[Deck] Fetchland Tendrils

[Terminus]

Thanks guys, I'm definitely gonna put something together and goldfish for awhile (a long while). To me, playing without burning wish seems like a poor choice, as drawing useless cards that i could easily wish for wouldn't be great. I'll proxy for now, and let you guys know how it goes.

[Kanti]

So what do the latest lists look like? I got the point that UBrw lists are being used now, with 3 Wishes? Be nice if Silent or emidln post something for me :cool:

[Silent Requiem]

Ask and ye shall receive. :tongue:

Here's the list that took 28th place at GP Amsterdam last year (1000+ players):

1 Badlands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
17 lands

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Burning Wish
4 Dark Ritual
3 Doomsday
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Orim's Chant
3 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Silence

Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Deathmark
1 Doomsday
1 Duress
1 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Flusterstorm
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Pulverize
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Spiral


Here's the list that recently came in 5th at BoM (700+ players):


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

4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
3 Orim's Chant
1 Rain of Filth
4 Silence

3 Burning Wish
3 Doomsday
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Ponder

1 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

1 Karakas

Sideboard:
2 Serenity
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Doomsday
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Contract
1 Massacre
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Spiral
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Shelldock Isle

[Kanti]

4 Petals vs 2 Petals seems pretty drastic. Is that some sort of deck evolution over the last year, or just his personal list? Also, what do you run?

edit: value of Rain of Filth? Serenity also looks weird to run when this deck runs 4 SDT itself.

[Silent Requiem]

4 Petals vs 2 Petals seems pretty drastic. Is that some sort of deck evolution over the last year, or just his personal list? Also, what do you run?

edit: value of Rain of Filth? Serenity also looks weird to run when this deck runs 4 SDT itself.

Four Petals is necessary if you want Ad Nauseam to be a legitimate plan B. Otherwise, most piles only call for one Lotus Petal, if any. So, if you decide not to run Ad Nauseam, Lotus Petal becomes far less important (although there is an element of "explosiveness v resilience" to consider too).

Rain of Filth is brokenly good, although these lists don't abuse it as much as some. It's basically the 5th Dark Ritual most of the time, but in long games it generates huge amounts of mana on the combo turn, powering the piles you need to fight through the hate.

However Rain of Filth is even better in Meditate lists, which tend to run some number of Cabal Rituals because they don't need to float as much blue mana. And of course, getting threshold is pretty trivial if you have Rain of Filth in hand.

I can't comment on Serenity, as I've never run it, other than to say that it seems a pretty common sideboard choice. Remember that Top can save itself in response to the trigger.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Im not a huge fan of serenity. I think it was originally used to combat mavericks hatebear of choice (ethersworn cannonist) through a mother of runes. Since the printing if thalia and other non-artifact hatebears come to the fore, I think it loses some of its utility. Its still super-awesome against chalice/stax type decks and can get rid of a counterbalance (although that could be somewhat of a push if its active...). Not to mention its hilarious 'one sided obliterate' uses vs affinity :D.

Also for people moving to the red builds... I know that burning wish is basically demonic tutor for the deck, but a lot of my kills (with the black/blue/white build) come from T1 cantip T2 IT ---> mana T3 profit. The piles for IU are cheaper, but there always seems to be less mana available for me when going off anyway, so it seems a bit moot that the piles are cheaper. Do you never miss the extra mana to power through the hate?

Also, I love tendrils in the main. it enables some funny 'bait storm and kill you'/IGG (yes, im still there :)) efforts. Im not quite sure that no wincon main is as strictly better as people say. Its not like we dont run cantrips to avoid/shuffle it away if there is no value to drawing it.... Just thought i'd share :).

The Spanish Tunnel King

[Troll Slayer]

4 LED
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Probe
4 SDT
4 Silence
3 Orim's Chant
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Doomsday
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains

This is what I've been working on lately. The mana is much better, it feels like I can more consistently go off on turn three. I'm still hammering out the SB.

[MTG Junkie]

Confused about this thread,why isn't this called Doomsday?
I was hoping to compare with ANT,is there an actual Fetchland Tendrills list on the thread?

[Chikenbok]

From the OP...



This archetype is extremely customizable. The basic requirements are blue/black fetchlands, brainstorm, dark ritual, lion's eye diamond, and tendrils of agony. Everything else is basically up in the air. There have been numerous suggested builds with very specific strengths and weaknesses. These builds seem to be the most focused and resilient. I do not list sideboards. Sideboards require careful assessment of what you plan on facing, what your maindeck is weak to, and what you can accept to lose to (and how often). Check the thread for example sideboards.

Fetchland + Tendrils has turned into many different magic archetypes, TES, ANT, Doomsday, Etc. Ad Nauseum Decks got their own thread, TES is a different beast and thus got its own thread, and this is still a Fetchland tendrils deck that fits into none of the above categories.

[Kaslan]

is there a doomsday pile that lets you win ( infinite loop what will let you tendrils for as much as you want ? ) with omniscience ?

[Chikenbok]

is there a doomsday pile that lets you win ( infinite loop what will let you tendrils for as much as you want ? ) with omniscience ?

If you have Omni in play why would you bother with Doomsday? You can just burning wish into Petals of Insight (or really anything that recycles itself) into grapeshot/tendrils and win on the spot. The two cards together in one deck doesn't really make any sense...

[blaggro]

is there a doomsday pile that lets you win ( infinite loop what will let you tendrils for as much as you want ? ) with omniscience ?

Why would you ever play omniscience in this deck??

[Kaslan]

If you have Omni in play why would you bother with Doomsday? You can just burning wish into Petals of Insight (or really anything that recycles itself) into grapeshot/tendrils and win on the spot. The two cards together in one deck doesn't really make any sense...

If I have Onmi in play ... I would not doomsday ... that was not my question .

I was wondering if we could use doomsday as a tutor effect ( so you can tutor the combo pieces )

Ex:
You doomsday
Pile can be something like :
- brainstorm
- show and tell
- Omni
- draw spell
- kill con

This way you need only one show and tell and one omni as your win con... and you can maximize your deck space for more protection or tutors

[blaggro]

If I have Onmi in play ... I would not doomsday ... that was not my question .

I was wondering if we could use doomsday as a tutor effect ( so you can tutor the combo pieces )

Ex:
You doomsday
Pile can be something like :
- brainstorm
- show and tell
- Omni
- draw spell
- kill con

This way you need only one show and tell and one omni as your win con... and you can maximize your deck space for more protection or tutors

Just for answering the question with a few thinking for infinite loop you'll need 2 Doomsdays, a kill condition, a Top, Meditate. then add SnT + Omniscience. So except from the pile you must have enought mana and other condition conditions.

[Kaslan]

Just for answering the question with a few thinking for infinite loop you'll need 2 Doomsdays, a kill condition, a Top, Meditate. then add SnT + Omniscience. So except from the pile you must have enought mana and other condition conditions.

how about :

a pile of ...
Brainstorm
show and tell
Onmi
burning wish
tendrils

that's an infinite loop

[Silent Requiem]

4 LED
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Probe
4 SDT
4 Silence
3 Orim's Chant
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Doomsday
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains

This is what I've been working on lately. The mana is much better, it feels like I can more consistently go off on turn three. I'm still hammering out the SB.

I've also (finally) settled on UBw Doomsday, probably for much the same reasons as you - I like a more stable mana base and I find that only needing two colours (three if I need protection) makes me faster, which is relevant in a lot of matchups.

I'm running Meditate over Ideas Unbound (simply personal preference), though, so the 4 Probes come out and are replaced with 2 Cabal Ritual (<3), Karakas and a Lotus Petal.

I'm not certain this deck wants less than 17 lands, and another land is my 61st card. How has 16 lands (with no Petal!) been working for you?

[blaggro]

how about :

a pile of ...
Brainstorm
show and tell
Onmi
burning wish
tendrils

that's an infinite loop

Can u explain me how this is an infinite loop? i'm telling this because i wouldn't cut any sb card for petals of insigh.. If you want to play Omniscience and win throught storm you can just play SnT deck and win with petals. There's no reason to do this to this deck because it loses it's concistency.

[DerFern]

Omniscience in doomsday combo?! Serious?

Back to some Tendrils...

4 LED
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Probe
4 SDT
4 Silence
3 Orim's Chant
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Doomsday
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains

This is what I've been working on lately. The mana is much better, it feels like I can more consistently go off on turn three. I'm still hammering out the SB.

I´ve been playing something like this on and off again, with only -1 Ponder, -1 Probe, +1 Petal, +1 Scrubland. I do agree that you could possibly cut one land if you´re on Ubw only, but cutting a Petal seems just wrong. The most standard piles require a Petal and spending an extra turn to meet the minimal requirements hurts a deck like this, which can be attacked from various angles.
If you have the full set of Brainstorm, Ponder and Probe available, I guess IGG or IT could get the axe but I´m still not sure about it.

[flrn]

I don't see, why you absolutely need a Lotus Petal in that list. Most of the time you are setting up double cantrip piles anyway, where you don't need a Lotus Petal. I don't like the Chain of Vapor in that list. In the current metagame the only permanent based hate, that opponents play are Gaddock Teeg and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Therefor I like a Karakas way more in that slot and it's an additional land. I never felt comfortable playing the deck with "only" 16 land.

[Dark Ritual]

Also don't see the point of petal in the UBw list posted above. Seems like a waste of space. I wouldn't cut IGG from the list though, as 7 chant effects make that IGG look amazing. If you wanted to play a petal you could MAYBE cut an infernal tutor as playing 3 isn't going to make your deck terrible as you then have 7 business spells and that seems perfectly fine seeing as how Lejay's list currently has 6 business spells (3 DD and 3 Wish ideas unbound doesn't really count as a business spell since it's card disadvantage typically. At least with meditate you could occasionally cast it EoT against control and they would practically have to counter it or else risk losing to your 10 card hand when you untapped.) Hardcasting DD off of just lands and a petal isn't particularly appealing to me either as wasteland can make that plan quite tricky to pull off sometimes and I don't want to lose to wasteland in a deck with 3 basic lands. I'd much rather be running a singleton cabal ritual over a singleton petal in the list as cabal ritual actually casts DD while petal isn't guaranteed to cast DD.

You could place omniscience under shelldock isle although I don't see the point of that really although you could theoretically win when you untapped with shelldock hiding omniscience it requires more hoops to jump through to win with petals of insight unless you're running with sparkcaster to ping them to death although that opens you up to creature removal unless you have a chant effect in hand or something or you have exactly 3 cards in library after you draw so you can brainstorm into sparkcaster + silence. Although I don't see how this is any better than emrakul other than karakas foiling the emrakul plan unless you put your own karakas in the pile.

[Lemnear]

how about :

a pile of ...
Brainstorm
show and tell
Onmi
burning wish
tendrils

that's an infinite loop


And this pile just wins for 3 mana and a draw including protection:

Brainstorm
Mental note
Laboratory maniac
Pact of negation
Unearth



I'm a big fan of melting infernal Tutor, LED with the Doomsday-Maniac kill

[emidln]

I'm pretty sure that everyone saying to cut Lotus Petal has never actually resolved Brainstorm in this deck. The ones wanting to cut Petal from lists with Meditate (which is still wrong, unless played in addition to your Ideas Unbound) probably haven't stopped to think about how they were going to win with just SDT in play and no spare cards in hand. (If you said have fewer storm or pay an additional mana, you win.)

[entity]

My list, even though I have been playing other decks lately due to too much combo hate around, is very similar to the UBw one posted above, but:

17 lands (one Karakas). 16 seems low-ish...and even with 17 I sometimes had to waste my cantrips for finding lands. You can easily cut one Infernal Tutor, it's one of the worst cards in the deck unless you're going for IGG-loop. IT can easily get an axe - it's very rare to find zero action even without full sets of Probe and Ponder (see explanation below).

I am playing 2 Lotus Petals instead of one Probe and one Ponder - it helps to speed up the deck, opens some additional DD piles and, one of the most important things - lets get mana for protection without a risk of getting my lands wasted or fetching a basic Plains (which is rather uncomfortable most of the times).

I do intend to pick up DDFT again as nobody risked playing Storm during last few local events and MB Traps are already leaving sideboards :cool:

Edit: also I'm still playing Meditate - even if IU makes (sometimes) for better piles, having almost whole deck immune to Spell Snare (IT-IGG plan isn't reliable against decks packing Snare anyway) and being able to sometimes draw4 still makes me happy.

[JamieW89]

I ran something like this last time I tried DD. There is hardly any Spell Snares anymore, so IU seems fine. I used to run 2 Cabal Rituals (and 0 RoF) for IGG, but I think we're fine without them. Not sure if the MD Chain is needed though. I was happy with 16 lands and 3-4 petals, but a 17th land (1st Marsh Flats) is welcome if space is made (my list with Meditate ran 1 probe only to make space). IT is not that great as a setup spell in the deck, but adds speed to the deck against aggro and makes you lose less games due to not finding action.

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

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder
1 Ideas Unbound

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

4 Silence
2 Orim's Chant
1 Chain of Vapor

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


That all said, white is not at its peak. Discard is better against Show & Tell, Reanimate, Counterbalance and it can be equal/better against non blue decks. It could be an option to cut white and splash green from the board (Xantid Swarm for Merfolk/SnT/Reanimate, Carpet of Flowers against RUG and perhaps a Grip or 2 against CB).

[Troll Slayer]

16 lands has been fine. I could definitely see cutting the COV for Karakas or cutting one IT for Karakas though. IGG has been awesome. There is a lot of burn and RUG in the meta and IGG allows you to win without casting doomsday which is often impossible against burn in particular. I almost never get Doomsday with IT because it basically requires 2 LEDS and a Top in play so I generally see two distinct game plans based on what my hand is and what my opponent is playing. In that case I usually get redundant chants or cantrips with IT. I would definitely endorse IGG + Chants. I haven't really missed Lotus Petal.

[Silent Requiem]

I agree that white is not obviously necessary right now - black disruption is arguably a little bit faster, and superior in some pretty important matchups. However, I love my IGGY loop, so I run Silence/Chant. Of course, the fact that I only play storm combo decks means that I like to mix up my disruption between decks, and perhaps gives me a slight bias (as in, I want to run white because none of my other decks are running white :tongue: ).

I'm intrigued by the idea of cutting IT for Karakas. While I love my IT, it does make sense - you never really want to see a second IT. That would give me a list that looks like:

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

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Meditate

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

4 Silence
3 Orim's Chant
1 Chain of Vapor

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

Does that look reasonable?

[B.C.]

...lists with Meditate (which is still wrong, unless played in addition to your Ideas Unbound)...

I'm just lazy, and don't want to learn new piles.

[Troll Slayer]

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

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Meditate

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

4 Silence
3 Orim's Chant
1 Chain of Vapor

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

Does that look reasonable?

This looks pretty good to me. I haven't personally used meditate before so that calls for some choices I don't know much about. I'm curious what you are running in your SB. Right now my board is...
SB
4 Iok
4 Dread of Night
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Wipe Away
1 Emrakul
1 Shelldock Isle

[Silent Requiem]

My sideboard is a little in the air right now, but it's going to include some Dread of Night (which I have found to be absolutely awesome in testing), a range of bounce spells (including Wipeaway and Echoing Truth), the Shelldock package, and probably some Leyline of the Void.

I think Wipeaway is important because with white disruption I'm pretty weak to permanent based hate, and Wipeaway is another way to deal with Thalia+Mom, as well as counterbalance. Echoing Truth deals with multiple Leylines (I had someone mull into three Leylines of Sanctity in one game :mad: ).

That probably leaves me needing some artifact bounce, so I'd try to cram Hurkul's Recall in there.

Nothing groundbreaking in the above, just a general effort to "be prepared".

[DerFern]

My sideboard is a little in the air right now, but it's going to include some Dread of Night (which I have found to be absolutely awesome in testing), a range of bounce spells (including Wipeaway and Echoing Truth), the Shelldock package, and probably some Leyline of the Void.

I think Wipeaway is important because with white disruption I'm pretty weak to permanent based hate, and Wipeaway is another way to deal with Thalia+Mom, as well as counterbalance. Echoing Truth deals with multiple Leylines (I had someone mull into three Leylines of Sanctity in one game :mad: ).

That probably leaves me needing some artifact bounce, so I'd try to cram Hurkul's Recall in there.

Nothing groundbreaking in the above, just a general effort to "be prepared".

When I thought about my sideboard for Ubw just yesterday I decided to leave Emmi and Shelldock Isle out of it. Seriously, what bad matchups do we have to ge thim in right now?
Previously we sided them in against CB/Top, now they have 1 or 2 Karakas and 4 Terminus maindeck. Reanimator plays Tidesprout Tyrant and Blazing Archon. The only deck that can not easily handle this combo is NicFit and really, we don´t need to board against that one at all.

So after some tinkering I came to this board:
4 Dread of Night
3 Grand Abolisher
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Cruel Bargain
2 Slaughter Pact

Obviously, as any sideboard this is a metacall. Chalices are rising again and therefore I wanted some solutions against them. If you don´t have MUD or Goblins in your area, you might use something else.
Grand Abolishers are worth testing and are awesome against those miracle decks out there. Cruel Bargain against REB of course and the rest of my board is just random bounce.

I also thought about squeezing 3 Carpet of Flowers, 1 Tropical in there to get a better edge against Canadian. However, that was way more easy with the old German List where you could simply change 2 CRit, 1RoF for 3 Carpets... not sure about that right now.

[Rekk]

Hello,

I'm currently a T.e.s. and Ant player and decided to also learn doomsday. I was wondering if anyone has access to a list of piles. Also if anyone had a good strategy for learning said piles. Also what exactly does the emrakul package do for you? is it just to beat storm hate cards like mbt tegg and thalia?

[Tammit67]

Hello,

I'm currently a T.e.s. and Ant player and decided to also learn doomsday. I was wondering if anyone has access to a list of piles. Also if anyone had a good strategy for learning said piles. Also what exactly does the emrakul package do for you? is it just to beat storm hate cards like mbt tegg and thalia?

You coulda texted me about the piles :p

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1onAp8XmBLHTUP71xw1w_z0_LAiTo5EWJR4YQmAMgTkY/edit?hl=es

Just keep playing them and playing them. Constant testing is the only way to learn, since often you have to beat something weird on the fly

[ThomasDowd]

Hello,

I'm currently a T.e.s. and Ant player and decided to also learn doomsday. I was wondering if anyone has access to a list of piles. Also if anyone had a good strategy for learning said piles. Also what exactly does the emrakul package do for you? is it just to beat storm hate cards like mbt tegg and thalia?



also storm boards is a great resource, i haven't been in a few months but there is a lot of information there.

expect to fuck up, a lot. don't memorize piles, get the basic few and maybe a stackj or two that deals with general stuff. but the important parts are the concepts behind them and how they work,and then start trying to build ones on your own or at least understand how to.

you never build piles in a vacuum. so memorizing how to do it without pressure is pretty useless.

[TakeYourTime]

@rekk

Doomsday is so fun!

I don't recommend Emrakul against decks with Thalia or Teeg; those decks almost always run wasteland.

Emrakul is for decks that don't put you on a tight clock. The idea is that the emrakul doomsday combo requires less combo pieces in hand, so when you combo off it's mostly just doomsday then use top or probe for a free card draw. Other storm decks can potentially be stopped mid combo (e.g. Opponent lets mana spells resolve then counters a burning wish).

I have also tried other goofy things with doomsday, such as using cloud of faeries with shelldock.

Honestly I think you'll pick up doomsday quite easily since you've used tes and ant, and I've seen you with sensei's top decks.

[emidln]

I played this list to top32 at baltimore. I was in t8 contention until round 8

3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Karakas
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Tropical Island
SB: 2 Karakas
SB: 2 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Time Spiral
SB: 1 Infernal Contract
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy

Ended up 6-3. I feel like I was a draw spell at some point over a huge amount of turns from making t8. List felt fine. Would play again.

[Tammit67]

That was you? I was watching you play against David Price. It was really nice seeing someone good play the deck.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Did you ever board in Infernal Contract over IU against decks with red blasts?

[emidln]

Yes. IC + Tendrils come in for any matchup where I expect Surgical/Extirpate/Spell Snare/REB.

Yeah, I played against Dave Price. I believe I had a kill with this game state with 3 life:

In play: Island, Volcanic Island, Swamp, Sensei's Divining Top
In hand: Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Chain of Vapor

[Tammit67]

Yes. IC + Tendrils come in for any matchup where I expect Surgical/Extirpate/Spell Snare/REB.

Yeah, I played against Dave Price. I believe I had a kill with this game state with 3 life:

In play: Island, Volcanic Island, Swamp, Sensei's Divining Top
In hand: Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Chain of Vapor

I remember it being 2x island and an Underground, but your memory is probably better. I posted that hand to facebook, actually, not 30 minutes before you replied. It was a line of play I hadn't had much experience with.

[emidln]

I remember it being 2x island and an Underground, but your memory is probably better. I posted that hand to facebook, actually, not 30 minutes before you replied. It was a line of play I hadn't had much experience with.

I definitely remember 2x blue, 1x black source. I know I had at least 2 basics, but I could have Volc/Sea switched up.

[MTG Junkie]

First thoughts when I saw this list on Star City where looks weird,kinda reminds me of ANT,doesn't seem like a typical Doomsday list,why not just play ANT and god I wish I could get in this person's head.

It's fucking awesome to find out that the list is yours!
With that said, It would be great if you could answer my questions.

[emidln]

ANT wins in three ways, two of which are unreliable (ignoring ETW, since both DDFT and ANT can play it if they want to). By unreliable, I mean that just resolving them doesn't guarantee a win undisrupted.

- Ad Nauseam can fizzle. It requires a lot of ritual effects, and the lack of initial mana sources has been noted as a reliability issue with recent builds. Ad Nauseam is still a powerful card that wins most of the time you cast it.

- Past in Flames can fizzle. If you don't have a tutor/tendrils in the graveyard, you get to cast cantrips looking for a tutor or a Tendrils. This might have a high degree of success (I've personally experienced around 80% wins from this), but I'm not okay with possibly losing when I'm casting my bomb.

- (The third way is chaining spells without a storm engine, typically using Therapy/Snapcaster Mage, enemy spells, Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish and/or cantrips.)

DDFT casts Doomsday, puts 5 cards that win the game in the pile, and then wins.

ANT has to play a lot of ritual effects. This makes the deck less consistent over time than a deck that has more cantrips to select its draws. The consistency leads to fewer mulligans and better ability to handle hand disruption. Further, some acceleration spells are better suited to each storm engine that ANT plays. This is further inconsistency which simply doesn't exist when you only ever win when casting Doomsday.

ANT isn't signficantly faster in a goldfish than DDFT, at least the lists that see play right now are not.

ANT actually has a pretty significant issue facing it with its use of Cabal Ritual / Past in Flames and Death Rite Shaman's increased popularity. If your primary method of winning the game vs disruption is Past in Flames, Death Rite Shaman is bad news for you. I narrowly escaped a BUG Delver deck riding a Death Rite Shaman as I was situationally hosed with my 1-of Snapcaster Mage (in retrospect, I should not be playing a Snapcaster Mage in the current metagame). I can't imagine how difficult it would be to need to win early through discard + counters so you don't autolose to a shaman controlling PiF/CRit should you lose some life to make AdN unviable.

I don't know why this wouldn't be a "typical" Doomsday list. It's basically the list that's been seeing play in Europe (courtesy of Lejay and pokpok) -chants, +discard. If you mean that it's missing Infernal Tutor, then I'd posit you haven't seen a Doomsday list in a long time.

[Tammit67]

My main problem when learning a new archetype is the SB plan. Would you mine walking me through your thoughts on the list you posted?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Yes. IC + Tendrils come in for any matchup where I expect Surgical/Extirpate/Spell Snare/REB.

Yeah, I played against Dave Price. I believe I had a kill with this game state with 3 life:

In play: Island, Volcanic Island, Swamp, Sensei's Divining Top
In hand: Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Chain of Vapor

Gratz on getting a solid performance in with DDay. The list looks sweet.

As for the scenario, isn't that rather straight forward?


SPOILER



Ritual, DDay to build:

LED
IU
LED
LED
BWish

Tap Top, Chain it (Storm 3). Draw LED. Play LED + Top (5). Sac LED for UUU, Top into IU, cast it (6). Draw Top, LED, LED. Play them (9), sac for BBBRRR, Top into Wish into Tendrils for 22.

Literally seemed like an obvious line of play when reading the board state. Am I missing something or am I better with DDay than I thought?

[emidln]

Gratz on getting a solid performance in with DDay. The list looks sweet.

As for the scenario, isn't that rather straight forward?


SPOILER



Ritual, DDay to build:

LED
IU
LED
LED
BWish

Tap Top, Chain it (Storm 3). Draw LED. Play LED + Top (5). Sac LED for UUU, Top into IU, cast it (6). Draw Top, LED, LED. Play them (9), sac for BBBRRR, Top into Wish into Tendrils for 22.

Literally seemed like an obvious line of play when reading the board state. Am I missing something or am I better with DDay than I thought?

That's it. You're probably better than you imagine. A lot of people have never seen the chain on sdt line if play.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

That's it. You're probably better than you imagine. A lot of people have never seen the chain on sdt line if play.

Maybe that's Vintage Gifts shining through. So many shenanigans with CoV to reach lethal Tendrils involved...
I really have to start fully learning DDay someday soon (well, as soon as I manage to acquire another two Karakas - they've become hellishly expensive), given that what you state above about its advantages over ANT makes sense and the deck now has a manabase I can deal with (aka not 4c MD).
Given such plans, I'd second Matt's call for SB-plans.

Two questions regarding the list:
- no Wishable sweeper in the board? Wouldn't a single Virtue's Ruin or something help a lot against hatebear-cluttered boards?

- how was the Snapcaster? Playing them in ANT I found them incredibly clunky. What should I replace Tiago with if I decide I don't like him here either?

[Chikenbok]

@em - 4 copies of wish. Ever feel like you had too many? I'm still on the 'og euro' plan with 3 wish 3 DD main. Also, how was the discard? I've been sitting on 1 Duress, 1 Cabal Therapy, 4 Silence, 1 Chant for a while now and been loving it.

Also, surprised there's no massacre in the board, card has been a house every time I've cast it.

[emidln]

A lot of this is probably rambling, but I'm not in the mood to weave and edit an article.

In the DDFT thread on storm boards, we're currently discussing the merits of the infinite Karakas plan. I'm still in favor as I saw a ton of Thalias, both in Maverick and elsewhere (Death and Taxes, Zoo, B/W, misc B/G/W decks) at the top tables. Lejay is making a rather compelling case for at least -1 Karakas, +1 Massacre in the SB, and arguing for Slaughter Pact as well. I'd suggest reading the last few posts on storm boards.

Anyway, there is no wishable answer since none is necessary. You have two ways to remove Thalia in g1, and that's the only hatebear that actually stops you from comboing. Teeg just gets bounced right before you Tendrils via CoV or Karakas. It's surprisingly hard to lose to random things that ANT or TES would have to Wish against when you just stack Chain/Karakas while killing them. You don't really have hatebear-cluttered boards too often (mostly postboard, but then you have more Karakas (or Slaughter Pact/Massacre) and Decays.

The Snapcaster Mage was probably wrong. I love it, as it provides a lot of value with LED and Cabal Therapy, but I haven't been paying attention to recent results and didn't realize that Deathrite Shaman was a card. Snapcaster Mage probably becomes another basic, Lotus Petal, Cabal Ritual, or a Preordain for me. Cabal Rit is closest in function vs an aggro deck, Preordain probably closest vs other stuff. Extra lands/Petals are just nice to have. Preordain is where I'd likely start, since the only games I lost were where I bricked on seeing more than 2 of my 18-22 possible draw spells or grossly misboarded (e.g. vs BUG in g2).

The 9th fetch may want to become a Swamp. Swamp isn't particularly good, except when you need to cast Abrupt Decay or Doomsday multiple times. The deck simply wants 4 lands to operate on in a lot of matches vs Wasteland, and can typically burn spare black or colorless.

My sideboarding was pretty fluid. I brought in Tendrils + IC a lot since I played vs a lot of people splashing red (UW Miracles splashed red, RUG, Goblins, Belcher). I'd bring in Tendrils vs anything that is likely packing Surgical/Extirpate as well, since it's pretty loose to lose to discard spell + surgical. Often I took out a Burning Wish and a Gitaxian Probe. I'd side out Karakas when it didn't seem particularly relevant. I cut Burning Wishes and Volcs entirely vs UW and RUG when I saw Spell Snare. I wrongly boarded in Decays vs BUG expecting Counterbalance (he had SDT) and lost a game 2 that wasn't even close because I drew them while he Hymned them away followed by beaters.

1 Gitaxian Probe (typically when Infernal Contract comes in to keep Wish alive as a draw spell).
4 Duress
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Burning Wish
1 Karakas

These were sided out pretty frequently over the course of the day. Snapcaster was fine against RUG w/o Snare and UW, but suspect vs BUG due to DRS. It stays in vs aggro as a 6th way of enabling quick Doomsdays. Duress was sided out vs aggro. Sometimes Therapy came out too. When I took out Burning Wish, I brought in Doomsday, Tendrils, and sometimes IC. I typically also sided in Tropical Islands vs LD (typically for Karakas + something). They always came in when volcs come out. I never actually boarded in ETW, but it could possibly be correct if my opp doesn't see it (or red) in previous games, particularly vs Spell Snare. ETW stole a few games via Brainstorm/Probe/LED into Wish. I never sided in Time Spiral, but I wished for it a couple times, inside and outside of piles (even under extreme duress vs BUG and it won the game; pretty insane to draw 7 cards and untap 6 lands... with a storm deck).

I don't have static sideboard plans though. Sideboarding can change pretty dramatically from one RUG list to the next depending on what you see from them, and what you show them in previous games.

About the disruption suite:

I'm not convinced that discard is always going to be correct. Duress vs Snapcaster is just today's iteration of The Mana Drain Problem from yesteryear's Vintage or old 1.5. Silence solves this without the awkward vulnerability to Misd/Divert (which is criminally underplayed right now by blue decks). I was lucky enough to avoid it, but it will occur. Doomsday can work around it better than most, but you might drop some games to it. That said, the complete information given by Probe/Duress/Therapy probably wins more than it loses to Snapcaster Mage or double mana-based counter. The manabase is not an issue, even with 4c main. You end up playing an extra land or two in the main and maybe more petals (2-3 likely), but you still have 8-9 fetches and can get 3-4 basics (1-2 island, 1 swamp, 1 plains) plus your (limited) duals (most lists ran 1-2 Sea, 2 volc, 1 scrub, 1 tundra), choosing to go with basics + petals.

About my comments on ANT:

ANT is a fine deck, but it's not as tight as I'd like. I believe that it's one of the most powerful decks in the format. That said, if you can actually play Doomsday, I believe that your plateau is much higher than with ANT (less variance due to more cantrips allows more opportunity to win and lose on skill). Doomsday, properly piloted, can be both a speed monster and a grindy, attrition war-winning machine depending on what the situation calls for. Your destiny is largely in your own hands with the deck. It's very similar to Spiral Tide in that regard, but with the ability to do really busted stuff on turns 1 and 2.

4th Burning Wish is about drawing a 2nd. You can use it as a draw spell, or, more likely, to just cast when the first one gets countered/discarded. There is a rise in discard strategies, so you really need to make sure that you can find a business spell to win in time.

[MTG Junkie]

The last Doomsday lists Iv seen had Chants,IT and Laboratory Maniac. Lol so your right its been a while.
I'm not ready to put down ANT just yet. However you have made me interested in looking more into Doomsday.

Thanks for the reply/input,I appreciate it.

[Tammit67]

Thanks for the reply/input,I appreciate it.

Ditto. If I can coerce a friend to help me test, I'm sure to understand better your reasonings.

[Tammit67]

I'm having some difficulty beating Esperblade postboard. They have a lot of cards I'd like to force them to discard, and I have little experience building piles that beat extraction. Mostly I have to hope I draw X before my BW. Obviously top in play would help. Any other advice?

[Lejay]

The more mana you have the better. The more addional draw spells you have the better.
The puzzle section on storm boards has some examples of how to optimize piles against surgical.

If it's a recurring issue in your metagame switch to chant effects.

[MTG Junkie]

So I registered for Storm Boards in hopes of finding out more about the current way play DD
I got know where. The website seems hard to navigate through,any suggestions? Id love to read what ever you guys ate reading about Doomsday.

[Chikenbok]

So I registered for Storm Boards in hopes of finding out more about the current way play DD
I got know where. The website seems hard to navigate through,any suggestions? Id love to read what ever you guys ate reading about Doomsday.

Start with the Puzzles/Scenario's section on the bottom of the front page to get some useful piles memorized. Most of the talk about the deck itself/testing and various alternatives is in the 'Storm Combo' section of the front page under UBx Doomsday.

[Tammit67]

The more mana you have the better. The more addional draw spells you have the better.
The puzzle section on storm boards has some examples of how to optimize piles against surgical.

If it's a recurring issue in your metagame switch to chant effects.

I might have to. The local group of ringers have 3-4 people on Stoneblade every tournament. The discard+counters+surgical makes it grinder than I want, don't have enough cantrips to do what I want.

I'll have to find those puzzles, i love puzzles

[Tammit67]

Switched over to the chants list Lejay has been running and I'm impressed how well the mana still works out with another color added. More people need to learn how to combo with this engine

[xfxf]

Care to share the list?

Whichever Magic Online stream I watch Lejay shows up with Doomsday and 2-0 s one of the rounds. Peaked my interest in the deck to be honest. I'm curious though how does this deck fare against random aggro decks where they can race you, or against things like Elves? Doomsday doesn't look like the fastest combo deck.

[Lejay]

Our sect meets regularly on storm boards. But remember first and second rule of fight club. :{

The deck just doesn't lose against aggro and elves is one of the easiest possible match-ups. You lose to burn if they have storm hate though, which is a bit strange since storm hate is not very effective against ANT and TES. People playing burn with storm hate are generally not in the top tables though.
Your greatest enemy with this deck is yourself (and huge storm haters, that one too).

EDIT : You can lose against infect, stompy... this kind of decks. With enough disrupt they are even bad match-ups.

[Koby]

*shakes an angry elf fist at Lejay*

Ya, no interaction with Combo Elves. GG.

[Doomsday]

Does stormboards even work anymore? When I click the "forgot my password" link, the captcha is broken so I never get a pw reset.

On topic: for the 4c lists do you guys like a badlands or a scrubland? If scrubland, are you playing 2 volcanic then?

[Chikenbok]

Does stormboards even work anymore? When I click the "forgot my password" link, the captcha is broken so I never get a pw reset.

On topic: for the 4c lists do you guys like a badlands or a scrubland? If scrubland, are you playing 2 volcanic then?

2 x Volc
2 x Usea
1 x Tundra
1 x Scrubland
1 x Karkas
1 x Swamp, Island, Plains
8 Fetch

And yes, TSB works fine.

[TraxDaMax]

Our sect meets regularly on storm boards. But remember first and second rule of fight club. :{

The deck just doesn't lose against aggro and elves is one of the easiest possible match-ups. You lose to burn if they have storm hate though, which is a bit strange since storm hate is not very effective against ANT and TES. People playing burn with storm hate are generally not in the top tables though.
Your greatest enemy with this deck is yourself (and huge storm haters, that one too).

EDIT : You can lose against infect, stompy... this kind of decks. With enough disrupt they are even bad match-ups.

I can confirm the Elves part. I think my buddy and I did about 10 games last sunday where I only lost once 1-2.
Chantwalking all day, massacre and bounce works. Also chant in response to their Glimpse is OP.

[MTG Junkie]

Thought id Give this storm boards thing another chance and still can't get anywhere with the site. I don't get how to use it,Emildn I stumbled accrossed somthing that said your the administrater. What do I do?

[leegoo]

Thought id Give this storm boards thing another chance and still can't get anywhere with the site. I don't get how to use it,Emildn I stumbled accrossed somthing that said your the administrater. What do I do?

go to the site. Where it says "apply for the storm boards" you have to apply.
Get accepted
Profit

[emidln]

To be honest, the application thing is just a spam-prevention mechanism. You just copy/paste some questions and provide some serious/hilarious answers. We then let you in at some point when an admin notices pending apps. This keeps our main boards spam-free. Obviously not practical on a huge site, but I think at around 1000 members over 5 years, it's been pretty reasonable. (Thanks to Lejay and bahamuth for authorizing when I get lazy!)

[Lejay]

To be honest, the application thing is just a spam-prevention mechanism.
I thought this was also a complete idiots-prevention mechanism.

[Chikenbok]

i thought this was also a complete idiots-prevention mechanism.

zing

[kingofethanol]

Hey Storm players.
I'm interested in getting good with this deck. I've been testing ANT, but wouldn't mind playing a different list/variant. What are some successful Doomsday/ANT lists? What are opinions on TES? Through some browsing I did see a comment saying that a skill/success plateau would be higher sticking with Doomsday. Who has experience making the switch between ANT to Doomsday and agreeing with this statement?

edit, applying for the storm boards as well!

[imRauSch]

I recently started to play DDFT as well, having mainly played TES before.

If you really plan to learn the deck and don't have anybody who can teach it to you personally (like me) I suggest to read the (whole) thread on stormboards. You will find all the information there but it will take some time, both to read and digest it. For the beginning I would also note the basic doomsday piles with the corresponding mana requirements and storm counts and learn those by heart. Otherwise you'll probably feel pretty lost because there is a ton of possible piles.

The deck is amazing. It is really challenging but after getting along with the fundamentals you start to feel its raw power and flexibility. Your only enemy is mostly youself. As far as I understand, your only bad match up are faster combo decks.



Hope that helped a bit : >

[KevinTrudeau]

The deck is amazing. It is really challenging but after getting along with the fundamentals you start to feel its raw power and flexibility. Your only enemy is mostly youself. As far as I understand, your only bad match up are faster combo decks.

Eh, since we're running up to seven copies of, for all intents and purposes, Force of Will (Silence+Chant), in tandem with Top to hide it from discard, our fast combo matchup is actually decent enough; Combo Elves in particular is pretty hard to lose to. Given our sideboarding plans being stretched towards other goals, Burn, especially with storm-specific hate postboard, is actually a pretty annoying matchup. Though I haven't played the matchup in many years, the resurgence of Team America (Goyf+Hymn+Force+a myriad of other annoyances) also seems like a shaky matchup.

[emidln]

Elves isn't fast combo. The fast combo that you can have issues with (if you lose the die roll) are SI, Belcher, and TES. That said, two of those decks are only consistently "fast" at putting Goblins into play, which isn't too big of a concern for us.

Much worse matchups are aggro and aggro-control that can apply pressure plus multiple angles of hate (discard + countermagic (BUG), discard/mindbreak trap + thorn/chalice (goblins), reach + pyrostatic pillar (burn)). Decks that only provide a single thing (Maverick with their hate bears, Rock with discard) are very easy. Not all matchups where your opponent can apply multiple angles of attack are the same either. Team America-style BUG is significantly harder to beat compared to even a fairly hateful (Pyrostatic Pillar + Chalice or Thorn + Therapy) Goblins decks, which you can still beat without siding a good portion of the time. Further, things that are typically good matchups can be nightmares if the opposing pilot is paranoid of combo enough to overload on hate.

Some decks are significantly harder depending on whether we play a 1-of in our 75. Pulverize completely changes the matchup vs MUD. Gaddock Teeg is largely a non-factor if you have a Chain of Vapor or a Karakas in your deck. Other change significantly with the right sideboard cards (Abrupt Decay or Shelldock Isle/Emrakul vs Counterbalance).

[MTG Junkie]

I was finally able to make it to a computer and fill out a proper app for StormBoards. Ya me.
When will I know I was excepted?

[Lejay]

I was finally able to make it to a computer and fill out a proper app for StormBoards. Ya me.
When will I know I was excepted?
I think you have already been excepted.

[Tammit67]

Finished 56th at SCG Edison with 5c doomsday.
Rd 1: Affinity (1-2)
Rd 2: Esperblade (2-1, punted game 2 by sequencing the pile incorrectly)
Rd 3: Burn (1-2, punted again by passing the turn with a DR, DD, ponder in hand with top in play and UB available turn 2)
Rd 4: RUG (1-2, smashed him game one, games 2 and 3 he brought in counterbalance!!)
Rd 5: MUD (2-1, he gets me game 2 with mindbreak trap)
Rd 6: TinFins (2-0)
Rd 7: Miracle blade (2-1)
Rd 8: Jund (2-0)
Rd 9: Esperblade split

Just gotta keep grinding. Still making bad decisions, but fewer as time passes.

[Fade]

I just played in the SCG: Cincy Legacy Open to a top 64 finish with DDFT. My list was pretty stock and the deck felt really good in the meta. Some highlights of the event was winning through counterbalance + top in round 1, comboing with Time Spiral against an Esper Stoneblade player who thought I was playing the same deck as him, and Silencing a Belcher player multiple times even after he would probe me and see I had the chant effect (happened 3 times in 2 games). Perhaps the worst part of the day was getting a draw in round 1, due to me forgetting about rain of filth and thinking I was out of mana even though I calculated everything out before I went for it (Needed 2 more mana but had 2 lands to sac in play), so I passed the turn and my opponent entreated for 3 to win the game on turn 5 of turns.

[Lejay]

I want to see Doomsday Top8 next time I watch SCG Live so no mistakes allowed for the next event folks.

[Tammit67]

I want to see Doomsday Top8 next time I watch SCG Live so no mistakes allowed for the next event folks.

You should book your flight to SCG: Vegas just to show us how

[Lejay]

Actually I'm tempted.

[Koby]

Actually I'm tempted.

I will buy you a beer if you do. (seeing as I'll be there.)

[Asthereal]

Hey Storm players.
I'm interested in getting good with this deck. I've been testing ANT, but wouldn't mind playing a different list/variant. What are some successful Doomsday/ANT lists? What are opinions on TES? Through some browsing I did see a comment saying that a skill/success plateau would be higher sticking with Doomsday. Who has experience making the switch between ANT to Doomsday and agreeing with this statement?

edit, applying for the storm boards as well!
Hi there,
Doomsday is as good as its pilot, and playing well will help way more than playing a list that was tuned by a good player while you yourself are unfamiliar with it. I'll post my list so you can check it out, but I'm pretty sure most won't like it at all. :cool:
If you want to become good with Doomsday, you should probably first goldfish for a couple of hours to just get an idea of what the deck is capable of. Then start testing against other decks (especially decks that play blue or heavy discard), to find out how that stuff goes. Only then I would start to read more into matchup analysis and start to learn by heart a couple of piles.

My list, though slightly different than most:

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Ponder
4 Burning Wish
3 Doomsday
1 Meditate /22

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual /15

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy /7

2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire /16

Side:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Doomsday
1 Infernal Tutor.
1 Time Spiral
1 Death Mark
1 Shattering Spree
1 Cabal Therapy.
2 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn /15

Most people here prefer a list with white for Silences and Chants, and perhaps a Karakas or two on side. Also, some prefer Ideas Unbound over Meditate. You could also play that one on side, but I don't like that very much. I prefer an EtW on side in case I draw a quick hand. Last thing you could consider is to not play Burning Wish. Piles get easier, and it also becomes easier to splash a colour like white or green to improve certain matchups. The bad side of that idea is that you need to start playing 'bad' cards like Tendrils and so on main deck. That can really suck from time to time. The nice thing about the Burning Wish list is that all the bad stuff goes to the sideboard, so you rarely get awkward hands.

Some thoughts on my sideboard:
I have an Infernal on side so I have the option to play a tutor chain win like Wish into Infernal into Wish into Tendrils. Against aggro decks that's often a much safer route than Doomsday into getting Fireblasted to death. Empty the Warrens is there for hands with lots of accell and a Wish. Doomsday isn't very good at winning on turn 1, but if you can draw nice stuff, why not add one card to the board that can actually help you capitalize? The Spiral is there to be able to turn around grindy matches against discard decks. The rest is protection, some bounce and of course an alternative wincon. I really don't like the Emrakul package, so I'm seriously considering changing it to a Laboratory Maniac or Helm of Awakening/Grapeshot package, but I haven't tested that well enough to start playing it.

Good luck with Doomsday and have fun! :smile:

[Moxnix]

I played this list to top32 at baltimore. I was in t8 contention until round 8

3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Karakas
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Tropical Island
SB: 2 Karakas
SB: 2 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Time Spiral
SB: 1 Infernal Contract
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy

Ended up 6-3. I feel like I was a draw spell at some point over a huge amount of turns from making t8. List felt fine. Would play again.


I really like this list I'm just getting into legacy. I don't own any Karakas would you put a fetchland in its slot? Also opening up two sideboard slots do you like Ill-Gotten gains or a second IU on the SB? Goldfishing I found the extra burning wish when I draw into DD needed a decent target for if I want hard cast DD on 3 and want to play the wish T2. Also looking at the google docs SS on the other page there are alot of good piles with IGGY and TOA Maindeck that have cheaper mana requirements. Snapcaster Would not be very good for me alot if DRS. Could I play a Maindeck IGGY? It seems pretty crap to draw into but it makes the t1 dark rit doomsday pass piles possible. I could also just MD one of the tendrils and SB the IGGY for BW piles. If you don't think they are worth a slot MD what would you put in snapcasters slot petal number 2? Another land or preordain?

[leegoo]

Tendrils and IGG are just miserable, straight up mulligans any time you draw them.

In straight UBr Doomsday you might try a badlands in spot of karakas, it's not all that great, but while learning the deck it can make things easier and every now and then it's nice to have. Otherwise, probably another basic/sea.

There are plenty of Pass the Turn piles that don't require IGG, just making it more useless.

If you don't play the snapcaster then I'd go for the 2nd petal or another protection spell.

But for the most part, doomsday discussion takes place on Stormboards, not here. Good luck with the deck!

[Moxnix]

Tendrils and IGG are just miserable, straight up mulligans any time you draw them.

In straight UBr Doomsday you might try a badlands in spot of karakas, it's not all that great, but while learning the deck it can make things easier and every now and then it's nice to have. Otherwise, probably another basic/sea.

There are plenty of Pass the Turn piles that don't require IGG, just making it more useless.

If you don't play the snapcaster then I'd go for the 2nd petal or another protection spell.

But for the most part, doomsday discussion takes place on Stormboards, not here. Good luck with the deck!

Thanks I just today put in an app waiting for a mod to unlock me so I can read up. Why is badlands or basic / sea better than another fetch are the exact number of real lands very important? Seems like a fetch would ve better without shuffle. Also of If I decide to play lotus pedal over the snap would IGGY /IU number 2 be worth it in SB? When goldfishing IGGY in SB seemed pretty useless but IU seemed awesome but I was fishing and the extra wishes I got might just end up getting me DD if I get one stripped. What do you think my SB slots should be for the Karakas I see massacre discussed a few pages back. Based on what I've seen and what you said I think I can do - Karakas -snap + petal + sea abd in SB -2 Karakas + 1IU + 1massacre How does that look?

[leegoo]

I mean, I think Infernal Contract fairly well solidifies your "card draw" spell in the board, making a second IU pretty unnecessary.

You can run another fetch if you wanted... a lot of newer players to doomsday have a hard time coming up with the right amount of mana (that is R + BBB) without running a badlands. It's something you learn, but it's a nice crutch if you can afford it, and just nice in general at times.

[Moxnix]

I mean, I think Infernal Contract fairly well solidifies your "card draw" spell in the board, making a second IU pretty unnecessary.

You can run another fetch if you wanted... a lot of newer players to doomsday have a hard time coming up with the right amount of mana (that is R + BBB) without running a badlands. It's something you learn, but it's a nice crutch if you can afford it, and just nice in general at times.

I think I will just have to goldfish alot. I liked idea of IGGY since that google doc made this deck incredibly easy to understand and all it's pass piles are IGGY is love if you or the decks creator could show me some possible pass piles without a main deck ToA or IGGY becuase I'm not seeing alot of easy ones. Considering you want to pass pile on really fast T1 -T2 DD plays to make it faster than just waiting I don't see many. This may be outweighed by how horrible of a draw it is but it allows for some decent pass piles if in hand but aside from that it's a mull 6 like you said. I think it's time to go fishing until I get access to storm boards.

Edit: would 1 rite of flame sideboard be bad for an extra wish target for the double wish hands for 1 extra storm and mana or is IC going to net me the same advantage with or with SDT on board ?

[Rampart]

I think I will just have to goldfish alot. I liked idea of IGGY since that google doc made this deck incredibly easy to understand and all it's pass piles are IGGY is love if you or the decks creator could show me some possible pass piles without a main deck ToA or IGGY becuase I'm not seeing alot of easy ones. Considering you want to pass pile on really fast T1 -T2 DD plays to make it faster than just waiting I don't see many. This may be outweighed by how horrible of a draw it is but it allows for some decent pass piles if in hand but aside from that it's a mull 6 like you said. I think it's time to go fishing until I get access to storm boards.

Edit: would 1 rite of flame sideboard be bad for an extra wish target for the double wish hands for 1 extra storm and mana or is IC going to net me the same advantage with or with SDT on board ?

You are going to have to goldfish a lot. Iggy has fallen out of favor of late, most people have or are cutting that card from the sideboard. If you are trying to set up pass the turn piles on turn one or two and not going for the shelldock emrukul plan, your going to really struggle as you probably don't have enough resources to go off properly.

Rite is not good in the sideboard.

[Namida]

I think I will just have to goldfish alot. I liked idea of IGGY since that google doc made this deck incredibly easy to understand and all it's pass piles are IGGY is love if you or the decks creator could show me some possible pass piles without a main deck ToA or IGGY becuase I'm not seeing alot of easy ones. Considering you want to pass pile on really fast T1 -T2 DD plays to make it faster than just waiting I don't see many. This may be outweighed by how horrible of a draw it is but it allows for some decent pass piles if in hand but aside from that it's a mull 6 like you said. I think it's time to go fishing until I get access to storm boards.

Edit: would 1 rite of flame sideboard be bad for an extra wish target for the double wish hands for 1 extra storm and mana or is IC going to net me the same advantage with or with SDT on board ?

Ill-Gotten Gains is bad because it's a horrible draw, and the benefits of having it in your deck do not outweigh that. The main reasons you would want it in your deck are to enable Ill-Gotten Gains Loops with Infernal Tutor and to enable quick pass-the-turn piles. However, Infernal Tutor also isn't good in this deck because it can't often win the game on its own unless you have a Sensei's Divining Top in play since the deck doesn't max out on fast mana to facilitate Ill-Gotten Gains (2 Lotus Petals max, no Cabal Rituals because they're bad with Ideas Unbound, and Rain of Filth isn't any good at all for loops), and the kind of decks you want to quickly pass the turn on are decks you should beat up on anyway because passing the turn is dangerous enough that it shouldn't be your first choice against anything that could disrupt you after you've committed. And in this vein, playing Ideas Unbound piles with Probe and Burning Wish in your deck makes it much easier to string together a quick win that passing the turn quickly isn't as important.

Basically: Why do you find it integral to this deck's game plan to be able to consistently cast Doomsday on turns 1 and 2?

Also, could you explain more what you'd be trying to do with a Rite of Flame in your board? All I'm seeing is "It doesn't cast Doomsday" and the biggest problem I have with this deck is actually getting the triple black mana to cast my card.

[Chikenbok]

the biggest problem I have with this deck is actually getting the triple black mana to cast my card.

3 x Underground Sea
1 x Badlands
2 x Swamp

Usually does it for me :wink:

[Namida]

3 x Underground Sea
1 x Badlands
2 x Swamp

Usually does it for me :wink:

Oh, I don't mean to say that it's a *real* problem--my point is that I don't think Rite of Flame does anything because only Burning Wish and Sensei's Divining Top can utilize the mana because every other card in the deck strictly needs blue or black mana, with no colorless mana requirements to speak of. I'm not seeing any immediate upside that overshadows the whole "This is only works with two cards in the deck" problem.

[Chikenbok]

Oh, I don't mean to say that it's a *real* problem--my point is that I don't think Rite of Flame does anything because only Burning Wish and Sensei's Divining Top can utilize the mana because every other card in the deck strictly needs blue or black mana, with no colorless mana requirements to speak of. I'm not seeing any immediate upside that overshadows the whole "This is only works with two cards in the deck" problem.

Oh man, I didn't even see someone recommending Rite in the SB. Yeah, don't do that. I think I'd probably run bubbling muck before I touched Rite of Flame.

Also dude who likes IGG, if you're into IGG, you can try out the old german lists that ran infernal tutor and burning wish. It was usually an Iggy loop deck that had Doomsday as a 40%/backup plan. It can get you into the mindset of why simply casting Doomsday is better than casting anything else.

[Moxnix]

Still cant see anything on StormBoards but i have done some testing of my own. Well i actually just gold-fished the deck a ton and yea i don't think i need any of those bad card SB or main after using the deck. It is alot easier than i thought once you see its just crafting a hand that gets their by moving through the pile droping BW last and Trendrils and so far im finding dropping in cabal therapy / duress quite easy as a chug toward t3-4 kills. Now i need some practice with someone Hymning me or dazing me or pulling out flusterstorms or whatever. I really like his core build i just switched Karakas for Sea 3 and Played Petal number 2 over Snap-caster. I Think i might just use the two extra SB slots i have from karkas and play 2 Dark Confidant For if i board them in with the 4th Therapy against decks that grind me down with Hymn etc maybe?

The thing i love about this deck though is opening the silly hands and going yea i can win turn 1 with this :)

[Namida]

Still cant see anything on StormBoards but i have done some testing of my own. Well i actually just gold-fished the deck a ton and yea i don't think i need any of those bad card SB or main after using the deck. It is alot easier than i thought once you see its just crafting a hand that gets their by moving through the pile droping BW last and Trendrils and so far im finding dropping in cabal therapy / duress quite easy as a chug toward t3-4 kills. Now i need some practice with someone Hymning me or dazing me or pulling out flusterstorms or whatever. I really like his core build i just switched Karakas for Sea 3 and Played Petal number 2 over Snap-caster. I Think i might just use the two extra SB slots i have from karkas and play 2 Dark Confidant For if i board them in with the 4th Therapy against decks that grind me down with Hymn etc maybe?

The thing i love about this deck though is opening the silly hands and going yea i can win turn 1 with this :)

Oh yeah, the Snapcaster Mage got dropped quickly because of Deathrite Shaman. If I recall correctly, the list you have is outdated, but you made pretty much the same changes to your maindeck. There's still a Karakas in the board, though, and 2 Tropical Island 4 Abrupt Decay was deemed unnecessary. I've never understood what Dark Confidant is supposed to do in Storm decks, to be honest with you. What sort of Hymn decks are you facing? In any case, I don't think you need much more to combat discard when you're already playing Sensei's Divining Top and a bunch of lands. I'd personally play Emrakul and Shelldock Isle in your last two slots.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Well Congrats to the guy who placed with Doomsday at the SCG. Brain must be like cheese after so many rounds.... :). If anyone is still out there, anyone tried swan song on the board (vs discard/counters/counterbalance)? Im playing UBr DDFT with a light green splash off the board for swarm/decay. (Im testing dropping it for the swan songs). Anyone got any swish ways to play around the random 1 of karakas from esper stoneblade/miracles. Literally every time I go for Emrakul post board they seem to have it sandbagged somewhere.... (not too keen on boarding a pithing needle etc... space is already tight). Would a more traditional 'German' list be better at the moment? it seems a bit more durable, which is good at the mo with all the permanent based disruption running around...

It seems like the deck seems pretty well positioned at the moment, we should drum up a bit more interest :D.

Hope someone out in the interweb-a-net is listening!

The Spanish Tunnel King.

[.dk]

Personally, I've dropped Shelldock/Emrakul from my board due to the weakness you've mentioned, and basically every deck running wasteland. Not worth it anymore. If you're looking for an alternate win-con, try a 1 of Lab Maniac.

I'm running a 5c list, including the green splash. I think that Abrupt Decay and Swarms are a better answer to many problems than Swan Song, myself. Needing to counter something when they play it precludes cantripping to dig for pieces that you need as well. But, YMMV - I'm no DDFT expert or anything...

[Mhenlo]

Well Congrats to the guy who placed with Doomsday at the SCG. Brain must be like cheese after so many rounds.... :). If anyone is still out there, anyone tried swan song on the board (vs discard/counters/counterbalance)? Im playing UBr DDFT with a light green splash off the board for swarm/decay. (Im testing dropping it for the swan songs). Anyone got any swish ways to play around the random 1 of karakas from esper stoneblade/miracles. Literally every time I go for Emrakul post board they seem to have it sandbagged somewhere.... (not too keen on boarding a pithing needle etc... space is already tight). Would a more traditional 'German' list be better at the moment? it seems a bit more durable, which is good at the mo with all the permanent based disruption running around...

It seems like the deck seems pretty well positioned at the moment, we should drum up a bit more interest :D.

Hope someone out in the interweb-a-net is listening!

The Spanish Tunnel King.

Swan Song seems interesting but I think Pyroblast might be better, the storm players in the TES forum like it so I would probably try Pyro over Swan Song.
There is no way to beat a Karakas w/o running another SB card or changing the list, just hope they don't have it.

[Countertoplol]

Well Congrats to the guy who placed with Doomsday at the SCG. Brain must be like cheese after so many rounds.... :). If anyone is still out there, anyone tried swan song on the board (vs discard/counters/counterbalance)? Im playing UBr DDFT with a light green splash off the board for swarm/decay. (Im testing dropping it for the swan songs). Anyone got any swish ways to play around the random 1 of karakas from esper stoneblade/miracles. Literally every time I go for Emrakul post board they seem to have it sandbagged somewhere.... (not too keen on boarding a pithing needle etc... space is already tight). Would a more traditional 'German' list be better at the moment? it seems a bit more durable, which is good at the mo with all the permanent based disruption running around...

It seems like the deck seems pretty well positioned at the moment, we should drum up a bit more interest :D.

Hope someone out in the interweb-a-net is listening!

The Spanish Tunnel King.

We don't really discuss this deck on the source, most DDFT discussing occurs on stormboards.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Personally, I've dropped Shelldock/Emrakul from my board due to the weakness you've mentioned, and basically every deck running wasteland. Not worth it anymore. If you're looking for an alternate win-con, try a 1 of Lab Maniac.

I'm running a 5c list, including the green splash. I think that Abrupt Decay and Swarms are a better answer to many problems than Swan Song, myself. Needing to counter something when they play it precludes cantripping to dig for pieces that you need as well. But, YMMV - I'm no DDFT expert or anything...

Yeah, my tendency is to go for the greediest manabase possible also. And the deck only really NEEDS to run 1 island 1 swamp, but i've reigned it in a bit and really have been digging the basics. Given enough mana the deck really seems to be able to plough through anything. And running 4-5 basics is really sweet vs. waste/stifle.dec allowing you to get to the point where you can make the deck really do some working going off. And in my mind Emrakul is there specifically against the counterbalance matchups, so you no longer have to resolve anything (counterable) post DD, and they dont play waste - just the 1 of karakas. And they might be able to catch you with a terminus if they have enough permanents (bad news, bears). I love the plan, but it seems like decay is better because its out of your control if they have it or not. Even if the chances are small-ish.... Yh I think I talked myself back to the green splash. The swarms are definitely awesome at the moment :). I actually find it nice having some counterspells in the deck. It enables you to function a bit like a vintage combo/control deck. Swan songing someones entreat the angels was pretty sweet, and the deck is much less reliant on LED (pre-DD) than most other storm decks, so maybe there is some room for some counters... I also dont really like cantripping so aggressively most times (unless there is some potential kill on or have a ton of them, or need to hide something with brainstorm) so I could usually have the mana for it if I needed to. Its not really been a problem for me...


Swan Song seems interesting but I think Pyroblast might be better, the storm players in the TES forum like it so I would probably try Pyro over Swan Song.
There is no way to beat a Karakas w/o running another SB card or changing the list, just hope they don't have it.

Yh I used to play TES a lot with 2 pyroblast in the board back in the day, and found them to be great. But to be honest, the cards that I find hard to play around aren't actually blue... I find liliana (ok, so you cant swan song her either :)) hard to play through, and surgical extractions my own personal nightmare. But swan song seems to hit most things that I dislike. From counterspells, to discard, to counterbalance or a leyline of sanctity that they play out it seems sweet. Still dont know if its better than the swarms though...


We don't really discuss this deck on the source, most DDFT discussing occurs on stormboards.

Yeah, im registered over there too, although Im not such a regular visitor. Good to get ideas from everywhere, dont you think?

The Spannish Tunnel King

[emidln]

Doomsday (sb/LM view) - December 2013
-------------------------

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Ideas Unbound

3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor

3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
1 Tendrils of Agony

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

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

My sideboard has been this:

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Doomsday
1 Infernal Contract
1 Time Spiral
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Massacre
1 Karakas
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
1 Laboratory Maniac

A few explanations:

Tendrils of Agony maindeck provides some additional capabilities in terms of cheap
Brainstorm piles and Chain of Vapor piles. I want the 2nd in my 75, and I consider
the utility provided by a maindeck Tendrils higher than the 18th land (Karakas/Trop Island),
Lab Maniac, Abrupt Decay, Empty the Warrens, or Infernal Contract.

There is only a single Lotus Petal. This means foresight about floating mana
into a Doomsday pile by breaking Lotus Petal is sometimes going to be necessary.
Don't be the guy who doesn't crack Lotus Petal and then has no way to get starter
mana in their pile. With a single Lotus Petal, ETW is worse, and thus a third
Abrupt Decay plus the functionality of Lab Maniac replaces it.

A Duress has been cut for a Chromatic Sphere. Chromatic Sphere serves two major purposes:

(1) Provides a lab maniac pile that is immune to removal and LED compatible (2UU).
(2) Provides a way to store a draw step with Doomsday. This makes 5 total.

Filtering mana is obviously useful in a deck with basics and specific black/blue requirements.
Additionally, it's just another cantrip for 1 sometimes. (Which means +2 mana via an
in-pile LED for those of you paying attention.)

The manabase is optimized for providing stable mana in the face of disruption while still
providing access to lots of colors. Four basics mean you can use your cantrips to bury
opponents in card quality. The fetch config means all 9 fetches have access to all
colors.

The choice of Laboratory Maniac should be looked at as part of an overall strategy to
combat permanent-based hate. Laboratory Maniac is a Tendrils of Agony with a builtin
Rushing River. It's also a viable pass the turn pile that isn't vulnerable to much
(red blast, normal countermagic) for 2UU and optimally vulnerable to creature removal
for 1UU. This is extremely important in attrition-based matchups like SnT where you often
need to beat both countermagic and a clock. Beating both and Leylines is often too much.
Lab Man evens the field greatly.

It's possible that the build isn't optimal in regards to usage of Lab Man. I'm highly
considering the 4th Duress, Lab Man, and a Karakas as a combined package over
Chain of Vapor, Tendrils of Agony, and a card to be named. This would allow more
aggressive lines with respect to pass the turn piles when Duress/Therapy/Probe reveals
an opportunity. It's entirely possible that such a build would eschew the 17th UB land
maindeck for a 2nd Lotus Petal in order to get more turn 2 Doomsdays.

Against Show and Tell, you want your 60 to look like this:

4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Lab Maniac
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Infernal Contract
4 Burning Wish
3 Doomday
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Karakas

Against Mono Blue SnT, you leave out Karakas for an Island. You might also consider
cutting Infernal Contract since there is no danger of red blasts, but a draw4 is
also useful in an attrition war.

I need to go, but I intend to post some follow up advice on Delver variants, DnT, UWx Control, Elves, and the Storm
pseudo-mirror. I'd also like to explore a maindeck Lab Man view of the deck, but I need some testing before really tackling that.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

First up, nice to see you back on DD :D. Some comments/questions for you!


Doomsday (sb/LM view) - December 2013
-------------------------

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Ideas Unbound

3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor

3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
1 Tendrils of Agony

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

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

Sweet list. Sphere looks pretty groovy :)

My sideboard has been this:

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Doomsday
1 Infernal Contract
1 Time Spiral
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Massacre
1 Karakas
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
1 Laboratory Maniac

Would slaughter pact be better than karakas here? I havent seen too many Teegs+mom around lately, and generates storm if you need it in a pile. Also better vs cannonist/meddling mage which seem to be all the rage. And yes, I can see that you have the 2nd massacre for those guys, but just a thought. Also - would you ever run the tropic main. Going down to 3 basics seems ok, and SB space is at a premium (as im sure you know :))

A few explanations:

Tendrils of Agony maindeck provides some additional capabilities in terms of cheap
Brainstorm piles and Chain of Vapor piles. I want the 2nd in my 75, and I consider
the utility provided by a maindeck Tendrils higher than the 18th land (Karakas/Trop Island),
Lab Maniac, Abrupt Decay, Empty the Warrens, or Infernal Contract.

Obviously true. Also esper seems to do about 6 damage to itself during the game, making a natural tendrils pretty sweet, as I found out after boarding in the 2nd copy post board. Is the tendrils better than the 7th discard though? I'd find 6 a bit light I think (even with the 4th wish----> therepy). Especially if none of them are silence....

There is only a single Lotus Petal. This means foresight about floating mana
into a Doomsday pile by breaking Lotus Petal is sometimes going to be necessary.
Don't be the guy who doesn't crack Lotus Petal and then has no way to get starter
mana in their pile. With a single Lotus Petal, ETW is worse, and thus a third
Abrupt Decay plus the functionality of Lab Maniac replaces it.

I did the lotus petal thing so many times. It feels sooooo bad. A lesson learned though :). Dont know if only 1 petal makes ETW worse. Mostly seems to be made off LED. Unless you mean for the storm count. I guess ETW is better in in relation to how many tempo decks are around rather than the number of lotus petals...

A Duress has been cut for a Chromatic Sphere. Chromatic Sphere serves two major purposes:

(1) Provides a lab maniac pile that is immune to removal and LED compatible (2UU).
(2) Provides a way to store a draw step with Doomsday. This makes 5 total.

Love this. Except for the fact a duress was cut.....

Filtering mana is obviously useful in a deck with basics and specific black/blue requirements.
Additionally, it's just another cantrip for 1 sometimes. (Which means +2 mana via an
in-pile LED for those of you paying attention.)

The manabase is optimized for providing stable mana in the face of disruption while still
providing access to lots of colors. Four basics mean you can use your cantrips to bury
opponents in card quality. The fetch config means all 9 fetches have access to all
colors.

The choice of Laboratory Maniac should be looked at as part of an overall strategy to
combat permanent-based hate. Laboratory Maniac is a Tendrils of Agony with a builtin
Rushing River. It's also a viable pass the turn pile that isn't vulnerable to much
(red blast, normal countermagic) for 2UU and optimally vulnerable to creature removal
for 1UU. This is extremely important in attrition-based matchups like SnT where you often
need to beat both countermagic and a clock. Beating both and Leylines is often too much.
Lab Man evens the field greatly.

Its a shame he cant fulfil the same role as Emrakul vs counterbalance though :/. And after 3-4 years playing on and off, i've really only just got used to IU piles. The idea of learning more piles terrifies me.... XD

It's possible that the build isn't optimal in regards to usage of Lab Man. I'm highly
considering the 4th Duress, Lab Man, and a Karakas as a combined package over
Chain of Vapor, Tendrils of Agony, and a card to be named. This would allow more
aggressive lines with respect to pass the turn piles when Duress/Therapy/Probe reveals
an opportunity. It's entirely possible that such a build would eschew the 17th UB land
maindeck for a 2nd Lotus Petal in order to get more turn 2 Doomsdays.

Cant see me playing DD with no CoV in the main XD. But on a broader note, it seems like being resilient (the reason to play DD) is better than speed ATM because of all the discard. TES is probably better at doing things turn 2 than us.

Against Show and Tell, you want your 60 to look like this:

4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Lab Maniac
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Infernal Contract
4 Burning Wish
3 Doomday
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Karakas

Against Mono Blue SnT, you leave out Karakas for an Island. You might also consider
cutting Infernal Contract since there is no danger of red blasts, but a draw4 is
also useful in an attrition war.

I need to go, but I intend to post some follow up advice on Delver variants, DnT, UWx Control, Elves, and the Storm
pseudo-mirror. I'd also like to explore a maindeck Lab Man view of the deck, but I need some testing before really tackling that.

Yeah, really quality input, looking forward to the next instalment :D

The Spanish Tunnel King

[emidln]

First up, nice to see you back on DD :D. Some comments/questions for you!

Karakas is better than Slaughter Pact against Thalia, Griselbrand, and Emrakul. While it is worse against Canonist and Mage, those are seeing play from decks with countermagic. I'd be siding in a Massacre and Abrupt Decays in those matchups to avoid getting my removal spell countered. Canonist also sees play in DnT, but is much less of a threat than Thalia. Mother can protect both in any event (Canonist or Thalia or Revoker) so I'm going to need Massacre more than likely (hence one to side, one to wish).

ETW utility against Delver is something to consider more.

You don't need Lab Man to do everything against Counterbalance. You have Abrupt Decays for that. Also, it is actually reasonably to stack Abrupt Decay and then Ideas Unbound into a Lab Man pile against a UW deck postboard. You were already planning on passing twice with Shelldock Isle. Sure, they can theoretically counter your Lab Man, but you actually do have Duress/Therapy still available (this is one of those places where having basics so you can tap lands for mana actually matters).

Chain of Vapor is a means to an end. There are only a few cards that it solves in g1 (Leyline of Sanctity from UW/Mono Blue SnT, Gaddock Teeg from Bant/Elves/Maverick, and Thalia / Revoker from DnT ). It's mostly there extending your sideboard. Karakas is comparable (sometimes better, sometimes worse) at dealing with Teeg/Thalia and playing a Lab Man would eliminate the need to deal with Leyline of Sanctity and Gaddock Teeg. The huge upside is that you would be able to build the deck to aggressively capitalize on mulligans/bad keeps/poor draws from the opponent.

[Koby]

A return to true form. Fetchland (9) Tendrils (maindeck). Welcome back to your namesake!

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Karakas is better than Slaughter Pact against Thalia, Griselbrand, and Emrakul. While it is worse against Canonist and Mage, those are seeing play from decks with countermagic. I'd be siding in a Massacre and Abrupt Decays in those matchups to avoid getting my removal spell countered. Canonist also sees play in DnT, but is much less of a threat than Thalia. Mother can protect both in any event (Canonist or Thalia or Revoker) so I'm going to need Massacre more than likely (hence one to side, one to wish).

ETW utility against Delver is something to consider more.

You don't need Lab Man to do everything against Counterbalance. You have Abrupt Decays for that. Also, it is actually reasonably to stack Abrupt Decay and then Ideas Unbound into a Lab Man pile against a UW deck postboard. You were already planning on passing twice with Shelldock Isle. Sure, they can theoretically counter your Lab Man, but you actually do have Duress/Therapy still available (this is one of those places where having basics so you can tap lands for mana actually matters).

Chain of Vapor is a means to an end. There are only a few cards that it solves in g1 (Leyline of Sanctity from UW/Mono Blue SnT, Gaddock Teeg from Bant/Elves/Maverick, and Thalia / Revoker from DnT ). It's mostly there extending your sideboard. Karakas is comparable (sometimes better, sometimes worse) at dealing with Teeg/Thalia and playing a Lab Man would eliminate the need to deal with Leyline of Sanctity and Gaddock Teeg. The huge upside is that you would be able to build the deck to aggressively capitalize on mulligans/bad keeps/poor draws from the opponent.

Yh. The thing that tends to happen with me and a miracles player (post board) is we both get set up (I cantrip my face off until they manage to get CB/top up) and then I keep probing (metaphorically, not the card :D) to try and force through a DD (and 3 is sometimes a weak spot for them...) and then the game is over. But if they have the lock up then discard is pretty useless... If you can win before the lock its all good and dandy, but I like that the deck still has a lot of game post CB/top being set up, which I think it would lose a bit of with the lab man. And there are quite a few CB players where I am. Im tempted to play both Emmy AND the decays XD.

I think im overly fond of chain of vapors, to the point I probably would include it even if it wasnt optimum (a cardinal sin, I know). But its just nice to have some outs to annoying perms. G1 I find. But the most important thing for me in the storm engine side. With so much discard/lilly around, I think its key to grinding people out, having a lot of land drops with top in play and topdecking DD and making some CoV pile for the extra storm.

Doomsday makes me happy

The Spanish Tunnel King

[GoldenCid]

Sorry. New to the deck
Why should i play ddft instead of ant? Just few words.

[emidln]

Sorry. New to the deck
Why should i play ddft instead of ant? Just few words.

If you have to ask, the answer is that you shouldn't.

[Milqman]

If you have to ask, the answer is that you shouldn't.
Alright, well this guy is clearly in a bad mood because his fedora got stapled into his neckbeard. I'm sure giving such a snarky reply made him feel pretty big, but he just looked like a tool.

The primary reason to play DD is just for fun. In terms of results, other Combo decks unarguably have consistently put up better results, but Doomsday is pretty difficult to pilot. Its a lot less straight forward ANT which can lead to slightly better game variety. You don't win quite as often, but you do, you win more spectacularly.

The second reason is the theoretical ability to get out of almost any situation.

The Alternate win conditions in various versions (Emrakul, Lab Man, or Tendrils) gives you 3 ways to get around almost any situation. It doesn't go off quite as easily as other combo decks, but when you get there it theoretically has the tools to get through anything.

[Dark Ritual]

Alright, well this guy is clearly in a bad mood because his fedora got stapled into his neckbeard. I'm sure giving such a snarky reply made him feel pretty big, but he just looked like a tool.

The primary reason to play DD is just for fun. In terms of results, other Combo decks unarguably have consistently put up better results, but Doomsday is pretty difficult to pilot. Its a lot less straight forward ANT which can lead to slightly better game variety. You don't win quite as often, but you do, you win more spectacularly.

The second reason is the theoretical ability to get out of almost any situation.

The Alternate win conditions in various versions (Emrakul, Lab Man, or Tendrils) gives you 3 ways to get around almost any situation. It doesn't go off quite as easily as other combo decks, but when you get there it theoretically has the tools to get through anything.

Seriously, show some respect to one of the few people on the planet who is a master of the deck. His reply is snarky? Well this deck is the hardest deck to pilot in legacy hands down. If you have to ask why play this deck over ANT, TES, or any other storm deck really you aren't remotely close to understanding how to resolve doomsday optimally in order to win through thalia, gaddock teeg, and leyline of sanctity all in the same turn and should stick to ANT, TES, or whatever storm deck you're currently piloting since you aren't ready for doomsday fetchland tendrils.

[Milqman]

Seriously, show some respect to one of the few people on the planet who is a master of the deck. His reply is snarky? Well this deck is the hardest deck to pilot in legacy hands down. If you have to ask why play this deck over ANT, TES, or any other storm deck really you aren't remotely close to understanding how to resolve doomsday optimally in order to win through thalia, gaddock teeg, and leyline of sanctity all in the same turn and should stick to ANT, TES, or whatever storm deck you're currently piloting since you aren't ready for doomsday fetchland tendrils.

He didn't ask for a primer, he just asked for a quick comparison and I answered in about 15 seconds without managing to berate him for being curious.

"If you have to ask, the answer is that you shouldn't." is emblematic of everything toxic people associate with the magic community. Nobody on the planet deserves respect for a response like that. The guy asking a question wants to learn something really hard, he deserves encouragement not a slap in the face.

[Dark Ritual]

He didn't ask for a primer, he just asked for a quick comparison and I answered in about 15 seconds without managing to berate him for being curious.

"If you have to ask, the answer is that you shouldn't." is emblematic of everything toxic people associate with the magic community. Nobody on the planet deserves respect for a response like that. The guy asking a question wants to learn something really hard, he deserves encouragement not a slap in the face.

People in general are assholes. Hate to break it to you but that's the truth and one of the main things I learned working a minimum wage job at a theatre for 5 and a half years. As for his reply being snarky at all, it really isn't. If you want a rude reply here's one "go back to playing ANT you storm novice and keep being a novice at storm and perhaps in time you'll be ready for doomsday fetchland tendrils." Your reply, however, was quite rude in regards to the fedora and neckbeard.

[GoldenCid]

Milqman thx for your support and understanding
. I need no more answers.

[Asthereal]

Milqman thx for your support and understanding
. I need no more answers.
emidln was rather unsubtle, I'll admit that, but he's not wrong.
If you are new to Doomsday, you will go 0-5 in your first three tourneys.
If you are new to Storm in general, you should play ANT > TES > Doomsday Tendrils.

In terms of fun, the order is the exact opposite, but Doomsday is HARD to play.
Actually it's hard enough to go off already with Doomsday, let alone fight through hate.
TES is also hard to play, because it has more options, and requires you go off faster than ANT.

But... I would definitely recommend you build Doomsday, and just goldfish 50 games.
If you get a feeling for what the deck can do, try it against some friends.
The deck is just very rewarding and fun to play. :)

[Namida]

He didn't ask for a primer, he just asked for a quick comparison and I answered in about 15 seconds without managing to berate him for being curious.

"If you have to ask, the answer is that you shouldn't." is emblematic of everything toxic people associate with the magic community. Nobody on the planet deserves respect for a response like that. The guy asking a question wants to learn something really hard, he deserves encouragement not a slap in the face.

I think the "If you have to ask..." answer is suitable.

You need to be more than just "curious" in order to have this deck function. To make playing this deck anything more than a stressful waste of time, you need more than the sort of passing interest displayed in the "Convince me that caring about this is a good idea"-type post that was being responded to.

You see "A guy asking a question who wants to learn something really hard." I find it strange that you see things that way, because to me "Tell me why I should play this deck" implies that the poster doesn't even find the deck exciting enough to just play it because it might be fun. So what I see is "A guy who didn't even put forth the effort to read the thread he's posting in to draw his own conclusions about whether or not he's genuinely interested in learning anything." Doomsday players routinely call people out on this because the amount of work you need to put into playing this deck at even a mediocre level is such that you're definitely not getting anywhere if you need outside motivation to play the deck before you've even picked it up.

People aren't entitled to encouragement when they're basically asking you to hold their hand through something this basic. Deigning to entertain the thought of playing Doomsday doesn't automatically earn you a round of applause from a crowd of people who are desperate to get this deck more attention or anything like that.

Also, it's super weird that you want to rebuke anyone for their behavior when you're calling people fedora wearing neckbeard tools.

[clavio]

Seriously, show some respect to one of the few people on the planet who is a master of the deck. His reply is snarky? Well this deck is the hardest deck to pilot in legacy hands down. If you have to ask why play this deck over ANT, TES, or any other storm deck really you aren't remotely close to understanding how to resolve doomsday optimally in order to win through thalia, gaddock teeg, and leyline of sanctity all in the same turn and should stick to ANT, TES, or whatever storm deck you're currently piloting since you aren't ready for doomsday fetchland tendrils.

Fuck off! It's not brain surgery. It's not even chess. Anybody that wants to can figure it out in a few months.


If you are new to Doomsday, you will go 0-5 in your first three tourneys.

So what? That shouldn't be a reason not to play the deck.

[FTW]

emidln didn't say anything that bad. It was a functionally correct reply, a tad abrasive, but the request was just for "few words". It does answer the question. Based on the fact he asked, he should probably play ANT more, get a better handle on the format and storm combo in general, maybe try out TES, and then get frustrated with limitations of those builds and realize what DD has to offer. Explaining why would take longer.

On the other hand, Milqman's reply was flat out rude and insulting ("fedora got stapled")... how can you ask of others what you can't do yourself?



If you are new to Storm in general, you should play ANT > TES > Doomsday Tendrils.

In terms of fun, the order is the exact opposite

Disagreed on the "fun". For the new player, losing=not fun, so ANT would probably be the most fun for them too. I've seen new players lose to themselves with ANT just by not counting properly... can't imagine how much more frustrating a time they would have playing "BBB: Exile your library and graveyard. That is all."


What do you guys think about siding into a full Lab Man package (like what Menendian was running) instead of just the single Lab Man? Seems like it would enable piles that win faster through hate. Or can you just not afford the slots in the 75?

[Tammit67]

What do you guys think about siding into a full Lab Man package (like what Menendian was running) instead of just the single Lab Man? Seems like it would enable piles that win faster through hate. Or can you just not afford the slots in the 75?

If i had gush, i would play labman in a heartbeat. I'm not that impressed with it outside of vintage (and even then sometimes I lose to getting targeted by my opponents A. Recall while trying to resolve the bastard)

[civet five]

I had the pleasure of playing against a local DDFT player this weekend (he placed 9th at SCG Oakland this past December) running a Silence build.

For anyone that isn't familiar with the deck and wants to know, DDFT can recover from situations that other Storm decks cannot, because:
1) Top + Fetchlands means he can see A LOT of cards per turn
2) A topdecked Doomsday turns the game around in only a way that a topdecked Ad Nauseum can, but they have 7 of them.

I have 0 experience piloting DDFT but a reasonable amount with TES. I also mulled bad hands into more bad hands, kept those, and was brutally punished for it.

[MTG Junkie]

Turn 2 Dark Ritual into Doomsday with a untapped land and my hand is LED,Wish,LP and a Prob.

I'm thinking cast LP,LED then cast Wish cracking LED for black getting a Infernal Contract. So far iv thought of a pile that could win but I would have to have a LP in the pile. The list I'm trying only plays one LP though.

What to do?

[Rampart]

Turn 2 Dark Ritual into Doomsday with a untapped land and my hand is LED,Wish,LP and a Prob.

I'm thinking cast LP,LED then cast Wish cracking LED for black getting a Infernal Contract. So far iv thought of a pile that could win but I would have to have a LP in the pile. The list I'm trying only plays one LP though.

What to do?

1st: You cast Dark Ritual (1)
2nd: Then cast Doomsday (2) stacking your deck with IU, LED, Probe, LED, BW.
3rd: Play Petal (3)
4th: Play LED (4)
5th: Pay two life for probe (5) retain priority crack LED for blue (UUU)
6th: Draw IU. Cast IU (6)
7th: Draw LED, LED, Probe.
8th: Play x LED (8) cast Probe (9) retain priority Crack LED for red and black (RRR,BBB)
9th: Draw burning wish.
10th: Cast Burning wish Storm is now lethal with RR,BB left in pool.
11th: Get tendrils in sideboard and cast to deal 22 damage (actually its life loss, but damage sounds normal.)

Also if you cast Doomsday with an LED in hand and a way to draw a card you should win. You don't even need the other land or petal

[Wombo Combo]

Turn 2 Dark Ritual into Doomsday with a untapped land and my hand is LED,Wish,LP and a Prob.

I'm thinking cast LP,LED then cast Wish cracking LED for black getting a Infernal Contract. So far iv thought of a pile that could win but I would have to have a LP in the pile. The list I'm trying only plays one LP though.

What to do?

I don't know why you would need the LP in the pile, but you could cast/sack it before casting doomsday. Depending on your life total you could just: LP->Rit->DD->(LED,LED,LED,Wish,x)->GP->LED->LED->Wish(sack for BBBRRR)->IC->LED->LED->Wish(BBBBBBR)->Tendrils

[Tempus]

Turn 2 Dark Ritual into Doomsday with a untapped land and my hand is LED,Wish,LP and a Prob.

I'm thinking cast LP,LED then cast Wish cracking LED for black getting a Infernal Contract. So far iv thought of a pile that could win but I would have to have a LP in the pile. The list I'm trying only plays one LP though.

What to do?

Well
==top==
IU
LED
Probe
LED
BW
==bottom==

Petal (3)
LED (4)
Probe (5), sac LED for UUU
IU (6), U (Draw LED, GP, LED)
LED (7)
LED (8)
GP (9), crack LEDs for RRRBBB
BW (10) get Tendrils
Tendrils (11)

or

GP (9), crack LEDs for UUUBBB, crack Petal R
BW (10), get Time Spiral
TS (11), U
Draw 7 out of (3 LED, LP, Doomsday, IU, 2 GP, BW) and have 2 untapped lands
with the remaining life and 1 blue mana floating you can draw the remaining 2 cards with GP, if those are the two last cards go on as follows
3 LED (14)
LP (15), crack for R, RU in Pool (otherwise take the second mana from a land)
BW (16), crack 2 LEDs for BBBBBB, get Tendrils
Tendris (17)

The Time Spiral route is only good with an opponent that doesn't cast instants...

[DarkJester]

Turn 2 Dark Ritual into Doomsday with a untapped land and my hand is LED,Wish,LP and a Prob.

I'm thinking cast LP,LED then cast Wish cracking LED for black getting a Infernal Contract. So far iv thought of a pile that could win but I would have to have a LP in the pile. The list I'm trying only plays one LP though.

What to do?

What am I missing here? Why not just use Petal before DD and float the needed mana and then put it into your Pile after DD again?

[MTG Junkie]

I realized I messed up and was trying to think of a way to win. With out a LP.

[DarkJester]

Sry...

[Koby]

What am I missing here? Why not just use Petal before DD and float the needed mana and then put it into your Pile after DD again?

I was thinking the same thing before I saw two posters already found a pile that didn't need to use LP at all.

[JamieW89]

I was thinking the same thing before I saw two posters already found a pile that didn't need to use LP at all.

Not just any pile either, the most basic one of all, that you can use in most situations :P.

Edit: You could actually wish for a black draw-4 here if you had wanted:
LED,LED,GP,X,BW wins for 12 life pre-DD if you just cast LP,,LED,Wish->IC, IC from LED mana.
LED,LED,LED,BW,X wins for 8 life pre-DD by GP->LED, LED,LED,LP, BW->IC making BBB + RRR.


PS: I 5-2'd with a UBr list in a GP Prague side event last Sunday. Losses were to D&T with Chalice and Peedle combined with the usual package and to Sneaky Show where I punted g1 playing sloppily after him having drawn 21 cards of Griselbrand. Turns out I had a line that won through his hand, oops. Massacre was a house versus the UWR tempo and Deathblade decks with hatebears as well as the good old Thalia decks, really liked having 2.

[DarkJester]

Not just any pile either, the most basic one of all, that you can use in most situations :P.

I 5-2'd with a UBr list in a GP Prague side event last Sunday. Losses were to D&T with Chalice and Peedle combined with the usual package and to Sneaky Show where I punted g1 playing sloppily after him having drawn 21 cards of Griselbrand. Turns out I had a line that won through his hand, oops. Massacre was a house versus the UWR tempo and Deathblade decks with hatebears as well as the good old Thalia decks, really liked having 2.

Congratz!
I simply misunderstood the question regarding the Pile: I thought that he tries to force a Pile starting with Contract. I'm still puzzling, but I think that there is always exactly one black mana missing ;)

[emidln]

In general I try not to feed trolls, but here goes. I answered shortly as it was requested.

This is not a deck that most people can simply pick up and do well with. The report is lost in one of the random site refreshes of Channel Fireball, but there was a report from Webster where he played DDFT in a GP (maybe Columbus? it was the one right after Mystical was banned) on zero practice simply because TK happened to do well with it at a GPT in Wisconsin. The report mentioned how he didn't prepare, but felt that overall playskill as well as familiarity with both storm and Doomsday from other formats could carry him with his 3 byes. It did not. He didn't even come close to making day 2, and the report was littered with places where he later realized there was a win, but didn't see it for lack of practice.

It's not that this is a particularly difficult deck to play correctly. Playing aggro-control correctly over the course of an event is probably harder. This deck is easy mode for someone who knows their deck inside and out. We have 11 maindeck ways to look at/shred your opponent's hand. We have a pile that wins in 90% of the situations for 1UU or UU in IU, GP, LED, LED, BW. The hard part is fetching your lands and knowing how to play your cantrips for maximum effect. Cantrips serve as acceleration and as fixing to help grind your opponent down. Playing cantrips in Doomsday is more akin to playing them in Tempo Thresh than playing cantrips in ANT or TES. Blowing Brainstorms, misplaying Ponders, and undervaluing fetchlands lead to game losses a lot quicker here than in most other decks. Your window is typically very small. Doomsday doesn't often overpower an opponent as much as it pokes and prods until it catches them thinking that Force + Daze is good enough.

Most people do not cantrip well. Most people do not learn their deck to the appropriate degree. I see articles on Doomsday mentioning "tricks" like tapping SDT and bouncing it Chain of Vapor to "cycle" your Chain of Vapor. If this is a trick that has to be pointed out, you're probably not doing well. You don't know your deck well enough. Doomsday is one of the easiest cards in magic if you know your deck. You stack the five cards that win the game. You do not cast if there aren't five cards that win the game. That's not downplaying difficulty, patronizing the posters on this forum, or anything other than a fact. It's a rote thing after awhile, and the challenge is making sure your deck executes exactly the same regardless of what your opponent attempts to stop you with.

[MTG Junkie]

What is the highest storm cont you have reached and how?

[emidln]

I executed this as a joke at a local tourney shortly after I figured out that it was possible: http://pastebin.com/f460f133

The idea is that if you have a Wheel of Sun and Moon targetting a player with LEDs , Doomsday, Meditate, and Tendrils of Agony then that play can go infinite mana, infinite life, play infinite copies of tendrils with the right setup.

I also played Helm of Awakening + 2x Sensei's Divining Top + Grapeshot/Brain Freeze/Tendrils several times as, before Thalia, it was a fairly good way to deal with hate bears.

I don't go above 30 storm very often in normal play. There have been several times when I've been around 20 storm and cast Tendrils multiple times via Doomsday recursion.

[MTG Junkie]

When you say DD recursion are you referring to a double DD pile? What do those look like?

[JamieW89]

When you say DD recursion are you referring to a double DD pile? What do those look like?

There is a fairly good post on double DD piles over at the stormboards: http://teamstormboards.proboards.com/thread/416/building-double-doomsday-piles
If you want to get into this deck it's probably better to go there anyways, since there is more information on those boards than in this thread.

[Milqman]

In general I try not to feed trolls, but here goes. I answered shortly as it was requested.

This is not a deck that most people can simply pick up and do well with. The report is lost in one of the random site refreshes of Channel Fireball, but there was a report from Webster where he played DDFT in a GP (maybe Columbus? it was the one right after Mystical was banned) on zero practice simply because TK happened to do well with it at a GPT in Wisconsin. The report mentioned how he didn't prepare, but felt that overall playskill as well as familiarity with both storm and Doomsday from other formats could carry him with his 3 byes. It did not. He didn't even come close to making day 2, and the report was littered with places where he later realized there was a win, but didn't see it for lack of practice.

It's not that this is a particularly difficult deck to play correctly. Playing aggro-control correctly over the course of an event is probably harder. This deck is easy mode for someone who knows their deck inside and out. We have 11 maindeck ways to look at/shred your opponent's hand. We have a pile that wins in 90% of the situations for 1UU or UU in IU, GP, LED, LED, BW. The hard part is fetching your lands and knowing how to play your cantrips for maximum effect. Cantrips serve as acceleration and as fixing to help grind your opponent down. Playing cantrips in Doomsday is more akin to playing them in Tempo Thresh than playing cantrips in ANT or TES. Blowing Brainstorms, misplaying Ponders, and undervaluing fetchlands lead to game losses a lot quicker here than in most other decks. Your window is typically very small. Doomsday doesn't often overpower an opponent as much as it pokes and prods until it catches them thinking that Force + Daze is good enough.

Most people do not cantrip well. Most people do not learn their deck to the appropriate degree. I see articles on Doomsday mentioning "tricks" like tapping SDT and bouncing it Chain of Vapor to "cycle" your Chain of Vapor. If this is a trick that has to be pointed out, you're probably not doing well. You don't know your deck well enough. Doomsday is one of the easiest cards in magic if you know your deck. You stack the five cards that win the game. You do not cast if there aren't five cards that win the game. That's not downplaying difficulty, patronizing the posters on this forum, or anything other than a fact. It's a rote thing after awhile, and the challenge is making sure your deck executes exactly the same regardless of what your opponent attempts to stop you with.

Feeding trolls? Answering as requested? His question was why play DD instead of ANT. The first time you avoided the question entirely so I took the liberty of giving a short answer for you. The second time you tried, you wrote an extremely lengthy reply but managed to fail even more spectacularly in answering the question. Not once in your entire response did you address why you should play DD instead of ANT.

He asked what should have been the expert on the deck on his opinion on what advantages the deck holds over ANT, and twice now your response has been a pretty huge letdown.

I'm still curious if your answer is any different than the one I gave, but you might actually have to read his entire 7 word question to be able to answer it correctly this time. Granted, its in pretty broken english, but with the slightest bit of deduction you understand the question is "What advantages does DD have over ANT?" 7 Words. You can do this.

[Namida]

Wait a minute. Did you read the same thing I read?


Sorry. New to the deck
Why should i play ddft instead of ant? Just few words.

His question was "Why should I play Doomsday instead of ANT?" You're painting the poster out to be a victim and the response to be douchey by interpreting the question in the most respectful and positive light. The way I read it is like this: "Convince me that this deck you've been designing for at least seven years matters enough that I should deign to play it." Given that none of us are door-to-door salesmen desperate to tell anyone who will listen about how awesome and original our pet deck is, that's the wrong approach to take--especially when you're trying to get information about a deck you're supposedly legitimately interested in. It's weird to me that you are so indignant about someone refusing to give a detailed and passionate response to a question that implies a level of interest in the deck that appears to be a shade stronger than actual apathy. I mean, it's not like Doomsday players are a secret club and we're hiding all the information from anyone who wants it. Even if that were the case, you don't just get a pamphlet and a decoder ring for merely deciding to entertain the idea of playing this deck.

Basically:


Fuck off! It's not brain surgery. It's not even chess. Anybody that wants to can figure it out in a few months.

I agree with this; however, I think Doomsday is so unforgiving compared to other decks that if you don't devote enough time to learning how to play it inside and out from the beginning then you will never learn how to play this deck at a level high enough to make it anything more than a constant source of frustration. Furthermore, I would contend that the kind of person who would take these kinds of shortcuts on gauging if he's even interested enough to try the deck is someone who probably wouldn't care enough to take a few months to "figure the deck out."

And that is why the reply was "If you have to ask, then the answer is you shouldn't."

[Lemnear]

Sorry. New to the deck
Why should i play ddft instead of ant? Just few words.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/6277/b9sa.png

[Countertoplol]

A Duress has been cut for a Chromatic Sphere. Chromatic Sphere serves two major purposes:

(1) Provides a lab maniac pile that is immune to removal and LED compatible (2UU).
(2) Provides a way to store a draw step with Doomsday. This makes 5 total.



Would somebody be so kind as to explain this labman pile to me? I can't figure it out :(

[gregtron]

Would somebody be so kind as to explain this labman pile to me? I can't figure it out :(

Are you asking how Chrome Sphere makes Maniac immune to removal? If that's the question, then it's because drawing a card and making mana are both part of Sphere's mana ability. Sphere on the stack, everyone passes priority it resolves -> Maniac on the stack, everyone passes priority and it resolves -> You regain priority after the resolution of Maniac. Activate Chromatic Sphere, making a color of mana and drawing a card as a mana ability, without using the stack, and without your opponent being able to Abrupt Decay your Maniac before you win.

Or are you asking what the pile is? I think this works with Brainstorm in hand, 1U floating, and LED in play:

Ideas Unbound
LED
Probe
Sphere
Maniac

[Countertoplol]

Are you asking how Chrome Sphere makes Maniac immune to removal? If that's the question, then it's because drawing a card and making mana are both part of Sphere's mana ability. Sphere on the stack, everyone passes priority it resolves -> Maniac on the stack, everyone passes priority and it resolves -> You regain priority after the resolution of Maniac. Activate Chromatic Sphere, making a color of mana and drawing a card as a mana ability, without using the stack, and without your opponent being able to Abrupt Decay your Maniac before you win.

Or are you asking what the pile is? I think this works with Brainstorm in hand, 1U floating, and LED in play:

Ideas Unbound
LED
Probe
Sphere
Maniac

I was curious about both things actually, thanks a lot for clearing that up for me.

[Milqman]

Wait a minute. Did you read the same thing I read?



His question was "Why should I play Doomsday instead of ANT?" You're painting the poster out to be a victim and the response to be douchey by interpreting the question in the most respectful and positive light. The way I read it is like this: "Convince me that this deck you've been designing for at least seven years matters enough that I should deign to play it." Given that none of us are door-to-door salesmen desperate to tell anyone who will listen about how awesome and original our pet deck is, that's the wrong approach to take--especially when you're trying to get information about a deck you're supposedly legitimately interested in. It's weird to me that you are so indignant about someone refusing to give a detailed and passionate response to a question that implies a level of interest in the deck that appears to be a shade stronger than actual apathy. I mean, it's not like Doomsday players are a secret club and we're hiding all the information from anyone who wants it. Even if that were the case, you don't just get a pamphlet and a decoder ring for merely deciding to entertain the idea of playing this deck.

Basically:



I agree with this; however, I think Doomsday is so unforgiving compared to other decks that if you don't devote enough time to learning how to play it inside and out from the beginning then you will never learn how to play this deck at a level high enough to make it anything more than a constant source of frustration. Furthermore, I would contend that the kind of person who would take these kinds of shortcuts on gauging if he's even interested enough to try the deck is someone who probably wouldn't care enough to take a few months to "figure the deck out."

And that is why the reply was "If you have to ask, then the answer is you shouldn't."


The guy's English is terrible. It's terrible in every single post he makes. Go through his history, its hundreds of pages of super polite posts written in extremely bad English where he says "thank you" in every single post he makes.

Pronouns are weird in English if you aren't a native speaker. Source: I'm not a native speaker.

Its a super dumb question, and only someone who assumes people are rude would think this. Any native speaker should have been able to figure out in a few seconds what he was trying to say.

What would a polite person be trying to ask with that question, I took a few second and came up with the answer.

Nobody asks "knowing nothing about me, tell me why I should play this deck?" He must be trying to figure out what reasons to play DD instead of ANT.


Milqman thx for your support and understanding
. I need no more answers.

Hey look. It wasn't that hard.

Deduction helps for analyzing board states. I took the winning line and made the right play, that's why I'm the best.

[Namida]

I see what you're trying to say, but being polite about wanting your hand held doesn't mean that you're any more entitled to it. Hell, I would go so far to say that something along the lines of "Fuck this deck because ANT is superior for reasons X Y and Z" has a better chance of generating a discussion to compare and contrast Doomsday to ANT than "Just tell me why this is good."

Let me put it this way:


Would somebody be so kind as to explain this labman pile to me? I can't figure it out :(

^This post at least implies "I tried to figure this out," and I would say that the people here are willing to help those who at least appear to put effort into understanding things themselves.

To answer this question: gregtron explained why Chromatic Sphere beats removal. The specific pile that emidln was talking about is Ideas Unbound, LED, Gitaxian Probe, Chromatic Sphere, Laboratory Maniac. It needs 2UU and you need at least 3 life on the turn after you Doomsday. You cast Doomsday, and pass the turn. On your next turn, you draw and cast Ideas Unbound, drawing LED, Probe, and Sphere. you cast LED, cast the Sphere, and cast the Probe--but you retain priority while Probe is on the stack and activate your LED for blue mana. You draw the Laboratory Maniac, and cast it with the LED mana. You use the remaining mana to activate the Sphere to win the game.

[MTG Junkie]

Played emidln's list -Tendrils,Sphere,1 Volc,Island and a Swamp +Cabal Therapy,LP,Trop,Badlands and A Bayou at the local tonight. I moved the Sphere and Tendrils to the board making it look like this

3 AD
3 Swarm
1 Sphere
1 Lab Man
2 Tendrils
1 DD
1 Infernal Contract
1 TS
2 Massacre

Rd 1 Mono U Illusionary Mask-Punted hard lol staring down a 12/12 I went of with DD only to realize i did not have a way to draw the IU. I dont know what the fuck i was thinking lol.

Rd 2 by

Rd 3 Mono B Small Pox-win game one because im a combo deck. Game to he has LOTV out i make a pass the turn pile only to relize i need my yard to win. PUNT. Game three was awesome i brought in the Sphere and Lab Man,it felt like it was the best pass the turn pile so i went for it. The game went like this, i have Top + Fetchs and Cantrips making his discard not that good. I eventually play DD with LED, Sphere and like 5 lands in play. I made a pile of Ideas Unbound,LED,Probe,Top and Lab Man. I pass and am at five life with no hand. He has a Rack in play and draws another casts and passes. Im like fuck i lose,yup i loose to double The Rack wtf. Then i realize it, i put the Racks on the stack and draw a card,putting me at one. I win from there :)

Rd 4 Nic Fit-Game 1 I get a fairly fast DD making IU,LED,Probe,LED and BW and win. Game 2 I took out 2 Duress,1 Chain,1 fetch and A Wish. I know he brings in Extirpate and Teeg. I wanted to have Dark Ritual pile/line so I brought in IC,Tendrils and 3 AD. He disrupts me then plays a Neaither Void. I realize i cant win so on to game 3. I brought back in the discard and the Chain. I was able to win turn 3 via DD/Top making IU,LED,Probe,LED and BW.
Missed top 4.

Even know I messed up a bunch, I learned a lot and thats what counts.

[Maxe]

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/6277/b9sa.png

yeah somebody posted the meme i made a while ago. :D

[emidln]

Given that none of us are door-to-door salesmen desperate to tell anyone who will listen about how awesome and original our pet deck is, that's the wrong approach to take--especially when you're trying to get information about a deck you're supposedly legitimately interested in. It's weird to me that you are so indignant about someone refusing to give a detailed and passionate response to a question that implies a level of interest in the deck that appears to be a shade stronger than actual apathy. I mean, it's not like Doomsday players are a secret club and we're hiding all the information from anyone who wants it. Even if that were the case, you don't just get a pamphlet and a decoder ring for merely deciding to entertain the idea of playing this deck.



This reminds me. I need to order more secret decoder rings for storm boards.

[Koby]

I took the Fetchland Tendrils list to an outing.

I played 8 games against live opponents, and managed to win 2 of them. Once was with natural Tendrils and 8 storm. The other was a typical Probe-IU,LED,LED,Probe,BW pile with sufficient storm. Two games vs Burn was sucky, as I couldn't figure out a pile that could win without GProbe. Lost a game to my own mis-boarding in G1 (left the 2nd Tendrils maindeck...). Lost another one to being 1 Storm short with the GP piles, or 1 mana short from a Time Spiral ->DD pile. The other two matches were Byes, since I was in dead last place.

It was a good experiment, and reminds me that I need more experience with varying my DD piles.

[DarkJester]

I took the Fetchland Tendrils list to an outing.

I played 8 games against live opponents, and managed to win 2 of them. Once was with natural Tendrils and 8 storm. The other was a typical Probe-IU,LED,LED,Probe,BW pile with sufficient storm. Two games vs Burn was sucky, as I couldn't figure out a pile that could win without GProbe. Lost a game to my own mis-boarding in G1 (left the 2nd Tendrils maindeck...). Lost another one to being 1 Storm short with the GP piles, or 1 mana short from a Time Spiral ->DD pile. The other two matches were Byes, since I was in dead last place.

It was a good experiment, and reminds me that I need more experience with varying my DD piles.

I'm relatively new to the deck (but not to Storm-Decks by themselves) but right now I'm in the "playtesting-step" in learning some things about this deck and I can say that it's incredibly fun to create piles on the fly without the "inner limitation" of existing piles. Hmm, but I still have time 'til march when my next tournament appears. Try to keep yourself open-minded for ideas, sometimes you just don't need all five cards of the pile, so Probe is not always a must. I think I will wait and read most information about piles maybe 2 weeks before the tournament. IU-Piles with Anti-Hate-Cards seem to be most problematic for me atm.

[Mhenlo]

I'm relatively new to the deck (but not to Storm-Decks by themselves) but right now I'm in the "playtesting-step" in learning some things about this deck and I can say that it's incredibly fun to create piles on the fly without the "inner limitation" of existing piles. Hmm, but I still have time 'til march when my next tournament appears. Try to keep yourself open-minded for ideas, sometimes you just don't need all five cards of the pile, so Probe is not always a must. I think I will wait and read most information about piles maybe 2 weeks before the tournament. IU-Piles with Anti-Hate-Cards seem to be most problematic for me atm.

You can make a CoV pile for 2UUU+BBB if you have a SDT in play. IU | LED | CoV | LED | BW
If you have SDT in play and Probe in hand you can play around stifle for 1BUU+BBB. CT | IU | LED | LED | BW

[Koby]

In many of these game states, I was limited to 3 mana most of the time. Most of the time I was UUU (LED), or UB. I did not really study piles from the spreadsheets (and the ones google lists are pre-GP). I know what I need to study, just reporting that -- yes this deck needs homework to do well on the exams (tourneys). :P

[ThomasDowd]

In many of these game states, I was limited to 3 mana most of the time. Most of the time I was UUU (LED), or UB. I did not really study piles from the spreadsheets (and the ones google lists are pre-GP). I know what I need to study, just reporting that -- yes this deck needs homework to do well on the exams (tourneys). :P

on those sheets I usually just mentally replace SW with probe. since they are the same thing in terms of cost. but figuring them out is a little more fun and after the pattern establishes itself. have not looked at those sheets in a while though. Still awful and rusty so my cantrip management is garbage so I am piloting poorly. the piles are the easy part. once you have cast doomsday the win is very deterministic. more so than PiF out of ANT. getting there in one piece with the right pieces is the hard part in my opinion.

[r3dd09]

yeah somebody posted the meme i made a while ago. :D

So, what's the cards needed to solve that meme?

As I near the completion of my current project, I'll probably be on DDFT again. I've missed the deck quite a bit.

[Dark Ritual]

Ran Emidln's list card for card in a 6 round tournament today. Went 3-3 but it could have easily been 5-1 if I hadn't been so rusty with doomsday in general and punted multiple times in constructing the right doomsday piles. Punted more times than I can count. Deck felt quite strong. Beat spiral tide, junk depths with maindeck surgical extraction, and BUG nic fit oddity. Lost to jund, merfolk, and MUD with the 12post engine included (had all the nightmare cards still in the form of lodestone golem, 3sphere, and chalice of the void. Game 1 was no contest as he went turn 1 chalice, turn 2 metalworker, turn 3 dump a lodestone golem into play and just 5 me each turn. Game 2 he blew up 3 of my lands with sundering titan with 3sphere out on turn 2/that's all she wrote. Wasn't confident in this matchup due to the sideboard not being fully prepared against artifacts with something like meltdown or pulverize. Against merfolk game 1 I punted as I was a mana short of killing him through cursecatcher x2 + spell pierce. Game 2 I also messed up. I knew he had a FoW in hand but wasn't sure if he had a blue card. So my hand is brainstorm, sensei's divining top, some mana, burning wish, and a duress is on top with a SDT in play as well. I brainstorm into the duress instead of flipping the top to duress/I end up one mana short of killing him after pitching his FoW (he drew cosi's trickster/blue card for it.) I deluded myself into thinking that I would brainstorm into more mana/be fine or something but I got punished for it quite severely. Against spiral tide I lost game 1 again due to miscalculating my mana with doomsday/being short a mana of killing him flatout. Game 2 was easy, he cantripped a bunch and scrolled for a high tide. When I duressed him his only interaction was spell pierce after all those cantrips/he died quite easily to a basic DD pile. Game 3 he fizzled on turn zero of extra turns but resolved 2 meditates/I got the first 3 turns of extra turns but only needed the one to finish him off with a raw burning wish -> tendrils from hand with no doomsday involved due to triple gitaxian probe and other cantrips into fast mana into tendrils.

BUG Nic Fit was pretty easy. Game 1 he has no idea what I'm on and blind therapies on brainstorm after I lead off with volc go (he misses.) See's I'm on doomsday and knows what's up. Next turn he flashbacked it on burning wish/my only business spell. I cast IU from hand. He durdles some more and I kill him with ease. Game 2 he boards into countermagic and I board into abrupt decays switching out discard because he might have teeg via GSZ or something. In hindsight this was awful. He discards a wish from my hand and extirpates it. He then discards my doomsday from my hand via therapy. We both play draw, go with him getting veteran explorer beats on. I'm land flooded as is he but I have top + a lot of fetchlands. I search for a lot of turns and my 2nd doomsday is counterspelled. I search furiously for the third doomsday and finally find it and the only card he has left in hand is spell pierce + land. I have every mana producing land in the deck in play as well as 3 fetchlands off to the side. I craft a maniac pile and kill him, using rain of filth for approximately infinite mana (11 black). Most mana I've ever made with that card.

Against jund I win game 1 after he mulls into FIVE land + hymn to tourach. I duress hymn. He rips a thoughtseize while I'm waiting on drawing a cantrip to power up doomsday. Discards my thoughtseize. Play some more durdle turns and I draw another doomsday + fast mana and when I rip top he instantly dies. Game 2 I fuck up the doomsday pile again mana wise and am one mana short of killing via lab maniac yet again. We talked it over afterwards and found a tendrils pile that killed him. Game 3 I'm feeling confident about my chances as I hide a wish on top with ponder, brainstorm, and an LED in play or something. Then he drops chains of mephistopheles. I have to go all in on his dark confidant killing him after I mini tendrils him for 8 going LED, LED, wish, tendrils. He abrupt decays his confidant/I instantly lose as the odds that I find the singleton chain of vapor are miniscule in combination with everything else needed to combo off at this point. I decided to troll him by wishing for therapy on the last turn to name brushwagg. I miss. He wins.

[flrn]

It's been some time, since I actually played Doomsday in a tournament environment until last week. I ran emidln's lab man list with some changes to the board. The list is freakin smooth. The Emrakul/Shelldock plan really sucks these days, since you can't handle the opposing Karakas with your own anymore. Having Gitaxian Probe and Abrupt Decay in the deck feels so freaking good (they weren't printed/included when I last played the deck). But I have to say, I really miss Silence/Orim's Chant as a pro active disruption spell, especially against Miracles. Even with Decay, it is nearly impossible to handle the card, they have floating on top with their Sensei's Divining Top. I get that the double cantrip piles with Ideas Unbound are way more storm effective, than Meditate piles, but as it is, I'm playing red just for Burning Wish and as I said, I really miss my Chants. :\

[bennotsi]

It's been some time, since I actually played Doomsday in a tournament environment until last week. I ran emidln's lab man list with some changes to the board. The list is freakin smooth. The Emrakul/Shelldock plan really sucks these days, since you can't handle the opposing Karakas with your own anymore. Having Gitaxian Probe and Abrupt Decay in the deck feels so freaking good (they weren't printed/included when I last played the deck). But I have to say, I really miss Silence/Orim's Chant as a pro active disruption spell, especially against Miracles. Even with Decay, it is nearly impossible to handle the card, they have floating on top with their Sensei's Divining Top. I get that the double cantrip piles with Ideas Unbound are way more storm effective, than Meditate piles, but as it is, I'm playing red just for Burning Wish and as I said, I really miss my Chants. :\

If you miss the chants so much, you're welcome to give this a try:

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

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

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

3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound

4 Silence
2 Duress
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor

SB: 2 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Time Spiral
SB: 1 Infernal Contract
SB: 2 Massacre
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 2 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Karakas

This is what I'm playing at the moment. I'm very happy with it, haven't changed a thing in months now.

[flrn]

Is the Chain of Vapor really needed? I won several games off lab man pass the turn piles and I'm wondering if it could be included in that list?

[bennotsi]

I haven't played with Lab Man myself, but I suppose you could just swap the Chain of Vapor with a Lab Man in the main (and if that's required swap a petal for a chromatic sphere). I'm more a fan of using Chain of Vapor piles myself.

[Namida]

Is the Chain of Vapor really needed? I won several games off lab man pass the turn piles and I'm wondering if it could be included in that list?

I'm playing Maniac main, and it has been pretty good--so far it has beaten maindeck Leyline of Sanctity, heavy discard, and blocked like a champ to buy vital turns for me. (Maniac also has the side effect of making the deck easy enough for my friends to play because they can shoot all of their cantrips into the ground and still have a shot of winning with a pass-the-turn Maniac pile). I also haven't been playing Chain of Vapor in my maindeck, but I have yet to actually miss it. The main issue I'm having right now is that I'm not 100% sure when I should be siding out the Maniac. Also, I'm pretty iffy on Chromatic Sphere because I have yet to find myself needing it to beat removal on a Maniac.

[flrn]

Yeah, don't really see the need for it either. Though, to have a fifth permanent which draws you into the pile is a nice thing to have. It came up once in my tournament yesterday.

[bennotsi]

Perhaps I should just try Lab Man out, but the fear of drawing a dead card or losing to removal on lab man is still a bit heavy on me. Is there an overview of lab man piles anywhere?

[flrn]

The basic pile is IU, LED, SDT, GP, Lab Man. It costs 1UU to cast both IU and SDT. With a cantrip in hand it can win on the same turn. If you have GP in hand and SDT in play, you can go for LED, IU, LED, GP, Lab Man and win from no mana post Doomsday. Basically the same principle as piles with Burning Wish. Chromatic Sphere Piles cost at least 4 Mana, if you need to win through removal, but most of the time, I'm just building the pile say go and wait for my opponent to do something, till my next draw step. Having to use Chromatic Sphere to play through removal didn't come up so far, therefor I don't really know if it's really needed.

[emidln]

The basic pile is IU, LED, SDT, GP, Lab Man. It costs 1UU to cast both IU and SDT. With a cantrip in hand it can win on the same turn. If you have GP in hand and SDT in play, you can go for LED, IU, LED, GP, Lab Man and win from no mana post Doomsday. Basically the same principle as piles with Burning Wish. Chromatic Sphere Piles cost at least 4 Mana, if you need to win through removal, but most of the time, I'm just building the pile say go and wait for my opponent to do something, till my next draw step. Having to use Chromatic Sphere to play through removal didn't come up so far, therefor I don't really know if it's really needed.

This is probably a playstyle thing, but I was experimenting with ways to play pinpoint discard to open a small window that Lab Man + Chromatic Sphere would then slip through. I never was completely convinced that it was correct, but the results seemed good enough that if I wasn't playing with my UB OmniHalls I'd still be testing it.

[flrn]

Too many x-2 SCG Opens with Doomsday or why the change to Omnitell?

[emidln]

Too many x-2 SCG Opens with Doomsday or why the change to Omnitell?

OmniHalls doesn't play SDT and thus has a much smaller decision tree over the course of an event. It's also easier to double queue with on mtgo. With the black splash (Thoughtseize / Slaughter Pact / Toxic Deluge), OmniHalls has a similar spread of expected matchups to Doomsday, with a definite edge in the combo mirror. OmniHalls is slower, but I don't think the speed matters right now.

[bennotsi]

I'm looking into Lab Man piles now, but what I don't get is how exactly does Chromatic Sphere protect you from removal in a pass the turn pile for 2UU?

I get that the draw is part of the mana ability, but unless I'm missing something an opponent could still Abrupt Decay the Sphere while Lab Man is on the stack and vice versa. I feel I must be missing something, as sphere then only protects against Lightning Bolt/Swords to Plowshares on Lab Man, but that seems narrow.

[Togores]

Yes he can abrupt the sphere, but not the lab man.

U cant Dodge abrupt, but u can Dodge, Path, bolt, Swords, decay on maniac, and so on.

[Mhenlo]

I'm looking into Lab Man piles now, but what I don't get is how exactly does Chromatic Sphere protect you from removal in a pass the turn pile for 2UU?

I get that the draw is part of the mana ability, but unless I'm missing something an opponent could still Abrupt Decay the Sphere while Lab Man is on the stack and vice versa. I feel I must be missing something, as sphere then only protects against Lightning Bolt/Swords to Plowshares on Lab Man, but that seems narrow.

The pile is IU - LED - Sphere - Probe - Maniac
While it doesnt get around decay on sphere thy still need a second removal spell to kill it. It does get around Stifle though.

[flrn]

I feel I must be missing something, as sphere then only protects against Lightning Bolt/Swords to Plowshares on Lab Man, but that seems narrow.

Don't think so. That's why I stated, I don't feel the need for the Sphere in the deck, either. I'm just gonna cut the Chain of Vapor from your list, put Lab Man into it and go slam some games.

[bennotsi]

Don't think so. That's why I stated, I don't feel the need for the Sphere in the deck, either. I'm just gonna cut the Chain of Vapor from your list, put Lab Man into it and go slam some games.

Alright thanks a lot! I'd like to hear how it turns out!

[Mhenlo]

Has anyone here tried running Thought Scour + Unearth to be able to play around Spell Snare game 1 and times when your opponent runs snares and you don't want to side out Wishes. I'm not too familiar with Unearth Piles, I do know the basic piles with it, and I would like too know from someone who is if it has been good.

BS - TS - LM - CS - Unearth
That can win through Stifle, Snare and a removal spell for 2UUB or just stifle and snare for UUB

[bennotsi]

Has anyone here tried running Thought Scour + Unearth to be able to play around Spell Snare game 1 and times when your opponent runs snares and you don't want to side out Wishes. I'm not too familiar with Unearth Piles, I do know the basic piles with it, and I would like too know from someone who is if it has been good.

BS - TS - LM - CS - Unearth
That can win through Stifle, Snare and a removal spell for 2UUB or just stifle and snare for UUB

Your question is a bit unclear, do you want this only for game 1 or would you want to add Thought Scour and Unearth as sideboard cards to deal with Snares? It is of course a trade-off between being able to play around Spell Snare and being vulnerable to graveyard hate. Personally, I'm much more worried about opening up to graveyard hate than Spell Snares which aren't all that common - bordering not being played at all - in my area.

[Mhenlo]

Your question is a bit unclear, do you want this only for game 1 or would you want to add Thought Scour and Unearth as sideboard cards to deal with Snares? It is of course a trade-off between being able to play around Spell Snare and being vulnerable to graveyard hate. Personally, I'm much more worried about opening up to graveyard hate than Spell Snares which aren't all that common - bordering not being played at all - in my area.

I'd have them for game 1, I'd probably cut a Ponder for a thought Scour and move CoV to the SB I'm not too worried about graveyard hate because you can make a LM pile that doesn't use the graveyard and doomsday is also fairly resilient to Graveyard hate. I'm just not sure if the piles it allows are worth the dead card you can draw. Although It isn't completely dead since you can cycle it.

Edit: at my LGS all the delver players run Snares and siding in Infernal Contract isn't good against delver.

[emidln]

I'd have them for game 1, I'd probably cut a Ponder for a thought Scour and move CoV to the SB I'm not too worried about graveyard hate because you can make a LM pile that doesn't use the graveyard and doomsday is also fairly resilient to Graveyard hate. I'm just not sure if the piles it allows are worth the dead card you can draw. Although It isn't completely dead since you can cycle it.

Edit: at my LGS all the delver players run Snares and siding in Infernal Contract isn't good against delver.

Meditate is 1 good card vs 2 mediocre/bad cards in Unearth + Thought Scour. The Lab Man plan is also not very good in general against Delver, as their removal isn't really sided out.

[anwei]

I took this to a small local tourney (some brews/modern decks, but many tier decks) and went 5-0. I probably drew better than I played - I'm not too experienced with it - but thought I'd post anyway:

2 U Sea
1 Volc
1 Badlands
1 Trop
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
4 Tarn
1 Mire

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Probe
4 SDT
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Ideas Unbound

4 Rit
1 Rain of Filth
4 LED
1 Petal

3 Durress
4 Cabal Therapy

3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
1 Lab Maniac

Board:
1 Doomsday
1 Tendrils
1 Infernal Contract
1 Lotus Petal

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Karakas
1 Massacre
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Meltdown
1 Thoughtseize

I played Ur Stasis (2-0), Elves (2-1), High Tide (2-0), Miracles (2-0), and Burn (2-1)

Notes (which largely echo emidln et al.):
-Time Spiral's niche uses of building lots of storm for >20 or for PTT piles are both covered by Lab Maniac, and my risk of botching the pile and decing myself is high enough that I cut it.
-Delgue in the board (over 2nd Massacre), combined with Lab Maniac, cover manny of the problem targets for CoV (Teeg, Leyline), so I moved it to the board, since, in a pile, it allows for piles with more constraints than other removal options.
-Petal was the last slot in the board, expecting reanimator/storm/belcher/oops. I considered Leyline, a counter, and surgical extraction (possibly making room for a 2nd), but went with petal in hopes of being slightly faster post-board.
-I almost never won with Lab Maniac because it was better. Most games I simply had enough and was safe, and, since I was testing that and thought through that pile first, made it and won without thinking through which tendrils pile would have worked, but confident that I'd have enough storm. I think I went for a now-lab-man-will-shine ptt pile once on t2 against a weak elves board after making him discard, but he drew NO and hit me for exactsies. Almost none of my match-ups provided meaningful storm hate for me to beat with the Lab Man. That said, it was nice to, e.g., have enough mana/draw and finally find business and only need to verify that a Lab Man pile works, rather than keeping track of storm/mana and building a Tendrils pile (which obviously reflects more on my inexperience than actual advantages of Lab Man, but I'd imagine that most people interested in DDFT do not have the endurance to play through a large tournament without losing focus and dropping some things; the simple shortcut helps).
-Not sure how I would put Lab Man/Sphere in maindeck/board if playing again. Would definitely not hesitate to board both out for matches like fast combo where I could need slots and Tendrils is probably fine (and often more flexible, particularly as drawing into your pile with SDT is not easy).

[kingsey]

Would this be the thread to discuss a deck like http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11277&iddeck=82364

I'm very interested in starting to play doomsday

[bennotsi]

Would this be the thread to discuss a deck like http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11277&iddeck=82364

I'm very interested in starting to play doomsday
Not exactly. This is a Doomsday storm combo thread, focusing on playing preemptive protection like discard spells or Silence in combination with Lion's Eye Diamond and no Force of Wills. I think almost everyone in here will agree the mental note/unearth kill is pretty bad. That said, if you have any questions we'd probably be able to answer them and should you be interested in learning the better version of the deck you're in the right place :-)


Don't think so. That's why I stated, I don't feel the need for the Sphere in the deck, either. I'm just gonna cut the Chain of Vapor from your list, put Lab Man into it and go slam some games.
How did the slamming go so far? I'm very interested to hear your experience with the list. I've made the same change and played in a small tournament with it, but I'm still not sure on whether I like Lab Man better than Chain of Vapor for the maindeck.

I was also thinking that with the printing of Void Snare I might just play the fourth Burning Wish main with Void Snare in the side to still have outs game 1 and board into something better like Lab Man or Chain of Vapor for game 2.

[nudon]

I just picked up UBR/g DDFT so bare with me if any of these are dumb questions:

1. Aside from the increased likelihood to grab a basic Island and pretending to be miracle control (t1 tarn->basic island->top), are there any other benefits of running Scalding Tarn/Tropical Island over Bloodstained Mire/Bayou? Bloodstained Mire can still grab Volcanic Island/Badlands for Burning Wish or Bayou for Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm. Is the having the basic Island more important for t1 cantrips than basic Swamp for t1 discard? Moreover, Bloodstained Mire can still find Underground Sea or Volcanic Island for BS to hide from discard.

2. When fighting against canonist, is there a non-maniac pile that can win? Are Burning Wish, Massacre, and CoV the only outs?

[anwei]

I just picked up UBR/g DDFT so bare with me if any of these are dumb questions:

1. Aside from the increased likelihood to grab a basic Island and pretending to be miracle control (t1 tarn->basic island->top), are there any other benefits of running Scalding Tarn/Tropical Island over Bloodstained Mire/Bayou? Bloodstained Mire can still grab Volcanic Island/Badlands for Burning Wish or Bayou for Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm. Is the having the basic Island more important for t1 cantrips than basic Swamp for t1 discard? Moreover, Bloodstained Mire can still find Underground Sea or Volcanic Island for BS to hide from discard.

2. When fighting against canonist, is there a non-maniac pile that can win? Are Burning Wish, Massacre, and CoV the only outs?

1. Green is most important for Decay = BG, so Bayou is not ideal.
2. Pass the turn piles with those cards, if you need them in the pile, but it's far more likely that you would Wish then start your combo turn with Massacre. The PTT scenario means you have BBB in play from lands/artifacts, can survive the swingback at half-life, and have the resources in play/hand to combo off with a 4 card pile after drawing into your spell. Maniac doesn't really make this better.

[nudon]

1. Green is most important for Decay = BG, so Bayou is not ideal.
2. Pass the turn piles with those cards, if you need them in the pile, but it's far more likely that you would Wish then start your combo turn with Massacre. The PTT scenario means you have BBB in play from lands/artifacts, can survive the swingback at half-life, and have the resources in play/hand to combo off with a 4 card pile after drawing into your spell. Maniac doesn't really make this better.

Thanks for the quick response.

1. Both would be used to make green in this case. Is the blue mana just better overall?
2. I was afraid of this but makes sense.

[bennotsi]

Thanks for the quick response.

1. Both would be used to make green in this case. Is the blue mana just better overall?
2. I was afraid of this but makes sense.

Yes having blue is very important. You don't want too many lands that don't produce blue mana. Bayou is probably fine if you aren't running Badlands already. The thing is, you don't want to draw your starting 7 with no blue mana producing lands too often.

[Namida]

Basic Island is important enough that you want all of your fetches to be able to get it, I would say. It'd be pretty noticeable for you if you played against a few opponents packing Wastelands and opened on a few hands with Bloodstained Mires in them. Also, Bayou is far worse than Tropical Island. Blue mana is far more important than black mana in this deck, and since you will already need another black mana anyway to cast Abrupt Decay, having your Green sources add black mana instead of anything else adds no additional value to them. What card would you be cutting for the Bayou?

Concerning the Canonist, think of it this way: You need to craft a pile that can win the game and deal with/ignore Canonist at the same time. Casting Doomsday with Canonist in play means you're finished for the turn barring some spells that don't deal with a Canonist, so you're basically limited to pass the turn piles.

[nudon]

For reference, I used EmidIn's list (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?7800-Deck-Fetchland-Tendrils&p=776259&viewfull=1#post776259) from December and Jonathan White's list from SCG Oakland (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1175466) as a starting point.

Some of the fetch configurations I had been wondering about include:

1. 4 deltas + 5 blue fetch
2. 4 deltas + 5 black fetch (would require bayou instead of tropical island)
3. 4 deltas + mix of tarn/bloodstained mire

I know most people on this thread max out on blue fetches but it seemed Jonathan's list did fine. My only concern about EmidIn's configuration is that it doesn't have a Badlands. While goldfishing, I noticed a need to fetch out Badlands on turn 2 for burning wish (DR + LED + ponder in hand, basic island + top in play after mull to 6). Perhaps this was too aggressive a play. Regardless, I like anwei's configuration a few posts earlier with 4 tarn and 1 mire since it can fetch the badlands. However, there is the drawback of not being able to fetch tropical island with the mire. What do you guys value more? Mire + Badlands, 5th blue fetch, or something else? Thanks in advance!

[Namida]

For reference, I used EmidIn's list (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?7800-Deck-Fetchland-Tendrils&p=776259&viewfull=1#post776259) from December and Jonathan White's list from SCG Oakland (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1175466) as a starting point.

Some of the fetch configurations I had been wondering about include:

1. 4 deltas + 5 blue fetch
2. 4 deltas + 5 black fetch (would require bayou instead of tropical island)
3. 4 deltas + mix of tarn/bloodstained mire

I know most people on this thread max out on blue fetches but it seemed Jonathan's list did fine. My only concern about EmidIn's configuration is that it doesn't have a Badlands. While goldfishing, I noticed a need to fetch out Badlands on turn 2 for burning wish (DR + LED + ponder in hand, basic island + top in play after mull to 6). Perhaps this was too aggressive a play. Regardless, I like anwei's configuration a few posts earlier with 4 tarn and 1 mire since it can fetch the badlands. However, there is the drawback of not being able to fetch tropical island with the mire. What do you guys value more? Mire + Badlands, 5th blue fetch, or something else? Thanks in advance!

I certainly haven't gotten as far in any tournament as the SCG list has, but my opinion is that the list did well despite the manabase, not because it was the best choice. In this way, you could say that it isn't the hugest deal what land configuration you play, but if you're asking for advice it seems that many people will tell you not to play less than 8 blue fetches, and Storm decks are the decks where you don't want shaky mana. My personal experience with the deck has been that I don't need black mana until the last second most of the time, so I don't care to place any priority on it in my manabase other than having enough black mana producing lands to have a chance of casting Doomsday with no rituals.

If your own testing has found you wanting a Badlands, you should include one. Not everyone plays the deck the same way so your situation might just be different. I didn't have a Badlands for the longest time, but I included one because I wanted to play Pulverize for a time and just never switched it out. I ended up keeping Badlands in for hands that could cast discard early, then Burning Wish for Doomsday with LED and Lotus Petal in play for a pass the turn Maniac kill. Personally, I'm staying at 8 fetches because I think that in a Maniac deck you want more permanent mana sources you can lay after casting Doomsday and passing the turn (A hand with multiple fetches is slowed down because you don't often want to crack your fetches for lands after casting Doomsday). My land configuration is 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Badlands, 2 Underground Sea, 2 Volcanic Island, 4 Deltas and 4 Tarns. I'm playing a third Lotus Petal over the 17th land to try to increase the number of early wins with Maniac, and the land I cut was my second Swamp because I think blue mana is critical--especially with Maniac; your post-Doomsday turn requires double blue for Ideas Unbound. Badlands is over the third Underground Sea because there were enough situations where having access to one was better than not.

[sillysam71]

Well, I played Doomsday at SCG Columbus this past Sunday and cashed, ending up in 58th place out of I think over 450, so I thought I’d write up a report.

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve had this deck together and done any testing with it, but I’ve been itching to play it lately, especially since I have it completely foiled out now, so I threw it together at 3 in the morning the night before when I got home from the bars. Here’s the list I ended up slinging:

3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
1 Idea’s Unbound
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Chromatic Sphere

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

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

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

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

Sideboard:
1 Tropical Island
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Karakas
1 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Edge of Autumn
2 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Infernal Contract
1 Chain of Vapor

It was only a 20 minute drive to get downtown, so naturally I barely make it in time and am super hungover. Oh well, Excedrin and coffee make up for it, so here we go.

Round 1: John Good-Dredge
Game 1: He’s on the play and starts with a careful study. Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag. He ends up getting there on turn 3 when I had the win setup for my next turn, how unfortunate.
Game 2: I have Probe and Therapy, I decide to Probe first instead of just blind naming LED, but he had it and I named it anyway. He had a ballin hand that probably would’ve killed me on his turn two if not one, but after stripping the LED I won on turn two or three.
Game 3: He leads off land, LED, Faithless, and ends up hitting Moeba two and three on his last two dredges with two bridges, Zealot, and two Bridges already in the graveyard. Well shit, got turn one’d. Well, that is the game we play I guess. Nice guy to play against, though.
0-1

Round 2: Alex-Jund Loam
Game 1: He leads Bloodstained Mire pass. I blind name Abrupt Decay and hit one also seeing Taiga, Forgotten Cave, Wasteland, Diabolic Edict, and Chalice. He drops Chalice on turn two and things aren’t looking good since my hand has a bunch of dig spells. He doesn’t have a threat and hasn’t hit a Loam, so I have all the time in the world. He eventually gets out a Countryside Crusher and then a Bob the turn after, so now I need to go. I ended up getting up to my sixth land on my last turn I could go off, so here we go. I counted it up and I could only deal 18 damage to get him to 1, but I had no other choice so I went for it to gain life. Fetched my 3 lands, played 2 LED’s, Probe for free storm, Wish for Edge of Autumn, Doomsday building IU, LED, LED, BW, DD. He’s now at 1 and I’m at 23. I pass AND HE DOESN’T EDICT HIS BOB! He realizes it after he started his turn and tries to do it in his upkeep and I tell him he can’t. Flips a Goyf and we’re off to game 2!
Game 2: I mull to six and my pants get real tight when I see Badlands, LED, Dark Rit, Doomsday, Probe, and an Abrupt Decay. I keep and pray he doesn’t have the Chalice. He plays a land, cycles forgotten cave, plays Mox Diamond, and cycles another before passing the turn. At this point, my erection has shot through the table as I easily turn one him.
1-1

Round 3: Kevin Huang-ANT
Game 1: I just got done watching him play a random game against my friend Jeff Rasmussen, so I think I know what he’s on and it’s confirmed when I see the same pimped out cards. He Ponders and Probes and sees what I’m on. He knows how the deck plays. I probe and Therapy his Therapy leaving him with Dark Rit, Petal, and Delta. He doesn’t draw the Tutor and I win on my next turn.
Game 2 and 3: I don’t remember the specifics between these games, but I lost them both. At one point, I Therapy his leaving him with a hand full of rituals and then proceed to cut him into the Tutor. Awesome. Fun guy to play against and he was pretty good with the deck.
1-2

Round 4: Alex Poling-RU Trinket Control
Game 1: I Therapied him fairly early in the game hitting his FoW and seeing Trinket Mage, Brainstorm, 2 Bolts, and lands. Interesting deck. I then proceeded to Tendrils him in the face.
Game 2: He got out a Clique on my third draw step and then a Trinket Mage for Pithing Needle soon after and my life total resembles that until 0.
Game 3: He has all of the counters this game. I think I dealt with 2 Forces, 2 or 3 counterspells, and then when I try to go off because his Jace is about to ultimate, my Doomsday gets Pierced. This Pierce was super unfortunate because I had top in play for my draw spell and after paying two only had two more mana available so by by Tendrils plan. I build something wacky in desperation with Lab Man on top so I could draw into it with top when he tried to exile my library with Jace. I ended up doing this and getting it into play, but with no draw spell left it was all for naught since he could just bounce it with Jace. Bummer.
1-3

Getting hungry and considered dropping, but decided to stay in til I got another loss. I also traded with SCG to get a Time Walk and Mox Ruby between rounds here, so I guess my spirits were high from that as well. Powering up to win out!

Round 5: Kyle Halbison-Deathblade
Game 1: I get Thoughtseized and he gets out a Stoneforge to grab SoFI. I Therapy naming FoW and see that he’s super flooded. I take one hit before jamming the Doomsday and finding out that he had only drawn into more land.
Game 2: He Thoughtseizes me and gets out a Deathrite, then I start taking a little damage. I had to cast Ideas Unbound to get it out of my hand since I didn’t have enough mana to go off with it in my hand. I Therapy him taking Abrupt Decay, leaving StP and a land. I don’t have a draw spell, so I go for it with the intention of making the Lab Man Sphere pile. He Deathrites in response and I get super lucky since he takes the BW that he discarded earlier instead of the IU. Ya, that’s why we play a deck that people don’t know much about. I get there next turn. Sphere is earning it’s stripes.
2-3

Round 6: Ian Marcum-URW Delver
Game 1: He draws a sideboard Flusterstorm and is honest about it and takes a game 1 loss. He saw Island Top, which he countered, and REALLY thinks I’m on Counterbalance.
Game 2: He gets out a Delver and Meddling Mages naming Conterbalance. lol Doesn’t matter, I can’t get there in time.
Game 3: He ends up having 2 Dazes for protection and I get enough mana to play through them and making him lose 28 life.
3-3

Round 7: Adam Johnson-UG Infect
Game 1: We know each other and he’s seeking revenge from the last time we played. I think I Duressed his Force and got there relatively quickly this game after taking 5 poison.
Game 2: He has a couple forces this time. I Abrupt Decay a guy to buy time, but I can’t find a discard spell before he Berserks.
Game 3: I get rid of his only Force and on my next turn build the pass the turn Lab Man pile with a Therapy in it since I already had an LED in play. He doesn’t draw the force or a way to kill me in time so I win the match.
4-3

Round 8: No show! Woo hoo!
5-3

Round 9: Chris Stagno-Jund Depths
Game 1: He leads Flooded Strand then Entombs on the end of my turn. For a second, I thought I was gonna get blown out by Reanimator, but he gets Raven’s Crime. He then proceeds to start discarding my hand and wasting my land before he Loams it all back. I’m in a bad spot. I BW for Doomsday knowing I have a short window to draw the last pieces, but I don’t before he empties my hand, which now had two Doomsdays. I slowly draw lands and build up my basics. He’s discarding everything I don’t play. It’s now about turn 20 and he’s attacking with a Nether Spirit and a Squee and questioning why I haven’t conceded yet. He has a Depths out, but I haven’t seen a Stage. I have amassed 2 LED’s and a Top. I need to find a Dark Rit and Doomsday at the same time with top since the rest of my lands didn’t stick around long, which I somehow actually do. I draw one for the turn and top into the other building the Lab Man pile. Passing the turn with 5 life left. He swings and puts me to 2. I get out Lab Man and all that good stuff and activate Sphere. He tries to bring back a Punishing Fire to kill it, but I inform him that he can’t respond to the Sphere and we’re off to game 2. Somehow I pulled that one out of my ass.
Game 2: He mulls and doesn’t have a Waste or Loam. He Thoughtseizes, but I think I got there on turn 3 anyway.
6-3

Round 10: Patrick Peters-Merfolk
Game 1: He leads off with Vial. I have a Probe and two Therapies, so I Probe seeing two Lords, Phantasmal Image, Fow, and Cavern. I Therapy away his Lords first, then on my next turn hit the Fow before winning shortly after.
Game 2: He leads Island pass. I Therapy naming Fow. I miss seeing Flusterstorm, Daze, Silvergill, Island, TNN, and Lord. Shit. I pass. He plays the Island and then the Silvergill. Holy shit he tapped out. I think I drew the ritual that gave me the win this turn. I played my second land and cast Rain of Filth. This was truly his only chance to Daze me since I was going to draw into my pile with a Ponder and I needed my second land to cast it, but he allows it to resolve. Dark Rit, LED, Doomsday, you know the drill.
7-3

Finally time to get out of there to get some food and drinks!

All in all, I had a lot of fun playing the deck and am glad I sleaved it up, even if I only ended up with $50. All of my losses went to game 3 and were really close. I’ll probably keep playing this deck for awhile now. On an odd note, I also ended up having a very hard time falling asleep that night because my mind kept racing through Doomsday scenarios and piles. I guess that’s what happens when you play the deck for 12 hours straight. lol

[Namida]

Edge of Autumn is a card I can't say I've seen too much of. How are you liking it?

[bennotsi]

Thanks for writing up the report! It's very cool to read about someone playing Doomsday at such a big tournament. I think you actually did very well! Too bad you lost against Dredge and ANT those are usually very easy matchups in my experience (though I do play with Silences).

I was thinking about that odd game 1 in round 2, with 6 lands and 2 LEDs you could have built a Doomsday-Time Spiral pile, but then I noticed you don't play Time Spiral. It doesn't really matter, letting him die to his own Bob is much more stylish ;-)

[sillysam71]

I decided to run Edge of Autumn since in the past I've frequently ended up with a combination of BW and DD in hand on my combo turn with no draw spell, so I wanted to be able to turn BW into a draw spell.

Looking back at that round 2 game 1, I think I could've actually won. My hand was:
DD, GP, LED, BW and I had 6 lands so BBBURR. My sequence was:

GP(countered)(1)(BBBURR), LED(2)(BBBURR), BW for Edge(3)(BBBR), DD building IU,LED,LED,BW,X(4)(R), Edge for IU sac LED(4)(UUUR), IU(5)(UR), LED LED BW break LED's(8)(BBBBBB), Tendrils for 9

If this was actually my situation, I could've:
GP(countered)(1)(BBBURR), LED(2)(BBBURR), DD for LP,LED,LED,BW,X(3)(URR), BW for Contract breaking LED(4)(BBBR), Contract(5)(R), LP LED LED BW(9)(BBBBBB), Tendrils for 10.

I think after Tendrils I went up to 23 life, so that means I still had 5 life which is plenty to cast Contract so I could've actually just won on the spot there. Oh well, got there anyway luckily. So I guess now looking back, I'm not sure if Edge is completely worth it. In situations where I'm getting it, I probably have an LED in play anyway for IU, so I will have the mana for Contract. That is, unless I just have UU open from lands, then Edge would be superior and Contract would be uncastable. I'll have to mess around with it some more, but I think I like Edge for now, just for that situation.

I didn't see a single Stifle or Spell Snare all day, so not having white wasn't too detrimental, although it probably would've helped against ANT.

[davelin]

Well, I played Doomsday at SCG Columbus this past Sunday and cashed, ending up in 58th place out of I think over 450, so I thought I’d write up a report.

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve had this deck together and done any testing with it, but I’ve been itching to play it lately, especially since I have it completely foiled out now, so I threw it together at 3 in the morning the night before when I got home from the bars. Here’s the list I ended up slinging:

3 Doomsday
4 Burning Wish
1 Idea’s Unbound
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Chromatic Sphere

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

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

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

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

Sideboard:
1 Tropical Island
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Karakas
1 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Edge of Autumn
2 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Infernal Contract
1 Chain of Vapor

It was only a 20 minute drive to get downtown, so naturally I barely make it in time and am super hungover. Oh well, Excedrin and coffee make up for it, so here we go.

Round 1: John Good-Dredge
Game 1: He’s on the play and starts with a careful study. Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag. He ends up getting there on turn 3 when I had the win setup for my next turn, how unfortunate.
Game 2: I have Probe and Therapy, I decide to Probe first instead of just blind naming LED, but he had it and I named it anyway. He had a ballin hand that probably would’ve killed me on his turn two if not one, but after stripping the LED I won on turn two or three.
Game 3: He leads off land, LED, Faithless, and ends up hitting Moeba two and three on his last two dredges with two bridges, Zealot, and two Bridges already in the graveyard. Well shit, got turn one’d. Well, that is the game we play I guess. Nice guy to play against, though.
0-1

Round 2: Alex-Jund Loam
Game 1: He leads Bloodstained Mire pass. I blind name Abrupt Decay and hit one also seeing Taiga, Forgotten Cave, Wasteland, Diabolic Edict, and Chalice. He drops Chalice on turn two and things aren’t looking good since my hand has a bunch of dig spells. He doesn’t have a threat and hasn’t hit a Loam, so I have all the time in the world. He eventually gets out a Countryside Crusher and then a Bob the turn after, so now I need to go. I ended up getting up to my sixth land on my last turn I could go off, so here we go. I counted it up and I could only deal 18 damage to get him to 1, but I had no other choice so I went for it to gain life. Fetched my 3 lands, played 2 LED’s, Probe for free storm, Wish for Edge of Autumn, Doomsday building IU, LED, LED, BW, DD. He’s now at 1 and I’m at 23. I pass AND HE DOESN’T EDICT HIS BOB! He realizes it after he started his turn and tries to do it in his upkeep and I tell him he can’t. Flips a Goyf and we’re off to game 2!
Game 2: I mull to six and my pants get real tight when I see Badlands, LED, Dark Rit, Doomsday, Probe, and an Abrupt Decay. I keep and pray he doesn’t have the Chalice. He plays a land, cycles forgotten cave, plays Mox Diamond, and cycles another before passing the turn. At this point, my erection has shot through the table as I easily turn one him.
1-1

Round 3: Kevin Huang-ANT
Game 1: I just got done watching him play a random game against my friend Jeff Rasmussen, so I think I know what he’s on and it’s confirmed when I see the same pimped out cards. He Ponders and Probes and sees what I’m on. He knows how the deck plays. I probe and Therapy his Therapy leaving him with Dark Rit, Petal, and Delta. He doesn’t draw the Tutor and I win on my next turn.
Game 2 and 3: I don’t remember the specifics between these games, but I lost them both. At one point, I Therapy his leaving him with a hand full of rituals and then proceed to cut him into the Tutor. Awesome. Fun guy to play against and he was pretty good with the deck.
1-2

Round 4: Alex Poling-RU Trinket Control
Game 1: I Therapied him fairly early in the game hitting his FoW and seeing Trinket Mage, Brainstorm, 2 Bolts, and lands. Interesting deck. I then proceeded to Tendrils him in the face.
Game 2: He got out a Clique on my third draw step and then a Trinket Mage for Pithing Needle soon after and my life total resembles that until 0.
Game 3: He has all of the counters this game. I think I dealt with 2 Forces, 2 or 3 counterspells, and then when I try to go off because his Jace is about to ultimate, my Doomsday gets Pierced. This Pierce was super unfortunate because I had top in play for my draw spell and after paying two only had two more mana available so by by Tendrils plan. I build something wacky in desperation with Lab Man on top so I could draw into it with top when he tried to exile my library with Jace. I ended up doing this and getting it into play, but with no draw spell left it was all for naught since he could just bounce it with Jace. Bummer.
1-3

Getting hungry and considered dropping, but decided to stay in til I got another loss. I also traded with SCG to get a Time Walk and Mox Ruby between rounds here, so I guess my spirits were high from that as well. Powering up to win out!

Round 5: Kyle Halbison-Deathblade
Game 1: I get Thoughtseized and he gets out a Stoneforge to grab SoFI. I Therapy naming FoW and see that he’s super flooded. I take one hit before jamming the Doomsday and finding out that he had only drawn into more land.
Game 2: He Thoughtseizes me and gets out a Deathrite, then I start taking a little damage. I had to cast Ideas Unbound to get it out of my hand since I didn’t have enough mana to go off with it in my hand. I Therapy him taking Abrupt Decay, leaving StP and a land. I don’t have a draw spell, so I go for it with the intention of making the Lab Man Sphere pile. He Deathrites in response and I get super lucky since he takes the BW that he discarded earlier instead of the IU. Ya, that’s why we play a deck that people don’t know much about. I get there next turn. Sphere is earning it’s stripes.
2-3

Round 6: Ian Marcum-URW Delver
Game 1: He draws a sideboard Flusterstorm and is honest about it and takes a game 1 loss. He saw Island Top, which he countered, and REALLY thinks I’m on Counterbalance.
Game 2: He gets out a Delver and Meddling Mages naming Conterbalance. lol Doesn’t matter, I can’t get there in time.
Game 3: He ends up having 2 Dazes for protection and I get enough mana to play through them and making him lose 28 life.
3-3

Round 7: Adam Johnson-UG Infect
Game 1: We know each other and he’s seeking revenge from the last time we played. I think I Duressed his Force and got there relatively quickly this game after taking 5 poison.
Game 2: He has a couple forces this time. I Abrupt Decay a guy to buy time, but I can’t find a discard spell before he Berserks.
Game 3: I get rid of his only Force and on my next turn build the pass the turn Lab Man pile with a Therapy in it since I already had an LED in play. He doesn’t draw the force or a way to kill me in time so I win the match.
4-3

Round 8: No show! Woo hoo!
5-3

Round 9: Chris Stagno-Jund Depths
Game 1: He leads Flooded Strand then Entombs on the end of my turn. For a second, I thought I was gonna get blown out by Reanimator, but he gets Raven’s Crime. He then proceeds to start discarding my hand and wasting my land before he Loams it all back. I’m in a bad spot. I BW for Doomsday knowing I have a short window to draw the last pieces, but I don’t before he empties my hand, which now had two Doomsdays. I slowly draw lands and build up my basics. He’s discarding everything I don’t play. It’s now about turn 20 and he’s attacking with a Nether Spirit and a Squee and questioning why I haven’t conceded yet. He has a Depths out, but I haven’t seen a Stage. I have amassed 2 LED’s and a Top. I need to find a Dark Rit and Doomsday at the same time with top since the rest of my lands didn’t stick around long, which I somehow actually do. I draw one for the turn and top into the other building the Lab Man pile. Passing the turn with 5 life left. He swings and puts me to 2. I get out Lab Man and all that good stuff and activate Sphere. He tries to bring back a Punishing Fire to kill it, but I inform him that he can’t respond to the Sphere and we’re off to game 2. Somehow I pulled that one out of my ass.
Game 2: He mulls and doesn’t have a Waste or Loam. He Thoughtseizes, but I think I got there on turn 3 anyway.
6-3

Round 10: Patrick Peters-Merfolk
Game 1: He leads off with Vial. I have a Probe and two Therapies, so I Probe seeing two Lords, Phantasmal Image, Fow, and Cavern. I Therapy away his Lords first, then on my next turn hit the Fow before winning shortly after.
Game 2: He leads Island pass. I Therapy naming Fow. I miss seeing Flusterstorm, Daze, Silvergill, Island, TNN, and Lord. Shit. I pass. He plays the Island and then the Silvergill. Holy shit he tapped out. I think I drew the ritual that gave me the win this turn. I played my second land and cast Rain of Filth. This was truly his only chance to Daze me since I was going to draw into my pile with a Ponder and I needed my second land to cast it, but he allows it to resolve. Dark Rit, LED, Doomsday, you know the drill.
7-3

Finally time to get out of there to get some food and drinks!

All in all, I had a lot of fun playing the deck and am glad I sleaved it up, even if I only ended up with $50. All of my losses went to game 3 and were really close. I’ll probably keep playing this deck for awhile now. On an odd note, I also ended up having a very hard time falling asleep that night because my mind kept racing through Doomsday scenarios and piles. I guess that’s what happens when you play the deck for 12 hours straight. lol

Very nice report! With labman main, is he solely as a wincon in situations when a resolved Doomsday may not generate enough storm to win?

[anwei]

Very nice report! With labman main, is he solely as a wincon in situations when a resolved Doomsday may not generate enough storm to win?

It's also in the Chain of Vapor spot for beating Teeg/Leyline/etc., makes a nice pass-the-turn pile with similar requirements to the Time Spiral one (freeing up that spot), and, of debatable use but a real thing for me at least, provides a comparatively straightforward pile that's slightly more resource-intensive than many ToA piles (so on a long day, in a game where you have plenty of resources but have just been looking for DD or something, now you can relaxedly combo out without planning what might need to be a tougher pile, with more careful mana/storm requirements, etc.).

(As a fringe benefit, so many people are unfamiliar enough with Doomsday that if you Lab Man them game 1, they might mis-board.)

[sillysam71]

I often go for the pass the turn labman pile in situations where I don't have a cantrip to get into my doomsday pile, but I have everything else taken care of and ready to go. It's also nice when you are able to cast doomsday with no other cards and be able to win on the following turn. I think I only won with it 3 times over the course of 10 rounds, but they were usually situations where I would have otherwise lost. Going for the Tendrils kill is still the preferred method, though, as it has cheaper requirements as long as you have all the pieces of the puzzle.

[nevilshute]

Howdy all.

I'm new to Doomsday but not to legacy storm decks (how many first time posts in this thread start out like this, huh! :smile: )

I've picked up a list close to what Sillysam played in his tournament only I've made some minor adjustments. Most noticeably I've decided to splash white for a Karakas and 4 Silence, playing a 4/3 split of silence/cabal therapy (with a 4th therapy as a BW target in the board). I'm playing the Lab Man in the main but have cut the Chromatic Sphere. I initially played with it, but it felt super awkward and I never once got to play it and win with maniac. Instead I'd win with maniac on the same turn through probe and top.


I have a few things I'd like to ask:

Void Snare
So everyone playing Burning Wish seems in ecstacy over this card. I was going to include it instead of Chain of Vapor but I started to think about it and struggled to really see where I'd want it. Having access to the Lab Man in the main deck really limits the necessity of Void Snare. Lab Man already lets us win through a Gaddock Teeg and White Leyline. It doesn't let us bounce chalice@1 anyway. Okay it bounces Chalice@0 and Trinisphere, but those are long shots. Bouncing Trinishpere implies that you have the three mana to cast the Void Snare and then enough mana/ressources to go off in the same turn. If MUD is a big thing in a meta then I'd just as soon pack a Meltdown in the board.

The one situation I can think of, where having access to the snare is actually incredibly sweet is against Iona naming black. That doesn't come up too often though.

Where do you stand on Void Snare? Is it worth an inclusion in spite of the above mentioned points about Laboratory Maniac negating most of the things we want game-1 removal from?

Beating UR-delver
I've played the deck at only three locals this far so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, trying to draw conclusions. However. I've lost - decisively - to UR-delver at all three tournaments. It just seems really tough. How do you approach this matchup? I'm looking to try out two Flusterstorms in my sideboard (not specifically for this MU, but it's a card I've been looking to try out in my ANT-list and it seems relevant here), but I don't really know how else to go about it...

Should I just accept that this is a really tough matchup and one I will lose more than win? Or is it a matter of approach. The main two issues when playing this MU for me compared to when playing ANT is, that DD feels a good turn slower (this might just be me) and then the fact that I'm losing half my life when I go off. I think my opponents - in all the matches - have had really, above avarage hands, but even so... Turn one Delver, turn two flip, cast goblin guide, in for 5, chain lightning, boom I'm at 11 having fetched. I then probe and see force, delver, bolt. Great, I have one turn and I have to beat force...

For reference, here's my current list:


4x Dark Ritual
1x Rain of Filth
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
2x Lotus Petal
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Burning Wish
4x Silence
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Doomsday
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Laboratory Maniac
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Tundra
1x Karakas
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Bloodstained Mire


Sideboard:
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Tropical Island
1x Doomsday
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Edge of Autumn
1x Time Spiral
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Massacre
2x Flusterstorm
1x Meltdown

The last three slots in the board I have just changed, they were, until recently:

-2 Flusterstorm
-1 Meltdown

+1 Empty the Warrens
+1 Infernal Contract
+1 Void Snare/CoV

Empty seems incredibly marginal in its usage. I think in a staggering majority of cases you can do something better. Infernal Contract I'm less sure of, but it also seems a bit marginal, less so than Empty, but still. And yeah, the void snare... I've gone through that.

Hoping for some feedback / constructive criticism :smile:

[Togores]

2012 when I was playing the deck like a half year long I played oust in the side for creature removal. Iona never called red or White so this card was really good. Also it was in a time where chant effect where better tan discard.

Also the infernal contract was played in the side to Dodge reb and spell snare, so you can know when its good.


That was the list I played back then :)

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=7561&iddeck=54923

[Namida]

Void Snare seems good in other Burning Wish decks because it gives them a way to deal with opposing hate, but Doomsday is already set up well enough against maindeck hate that Void Snare really seems like a weak use of sideboard space. "Ad Nauseam into a bunch of mana and spend 3 mana on Wish into Snare" is basically analogous to a Chain of Vapor Pile or a Laboratory Maniac Pile. Laboratory Maniac beats much of the opposing hate, and I think Burning Wish finding Massacre deals with the rest of it. That being said, I think Chain of Vapor is still good in the sideboard because it's an instant, Chain of Vapor piles are still good, and sometimes you might want to side out Laboratory Maniac.

Personally, I'm still playing Empty the Warrens because Chalice decks in my area also play Leyline of Sanctity and I feel like my best bet to win is to cast Burning Wish or Doomsday on turn one. Other players agree that you could probably be doing better things, and some of the players have also cut Time Spiral from the side for the same reason.

Is there a specific reason you need three mass removal spells in your sideboard?

I also don't really like Edge of Autumn. You can normally side out a copy of Gitaxian Probe out as a Wishable draw spell in your postboard games so I feel that Edge of Autumn only really has any function in preboard games, and its only function is to help Burning Wish facilitate the combo. Basically, for as marginal as you think Infernal Contract is, I believe that Edge of Autumn is actually worse.

I have a bit of trouble with UR Delver, too. I haven't played against it in a while, but it seems like it's just a difficult matchup. I personally don't feel like Doomsday is really much slower than ANT, but UR Delver is basically Burn with permission, and Burn is already pretty annoying to face with this deck because losing half your life against a deck that is all direct damage spells can be precarious. I think you just need to hope to go off quickly here. Having Chants in your deck helps; this might also be a match where having Empty the Warrens in your sideboard would be beneficial so you have more ways to win that don't require actually casting your Doomsday (but I don't know if you want Empty the Warrens in general).

Speaking of Burn decks...Burn is becoming a more popular deck, and Eidolon seems tough to beat. I know I don't open on enough crazy hands that kill before it would hit the board so now preboard games seem to be about dodging maindeck hate, which isn't good. I feel like all I can really do is side in the fourth Cabal Therapy over the fourth Duress in postboard games to give myself more chances to discard it, and side in my lone Chain of Vapor because I'm also not sure about siding in Abrupt Decay against Price of Progress. Does anyone else have any other opinions?

[nevilshute]

Void Snare seems good in other Burning Wish decks because it gives them a way to deal with opposing hate, but Doomsday is already set up well enough against maindeck hate that Void Snare really seems like a weak use of sideboard space. "Ad Nauseam into a bunch of mana and spend 3 mana on Wish into Snare" is basically analogous to a Chain of Vapor Pile or a Laboratory Maniac Pile. Laboratory Maniac beats much of the opposing hate, and I think Burning Wish finding Massacre deals with the rest of it. That being said, I think Chain of Vapor is still good in the sideboard because it's an instant, Chain of Vapor piles are still good, and sometimes you might want to side out Laboratory Maniac.

Personally, I'm still playing Empty the Warrens because Chalice decks in my area also play Leyline of Sanctity and I feel like my best bet to win is to cast Burning Wish or Doomsday on turn one. Other players agree that you could probably be doing better things, and some of the players have also cut Time Spiral from the side for the same reason.

Is there a specific reason you need three mass removal spells in your sideboard?

I also don't really like Edge of Autumn. You can normally side out a copy of Gitaxian Probe out as a Wishable draw spell in your postboard games so I feel that Edge of Autumn only really has any function in preboard games, and its only function is to help Burning Wish facilitate the combo. Basically, for as marginal as you think Infernal Contract is, I believe that Edge of Autumn is actually worse.

I have a bit of trouble with UR Delver, too. I haven't played against it in a while, but it seems like it's just a difficult matchup. I personally don't feel like Doomsday is really much slower than ANT, but UR Delver is basically Burn with permission, and Burn is already pretty annoying to face with this deck because losing half your life against a deck that is all direct damage spells can be precarious. I think you just need to hope to go off quickly here. Having Chants in your deck helps; this might also be a match where having Empty the Warrens in your sideboard would be beneficial so you have more ways to win that don't require actually casting your Doomsday (but I don't know if you want Empty the Warrens in general).

Speaking of Burn decks...Burn is becoming a more popular deck, and Eidolon seems tough to beat. I know I don't open on enough crazy hands that kill before it would hit the board so now preboard games seem to be about dodging maindeck hate, which isn't good. I feel like all I can really do is side in the fourth Cabal Therapy over the fourth Duress in postboard games to give myself more chances to discard it, and side in my lone Chain of Vapor because I'm also not sure about siding in Abrupt Decay against Price of Progress. Does anyone else have any other opinions?

Thanks for the reply Namida.

Regarding the three mass removal spells: It could be that I'm over-focusing on it, but living in Copenhagen I'm bound to face quite a bit of Death and Taxes (due to Fellow Danes Thomas Enevoldsen and Michael Bonde popularizing the deck immensely). At my LGS I'd say in the past six-eight months there's always a D&T player in the room. The average perhaps being close to two decks in the room at every weekly. So I really, really want to be able to win against that deck. In that matchup, as it is, I board in one Massacre and one Toxic Deluge and then maybe two Decays. That way I still have a way to wish for a Massacre while having two sweepers to draw in the main deck. I don't know, maybe it's one too many...

Another question: Do you run a Tendrils in the main? I've had it come up a couple of times that I could have won with Tendrils in the main, but couldn't without. I don't have it in the main and I'm at a loss over what to cut for it.

Also yeah, the Eidolon is annoying (think that goes across the board for storm decks). I tested a bit against Burn and yeah, that's kind of a tough MU in the first place. Chanting them on their 2nd turn to win on your third seems like a good play, if on the play. Or discarding them... Other than that I don't think we can realistically beat them resolving that Card game 1. I probably wouldn't hesistate to bring in decays, even when facing PoPs. Worst case is they play Eidolon on their 2nd turn on the play. You untap and play your 2nd land and pass the turn with a decay in hand and two non-basics. They've dealt you 3 dmg so far from a bolt/chain/rift on their first turn. They untap, drop a guide and swing in for 4, you decay the eidolon and take 2 dropping you to 11 (you've fetched twice, let's say). Now you probably have to win on this next turn regardless. They have two untapped mana. If they PoP you you drop to 7 but they're tapped out and you now "only" lose to a fireblast". If they don't pop you, but instead chain lightning you, you drop to 8 and still lose to a fireblast. They might also be sandbagging a bolt in that case but you still live that way, winning at 1 life. The point being that they shouldn't be able to hit you more than once with PoP and it should be early enough in the game that it won't be bigger than for 4, maybe 6 dmg. If they hit you for 6 then it's probably game over, but we should be aiming for a turn three win at the very latest in this matchup so it will never be for more and yeah, hopefully we can keep at 4 (Swamp, Volcanic, Tropical for instance).

[nevilshute]

A scenario came up last night and I think there was a way to win on the same turn, but I couldn't work it out. My lack of experience shun through. I've been wracking my brain ever since to come up with a solution but have so far fallen short.

My board state:

-Swamp (tapped)
-Badlands (tapped)
-Underground Sea (tapped)
-Volcanic Island (untapped)
-Tundra (untapped)
-Island (untapped)
-Sensei's Divining Top.

Zero mana floating. Doomsday on the stack

Cards in hand, 1: Silence.

Life total: 19

Opponent's life total: 20

Opponent: Shardless Bant

Opponent has 4 lands in play, zero cards in hand. No other permanents.

Storm is one.

How do I win in this turn?

This was my list. I won't write the sideboard as I'd like to see if there are other cards you think of that I could have played in the board that would have gotten me there. I tried to go for a Lab Man win, but couldn't find a way to win on the same turn. My conclusion was that I needed either another mana, or a probe in hand to win on the same turn. What would you have done?


4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
3x Lotus Petal
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Burning Wish
4x Silence
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Doomsday
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Laboratory Maniac
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Tundra
1x Karakas
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Bloodstained Mire

[Doishy]

What life is your opponent on?

[nevilshute]

What life is your opponent on?

Doh, I knew I had forgotten something. Yeah, opponent was at 20. I've edited it.

[GoboLord]

A scenario came up last night and I think there was a way to win on the same turn, but I couldn't work it out. My lack of experience shun through. I've been wracking my brain ever since to come up with a solution but have so far fallen short.

My board state:

-Swamp (tapped)
-Badlands (tapped)
-Underground Sea (tapped)
-Volcanic Island (untapped)
-Tundra (untapped)
-Island (untapped)
-Sensei's Divining Top.

Zero mana floating. Doomsday on the stack

Cards in hand, 1: Silence.

Life total: 19

Opponent's life total: 20

Opponent: Shardless Bant

Opponent has 4 lands in play, zero cards in hand. No other permanents.

Storm is one.

How do I win in this turn?

This was my list. I won't write the sideboard as I'd like to see if there are other cards you think of that I could have played in the board that would have gotten me there. I tried to go for a Lab Man win, but couldn't find a way to win on the same turn. My conclusion was that I needed either another mana, or a probe in hand to win on the same turn. What would you have done?


4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
3x Lotus Petal
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Burning Wish
4x Silence
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Doomsday
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Laboratory Maniac
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Tundra
1x Karakas
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Bloodstained Mire


Your pile will be (from TOP to BOTTOM)

Ideas Unbound
Lion's Eye Diamond
Gitaxian Probe#1
Gitaxian Probe#2
Laboratory Maniac


After resolving DD you do this:

tap SDT, draw IU
Cast IU out of 2 lands (1 land untapped)
draw SDT, LED, Probe
cast LED
cast SDT out of that one untapped land
cast Probe#1 to draw Probe#2
cast Probe#2 and crack LED in response for UUU, draw LabMan
cast Lab Man
tap SDT to draw & win

[nevilshute]

Your pile will be (from TOP to BOTTOM)

Ideas Unbound
Lion's Eye Diamond
Gitaxian Probe#1
Gitaxian Probe#2
Laboratory Maniac


After resolving DD you do this:

tap SDT, draw IU
Cast IU out of 2 lands (1 land untapped)
draw SDT, LED, Probe
cast LED
cast SDT out of that one untapped land
cast Probe#1 to draw Probe#2
cast Probe#2 and crack LED in response for UUU, draw LabMan
cast Lab Man
tap SDT to draw & win

Wow, that seems humblingly simple... Feel silly that I spent so much time on it and was unable to come up with that on my own. Thanks a bunch for chiming in! :smile:

[Asthereal]

I see I need to work on my Lab Man piles. :tongue:

I was immidiately thinking about how easy the win would be if you just went for this pile: Ideas, LED, LED, Wish, Doomsday, aiming for the Empty the Warrens with Doomsday as backup in case he finds an answer. Seems a legit win, but Lab Man does it better. :cool:

[Doishy]

I'm currently wanting to construct my first proper Legacy deck having purely stayed on the budget and fun Manaless Dredge plan for the last year. Currently wanting to throw into Doomsday but was not sure what list I wanted to invest in (Money being a big constraint and this being a long term project).

At the moment it is looking like this is the sort of list I want to aim for. It's a BUG configuration that allows for solid UB plan MB with labman as the win then swap over to ustilise the G from the SB to allow a potential ToA win. Carpet of flowers has been a beast in testing allowing for much faster wins off of a single Bayou into Ritual turn two.

I want to avoid R for burning wish as this adds another colour and being fairly new to the proper fetching and selection of lands; I don't wish to throw myself too far in the deep end. Maybe after practice and acquisition of funds I can branch out to it later.

Any and all feedback welcome and remember; I am working on a long term goal to get ahold of these and for now am constrained by budget :)

Here is the list:


1 Bayou
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Thought Scour
1 Thoughtseize
1 Unearth
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Ideas Unbound
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Doomsday
1 Laboratory Maniac
3 Force of Will
2 Misdirection


Sideboard:


1 Shelldock Isle
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn


The main card choices I am not sure on is the singleton Chromatic Sphere, the Menendian Unearth/Thought Scour combo and singleton Therapy/Thoughtseize.

The Sphere does have uses but I have yet to see the full advantage of them yet. I would probably put in another Top or some form of drisruption to replace this.

The Labman GY enablers to allow for very quick same turn piles but these could just as well be done using LED's and IU. Again more disruption would like be added.

Singleton Thoughtseize and Therapy both seem a tad lonely and I cannot decide which is better suited to the task. Having played Dredge I do like Therapy alot and the 2 life can matter a fair bit but I am in two minds.
Again thoughts are appreciated.


Thanks.

[Namida]

Let me ask a few questions:

Why aren't you playing Tendrils in the main?
Why are you only playing 3 Sensei's Tops?
Why are you only playing 3 LED?
Why are you only playing 3 Force of Will?
Why are you playing 3 Infernal Tutor at all?

When do you intend to side in Tendrils of Agony?
When do you intend to side in Emrakul and Shelldock Isle?
When do you intend to side in Sylvan Library?

If you can explain these things, it would help to see where you're coming from. It looks like your deck is trying way too hard to do literally everything. I can't tell the choices you made due to budget concerns from the ones you made for some other reasons I don't understand yet. The only real critiques I feel comfortable giving before hearing any explanations on your end are that you probably need to play Thought Scour and Unearth if you're committed to not playing Tendrils, and that there is no possible way that it can be correct to play less than four Sensei's Tops if you're committed to playing Infernal Tutor.

[Doishy]

Let me ask a few questions:

Why aren't you playing Tendrils in the main?



Because I feel like it would be easier to go for a consistent G1 Labman win. I may be wrong and need to test more online but this is what I currently think.



Why are you only playing 3 Sensei's Tops?


Good question. Should probably up for 4. Wasn't sure what to cut for it but will likely get rid of the Sphere for it.



Why are you only playing 3 LED?



Also good query. What should I cut for it? Unearth/Scour is most likely if it is suggested to not bother with that combo.



Why are you only playing 3 Force of Will?


4 just seemed too many. In testing I would have them with either no card to pitch or would be facing abrupt decays vs the Labman.



Why are you playing 3 Infernal Tutor at all?


Doomsday redundency or for when boarding to grab ToA more like a traditional storm deck.



When do you intend to side in Tendrils of Agony?


Against decks likely to bring in GY hate or creature hate for against the Labman (either Unearth or straight casting).



When do you intend to side in Emrakul and Shelldock Isle?


Possibly for a surprise factor in G3, possibly against decks well placed with way too many counter spells and not nearly enough Karakas. Also maybe S+T for those lucky 'They drop Griselbro, you drop Emrakul' starts.



When do you intend to side in Sylvan Library?


When expecting games to go longer and be harder to push through hate.
It is great to quickly fill your hand with protection and / or enablers after a grindy start or after failed attempts to go off.



If you can explain these things, it would help to see where you're coming from. It looks like your deck is trying way too hard to do literally everything. I can't tell the choices you made due to budget concerns from the ones you made for some other reasons I don't understand yet. The only real critiques I feel comfortable giving before hearing any explanations on your end are that you probably need to play Thought Scour and Unearth if you're committed to not playing Tendrils, and that there is no possible way that it can be correct to play less than four Sensei's Tops if you're committed to playing Infernal Tutor.

I will admit that I should change the three ofs to 4s. I also realise that I am trying to Jack of all Trades it but I feel that flexibility awarded from having all three options should both make it harder for opponents to get the read on your boarding and to make it easier for me to have the right answers.

Thank you for the feedback so far and I hope my answers help :)

[Mhenlo]

I'm currently wanting to construct my first proper Legacy deck having purely stayed on the budget and fun Manaless Dredge plan for the last year. Currently wanting to throw into Doomsday but was not sure what list I wanted to invest in (Money being a big constraint and this being a long term project).

At the moment it is looking like this is the sort of list I want to aim for. It's a BUG configuration that allows for solid UB plan MB with labman as the win then swap over to ustilise the G from the SB to allow a potential ToA win. Carpet of flowers has been a beast in testing allowing for much faster wins off of a single Bayou into Ritual turn two.

I want to avoid R for burning wish as this adds another colour and being fairly new to the proper fetching and selection of lands; I don't wish to throw myself too far in the deep end. Maybe after practice and acquisition of funds I can branch out to it later.

Any and all feedback welcome and remember; I am working on a long term goal to get ahold of these and for now am constrained by budget :)

Here is the list:


1 Bayou
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Thought Scour
1 Thoughtseize
1 Unearth
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Ideas Unbound
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Doomsday
1 Laboratory Maniac
3 Force of Will
2 Misdirection


Sideboard:


1 Shelldock Isle
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn


The main card choices I am not sure on is the singleton Chromatic Sphere, the Menendian Unearth/Thought Scour combo and singleton Therapy/Thoughtseize.

The Sphere does have uses but I have yet to see the full advantage of them yet. I would probably put in another Top or some form of drisruption to replace this.

The Labman GY enablers to allow for very quick same turn piles but these could just as well be done using LED's and IU. Again more disruption would like be added.

Singleton Thoughtseize and Therapy both seem a tad lonely and I cannot decide which is better suited to the task. Having played Dredge I do like Therapy alot and the 2 life can matter a fair bit but I am in two minds.
Again thoughts are appreciated.


Thanks.
IMO I'd cut an Island for a Fetch, Sphere for the 4th Top, and add a Pact Of Negation for something. Possibly SB an Ad Nauseam against slow discard and combo decks because you play Infernal Tutor.

[Doishy]

IMO I'd cut an Island for a Fetch, Sphere for the 4th Top, and add a Pact Of Negation for something. Possibly SB an Ad Nauseam against slow discard and combo decks because you play Infernal Tutor.

Sounds good. Will test those changes tonight :)

[anwei]

If you're new to the deck, play a stock list. Splitting halves on a ddft list and menendian's lab man list is not a good plan. Lots of dead/non-synergistic cards.

[bennotsi]

If you're new to the deck, play a stock list. Splitting halves on a ddft list and menendian's lab man list is not a good plan. Lots of dead/non-synergistic cards.

Fully agree. Very good advice.

[Namida]

If you're new to the deck, play a stock list. Splitting halves on a ddft list and menendian's lab man list is not a good plan. Lots of dead/non-synergistic cards.

I'm about to say the same thing in quite a few more words.

I understand why you would want to have so many answers, but this deck is so powerful on its own that you shouldn't need to worry about trying to get an edge over opponents by confusing them with transformational sideboards--especially since your opponent has the opportunity to look through your deck anytime you cast Doomsday and your deck configuration screams that you have a Tendrils somewhere in your 75 because you're playing a bunch of cards that don't make sense in your maindeck otherwise. The way this deck works, you should be able to play around your opponent's answers without having to commit so entirely to two completely separate plans that have little synergy with each other. For instance, you don't have a good reason to side in Tendrils at all when Ideas Unbound and one LED give you a pile that is unaffected by the graveyard and Chromatic Sphere gives you the ability to dodge creature removal entirely, so Tendrils looks like a wasted card in your sideboard and the extra copies of LED look really weird in your mainboard.

I asked you the question about your three-of cards because all of them are so strong that you should be running full sets of them, but they're also all so anti-synergistic that you shouldn't be playing half of them in the same deck with each other. First off, the way I've seen it described is that committing to Maniac is meant to leverage the power of blue permission, while you commit to Tendrils to get the power of LED. This is because blue permission and LED shouldn't go into the same deck without a compelling reason, and I don't think you've offered one. Your maindeck is basically a bad version of the Laboratory Maniac deck playing LEDs that don't do much, Infernal Tutors that do even less, and not enough cards that actually protect a Maniac in your pile. If you switch to the Tendrils deck from the sideboard, you're playing a neutered version of DDFT with less powerful draws in a reduced number of LED, Infernal Tutor as a horrible draw because you don't play enough LED nor do you play the types the spells to facilitate actually casting ten spells, and you have only two protection spells that are actually capable of forcing a Tendrils through because counterspells can't be held up past the point when you use an LED.

The main thing that strikes me is that Infernal Tutor is especially bad here. Your deck is playing too many cards that you can't easily empty from your hand (Laboratory Maniac, and all of your blue permission) and you're not playing enough fast mana (not to mention not enough LED) to make it work well too often. You have to jump through too many hoops to make Infernal Tutor good, and I don't think you can build your deck in a way that makes this card good while you are playing the Maniac combo. Your deck is pulling itself in so many different directions that it seems so mediocre at doing any of the things that it wants to do that I can't see the trade-off in versatility being worth it. I think that actually trying to build the kind of deck you want to make basically requires Burning Wish to tie everything together. If you don't want to play Burning Wish (which is understandable), I think you need to focus more on one plan. You can build the Tendrils deck to work well with Infernal Tutor (the original lists looked more like ANT with Ill-Gotten Gains). As the Maniac deck alone, I can understand feeling like 4 Doomsday isn't enough, but Infernal Tutor is just not an effective answer. I'd probably play Lim-Dul's Vault or something similar--it's also not a great card, but it requires less work to make it actually find Doomsday.

[.dk]

A scenario came up last night and I think there was a way to win on the same turn, but I couldn't work it out. My lack of experience shun through. I've been wracking my brain ever since to come up with a solution but have so far fallen short.

My board state:

-Swamp (tapped)
-Badlands (tapped)
-Underground Sea (tapped)
-Volcanic Island (untapped)
-Tundra (untapped)
-Island (untapped)
-Sensei's Divining Top.

Zero mana floating. Doomsday on the stack

Cards in hand, 1: Silence.

Life total: 19

Opponent's life total: 20

Opponent: Shardless Bant

Opponent has 4 lands in play, zero cards in hand. No other permanents.

Storm is one.

How do I win in this turn?

This was my list. I won't write the sideboard as I'd like to see if there are other cards you think of that I could have played in the board that would have gotten me there. I tried to go for a Lab Man win, but couldn't find a way to win on the same turn. My conclusion was that I needed either another mana, or a probe in hand to win on the same turn. What would you have done?


4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
3x Lotus Petal
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Burning Wish
4x Silence
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Doomsday
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Laboratory Maniac
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Tundra
1x Karakas
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Bloodstained Mire

I know you said you wanted to win this turn... but as an alternative, you can win easily with a pass the turn Time Spiral pile as well. Your pile would be:

Ideas Unbound
LED
LED
Burning Wish
Burning Wish

pass the turn, and on your next main phase, use your Tundra to cast Silence eliminating whatever interaction they drew (unless it was something like Thalia or the like), and then it's just a normal Time Spiral pile from there. (IU, LED, LED, flip top, Crack LED's for RRRUUU, Burning Wish -> Time Spiral, LED, LED, SDT, Burning Wish -> Tendrils).

Just another option anyway if for whatever reason a scenario comes up where you can't use Lab Maniac in this case (since it is clearly better to win right now as you don't give them a chance to interact).

[Doishy]

Thank you all for the feedback. Time to do some much needed deliberation.

[kingtk3]

A scenario came up last night and I think there was a way to win on the same turn, but I couldn't work it out. My lack of experience shun through. I've been wracking my brain ever since to come up with a solution but have so far fallen short.

My board state:

-Swamp (tapped)
-Badlands (tapped)
-Underground Sea (tapped)
-Volcanic Island (untapped)
-Tundra (untapped)
-Island (untapped)
-Sensei's Divining Top.

Zero mana floating. Doomsday on the stack

Cards in hand, 1: Silence.

Life total: 19

Opponent's life total: 20

Opponent: Shardless Bant

Opponent has 4 lands in play, zero cards in hand. No other permanents.

Storm is one.

How do I win in this turn?

This was my list. I won't write the sideboard as I'd like to see if there are other cards you think of that I could have played in the board that would have gotten me there. I tried to go for a Lab Man win, but couldn't find a way to win on the same turn. My conclusion was that I needed either another mana, or a probe in hand to win on the same turn. What would you have done?


4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
3x Lotus Petal
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Burning Wish
4x Silence
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Doomsday
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Laboratory Maniac
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Tundra
1x Karakas
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Bloodstained Mire

Maybe a pile like this should win on the spot

TOP
ideas
led
probe
probe
labman
BOTTOM


tap top to draw ideas
cast ideas with two lands of your choice and draw top, led and probe
cast top with the remaining land and led
cast probe and in response crack led for UUU, draw the second probe
cast the second probe to draw labman and cast him with the mana floating
tap top to win the game



However I'm angry at you nevilshute, you left the food chain thread now that it's become my weapon of choice!!!!!
Just joking ^_^ , it's nice to see you here and I know that I'll soon have to play this deck more seriously because I feel it's a beast and I love the puzzle you can come up with.

[nevilshute]

Maybe a pile like this should win on the spot

TOP
ideas
led
probe
probe
labman
BOTTOM


tap top to draw ideas
cast ideas with two lands of your choice and draw top, led and probe
cast top with the remaining land and led
cast probe and in response crack led for UUU, draw the second probe
cast the second probe to draw labman and cast him with the mana floating
tap top to win the game



However I'm angry at you nevilshute, you left the food chain thread now that it's become my weapon of choice!!!!!
Just joking ^_^ , it's nice to see you here and I know that I'll soon have to play this deck more seriously because I feel it's a beast and I love the puzzle you can come up with.

That's the pile that would have won it. Thanks. GoboLord already beat you to it though. Thanks anyways :smile: I couldn't for the life of me work it out. Nice to have people chiming in!

Sorry about being a bit awol in the Food Chain thread. I'm still playing it, just not that regularily. Believe me, I still love it, and I'm so happy it had something of a breakthrough this year. Keep it at. I still browse the thread weekly :smile:

[kingtk3]

That's the pile that would have won it. Thanks. GoboLord already beat you to it though. Thanks anyways :smile: I couldn't for the life of me work it out. Nice to have people chiming in!

Sorry about being a bit awol in the Food Chain thread. I'm still playing it, just not that regularily. Believe me, I still love it, and I'm so happy it had something of a breakthrough this year. Keep it at. I still browse the thread weekly :smile:

I was browsing the thread from my smartphone and kinda missed Gobolord's post... so lame on my part: sorry Gobo!!! ^_^'''

Don't worry, we'll "see" each other in one of these threads, although during this summer in my shop there will be almost modern tournaments.

[Kidbails]

Here's a short puzzle that came up in yesterday's legacy tournament. I was playing this list (sorry, no lab maniac for you fans of that card):

MD:
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual
3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

SB:
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Flusterstorm
1 Doomsday
1 Time Spiral
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Massacre
1 Infernal Contract
1 Cabal Therapy

Game 2 vs Werewolf Stompy (I lost game 1):
SB as follows:
-1 Duress
+1 Tendrils of Agony

We played the game to this point:
My Hand: Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Gitaxian Probe, Lotus Petal, Cabal Therapy, Tendrils of Agony
My hand: Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Brainstorm, Lotus Petal, Cabal Therapy, Tendrils of Agony
My Board: Scalding Tarn (can only tap for red), Swamp, Volcanic Island (can only tap for red) (all untapped)
His Board: Blood Moon, Phyrexian Revoker (naming Lion's Eye Diamond), Phyrexian Revoker (naming Sensei's Divining Top), Ancient Tomb (tapped).
Life Totals: 19 (me) vs 18 (him)

To me, the most obvious pile ends up one storm short, and is as follows:
Dark Ritual (1) -> Doomsday (2) building:
top-Brainstorm, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual-bottom
Probe (3) -> Lotus Petal (4) -> Brainstorm (using Petal) (5) (put back dark ritual and cabal therapy) -> Lotus Petal (6) -> Dark Ritual (7) -> Tendrils of Agony (8).

top-Probe, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual-bottom
Lotus Petal (3), Brainstorm (using Petal) (4) (put back cabal therpy, lotus petal, in that order), Probe (5), Lotus Petal (6), Dark Ritual (7), Tendrils of Agony (8).

One storm short. So is there a pile that can win the game here?

EDIT: See my below post for an explanation of why the first post was incorrect.

[Janske]

Play Dark Ritual (1) -> Doomsday (2).

You can build the pile:

TOP
Brainstorm
Lotus Petal
Dark Ritual
Gitaxian Probe
Random Card
BOTTOM

Play Probe (3) drawing Brainstorm
Play Lotus Petal (4) -> Brainstorm (5) drawing Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Gitaxian Probe. Put Back Cabal Therapy and Dark Ritual or Tendrils on top.
Play Probe (6) drawing Dark Ritual or Tendrils
Play Lotus Petal (7) -> Dark Ritual (8) -> Tendrils (9) for lethal.

So you basically just need to add that Probe to your pile. ;)

[nevilshute]

This should work:

(Top)probe, brainstorm, petal, dark rit, blank(bottom.

Dark rit(1), doomsday(2), probe drawing probe (3), probe drawing brainstorm (4), petal (5), cast brainstorm (6) drawing petal, dark rit, blank, put back blank and therapy. Petal (7), dark rit (8) tendrs (9 - lethal)

[Kidbails]

Well those are both definitively better than my pile.

I was thinking about adding a probe to get one deeper into my pile, but I somehow kept thinking that I would still be one storm short. Not sure how I came to that conclusion.

EDIT: I know how. I didn't have the probe in my hand. I had the brainstorm in my hand, I just failed to recall it when writing the above post. At this point, I think I probably built the pile:
top-Probe, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual-bottom

so you instead of the first sequence in the post, it's more likely that it's: Petal (3), BS (4) (putting back cabal therpy and lotus petal), Probe (5), Lotus Petal (6), Dark Ritual (7), Tendrils of Agony (8). Which is still one storm short.

I recall this now because I remember there was a specific reason where I had to cast a brainstorm before I could cast a probe, meaning that brainstorm was most likely in my hand, unless I really screwed up (which is definitely possible). My bad :rolleyes:

[nevilshute]

Well those are both definitively better than my pile.

I was thinking about adding a probe to get one deeper into my pile, but I somehow kept thinking that I would still be one storm short. Not sure how I came to that conclusion.

EDIT: I know how. I didn't have the probe in my hand. I had the brainstorm in my hand, I just failed to recall it when writing the above post. At this point, I think I probably built the pile:
top-Probe, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual-bottom

so you instead of the first sequence in the post, it's more likely that it's: Petal (3), BS (4) (putting back cabal therpy and lotus petal), Probe (5), Lotus Petal (6), Dark Ritual (7), Tendrils of Agony (8). Which is still one storm short.

I recall this now because I remember there was a specific reason where I had to cast a brainstorm before I could cast a probe, meaning that brainstorm was most likely in my hand, unless I really screwed up (which is definitely possible). My bad :rolleyes:

This is still with sleep in my eyes so bear with me. But if the probe was a brainstorm how about this pile:

(Top)ideas unbound, petal, petal, probe, dark rit(bottom).

Line: petal(3), brainstorm (4), drawing petal, petal, iu, putting back tendrils and therapy. Petal (5), petal(6), iu (7) draw tendrils, therapy, probe. Cast probe (8) draw dark rit, dark rit (9), tendrils (10)

[Janske]

This isn't possible because there is no B left to cast Dark Ritual then.

If you played Rain of Filth which you somehow don't you could go:

TOP
Burning Wish (Infernal Contract)
Dark Ritual
Lotus Petal
Swamp
Rain of Filth
BOTTOM

storm count would be 10 then.
Maybe exchange Cabal Ritual for Rain of Filth? :D

[nevilshute]

This isn't possible because there is no B left to cast Dark Ritual then.

If you played Rain of Filth which you somehow don't you could go:

TOP
Burning Wish (Infernal Contract)
Dark Ritual
Lotus Petal
Swamp
Rain of Filth
BOTTOM

storm count would be 10 then.
Maybe exchange Cabal Ritual for Rain of Filth? :D

Wow, yeah, missed the need for B. That's a pretty sweet pile (with RoF) :smile:

[Kidbails]

This isn't possible because there is no B left to cast Dark Ritual then.

If you played Rain of Filth which you somehow don't you could go:

TOP
Burning Wish (Infernal Contract)
Dark Ritual
Lotus Petal
Swamp
Rain of Filth
BOTTOM

storm count would be 10 then.
Maybe exchange Cabal Ritual for Rain of Filth? :D


Yea, it probably should be a rain of filth (especially seeing that). That is a sweet pile and definitely gets the job done.

[Kidbails]

So I've been testing Counterbalance as protection in DDFT. During a test game yesterday against burn, this situation came up, and I couldn't figure out a pile to stay protected and go for the kill:

List:
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Ponder
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Rain of Filth
2x Lotus Petal
3x Doomsday
3x Burning Wish
2x Duress
1x Cabal Therapy
4x Counterbalance
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Ideas Unbound
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Tropical Island
2x Island
2x Swamp

--SB--
4x Abrupt Decay
1x Doomsday
1x Time Spiral
2x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Void Snare (wished for and used)
1x Meltdown
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Massacre
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Cabal Therapy


My Board: Volcanic Island, Underground Sea, Badlands, Island, Island (tapped to spin top in the upkeep); Counterbalance, Sensei's Divining Top
My Hand: Ponder, Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Burning Wish, Cabal Therapy
Life: 10

His Board: Mountain x3
His Life: 18

I cabal therapy (storm 1) him, naming fireblast and hit all four. I then see: 1x Price of Progress, 1x Flame Rift. He couldn't cast these as he knows I have a two drop on the top of my deck.

Is there a pile that can win from here? Things to consider: a two drop needs to remain on top for the entirety of the storming process, in order to protect us from the two drops in his hand. It's possible to try and next-level him by not having a two drop on the top and hoping that he doesn't realize this, but I don't like this line.

[Togores]

Why not going for bw into therapy. And then casting cabal. If he pops u just discard rift snd counters with balance pop.
Next turn his only out is drawing anothrr pop. Cause you can negate eidolon and rift. Then combo on your turn. Cause at 10 life if he draws a bolt u still survive after dday.
Also whats on your top of library apart from the cc2.
I think best plan is to therapy. He cant draw a 5th fireast.

[Kidbails]

Why not going for bw into therapy. And then casting cabal. If he pops u just discard rift snd counters with balance pop.
Next turn his only out is drawing anothrr pop. Cause you can negate eidolon and rift. Then combo on your turn. Cause at 10 life if he draws a bolt u still survive after dday.
Also whats on your top of library apart from the cc2.
I think best plan is to therapy. He cant draw a 5th fireast.


I thought about this, but if I can win here, then it's obviously better. Plus it's just an interesting situation.

[Bobmans]

My Board: Volcanic Island, Underground Sea, Badlands, Island, Island (tapped to spin top in the upkeep); Counterbalance, Sensei's Divining Top
My Hand: Ponder, Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Burning Wish, Cabal Therapy
Life: 10

His Board: Mountain x3
His Life: 18

I cabal therapy (storm 1) him, naming fireblast and hit all four. I then see: 1x Price of Progress, 1x Flame Rift. He couldn't cast these as he knows I have a two drop on the top of my deck.

Is there a pile that can win from here? Things to consider: a two drop needs to remain on top for the entirety of the storming process, in order to protect us from the two drops in his hand. It's possible to try and next-level him by not having a two drop on the top and hoping that he doesn't realize this, but I don't like this line.

Man, gotta love this riddles.

What i would have done was this:

Tap U.Sea and Cast Cabal Therapy, wait for response of opponent. Then either he respons with Price of Progress or not.
When he PoP,s, respond with CB trigger @ 2 and name Flame Rift or
Just name PoP.

Then tap Badlands, cast Dark Ritual, cast Doomsday. Library:
1. Tropical Island
2. Ideas Unbound
3. Rain of Filth
4. Lotus Petal
5. Lotus Petal

then tap Volc Island, cast Ponder, look at top 3, do nothing and draw Trop and play it.
Flip SDT for IU and cast it with the Trop and the remaining Island to draw SDT, Rain of Filth and 1 Petal.
Cast and sac Petal for (B) and cast Rain of Filth. Sac all lands for 6x(B).
Cast SDT and flip it for the remaining Petal. 5x(B)
Cast Petal and sac Petal for red, then cast Burning Wish for Tendrills. 4x(B) and storm 10.
Cast Tendrills and win now.

Edit: offcourse thinking this thru took me 5 minutes and a cup of coffee. Can't imagine playing this at a tournament, but i gotta try it some time.

[Kidbails]

Man, gotta love this riddles.

What i would have done was this:

Tap U.Sea and Cast Cabal Therapy, wait for response of opponent. Then either he respons with Price of Progress or not.
When he PoP,s, respond with CB trigger @ 2 and name Flame Rift or
Just name PoP.

Then tap Badlands, cast Dark Ritual, cast Doomsday. Library:
1. Tropical Island
2. Ideas Unbound
3. Rain of Filth
4. Lotus Petal
5. Lotus Petal

then tap Volc Island, cast Ponder, look at top 3, do nothing and draw Trop and play it.
Flip SDT for IU and cast it with the Trop and the remaining Island to draw SDT, Rain of Filth and 1 Petal.
Cast and sac Petal for (B) and cast Rain of Filth. Sac all lands for 6x(B).
Cast SDT and flip it for the remaining Petal. 5x(B)
Cast Petal and sac Petal for red, then cast Burning Wish for Tendrills. 4x(B) and storm 10.
Cast Tendrills and win now.

This would be the best line, except that I had used the cabal therapy to get rid of his fireblasts, of which he had four.

[Bobmans]

Why not going for bw into therapy. And then casting cabal. If he pops u just discard rift snd counters with balance pop.
Next turn his only out is drawing anothrr pop. Cause you can negate eidolon and rift. Then combo on your turn. Cause at 10 life if he draws a bolt u still survive after dday.
Also whats on your top of library apart from the cc2.
I think best plan is to therapy. He cant draw a 5th fireast.

I read over you already played that Therapy and tapped a land.
This would be the safest bet. I can't think of any pile that wins from there.

Also there would always be one window open to cast that PoP thru (in respons) to you casting something and not being able to have a CMC 2 on top. It is inevitable that at one point you open yourself up to that.

[MangoUnicorn]

This is an interesting scenario to me as I have also experimented with CB in DDFT, ultimately going back to other forms of protection to combat FoW.

Here is my solution

Tap badlands for DR(2) DD(3) building

Rain of filth
Brainstorm
Lotus petal
Gitaxian probe
X

Tap island cast Ponder(4). If he responds with PoP(5) you draw with top play Rof(6) off Usea tap volc float U and sac lands for BBBBB let PoP resolve. Ponder resolves drawing BS with top petal on top. Play BS(7) drawing petal. Play petal(8) sac R cast BW(9) and ToA(10).

If he lets Ponder(4) resolve draw RoF and cast with Usea(5). If he responds with PoP(6) when you cast RoF then you tap top draw BS and cast it(7) drawing Top LP Probe. Put back BW Top and let CB counter. Use probe(8) to draw BW and play petal(9) for red for BW(10) ToA(11).

EDIT: I see that I forgot to tap B for the cabal therapy on fireblast in which case this solution is no lonfer valid :frown:

[Kidbails]

This is an interesting scenario to me as I have also experimented with CB in DDFT, ultimately going back to other forms of protection to combat FoW.

Here is my solution

Tap badlands for DR(2) DD(3) building

Rain of filth
Brainstorm
Lotus petal
Gitaxian probe
X

Tap island cast Ponder(4). If he responds with PoP(5) you draw with top play Rof(6) off Usea tap volc float U and sac lands for BBBBB let PoP resolve. Ponder resolves drawing BS with top petal on top. Play BS(7) drawing petal. Play petal(8) sac R cast BW(9) and ToA(10).

If he lets Ponder(4) resolve draw RoF and cast with Usea(5). If he responds with PoP(6) when you cast RoF then you tap top draw BS and cast it(7) drawing Top LP Probe. Put back BW Top and let CB counter. Use probe(8) to draw BW and play petal(9) for red for BW(10) ToA(11).

EDIT: I see that I forgot to tap B for the cabal therapy on fireblast in which case this solution is no lonfer valid :frown:

Well, we're getting closer to a solution. This might be the kind of pile we should be going for, but as you said, we're a black mana off here. The good news with this one is that as soon as we've sacced all of our lands to RoF, PoP is turned off completely and the top of the deck is no longer relevant. In my previous piles, I had been trying to always keep a two drop on top even with RoF, but this is just much better.

[Tom T]

So past sunday I was unreasonably hungover and decided to play UBRg DDFT in our small local tournament, for I thought it would make a great story.
I copied a list and built a sideboard myself where I thought "I won't be boarding in Thoughtseize, so let's cut the discard spell", totally neglecting BW->discard.

So guess what? I top-8'ed the thing haha! I lost round 1 against TES and won against Miracles, 2x BUG Delver and Deathblade, drawing into top 8. There I lost against Maverick with a black splash for DRS and Thoughseizes post board. First game I won easily, second game he hit the complete cashew with 3 different hate-bears and a Knight beating me down. In the third game I had 2 turns to find a burning wish or a Doomsday and I would see 10 cards in that timespan. Didn't find it and died horribly to Canonist + Teeg + Qasali Pridemage.

Anyway, I couldn't figure out the LabMan+Sphere pile with a SDT as your only cantrip unless it costs 4UUU (which I think is unreasonable).
Can somebody elaborate?

Thanks in advance,
Tom

[anwei]

Anyway, I couldn't figure out the LabMan+Sphere pile with a SDT as your only cantrip unless it costs 4UUU (which I think is unreasonable).
Can somebody elaborate?


The Storm Boards have a bit of discussion about this, but in general, it's pretty sloppy. Tendrils is much better with Top out, and using SDT instead of sphere is much better if you're playing around Teeg.
If they have removal and Leyline or Teeg and you can't get Karakas (already made land drop?) and you need to go now, the piles are pretty ugly since you need draw 5 before your SDT or Sphere work as a win con. So assuming an IU list with IC still in the board, you need IU + 2 probes or BW->IC. If they have Leyline/Teeg, be really stingy with your cantrips, and SDT gives you more redundancy for going off sooner (not needing sphere), rather than being a huge bummer.


If I have an SDT and mana to kill this turn, they likely eat a Tendrils. If not, you need...

BW, LED, CS, GP, LM is 3RBBB post-DD with SDT in play. It also requires a non-trival amount of life. On the upside, it only requires black mana. Blue can make it cost one more but less life.

IU, Predict, LED, LM, CS is 4UUU. It requires Predict and a lot of blue mana.

IU, CS, GP, GP, LM is 4UUU but requires possibly less life than the BW pile and doesn't use Predict.

Meditate, CS, LED, GP, LM is 4U or 4UU but of course requires Meditate. All other things considered, I'd rather Meditate than Predict and it's cheaper.

This only really comes into play if your cannot Duress/Therapy your opponent due to white leyline as Karakas can answer Teeg and everyone else just eats a Tendrils for 1UU.


If you don't fear removal, the standard pile works just fine for 1UU, swapping out Sphere for another Probe, since you already have the SDT: IU, LED, GP, GP, Lab Man. Also, if you already have an LED or Probe or anything, you can swap whatever piece you have out for another Probe or cantrip and play the pile like normal as well.

[emidln]

// DDFT 2014.Q4

3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Laboratory Maniac

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Chromatic Sphere

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

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

4 Polluted Delta
5 Scalding Tarn / Misty Rainforest / Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Treasure Cruise
SB: 1 Void Snare
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Tropical Island

Latest changes:

Treasure Cruise is in the deck. I'm not sure the exact number, but it was easy to fit 1 and the first is pretty strong. The deck naturally fills its yard pretty fast and mostly doesn't care what it exiles. Having the second one to side in is nice in the grindier matchups. I tried Dig through Time, but costing UU vs U turned out to be a deal breaker. Playing Abrupt Decays as the only real predator to the deck exists in Counterbalance. Chromatic Sphere routinely earns its keep for me, letting me be highly aggressive with my discard spells and gitaxian probes against the lack of hard counters in common matchups. I'm not 100% sold on ETW, but it serves a purpose that's a little different than Lab Man. I find I want it less and less often, particularly given that I side out an LED or two in most blue matchups. This might be better as another Treasure Cruise or something similar.

[elroy]

Interesting. I'll have to pick up DDFT again and give TC a try.

How has testing against U/R burn and Miracles been? These both appear to be quite difficult match-ups.

[emidln]

Interesting. I'll have to pick up DDFT again and give TC a try.

How has testing against U/R burn and Miracles been? These both appear to be quite difficult match-ups.

UR Delver has 4-6 cards (Forces plus 0-2 Spell Pierce) that actually matter. It's a pretty easy matchup. I've yet to drop one of the matches I've played against it (currently 12) in the post TC world.

I'm not exactly sure how this particular build has been vs Miracles due to only playing against bad players or players who had to mulligan a lot so far. In the past, Miracles has been fairly strong with a similar decklist.

[.dk]

I tried out a maindeck Treasure Cruise as well, but didn't really come up very often, and I moved it to the sideboard as a wish target only. Particularly with Lab Maniac main, it seems like the second Lotus Petal might be better to allow more often for T1 Doomsday -> PTT Lab Maniac? I can Treasure Cruise being really good running Empty the Warrens though too, and better than the second Petal there. Maybe I'll give it a whirl again in place of the 2nd Petal and try Empty the Warrens in the sideboard again. I was just wary of having a dead card maindeck post-Doomsday, but maybe that is not a big deal.

Personally, I ended up cutting Chromatic Sphere from my lists, but maybe I just haven't run into those situations enough. Where do you find yourself using it the most? The best I can think of is Miracles to avoid terminus or Swords in response to the Lab Maniac trigger, but it is still a 1 drop that is tough to resolve with counterbalance.

And for reference, the list I'm currently running is below. I switched back to Silences/Chant due to the rise of Stifle, more Pyroblast, and Surgical Extraction again. It's also felt pretty strong against the new crop of Delver decks.


4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Karakas
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
1 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
1 Rain of Filth
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Silence
3 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
3 Doomsday
1 Laboratory Maniac

Sideboard:
1 Tropical Island
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Burning Wish
1 Pyroclasm
1 Cruel Bargain
1 Doomsday
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Treasure Cruise

[the driver]

I tried out a maindeck Treasure Cruise as well, but didn't really come up very often, and I moved it to the sideboard as a wish target only. Particularly with Lab Maniac main, it seems like the second Lotus Petal might be better to allow more often for T1 Doomsday -> PTT Lab Maniac? I can Treasure Cruise being really good running Empty the Warrens though too, and better than the second Petal there. Maybe I'll give it a whirl again in place of the 2nd Petal and try Empty the Warrens in the sideboard again. I was just wary of having a dead card maindeck post-Doomsday, but maybe that is not a big deal.

Personally, I ended up cutting Chromatic Sphere from my lists, but maybe I just haven't run into those situations enough. Where do you find yourself using it the most? The best I can think of is Miracles to avoid terminus or Swords in response to the Lab Maniac trigger, but it is still a 1 drop that is tough to resolve with counterbalance.

And for reference, the list I'm currently running is below. I switched back to Silences/Chant due to the rise of Stifle, more Pyroblast, and Surgical Extraction again. It's also felt pretty strong against the new crop of Delver decks



I agree a 2nd petal seems like it would be nice. That being said what would you cut? Seems like the 17th land would be the choice but that also seems a bit aggressive. Tough call but might be worth testing.

The appealing thing about Chromatic Sphere from my perspective is that it is the 5th way to store a draw spell post Doomsday and in my experience means you often have this resource available to you for both Lab Maniac as well as Tendrils piles. Blanking removal is just a bonus.

Being on Silence does seem really nice given what you said. Discard does help with identifying / creating the opportunities to slip through with an earlier/aggressive Doomsday though. This seems as much as a play style preference as it does a metagame call. That being said, I'll still be on discard for the GP just to help with the randomness that comes with no byes :(.

My 2 cents. Cheers

[Namida]

Latest changes:

Treasure Cruise is in the deck. I'm not sure the exact number, but it was easy to fit 1 and the first is pretty strong. The deck naturally fills its yard pretty fast and mostly doesn't care what it exiles. Having the second one to side in is nice in the grindier matchups. I tried Dig through Time, but costing UU vs U turned out to be a deal breaker. Playing Abrupt Decays as the only real predator to the deck exists in Counterbalance. Chromatic Sphere routinely earns its keep for me, letting me be highly aggressive with my discard spells and gitaxian probes against the lack of hard counters in common matchups. I'm not 100% sold on ETW, but it serves a purpose that's a little different than Lab Man. I find I want it less and less often, particularly given that I side out an LED or two in most blue matchups. This might be better as another Treasure Cruise or something similar.

It seems that you're not particularly in the market to be turboing out your Doomsdays for Maniac piles given how you have your deck constructed right now. Did you try it and find that it wasn't satisfactory? That's kind of what happened to me--I enjoy being able to just cast Doomsday ASAP with all of the extra Lotus Petals I've been playing, but I lost to a lot of pass-the-turn topdecks. In any case, your comments about Empty the Warrens give me the feeling that I don't understand the roles that certain cards are supposed to play in this deck as you perceive it. Would you please expand on the work that Chromatic Sphere is doing for you? I played it for a while and it never felt like it did anything, but I could see I was missing what it was supposed to be doing, and using it incorrectly as a result. Also, Empty the Warrens certainly does seem a bit weaker when you've cut down on Petals, Wishes, and even LEDs in some of your postboard games. What role do you see it fulfilling that makes it seem like a worthy inclusion (despite being on the chopping block) despite the choices in deckbuilding that make it weaker?

All in all, what I really want to know about the most is the sideboard. Would you please explain why you're playing both a Thoughtseize and a Cabal Therapy in the Sideboard? And how is Void Snare performing for you? Laboratory Maniac and Massacre seem to do a lot of the work that a Wishable bounce spell would do, and Chain of Vapor seems better as an actual sideboard card. From the looks of your changes, I feel like it's mainly there so you still have Wishable removal when you side Massacre in, but I'm not 100% sure.

[emidln]

It seems that you're not particularly in the market to be turboing out your Doomsdays for Maniac piles given how you have your deck constructed right now.

I haven't played a 4 Petal build in quite some time. Turbo is relative. You can definitely cast Doomdsay via Dark Rituals, the one petal, and the 4 LED pretty early (via cantrips and/or brainstorm) pretty easily if you want to. I find there are a lot of scenarios where I can punish my opponents with a turn 2-3 doomsday, go that would otherwise be unthinkable. Having the ability to Doomsday through a known removal spell is what lets me exploit discard heavy matchups and make decisions vs Tempo (particularly BUG) about whether my situation will improve vs opponent hitting off the top. This has lead to increased percentages in traditionally very difficult matchups like BUG Tempo, Tezzeret, and misc Chalice decks. It also works well that I can often cast Doomsday after looking with probe and hold back Therapy/Duress to cast pre-Ideas Unbound the following turn.

The problem I have with 4 Petal is that Petal isn't really a card I want to draw past turn 2. I'm not a turn 1-2 deck (although there are circumstances where it's correct to just jam Doomsday or a Wish->ETW). One of the advantages Doomsday has is that it carries very few dead cards in any matchup. I like to press that for percentage in grindy matchups, which makes me eschew most of the petals.


In any case, your comments about Empty the Warrens give me the feeling that I don't understand the roles that certain cards are supposed to play in this deck as you perceive it. Would you please expand on the work that Chromatic Sphere is doing for you? I played it for a while and it never felt like it did anything, but I could see I was missing what it was supposed to be doing, and using it incorrectly as a result.

Sphere lets you Doomsday comfortably calculating only countermagic that the opponent might draw if you pass. It has corner cases where you use it to suspend a draw or randomly fix for Wish/Doomsday, but it's mostly there as an option to Doomsday with impunity vs Abrupt Decay/STP. I side it out against decks that I don't think can afford to leave in removal spells against me postboard.


Also, Empty the Warrens certainly does seem a bit weaker when you've cut down on Petals, Wishes, and even LEDs in some of your postboard games. What role do you see it fulfilling that makes it seem like a worthy inclusion (despite being on the chopping block) despite the choices in deckbuilding that make it weaker?

ETW has two purposes in my list (there are other things it can do, but Lab Man mostly replaces them). The first is a way to utilize mana + wish. A reasonable percentage of games present you with the opportunity to just for an ETW (potentially after a discard spell). You might not do it 25% of your games, but you can certainly do it at least 1 out of every 10 if you want to. A turn 3-5 ETW to exploit holes in a deck like RUG (particularly on their threat-light draws) is the other reason I'm playing ETW. It makes the RUG matchup incredible because it forces your opponent into respecting an early kill when they want nothing more than to be dropping threats and setting up to heavily defend and stall into their t6 kill. Whether these two things are worth it is a question I don't have a solid answer to right now. I don't like the mid ETW as much against UR Delver, and UR Delver seems to be taking players from RUG Delver.


Would you please explain why you're playing both a Thoughtseize and a Cabal Therapy in the Sideboard? And how is Void Snare performing for you? Laboratory Maniac and Massacre seem to do a lot of the work that a Wishable bounce spell would do, and Chain of Vapor seems better as an actual sideboard card. From the looks of your changes, I feel like it's mainly there so you still have Wishable removal when you side Massacre in, but I'm not 100% sure.

Just because I can cast Burning Wish to fetch a card does not mean that it isn't the actual best card to sideboard in. In this case, Thoughtseize is an 8th discard spell to side in, one that often comes in with Therapy in matchups where I need to take creatures. I haven't actually wished for it yet (I usually want Therapy), but wishing for it isn't the point.

Void Snare is just a wishable bounce spell. There are a number of reasons why and situations that a maniac line might be inadvisable or more difficult where paying 1UR over potentially 2 turns is fine. I sometimes side it in (so that I can leave Massacre (which is a cheaper removal spell) when I have to Wish for it) just to have a bounce spell. So far, I've used it to bounce a Jace that was about to ultimate as well as a Chalice @ 3. It has also bounced a Lodestone Golem (and is notable in being the only way besides paying extra for everything with lab maniac to remove Lodestone Golem in my list). There were a couple times I wished for it because I'd need it if I didn't draw to an out, but ended up hitting the out. Those are some of the most difficult lines in the deck (knowing ahead of time that you need to wish for a removal spell in case your draws don't go well so that you can still have a plan).

[laserstone]

Newbie here. Sorry if this question's been asked before. I was wondering where I could find resources to learn to play DDFT? This includes pile guides, primers, and video coverage or streams. I'm a part of the storm boards, but it's been pretty stagnant for a while now.
Past experience: plenty of TES.

[Tom T]

Newbie here. Sorry if this question's been asked before. I was wondering where I could find resources to learn to play DDFT? This includes pile guides, primers, and video coverage or streams. I'm a part of the storm boards, but it's been pretty stagnant for a while now.
Past experience: plenty of TES.

Browse the link in Emidln's signature. It's stormboards, which is the only place to find proper info about DDFT.

[emidln]

Newbie here. Sorry if this question's been asked before. I was wondering where I could find resources to learn to play DDFT? This includes pile guides, primers, and video coverage or streams. I'm a part of the storm boards, but it's been pretty stagnant for a while now.
Past experience: plenty of TES.

Worth noting that it's not really stagnant. The information remains relevant, which is why Lejay reclassified it by topic instead of the former giant DDFT thread.

[Namida]

I haven't played a 4 Petal build in quite some time. Turbo is relative. You can definitely cast Doomdsay via Dark Rituals, the one petal, and the 4 LED pretty early (via cantrips and/or brainstorm) pretty easily if you want to. I find there are a lot of scenarios where I can punish my opponents with a turn 2-3 doomsday, go that would otherwise be unthinkable. Having the ability to Doomsday through a known removal spell is what lets me exploit discard heavy matchups and make decisions vs Tempo (particularly BUG) about whether my situation will improve vs opponent hitting off the top. This has lead to increased percentages in traditionally very difficult matchups like BUG Tempo, Tezzeret, and misc Chalice decks. It also works well that I can often cast Doomsday after looking with probe and hold back Therapy/Duress to cast pre-Ideas Unbound the following turn.

The problem I have with 4 Petal is that Petal isn't really a card I want to draw past turn 2. I'm not a turn 1-2 deck (although there are circumstances where it's correct to just jam Doomsday or a Wish->ETW). One of the advantages Doomsday has is that it carries very few dead cards in any matchup. I like to press that for percentage in grindy matchups, which makes me eschew most of the petals.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that this deck isn't capable of winning quickly--what I intended to ask was if you're moving away from building the deck in a way that supports playing Maniac piles quickly. I have been playing extra Lotus Petals and a Cabal Ritual instead of Rain of Filth because they increase the number of turn 1-2 hands that the deck offers (Like say, turn one Doomsday into the three mana you need for a basic Maniac Pile). Basically saying this deck really isn't a turn 1-2 deck answers my question--you're supporting Maniac wins, but not trying to force them.


Sphere lets you Doomsday comfortably calculating only countermagic that the opponent might draw if you pass. It has corner cases where you use it to suspend a draw or randomly fix for Wish/Doomsday, but it's mostly there as an option to Doomsday with impunity vs Abrupt Decay/STP. I side it out against decks that I don't think can afford to leave in removal spells against me postboard.

I had Chromatic Sphere in my deck for about six months and I never used it to beat removal. This could be from any number of factors, I suppose. I haven't been playing against Miracles and the sorts of decks that give you a ton of time to make Chromatic Sphere shine; usually I end up in a position where I have to go off and I don't have enough mana to actually add a Sphere to my pile--perhaps it's just poor planning on my part because thinking about it now makes me wonder why I literally never had four mana to work with by the time I reached the point where I *had* to cast Doomsday. I did use Chromatic Sphere plenty to fix my mana and as a saved draw, but that didn't seem like enough to warrant inclusion. Also, I feel like I'm missing something because I think anyone who actually knows what's going on can target Chromatic Sphere with Abrupt Decay before Laboratory Maniac resolves. Are you playing around that somehow? In any case, Abrupt Decay has never come up against me because my opponents just seem to tap out on the post-Doomsday turn I give them to try to break up my combo with Hymn, Liliana, or other discard because they assume my cards in hand matter or they try to run out all of their guys because they assume that the pressure actually will do something.


ETW has two purposes in my list (there are other things it can do, but Lab Man mostly replaces them). The first is a way to utilize mana + wish. A reasonable percentage of games present you with the opportunity to just for an ETW (potentially after a discard spell). You might not do it 25% of your games, but you can certainly do it at least 1 out of every 10 if you want to. A turn 3-5 ETW to exploit holes in a deck like RUG (particularly on their threat-light draws) is the other reason I'm playing ETW. It makes the RUG matchup incredible because it forces your opponent into respecting an early kill when they want nothing more than to be dropping threats and setting up to heavily defend and stall into their t6 kill. Whether these two things are worth it is a question I don't have a solid answer to right now. I don't like the mid ETW as much against UR Delver, and UR Delver seems to be taking players from RUG Delver.

Okay, all of that sounds reasonable. I was being a bit short-sighted because midgame Empty is a move that still does a number on certain decks not equipped to handle Empty at any stage of the game, and I wasn't respecting it as something you would want access to despite feeling like you're not well equipped to perform turn 1-2 Empty very often.


Just because I can cast Burning Wish to fetch a card does not mean that it isn't the actual best card to sideboard in. In this case, Thoughtseize is an 8th discard spell to side in, one that often comes in with Therapy in matchups where I need to take creatures. I haven't actually wished for it yet (I usually want Therapy), but wishing for it isn't the point.

Fair enough--that's what I needed to know. Have you been siding Thoughtseize in against decks with Eidolon? It's the only creature I've ever had enough trouble with to want to change my deck around, but Thoughtseize would be pretty low on the list of cards I would have considered putting in my 75 for a better Burn matchup.

[wonderPreaux]

// DDFT 2014.Q4

3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Laboratory Maniac

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Chromatic Sphere

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

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

4 Polluted Delta
5 Scalding Tarn / Misty Rainforest / Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Treasure Cruise
SB: 1 Void Snare
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Tropical Island

Latest changes:

Treasure Cruise is in the deck. I'm not sure the exact number, but it was easy to fit 1 and the first is pretty strong. The deck naturally fills its yard pretty fast and mostly doesn't care what it exiles. Having the second one to side in is nice in the grindier matchups. I tried Dig through Time, but costing UU vs U turned out to be a deal breaker. Playing Abrupt Decays as the only real predator to the deck exists in Counterbalance. Chromatic Sphere routinely earns its keep for me, letting me be highly aggressive with my discard spells and gitaxian probes against the lack of hard counters in common matchups. I'm not 100% sold on ETW, but it serves a purpose that's a little different than Lab Man. I find I want it less and less often, particularly given that I side out an LED or two in most blue matchups. This might be better as another Treasure Cruise or something similar.

would it possibly be better to run dig through time in the main instead of cruise?even if dig cost "twice as much", this deck has the land drops for it, and doing it EOT during an opponents turn seems pretty strong. I would figure that the ability to find a good selection of cards would be better than the random draws, given that you have random stuff you might not necessarily need/want like drawing superfluous lands or pile pieces. and then the sb cruise/contract can still let you bounce back from discard and the like

[the driver]

How are people liking maindeck Treasure Cruise?

My results are admittedly still early but so far I've had it be quite useful. It is no doubt synergistic with the aggressive use of Probe / discard in the lab man builds. I've had a couple games against Show and Tell and ANT where I was able to keep discard heavy hands and cantrips (Ponder --> Therapies) and TC drew me into the Doomsday win. I'm interested to keep testing it.

For reference, I'm running emidlns list.

[the driver]

Cross post from StormBoards. I took DDFT to GP New Jersey this past weekend. I’ve been playing DDFT for 1 year and consider myself a beginner trying to achieve intermediate status. I went 5-3 in the matches I played. 2 of my losses were to my misplaying so all in all I felt like the list I played and DDFT in general was solid. I was set on discard because I highly value the information you get and I personally like how you can spend early turns cantripping and stripping the opponents hand. I find this helpful to “free” up mana during some combo turns if you know your opponents hand (so you don’t need an extra mana to cast chant) Here is the list I played,

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

4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Idea’s Unbound

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

Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Doomsday
1 Infernal Contract
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Massacre
1 Pyroclasm
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Void Snare
3 Abrupt Decay

I had been testing UBRg DDFT for months leading up to the event. Even as the initial incarnations of U/R delver and Treasure Cruise were popping up in my playgroup I found that the extra petals for aggressive Empty the Warrens was often enough to get there and I had dropped Lab Man giving preference to either the 4th Burning Wish or Chain of Vapor depending on my opinion that week. I was really comfortable with the configuration and was having a lot of success.

That being said, a couple weeks before the event I started testing emidlins new list that had more of a Lab Man focus given how well he was finding it and how others in the community had found maindeck Lab Man to be a benefit. My success rate and comfort went down. I missed my petals. One week before the event I started trying a number of things. In my mind I had 3 slots (in the above list TC, 2nd petal, & 3rd petal) as flex slots. I tried Lab Man, Chromatic Sphere, Petals, Preordain, 4th Burning Wish, and Chain of Vapor all in various combinations to find something I liked. Ultimately, the night before I settled on the above. 4th wish was often redundant. Preordain was fine but it felt less impactful and I like the idea of 7 “business spells”. I’m personally a fan of Petal vs the Delver decks, of any variety. So I opted for Petal 2 and 3 and treated Treasure Cruise as my 7th business spell. Lab Man seemed okay but not something I always wanted and in some cases felt like a dead draw. This may be my inexperience playing with him but I prefer Petal or Chain of Vapor as maindeck options.

In my experience GPs and larger tournaments can through randomness or unfamiliar matchups at you. I wanted my maindeck to be streamlined towards “the combo” and wanted a very broad and flexible sideboard to answer a variety of threats from my opponents. The idea to aggressively combo game one and then be flexible to adjust in games 2 and 3 (Control’ish with mass discard, win attrition wars with TC, be aggressive with Lab Man against fast decks, etc). I also wanted to have wishable targets to answer surprises in a pinch.

Generally speaking I mulligan hands with no library manipulation unless they have a high probability of an early protected Doomsday(assuming protection is necessary), i.e. (in a perfect fantasy world) LED, Doomsday, Petal, Duress, Probe, Dark Ritual, Underground Sea.

My matches were,
1. Nic Shift (2-0 Win) - He had discard and was playing red so I boarded -1 Petal, -1 Ponder, +1 TC, +1 Infernal Contract. Being a slow deck with no blue I still wanted to be faster but I didn’t want to fold to pyroblast or lose to mass cabal therapy.

2. Death and Taxes (2-1 Win) - -4 Duress, -1 Therapy, 2 decay, +1 chain, +1 snare, +1 pyroclasm I had in my board. On the play I put back in the therapy and a thoughtseize for decay. He had Leyline of Scantitys (weird) so I board in Lab Man for a Therapy.

3. U/R Delver ( 1-2 Loss b/c I had a brain fart and we were on time. Opponent was dead on board) - Board was -1 TC, -1 Ponder, +1 Cabal Therapy, +1 Infernal Contract. These decks are full of Pyroblasts and I feel like TC is too slow. I find if I can strip their creatures earlier you can have the extra turns you need to also pave a way through their permission. We went to time on game 3 so I had a “friendly” judge breathing down my neck to resolve Doomsday and make plays. Note for game 3 I boarded out a Therapy for a Chain of Vapor after seeing Null Rod. The scenario,

Opponent tapped out with 2 cards (TC, Young Pyromancer) and a Null Rod in play. I’m dead on board his next turn.

Me: U. Sea, U. Sea, Volc, Island, in play. Doomsday, Gitaxian Probe, Gitaxian Probe, LED in hand. I draw Rain of Filth. I’m at 4 life.

My pile: Chain, Ideas Unbound, LED, Petal, Wish...Long story short between my opponent and judge hounding me to make and get through my pile and answer all the nick picking questions as to what I’m doing, storm count, etc I forgot to sack my last land to make the last mana I need to Wish → Tendrils. So by the end of the pile I forget I had RoF active and assumed I miscounted mana and ended up one short. I realize my error not ten seconds after scooping. This was a complete brain fart..one I’m still salty about.

4. Death and Taxes (1-2 Loss) - -4 Duress, -1 Therapy, +2 decay, +1 chain, +1 snare, +1 pyroclasm I had in my board. On the play I put back in the therapy and a thoughtseize for the Decays.

5. U/R Delver (2-0 Win) - Board was -1 TC, -1 Ponder, +1 Cabal Therapy, +1 Infernal Contract.

6. 12 Post (2-1 Win) - His deck seems slow. I only lost game 1 because I went for a quick Empty and underestimated how much life he can gain with the locus lands. So I go -1 Petal, +1 Lab Man. He ends up having Leyline so Lab Man helps and I win the next two.

7. ANT (2-1 Win) - I find I want hands that win fast or have tons of discard so I board -1 Petal, -1 Ponder, +1 Lab Man, +1 Therapy. Thought process is that often these games end in both of us discard eachothers hand to oblivion. Lab Man turns on top deck Doomsdays / Burning Wishes. I left TC in the side to help with Wish targets and I also didn't want to dilute the deck with slower cards.

8. ANT (1-2 Loss but again misplayed and should have won) - -1 Petal, -1 Ponder, +1 Lab Man, +1 Therapy. Game 3 I had 2 Sensei’s Tops in play and he casts Pithing Needle. In a flurry to use my tops / fetch, etc to find good cards I accidentally shuffle a Burning Wish. My opponents hand was Tendrils + Land with 3 lands in play. My next turn I could have went Wish, crack LED → Doomsday and set up Lab man PTT pile with my 3 lands in play. Alas, I gave him enough turns to top deck Dark Ritual and Ad Nauseam.

In the end I had a blast playing the deck. I always do. I still think it is a solid choice if you are comfortable piloting it. I have certainly come a long way since I picked up DDFT 1 year ago and the best part is I still have a very, very long way to go.

I liked my decklist and sideboard (mostly). I could see changing a few sideboard slots around. I’m interested to try 1 Preodrain in place of 1 Petal some more. I liked being on discard for the reasons I previously mentioned but I also noted by the end of the tournament how well it worked with Treasure Cruise. I played some side matches on Sunday with the 7 chant version, I actually liked how it ran over the chant / discard splits I see most UBRWg DDFT lists run. I intend to test it some in the future in case a metagame pops up that would encourage chants. I liked my Treasure Cruises. I could see trying to test 1 more maindeck or sideboarded in the future. Lab Man was fine in the board. I don’t see myself maindecking him, at least for the time being, and I might experiment with cutting him from the board. Pile experience will probably facilitate that transition.

[Ancestral]

thanks for the report :D and even you didn´t make day 2 it was a good finish, and about your 2 losses from you mistakes, take that as encouragment to improve with the deck, its a extremly hard deck to play, but overall a great great deck ! so continue to improve with that and i hope to see you in great finishes in every time soon :smile:

About the discard over chant, in the current meta i like more discard too, UR / UWR are cutting stifles, pierces, and in some case dazes so discard is way more effective, plus have a huge upside for being "on color" when you trying to go for the win, and it´s more information you have, even for the game or post board games :)

[nevilshute]

So, going against my better judgment I decided to play a daily with DDFT on mtgo and just went 3-1 :smile:

My list is very close to the recent performing lists.

I faced:

Rnd 1: Death and Taxes. 2-1

G1: On the draw, I get no lands on 7, 6 nor 5. Decide to keep 5 because it's decent with combo pieces, a top and a brainstorm, but I don't hit my land and pretty quickly get ganked by white weenie creatures. On my 2nd turn I hit a scalding tarn, crack for island and cast ponder. He then untaps, plays a revoker naming diamond, so I think he knows what I'm on (or at least that I'm storm of some kind). On his subsequent turn he plays Thalia and I scoop.

I board: +2x decay, 1x Pyroclasm, 1x Chain of Vapor. -3x Duress, 1x therapy.

Game 2 I blind therapy him with him having a plains untapped. I semi-expect him to be holding an enlightened tutor but he doesn't respond. I name Thalia but to my dismay he shows me 2x enlightened tutor, a stoneforge and some lands. Next leveled. He tutors for canonist and plays it. Now I'm holding a decay and some mana and combo pieces. Instead of going for another piece of disruption with his second e-tutor he opts to go for Stoneforge for SoFaI. And spends his next turn tapping out to equip, at which point I decay the equipped canonist and untap and win.

Game 3 he opens on plains go. I cantrip and pass. He then untaps and makes Thalia. I have plenty of lands and a burning wish in hand. On his next turn he makes his 3rd land drop and plays stoneforge and mom (I believe I probed him on my turn, because I know he's holding a 2nd Thalia). He's also porting me now. I untap, tap out to play wish for Massacre. On my next turn I untap and massacre. I'm at like 8 or something. He casts his 2nd Thalia and passes with a 2nd port now in play. Luckily I have drawn a decay and have plenty of mana while also sandbagging my one tropical for a few turns. Decay at end of turn. I then go off (think I'm at 10 because DD takes me to 5). I don't have enough storm to win with Tendrils (due to having played out LEDs earlier to bypass Thalia as well as having to hard cast DD because I didn't have a ritual), so I have to go for Lab Man which I have to break up over two turns. DD resolves and I make a lab man pile. He's holding 2 cards and has a vial at 3 now, so he has a lot of outs. End of turn he flashes in... Containment Priest! Whatevs. He knocks me down to 3 and I untap and win.

Rnd 2: UR Delvercruise. 2-1

G1: I win comfortably and, as is often the case with combo against that deck, I only have to play around 1 force the whole game.

No sideboarding.

G2: I lose this game frustratingly. He sticks a delver on turn one but it doesn't flip right away. I actually have plenty of time and get to discard him a few times but I can't assemble the pieces I need. At one point I could go for a DD, pass, but then I'm dead to a combination of a burn spell and/or swiftspear. I decide to wait one more turn and I just don't have it.

G3: Don't remember how this goes exactly, but he has a bit more disruption but no real clock. I eventually win rather unproblematically.

Rnd 3: Sneak and Show. 0-2

G1: He goes island go. I put him on miracles or UWR-blade. I cantrip and pass. He plays a tarn, and taps his island to play a top. Okay, miracles it is. On my 2nd turn I duress him and see: Ancient Tomb, 2x Sneak Attack, Emrakul. Taking a sneak attack I pass the turn. He cracks tarn for mountain and tops. Untaps, plays tomb and a petal and annihilates me. I'm not actually dead, but with his top it doesn't take him long to find another fatty.

Sideboard: I bring in a single Chain of Vapor (mostly to hedge against leyline - even though I'm running lab man, it's nice to be able to discard). Think I remove a ponder. Should probably have been a land.

G2: My opener of 7 has no lands (or petals). Mull to 6, keep a scetchy hand of: 2x fetchland, underground sea, volcanic, duress, therapy. Draw land on my 2nd turn. Get nowhere. My discard is insufficient to keep him at bay and I lose. Disappointing as I consider this to be a decent matchup but, it happens.

Rnd 4: UWR control. 2-0

The only creature I ever saw was a snapcaster mage. I saw top. Did not see counterbalance. Did not see Stoneforge. Saw Jace. honestly not sure if this was miracles or not. Didn't see any terminus or entreat. Both games I have to slug through a bunch of pyroblasts and counter magic but get there both games relatively unhindered.

All in all, quite pleasently surprised to get into cash with this deck. Was not expecting it. It feels quite decent atm compared to back when every deck was either burn, miracles or team america.

Here's my list:


4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Treasure Cruise
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dark Ritua
3x Duress
1x Rain of Filth
3x Doomsday
3x Burning Wish
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
2x Lotus Petal
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Tropical Island
2x Island
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Misty Rainforest

Sideboard:


1x Chain of Vapor
1x Void Snare
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Thoughtseize
1x Doomsday
1x Massacre
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Pyroclasm
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Meltdown
1x Edge of Autumn
3x Abrupt Decay

The 2 pieces of gravehate is a concession to me getting blown out of the Water by reanimator an inordinate amount of times lately with DDFT and ANT on mtgo. It might be strictly wrong, but I made the decision right before the tournament.

Btw, I am aware that writing a "tournament report" because I went 3-1 in a daily is pretty... meh. But this thread deserves a little love :smile:

[Deviruchi]

Btw, I am aware that writing a "tournament report" because I went 3-1 in a daily is pretty... meh. But this thread deserves a little love :smile:

As a storm player myself I enjoy every DDFT/TES/ANT tournament report, even a small one. There is nothing to complain about that it was only a 3-1 from modo. Last time I saw DDFT result on modo in September.

I've never found room for Edge in my SB. How do you like it? And what is the story behind Meltdown?

[nevilshute]

As a storm player myself I enjoy every DDFT/TES/ANT tournament report, even a small one. There is nothing to complain about that it was only a 3-1 from modo. Last time I saw DDFT result on modo in September.

I've never found room for Edge in my SB. How do you like it? And what is the story behind Meltdown?

Edge teeters right on the... edge (ho ho ho) of being justifiable. I will guestimate that I wish for it once every 5 or 6 games. I love having the option to wish for a 0CMC draw "spell" and will likely keep it for now.

Meltdown is a (over)reaction to MUD and other chalice decks. I will almost certainly cut it, as it's a ruse even in those matchups most of the time, not delivering on it's promise as their mana denial plan will mean breaking up the play over several turns.

[Ancestral]

this threat desearves A LOT of love :p and congratz on your finish, nice to see more people playing this amazing deck. Atm i m playing ANT but i have a soft spot about this deck :p

about the grave slots , i like to have them too, but i prefer extirpate ;) it´s pretty good :D

[sillysam71]

Ya, I always enjoy just coming in here and seeing new posts. Any tournament report is worthy!

As for Edge of Autumn, I was trying it for a little while, but realized that Infernal Contract was just better in almost every situation since you'll likely have an LED in play at that time, plus it counts towards storm(This was relevant once).

[Namida]

As I've said before, I think that Edge of Autumn is kind of weak because Probe will do the exact same thing most of the time in your postboard games (I usually cut a copy when I'm sideboarding), and I feel like "Wishable cantrip for Game 1" is not enough for me to want to dedicate a sideboard slot to the card. Is it just weird that I've never found myself in a position where I needed to Wish for a free cantrip? How often do most of you experience this? If anyone feels that it comes up with enough frequency to justify playing Edge of Autumn at all, then I'm a little concerned that I might be dropping games to just never recognizing these situations when they arise. (I still probably wouldn't play Edge of Autumn myself, but I've never cast Burning Wish for a Gitaxian Probe in any of my sideboarded games, either).

[the driver]

As I've said before, I think that Edge of Autumn is kind of weak because Probe will do the exact same thing most of the time in your postboard games (I usually cut a copy when I'm sideboarding), and I feel like "Wishable cantrip for Game 1" is not enough for me to want to dedicate a sideboard slot to the card. Is it just weird that I've never found myself in a position where I needed to Wish for a free cantrip? How often do most of you experience this? If anyone feels that it comes up with enough frequency to justify playing Edge of Autumn at all, then I'm a little concerned that I might be dropping games to just never recognizing these situations when they arise. (I still probably wouldn't play Edge of Autumn myself, but I've never cast Burning Wish for a Gitaxian Probe in any of my sideboarded games, either).

For the games when you don't sideboard out a cantrip it can still turn BW into a draw. This obviously helps constructing more single/double cantrip piles. I thought about running it and I think if you are on 4 Burning Wish you have stronger ground to justify it. It should come up more often then.

That being said, I tend to agree that it is a weaker sideboard card against other available options. When so much of the sideboard is already Burning Wish targets that you definitely want (Doomsday, Tendrils, Therapy, etc), those flex slots become high value real estate.

Also I almost never board out Probe. I always go for a ponder instead if I need to board out a cantrip. Probe feels so strong pre and post Doomsday. My 2 cents.

[Namida]

I have been playing this deck for a long time and I cannot recall even once when I had wanted a Wishable Draw-1. This isn't to say that I'm perfect--there have been tons of times as I have played this deck when I had those "I've been dropping games because I never saw this" realizations; however, in this situation I'm not entirely sure if I've actually been hemorrhaging wins to not casting Wish for Gitaxian Probe as a cantrip. I haven't been playing with these situations in mind so I don't know how many times I've potentially missed them, but at the same time I couldn't tell you how many of these games are winnable anyway because I use my Burning Wish for something else like a discard spell for use with a pass-the-turn pile or Infernal Contract for that sort of pile. Basically, my experiences so far have led me to believe that so many specific things need to be true in order for "Draw-1" to be your best (or only) shot at winning that I wouldn't want to use a sideboard slot on it, especially since I believe Gitaxian Probe usually does the job better in your postboard games.

Personally, I routinely board out one Gitaxian Probe. Other than Duress against decks that don't play noncreature cards that you don't care about, I just think Probe #4 is the easiest card to cut when you want to bring cards in. I would rather have cards like Ponder in my deck to help me find my sideboard cards, and I'm already playing a ton of cards that give me information about my opponent's hand if I want it. I think I may have Burning Wished for a Gitaxian Probe once as a two mana Peek, but never because I wanted it to draw into my pile. Furthermore, I like to think I'm reducing the chances of having to make those tough opening hand choices that can arise from having Gitaxian Probes in hand as placemarkers for what the Probes actually draw.

[Bobmans]

I have been playing this deck for a long time and I cannot recall even once when I had wanted a Wishable Draw-1. This isn't to say that I'm perfect--there have been tons of times as I have played this deck when I had those "I've been dropping games because I never saw this" realizations; however, in this situation I'm not entirely sure if I've actually been hemorrhaging wins to not casting Wish for Gitaxian Probe as a cantrip. I haven't been playing with these situations in mind so I don't know how many times I've potentially missed them, but at the same time I couldn't tell you how many of these games are winnable anyway because I use my Burning Wish for something else like a discard spell for use with a pass-the-turn pile or Infernal Contract for that sort of pile. Basically, my experiences so far have led me to believe that so many specific things need to be true in order for "Draw-1" to be your best (or only) shot at winning that I wouldn't want to use a sideboard slot on it, especially since I believe Gitaxian Probe usually does the job better in your postboard games.

Personally, I routinely board out one Gitaxian Probe. Other than Duress against decks that don't play noncreature cards that you don't care about, I just think Probe #4 is the easiest card to cut when you want to bring cards in. I would rather have cards like Ponder in my deck to help me find my sideboard cards, and I'm already playing a ton of cards that give me information about my opponent's hand if I want it. I think I may have Burning Wished for a Gitaxian Probe once as a two mana Peek, but never because I wanted it to draw into my pile. Furthermore, I like to think I'm reducing the chances of having to make those tough opening hand choices that can arise from having Gitaxian Probes in hand as placemarkers for what the Probes actually draw.
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.