i have saved this in cockatrice vor some time now:

3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
2 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ideas Unbound
2 Dig Through Time
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Flooded Strand
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Void Snare
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 2 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 Time Spiral

Feel free to make it better/take it to a tournament.

[Lemnear]

Don't see why you would ever cut SDT from the deck. From reading your past posts here all you do is bang on about SW, a card that you probably have never tested in the deck. Since you have last spoken about SW, how has it performed for you vs SDT? I can only agree with your sentiments on Silence.

Anyhow, yes, DTT deserves some shout-outs here, though the UU is rough.

Mainly because SDT is a very slow and mana-intense card which does not create raw cardadvantage like DTT and maneuvers Doomsday as a combo deck into a really unfortunate position in this metagame. Wraith/Dig makes the deck a lot faster and helps grabbing combo-parts and/or protection on demand while you otherwise would durdle with SDT + fetches for several turns to see a similar amount of cards. It performed pretty good to support Doomsday and make the deck a lot more streamlined, which I think is desirable. Of course it does not "fix" the known issues with the card Doomsday itself, but casting eot DTT with a Ritual in hand to just grab Probe + Doomsday, untap and combo, is really strong and nothing Dark Petition can do at all as it can only increase the density of virtual Doomsdays for the cost of an additional two mana. You can untap after DTT, but with DP it's not possible.


It isn't like people here aren't open to change. It remains to be seen if Dark Petition is the real deal here and worth playing Cabal Rituals again. I'll certainly try it out and if it works out I'd be sad to see my Burning Wishes go. It's just a pretty tall order to justify Dig Through Time and Street Wraith over Sensei's Top and Burning Wish. I mean, I guess you're still playing the same number of cantrips if you switch out Tops for Wraiths, but I like the versatility of playing cards that aren't just combo pieces and that's what I feel Street Wraith is.

As mentioned above, the idea of Dark Petition has serious drawbacks as it costs a total of 5 mana to cast Doomsday instead of 3 in addition to all costs you need to afford to combo off, while DTT allows you to setup your combo during your opponents turn and not only frees up a full two mana compared to DP, doesn't require Cabal Rituals, but also creates pure cardadvantage. The competition here is not even close, so I'm baffled testing is done with DP rather than with DTT in this thread. Maybe because I was talking about DTT in combination with Wraith (which is a redundancy tool) and questioning SDT which rubbed some people the wring way to dismiss the idea directly.


Dig Through Time is powerful, but I feel like it requires you to jump through more hoops than Burning Wish does to get it to work, and Burning Wish contributes to a lot of the Turn 1-2 wins I get with this deck by being +1 Storm, which Dig Through Time can't do. That's probably fine if you don't want to win through Storm (Laboratory Maniac is plenty viable) or you don't care about being fast, but it seems like the main thing people complain about when they talk about Doomsday is that they can't get it to kill as quickly as ANT.

"Jumping though hoops" isn't the right term if you are able to cut a color and run a manabase with basics while being a lot more resistant to counters, discard and Counterbalance (DTT->Decay + X). You can't seriously talk about being fast, if you run SDT and are fine to durdle the next full 2-4 turns with it (not even talking about the mana invested) to see the same number of cards Wraith/Dig does in a blink of an eye. There is a lot of potential modgame power still burried between DTT and Rain of Filth as well once you hit 3 lands or more. Imagine the setup with 4 lands in longer games: the interaction of both cards wield 7 mana and 2 fresh cards by themselves.


Also, I don't think Cabal Ritual is a reason to play Dig Through Time.

No one said you should run both.


People originally started moving away from Cabal Ritual when Gitaxian Probe was printed because that made Ideas Unbound's double cantrip piles more appealing than playing Meditate and other Draw 4 spells because Ideas Unbound (+Burning Wish) casts more spells for the same amount of mana or less; Cabal Ritual's mana cost has a nasty habit of making you end up with BBBU and unable to cast Ideas Unbound in the same turn. I imagine there would be similar issues with Dig Through Time--frankly, the mana cost is the main reason the card was initially dismissed and playing more black intensive cards doesn't make that problem go away.

I don't get the point. You cast DTT eot, untap and win. Cabal Ritual ties up blue mana if you cast Dark Petition to grab Doomsday. Apples and Oranges.


In a nutshell, it feels kind of crazy to me to try to play BBB spells, spells that make BBB, and then multiple UU spells in your deck and then claim that this is the best configuration to go with--the power of Dig Through Time means nothing if you can hardly cast it.

Are you making points based on a configuration (DTT + Cabal Ritual) I did not suggested nor claimed to be the best? Do you really tell me that casting eot DTT is unbearable for Doomsdays manabase? I beg to pardon. Can you start to differ Wraith/Dig and Cabal/Petition as two different approaches for further discussion and getting the idea out of your head that you ever want to cast DTT & Doomsday in a single turn?


And really, I'm not even that hot on playing Cabal Ritual again in the first place--as I said before, I don't like playing a ton of cards that are mainly combo pieces; I enjoy that the deck gets away with a minimum number of fast mana since cantrips make mana after you stack your deck. I'm going to try it out, but Dark Petition would have to be pretty awesome for me to be happy about having more rituals in my deck.

I gave my 0.02$ about Cabal Ritual and Petition which is imo horrible. If I just look the the combined mana-requirements to cast Petition into Doomsday and combo off immediately, I'm getting dizzy, aside the question why you bother with Doomsday at all if you could win with PIF at this commiting point of deckbuilding and close 52-card overlap with ANT (if you cut Wishes for petition)

[Namida]

I apologize; I thought the person you were replying to was asking "Why aren't you testing DTT if you are playing Cabal Ritual?"

Let's start over. In what way does Dig Through Time speed the deck up? I fail to see how Dig Through Time makes the deck faster than with Top and Burning Wish. Doomsday is a consistent Turn 3 deck. When I play Top, it isn't often that I'm sitting there and "durdling around" Turns 2-4. If I cast Turn 1 Top, it's often as a saved draw; the draw plus having Burning Wish in my deck for +1 Storm in double cantrip piles directly contributes to my ability to execute the combo on Turn 2. What does your decklist look like, to make Dig Through Time push this deck's Turn 2 win rate?

[QQQ]

Just a thought. If DP lets Red be cut, and the deck be essentially a two color deck with a light SB splash, then I think Lake of the Dead could be run. It directly facilitates DP into DDay with a combination of U and B floating. After turn three, it helps ignore taxing counters, especially Flusterstorm, which it doesnt increase count for. And if you are running DTT and/or Cabal, it will likely guarantee being able to cast either pre-Dday. Even post-Dday if you dont have to activate it to cast Dday. And it was erratad with Mox Diamond and the like so there is no opportunity for your opponent to Waste the target in response, nor is there a trigger to be Stifled. The CiP effect is a special action(playing a land), and the sac is a mana ability.

[leegoo]

DTT does not speed up DD, if anything it slows it down. (at best you might DTT on 3) If the idea were a faster DD deck, you'd be playing personal tutor. DTT is ok (w/ street wraith) but not anything special imo. Fine, but not groundbreaking.

DD is a t4 deck in basically all of it's current configurations, with the possibility of being faster some amount of the time.

Just observations... ymmv.

[Lemnear]

I apologize; I thought the person you were replying to was asking "Why aren't you testing DTT if you are playing Cabal Ritual?"

Let's start over. In what way does Dig Through Time speed the deck up? I fail to see how Dig Through Time makes the deck faster than with Top and Burning Wish. Doomsday is a consistent Turn 3 deck. When I play Top, it isn't often that I'm sitting there and "durdling around" Turns 2-4. If I cast Turn 1 Top, it's often as a saved draw; the draw plus having Burning Wish in my deck for +1 Storm in double cantrip piles directly contributes to my ability to execute the combo on Turn 2. What does your decklist look like, to make Dig Through Time push this deck's Turn 2 win rate?

You know it; I know it; everyone who actually played a few games with Doomsday knows, that Doomsday is neither consistent nor a turn 3 deck, but more a turn 4 one given you find the Doomsday, the fitting mana to cast it, a way to draw into the pile and potentially required protection all in the meantime, which DTT does with a higher consistency and less color requirement than Wish/SDT to REALLY combo turn 3-4 thanks to the actual cardadvantage and improved cardselection especially against resistance. I dunno if we really should start discussing builds, if you set hyperboles like "SDT Doomsday kills consistent turn 3" and "DTT list have to push turn 2 win rates" as the base for discussion, especially if you admit that people complain about the decks speed. They would not if the deck would really kill "consistent turn 3".


Just a thought. If DP lets Red be cut, and the deck be essentially a two color deck with a light SB splash, then I think Lake of the Dead could be run. It directly facilitates DP into DDay with a combination of U and B floating. After turn three, it helps ignore taxing counters, especially Flusterstorm, which it doesnt increase count for. And if you are running DTT and/or Cabal, it will likely guarantee being able to cast either pre-Dday. Even post-Dday if you dont have to activate it to cast Dday. And it was erratad with Mox Diamond and the like so there is no opportunity for your opponent to Waste the target in response, nor is there a trigger to be Stifled. The CiP effect is a special action(playing a land), and the sac is a mana ability.

Is there any real advantage of Lake of the Dead over Rain of Filth as it does nothing on it's own?

[QQQ]

Is there any real advantage of Lake of the Dead over Rain of Filth as it does nothing on it's own?

Uncounterable. Especially by taxing counters when you would start your combo with it. Or by Fstorm when you would cast it towards the end.
Basically undiscardable.
Reusable. At least in longer games.
Multiple copies arent redundant. At least in longer games.
T3, Lake nets you four mana. It takes RoF two more turns to do so. And that's if somehow you have made all your land drops.
Gets around Hatebears. Thalia, Ethersworn, etc. Likewise, gets around Chalice and 3Sphere.

Off the top of my head. Probably more. Dont understand the last part. Rain does nothing on its own either.

[leegoo]

maybe...once upon a time when you could play lake and sacrifice your only other land for a ritual... probably not, but maybe. Now, no way. You open yourself up to way too many blowouts, even if wasteland isn't as common as it once was.

Sweet though... love Lake.

How are two NOT redundant? And lake is also useless on it's own.

It doesn't get around hate cards... you aren't overpowering any of the cards mentioned with lake (OR rof for that matter), and armageddoning yourself against taxing effects (either card) seems suicidal.

[QQQ]

maybe...once upon a time when you could play lake and sacrifice your only other land for a ritual... probably not, but maybe. Now, no way. You open yourself up to way too many blowouts, even if wasteland isn't as common as it once was.

Sweet though... love Lake.

How are two NOT redundant? And lake is also useless on it's own.

It doesn't get around hate cards... you aren't overpowering any of the cards mentioned with lake (OR rof for that matter), and armageddoning yourself against taxing effects (either card) seems suicidal.

I dont see how you could possibly allow Waste to affect Lake. They cant do it in response to playing it. They cant do it in response to the activation for any real effect. With a two-color manabase you have plenty of basics. With 9 fetches, its pretty easy to fetch for a Sea, play Lake and tap Sea for U before they get priority. Waste is easy to play around.

If you are in a long game. Say, against Miracles, you could easily have enough lands where you could play a Lake, pass the turn, then play another and activate both.

Lake is useless on its own. That is, if you have no Swamps. But Rain is fine if you have no Swamps?

RoF cant be resolved with Chalice in play. RoF nets you even less mana with Thalia in play. And even less with 3 Sphere in play. RoF cant cast a PTT Dday with Cannonist in play.

Assuming,as most would, that you have discard for hard counters, I have no problem losing lands to ignore soft counters the turn I go off.

[leegoo]

Definitely test it out and report back, I'm willing to have my mind changed.

I expect you'll end up seeing a lot of games against tempo where you end up getting 3 for 1'd, which isn't a good time, but like I said, I'm happy to have it proved that I've been looking over one of my favorite cards for the last 15 years.

Again, nothing you've said would make me want to keep hands with LotD in them. (And I'm not saying RoF is an all star or anything, it's just a *fine 5th dark ritual if you are in the market for that.)

[Lemnear]

The problem with Lake is that every land you fetch has to be a swamp type which exposes you to Wastelands

[QQQ]

The problem with Lake is that every land you fetch has to be a swamp type which exposes you to Wastelands

That is true if you want to use it on turn three. But I recall someone insisting that this is not a T3 deck. Playing Island, then Swamp, then Fetchland, then fetch Sea into Lake on T4 is very reasonable. Doesnt expose you to Waste, allows the deck to function completely, and still gives access to UU, as well as a ton of B when going off turn four.

[emidln]

You know it; I know it; everyone who actually played a few games with Doomsday knows, that Doomsday is neither consistent nor a turn 3 deck, but more a turn 4 one given you find the Doomsday, the fitting mana to cast it, a way to draw into the pile and potentially required protection all in the meantime, which DTT does with a higher consistency and less color requirement than Wish/SDT to REALLY combo turn 3-4 thanks to the actual cardadvantage and improved cardselection especially against resistance.

I've found Doomsday to be a turn 3 deck. When watching others, I find that their fundamental turn varies greatly. For the better pilots, it's 3. For the players without enough experience to see alternate lines, it tends to be 4 or 5. A lot of this comes down to how you sequence cantrips and what needs to be valued for each hand.

Cutting Burning Wish is close to impossible to do. Any time you cut Burning Wish, you have to realize that you don't free up 3-4 slots, you free up 1-2. That's because once you go from 3 Doomsday, 3-4 Burning Wish to 0 Burning Wish, you are now obligated to play an additional Doomsday and Tendrils of Agony. You play Burning Wish because drawing Tendrils of Agony is almost never what you want. Wish has some value in that it can be a worse (corner cases better) Doomsday, and also deal with unfortunate situations like killing a dude, grabbing some tokens, etc. It's also rarely stone cold dead. It slows you down in the cases when it's not Doomsday, but speeds you up in situations where it's not Dark Petition, Tendrils of Agony, or random other awful things.

Now, if you do want to play Dig Through Time, I won't fault you. That card is busted. To play Dig through Time instead of Burning Wish, you're going to assert one of two things: UU to maybe find Doomsday + card is better than always finding Doomsday at 1R and the opportunity cost of drawing Tendrils of Agony is made up for by the raw power of DTT. I'd be willing to hear an argument about how the general power level of DTT with the 4th Doomsday is high enough to outweight Burning Wish's ability to let you ignore REB/Pyroblast, not ever draw Tendrils, never miss on Doomsday, add additional storm, and deal with game one threats like Thalia.

Cutting SDT doesn't add velocity to the deck. SDT is at least a mana stored ahead of time, often more due to LED. The only things cutting SDT does are opening you up to discard, requiring more cards in hand, and requiring more mana on the combo turn.

[Kanti]

To DDFT pilots; if you had to jam a DTT or two into a Burning Wish build for value (assuming it would create value) what would you cut? For instance, I had read Namida saying he hadn't used Chromatic Sphere for months, although admitting in the same vein he probably should find himself to have 4 mana open more to do so.

Nevermind, found my answer in post #2227. Just replace Cruise with DTT.

[emidln]

So, I have been jamming DTT in a Wish list. It looks like this right now:

3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Vapor Snare
SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 4 Force of Will

This has been running very smoothly on mtgo. The next thing for me to test is if I can get away with cutting Burning Wish (for the reasons I mentioned above). It would smooth out the mana and give me the 4th copy of Doomsday and Dig through Time in my deck. The complete cut would be something along the lines of:

-3 Burning Wish, +1 Tendrils, +1 Doomsday, +1 Dig Through Time
-2 Volcanic Island, -1 underground sea +1 Island, +1 Swamp, +10th fetch, playing 4 misty rainforests over strands/tarns

The sideboard would change the most, and likely look like this:

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Tropical Island
4 Force of Will
2 bounce spells
1 haymaker (possibly JTMS)

The things that I'll keep a watch out for is the need to play THROUGH reb/pyroblast, situations where drawing tendrils or having it in my main loses me games against the meta, and lack of wish into bounce/discard. This must be balanced against the raw power of drawing the last Doomsday and the 4th Dig through Time and better mana stability.

As an aside, because I often bring in Force of Will, I have less hand information post-board for Cabal Therapy. This has led me to prefer Thoughtseize/Duress over Therapy when playing with Forces or other countermagic in my 75.

[Ancestral]

So, I have been jamming DTT in a Wish list. It looks like this right now:

3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Vapor Snare
SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 4 Force of Will

This has been running very smoothly on mtgo. The next thing for me to test is if I can get away with cutting Burning Wish (for the reasons I mentioned above). It would smooth out the mana and give me the 4th copy of Doomsday and Dig through Time in my deck. The complete cut would be something along the lines of:

-3 Burning Wish, +1 Tendrils, +1 Doomsday, +1 Dig Through Time
-2 Volcanic Island, -1 underground sea +1 Island, +1 Swamp, +10th fetch, playing 4 misty rainforests over strands/tarns

The sideboard would change the most, and likely look like this:

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Tropical Island
4 Force of Will
2 bounce spells
1 haymaker (possibly JTMS)

The things that I'll keep a watch out for is the need to play THROUGH reb/pyroblast, situations where drawing tendrils or having it in my main loses me games against the meta, and lack of wish into bounce/discard. This must be balanced against the raw power of drawing the last Doomsday and the 4th Dig through Time and better mana stability.

As an aside, because I often bring in Force of Will, I have less hand information post-board for Cabal Therapy. This has led me to prefer Thoughtseize/Duress over Therapy when playing with Forces or other countermagic in my 75.

seems very interesting! usually you bring in forces in wich matchups and what cards side out for it?

[the driver]

So, I have been jamming DTT in a Wish list. It looks like this right now:

This has been running very smoothly on mtgo. The next thing for me to test is if I can get away with cutting Burning Wish (for the reasons I mentioned above). It would smooth out the mana and give me the 4th copy of Doomsday and Dig through Time in my deck. The complete cut would be something along the lines of:

-3 Burning Wish, +1 Tendrils, +1 Doomsday, +1 Dig Through Time
-2 Volcanic Island, -1 underground sea +1 Island, +1 Swamp, +10th fetch, playing 4 misty rainforests over strands/tarns

The sideboard would change the most, and likely look like this:

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Tropical Island
4 Force of Will
2 bounce spells
1 haymaker (possibly JTMS)

The things that I'll keep a watch out for is the need to play THROUGH reb/pyroblast, situations where drawing tendrils or having it in my main loses me games against the meta, and lack of wish into bounce/discard. This must be balanced against the raw power of drawing the last Doomsday and the 4th Dig through Time and better mana stability.
.

What do you think about running a single Burning Wish in place of Tendrils. The 10th Fetch or 3rd Island could be a Volcanic. The sideboard for it could be limited to Tendrils, Contract, Discard, and Massacre (or similar choices). The last three could be sideboard candidates regardless of the Wish so it feels like a minimal investment.

A single wish would,
- keep DD pile storm counts on par
- Allow you play around REB
- Have utility in places where Tendrils would be dead for discard / massacre (narrow I know)

The downside I see is there are less instances where you could cast spells and DTT into natural Tendrils because I assume the extra 1R would make Wish less desirable in this function, especially with less LEDs. I also am not sure if I'm underestimating the ability to mini Tendrils, get a life buffer, cast DTT with expended cards to find DD and re-stack the Tendrils in the pile.

[Kathal]

Big Problem with this idea is (so running one BW in the main) that you can't tutor for both Contract and Tendrils with only 1 BW. You need at least 2 in the main deck to open such lines. And if you want to run the full playset of Dig/DDFT main, you don't want to run BW.

Otherwise, the list looks pretty interesting, I would run Flusterstorm over FoW, but with the playset Dig FoW might be better.

Greetings,
Kathal

[the driver]

Big Problem with this idea is (so running one BW in the main) that you can't tutor for both Contract and Tendrils with only 1 BW. You need at least 2 in the main deck to open such lines. And if you want to run the full playset of Dig/DDFT main, you don't want to run BW.

Otherwise, the list looks pretty interesting, I would run Flusterstorm over FoW, but with the playset Dig FoW might be better.

Greetings,
Kathal

That is a fair comment. I guess the answer would be you could still try and win with Lab Maniac and use the Wish --> Contract to get the extra discard in your pile. There's no doubt the utility of Wish is diminished (relative to the old configuration) with this idea. I'm just wondering if a singleton Wish can potentially be better than a maindeck Tendrils. There are some cheap piles and nice double cantrip piles with a maindeck Tendrils.

Just a thought...although I may be talking (thinking) myself out of it.

[Doishy]

For a long while I have been running some combo of 2/3 DTT and a singleton wish. I do advise pumping it up to two as I am now testing. Two allows for, as stated, you being able to fetch utility from your sideboard alongside the tendrils and additionally when you have a lot of surgicals in peoples' sideboards as I do in my meta, allows you to side out one DDay postboard and still have access to the full DTT/BW for DDay package.

Has anyone had any viable success using dark petition or is it just a passing fancy?

[cdnza]

Has anyone had any viable success using dark petition or is it just a passing fancy?

There was recently a wishless build with Dark Petition and Past in Flames posted on Kai's ANT Facebook group. I'm not sure if I can repost it here but that's where you can find it.

[Togores]

It was like an evolution of the first draft list I posted:
4 dark petition
4 doomsday
4 gp
4 bs
4 led (-1)
20
4 dr
4 cabal ritual
4 sensei
1 pif
7 discard
20
1 rain
1 toa
1 ideas
2 lp
1 chain


1 island
1 swamp
2 usea
1 bayou
1 tropical
1 volcanic
1 badland (other basic island)
8 fetch
16


Fluster?
Reb?
Fow?
Etw?


Maniac
Decay
Xs
Pyro
Fluster
Emrakul
Sheldock
Grapeshot
Helm
Notion

Toa
Ponder
Version
Silence
Fluster
Daze
Mentor

[the driver]

That list looks a lot like the older German lists that ran Infernal Tutor and Ill Gotten Gains except with Dark Petition and PiF. I'm curious how much getting the mana to cast Dark Petition is? This list plays a lot more rituals than traditional lists so maybe it is not that bad.

[Togores]

At the end you have to play 4 cabal ritual as most important card. Then problem is cabal works not well with top and works good with preordain and casting probes pre combo wich all is what dday dont want to do. Thats my main issues with the deck now.

[Amunshax]

Was just discussing with a friend, if 3 fetchies, 3 duress and one infernal Tutor is keepable vs Bug delver on the draw, thoughts?

[snorlaxcom]

Was just discussing with a friend, if 3 fetchies, 3 duress and one infernal Tutor is keepable vs Bug delver on the draw, thoughts?

So you are keeping a hand that loses to a discard spell in the next turns? You have to wait 3 turns to empty your hand for hellbent as is, so that sounds like an auto-mull. Would be funny to duress into hand with clique.

[Amunshax]

Burning wish, sry...

[Kathal]

Burning wish, sry...

Still, the hand loses to a single discard spell (if he has it on Turn 1). You have no cantrip to find any business, so losing the BW would be more than rough. Furthermore, this specific hand will have huge problems against a Turn 1 Delver, since it is to fast (especially if you lose the Tutor).

I would mull this hand without thinking twice.

Greetings,
Kathal

[emidln]

I'm pretty happy with the no-Wish maindeck. 4 DD, 4 Dig is really really good. Dig seems to address the consistency issues the deck has when it has to aggressively cantrip to find Doomsday while providing a means towards either Doomsday or recovering from attrition.

I've tried a number of sideboard plans. I can't say that any of them are particularly impressive. The most interesting are Abrupt Decay + Force of Will, but the Miracle plan (4 FoW, 4 CB, 4 Mentor, 3 Terminus) is also good by virtue of being difficult to attack from decks that can deal with Storm well. Mentor in general is a very good threat, and whether we end up dropping FoW or not, a combination of Mentors and Abrupt Decays is going to lean us to a white or green splash in almost every case. It's kinda neat that 2-3 Doomsday can be kept in every a full transformation allowing for Doomsday into IU/Chromatic Sphere/LED/Lab Man kills. It's possible that Mentor/Therapy is so strong that just Mentor plus situational cards for various matchups is correct.

Anyway, if you are playing Doomsday, you should really give this maindeck a shot, it's absurd:

4 Doomsday
4 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp

Open questions:

- What can be cut for the 7th discard spell? (Current best targets: 17th land or 4th Dig Through Time)
- What is the best way of ensuring to beat Miracles?
- Abrupt Decay, Mentor, both? (You probably cut the 10th fetch to maindeck a splash dual if you play either)
- Do we want a black draw4 to side in when we have Dig Through Time?
- How much additional disruption is necessary against combo?

As always, I do not recommend playing this deck to anyone unless you enjoy Doomsday and are experienced with legacy storm decision trees. If you do enjoy Doomsday, this has been a good way to win matches for me. YMMV.

[Lemnear]

Aside the SDT/Street Wraith topic, this looks like the conceptual construct I was talking about last month and got shot down because "Burning Wish is better than DTT!". Glad you tested the idea and liked it as much as I did ;)

[emidln]

Aside the SDT/Street Wraith topic, this looks like the conceptual construct I was talking about last month and got shot down because "Burning Wish is better than DTT!". Glad you tested the idea and liked it as much as I did ;)

Well, SDT is a major factor in allowing you to be good at executing Doomsday without Burning Wish and without Dig Through Time. Dig Through Time offers an additional dimension for times when you burn through your cantrips looking for the missing piece as well as providing a more powerful and threatening card in hand. I mentioned before in my response that I wouldn't fault people for playing DTT for its overall powerlevel and that 4 DD + 4 DTT could be very good, but testing would be needed to see if the higher powerlevel was worth the reduced utility. It seems to be worth it.

[Mhenlo]

...
Open questions:

- What can be cut for the 7th discard spell? (Current best targets: 17th land or 4th Dig Through Time)
- What is the best way of ensuring to beat Miracles?
- Abrupt Decay, Mentor, both? (You probably cut the 10th fetch to maindeck a splash dual if you play either)
- Do we want a black draw4 to side in when we have Dig Through Time?
- How much additional disruption is necessary against combo?

As always, I do not recommend playing this deck to anyone unless you enjoy Doomsday and are experienced with legacy storm decision trees. If you do enjoy Doomsday, this has been a good way to win matches for me. YMMV.

IMO
- The 4th Dig, Multiples can be awkward when drawn early in the game.
- Cut Tendrils, etc, play LabMan Doomsday with Forces in the Main, when I tested it, I had a ~60%-65% win rate
- Decay, Mentor isn't required, and IMO isn't good enough to play white for, while it is strong it makes planing a line you want to take to win more difficult.
- No, It was never really impressive, always pretty good, but with no BW and with DtT to regain Card Advantage it's not needed.
- Play Maniac DD, with Forces Main, SB 3 Counterbalance.

[emidln]

IMO
- The 4th Dig, Multiples can be awkward when drawn early in the game.
- Cut Tendrils, etc, play LabMan Doomsday with Forces in the Main, when I tested it, I had a ~60%-65% win rate
- Decay, Mentor isn't required, and IMO isn't good enough to play white for, while it is strong it makes planing a line you want to take to win more difficult.
- No, It was never really impressive, always pretty good, but with no BW and with DtT to regain Card Advantage it's not needed.
- Play Maniac DD, with Forces Main, SB 3 Counterbalance.

Cutting Tendrils and LED causes you to lose explosiveness and become extremely dependent on the opponent lacking pressure + disruption. Without LED, you cannot efficiently play through Abrupt Decay, causing your pile requirements to skyrocket as you need spare blue cards for Misdirection and/or spare mana for Thoughtseize/Therapy. It also still leaves you often requiring additional mana to beat yard hate.

[the driver]

^

Open questions:

- What can be cut for the 7th discard spell? (Current best targets: 17th land or 4th Dig Through Time)
- What is the best way of ensuring to beat Miracles?
- Abrupt Decay, Mentor, both? (You probably cut the 10th fetch to maindeck a splash dual if you play either)
- Do we want a black draw4 to side in when we have Dig Through Time?
- How much additional disruption is necessary against combo?
.

My thoughts
- I'm currently trying 3 DTT with the 7th discard. I'm hesitant to drop below 17 lands with only 1 petal.
- 4 decay and extra discard out of the board has been working for me.
- I am trying both. 4 decay and 3 Mentor. If I had to choose it would be decay
- I think we do. REB/Pyroblast are real things and in some cases makes stacking discard in pile easier.
- I have 1 piece of extra discard in the board (duress atm) and 2 Flusterstorms. Sooo my guess is 3.

That's what I'm trying. I'm having fun testing the new style.

[Kanti]

I can wrap my head around wanting to play some Forces in the main-deck, especially if the deck goes up to 7 disruption pieces, as3 Forces and 4 discard spells seems like a legit plan against decks. I know not playing 4 Forces is sacrilege, but I would find dipping below 4 discard spells in a deck with 4 Probes unacceptable. I can't wrap my head around wanting to bring Forces out of the sideboard though. Your opponent is just going to be running more Pyroblasts, and you have better cards to side vs control. It's really good vs combo, but so is extra discard.

Counterbalance out of the side looks extremely interesting. I think I'd try to keep the deck UBg and keep it down to Decays, Grips, and some Swarms in the side-board, and omit Monastery Mentor.

[emidln]

I can wrap my head around wanting to play some Forces in the main-deck, especially if the deck goes up to 7 disruption pieces, as3 Forces and 4 discard spells seems like a legit plan against decks. I know not playing 4 Forces is sacrilege, but I would find dipping below 4 discard spells in a deck with 4 Probes unacceptable. I can't wrap my head around wanting to bring Forces out of the sideboard though. Your opponent is just going to be running more Pyroblasts, and you have better cards to side vs control. It's really good vs combo, but so is extra discard.

Counterbalance out of the side looks extremely interesting. I think I'd try to keep the deck UBg and keep it down to Decays, Grips, and some Swarms in the side-board, and omit Monastery Mentor.

Why can't you consider Force out of the sideboard? Would you want to draw that vs Delver? Holding a Force and an LED expecting to win this turn would be awfully awkward.

[Rishadan]

Hey there everyone! I was on YouTube when I came across this video: http://bit.ly/1SmrFZG

Does anyone have the list to Jasons 5-c list? It seems interesting and I've been coming up short of finding it to take it for a spin.

[DireNTropy]

Hey there everyone! I was on YouTube when I came across this video: http://bit.ly/1SmrFZG

Does anyone have the list to Jasons 5-c list? It seems interesting and I've been coming up short of finding it to take it for a spin.

That's me on camera there :smile:. The list I'm playing there (5C Doomsday with Mox Opal) has gone through some changes, the main difference is the removal of the artifact lands for more fetchlands (I found that with a single cantrip the chances of having a Mox Opal without metalcraft is less than 3%, so the artifact lands were not necessary). The deck has performed rather well and the inclusion of the additional fast mana speeds up the deck tremendously (faster than ANT and traditional Doomsday by at least half a turn) at the cost of consistency.

This list experimental and definitely not optimized. Some quick notes:
-In Game 1, if Silence was a discard spell (even Cabal Therapy likely loses to Dig Through Time), I lose this game
-Empty the Warrens on turn 1/2 is a common line of play with the additional fast mana
-The mana is not as bad as it looks!
-Silence into Time Spiral is a valid and moderately used late game play against control decks
-Given a Mox Opal in hand and a cantrip, the likelihood of enabling metalcraft is over 85% on turn 2
-Casting Doomsday without Dark Ritual is easy with 7 Lotus Petal + Mox Opal + Chromatic Sphere
-Chromatic Sphere is good for enabling Metalcraft and fixing mana

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that this is better than the traditional Doomsday lists, but I will say it's incredibly fun!

Maindeck

Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Chromatic Sphere

Protection
3 Silence
2 Thoughtseize
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress

Business
4 Burning Wish
3 Doomsday
1 Ideas Unbound

Mana
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
2 Mox Opal

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tundra
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Karakas

Wishboard
1 Void Snare
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Time Spiral
1 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

Void Snare may not be as important since we can sideboard in the Laboratory Maniac win condition and Karakas to bounce Gaddock Teeg/Thalia in our Doomsday pile; it may be better as a 2nd Grafdigger's Cage (decent in the fast combo mirror; lots of Dredge, Reanimator, Storm, and Elves in my meta).

[cdnza]

IMO
- The 4th Dig, Multiples can be awkward when drawn early in the game.
- Cut Tendrils, etc, play LabMan Doomsday with Forces in the Main, when I tested it, I had a ~60%-65% win rate
- Decay, Mentor isn't required, and IMO isn't good enough to play white for, while it is strong it makes planing a line you want to take to win more difficult.
- No, It was never really impressive, always pretty good, but with no BW and with DtT to regain Card Advantage it's not needed.
- Play Maniac DD, with Forces Main, SB 3 Counterbalance.

Do you have a list for this style?

[Mhenlo]

Do you have a list for this style?

1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Thought Scour
1 Unearth
1 Predict
4 Doomsday
2 Dark Petition

3 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

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

1 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will

1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
8 Fetch

SB
1 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Carpet of Flowers
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Counterbalance
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Massacre
2 Dig Through Time

This list is good against Miracles, but does give up a lot in other match ups.

[cdnza]

This list looks really interesting, thanks for posting! What are you siding Counterbalances in against? I think I'm going to try a Dark Petition list out this weekend.

[Kanti]

Why can't you consider Force out of the sideboard? Would you want to draw that vs Delver? Holding a Force and an LED expecting to win this turn would be awfully awkward.

Because I honestly don't play this deck, so I don't have first hand experience seeing FoW come out of the side and doing some work. My gut tells me that siding in a counter that has inherent card-disadvantage is a bad idea though, especially as it's blue and can run into more REB effects post-board, which is a legitimate concern. And yeah, agreed on the LED part. Your main-deck looks good, and I will be trying to play it later as I love DTT.

Btw, what are you siding Force against, and are you siding out LED's when you do it? I assume so by the comment. Like, side out LED and Tendrils, and side into FoW+more disruption with a LabMan kill?

[Mhenlo]

over 95% of the time they will use their counter on the Doomsday not post Doomsday so IMO LED and Force in the same list can work; but is usually not optimal protection.

You side out atleast 1 LED against Miracles anyway because the match up is slower and you don't need as much mana, and multiple LEDs can be dead draws, allso you want Force against Miracles.

Counterbalence is for spell combo match ups in general; like Storm, Omnitell, Reanimator etc.
also the 2 DtTs come in against slower match ups for the 2 Cabal Ritual.

[emidln]

over 95% of the time they will use their counter on the Doomsday not post Doomsday so IMO LED and Force in the same list can work; but is usually not optimal protection.

I play Doomsday a lot in both Vintage and Legacy. This is more true in Vintage than in Legacy. Vintage decks have Yawgmoth's Will and multiple card advantage spells, which tends to mean that the advantage gained by letting Doomsday resolve to fight over the first draw spell is poor EV. In Legacy, by not countering Doomsday you don't lose much (unless you have lethal on board) but you gain the possibility of winning a fight over Ideas Unbound/Brainstorm/Predict/Mental Note leaving the opponent with multiple turns of doing nothing (that's if they're killing via Lab Man, if it's a Tendrils kill, you likely won outright). If they have a Lab Man pile and are Brainstorming into Duress + continuing to combo, your opponent needs more mana to pull this off, and possibly still face down "The Mana Drain problem" where you have two relevant cards in hand.


You side out atleast 1 LED against Miracles anyway because the match up is slower and you don't need as much mana, and multiple LEDs can be dead draws, allso you want Force against Miracles.

I side out all but a single LED (I only play 3 to begin with). I only keep one because it allows for efficient piles using Chromatic Sphere (win this turn and pass the turn). LED is a dead draw, Dark Ritual is often a dead draw and Lotus Petal is better off as a land. Tendrils leaves entirely since storming out is extremely difficult (particularly given that they might have Flusterstorms) since it requires amassing cards in hand (even if we need way fewer than ANT). You want Force of Will here to trade for the only spells that matter (Counterbalance, Canonist, Jace, and Mentor/Entreat). It's true that Force might randomly make it into a pile or protect a quick Doomsday, but you're bringing in the card to supplement Abrupt Decays and discard spells. They have a lot of disruption and a few kill spells. You have a lot of disruption and a few kill spells. Your kill spells tend to also find spare disruption to force themselves through, and in general are lower mana than theirs.

The card disadvantage for Force of Will isn't super relevant if you're not required to use it to defend your combo against attrition decks (Delver variants, Esper Mentor). The ability to stop Chalices, Counterbalances and the few win conditions our most problematic opponents play while slowing them down (turbo entreat/jace/mentor isn't a very good plan to play towards if your opponent has countermagic, you have to slow down to defend your entreat) is what we're after. In several matchups, it's better than Duress (mostly against aggro) so you side it in, but you aren't required to Force the first thing they play. Doomsday often doesn't care about most of their cards, so unless they're threatening to KO (Thalia, Natural Order, Glimpse with a bunch of cards in hand and mana up), etc there isn't a good reason to cast it. Duress was dead anyway, and Force might get lucky to nab a piece of hate you weren't expecting (anyone can play Thorns, Mindbreak Traps, etc). The reason we don't start it is that our primary game plan is actually very good against the field. We can kill extremely fast and aren't particularly vulnerable to commonly played maindeck cards. Being a Duress Tendrils deck with a Lab Man backup to enable pass the turn piles or winning through odd maindeck hate is a reasonable strategy to begin with. Duress/Thoughtseize/Therapy are often much better at defending us than Force of Will, unless we need to defend against Counterbalance/Chalice on the stack.

As to playing just lab man with stacking draw triggers as the only way of beating removal spells, I'll just say that I don't think having 3 draws plus the mana for them available to win the game is a viable strategy when opponents are threatening lethal and can keep up all their lands. Even having misdirection available isn't that great (although the provided list lacked that) as having spare cards in hand vs aggro is rough. I really wouldn't want to be the Doomsday deck I side into to gain percentage against Miracles against a Jund, Junk, or Delver deck (which is what is essentially being proposed). Also, I'm pretty sure that if you play that list, you want to have Abrupt Decay in the maindeck over Chain of Vapor. Doomsday as vamp for Abrupt Decay + combo is a real thing against Miracles, and I'm struggling thinking of places where Chain of Vapor would be better than Abrupt Decay that aren't solved by Lab Man already (maybe Humility or Night of Soul's Betrayal is a huge part of mhenlo's meta?; random value off SDT can't be so great as to take Chain when Chalice and CB decks are being played in numbers).

[Deviruchi]

First result od DDFT with Dark Petition I've seen posted anywhere: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=17678&iddeck=133157 Yes, only 14 players but it's something.

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

SB: 1 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 2 Dread of Night
SB: 1 Emrakul, the AEons Torn
SB: 1 Shelldock Isle
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Infernal Contract
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens

In conclusion: 2 Dark Petition, 1 PiF, 0 BW, 0 DTT, EtW & Draw4 to side in.

@DireNTropy: You've got me interested in Mox Opal when you played in February a version with Seat of the Synod + Defense Grid + Mox Opal. I was thinking about possible ways to play: a) Mox Opal + Defense Grid + 1 Ad Nauseam; b) Mox Opal + Pithing Needle + Emrakul + Shelldock Isle. Unfortunately I never had time to test it ;)

[nevilshute]

First result od DDFT with Dark Petition I've seen posted anywhere: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=17678&iddeck=133157 Yes, only 14 players but it's something.

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

SB: 1 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 2 Dread of Night
SB: 1 Emrakul, the AEons Torn
SB: 1 Shelldock Isle
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Infernal Contract
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens

In conclusion: 2 Dark Petition, 1 PiF, 0 BW, 0 DTT, EtW & Draw4 to side in.

@DireNTropy: You've got me interested in Mox Opal when you played in February a version with Seat of the Synod + Defense Grid + Mox Opal. I was thinking about possible ways to play: a) Mox Opal + Defense Grid + 1 Ad Nauseam; b) Mox Opal + Pithing Needle + Emrakul + Shelldock Isle. Unfortunately I never had time to test it ;)

I'd be really interested in trying this list out (or something close to it). A few remarks:

- 15 lands seems low with only 1 petal.

- I'd love to fit in a singleton Lab Man in the main, but I'm really not sure what, if anything, can be cut. It might be a red herring but it always appealed to me that Doomsday was able to win through some amount of hate and that it needed this option due to being a little on the slower end of the combo-spectrum. With no Bwish and no Lab Man we don't really have any of that game flexibility to beat Teeg for instance.

[Togores]

Just look at my list from last page. I played 1 chain md and more lands.
I do think empty with only 1 petal is mot worth and 16 lands is a muss.
Labman is not really worth md. You can play it. I would use it with chromatic sphere if I would play it. I dont like to loose to spot removal.

[Rishadan]

Thanks for the list Jason! Other than your usual LED, IU, LED, LED, BW pile that I saw in the videos and stream, what are some other quick piles that you have made in order to win?

[DireNTropy]

Thanks for the list Jason! Other than your usual LED, IU, LED, LED, BW pile that I saw in the videos and stream, what are some other quick piles that you have made in order to win?

The piles are almost identical to those used in traditional Doomsday; the biggest difference is the 1 turn speed boost gained when drawing an active Mox Opal and the higher probability of casting a fast Empty the Warrens.
For a more comprehensive list of piles I would suggest checking out the storm boards (see emidln's signature). The most commonly used alternate piles I won't be going over here are pass the turn piles which can use Burning Wish into Time Spiral or Doomsday to generate storm and piles that have a protection spell built into it (replace an LED with a Silence and increase the mana required by 4).


The most commonly used piles with Ideas Unbound into Burning Wish have 2 requirements:
1. Cast Ideas Unbound
2. Draw into Burning Wish with 2 Lion's Eye Diamond in play

In general this means that the resources required between your pile and your hand need to meet the following requirements (after casting Doomsday):
1. Mana - UU+mana required for cantrips
2. 2 Draw effects (1 Sensei's Divining Top) can be used for both draws


The piles are determined by the resources in hand; much of the speed of this deck requires knowing that cantrips can be turned into a Lion's Eye Diamond after casting Doomsday and the following are the basic piles in order of required mana after casting Doomsday (mana for cantrips is counted as 0); the storm count is the number of spells cast counting Doomsday:

1 Cantrip + Top (Cantrip mana, 8 Storm):
LED
Ideas Unbound
LED
LED
Burning Wish

2 Cantrip (R+Cantrips, 9 storm):
LED
Ideas Unbound
LED
LED
Burning Wish

1 Cantrip (UU + Cantrip, 8 storm):
Ideas Unbound
LED
LED
Gitaxian Probe
Burning Wish

1 Top (UU1, 7 storm; 2 additional storm may be generated for UU2):
Ideas Unbound
LED
LED
Burning Wish
X



One tip I have for playing the deck is to keep in mind a checklist of what is required to combo:
1a. Mana required for Doomsday (Note this means you only want to draw 1 Dark Ritual)
2a. 1 Cantrip or Sensei's Divining Top
3a. Mana for Ideas Unbound (either UU, LED, or an extra Cantrip)

or

1b. Burning Wish + Lots of mana (cast Time Spiral or Empty the Warrens)



Regarding Defense Grid - I found that this card's power is highly variable; either the card is a 3 for 1 or a Silence would be stronger. It's great to win after the opponent shows you a hand with stifle, red elemental blast, and flusterstorm, but Defense Grid is lackluster late game and is difficult to cast on the same turn as the combo, as well as not doing anything against permanent-based disruption. I would not count it towards the minimum maindeck count of 6 disruption spells but instead use it in the flex slots.
If I were to include it in the above list, the changes would probably be -1 Chromatic Sphere, -1 Duress, +2 Defense Grid