Looked around a bit and haven't found the version your referring to. If this could be linked or posted it would be appreciated.Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
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Looked around a bit and haven't found the version your referring to. If this could be linked or posted it would be appreciated.Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
i think he is referring this one : http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11277&iddeck=82364Quote:
Originally Posted by Curtis Dittmar
Yes. As reference, Menendian presented the deck in a premium article on eternal central, which a lot of discussion over the sensibility of trying to discuss an article that most people with an opinion didn't want to buy in order to evaluate the list. Instead of using LED for acceleration as storm as a win-con, this sort of Lab Man list uses countermagic as protection and a Lab Man kill. It occasionally shows up in smaller finishes, but has not made a big splash.
I tried building the Menedian list and playing it and found it to have the Aluren problem: you have to resolve Doomsday to win. There's no Plan B for when the opponent won't let you resolve Doomsday or you just don't find it in the course of the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by anwei
I've played the Menendian Lab Man UB list quite a bit and I actually didn't find the "only 4 key cards" to be a problem. Which is to say that I think you were able to find and cast a Doomsday an acceptable amount of the time. What I did find to be a weakness was the protection approach, ie. all the counter magic. As appealing as it is to be able to run forces, the card disadvantage is so taxing in a combo deck with a need of a certain amount resources to go off (the DD, a dark ritual most of the time and TWO draw effects), having to basically have an additional card is a problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoolofaTook
On top of this, Menendian created his deck before the printing of Deathrite Shaman. While no one is saying you can't build a lab man pile that eschews the graveyard in Menendian's build, it is rather clumsy as you then need to draw and hard cast the lab creating a need for 2 extra mana. The mental note / predict + unearth combo is super elegant but is susceptible to graveyard hate. That was less of an issue back when Deathrite hadn't been printed yet but when like multiple top-tier decks are running 4 main deck Deathrites it means even more hoops to jump through.
The list does look interesting. But at that point id just stick with OmniTell.
It's definitely a very powerful list when you find Doomsday. Maybe I'm just a bit unlucky with that type of list but I fail to find the key card about a third of the time and those are losses and then you get to the Legacy is a very powerful format problem and lose a significant portion of the games where you have it in the opening hand or find it quickly.Quote:
Originally Posted by nevilshute
I guess my primary reservation is that against a smart player who knows what you are running the deck feels inconsistent. Drawing a handful of counters at the start often turns into a disaster and mulling away from them is often bad also. Pick your poison isn't my favorite way to play Magic.
It would be great if there was a Plan B in the list but that would cut down the counter density significantly and then it's really draw dependent.
3 Street Wraith
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Call to the Netherworld
3 Doomsday
3 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
2 Dig Through Time
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
My interpretation of Dig-Wraith with 3 colours (plus 1 green source for the board)
Seems a bit wonky (not sure about the manabase)
I put a Call to the Netherworld in for the pile where you can win off 4 life 1 draw and UU mana if your deck has Street Wraith in it.
If you draw it during the game hopefully 3 Wraiths is enough for it to reliably be B and 2 life: Draw a card
Ideas
LED
Wraith
Call
Labman
(Use a draw to get Ideas, spend UU to cast ideas, cast LED, cycle the Street Wraith holding priority and crack the LED for UUU, madness the Call to get Wraith back, let cycling resolve to draw Labman, cast Labman with LED mana and then cycle Street Wraith again to win the game).
or just goQuote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
Ideas
LED
GP
LED
BW
and not have dead cards. There is a reason that people don't really play Street Wraith/Call, it doesn't really help that much and adds a dead card and uses sub par draw. If you are gonna try a Street Wraith version of the deck, I have had the most success running 4 Lotus Petals and 1 more DtTs, and cut BW and just go UB(still unsure about this part).
Yeah I guess it's a bit too cute.
I still don't know if straight UB would be the way to go but it certainly is tempting.
I've done more than my fair share of messing around with lab man (and dtt) in Doomsday. Some thoughts
you want some number of LED, more than 1 but probably not 4. It just allows you to build realistic non-pass the turn piles without jank like call to the netherworld (or relying on your graveyard) chromatic sphere is bad enough. (i'm convinced you need it though)
You want 6-8 discard spells to work with 2-3 digs.
I liked 4 petals 4 dark rituals as acceleration. Street wraith is fine but definitely not a 4 of with 4 probes already. It is nice when you're winning though.
I still can't make it "better" than DDFT. Possibly easier on the pilot for a long day however, which is worth something.
I eneded up getting ahold of the LEDs and Volcs i needed for the night. So I took Namida's 60 and scrambled together a board of
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed (actually really liked this idea)
2 Trop
3 Flusterstorm
2 Massacre
1 Tendrils
1 Infernal Contract
1 Doomsday
1 Void Snare (Was pretty impressed with this.I had a couple times against Reainimater where would would have been a blow out if it didn't get counterd)
3 Flusterstorms felt like a lil to much. Next time ill try 2.
From browsing forums the 2 Trops look to be a trend. Personally I felt like they where a wasted slot.
Namida,what do you take out for them anyway?
My Matchups where and went like so
Rd 1-BUG Delver (0/2)
I messed up on the kill both times and lost.
Rd 2-Reainimater (1/2)
It came down a close game 3. We where developing hands and he walks into my Flusterstorm. I have a Top in play and feel pretty good about the grindy game. He quickly overcomes the grindy game with DTT. DTT feels like a real problem for us or at least it did to me. Could the lab man and C Sphere be DTTs?
Rd 3-Jund (0/2)
G1 I of course mess up the kill. G2 went real good, he just the Abrupt Decay for my LabMan/Probe for the win.
Rd 4-manaless Dredge (2/0)
A nice fellow who had no idea what was getting into, lol.
In the end I had fun. And i plan to keep casting Doomsday!
You can probably cut down to one Tropical Island if you want. Against decks like Miracles and Show and Tell, you can easily get away with only siding in one Tropical Island for a basic Island--I normally side both basics out for both Trops unless I expect something wild to happen. I'm playing two Tropical Islands for some assurance against decks which I want to side Abrupt Decay against, since every one of those decks except Miracles is usually playing Wasteland. I normally side out a basic Island and Misty Rainforest for the two Trops in this situation. I feel like you could make an argument for siding out a Volcanic Island or something else, though.
What are you doing that is causing you to mess up the kill so often? Are you often trying to make new piles off of the top of your head, or are you just not thinking through your combo turn before you execute?
My games don't often feel like grind matches where we win after all the dust is settled--especially since your opponents are playing Dig Through Time. For me it's more a matter of using the discard to find an opening to stick Doomsday. Maybe it's just my meta, but that's why I think Laboratory Maniac is too important to cut, since it lets me build piles that don't require ten spells in a turn so the pile can just have discard and stuff in it. If you're actually playing reactive removal like Flusterstorm that you want to try to Dig to, I can see how Dig Through Time would be appealing. I just haven't tried it because its mana cost is a turn-off for me.
I won't lie, I've never had any of my opponents try to Abrupt Decay Maniac because they usually spend their post-Doomsday turn tapping out to try to pressure my resources (discard, or adding creatures to the board in case I'm just double-passing, etc) instead of keeping Decay up in hopes that it actually does something. Do you think there was anything you could have done to play around Decay?
Vs BUG Delver (g1) I Topped into IU,not thinking about drawing the Top. I was at 2 and did not have the mana to cast Top+Probe. G2 was simular.
Same kind of thing vs Jund G1. Definitely wasnt thinking the hole thing through.
Game 2 was more thought out. Jund plays Hymn,Thoughtseize and Lillie. In fear of losing my hand, I quickly set my self up for a Lab man pile.
The pile was
IU
Probe
Probe
LED
Lab man
Turns out he had nothing better to do than hold up Abrupt Decay :(
The thing about Reanimater is,there just faster. I feel its necessary to Duress them for a combo piece (especially after the guy is binned).
That means i still have to wait to fight the counters. Witch turns grindy. My Top was simply out classed by his DTT. DTT in Doomsday? Not sure,but im gonna try running 2.
I'm assuming that you're not making the mistake of blindly slamming Doomsday without planning your pile out ahead of time, so my advice is to just double-check your piles before you cast Doomsday to be sure that they meet your requirements for mana and Storm.
Against the Jund Opponent, it sounds like you were more afraid of your opponent's discard than you needed to be, which caused you to rush the combo out there when you really didn't need to. Discard alone is not good against this deck, since the sort of decks that usually employ that kind of strategy are not fast enough to kill you before you can play out enough lands/artifact mana to effectively make Doomsday a one-card combo. Basically, I think you may have made a mistake because your description of the game doesn't sound like one where you were forced to commit to a plan that risks losing to Abrupt Decay, since Tarmogoyf possibly making it awkward to pass the turn is really the only card Jund plays that would punish you for sitting there and building up as much mana as possible for when you inevitably draw your business.
From what I can tell, the gameplan of Reanimator normally doesn't include reaching enough mana or letting the game go long enough to make Dig Through Time a wise inclusion in the deck. In fact, I've been looking online and I don't see anyone playing Dig Through Time in their Reanimator decks, so you might just be unfortunate to have run into someone who has decided otherwise. That isn't to say that Dig Through Time isn't worth a shot, but I wouldn't add Dig Through Time to my deck if the main reason is because of one person playing a deck that happens to be randomly tuned to beat you, especially since the matchup is pretty bad either way.
I love the card Doomsday. I think it is one of the coolest cards that have been printed... but I struggle to ever come up with a strength that this deck has over any other combo deck. For those of you that have played it for a while, what would you say are some reasons to pick this deck over others (unbiased real reasons). I don't know enough about the deck to understand these reasons, but sure would love to!
Yeah DTT in Reanimater was a surprise. The thing I was trying to go towards was,alot of people are playing DTT/DTT decks. It worries me my Tops will be consistently be out classed by DTT/DTT decks.
I have been golfishing alot with 2 Dig Through Time over the Labman and Sphere. It always feels like if thats what im gonna be doing, the deck i should be on is Omni. So I took them out. Still thinking of what I what to play over Lab/Sphere. Also I dont like the 4th wish.
So id be looking at 3 flex spots. This may sound crazy, but could Pact Of Negotiation work in this deck? I know Daze has been tested, has PON?
@JPo
Theres a ton of Advantages that Doomsday has. You will notice them most after turn 2, sometimes 3.
The ANT thread has been discussing boarding in cretchers. Becoming more versatile with Grips, AD and City of Solitude. Deed was even mentioned (witch I liked). Maybe its just me but why wouldnt these plans be better in a shell that alredy has 4 Tops,17 land, doesnt need the yard and usually only has to cast 4 spells pre Doomsday?
It's fine to cut the 4th Wish. I like the 4th Wish because I can't think of a better replacement and I like having more win conditions in my deck so I can be a little faster, but I do think that it is a double edged sword because drawing multiple copies of Burning Wish or Doomsday can feel pretty bad.
Why do you want to cut Laboratory Maniac? The card has been pretty good for me, helping me win all the time when I don't have a cantrip or I can't feasibly try to win by casting 10 spells in a turn. In any case, if you're not playing Maniac I would probably say to play a Chain of Vapor in that spot since Maniac is the card that you use to beat permanent based hate.
What is your reasoning for wanting Pact of Negation? I'll explain why I think it's not good here. First off, I don't like blue protection in this deck at all because Doomsday kills you if your opponent can disrupt you after you cast it, and I feel like counterspells to protect your combo force you to go in blind hoping you have more protection than they have answers. This might be a non-issue since you're not cutting any of your spells that let you peek at your opponent's hand, but I still wouldn't feel comfortable going off with just a Pact as protection against the decks that you'd want to use Pact against. Also, counters and LED don't play well together in general, because LED makes you discard your hand (and your counter backup) before you can complete your combo turn. If your opponent gets wise to the fact that you're playing Pact of Negation, they can basically make it useless by waiting for you to crack an LED; I suppose you can "next-level" that plan by making piles that don't use LED, but that would slow you down and I think defeat the purpose of putting Pact in the deck. Pact of Negation is also unable to effectively protect Doomsday if you want to pass the turn. Cards like Daze and Flusterstorm makes sense because you use them to disrupt your opponent's plans more than to protect your combo--Pact of Negation can't do anything other than protect your Doomsday and it isn't even good at doing that.
I can tell you why I play Doomsday, but I'm not sure that I'm unbiased. Basically, most of the reasons I pick this deck over ANT are because I don't like having to play ANT cards. I'm not saying Doomsday is better (and I'm not good enough at playing ANT to actually argue about which deck is stronger) but I like that I get to play more lands since I'm not playing Infernal Tutor and I like that Doomsday makes all of your cantrips into LEDs instead of asking you to play a lot of Cabal Rituals and Lotus Petals to make your deck tick. You also get the added benefit of many people assuming that their strategy against ANT will also be effective against you which leads them to playing badly (for instance, I win at least one match in every tournament I attend where my opponent was leaning on graveyard hate to at least slow me down), though I assume that "your opponents making mistakes" is probably not at the top of the list of reasons to play this deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by JPoJohnson
I just feal like there are losts of times where im going off with 4 lands in play,making it so I dont need LEDs until the Wish/Tendrils step. Thats where I feel free counters would be good. I do see your points though.
Played a few test games where i couldnt pass and i couldnt get to Ten aka wished i had Labrotory Maniac. So do understand why its good in the deck. I personly just dont like the 2 slots it takes up.
The point I'm making here is that Pact of Negation becomes completely worthless once your opponents know about it. Pact of Negation is very narrow in that it can only be cast if you're not going to pass the turn, only if your opponent is going to try to interact with the stack during your combo turn, and only if your opponent is so unaware of what you're doing that they *don't* know that they can just wait until you throw away your counterspell on your own.Quote:
Originally Posted by Curtis Dittmar
You can probably get away with not playing Chromatic Sphere if you don't like it--I've only really used it once to beat removal. Laboratory Maniac has been pretty important for me, but it's also probably a fine sideboard card if you don't like it in your main since it's a pretty bad card in a few matchups too. I just keep running into matchups where Maniac is my best option, and I feel like one/two slots is a small price to pay for having the possibility to win through Chalice or Counterbalance in game 1.