"If there is such a thing as too much power, I have not discovered it." —Volrath
Introduction/ What is DDFT
The mysterious, and arcane D D F T. Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils has long been considered one of the most complicated decks in Legacy. Generally 4-5 colors, DDFT is a storm Combo deck similar to TES, or ANT, which aims to cast a sequence of spells into a lethal Tendrils of Agony, but instead of winning with Ad Nauseam, or Past in Flames, it focuses on finding and casting it's namesake card; Doomsday, which lets you search your library for any 5 cards, exile the rest, rearrange them, and make that your new 5 card library. The 5 cards you search for all depend on what you need in order to reach that lethal storm count, and possibly what hate you need to play around..
And this is exactly where DDFT gets so complicated. Figuring out which 5 cards will win you the game isn't always as easy as casting an Ad Nauseam and drawing 30 cards. On top of that, albeit possible, and occasional turn 1 wins, this deck is a tad slower than ANT, and TES, the 2 more popular storm decks in Legacy. The trade off is a more resilient, inevitable, and consistent storm combo deck.
--What isn't DDFT--
It's worth noting there is a big difference between DDFT, which is a storm combo deck, and Meandeck Doomsday, or what's also called Maniac Doomsday. Maniac Doomsday, popularized by Stephen Menendian, plays Laboratory Maniac as it's main win condition, and plays a different selection of disruption focusing more on counterspells. This primer isn't going to talk about that version of the deck.
----1) History
Casting Doomsdays didn't actually start in Legacy. It actually began all the way back in Vintage.
For a long time Doomsday was on the Restricted list, but was actually considered an odd restriction, as the current piles weren't that great. Well eventually wizards unrestricted Doomsday, but with a new selection of cards meant new possibilities. Famous Vintage MTG player Stephen Menendian and Team meandeck began to look at the card, and eventually teammate JP Meyers found this
So how does this win? You cast Ancestral Recall, and draw Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, and Mind's Desire. Then you can play the Ritual, and the Lotus, and cast Mind's Desire with storm count 4 or more. Then the first Desire copy resolves, finding Beacon. You can cast it at instant speed, and it shuffles back in before the second Desire copy resolves. This happens a total of four times for twenty damage.
The team realized they had something, and began to build a deck around it immediately. Thus, the first competitive Doomsday list came into existence.
--- Some interesting articles on Vintage meandeck Doomsday by: STEPHEN MENENDIAN
It's Legacy counterpart was primarily developed by the 2 players Lejay and Emidln, as well as a host of other players on the Storm Boards, a MTG Forum dedicated primarily to Storm Combo. Emidln's original storm deck didn't even play Doomsday yet, instead focusing on Ill-Gotten Gains loops, and was just reffered to as Fetchland Tendrils. Eventually they adapted Doomsday and the first incarnations of DDFT were born. The deck looked a lot different back then, and the piles were different too, but the concept was the same.
DDFT changed a lot over the years. With bannings, and the printing of cards like, Ideas Unbound, and Gitaxian Probe, the look of the deck began to change to focus on cheap Ideas Unbound piles, which were considerably more efficient than the Medidate piles of old.
There was also an eventual shift from Silence, and Chant effects, to most lists now dropping white all together in favor of more discard(something it's storm counterpart TES also recently did). On top of that, many of the most recent lists have adapted Laboratory Maniac as an Alt win condition.
Over the years DDFT has built up quite a bit of reputation, and has reached an almost mythical status. It's one of the most challenging decks in the format, but also one of the most rewarding.
3-4 Doomsday-
This card is the reason this deck exists. Doomsday has the incredible ability to tutor for 5 cards, and turn that "Doomsday Pile" into your new library. This of course sets up the win either that turn with a way to draw into the pile(Sensei's Divining Top, Gitaxian probe), or in what known as a "pass the turn pile" where you use your next draw step to draw into your win. Casting Doomsday costs half your life however, so watch out for Fireblasts, and Lightning Bolts if you get too low. Most people run 3 in the main so you can Burning Wish for the 4th out of the sideboard.
3-4 Burning Wish-
Essential to finding Doomsday, this acts as DD#4-7. Burning Wish is also how the deck finds it's win conditions, as most DDFT lists opt to run Tendrils in the board rather than the main. This can also find storm engines like Time Spiral, and disruption like Cabal Therapy.
4 Sensei's Divining Top-
Essential in DDFT as this allows you to draw into your Doomsday Pile for free. Aside from that. Top is good at finding what you need, it has great synergy with fetchlands, and is great in the face of discard. Sometimes you can use Chain of Vapor and Top to add extra storm count as well.
4 Lion's Eye Diamond-
I heard Black Lotus was pretty good? Another key component in DDFT. This card not only gives us free storm, but free mana as well. This is what enables our Doomsday Piles. It's obvious drawback can be played around by cracking in response to a draw effect, which makes you discard your hand, gives you mana, then draws a card, giving you 3 free mana to use on whatever you drew. Remember LED doesn't actually have to tap to use its ability, just sacrifice.
1 Ideas Unbound- This is typically the first card in our Doomsday Pile, which will draw us further into our pile. Older DDFT lists ran Meditate, but Ideas Unbound provides cheaper, and more efficient piles.
0-1 Laboratory Maniac- Often seen in Maniac Doomsday as it's main win conditions, it has been adapted into DDFT as an alt win, which can beat large amounts of life, Leyline of Sanctity, Gaddock Teeg, and provide a fast, reliable pass the turn pile. Maniac Doomsday uses cards like Unearth to cheat LabMan into play, but we dont bother with that, instead using LED mana in our pile to hardcast it. Some people also pair LabMan with Chromatic Sphere to help beat out removal.
The Rituals
Dark Ritual-
Black's Lightning Bolt. One of the most powerful rituals ever printed. This can bring you from 1 mana to 3 mana, and it gives you storm. Dark Ritual enables faster Doomsdays, can create extra mana to cast disruption and then go for the combo, and can also be played in response to taxing counters like Spell Pierce.
Rain of Filth-
Although DDFT can occasionally combo turn 1, you're generaly going off t3-4. This is basically Dark Ritual #5 or better at that point. When you cast Doomsday you're already going all-in, so sacrificing your lands doesn't matter.
Cabal Ritual-
Occasionally seen instead of Rain of Filth. Can help when pushing fast LabMan piles, as it can get you to 3 black mana on t2 where Fain can't
Lotus Petal-
Free storm, free mana. Helps push Doomsday out faster, helps in piles, and can help with color requirements.
The Cantrips
Brainstorm-
One of the best cards in Legacy, this card becomes much better when used in conjunction with the shuffling effect of Tutors or Fetches, as you usually don't want the 2 cards you send back. It's typically good not to cast this without having a shuffle effect available. This can also be used in some cases to draw into your Doomsday Pile.
Ponder-
The 2nd best cantrip around. Lets you look 3 deep and find something you need. Or just chuck it if the next couple cards aren't so good.
Gitaxian Probe-
This card changed the look of Doomsday. One of the best cards that has been printed for the deck recently. This gives you another way, other than Divining Top, to draw into your Doomsday Pile for free. it also gives you free storm count, and a chance to see what the opponent has. Unlike other storm decks you don't always want to play Probe right away. Sometimes saving it to draw into a DD Pile can be better.
Preordain-
Another cantrip option. Not quite as good as Ponder, but the next best thing.
Chromatic Sphere-
The ability on Chromatic Sphere is actually a mana ability, which means that it can't be responded to. This lets you win with Laboratory Maniac even in the face of removal. It's not the best outside of that though, and it requires somewhat expensive piles, so it's not exactly necessary. Still some people find it worthwhile.
Treasure Cruise-
A recent addition to Emidln's latest list. This let's you win the attrition game against disruption. It's great in the face of discard, and gives you a way to rebuild if you run out of gas.
The Disruption
Cabal Therapy-
Therapy is one of the most powerful discard spells ever printed. A well timed Therapy can shred an opponents hand. Figuring out what to name off Therapy however is an art in itself, but in a worst case scenario, it's fine to just name whatever would mess you up the most. Even without the ability to flash back, Therapy shines here. Being able to rip anything from Thalia to multiple Force of Wills is pretty nice. Also between the other discard spells, and Gitaxian Probe you have several ways to get a glimpse of the opponents hand. Remember to wait until Therapy resolves to name a card.
Duress-
Another great disruption spell. Primarily used to clear a path of opposing disruption. Duress gets rid of almost everything were worried about outside of a few Hatebears. It can also hold opposing combo off when necessary.
Silence-
Silence was played frequently in older DDFT lists to protect it's combo turn. It's usually ran over Chant because it works without targeting the opponent, which can be relevant against Leyline of Sanctity. Most recent lists gave these up for more proactive disruption in the form of more discard. Silence can be incredibly good at stopping multiple counterspells, but needs to be cast on the combo turn, and can't beat permanent hate.
Orim's Chant-
Sometimes seen in older DDFT lists. Can slow down creatures for a turn, but requires you to target the opponent. Sometimes you can cast Silence or Chant in the opponents upkeep for a "Time Walk" like effect. You normally want to do this against creature based decks, in the face of discard like Hymn, or when you have multiple Chant effects.
Thoughtseize-
A great discard spell that can get rid of anything, but you don't want to be dealing too much damage to yourself on top of Gitaxian Probe and Doomsday itself.
Chain of Vapor-
Chain was a staple of DDFT for a long time. Running 1 in your deck lets you build Doomsday Piles which can beat out hate like Gaddock Teeg, and Leyline of Sanctity. It also gives you more ways to increase your storm count if necessary. Of course you can just bounce a problematic permanent with it as well. Most recent lists have swapped this for a maindeck Laboratory Maniac, which beats all the same hate, and offers a few others perks.
Doomsday-
Keeping 1 copy of Doomsday in the sideboard gives you an option to Burning Wish for it, which essentially gives you 6-7 maindeck Doomsdays.
Abrupt Decay-
A great printing for storm decks. This card beats almost every piece of permemant based hate there is. Outside Leyline of Santity, Abrupt Decay can handle it all. Comes in anytime you think you'll be facing down Thalia, Trinisphere, Counterbalance and the like.
Xantid Swarm-
Great at crushing counterspells, even in the face of Leyline. Be wary when siding them in against decks with removal though, especially bolt. Savvy players will keep there Bolts because they know your bringing in Swarm.
Carpet of Flowers-
Great against tempo decks that try to beat you with taxing counters like Daze, and Spell Pierce.
Massacre-
Kills Hate Bears for free. Having Massacre in your side turns all of your Burning Wishes into sweepers for 2 against Hatebear decks, which is pretty sweet.
Dread of Night-
Great against Thalia, and Spirit of the Labyrinth, and also keeps Mom off the table. Doesn't actually kill Teeg or Canonist though.
Chain of Vapor-
A cheap way to deal with problematic permanents, and can even be built into Doomsday Piles.
Void Snare-
A sorcery speed bounce spell which can be fetched by Wish. Can deal with whatever ails you.
Karakas-
Karakas is a great way to deal with Legendary Hatebears, and Griselbrands, and can be built into piles.
Tenrils of Agony- This is how we win the game. Get to 8 storm, and Wish for Tendrils. Sometime running 2 in the sideboard can be good if your expecting to face extraction. Running a maindeck LabMan somewhat negates this by giving you an Alt win already if all your Wishes gets exiled somehow.
Reverent Silence-
this is an interesting card because it can be wished for and potentially cast for no extra cost other than the wish. It can beat Counterbalance(with no Top), but can also be decent for getting rid of Eidolons.
Tendrils of Agony-
our main win condition. Rather than running our Tendrils in the MD, we stick it in the sideboard so we can Wish for it. Sometimes running 2 in the board, or even 1 main and 1 in ther board can be effective for beating extraction on Wish, and for certain piles. this is somewhat negated by running Lab Man instead.
Empty The Warrens-
Running so many Rituals, as well as Petals, LEDs, and Probes gives you hands where you can just spit out 10+ goblins on t1-2 with Burning Wish which most decks can't handle. Watch out for Stoneforge Mystic fetching Batterskull though, which is common play that will shut down our goblins. It can also play around Leyline, which i suppose is worth noting.
Infernal Contract-
Usually played to beat out Red Blasts, but can also be Wished for ahead of time to set up piles. Sometimes it can be worth it to Wish for it to recover from discard, but try not to kill yourself.
Ideas Unbound-
Occasionally seen in the board as something to Wish for and set up piles.
Time Spiral- Time Spiral is mostly used for reaching higher storm counts against opponents who have gained life. It's also an integral part to some of the pass the turn piles as a way to reach lethal storm off just the 5 card pile.
Tropical Island-
Often ran in the sideboard to bring in with Swarm, Decay, or Carpet.
Shelldock Isle-
Ran in pair with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn as another way to win with Doomsday. These give you a mostly uncounterable combo that should win you the game. Originally played as a way to combat Counterbalance.
Cabal Therapy/Duress/Thoughtseize- Having discard in the board turns all of your Wishes into virtual discard spells.
Meltdown/ Pulverize/ Shattering Spree-
All of these provide wishable artifact destruction. great for beating things like Chalice of the Void, and Trinispheres
Pulverize has the lowest mana costs but wants to be played in the combo turn.
----4) How it Works
The entire deck essentially revolves around finding and resolving 1 card. Doomsday. Doomsday's insanely powerful ability to tutor for any 5 cards cards can set up all sorts of game winning combos. In DDFT, we usually win by setting up a sequence of spells which will end with a lethal Tendrils of Agony.
DDFT for the most part is going to play out similar to other Storm Combo decks in Legacy. Aside from the occasional T1-2 win, most of the time you will spend your first few turns setting up your combo. Between Sensei's Top, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Wish, you have a multitude of ways to sculpt your hand for the combo turn. During these first couple turns you're also going to be using your Discard to clear the way of any possible disruption the opponent could be playing. Generally you're going to want either Sensei's Top in play or a cantrip in hand to draw into your pile, and enough mana to initiate the sequence. Once you have the right resources, and a cleared path, you can go for it and cast Doomsday. A basic pile you might make could look something like..
Assuming you have a Divining Top, and an LED in play, you would activate Top, cracking LED for (u)(u)(u), drawing into Ideas Unbound. Casting IU lets you draw into Top again, LED and a Probe. Probe gives you your 2nd LED. Now all you would have to do is play, and activate Top again, cracking LEDs for (b)(b)(b)(r)(r)(r), into Wish, into Tendrils of Agony.
----5) How to play DDFT
Playing DDFT is going to feel very similar to other Legacy storm decks. The core of the decks, their cantrips, and disruption packages are practically identical, but the actual combo in DDFT can be much harder to work through. If you want to play storm in Legacy I would suggest starting with ANT or TES to get the feel of how to play a fast combo deck like that, before trying your hand at DDFT. It's going to be a lot harder learning how to play DDFT without first understanding the basics of piloting such a unique style of deck.
Your main goal is to find and resolve a Doomsday. You're also looking for a way to draw into your pile(either with Top, or a Cantrip), as well as ensuring you have enough mana(either with lands, Petals, or LEDs) once you cast Doomsday.
Play out your LED, Probe cracking LED for (u)(u)(u). Cast IU drawing into LED, LED, Probe. Play both LEDs, Probe cracking LEDs for (b)(b)(b)(r)(r)(r). Burning Wish into Tendrils of Agony.
Now we're not always going to get so lucky as to draw a turn 1 win, so we use Ponder, Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, and Burning Wish to sculpt our hand and set up the win. Remember, sequencing cantrips in DDFT is a bit different than in other Storm lists. Gitaxian Probe is the best example of this; because Probe is so good at drawing into piles it's usually better to hold onto it for later, rather than burn it early. The take away is that it's not always wise to blow through your cantrips, keeping 1 held back to draw into a Doomsday pile can be crucial if you have no Top.
Burning Wish is great in these early stages as well, being able to find you a Doomsday, or some disruption to get your Doomsday resolved. Also, sometimes just because we run 5 Rituals, LEDs, and Lotus Petals, you can just run out an early t1 or 2 Burning Wish into Empty the Warrens. A lot of decks just can't beat 10+ Goblins that early in the game. Watch out for things like Engineered Explosives, and Stoneforge grabbing Batterskull though. Occasionally you can make Goblins even if you know the opponent has something like Batterskull, and then just use a Therapy to clear the hate.
So generally speaking what your trying to do is find a Doomsday, find a draw spell, and get some mana. But you're also going to need to protect your combo from opposing disruption. You can use your discard(or chant effects) to get rid of, and protect yourself from things like Force of Will, Stifle, Flusterstorm, etc.
The main thing about learning how to play DDFT is just to learn a few of the basic, most used piles, and then practice like crazy. Once you learn a few piles and see how the deck feels, you'll start to understand what's going on more, and get more comfortable with the combo. Really there about 5 piles that you will use 90 percent of the time, so if you just learn those and get comfortable with the deck, thinking up piles on the fly will just start to come to you easier and easier.
----6) Basic Piles
Here are some of the basic piles you're going to be using most when playing DDFT. It's recommended for new players to make their own pile doc at some point, in a way that makes the most sense to them. Even just the act of writing up your own doc can really help imprint some of these piles into your brain. That, and tons of practice.
[=================================]
Basic Piles
[=================================]
--Sensei's Divining Top basic pile--
In hand: Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Lion's Eye Diamond In Play: Sensei's Divining Top, (B)source(Land or Lotus Petal) --> Play DR(1 storm), DD(2) --building this pile-->
Ideas Unboud
LED
Gitaxian Probe
LED
Burning wish -->Play LED(3), crack LED for UUU, Draw with top, play Ideas Unbound(4), GP(5), SDT(6), LED(7), LED(8), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with SDT, Burning Wish(9), Tendrils of Agony
In hand: DR,DD,LED,GP(or another cantrip and (U) available) In Play: (B)source -->DR(1),DD(2) -
IU
LED
LED
GP
BW -->LED(3), GP(4)response crack LED for UUU, IU(5), LED(6), LED(7), GP(8) crack LEDs for BBB RRR, BW(9), TOA
In hand: DR, DD, GP In Play: (B)source, SDT -->DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
IU
LED
LED
BW -->GP(3), LED(4), crack LED for UUU, draw with SDT, IU(5), LED(6), LED(7), SDT(8), crack LEDS for BBB RRR, draw wiith SDT, BW(9), TOA
In hand: GP, GP, DR, DD In Play: (B)source, (R)source -->DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
IU
LED
LED
BW -->GP(3), LED(4), GP(5)resp crack LED for UUU, IU(6), LED(7), LED(8), BW(9)resp crack LEDs for BBBUUU, TOA
[==========================================]
Laboratory Maniac Piles
[==========================================]
-These can beat Leyline of Sanctity, Gaddock teeg, and infinite life-
-If you have IU, LED, GP or SDT in play or hand you can add a chant/discard spell in for just its mana cost-
--Cantrip pile--
In Hand: DR, DD, LED, GP In Play: B source -->DR, DD
IU
LED
GP
SDT
LabMan -->LED, GP resp crack LED for UUU, IU, LED, Top, GP resp crack LED for UUU, LabMan, activate Top for the win.
--Pass the turn pile-- -If you pass the turn twice, you can beat 1 piece of removal-
(U)(U)(1) + 2 life available post Doomsday
-->Doomsday -
IU
SDT
GP
LED
LM -->pass the turn, Ideas Unbound, LED, Sensei's Top, Gitaxian Probe resp crack LEDs for UUU, Lab man, activate top for the win.
In hand: DR, DD, LED In play: SDT, (B)source,(U)source,(1)source --> DR(1), DD(2) -
IU
LED
Chain of Vapor
LED
BW -->LED(3), crack LED for UUU, draw with SDT, IU(4), LED(5), SDT(6), draw with SDT resp CoV(7) on SDT, sac a land and CoV(8) on the hatecard, SDT(9), LED(10), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with SDT, BW(11), TOA
In Hand: DR, DD, LED, GP In Play: SDT, (B) -->DR(1), DD(2) -
IU
LED
CoV
LED
BW -->LED(3), GP(4)resp crack LED for UUU, IU(5), LED(6), LED(7), CoV(8) on hatecard, crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with top, BW(9), TOA
In hand: DR, DD, LED, GP,GP In Play: (B), (1) --> DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
IU
LED
CoV
BW -->GP(3), LED(4), LED(5), GP(6)resp crack LED for RRR UUU, IU(7), LED(8), CoV(9) on the hatecard, BW(10)resp crack LED for BBB, TOA
[======================================]
Empty the Warrens Piles
[======================================]
--SDT DD Empty the Warrens pile--
In Hand: DR, DD, LED In play: SDT, (B) -->DR(1), DD(2) -
IU
LED
LED
BW
DD -->LED(3),crack for UUU, draw with SDT, IU(4), LED(4), LED(5), SDT(6), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with SDT, BW(7), Empty the warrens for 16, with 2 turns to attack. If you have mana to play the last doomsday you can rebuild the pile without BW for more turns to swing.
In hand: DR, DD, LED, GP, GP In play: (B), --> DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
BW
Duress, or CoV(make sure you have (U) available)
DR
DD -->GP(3), LED(4), LED(5), GP(6)resp crack LEDs for RRR BBB, BW(7), EtW for 16 with 3+ turns to attack
In Hand: DR, DD, GP, GP In Play: SDT, (B) -->DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
LED
BW
DR or Duress or CoV
DD -->GP(3), GP(4), LED(5),LED(6), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with top, BW(7), EtW for 16 with 3+ turns to attack
[====================================]
Shelldock Isle + Emrakul Basic Piles
[====================================]
--The "fast" Shelldock pile--
In hand: (U)*, DR, DD In Play: (B) --> DR, DD -
Shelldock Isle
Emrakul
Duress or CoV or Wipe Away or (U)
DR or Duress or CoV or WA
DD -->pass turn, draw SI, play SI and hide Emrakul, pass turn, draw duress, play duress, play (U), tap and activate SI to play Emrakul, take an extra turn, if you need to you can play doomsday for extra turns to swing
*note: if you dont have access (U) pre DD, you can stack (U) in place of duress in the pile
--Cantrip/ SDT Shelldock pile--
--Land Drop Available--
In hand: (U)*, DR, DD, GP(or any cantrip and (U), or SDT in play) In play:(B), SDT( or a Cantrip in hand with a way to play it) --> DR, DD -
SI
Emrakul
Duress or CoV or WA or (U)
DR
DD --> Cantrip, or draw with SDT, play shelldock hiding Emrakul, pass turn, play (U), play duress, activate Shelldock to play Emrakul.
*note: if you dont have access (U) pre DD, you can stack (U) in place of duress in the pile.
[==========================================]
Pass the Turn Piles (Double Doomsday/ Time Spiral)
-->DD -
IU
SDT
DD
LED
BW -->pass the turn, LED(1),IU(2)resp crack LED for BBB, LED(3), SDT(4), DD(5)resp crack LED for UUU -
IU
LED
LED
BW
( ) -->draw with SDT, IU(6), LED(7), LED(7), SDT(8), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with top, BW(9), TOA
In Hand: DR, DD, LED, (*) In Play: Usea, (U)*with extra card in hand - or Petal/ Fetchland -->DR, DD -
IU
LED
LED
BW
BW -->pass turn, LED(1), IU(2)resp crack LED for RRR, LED(3), LED(4), BW(5)resp crack LEDs for UUU UUU, TSP(6), draw and untap, LED(7),LED(8),LED(9), BW(10)resp crack LEDs for BBB BBB, TOA
----8) Playing around Artifact destruction
-Written by Bennotsi- (This is written too perfectly for me to try and replicate)
Playing around instant-speed artifact destruction
Qasali Pridemage and Abrupt Decay are prevalent in Legacy. The difficult thing is that we use artifacts at multiple stages when executing Doomsday piles, artifact destruction effects therefore have several points in the spell chain at which they could disrupt our plan. However, in many situations using some additional resources and careful sequencing when casting spells we may create Doomsday piles that are immune or robust to artifact destruction. But first some general tips and tricks that involve dealing with artifact destruction in general.
When you have Sensei's Divining Top in play and you have to crack a fetchland, it's important to realize that you are likely to lose your SDT. The safest way to play around artifact destruction in this situation is to float another SDT or another cantrip on top of your library. If SDT is targeted you can draw a card and still have a draw effect for when you cast Doomsday. Sometimes however, you won't the time to play around everything perfectly and you have to optimize your chances. If there's nothing useful among the top cards and you have multiple fetches to crack you can of course try to first crack one fetch and respond to removal with cracking the second, possibly even reordering the top3 before you draw a card and shuffle your SDT into your library. Another trick is to activate SDT to reorder the top 3 cards and respond to that with cracking your fetchland. That way, if SDT gets destroyed you still get to reorder the top 3 cards after the shuffle. Also remember that the same rules apply for cracking fetchlands into Stifle. That is, delay cracking your fetches for as long as possible, crack multiple fetchlands simultaneously, and try to do so in your opponent's upkeep to maximize the delay it causes on your opponents turn.
Unfortunately, we can do much less against Krosan Grip compared to Abrupt Decay or Qasali, as we can't save our SDT in response. What you might hope for, is that your opponent targets Lion's Eye Diamond and doesn't realize that split second doesn't work with mana abilities (or the fact that LED's ability actually is a mana ability). This also means that you shouldn't sacrifice your LEDs in response to casting SDT when you know your opponent is holding Krosan Grip, but instead give your opponent the opportunity to make a mistake.
Basic Doomsday piles and artifact destruction
Let's start with considering the effect of artifact destruction on a couple of simple piles. You have SDT in play, 1UU available, and cast Doomsday building -> IU, LED, GP, LED, BW. The execution of this pile is of course well-known, but when playing around artifact destruction the order in which you cast your spells becomes very important. Also, to help the discussion we count every time priority is passed.
1. cast Doomsday
2. tap SDT to draw IU
3. cast IU to draw SDT, LED, GP
4. cast SDT
5. cast LED
6. cast GP to draw LED
7. cast LED
8. tap SDT to draw BW
9. cast BW
10. cast ToA
Your opponent holding an Abrupt Decay has several opportunities to interact, but he has to pick the right moment to successfully disrupt you. First, at 1 your opponent may cast AD in response to Doomsday. This is quite problematic as drawing a card in response won't save your SDT from being exiled by Doomsday. There isn't much you can do about this once you've reached this point. It's better to not have SDT in play at all when you cast Doomsday. If you have SDT in play at the start of your turn, it is best to use it to draw a card in your upkeep and then draw SDT in your draw step before casting DD. You require 1 extra mana to replay it after DD and it may still be destroyed in your upkeep, but you will draw an extra card and this is far less problematic than having your SDT destroyed somewhere halfway executing your pile. In the rest of this writing I will assume you had the SDT in hand when you cast Doomsday.
The second opportunity for your opponent is at 2, where your SDT may be destroyed when you try to draw IU. This is less of a problem because we have GP in our pile. You will still get to draw IU and then cast it to draw 2 LEDs and GP. Simply cast both LEDs sac them in response to GP to play out the rest of your pile for only 1 less storm then when you would've replayed SDT after IU.
Third, at 5 when you cast LED your SDT may be destroyed. In response tap it to draw the 2nd LED. Cast both LEDs and use GP to draw SDT for 1 mana more than usual replay SDT, sac both LEDs draw BW and win. Note that the order in which you play your spells after drawing with Ideas Unbound is very important, this doesn't play out as nicely when you play LED or GP first.
Fourth, at 6 when you cast GP to draw the 2nd LED your SDT or LED may be destroyed. Now SDT can be saved in similar fashion as with the third scenario. Note that GP will draw the SDT rather than the LED in this case. LED may be just sacrificed in response without any harm as your hand is empty.
Fifth, at 7 when you cast the 2nd LED and have SDT and possibly LED in play. LED can be sacrificed since your hand is empty. SDT can be saved, but you will draw BW. Therefore you have to sacrifice the first LED for RRR in response if you had not done so already. The LED currently on the stack can be sacrificed later for BBB in response to BW.
Those are the five main points of interaction for artifact destruction. To summarize, with 1 mana extra you can play around any single piece of artifact destruction as long as your SDT is not in play when you cast DD. If you have SDT in play use it to draw a card in your upkeep and if your SDT survives you need only 2 mana more than usual to win through artifact destruction.
Now let's take a look at the basic pile with a single cantrip. Let's say we have GP in hand, UU in pool, cast Doomsday building -> IU, LED, GP, LED, BW. You know how this plays out. Now there is only one window where your opponent can interact successfully. That is when you cast the 2nd LED with the first LED on the table and GP in hand. This is where you can't sacrifice it in response without losing the cards in your hand (GP). There are no other possibilities for your opponent to interact but it is also unlikely that your opponent will miss this opportunity, since it's the first time he gets priority with you having an artifact in play. When you can produce 1 more black mana you may replace either LED with a Dark Ritual or Rain of Filth and solve this issue.
Let's consider the SDT + GP pile that wins for BBB by building -> LED, IU, LED, LED, BW. Again casting Doomsday with SDT in play is problematic, avoid this at all cost. After Doomsday you first cast GP to draw LED and cast it. Then cast SDT sacrificing LED in response. However if you tap SDT to draw IU you might be in trouble. If SDT gets destroyed you draw IU but casting IU will draw you 2 LEDs and BW. If you have one additional red mana that's great, but that won't happen to often so this means you are most likely in big trouble. If your SDT is not destroyed you have SDT + 2 LEDs in hand. This also means it will be very hard to play around artifact destruction, only if you have an additional 1R available you can rescue SDT by drawing BW before you've sacrificed any of the LEDs. Its easier if you have B and replace one LED by Dark Ritual, but then again if your SDT is destroyed when you tap it to draw IU you still have a problem as it should have been a red mana. If you can keep a Lotus Petal in play, that could solve the color problem. But it's probably better to look for a more generic solution.
A more generic way is solve this solve these colored mana issues is to build a different pile. We can replace one of the LEDs by a Lotus Petal. Now the only problem is that the mana cost compared to a normal win is increased by 2 generic mana. Starting from SDT and GP in hand, build:
-> LED, IU, LED, LP, BW BBB+3 (5) 9 or 10 Storm
Cast DD, GP, LED, SDT, sac LED in response, tap SDT to draw IU. Either your SDT is destroyed now or it isn't. If so, you draw LED, LP, BW and still have 2U floating. If not, you draw SDT, LED, LP, in which case you cast LP and crack it for R, having 2R floating, cast LED, cast SDT, sacrifice LED in resp. for BBB, use SDT to draw BW and wish for ToA.
Double cantrip piles are similar to last pile and are fortunately immune to artifact destruction. Consider 2 GP in hand, BBB+1 mana in pool, cast Doomsday building -> LED, IU, LED, LP, BW. GP draws LED, cast LED, cast GP, sac LED in response, draw IU, cast IU, draw LED, LP and BW, cast LP sacrifice it for R. Cast LED and BW, sac LED in response for BBB, use the 1 mana in pool to cast ToA. Note that in this execution your opponent never gets priority while you have artifacts in play.
Boarding in Tendrils of Agony to fight artifact destruction
You commonly see 2 Tendrils of Agony in the sideboards of Doomsday decks. There are many different reasons to board in one of the two Tendrils. The most commonly used one is probably to still have an out when your opponent plans to play Surgical Extraction on Burning Wish. Other than that the Tendrils is used to lower the cost of using Chain of Vapor or Slaughter Pact inside Doomsday piles, and possibly also to increase the success rate of casting Time Spiral pre-Doomsday.
I would like to add to this list that Tendrils of Agony also has uses against artifact destruction. In the current state of Legacy this probably won't influence your sideboard plans. As decks that play Abrupt Decay usually also play discard spells and you were probably boarding in the Tendrils already, because of them having access to Surgical Extraction. The same is true for decks playing Qasali Pridemage, from which you can also expect to see some Gaddock Teeg postboard.
With 1 of the Tendrils boarded in you can do the following for the basic SDT pile:
SDT in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, LP, ToA BBB+2UU (6) 7/8 Storm
This pile has the same cost requirements of a normal win with Burning Wish, the two mana for Burning Wish is normally produced by a LED in the pile. Only because having 2 LEDs in play is problematic, we can change a LED for a Lotus Petal and change the Burning Wish for Tendrils to solve this issue. The pile produces 7 storm when your opponent destroys your SDT when you tap it to draw IU. Since you won't replay the SDT after IU you also leave 1 mana unused. If your opponent doesn't do anything you make 8 storm.
We can build the same pile and do the same trick for a single cantrip pile:
GP in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, LP, ToA BBB+UU (6) 7 Storm
This pile is a bit low on the storm count but is immune to artifact destruction for no additional cost.
The more difficult case is the one where we use SDT and a cantrip, because we have less space in the pile. You can however build:
SDT + GP in hand:
-> LED, IU, LP, DR, ToA BBB+2 (5) 8/9 Storm
You play your cantrip to draw LED, play the SDT from hand and use it to draw IU. Now SDT is potentially destroyed. If so, IU will draw you LP, DR, ToA and you have enough mana to win. If not, you will draw SDT, LP, DR and you need 1 generic mana more, to replay SDT and draw Tendrils to win.
The double cantrip piles are immune to artifact destruction, whether or not you board in ToA. With ToA in however you can build them for just BBB and the cost of your cantrips and 1 less storm.
The cost of playing around artifact destruction can be lowered by boarding in the Tendrils. But you have to be extra careful to produce sufficient storm. An overview for the basic piles and the cost of playing around artifact destruction with or without Tendrils is given by this table:
---------------Basic Pile--------------Artifact destruction-------------ToA boarded in
Cards in hand---Pile----------------Cost--------Pile----------------Cost---Pile-----------------Cost
SDT-------------IU,LED,GP,LED,BW----BBB+2UU-----same----------------+1-----IU,LED,GP,LP,ToA-----+0
GP--------------IU,LED,GP,LED,BW----BBB+UU------IU,LED,GP,DR,BW-----+B-----IU,LED,GP,LP,ToA-----+0
SDT + GP--------LED,IU,LED,LED,BW---BBB+1-------LED,IU,LED,LP,BW----+2-----LED,IU,LP,DR,ToA-----+1
2x GP-----------LED,IU,LED,LP,BW----BBB+1-------same----------------+0-----LED,IU,LP,DR,ToA----(-1)
Playing around a hatebear+artifact destruction
You might wonder what the influence of artifact destruction is on other Doomsday piles, and in particular Chain of Vapor piles. CoV piles typically involve a moment where you tap SDT and cast CoV in response to return it to your hand before drawing a card. If your SDT is destroyed in response to your CoV you only get 1 draw, while you require 2 draws to play out the pile correctly. This is something that can't be avoided and therefore CoV piles are really vulnerable to artifact destruction.
However, the normal kill spell piles are immune to artifact destruction because they include a cantrip and use only 1 LED. These piles do require that you board in Tendrils of Agony to become anywhere near affordable in terms of mana. You can insert the Chain of Vapor in the kill spell slot, if you really need to bounce a Leyline of Sanctity or Gaddock Teeg or something to win the game.
SDT in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, CoV, ToA BBB+3UUU (9) 7/8 Storm
GP in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, CoV, ToA BBB+1UUU (9) 7 Storm
If SDT is destroyed when you tap it to draw IU, casting IU will draw you LED, GP, CoV. In this case you can cast Chain of Vapor on the nonland permanent you want to bounce and then use GP+LED to draw and cast Tendrils of Agony. If your SDT is not destroyed, IU will let you draw SDT, GP, LED, you can cast GP to draw Chain of Vapor and then cast LED+SDT to draw and cast Tendrils of Agony. These piles aren't anywhere near as efficient as the normal Chain of Vapor piles and generate much less storm, but they will allow you to win the game when your opponent has both Leyline of Sanctity/Gaddock Teeg and Qasali Pridemage + mana open in play.
----9) Matchups
Trying to write a sideboard guide for any Legacy deck is a grueling task. There are just so many viable decks you might run into, and so many variations on decks, it would be a serious task to write an in depth sideboarding guide. What i'm gonna do here is just some basic sideboard tips.
Tempo-
These guys pack all sorts of disruption, as well as super efficient creature beats. The main thing here is just to find a way through their wall of counterspells(and in some cases discard) before they kill you with Delver of Secrets. Watch out for Stifle on your storm, ot Top trigger. For sideboarding you can bring in Carpet of Flowers, which helps tremendously with their taxing counters. You can also bring in Xantid Swarm, but watch out for Lightning Bolts. Most people will side out Path but many will leave in Bolt. An early Empty the Warrens can be great here, just watch out for Electrickery, which has been seeing more play.
Stoneblade-
Another deck with tons of disruption. These guys can be a tad slower than the tempo decks, but fighting through their copious amounts of counterspells, and hate can be tough. This is going to play out a lot like the tempo match though, in the sense that you need to use your discard, and smart play to find/create an opening and take it. This can be slightly easier here sometimes, just because they aren't playing threats right away, so you have more time to sculpt, and make something happen. These guys will often side into Meddling mage which can be annoying. For us we can bring in Carpet of Flowers, and Xantid Swarm. Swarm can sometimes be good, but again some players will keep their bolts in, and some will keep in their Terminus as well. Empty is risky in this match, Stoneblade can often fetch Batterskull which will almost always beat Goblins, but they sometimes run Engineered Explosives and Terminus.
Miracles-
This is a pretty bad match for us. They have tons of disruption, as well as Counterbalance, which if they land with a Top out spells disaster for us. in game 1 you really need to watch out for the Counterbalance lock because there really isn't anything you can do about it. In games 2-3 you can bring in Abrupt Decay which can help tremendously against Counterbalance. You can also bring in Swarms, and Carpet, but again Swarm is risky in the face of removal. Shelldock Isle + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn can be OK here, and was used in the past to fight through Counterbalance. It works because the whole thing is uncounterable(outside of Stifle effects). It's risky because Wasteland is a thing, and also in the past we could Karakas legend rule the opponent, but now we can't, so that's something you need to watch out for as well. Goblins aren't that great here as they often run 3-4 Terminus, and sometimes Engineered Explosives.
Show and Tell-
Show n Tell variants generally pack a decent amount of Counterspells, as well as a potentially hasty combo. this match can be tricky because you need to worry about both their disruption, and finding a way to get your combo through, but also preventing them from comboing off and killing you first. Sideboard we get to bring in Xantid Swarm though, and this is the match where Swarm truly shines. SnT decks generally don;t have a good way to deal with Swarm, so he gets to do his thing without fear of removal. Most of the Snt lists are packing Leyline of Sanctity in the board and will bring it in to blank your Discard, and disrupt Tendrils. This is another reason why Swarm is so good in this match. To beat Leyline you can either Wish for Snare, use a Chain of Vapor pile, or just go for a Lab Man kill. Empty is super risky here because they can just combo over you before you get the kill.
Elves-
This should usually be a really good match for us. Game 1 they can get the nuts and combo off quickly, so you have to watch out for that, but otherwise you basically just get to goldfish them as they have no way to disrupt you. G2-3 can be more complicated as these days Elves is almost always splashing for hate. They often bring in Cabal Therapys, and they'll also sometimes bring in some Hatebears like Gaddock Teeg. Another recent development they've made is sideboard into Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, which they can get out pretty fast. Still, even with all they bring in, this should be much easier than fighting through the tempo/ control decks. Empty can be OK here, just watch out for their combo. Using Cabal Therapy to strip their hand after you've made Goblins can be useful.
Burn-
Burn has always been somewhat of a pain because Doomsday saps half our life, leaving us vulnerable to instant speed burn like Fireblast. Recently the match got a lot worse because now they run 4 maindeck hatebears in the form of Eidolon of the Great Revel. In game 1 the only answer to Eidolon is wishable bounce or enchantment destruction. After sideboard you have access to Abrupt Decay, and whatever other bounce/removal your playing, but they can also bring in Red Blasts, and Pyrostatic Pillars. All that being said, we're not completely dead here. Sometimes we're just fast enough to get the win anyways. Goblin are actually decent here as long as you make enough to kill in just a few turns, as Burn can have a pretty fast clock undisrupted.
Hatebears-
Be it Maverick, Death and Taxes, or some variant, these decks really on resolving their Hatebears to disrupt us, and keep us from being able to combo off. Between Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Phyrexian Revoker, etc they have a lot of them for us to deal with, and they can come down as early as turn 2. This can be a tough match if they're drawing hot, but luckily for us, we have a decent amount of answers. In game 1 we have access to Wishable removal, usually in the form of Massacre. Just running Massacre in the board turns all your Burning Wishes into Pyroclasms. We also have access to Abrupt Decay and other removal/bounce options from the board in games 2-3. Empty is good here, but you really have to watch for Stoneforge into Batterskull. Sometimes you can set up Cabal Therapy after Empty to get rid of a Stoneforge or Batterskull.
Storm-
This can end up being somewhat of a coin flip. Sort of "let's see who draws better". This is a tough match because you have to watch out for their own blazing fast combo, while also trying to set up your own combo, while getting your hand picked apart by discard. If they're playing Silence that makes things even more complicated, because that can just completely blow you out when you go for the combo. Luckily TES has recently moved away from Silence effects. If you happen to be running Silence in your DDFT list then you're the one with the edge here.
Reanimator-
Reanimator is actually a rough match for all manners of Storm combo. They have a very fast combo, backed up with Force of Will and a bunch of other disruption. The problem here is all they have to do is reanimate Griselbrand and it's GG, which is pretty easy to accomplish. They run a simple 2 card combo, while we actually need some considerable set up to get going, and that's what makes it so tough. They can assemble that 2 card combo relatively easy, all the while holding up a wall of counters. This can be tough also when deciding what to take with your discard. You have to worry about finding your opening, but also not losing to their combo. Sideboard we have Xantid Swarm which can actually be really good in this match-up.
Jund-
This should be an alright match for us. The main things we have to worry about here is Discard taking our combo pieces, and Abrupt Decay on Top and Lion's Eye Diamond. Lab Maniac is decent in this match. A fast PtT pile can steal games in the face of discard, as long as you watch out for Bolt/ Decay on Lab Man. Remember a standard PtT pile can beat 1 peice of removal on it's own if you pass the turn twice instead of once. They play Dark Confidant, which on one hand can draw them into more disruption, but on the other hand it can lower their life enough to make Tendrils kills much easier. Some people have been experimenting with Treasure Cruise in DDFT and this is one of the matches where that can be great for overcoming discard in grindy matches. A sideboarded Cruise can be an interesting option as a Wish target as well.
So I am by no means a Doomsday expert, but I have been playing the deck for a decent amount of time now. If there are any mistakes, or just anything I can do to improve the primer please let me know. I'm gonna try and do a better sideboard guide at some point, and I also wanted to add a tips & tricks section sometime in the future.
Excellent primer. With the exception of the recent addition of Lab Man, pretty much the way I learned to play it. Without a doubt this is one of the most fun and challenging decks in Legacy to play.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
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Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
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ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
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ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
I wanted to try the Wish version (I played only IT/IGGY before) so I took emidln's last list and changed the Cruises for some random stuff. I don't have all SB cards, so I changed them there too.
Round 1 against Elves 1-2
Game 1 he has no disruption at all and tries to make a fast NO happen, I have Duress and Therapy to keep him off it. I killed him with the standard IU LED LED GP BW pile.
Game 2 I keep a hand with DD, Decay, Top, Duress and some lands. He has Thoughtseize into Extraction, so no DD more in the main. Since he keeped a very discard heavy hand I had time enough to recover, get a DD from BW and went for the kill. The problem was, I put the cards in the wrong order of the pile (exactly the wrong way) so I lost.
Game 3 he had the turn 2 kill.
Round 2 against UWR Delver 2-0
Game 1 went pretty fast. He mulled once and keeped a hand with 2 Young Pyromancer, 1 Swords, 1 Bolt, Pierce and a Fetch (saw his hand because of GP). He drew no second land in 2 draws (with BS) and I killed him, before he could get any protection. He thought, that I was on BUG Delver/ Shardless BUG, so he put Force and Pierce back with BS and shuffled those away. I duressed the Bolt away, to survive the DD Pile (got Infernal Contract with BW, to refill the hand, but I could combo off next turn (drew a DR).
Game 2 he probed me and saw 2 lands, DD, DR, IU, Cabal Therapy and Ponder. The first to turns were just some cantripps on both sides. On turn 3 (I had 1 Island and a Underground) I casted DR he thought about it, let it resolve and I casted Cabal Therapy. This one also resolves and I name Force into the dark. He had Pierce and Fluster in his hand. I casted a Top with the remaining mana (I played around Pierce this way, and I had another DR in hand, so I could afford it) and I looked at the top 3, they were 2 Fetches and the Rain of Filth. Next turn he played a land into Ponder and chose not to shuffle. I drew a land, played it and casted the next DR, he bolted me into Fluster, I was happy with this one. Next turn I went off, since I knew he had no protection in his hand (he drew and played Stoneforge and got Skull).
Round 3 against Mono R combo brew with Swiftspears, Kiln Find and friends 2-1
Game 1 I had the kill and I put the cards in the wrong order...
Game 2 I killed him turn 3.
Game 3 He went for the turn 2 kill, I had the decay for his Kiln Find (it would have been 20 damage...) and I killed him in turn 5 of extra turns.
Round 4 against Goblins 1-2.
Game 1 I killed him turn 4 through a double wasteland. Was pretty lucky, since I drew the lotus petal, which enabled me to go off.
Game 2 my starting hand were the following cards: DR, DD, Decay, GP, GP, Fetch and Top. Couldn't find the turn 1 kill, so I played GP (drew DR) and played Top. He had Thalia in hand but didn't had the mana for it (no W). I used top in the following turns to get lands, but I couldn't find one and I died to the turn 3 Thalia.
Here I made a huge mistake. I should have went for the turn 2 kill. So play top pass (hope, he draws no W land) and go with a LED, IU, LED LED BW pile and win (draw Led with Probe, cast it crack it for UUU, draw IU with top, cast it draw LED LED Top, cast top cast 2x LED crack LEDs for B and R draw BW with Top and kill him with BW into Tendrils). This was just an insane punt.
Game 3 I had a double Dual land hand, he had 2 wastelands, I didn't draw any lands = gg.
Overall I was quite happy with this version. I'm not used to it (especially to IU) so I made several punts which costed me 3 games. The only thing I disliked was the Lab Man. I never needed it and I never saw an opportunity to go the Lab Man route. Also I boarded it out many times (could have been the wrong choice). Also I didn't like the Dig. When I drew it, I couldn't cast it or I didn't had the time for it. I will probably switch it to another 1 mana cantrip. Also I want the 4th BW in the deck, I want to get some value stuff from the SB like Massacre or Pyroclasm (will add this card back into the SB).
Hope you like it,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Overall I was quite happy with this version. I'm not used to it (especially to IU) so I made several punts which costed me 3 games. The only thing I disliked was the Lab Man. I never needed it and I never saw an opportunity to go the Lab Man route. Also I boarded it out many times (could have been the wrong choice). Also I didn't like the Dig. When I drew it, I couldn't cast it or I didn't had the time for it. I will probably switch it to another 1 mana cantrip. Also I want the 4th BW in the deck, I want to get some value stuff from the SB like Massacre or Pyroclasm (will add this card back into the SB).
Lab Man looked bad because you didn't play against the kinds of matchups where Laboratory Maniac is good. At your event, you played against a bunch of lightning fast decks that would probably kill you on the spot if you made a Maniac pile; however, Maniac is for the opposite end of the spectrum where your opponent is trying to choke you out. I played in a GPT over the weekend and Lab Man was a key factor in deciding my games against Pox, Jund, and MUD.
I'd also say to play the fourth Burning Wish over the Dig Through Time. Treasure Cruise was quite the affair, and it was nice while it lasted, but we'll never recapture that magic and I think you'll find that trying to replicate the effect of Treasure Cruise will leave you unhappy with cards like Dig Through Time.
My biggest beef with the primer is that sensei's divining top is not a free way to draw into the pile as 99 times out of 100 you will have to recast that top to reach a lethal spell chain. The only free ways of drawing into a pile are gitaxian probe if you have the 2 life to pay post doomsday or a chromatic sphere with 1 mana available since it adds a mana/is free if you cast it before your final turn. You also didn't really talk about how disgusting brainstorm can be post doomsday as with the right cards in hand or the requisite mana brainstorm can truly shine post doomsday more than it can in any other deck in magic in terms of how broken it can be.
I don't like lotus petal. I run 1 right now mostly because it is sometimes necessary for a pile to be lethal but outside some of those fringe piles it really doesn't help in hardcasting doomsday with so many lands that don't produce black and in grindy matchups it is the first card to leave my deck hell I usually board it out every game 2 short of me lacking cards to bring in against a deck or wanting it to play around daze/soft counters. In the lists above where you're running 3 you're cutting fetchlands for it and fetchlands are the best cards in this deck not close.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
To be honest, I think this deck feels like playing with a pile of garbage if you don't have sage levels of experience, and I fear that this might be part of why the deck feels so inflexible. Basically, when you only know certain piles, your gameplan has to revolve around maneuvering the game to the point where you can execute those piles, which makes the deck play out like a horrible version of ANT. I don't mean to say that I'm a great player or that you're a bad player, but I've been playing this deck for a long time...The learning curve on resolving a Doomsday is pretty rough, and I've noticed that this deck looks entirely different depending on how many Doomsday interactions you're able to see.
Here's an example of what I mean. While I would personally never dream of playing this deck without at least one Lotus Petal to find with Doomsday, you're saying Lotus Petal is a bad card because it doesn't really speed the deck up in any real way. Basically, you're saying you haven't crafted piles where Lotus Petal is literally the only card that wins the game on the spot. However, these sorts of piles exist, and it's likely that you've lost at least one game playing this deck from not having the experience to see them. For instance: your hand is Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Brainstorm, Burning Wish. It's turn three, and you have three lands in play. The pile here is LED, Gitaxian Probe, Ideas Unbound, LED, Lotus Petal--and Lotus Petal is critical here because it's the only way you can generate the one extra mana to cast Burning Wish. This might seem like a fringe pile, but these sorts of situations add up; if you're not able to recognize the situtation or you don't have a Lotus Petal in your deck, then you're forced to give your opponent more time as you search for more mana, which is an easy way to lose a game.
If you're not able to craft the piles that allow you to win quickly because you can't see them, that would make the deck feel like it's too slow to compete with the decks that can "insta-win." However, I kill at least one opponent on turn one at every tournament I attend, and I kill on turn three on average with plenty of turn two kills. I'm not even factoring in the number of times I just cast Empty the Warrens early and win through Goblins. Sure, we aren't putting up Belcher-level numbers of turn one kills, but I'm definitely not afraid of fast decks to the point that I would change my strategy to combat them. We can kill just as quickly, and we do play disruption--I won't lie to you and say that it isn't a little scary to play against fast decks, but I would feel the same way even if I was playing the fastest deck in the format. If it's truly an issue though, we can play cards like Flusterstorm or splash white for Orim's Chant/Silence.
I'm not sure that you're actually making the deck more versatile with the suggestions you're putting forth. Doomsday is a crazy card that is able to win the game from a lot of different positions as long as you're able to cast it, so I'm not sure what sorts of experiences you're having to make you feel like the deck isn't flexible. What midrange decks are you saying the deck has trouble going long against? What Wish targets are you hoping to add to the deck for versatility? This deck definitely has weaknesses, but we're playing Sensei's Divining Top, a toolbox tutor in Burning Wish, and an effective 5 card tutor in Doomsday so it feels strange to me that you think this deck is bad at going long against midrange, and I don't normally find myself losing just to Wasteland all that often.
I disagree. What I'm saying is that I believe this deck is as fast as ANT is in the hands of an experienced pilot. Without that experience though, you can't see all of the ways that you can win quickly and then the deck looks horribly slow.
What makes you think this deck is less resilient than something like ANT? What do you believe the deck is weak against?
To be perfectly honest with you, from a purely wanting to win standpoint, this deck is probably awful. Not because the deck itself is weak, but because the learning curve is insane and the deck is completely unforgiving. You have to devote a lot of time to learning how to play Doomsday, and the payoff is that you're really just playing another Storm deck with a few different strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, you could probably spend half that time just learning ANT and winning tournaments immediately, instead of the slow grind that is figuring out all the ways to kill a person with a Doomsday pile.
My biggest beef with the primer is that sensei's divining top is not a free way to draw into the pile as 99 times out of 100 you will have to recast that top to reach a lethal spell chain. The only free ways of drawing into a pile are gitaxian probe if you have the 2 life to pay post doomsday or a chromatic sphere with 1 mana available since it adds a mana/is free if you cast it before your final turn. You also didn't really talk about how disgusting brainstorm can be post doomsday as with the right cards in hand or the requisite mana brainstorm can truly shine post doomsday more than it can in any other deck in magic in terms of how broken it can be.
I would argue that 99 times out of 100 it is a free way to draw into your pile. Most times when you are comboing off with Top, you also have LED. LED gives you 3 mana, which pays for both Ideas Unbound, and casting Top again.
As far as getting more in depth with Brainstorm, if you noticed, there's a note at the end of the primer about adding a "tips & tricks" section. Whenever I get around to it, I do plan on elaborating on things like that. It was a monumental task compiling info for, writing, and even just uploading, coding, and hot linking everything in this Primer. I just got pretty burned out after grinding away at it for so long, so I haven't gotten around to it yet.
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Not just the Tendo King, the power of the Galactic Leyline surpasses that of the Tempa Emperor, No!, It's magnificent power is even greater than that!
I certainly wish I always had LED at the ready when I combo'ed but that isn't how it works. If you always draw LED DRit doomsday and top congratulations on being lucky or having cantrips produce perfectly for you. The strength of doomsday is that you don't require a specific set of cards as you have a lot of flexibility when you vamp tutor x5 with cantrips, rituals, or whatever in hand. The number of piles you can craft is astronomically high there isn't just the one of IU GP LED LED Wish/tendrils there are a great many others that don't require you to have exactly DRit DD LED in hand with a cantrip/top at the ready. And last I looked paying with LED or any type of mana is still paying mana it doesn't matter if you have 1,000,000 mana in your pool sensei's top still requires a mana payment as stated by the rules. I sometimes sorely miss that 1 mana in terms of building a pile in my head because that same mana could be put to some other use like chain of vapor or any number of other things you could do to combat hate.
This deck is just as fast as ANT in the hands of a good pilot. That's the trick though most of the people piloting doomsday fetchland tendrils are not good at it otherwise we would see more results from the deck in terms of top 8's.
I didn't say I did not like the primer what I didn't like is that it didn't go more indepth. But that's to be expected because you could write an entire 300 page book on doomsday and the OPs post is definitely not close to that. One of the biggest mistakes that people make in terms of playing this deck is misplaying their cantrips. You don't just fire off cantrips willy nilly with this deck as you do in other storm combo lest you end up with a pile of rituals and doomsdays but no way to draw into the pile. Or the mistake of thinking top in play is invincible and that nothing can ever occur to wreck your plans like an ice/decay/disenchant on top in response to doomsday is something most people picking up this deck will not realize until they are thoroughly wrecked by it.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
I am a Storm player with just over 6 months of playing it in Legacy (probably not the wisest choice for first deck) and a Doomsday deck looks like it can be very powerful. But all I read are comments from experienced players basically saying "you are too dumb to understand how the deck really works."
What the hell?
How about helping those who want to learn the deck understand what they need to know instead of this "no true Scotsman" nonsense? I am working hard at Storm with limited time and getting my butt kicked while I figure it all out, but I get lots of helpful advice from other players.
I want to learn how to play Doomsday because I think it attacks at a very different angle from a lot of other decks. It sure would be nice to feel like others want to help.
??? What are you talking about? I don't think calling people out on their inexperience is "No true Scotsman," and I don't think anyone here is calling people dumb for being inexperienced. Has anyone in this thread actually asked a question only to get a reply of "LOL you suck" with nothing constructive to add?
@Namida - are you sure that's what's really happening? Clearly you have played this deck for a long time (I believe I have seen your posts over at the Stormboards) so what is obvious to you is not obvious to many people starting out with the deck. Let's take a look at some quotes from people here:
* comments about how if you want to just win matches you shouldn't play this deck
* dismissal of the contents of the primer with comments about how it's not in-depth enough and then some comments about proper play style with no examples
* comments about "you need to just play the deck a lot" but no advice on how to actually play it
Is anyone coming out and saying "LOL you suck?" No, but there is a lot of passive-aggressiveness in the comments here, which is pretty normal for online forums. Maybe I am not seeing where in these posts people are being encouraged to play the deck. Looking at primers for other storm decks, there is a theme of "here are some optimized lists, here are why you should choose this version of Storm, now let's talk about how to play it, how to deal with opponents, and how to evolve the deck." Maybe it's too early in the life of this primer to show all those characteristics, but it's a goal to aim for.
I'm happy to take this deck to my LGS for FNM Legacy (which is awesome as far as I am concerned) and learn this deck, sharing both my successes and my failures and be open to correction on what I'm doing wrong.
What I am saying is that if you have lots of experience with the deck (which clearly a few people here do) it would be extremely beneficial if they could share how they learned, common lines of play, suggestions on the proper use of cantrips, and tips on how to learn how to craft good piles.
Like I said, I've been playing storm since about August of last year to some mediocre results. Some of that was unfamiliarity with Legacy, some was impatience to not craft hands that were capable of winning, and some was just the nature of the environment that combo decks face at this point in time. Lots of counter-magic running around and hate cards for storm strategies exist, so you have the double-challenge of learning how to deal with all of those to play a deck that uses a very powerful but linear strategy.
Already in goldfishing maybe 100 hands of DDFT I have noticed some commonalities to piles -- you almost always need a few of the same things in order to make it work. LED's, a probe and a finisher. That's obvious but I think it's a key insight to making the process of learning piles a lot less daunting. It's not that you have to memorize specific piles (I think), it's more that you have to learn what abstract things go into a pile and then the learning comes from the current game state, the opponents hand, and what they can do to disrupt it.
Primers are supposed to be places to learn how to play a deck and share strategies. I am hopeful I can learn Doomsday enough to be competent with it and scare the bejesus out of players when I tap for black, cast a Dark Ritual and say "resolves?"
@Namida - are you sure that's what's really happening? Clearly you have played this deck for a long time (I believe I have seen your posts over at the Stormboards) so what is obvious to you is not obvious to many people starting out with the deck. Let's take a look at some quotes from people here:
* comments about how if you want to just win matches you shouldn't play this deck
* dismissal of the contents of the primer with comments about how it's not in-depth enough and then some comments about proper play style with no examples
* comments about "you need to just play the deck a lot" but no advice on how to actually play it
Is anyone coming out and saying "LOL you suck?" No, but there is a lot of passive-aggressiveness in the comments here, which is pretty normal for online forums. Maybe I am not seeing where in these posts people are being encouraged to play the deck. Looking at primers for other storm decks, there is a theme of "here are some optimized lists, here are why you should choose this version of Storm, now let's talk about how to play it, how to deal with opponents, and how to evolve the deck." Maybe it's too early in the life of this primer to show all those characteristics, but it's a goal to aim for.
I'm happy to take this deck to my LGS for FNM Legacy (which is awesome as far as I am concerned) and learn this deck, sharing both my successes and my failures and be open to correction on what I'm doing wrong.
What I am saying is that if you have lots of experience with the deck (which clearly a few people here do) it would be extremely beneficial if they could share how they learned, common lines of play, suggestions on the proper use of cantrips, and tips on how to learn how to craft good piles.
Like I said, I've been playing storm since about August of last year to some mediocre results. Some of that was unfamiliarity with Legacy, some was impatience to not craft hands that were capable of winning, and some was just the nature of the environment that combo decks face at this point in time. Lots of counter-magic running around and hate cards for storm strategies exist, so you have the double-challenge of learning how to deal with all of those to play a deck that uses a very powerful but linear strategy.
Already in goldfishing maybe 100 hands of DDFT I have noticed some commonalities to piles -- you almost always need a few of the same things in order to make it work. LED's, a probe and a finisher. That's obvious but I think it's a key insight to making the process of learning piles a lot less daunting. It's not that you have to memorize specific piles (I think), it's more that you have to learn what abstract things go into a pile and then the learning comes from the current game state, the opponents hand, and what they can do to disrupt it.
Primers are supposed to be places to learn how to play a deck and share strategies. I am hopeful I can learn Doomsday enough to be competent with it and scare the bejesus out of players when I tap for black, cast a Dark Ritual and say "resolves?"
I understand what you're saying and here's the problem. This is coming from somebody who first picked up this deck about 2 years ago.
Because this deck is so complex in how it plays, in the confines of an online forum it is just impossible to get in depth enough to make any real difference. Every question that's answered brings up 5 more questions. It has taken me a very long time to get to where I am with this deck and I am by no means a pro with it. Not even close. If I want to have fun at a tournament, I bring Doomsday. If I want to win, I bring something else.
The way I see it, with my limited experience relative to Namida, who has been playing this deck forever and directed me to the storm boards a couple of years ago, here are the main problems beginners have with this deck just from watching them play it.
Not Understanding Their Matchup - You can't play this deck by wrote. Every deck you go up against has a different angle of attack and/or defense against you. So in addition to knowing your deck inside and out, you have to know the meta you're playing in pretty well. That means going through all the decks you're likely to run into and understanding what they might be throwing at you in order to try to disrupt your plans.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen somebody cast Doomsday with just one spare mana only to have to pay that mana to pay for the Daze just thrown at them. You have to think ahead. What could go wrong here.
This also goes for when creating a pile, especially game 2 after they've sideboarded. Are they likely to be boarding in Mindbreak Trap or Flusterstorm? If so, how do I get around it? What kind of pile do I have to make? Is there a Leyline out preventing you from targeting them? Did you anticipate them boarding this in after game 1 and sideboard accordingly?
If you don't know what the deck you're up against can possibly throw against you, your chances of winning are slim to none. You might pull out game 1, but games 2 and 3 are going to be a lot harder.
Not Knowing All Your Options - As Bread said, there's more than one pile. You have to be able to think on your feet and that means sometimes improvising. I'm 57 years old and there is no way in hell I can memorize all the piles that there are. So I rely on logic to get me through building them when confronted with a situation that doesn't look like a clear win. The only way to be able to do this is to play the deck a ton. Eventually, you'll recognize the situation and immediately go to the pile that you know will pull you out of it.
When To Mulligan - You can write a book on this alone so I won't even attempt to try to explain hands you can keep and hands you need to ship back. Plus, I have my own personal theory on what hands you can keep that I know many won't agree with. So I'll keep those to myself. But the more you play, the more you'll see what kinds of hands might look "okay" but are really just bad and should have been shipped away.
Not Knowing When To Pull The Trigger - This may be one of, if not the biggest problem with beginners. Too many either wait too long to cast Doomsday or are impatient and go off when there is no need to and resources are light. One mans more or less with this deck is HUGE. Sure, sometimes you're confronted with a situation where you just can't wait. But for the most part, knowing when to go off is critical.
Sideboarding - Either they don't know what to bring in and/or take out or they didn't build their sideboard properly in the first place. This again comes only with experience and knowing your matchups. It is impossible to go through all the sideboard options and how to play them. And, IMO, because Doomsday is such a tight list, there's not a lot of flex spots that I can see. To this day, sideboarding for this deck gives me fits because I tend to second guess myself a lot.
The Pressure Under Fire - Boy, did I ever learn this the hard way when playing a deck, even decks I know inside and out. Some people, when under pressure, just fold. I don't know why but they do. I sometimes have a total brain freeze regardless of the deck I'm playing when confronted with a situation where there are so many options because of the complexity of the board state or what I either believe or know is in the opponent's hand. Last week I totally punted a match I should have won playing lands because I missed the obvious Stage/Chasm lock preventing my opponent from doing anymore damage to me the rest of the game. All I needed to do was just wait for my Depths combo. Under pressure against burn and down to 3 life, I brain froze. It happens. With Doomsday, it happens even more so because of how complex the deck is. So you have to practice with it even more so than with any other deck just to be able to handle the pressure under fire.
And these are just the main things that I can think of off the top of my head that make this deck such a ***** to play.
It's not that people don't want to help other people. It's the "OMG, where the hell do I even start" that has many people simply saying "play the deck" because trying to explain this beast is futile. In comparison, TES is a cakewalk for me. In fact, I no longer find playing TES a challenge. It's more "Do I have a good opening hand? Yeah? Great, I'm good to go." After that, it's just going through the motions. Because of the low mana curve, it's almost impossible not to reach 10 storm after casting Ad Nauseam. Sure, you can brick, but it's very rare.
I don't know if any of this has helped you in the least. I do sympathize, but the only way to get good with this deck is to get tons of experience with it because quite honestly, without tons of hours of one on one instruction, which nobody here has the time for, you're not going to "get" this deck from a few tips on a forum.
I appreciate the honest and straight-forward response to my comments. I'm a relatively old Magic player too (turn 44 in just under a month) and do not have the memory for tons of rote memorization.
If Doomsday is too difficult for me, well, I guess it's too difficult for me.
It's not like it's *tons* of rote memorization, but you can't cantrip towards pile X if you don't know what pile X is. And there's a ton of situational piles- stuff like double Doomsday, Time Spiral piles, Chain of Vapor bouncing Top and a hatebear, double cantrip piles, the list goes on. You really don't have time to sit down and work it all out- if you cast Ponder and see some cards, you have to know what you're working towards. Practice does help though, memory isn't the hard bit about playing the deck. The hard part is casting cantrips correctly so you have the right tools for your piles. And improvising on the fly when you know they have a Spell Snare and Flusterstorm in hand. Seriously, I never knew how hard cantripping was til I picked up this deck.
I've been playing the deck for 2 years, and I'm still kinda bad it at it. It's so much fun though- I can't win with Doomsday, but I can win with other storm decks now
BTW- fantastic primer. It's really as good as you can get for DDFT, there's too much stuff to fit in a single primer.
As the previous posters said, Doomsday is in many different aspects a hard deck to play. E.g. since I switched from the Meditate version to the IU version, I make punts all the time. I was a rather good player with Meditate (regards cantrips and building piles) but with IU I had to start nearly from 0 again. It will take like another 1-2 years for me (I don't have that much time for playing Legacy), that I get to the same level with IU that I have with Meditate (I played the Meditate version for more then 2 years). And the reason, why I have to do the whole learning process of building piles again is only a change in 1 card.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: I had last week my first Turn 1 Kill with the IU version, was nice
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Most of what Steve describes as difficulties of this deck are things that I would actually contend are pretty important skills to be a good magic player. You're learning Storm--I'm sure you've seen it yourself if you haven't personally experienced it. Anytime I watch someone learn how to play Storm, they immediately cast cantrips without knowing what they're looking for, and when they find a business spell they immediately try to jam the combo out there without actually counting to see if they can win. I've played this deck for years and I still have trouble with mulligan decisions, etc. I think that most magic players don't hone these skills well enough, but it doesn't matter most of the time because most decks are forgiving enough for you to make a ton of bad decisions and still win the game. The issue is that this deck more than any other deck that I've ever played punishes you severely for not knowing how your own deck works inside and out. Most other decks have a ton of safety valves that can bail you out if you make mistakes, but the strongest card in this deck basically kills you if you don't know what you're doing--I mean that on multiple levels. Not only does Doomsday kill you if you don't plan ahead (and I've seen so many people just pick up this deck, cast Dark Ritual, Doomsday, and not know why they didn't just win that I'm convinced that the average magic player doesn't plan ahead at all), but as other posters have mentioned...Doomsday can never bail you out if you're not aware of how it can bail you out. Even regular Storm has *some* chance of still winning the game if you recognize mid-combo that you were going to fizzle.
I say all of that to say that it's hard as hell to actually give advice to new players, and I think the frustration involved is why you get Doomsday players looking like angry ********s when people ask them for general tips and tricks. I don't think the ability to play this deck is out of anyone's reach, but you have to be committed to learning the deck, more than most people are willing to do work for a trading card game, since the deck really requires you to jam a bunch of games that are unfun because you didn't know what you were doing. I've had to put this deck down multiple times because I would just get frustrated about how I needed to drill the basic patterns of some new type of pile down after realizing that I've just been dropping a ton of games to not knowing that it existed. Even now I'm still not perfect--Bread Connoisseur literally made a point of talking about how he thinks the primer is lacking because it doesn't extol the virtues of Brainstorm post-Doomsday and I can't even remember the last time I actually cast a Brainstorm post-Doomsday where I needed it to do anything more than draw the top card of my pile (and if the people who play this deck can't even agree on the best general knowledge for the primer, then it'll certainly be difficult to get much help on "the basics" of the deck). If you told me right now that I'm losing games all the time because I just don't look for Brainstorm piles, I would probably tell you that you're right.
I do stand behind the notion that you probably shouldn't play this deck if you care a whole lot about winning. You could easily argue that the time and effort you put into learning how to make Doomsday do the same thing from any situation could be better spent perfecting your ability to play ANT--and in the end, Doomsday is just another Storm variant, so you're putting all of this extra work in to gain a few percentage points in certain matchups, but you lose those points from other places and honestly, I would say that the metagame now is filled with decks that ANT has an easier time with than Doomsday does. Consider this: I'm going to GP Kyoto next week, and Doomsday is the only deck I have any measurable amount of experience playing, and I'm still not entirely sure that I want to try to run it through nine rounds of Competitive REL Magic because there are so many more opportunities for me to ruin my day with horrible play mistakes and bad matchups than if I just picked up ANT (and I barely know how to play with Past in Flames and Tendrils of Agony in my maindeck). I've always joked that Doomsday players are actually just masochists because our deck beats us more than our opponents do.
Now, to get all of that negative crap out of the way...I'm not discouraging people from learning how to play this deck if they really want the help. I'm just not in the habit of convincing people that this is a good deck to play because it always devolves into a debate on whether this deck is any good because no one can play it, so if you need that sort of encouragement then I suppose I'm no good (I can probably dig up some old forum posts from the Source by the creator of this deck if you want to see what he thinks about this deck in today's game, but they're also far from shining referrals). I'd certainly help anyone who asked for advice I can give...but I think that we're more or less useless at getting people to even a mediocre level with just general tips and strategies. Steve comments that you can't "get" this deck from online tips unless it's almost like being tutored, but I think we can definitely help if you approach it in a way that lets players leverage their experience for your specific issues. Bring specific questions to the players on this board, and we can tell you what we would do. Explain where you get tripped up in games, and what you were thinking in the situation so we can explain what we would do differently and why. If you can accurately describe the game state, it's easy to ask "Could I have won from here? I don't see it," and from there it's simple to let you know the answer so you can see it more clearly next time. I've gotten much better about my opening hand decisions because I've made at least 50 sample hands between the Source and the Storm Boards and asked if people would keep these hands on the play against unknown opponents, for what reasons, and what their first plays would look like. One player even appeared in an SCG event a while back and requested for other players to critique his plays and one of the administrators of the Storm Boards obliged and critiqued every one of his plays. More or less, it's exactly what we've been saying...."play the deck," but help us to help you when you reach hurdles you need help crossing. I hope that helps anyone who is interested in this deck get the kind of assistance they're hoping for.
Please play this deck at GP Kyoto, I would love to see a tournament report and I'm sure others would as well. Also, I've had this deck built for a while now but haven't had a chance to play more than a few real games with it because there's no legacy in my area, so I need to live vicariously through strangers.
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And this is exactly where DDFT gets so complicated. Figuring out which 5 cards will win you the game isn't always as easy as casting an Ad Nauseam and drawing 30 cards. On top of that, albeit possible, and occasional turn 1 wins, this deck is a tad slower than ANT, and TES, the 2 more popular storm decks in Legacy. The trade off is a more resilient, inevitable, and consistent storm combo deck.
--What isn't DDFT--
It's worth noting there is a big difference between DDFT, which is a storm combo deck, and Meandeck Doomsday, or what's also called Maniac Doomsday. Maniac Doomsday, popularized by Stephen Menendian, plays Laboratory Maniac as it's main win condition, and plays a different selection of disruption focusing more on counterspells. This primer isn't going to talk about that version of the deck.
----1) History
For a long time Doomsday was on the Restricted list, but was actually considered an odd restriction, as the current piles weren't that great. Well eventually wizards unrestricted Doomsday, but with a new selection of cards meant new possibilities. Famous Vintage MTG player Stephen Menendian and Team meandeck began to look at the card, and eventually teammate JP Meyers found this
Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Dark Ritual
Mind's Desire
Beacon of Destruction
So how does this win? You cast Ancestral Recall, and draw Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, and Mind's Desire. Then you can play the Ritual, and the Lotus, and cast Mind's Desire with storm count 4 or more. Then the first Desire copy resolves, finding Beacon. You can cast it at instant speed, and it shuffles back in before the second Desire copy resolves. This happens a total of four times for twenty damage.
The team realized they had something, and began to build a deck around it immediately. Thus, the first competitive Doomsday list came into existence.
---
Some interesting articles on Vintage meandeck Doomsday by:
STEPHEN MENENDIAN
JP MEYER
---
It's Legacy counterpart was primarily developed by the 2 players Lejay and Emidln, as well as a host of other players on the Storm Boards, a MTG Forum dedicated primarily to Storm Combo. Emidln's original storm deck didn't even play Doomsday yet, instead focusing on Ill-Gotten Gains loops, and was just reffered to as Fetchland Tendrils. Eventually they adapted Doomsday and the first incarnations of DDFT were born. The deck looked a lot different back then, and the piles were different too, but the concept was the same.
DDFT changed a lot over the years. With bannings, and the printing of cards like, Ideas Unbound, and Gitaxian Probe, the look of the deck began to change to focus on cheap Ideas Unbound piles, which were considerably more efficient than the Medidate piles of old.
There was also an eventual shift from Silence, and Chant effects, to most lists now dropping white all together in favor of more discard(something it's storm counterpart TES also recently did). On top of that, many of the most recent lists have adapted Laboratory Maniac as an Alt win condition.
Over the years DDFT has built up quite a bit of reputation, and has reached an almost mythical status. It's one of the most challenging decks in the format, but also one of the most rewarding.
----2) Deck Lists
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Treasure Cruise
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Doomsday
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Doomsday
1 Cruel Bargain
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Treasure Cruise
1 Void Snare
1 Thoughtseize
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Massacre
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Tropical Island
9th Place in SCG Oakland 08-Dec-2013 - Jonathan White
3 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Doomsday
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Cruel Bargain
1 Doomsday
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Massacre
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Spiral
1 Tropical Island
3 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Doomsday
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Massacre
1 Void Snare
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Doomsday
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island
More Top Finishes
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/viewByArchetype/59
http://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=161
----3) Card Choices
3-4 Doomsday-
This card is the reason this deck exists. Doomsday has the incredible ability to tutor for 5 cards, and turn that "Doomsday Pile" into your new library. This of course sets up the win either that turn with a way to draw into the pile(Sensei's Divining Top, Gitaxian probe), or in what known as a "pass the turn pile" where you use your next draw step to draw into your win. Casting Doomsday costs half your life however, so watch out for Fireblasts, and Lightning Bolts if you get too low. Most people run 3 in the main so you can Burning Wish for the 4th out of the sideboard.
3-4 Burning Wish-
Essential to finding Doomsday, this acts as DD#4-7. Burning Wish is also how the deck finds it's win conditions, as most DDFT lists opt to run Tendrils in the board rather than the main. This can also find storm engines like Time Spiral, and disruption like Cabal Therapy.
4 Sensei's Divining Top-
Essential in DDFT as this allows you to draw into your Doomsday Pile for free. Aside from that. Top is good at finding what you need, it has great synergy with fetchlands, and is great in the face of discard. Sometimes you can use Chain of Vapor and Top to add extra storm count as well.
4 Lion's Eye Diamond-
I heard Black Lotus was pretty good? Another key component in DDFT. This card not only gives us free storm, but free mana as well. This is what enables our Doomsday Piles. It's obvious drawback can be played around by cracking in response to a draw effect, which makes you discard your hand, gives you mana, then draws a card, giving you 3 free mana to use on whatever you drew. Remember LED doesn't actually have to tap to use its ability, just sacrifice.
1 Ideas Unbound- This is typically the first card in our Doomsday Pile, which will draw us further into our pile. Older DDFT lists ran Meditate, but Ideas Unbound provides cheaper, and more efficient piles.
0-1 Laboratory Maniac- Often seen in Maniac Doomsday as it's main win conditions, it has been adapted into DDFT as an alt win, which can beat large amounts of life, Leyline of Sanctity, Gaddock Teeg, and provide a fast, reliable pass the turn pile. Maniac Doomsday uses cards like Unearth to cheat LabMan into play, but we dont bother with that, instead using LED mana in our pile to hardcast it. Some people also pair LabMan with Chromatic Sphere to help beat out removal.
The Rituals
Dark Ritual-
Black's Lightning Bolt. One of the most powerful rituals ever printed. This can bring you from 1 mana to 3 mana, and it gives you storm. Dark Ritual enables faster Doomsdays, can create extra mana to cast disruption and then go for the combo, and can also be played in response to taxing counters like Spell Pierce.
Rain of Filth-
Although DDFT can occasionally combo turn 1, you're generaly going off t3-4. This is basically Dark Ritual #5 or better at that point. When you cast Doomsday you're already going all-in, so sacrificing your lands doesn't matter.
Cabal Ritual-
Occasionally seen instead of Rain of Filth. Can help when pushing fast LabMan piles, as it can get you to 3 black mana on t2 where Fain can't
Lotus Petal-
Free storm, free mana. Helps push Doomsday out faster, helps in piles, and can help with color requirements.
The Cantrips
Brainstorm-
One of the best cards in Legacy, this card becomes much better when used in conjunction with the shuffling effect of Tutors or Fetches, as you usually don't want the 2 cards you send back. It's typically good not to cast this without having a shuffle effect available. This can also be used in some cases to draw into your Doomsday Pile.
Ponder-
The 2nd best cantrip around. Lets you look 3 deep and find something you need. Or just chuck it if the next couple cards aren't so good.
Gitaxian Probe-
This card changed the look of Doomsday. One of the best cards that has been printed for the deck recently. This gives you another way, other than Divining Top, to draw into your Doomsday Pile for free. it also gives you free storm count, and a chance to see what the opponent has. Unlike other storm decks you don't always want to play Probe right away. Sometimes saving it to draw into a DD Pile can be better.
Preordain-
Another cantrip option. Not quite as good as Ponder, but the next best thing.
Chromatic Sphere-
The ability on Chromatic Sphere is actually a mana ability, which means that it can't be responded to. This lets you win with Laboratory Maniac even in the face of removal. It's not the best outside of that though, and it requires somewhat expensive piles, so it's not exactly necessary. Still some people find it worthwhile.
Treasure Cruise-
A recent addition to Emidln's latest list. This let's you win the attrition game against disruption. It's great in the face of discard, and gives you a way to rebuild if you run out of gas.
The Disruption
Cabal Therapy-
Therapy is one of the most powerful discard spells ever printed. A well timed Therapy can shred an opponents hand. Figuring out what to name off Therapy however is an art in itself, but in a worst case scenario, it's fine to just name whatever would mess you up the most. Even without the ability to flash back, Therapy shines here. Being able to rip anything from Thalia to multiple Force of Wills is pretty nice. Also between the other discard spells, and Gitaxian Probe you have several ways to get a glimpse of the opponents hand. Remember to wait until Therapy resolves to name a card.
Duress-
Another great disruption spell. Primarily used to clear a path of opposing disruption. Duress gets rid of almost everything were worried about outside of a few Hatebears. It can also hold opposing combo off when necessary.
Silence-
Silence was played frequently in older DDFT lists to protect it's combo turn. It's usually ran over Chant because it works without targeting the opponent, which can be relevant against Leyline of Sanctity. Most recent lists gave these up for more proactive disruption in the form of more discard. Silence can be incredibly good at stopping multiple counterspells, but needs to be cast on the combo turn, and can't beat permanent hate.
Orim's Chant-
Sometimes seen in older DDFT lists. Can slow down creatures for a turn, but requires you to target the opponent. Sometimes you can cast Silence or Chant in the opponents upkeep for a "Time Walk" like effect. You normally want to do this against creature based decks, in the face of discard like Hymn, or when you have multiple Chant effects.
Thoughtseize-
A great discard spell that can get rid of anything, but you don't want to be dealing too much damage to yourself on top of Gitaxian Probe and Doomsday itself.
Chain of Vapor-
Chain was a staple of DDFT for a long time. Running 1 in your deck lets you build Doomsday Piles which can beat out hate like Gaddock Teeg, and Leyline of Sanctity. It also gives you more ways to increase your storm count if necessary. Of course you can just bounce a problematic permanent with it as well. Most recent lists have swapped this for a maindeck Laboratory Maniac, which beats all the same hate, and offers a few others perks.
There's a thread all about Chain here-
The Sideboard
Doomsday-
Keeping 1 copy of Doomsday in the sideboard gives you an option to Burning Wish for it, which essentially gives you 6-7 maindeck Doomsdays.
Abrupt Decay-
A great printing for storm decks. This card beats almost every piece of permemant based hate there is. Outside Leyline of Santity, Abrupt Decay can handle it all. Comes in anytime you think you'll be facing down Thalia, Trinisphere, Counterbalance and the like.
Xantid Swarm-
Great at crushing counterspells, even in the face of Leyline. Be wary when siding them in against decks with removal though, especially bolt. Savvy players will keep there Bolts because they know your bringing in Swarm.
Carpet of Flowers-
Great against tempo decks that try to beat you with taxing counters like Daze, and Spell Pierce.
Massacre-
Kills Hate Bears for free. Having Massacre in your side turns all of your Burning Wishes into sweepers for 2 against Hatebear decks, which is pretty sweet.
Dread of Night-
Great against Thalia, and Spirit of the Labyrinth, and also keeps Mom off the table. Doesn't actually kill Teeg or Canonist though.
Virtue's Ruin/Toxic Deluge-
More options for wishable Hatebear sweepers.
Chain of Vapor-
A cheap way to deal with problematic permanents, and can even be built into Doomsday Piles.
Void Snare-
A sorcery speed bounce spell which can be fetched by Wish. Can deal with whatever ails you.
Karakas-
Karakas is a great way to deal with Legendary Hatebears, and Griselbrands, and can be built into piles.
Tenrils of Agony- This is how we win the game. Get to 8 storm, and Wish for Tendrils. Sometime running 2 in the sideboard can be good if your expecting to face extraction. Running a maindeck LabMan somewhat negates this by giving you an Alt win already if all your Wishes gets exiled somehow.
Reverent Silence-
this is an interesting card because it can be wished for and potentially cast for no extra cost other than the wish. It can beat Counterbalance(with no Top), but can also be decent for getting rid of Eidolons.
There is a thread discussing it here-
Tendrils of Agony-
our main win condition. Rather than running our Tendrils in the MD, we stick it in the sideboard so we can Wish for it. Sometimes running 2 in the board, or even 1 main and 1 in ther board can be effective for beating extraction on Wish, and for certain piles. this is somewhat negated by running Lab Man instead.
There's an interesting thread on it here-
Empty The Warrens-
Running so many Rituals, as well as Petals, LEDs, and Probes gives you hands where you can just spit out 10+ goblins on t1-2 with Burning Wish which most decks can't handle. Watch out for Stoneforge Mystic fetching Batterskull though, which is common play that will shut down our goblins. It can also play around Leyline, which i suppose is worth noting.
Infernal Contract-
Usually played to beat out Red Blasts, but can also be Wished for ahead of time to set up piles. Sometimes it can be worth it to Wish for it to recover from discard, but try not to kill yourself.
There's a thread on it here-
Ideas Unbound-
Occasionally seen in the board as something to Wish for and set up piles.
Time Spiral- Time Spiral is mostly used for reaching higher storm counts against opponents who have gained life. It's also an integral part to some of the pass the turn piles as a way to reach lethal storm off just the 5 card pile.
Tropical Island-
Often ran in the sideboard to bring in with Swarm, Decay, or Carpet.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn-
Ran in pair with Shelldock Isle as an alternate win condition..
Shelldock Isle-
Ran in pair with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn as another way to win with Doomsday. These give you a mostly uncounterable combo that should win you the game. Originally played as a way to combat Counterbalance.
Cabal Therapy/Duress/Thoughtseize- Having discard in the board turns all of your Wishes into virtual discard spells.
Meltdown/ Pulverize/ Shattering Spree-
All of these provide wishable artifact destruction. great for beating things like Chalice of the Void, and Trinispheres
-Cheesburgers Wishable Artifact Destruction Chart-
----------------------Meltdown---Pulverize---Shattering Spree
Chalice 0-----------------R---------0---------R
Chalice 1-----------------1R--------0---------RR
Chalice 2-----------------R---------0---------R
Trinisphere---------------3R--------3---------2R
Chalice 0 + Chalice 1-----1R--------0---------RRR
Chalice 0 + Chalice 2-----R---------0---------RR
Chalice 1 + Chalice 2-----1R--------0---------RRR
Trinisphere + Chalice 0---3R--------3---------1RR
Trinisphere + Chalice 1---3R--------3---------RRR
Trinisphere + Chalice 2---3R--------3---------1RR
Thorn of Amethist---------3R--------1---------1R
2x Thorn of Amethist------4R--------2---------2RR
Pulverize has the lowest mana costs but wants to be played in the combo turn.
----4) How it Works
DDFT for the most part is going to play out similar to other Storm Combo decks in Legacy. Aside from the occasional T1-2 win, most of the time you will spend your first few turns setting up your combo. Between Sensei's Top, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Wish, you have a multitude of ways to sculpt your hand for the combo turn. During these first couple turns you're also going to be using your Discard to clear the way of any possible disruption the opponent could be playing. Generally you're going to want either Sensei's Top in play or a cantrip in hand to draw into your pile, and enough mana to initiate the sequence. Once you have the right resources, and a cleared path, you can go for it and cast Doomsday. A basic pile you might make could look something like..
Ideas Unbound
LED
Probe
LED
Wish
Assuming you have a Divining Top, and an LED in play, you would activate Top, cracking LED for (u)(u)(u), drawing into Ideas Unbound. Casting IU lets you draw into Top again, LED and a Probe. Probe gives you your 2nd LED. Now all you would have to do is play, and activate Top again, cracking LEDs for (b)(b)(b)(r)(r)(r), into Wish, into Tendrils of Agony.
Your main goal is to find and resolve a Doomsday. You're also looking for a way to draw into your pile(either with Top, or a Cantrip), as well as ensuring you have enough mana(either with lands, Petals, or LEDs) once you cast Doomsday.
An example.
A hand of Dark Ritual, Doomsday, LED, Gitaxian Probe, and a mana source is a turn 1, as it has everything you need right there.
Ritual into Doomsday and build..
Ideas Unbound
LED
LED
Probe
Wish
Play out your LED, Probe cracking LED for (u)(u)(u). Cast IU drawing into LED, LED, Probe. Play both LEDs, Probe cracking LEDs for (b)(b)(b)(r)(r)(r). Burning Wish into Tendrils of Agony.
Now we're not always going to get so lucky as to draw a turn 1 win, so we use Ponder, Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, and Burning Wish to sculpt our hand and set up the win. Remember, sequencing cantrips in DDFT is a bit different than in other Storm lists. Gitaxian Probe is the best example of this; because Probe is so good at drawing into piles it's usually better to hold onto it for later, rather than burn it early. The take away is that it's not always wise to blow through your cantrips, keeping 1 held back to draw into a Doomsday pile can be crucial if you have no Top.
Burning Wish is great in these early stages as well, being able to find you a Doomsday, or some disruption to get your Doomsday resolved. Also, sometimes just because we run 5 Rituals, LEDs, and Lotus Petals, you can just run out an early t1 or 2 Burning Wish into Empty the Warrens. A lot of decks just can't beat 10+ Goblins that early in the game. Watch out for things like Engineered Explosives, and Stoneforge grabbing Batterskull though. Occasionally you can make Goblins even if you know the opponent has something like Batterskull, and then just use a Therapy to clear the hate.
So generally speaking what your trying to do is find a Doomsday, find a draw spell, and get some mana. But you're also going to need to protect your combo from opposing disruption. You can use your discard(or chant effects) to get rid of, and protect yourself from things like Force of Will, Stifle, Flusterstorm, etc.
The main thing about learning how to play DDFT is just to learn a few of the basic, most used piles, and then practice like crazy. Once you learn a few piles and see how the deck feels, you'll start to understand what's going on more, and get more comfortable with the combo. Really there about 5 piles that you will use 90 percent of the time, so if you just learn those and get comfortable with the deck, thinking up piles on the fly will just start to come to you easier and easier.
--Sensei's Divining Top basic pile--
In hand: Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Lion's Eye Diamond
In Play: Sensei's Divining Top, (B)source(Land or Lotus Petal)
--> Play DR(1 storm), DD(2) --building this pile-->
Ideas Unboud
LED
Gitaxian Probe
LED
Burning wish
-->Play LED(3), crack LED for UUU, Draw with top, play Ideas Unbound(4), GP(5), SDT(6), LED(7), LED(8), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with SDT, Burning Wish(9), Tendrils of Agony
--Cantrip basic pile--
In hand: DR,DD,LED,GP(or another cantrip and (U) available)
In Play: (B)source
-->DR(1),DD(2) -
IU
LED
LED
GP
BW
-->LED(3), GP(4)response crack LED for UUU, IU(5), LED(6), LED(7), GP(8) crack LEDs for BBB RRR, BW(9), TOA
--SDT + Cantrip basic pile--
In hand: DR, DD, GP
In Play: (B)source, SDT
-->DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
IU
LED
LED
BW
-->GP(3), LED(4), crack LED for UUU, draw with SDT, IU(5), LED(6), LED(7), SDT(8), crack LEDS for BBB RRR, draw wiith SDT, BW(9), TOA
--Double Cantrip basic pile--
In hand: GP, GP, DR, DD
In Play: (B)source, (R)source
-->DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
IU
LED
LED
BW
-->GP(3), LED(4), GP(5)resp crack LED for UUU, IU(6), LED(7), LED(8), BW(9)resp crack LEDs for BBBUUU, TOA
--Cantrip pile--
In Hand: DR, DD, LED, GP
In Play: B source
-->DR, DD
IU
LED
GP
SDT
LabMan
-->LED, GP resp crack LED for UUU, IU, LED, Top, GP resp crack LED for UUU, LabMan, activate Top for the win.
--Pass the turn pile--
-If you pass the turn twice, you can beat 1 piece of removal-
(U)(U)(1) + 2 life available post Doomsday
-->Doomsday -
IU
SDT
GP
LED
LM
-->pass the turn, Ideas Unbound, LED, Sensei's Top, Gitaxian Probe resp crack LEDs for UUU, Lab man, activate top for the win.
--SDT Single Hate pile--
In hand: DR, DD, LED
In play: SDT, (B)source,(U)source,(1)source
--> DR(1), DD(2) -
IU
LED
Chain of Vapor
LED
BW
-->LED(3), crack LED for UUU, draw with SDT, IU(4), LED(5), SDT(6), draw with SDT resp CoV(7) on SDT, sac a land and CoV(8) on the hatecard, SDT(9), LED(10), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with SDT, BW(11), TOA
--SDT + Cantrip Single Hate pile--
In Hand: DR, DD, LED, GP
In Play: SDT, (B)
-->DR(1), DD(2) -
IU
LED
CoV
LED
BW
-->LED(3), GP(4)resp crack LED for UUU, IU(5), LED(6), LED(7), CoV(8) on hatecard, crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with top, BW(9), TOA
--Double Cantrip Single Hate pile--
In hand: DR, DD, LED, GP,GP
In Play: (B), (1)
--> DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
IU
LED
CoV
BW
-->GP(3), LED(4), LED(5), GP(6)resp crack LED for RRR UUU, IU(7), LED(8), CoV(9) on the hatecard, BW(10)resp crack LED for BBB, TOA
--SDT DD Empty the Warrens pile--
In Hand: DR, DD, LED
In play: SDT, (B)
-->DR(1), DD(2) -
IU
LED
LED
BW
DD
-->LED(3),crack for UUU, draw with SDT, IU(4), LED(4), LED(5), SDT(6), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with SDT, BW(7), Empty the warrens for 16, with 2 turns to attack. If you have mana to play the last doomsday you can rebuild the pile without BW for more turns to swing.
--Double Cantrip DD EtW pile--
In hand: DR, DD, LED, GP, GP
In play: (B),
--> DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
BW
Duress, or CoV(make sure you have (U) available)
DR
DD
-->GP(3), LED(4), LED(5), GP(6)resp crack LEDs for RRR BBB, BW(7), EtW for 16 with 3+ turns to attack
--Double Cantrip STD EtW pile--
In Hand: DR, DD, GP, GP
In Play: SDT, (B)
-->DR(1), DD(2) -
LED
LED
BW
DR or Duress or CoV
DD
-->GP(3), GP(4), LED(5),LED(6), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with top, BW(7), EtW for 16 with 3+ turns to attack
--The "fast" Shelldock pile--
In hand: (U)*, DR, DD
In Play: (B)
--> DR, DD -
Shelldock Isle
Emrakul
Duress or CoV or Wipe Away or (U)
DR or Duress or CoV or WA
DD
-->pass turn, draw SI, play SI and hide Emrakul, pass turn, draw duress, play duress, play (U), tap and activate SI to play Emrakul, take an extra turn, if you need to you can play doomsday for extra turns to swing
*note: if you dont have access (U) pre DD, you can stack (U) in place of duress in the pile
--Cantrip/ SDT Shelldock pile--
--Land Drop Available--
In hand: (U)*, DR, DD, GP(or any cantrip and (U), or SDT in play)
In play:(B), SDT( or a Cantrip in hand with a way to play it)
--> DR, DD -
SI
Emrakul
Duress or CoV or WA or (U)
DR
DD
--> Cantrip, or draw with SDT, play shelldock hiding Emrakul, pass turn, play (U), play duress, activate Shelldock to play Emrakul.
*note: if you dont have access (U) pre DD, you can stack (U) in place of duress in the pile.
--Double Doomsday pile--
-Bennotsi's Double DD Doc-
(U)(U)(1) + LED available post Doomsday
-->DD -
IU
SDT
DD
LED
BW
-->pass the turn, LED(1),IU(2)resp crack LED for BBB, LED(3), SDT(4), DD(5)resp crack LED for UUU -
IU
LED
LED
BW
( )
-->draw with SDT, IU(6), LED(7), LED(7), SDT(8), crack LEDs for BBB RRR, draw with top, BW(9), TOA
--Time Spiral pile--
In Hand: DR, DD, LED, (*)
In Play: Usea, (U)*with extra card in hand - or Petal/ Fetchland
-->DR, DD -
IU
LED
LED
BW
BW
-->pass turn, LED(1), IU(2)resp crack LED for RRR, LED(3), LED(4), BW(5)resp crack LEDs for UUU UUU, TSP(6), draw and untap, LED(7),LED(8),LED(9), BW(10)resp crack LEDs for BBB BBB, TOA
----8) Playing around Artifact destruction
(This is written too perfectly for me to try and replicate)
Playing around instant-speed artifact destruction
Qasali Pridemage and Abrupt Decay are prevalent in Legacy. The difficult thing is that we use artifacts at multiple stages when executing Doomsday piles, artifact destruction effects therefore have several points in the spell chain at which they could disrupt our plan. However, in many situations using some additional resources and careful sequencing when casting spells we may create Doomsday piles that are immune or robust to artifact destruction. But first some general tips and tricks that involve dealing with artifact destruction in general.
When you have Sensei's Divining Top in play and you have to crack a fetchland, it's important to realize that you are likely to lose your SDT. The safest way to play around artifact destruction in this situation is to float another SDT or another cantrip on top of your library. If SDT is targeted you can draw a card and still have a draw effect for when you cast Doomsday. Sometimes however, you won't the time to play around everything perfectly and you have to optimize your chances. If there's nothing useful among the top cards and you have multiple fetches to crack you can of course try to first crack one fetch and respond to removal with cracking the second, possibly even reordering the top3 before you draw a card and shuffle your SDT into your library. Another trick is to activate SDT to reorder the top 3 cards and respond to that with cracking your fetchland. That way, if SDT gets destroyed you still get to reorder the top 3 cards after the shuffle. Also remember that the same rules apply for cracking fetchlands into Stifle. That is, delay cracking your fetches for as long as possible, crack multiple fetchlands simultaneously, and try to do so in your opponent's upkeep to maximize the delay it causes on your opponents turn.
Unfortunately, we can do much less against Krosan Grip compared to Abrupt Decay or Qasali, as we can't save our SDT in response. What you might hope for, is that your opponent targets Lion's Eye Diamond and doesn't realize that split second doesn't work with mana abilities (or the fact that LED's ability actually is a mana ability). This also means that you shouldn't sacrifice your LEDs in response to casting SDT when you know your opponent is holding Krosan Grip, but instead give your opponent the opportunity to make a mistake.
Basic Doomsday piles and artifact destruction
Let's start with considering the effect of artifact destruction on a couple of simple piles. You have SDT in play, 1UU available, and cast Doomsday building -> IU, LED, GP, LED, BW. The execution of this pile is of course well-known, but when playing around artifact destruction the order in which you cast your spells becomes very important. Also, to help the discussion we count every time priority is passed.
1. cast Doomsday
2. tap SDT to draw IU
3. cast IU to draw SDT, LED, GP
4. cast SDT
5. cast LED
6. cast GP to draw LED
7. cast LED
8. tap SDT to draw BW
9. cast BW
10. cast ToA
Your opponent holding an Abrupt Decay has several opportunities to interact, but he has to pick the right moment to successfully disrupt you. First, at 1 your opponent may cast AD in response to Doomsday. This is quite problematic as drawing a card in response won't save your SDT from being exiled by Doomsday. There isn't much you can do about this once you've reached this point. It's better to not have SDT in play at all when you cast Doomsday. If you have SDT in play at the start of your turn, it is best to use it to draw a card in your upkeep and then draw SDT in your draw step before casting DD. You require 1 extra mana to replay it after DD and it may still be destroyed in your upkeep, but you will draw an extra card and this is far less problematic than having your SDT destroyed somewhere halfway executing your pile. In the rest of this writing I will assume you had the SDT in hand when you cast Doomsday.
The second opportunity for your opponent is at 2, where your SDT may be destroyed when you try to draw IU. This is less of a problem because we have GP in our pile. You will still get to draw IU and then cast it to draw 2 LEDs and GP. Simply cast both LEDs sac them in response to GP to play out the rest of your pile for only 1 less storm then when you would've replayed SDT after IU.
Third, at 5 when you cast LED your SDT may be destroyed. In response tap it to draw the 2nd LED. Cast both LEDs and use GP to draw SDT for 1 mana more than usual replay SDT, sac both LEDs draw BW and win. Note that the order in which you play your spells after drawing with Ideas Unbound is very important, this doesn't play out as nicely when you play LED or GP first.
Fourth, at 6 when you cast GP to draw the 2nd LED your SDT or LED may be destroyed. Now SDT can be saved in similar fashion as with the third scenario. Note that GP will draw the SDT rather than the LED in this case. LED may be just sacrificed in response without any harm as your hand is empty.
Fifth, at 7 when you cast the 2nd LED and have SDT and possibly LED in play. LED can be sacrificed since your hand is empty. SDT can be saved, but you will draw BW. Therefore you have to sacrifice the first LED for RRR in response if you had not done so already. The LED currently on the stack can be sacrificed later for BBB in response to BW.
Those are the five main points of interaction for artifact destruction. To summarize, with 1 mana extra you can play around any single piece of artifact destruction as long as your SDT is not in play when you cast DD. If you have SDT in play use it to draw a card in your upkeep and if your SDT survives you need only 2 mana more than usual to win through artifact destruction.
Now let's take a look at the basic pile with a single cantrip. Let's say we have GP in hand, UU in pool, cast Doomsday building -> IU, LED, GP, LED, BW. You know how this plays out. Now there is only one window where your opponent can interact successfully. That is when you cast the 2nd LED with the first LED on the table and GP in hand. This is where you can't sacrifice it in response without losing the cards in your hand (GP). There are no other possibilities for your opponent to interact but it is also unlikely that your opponent will miss this opportunity, since it's the first time he gets priority with you having an artifact in play. When you can produce 1 more black mana you may replace either LED with a Dark Ritual or Rain of Filth and solve this issue.
Let's consider the SDT + GP pile that wins for BBB by building -> LED, IU, LED, LED, BW. Again casting Doomsday with SDT in play is problematic, avoid this at all cost. After Doomsday you first cast GP to draw LED and cast it. Then cast SDT sacrificing LED in response. However if you tap SDT to draw IU you might be in trouble. If SDT gets destroyed you draw IU but casting IU will draw you 2 LEDs and BW. If you have one additional red mana that's great, but that won't happen to often so this means you are most likely in big trouble. If your SDT is not destroyed you have SDT + 2 LEDs in hand. This also means it will be very hard to play around artifact destruction, only if you have an additional 1R available you can rescue SDT by drawing BW before you've sacrificed any of the LEDs. Its easier if you have B and replace one LED by Dark Ritual, but then again if your SDT is destroyed when you tap it to draw IU you still have a problem as it should have been a red mana. If you can keep a Lotus Petal in play, that could solve the color problem. But it's probably better to look for a more generic solution.
A more generic way is solve this solve these colored mana issues is to build a different pile. We can replace one of the LEDs by a Lotus Petal. Now the only problem is that the mana cost compared to a normal win is increased by 2 generic mana. Starting from SDT and GP in hand, build:
-> LED, IU, LED, LP, BW BBB+3 (5) 9 or 10 Storm
Cast DD, GP, LED, SDT, sac LED in response, tap SDT to draw IU. Either your SDT is destroyed now or it isn't. If so, you draw LED, LP, BW and still have 2U floating. If not, you draw SDT, LED, LP, in which case you cast LP and crack it for R, having 2R floating, cast LED, cast SDT, sacrifice LED in resp. for BBB, use SDT to draw BW and wish for ToA.
Double cantrip piles are similar to last pile and are fortunately immune to artifact destruction. Consider 2 GP in hand, BBB+1 mana in pool, cast Doomsday building -> LED, IU, LED, LP, BW. GP draws LED, cast LED, cast GP, sac LED in response, draw IU, cast IU, draw LED, LP and BW, cast LP sacrifice it for R. Cast LED and BW, sac LED in response for BBB, use the 1 mana in pool to cast ToA. Note that in this execution your opponent never gets priority while you have artifacts in play.
Boarding in Tendrils of Agony to fight artifact destruction
You commonly see 2 Tendrils of Agony in the sideboards of Doomsday decks. There are many different reasons to board in one of the two Tendrils. The most commonly used one is probably to still have an out when your opponent plans to play Surgical Extraction on Burning Wish. Other than that the Tendrils is used to lower the cost of using Chain of Vapor or Slaughter Pact inside Doomsday piles, and possibly also to increase the success rate of casting Time Spiral pre-Doomsday.
I would like to add to this list that Tendrils of Agony also has uses against artifact destruction. In the current state of Legacy this probably won't influence your sideboard plans. As decks that play Abrupt Decay usually also play discard spells and you were probably boarding in the Tendrils already, because of them having access to Surgical Extraction. The same is true for decks playing Qasali Pridemage, from which you can also expect to see some Gaddock Teeg postboard.
With 1 of the Tendrils boarded in you can do the following for the basic SDT pile:
SDT in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, LP, ToA BBB+2UU (6) 7/8 Storm
This pile has the same cost requirements of a normal win with Burning Wish, the two mana for Burning Wish is normally produced by a LED in the pile. Only because having 2 LEDs in play is problematic, we can change a LED for a Lotus Petal and change the Burning Wish for Tendrils to solve this issue. The pile produces 7 storm when your opponent destroys your SDT when you tap it to draw IU. Since you won't replay the SDT after IU you also leave 1 mana unused. If your opponent doesn't do anything you make 8 storm.
We can build the same pile and do the same trick for a single cantrip pile:
GP in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, LP, ToA BBB+UU (6) 7 Storm
This pile is a bit low on the storm count but is immune to artifact destruction for no additional cost.
The more difficult case is the one where we use SDT and a cantrip, because we have less space in the pile. You can however build:
SDT + GP in hand:
-> LED, IU, LP, DR, ToA BBB+2 (5) 8/9 Storm
You play your cantrip to draw LED, play the SDT from hand and use it to draw IU. Now SDT is potentially destroyed. If so, IU will draw you LP, DR, ToA and you have enough mana to win. If not, you will draw SDT, LP, DR and you need 1 generic mana more, to replay SDT and draw Tendrils to win.
The double cantrip piles are immune to artifact destruction, whether or not you board in ToA. With ToA in however you can build them for just BBB and the cost of your cantrips and 1 less storm.
The cost of playing around artifact destruction can be lowered by boarding in the Tendrils. But you have to be extra careful to produce sufficient storm. An overview for the basic piles and the cost of playing around artifact destruction with or without Tendrils is given by this table:
---------------Basic Pile--------------Artifact destruction-------------ToA boarded in
Cards in hand---Pile----------------Cost--------Pile----------------Cost---Pile-----------------Cost
SDT-------------IU,LED,GP,LED,BW----BBB+2UU-----same----------------+1-----IU,LED,GP,LP,ToA-----+0
GP--------------IU,LED,GP,LED,BW----BBB+UU------IU,LED,GP,DR,BW-----+B-----IU,LED,GP,LP,ToA-----+0
SDT + GP--------LED,IU,LED,LED,BW---BBB+1-------LED,IU,LED,LP,BW----+2-----LED,IU,LP,DR,ToA-----+1
2x GP-----------LED,IU,LED,LP,BW----BBB+1-------same----------------+0-----LED,IU,LP,DR,ToA----(-1)
Playing around a hatebear+artifact destruction
You might wonder what the influence of artifact destruction is on other Doomsday piles, and in particular Chain of Vapor piles. CoV piles typically involve a moment where you tap SDT and cast CoV in response to return it to your hand before drawing a card. If your SDT is destroyed in response to your CoV you only get 1 draw, while you require 2 draws to play out the pile correctly. This is something that can't be avoided and therefore CoV piles are really vulnerable to artifact destruction.
However, the normal kill spell piles are immune to artifact destruction because they include a cantrip and use only 1 LED. These piles do require that you board in Tendrils of Agony to become anywhere near affordable in terms of mana. You can insert the Chain of Vapor in the kill spell slot, if you really need to bounce a Leyline of Sanctity or Gaddock Teeg or something to win the game.
SDT in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, CoV, ToA BBB+3UUU (9) 7/8 Storm
GP in hand:
-> IU, LED, GP, CoV, ToA BBB+1UUU (9) 7 Storm
If SDT is destroyed when you tap it to draw IU, casting IU will draw you LED, GP, CoV. In this case you can cast Chain of Vapor on the nonland permanent you want to bounce and then use GP+LED to draw and cast Tendrils of Agony. If your SDT is not destroyed, IU will let you draw SDT, GP, LED, you can cast GP to draw Chain of Vapor and then cast LED+SDT to draw and cast Tendrils of Agony. These piles aren't anywhere near as efficient as the normal Chain of Vapor piles and generate much less storm, but they will allow you to win the game when your opponent has both Leyline of Sanctity/Gaddock Teeg and Qasali Pridemage + mana open in play.
----9) Matchups
Tempo-
These guys pack all sorts of disruption, as well as super efficient creature beats. The main thing here is just to find a way through their wall of counterspells(and in some cases discard) before they kill you with Delver of Secrets. Watch out for Stifle on your storm, ot Top trigger. For sideboarding you can bring in Carpet of Flowers, which helps tremendously with their taxing counters. You can also bring in Xantid Swarm, but watch out for Lightning Bolts. Most people will side out Path but many will leave in Bolt. An early Empty the Warrens can be great here, just watch out for Electrickery, which has been seeing more play.
There is a thread on combating Tempo deck here-
Here is a thread about fighting UWR Delver-
There's a nice write up on BUG delver here-
Stoneblade-
Another deck with tons of disruption. These guys can be a tad slower than the tempo decks, but fighting through their copious amounts of counterspells, and hate can be tough. This is going to play out a lot like the tempo match though, in the sense that you need to use your discard, and smart play to find/create an opening and take it. This can be slightly easier here sometimes, just because they aren't playing threats right away, so you have more time to sculpt, and make something happen. These guys will often side into Meddling mage which can be annoying. For us we can bring in Carpet of Flowers, and Xantid Swarm. Swarm can sometimes be good, but again some players will keep their bolts in, and some will keep in their Terminus as well. Empty is risky in this match, Stoneblade can often fetch Batterskull which will almost always beat Goblins, but they sometimes run Engineered Explosives and Terminus.
Miracles-
This is a pretty bad match for us. They have tons of disruption, as well as Counterbalance, which if they land with a Top out spells disaster for us. in game 1 you really need to watch out for the Counterbalance lock because there really isn't anything you can do about it. In games 2-3 you can bring in Abrupt Decay which can help tremendously against Counterbalance. You can also bring in Swarms, and Carpet, but again Swarm is risky in the face of removal. Shelldock Isle + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn can be OK here, and was used in the past to fight through Counterbalance. It works because the whole thing is uncounterable(outside of Stifle effects). It's risky because Wasteland is a thing, and also in the past we could Karakas legend rule the opponent, but now we can't, so that's something you need to watch out for as well. Goblins aren't that great here as they often run 3-4 Terminus, and sometimes Engineered Explosives.
There's a thread about fighting Miracles here-
Show and Tell-
Show n Tell variants generally pack a decent amount of Counterspells, as well as a potentially hasty combo. this match can be tricky because you need to worry about both their disruption, and finding a way to get your combo through, but also preventing them from comboing off and killing you first. Sideboard we get to bring in Xantid Swarm though, and this is the match where Swarm truly shines. SnT decks generally don;t have a good way to deal with Swarm, so he gets to do his thing without fear of removal. Most of the Snt lists are packing Leyline of Sanctity in the board and will bring it in to blank your Discard, and disrupt Tendrils. This is another reason why Swarm is so good in this match. To beat Leyline you can either Wish for Snare, use a Chain of Vapor pile, or just go for a Lab Man kill. Empty is super risky here because they can just combo over you before you get the kill.
Elves-
This should usually be a really good match for us. Game 1 they can get the nuts and combo off quickly, so you have to watch out for that, but otherwise you basically just get to goldfish them as they have no way to disrupt you. G2-3 can be more complicated as these days Elves is almost always splashing for hate. They often bring in Cabal Therapys, and they'll also sometimes bring in some Hatebears like Gaddock Teeg. Another recent development they've made is sideboard into Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, which they can get out pretty fast. Still, even with all they bring in, this should be much easier than fighting through the tempo/ control decks. Empty can be OK here, just watch out for their combo. Using Cabal Therapy to strip their hand after you've made Goblins can be useful.
Burn-
Burn has always been somewhat of a pain because Doomsday saps half our life, leaving us vulnerable to instant speed burn like Fireblast. Recently the match got a lot worse because now they run 4 maindeck hatebears in the form of Eidolon of the Great Revel. In game 1 the only answer to Eidolon is wishable bounce or enchantment destruction. After sideboard you have access to Abrupt Decay, and whatever other bounce/removal your playing, but they can also bring in Red Blasts, and Pyrostatic Pillars. All that being said, we're not completely dead here. Sometimes we're just fast enough to get the win anyways. Goblin are actually decent here as long as you make enough to kill in just a few turns, as Burn can have a pretty fast clock undisrupted.
There's a thread about fighting Burn here-
Hatebears-
Be it Maverick, Death and Taxes, or some variant, these decks really on resolving their Hatebears to disrupt us, and keep us from being able to combo off. Between Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Phyrexian Revoker, etc they have a lot of them for us to deal with, and they can come down as early as turn 2. This can be a tough match if they're drawing hot, but luckily for us, we have a decent amount of answers. In game 1 we have access to Wishable removal, usually in the form of Massacre. Just running Massacre in the board turns all your Burning Wishes into Pyroclasms. We also have access to Abrupt Decay and other removal/bounce options from the board in games 2-3. Empty is good here, but you really have to watch for Stoneforge into Batterskull. Sometimes you can set up Cabal Therapy after Empty to get rid of a Stoneforge or Batterskull.
Storm-
This can end up being somewhat of a coin flip. Sort of "let's see who draws better". This is a tough match because you have to watch out for their own blazing fast combo, while also trying to set up your own combo, while getting your hand picked apart by discard. If they're playing Silence that makes things even more complicated, because that can just completely blow you out when you go for the combo. Luckily TES has recently moved away from Silence effects. If you happen to be running Silence in your DDFT list then you're the one with the edge here.
Reanimator-
Reanimator is actually a rough match for all manners of Storm combo. They have a very fast combo, backed up with Force of Will and a bunch of other disruption. The problem here is all they have to do is reanimate Griselbrand and it's GG, which is pretty easy to accomplish. They run a simple 2 card combo, while we actually need some considerable set up to get going, and that's what makes it so tough. They can assemble that 2 card combo relatively easy, all the while holding up a wall of counters. This can be tough also when deciding what to take with your discard. You have to worry about finding your opening, but also not losing to their combo. Sideboard we have Xantid Swarm which can actually be really good in this match-up.
Jund-
This should be an alright match for us. The main things we have to worry about here is Discard taking our combo pieces, and Abrupt Decay on Top and Lion's Eye Diamond. Lab Maniac is decent in this match. A fast PtT pile can steal games in the face of discard, as long as you watch out for Bolt/ Decay on Lab Man. Remember a standard PtT pile can beat 1 peice of removal on it's own if you pass the turn twice instead of once. They play Dark Confidant, which on one hand can draw them into more disruption, but on the other hand it can lower their life enough to make Tendrils kills much easier. Some people have been experimenting with Treasure Cruise in DDFT and this is one of the matches where that can be great for overcoming discard in grindy matches. A sideboarded Cruise can be an interesting option as a Wish target as well.
----10) References
It's the End of the World as We Know It
Legacy Weapon - Call me Doom
Judgement Day Puzzling
Videos-
Video Primer
MTG - BOM 2012 LEGACY MAIN EVENT - Round 7 Alessandro Della Queva VS Tristan Polz
MTG - BOM 2012 LEGACY MAIN EVENT - QUART Simon Rouzé VS Tristan Polzl
Legacy PLS 11, Round 2, Game 1, Doomsday vs Esper
Legacy PLS 11, Round 2, Game 2, Doomsday vs Esper
DDFT vs Lands
DDFT vs Lands 2
DDFT vs Stoneblade
DDFT vs Burn
DDFT vs Burn 2
Lejay vs Elves
Lejay vs Rock
Stock Affinity vs Doomsday g1
emidln Legacy DDFT vs UW Control(Cockatrice)
[Cockatrice] Doomsday Epicness 1
Other Forums-
The Storm Boards DDFT section
MTG The Source
Old MTGSalvation Page
Older MTGSalvation Page
Pile Documents-
Stormboards Pile Thread
Bennotsi's selected piles document
Another good pile doc
Emidln & Cheeseburger's Pile Doc
Emidln Building Doomsday Stacks 2008
Great job!
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Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
[center][color=Blue]
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
R GOBLINSR
WDeath and taxesW
WRParfaitRW
A small report from a local tournament (~14 people).
I played this list:
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Bloodstain Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
3 Island
1 Swamp
Fast Mana
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
Stuff
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Chromatic Sphere
3 Burning Wish
1 Ideas Unbound
3 Doomsday
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Dig through Time
1 Doomsday
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroblast
1 Infernal Contract
1 Massacre
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Void Snare
1 Cabal Therapy
I wanted to try the Wish version (I played only IT/IGGY before) so I took emidln's last list and changed the Cruises for some random stuff. I don't have all SB cards, so I changed them there too.
Round 1 against Elves 1-2
Game 1 he has no disruption at all and tries to make a fast NO happen, I have Duress and Therapy to keep him off it. I killed him with the standard IU LED LED GP BW pile.
Game 2 I keep a hand with DD, Decay, Top, Duress and some lands. He has Thoughtseize into Extraction, so no DD more in the main. Since he keeped a very discard heavy hand I had time enough to recover, get a DD from BW and went for the kill. The problem was, I put the cards in the wrong order of the pile (exactly the wrong way) so I lost.
Game 3 he had the turn 2 kill.
Round 2 against UWR Delver 2-0
Game 1 went pretty fast. He mulled once and keeped a hand with 2 Young Pyromancer, 1 Swords, 1 Bolt, Pierce and a Fetch (saw his hand because of GP). He drew no second land in 2 draws (with BS) and I killed him, before he could get any protection. He thought, that I was on BUG Delver/ Shardless BUG, so he put Force and Pierce back with BS and shuffled those away. I duressed the Bolt away, to survive the DD Pile (got Infernal Contract with BW, to refill the hand, but I could combo off next turn (drew a DR).
Game 2 he probed me and saw 2 lands, DD, DR, IU, Cabal Therapy and Ponder. The first to turns were just some cantripps on both sides. On turn 3 (I had 1 Island and a Underground) I casted DR he thought about it, let it resolve and I casted Cabal Therapy. This one also resolves and I name Force into the dark. He had Pierce and Fluster in his hand. I casted a Top with the remaining mana (I played around Pierce this way, and I had another DR in hand, so I could afford it) and I looked at the top 3, they were 2 Fetches and the Rain of Filth. Next turn he played a land into Ponder and chose not to shuffle. I drew a land, played it and casted the next DR, he bolted me into Fluster, I was happy with this one. Next turn I went off, since I knew he had no protection in his hand (he drew and played Stoneforge and got Skull).
Round 3 against Mono R combo brew with Swiftspears, Kiln Find and friends 2-1
Game 1 I had the kill and I put the cards in the wrong order...
Game 2 I killed him turn 3.
Game 3 He went for the turn 2 kill, I had the decay for his Kiln Find (it would have been 20 damage...) and I killed him in turn 5 of extra turns.
Round 4 against Goblins 1-2.
Game 1 I killed him turn 4 through a double wasteland. Was pretty lucky, since I drew the lotus petal, which enabled me to go off.
Game 2 my starting hand were the following cards: DR, DD, Decay, GP, GP, Fetch and Top. Couldn't find the turn 1 kill, so I played GP (drew DR) and played Top. He had Thalia in hand but didn't had the mana for it (no W). I used top in the following turns to get lands, but I couldn't find one and I died to the turn 3 Thalia.
Here I made a huge mistake. I should have went for the turn 2 kill. So play top pass (hope, he draws no W land) and go with a LED, IU, LED LED BW pile and win (draw Led with Probe, cast it crack it for UUU, draw IU with top, cast it draw LED LED Top, cast top cast 2x LED crack LEDs for B and R draw BW with Top and kill him with BW into Tendrils). This was just an insane punt.
Game 3 I had a double Dual land hand, he had 2 wastelands, I didn't draw any lands = gg.
Overall I was quite happy with this version. I'm not used to it (especially to IU) so I made several punts which costed me 3 games. The only thing I disliked was the Lab Man. I never needed it and I never saw an opportunity to go the Lab Man route. Also I boarded it out many times (could have been the wrong choice). Also I didn't like the Dig. When I drew it, I couldn't cast it or I didn't had the time for it. I will probably switch it to another 1 mana cantrip. Also I want the 4th BW in the deck, I want to get some value stuff from the SB like Massacre or Pyroclasm (will add this card back into the SB).
Hope you like it,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
But yeah, there is a Rain of Filth in my main (Dark Ritual number 5).
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Lab Man looked bad because you didn't play against the kinds of matchups where Laboratory Maniac is good. At your event, you played against a bunch of lightning fast decks that would probably kill you on the spot if you made a Maniac pile; however, Maniac is for the opposite end of the spectrum where your opponent is trying to choke you out. I played in a GPT over the weekend and Lab Man was a key factor in deciding my games against Pox, Jund, and MUD.
I'd also say to play the fourth Burning Wish over the Dig Through Time. Treasure Cruise was quite the affair, and it was nice while it lasted, but we'll never recapture that magic and I think you'll find that trying to replicate the effect of Treasure Cruise will leave you unhappy with cards like Dig Through Time.
I don't like lotus petal. I run 1 right now mostly because it is sometimes necessary for a pile to be lethal but outside some of those fringe piles it really doesn't help in hardcasting doomsday with so many lands that don't produce black and in grindy matchups it is the first card to leave my deck hell I usually board it out every game 2 short of me lacking cards to bring in against a deck or wanting it to play around daze/soft counters. In the lists above where you're running 3 you're cutting fetchlands for it and fetchlands are the best cards in this deck not close.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Here's an example of what I mean. While I would personally never dream of playing this deck without at least one Lotus Petal to find with Doomsday, you're saying Lotus Petal is a bad card because it doesn't really speed the deck up in any real way. Basically, you're saying you haven't crafted piles where Lotus Petal is literally the only card that wins the game on the spot. However, these sorts of piles exist, and it's likely that you've lost at least one game playing this deck from not having the experience to see them. For instance: your hand is Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Brainstorm, Burning Wish. It's turn three, and you have three lands in play. The pile here is LED, Gitaxian Probe, Ideas Unbound, LED, Lotus Petal--and Lotus Petal is critical here because it's the only way you can generate the one extra mana to cast Burning Wish. This might seem like a fringe pile, but these sorts of situations add up; if you're not able to recognize the situtation or you don't have a Lotus Petal in your deck, then you're forced to give your opponent more time as you search for more mana, which is an easy way to lose a game.
If you're not able to craft the piles that allow you to win quickly because you can't see them, that would make the deck feel like it's too slow to compete with the decks that can "insta-win." However, I kill at least one opponent on turn one at every tournament I attend, and I kill on turn three on average with plenty of turn two kills. I'm not even factoring in the number of times I just cast Empty the Warrens early and win through Goblins. Sure, we aren't putting up Belcher-level numbers of turn one kills, but I'm definitely not afraid of fast decks to the point that I would change my strategy to combat them. We can kill just as quickly, and we do play disruption--I won't lie to you and say that it isn't a little scary to play against fast decks, but I would feel the same way even if I was playing the fastest deck in the format. If it's truly an issue though, we can play cards like Flusterstorm or splash white for Orim's Chant/Silence.
I'm not sure that you're actually making the deck more versatile with the suggestions you're putting forth. Doomsday is a crazy card that is able to win the game from a lot of different positions as long as you're able to cast it, so I'm not sure what sorts of experiences you're having to make you feel like the deck isn't flexible. What midrange decks are you saying the deck has trouble going long against? What Wish targets are you hoping to add to the deck for versatility? This deck definitely has weaknesses, but we're playing Sensei's Divining Top, a toolbox tutor in Burning Wish, and an effective 5 card tutor in Doomsday so it feels strange to me that you think this deck is bad at going long against midrange, and I don't normally find myself losing just to Wasteland all that often.
What makes you think this deck is less resilient than something like ANT? What do you believe the deck is weak against?
To be perfectly honest with you, from a purely wanting to win standpoint, this deck is probably awful. Not because the deck itself is weak, but because the learning curve is insane and the deck is completely unforgiving. You have to devote a lot of time to learning how to play Doomsday, and the payoff is that you're really just playing another Storm deck with a few different strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, you could probably spend half that time just learning ANT and winning tournaments immediately, instead of the slow grind that is figuring out all the ways to kill a person with a Doomsday pile.
No, that is supposed to be Rain of Tears. I have been experimenting with maindeck land destruction as another source of disruption.
I would argue that 99 times out of 100 it is a free way to draw into your pile. Most times when you are comboing off with Top, you also have LED. LED gives you 3 mana, which pays for both Ideas Unbound, and casting Top again.
As far as getting more in depth with Brainstorm, if you noticed, there's a note at the end of the primer about adding a "tips & tricks" section. Whenever I get around to it, I do plan on elaborating on things like that. It was a monumental task compiling info for, writing, and even just uploading, coding, and hot linking everything in this Primer. I just got pretty burned out after grinding away at it for so long, so I haven't gotten around to it yet.
This deck is just as fast as ANT in the hands of a good pilot. That's the trick though most of the people piloting doomsday fetchland tendrils are not good at it otherwise we would see more results from the deck in terms of top 8's.
I didn't say I did not like the primer what I didn't like is that it didn't go more indepth. But that's to be expected because you could write an entire 300 page book on doomsday and the OPs post is definitely not close to that. One of the biggest mistakes that people make in terms of playing this deck is misplaying their cantrips. You don't just fire off cantrips willy nilly with this deck as you do in other storm combo lest you end up with a pile of rituals and doomsdays but no way to draw into the pile. Or the mistake of thinking top in play is invincible and that nothing can ever occur to wreck your plans like an ice/decay/disenchant on top in response to doomsday is something most people picking up this deck will not realize until they are thoroughly wrecked by it.
Currently Playing:
Retired
What the hell?
How about helping those who want to learn the deck understand what they need to know instead of this "no true Scotsman" nonsense? I am working hard at Storm with limited time and getting my butt kicked while I figure it all out, but I get lots of helpful advice from other players.
I want to learn how to play Doomsday because I think it attacks at a very different angle from a lot of other decks. It sure would be nice to feel like others want to help.
* comments about how if you want to just win matches you shouldn't play this deck
* dismissal of the contents of the primer with comments about how it's not in-depth enough and then some comments about proper play style with no examples
* comments about "you need to just play the deck a lot" but no advice on how to actually play it
Is anyone coming out and saying "LOL you suck?" No, but there is a lot of passive-aggressiveness in the comments here, which is pretty normal for online forums. Maybe I am not seeing where in these posts people are being encouraged to play the deck. Looking at primers for other storm decks, there is a theme of "here are some optimized lists, here are why you should choose this version of Storm, now let's talk about how to play it, how to deal with opponents, and how to evolve the deck." Maybe it's too early in the life of this primer to show all those characteristics, but it's a goal to aim for.
I'm happy to take this deck to my LGS for FNM Legacy (which is awesome as far as I am concerned) and learn this deck, sharing both my successes and my failures and be open to correction on what I'm doing wrong.
What I am saying is that if you have lots of experience with the deck (which clearly a few people here do) it would be extremely beneficial if they could share how they learned, common lines of play, suggestions on the proper use of cantrips, and tips on how to learn how to craft good piles.
Like I said, I've been playing storm since about August of last year to some mediocre results. Some of that was unfamiliarity with Legacy, some was impatience to not craft hands that were capable of winning, and some was just the nature of the environment that combo decks face at this point in time. Lots of counter-magic running around and hate cards for storm strategies exist, so you have the double-challenge of learning how to deal with all of those to play a deck that uses a very powerful but linear strategy.
Already in goldfishing maybe 100 hands of DDFT I have noticed some commonalities to piles -- you almost always need a few of the same things in order to make it work. LED's, a probe and a finisher. That's obvious but I think it's a key insight to making the process of learning piles a lot less daunting. It's not that you have to memorize specific piles (I think), it's more that you have to learn what abstract things go into a pile and then the learning comes from the current game state, the opponents hand, and what they can do to disrupt it.
Primers are supposed to be places to learn how to play a deck and share strategies. I am hopeful I can learn Doomsday enough to be competent with it and scare the bejesus out of players when I tap for black, cast a Dark Ritual and say "resolves?"
I understand what you're saying and here's the problem. This is coming from somebody who first picked up this deck about 2 years ago.
Because this deck is so complex in how it plays, in the confines of an online forum it is just impossible to get in depth enough to make any real difference. Every question that's answered brings up 5 more questions. It has taken me a very long time to get to where I am with this deck and I am by no means a pro with it. Not even close. If I want to have fun at a tournament, I bring Doomsday. If I want to win, I bring something else.
The way I see it, with my limited experience relative to Namida, who has been playing this deck forever and directed me to the storm boards a couple of years ago, here are the main problems beginners have with this deck just from watching them play it.
Not Understanding Their Matchup - You can't play this deck by wrote. Every deck you go up against has a different angle of attack and/or defense against you. So in addition to knowing your deck inside and out, you have to know the meta you're playing in pretty well. That means going through all the decks you're likely to run into and understanding what they might be throwing at you in order to try to disrupt your plans.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen somebody cast Doomsday with just one spare mana only to have to pay that mana to pay for the Daze just thrown at them. You have to think ahead. What could go wrong here.
This also goes for when creating a pile, especially game 2 after they've sideboarded. Are they likely to be boarding in Mindbreak Trap or Flusterstorm? If so, how do I get around it? What kind of pile do I have to make? Is there a Leyline out preventing you from targeting them? Did you anticipate them boarding this in after game 1 and sideboard accordingly?
If you don't know what the deck you're up against can possibly throw against you, your chances of winning are slim to none. You might pull out game 1, but games 2 and 3 are going to be a lot harder.
Not Knowing All Your Options - As Bread said, there's more than one pile. You have to be able to think on your feet and that means sometimes improvising. I'm 57 years old and there is no way in hell I can memorize all the piles that there are. So I rely on logic to get me through building them when confronted with a situation that doesn't look like a clear win. The only way to be able to do this is to play the deck a ton. Eventually, you'll recognize the situation and immediately go to the pile that you know will pull you out of it.
When To Mulligan - You can write a book on this alone so I won't even attempt to try to explain hands you can keep and hands you need to ship back. Plus, I have my own personal theory on what hands you can keep that I know many won't agree with. So I'll keep those to myself. But the more you play, the more you'll see what kinds of hands might look "okay" but are really just bad and should have been shipped away.
Not Knowing When To Pull The Trigger - This may be one of, if not the biggest problem with beginners. Too many either wait too long to cast Doomsday or are impatient and go off when there is no need to and resources are light. One mans more or less with this deck is HUGE. Sure, sometimes you're confronted with a situation where you just can't wait. But for the most part, knowing when to go off is critical.
Sideboarding - Either they don't know what to bring in and/or take out or they didn't build their sideboard properly in the first place. This again comes only with experience and knowing your matchups. It is impossible to go through all the sideboard options and how to play them. And, IMO, because Doomsday is such a tight list, there's not a lot of flex spots that I can see. To this day, sideboarding for this deck gives me fits because I tend to second guess myself a lot.
The Pressure Under Fire - Boy, did I ever learn this the hard way when playing a deck, even decks I know inside and out. Some people, when under pressure, just fold. I don't know why but they do. I sometimes have a total brain freeze regardless of the deck I'm playing when confronted with a situation where there are so many options because of the complexity of the board state or what I either believe or know is in the opponent's hand. Last week I totally punted a match I should have won playing lands because I missed the obvious Stage/Chasm lock preventing my opponent from doing anymore damage to me the rest of the game. All I needed to do was just wait for my Depths combo. Under pressure against burn and down to 3 life, I brain froze. It happens. With Doomsday, it happens even more so because of how complex the deck is. So you have to practice with it even more so than with any other deck just to be able to handle the pressure under fire.
And these are just the main things that I can think of off the top of my head that make this deck such a ***** to play.
It's not that people don't want to help other people. It's the "OMG, where the hell do I even start" that has many people simply saying "play the deck" because trying to explain this beast is futile. In comparison, TES is a cakewalk for me. In fact, I no longer find playing TES a challenge. It's more "Do I have a good opening hand? Yeah? Great, I'm good to go." After that, it's just going through the motions. Because of the low mana curve, it's almost impossible not to reach 10 storm after casting Ad Nauseam. Sure, you can brick, but it's very rare.
I don't know if any of this has helped you in the least. I do sympathize, but the only way to get good with this deck is to get tons of experience with it because quite honestly, without tons of hours of one on one instruction, which nobody here has the time for, you're not going to "get" this deck from a few tips on a forum.
I appreciate the honest and straight-forward response to my comments. I'm a relatively old Magic player too (turn 44 in just under a month) and do not have the memory for tons of rote memorization.
If Doomsday is too difficult for me, well, I guess it's too difficult for me.
I've been playing the deck for 2 years, and I'm still kinda bad it at it. It's so much fun though- I can't win with Doomsday, but I can win with other storm decks now
BTW- fantastic primer. It's really as good as you can get for DDFT, there's too much stuff to fit in a single primer.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: I had last week my first Turn 1 Kill with the IU version, was nice
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I say all of that to say that it's hard as hell to actually give advice to new players, and I think the frustration involved is why you get Doomsday players looking like angry ********s when people ask them for general tips and tricks. I don't think the ability to play this deck is out of anyone's reach, but you have to be committed to learning the deck, more than most people are willing to do work for a trading card game, since the deck really requires you to jam a bunch of games that are unfun because you didn't know what you were doing. I've had to put this deck down multiple times because I would just get frustrated about how I needed to drill the basic patterns of some new type of pile down after realizing that I've just been dropping a ton of games to not knowing that it existed. Even now I'm still not perfect--Bread Connoisseur literally made a point of talking about how he thinks the primer is lacking because it doesn't extol the virtues of Brainstorm post-Doomsday and I can't even remember the last time I actually cast a Brainstorm post-Doomsday where I needed it to do anything more than draw the top card of my pile (and if the people who play this deck can't even agree on the best general knowledge for the primer, then it'll certainly be difficult to get much help on "the basics" of the deck). If you told me right now that I'm losing games all the time because I just don't look for Brainstorm piles, I would probably tell you that you're right.
I do stand behind the notion that you probably shouldn't play this deck if you care a whole lot about winning. You could easily argue that the time and effort you put into learning how to make Doomsday do the same thing from any situation could be better spent perfecting your ability to play ANT--and in the end, Doomsday is just another Storm variant, so you're putting all of this extra work in to gain a few percentage points in certain matchups, but you lose those points from other places and honestly, I would say that the metagame now is filled with decks that ANT has an easier time with than Doomsday does. Consider this: I'm going to GP Kyoto next week, and Doomsday is the only deck I have any measurable amount of experience playing, and I'm still not entirely sure that I want to try to run it through nine rounds of Competitive REL Magic because there are so many more opportunities for me to ruin my day with horrible play mistakes and bad matchups than if I just picked up ANT (and I barely know how to play with Past in Flames and Tendrils of Agony in my maindeck). I've always joked that Doomsday players are actually just masochists because our deck beats us more than our opponents do.
Now, to get all of that negative crap out of the way...I'm not discouraging people from learning how to play this deck if they really want the help. I'm just not in the habit of convincing people that this is a good deck to play because it always devolves into a debate on whether this deck is any good because no one can play it, so if you need that sort of encouragement then I suppose I'm no good (I can probably dig up some old forum posts from the Source by the creator of this deck if you want to see what he thinks about this deck in today's game, but they're also far from shining referrals). I'd certainly help anyone who asked for advice I can give...but I think that we're more or less useless at getting people to even a mediocre level with just general tips and strategies. Steve comments that you can't "get" this deck from online tips unless it's almost like being tutored, but I think we can definitely help if you approach it in a way that lets players leverage their experience for your specific issues. Bring specific questions to the players on this board, and we can tell you what we would do. Explain where you get tripped up in games, and what you were thinking in the situation so we can explain what we would do differently and why. If you can accurately describe the game state, it's easy to ask "Could I have won from here? I don't see it," and from there it's simple to let you know the answer so you can see it more clearly next time. I've gotten much better about my opening hand decisions because I've made at least 50 sample hands between the Source and the Storm Boards and asked if people would keep these hands on the play against unknown opponents, for what reasons, and what their first plays would look like. One player even appeared in an SCG event a while back and requested for other players to critique his plays and one of the administrators of the Storm Boards obliged and critiqued every one of his plays. More or less, it's exactly what we've been saying...."play the deck," but help us to help you when you reach hurdles you need help crossing. I hope that helps anyone who is interested in this deck get the kind of assistance they're hoping for.