[Deck] Fetchland Tendrils

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

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

I'd like to preface this by saying that:

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

Okay.

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

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

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

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

OR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading!

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the discussion :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the discussion :)

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

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

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

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


-Rob

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

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

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

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

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


-Rob

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sideboard:

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sillysam71

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

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

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

Sideboard:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dziga Murnau

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dziga Murnau

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

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MTGSalvation has a great one: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/t...hland-tendrils. It explains the basics pretty good. But from this point you kinda have to learn it on your own.

Greetings,
Kathal

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

http://teamstormboards.proboards.com/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nevilshute

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

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

I'd like to preface this by saying that:

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

Okay.

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

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

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

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

OR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading!

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From a PM:

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Originally Posted by Ancestral

lets try to revive this awesome deck :D

best regards!

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Lejay

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

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

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by wonderPreaux

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

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