Rev614: "The sky was split apart like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved from their places."
This is a deck I've been working on for awhile now. It's a turn 3 UB combo deck with a strong manabase, the best manipulation in the game, and the ability to kill on turn 1 and 2. It plays gameplans that are assembled in the same fashion for very little mana but are hated on in drastically different ways.
The two gameplans:
(A) Cheat Emrakul (or another relevant fatty) into Play
(B) Play a lethal Tendrils of Agony
You have two ways to accomplish (A):
(1) Doomsday into Shelldock Isle
(2) Show and Tell
(B) is almost always accomplished with Doomsday. Doomsday has a couple major Doomsday piles (with hundreds of variations) and a many situational piles. It's a mass tutor that can be used, if you know your deck very well, to pull yourself out of extremely bad situations and manufacture wins out of thin air.
Quickly, I'll go over the main doomsday storm piles:
"the Meditate pile"
Cost: 2U+BBB+CantripMana
Results: min of 7 spells (counting from Doomsday onward)
Meditate
Lotus Petal/Deathmark/Sensei's Divining Top#2
Dark Ritual/Lion's Eye Diamond
Dark Ritual/Lion's Eye Diamond
Tendrils of Agony
If your draw spell is Brainstorm or Ponder, you need Dark Rituals instead of Lion's Eye Diamonds and the total cost is 2UUBBB. If you use Deathmark in this way, the total cost will be 2UUBBBB.
If your draw spell is Sensei's Divining Top the minimum pile can use Dark Rituals or Lion's Eye Diamonds (you either Med into SDT/Rit/Rit/Petal or SDT/LED/LED/Petal, in either case you can play SDT with at least BBBB left over) and costs 2UBBB. If you have Deathmark, you need to use one Dark Ritual and one Lion's Eye Diamond and the pile will cost 2UBBBB. If you use a second Sensei's Divining Top, you can generate lots of extra storm with a minimum of 9 spells (from Doomsday onward) and each mana beyond the 4UBBB gives you one storm.
"the igg pile"
Cost: 1U + SDT in play/Brainstorm in hand + 2 extra cards
Results: min of 11 spells (counting from Doomsday on)
The idea here is that you setup a situation where you will Brainstorm into SDT + 2x LED and put back 2 random cards knowing the third card is IGG. You'll play SDT, play the LEDs, then break them for UUUBBB. You use B to spin SDT and put IGG on top of your deck. You cash in SDT to get IGG and play it with U floating to return Brainstorm and 2x LED. You play these to get SDT which you play then spin + cash in to get your lethal Tendrils.
The notable variations to this pile involve having extras of the combo pieces in hand in addition to the 2 random cards. For example, 2 cards + LED with SDT in play/Brainstorm in hand makes the pile only cost U. The catch is that you replace the second LED in the pile with a Lotus Petal so you have mana to replay SDT. IGG or Tendrils can be in your hand as one of the two random cards.
"igg pass the turn pile"
This usually costs 1U (SDT) or UU (Ponder) and makes a min of 10 spells (SDT) or 9 spells (Ponder). It goes like this:
Cost: BBB then you need UU or 1U + 1 card hand + one of the 6 cards that goes in the pile NEXT TURN.
Results: min of 9-10 spells
The non-storm pile is a means for cheating a fattie (usually emraku) into play for next to nothing. It requires just that you resolve Doomsday then can either wait the two turns to play shelldock then untap with it, or to draw into shelldock isle somehow and play it this turn so you only pass once. This pile looks like this:
Shelldock Isle
CARD
CARD
Emrakul/Fattie
CARD
I say Fattie because there are times when putting Blazing Archon into the pile and recurring Doomsday into Doomsday alternating with Tendrils of Agony is a good plan (say, your opponent is at a high life total or has too many permanents for emrakul to handle).
Most of the time, your cards will want to be either Force of Wills/Misdirections or a combination of Lotus Petals/Lands, Dark Ritual, Doomsday, and Tendrils of Agony. The former lets you deal with things like edicts or late stifles while the later can play through wastelands before shelldock isle (Petal/land), wastelands on shelldock isle (Rit+Doomsday), more than 6 permanents, more than 30 life, less than 2 turns worth of cards in your library (Doomsday), or just kill your opponent from 19-21 in a single attack (15 from Emrakul + 4-6 point Tendrils).
I'll post more about how to play these matchups and reasoning on these choices in the next few days. Also, I plan on talking about why I play certain cards and not othrs, why I chose certain numbers, and generally why you shouldn't modify my list without extensive testing (as I've done a lot of it).
For now, this is what I'm play, what I'm siding, and how I'm siding in major matchups:
God I love the name of this deck. And nice primer.
The build I'm messing around with is playing Spell Pierce SB in the Duress slot. How has the proactive disruption been working for you?
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Quote from "Warden" »
rsaunder has beautiful eyes. Think of a sunset, sunrise, and cool breeze at the beach rolled into one moment. Now make that moment blue...because those are his eyes
In certain matchups (Zoo for example), you want to become a Tendrils deck so you side out Forces for Duress. In most other matchups, they are roughly equivalent.
Or show and tell. The deck runs enough bombs and ample ways to tutor for them that it's almost impossible to hate out.
Stifle's good against both though.
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rsaunder has beautiful eyes. Think of a sunset, sunrise, and cool breeze at the beach rolled into one moment. Now make that moment blue...because those are his eyes
Stifle beats both Doomsday kills (although you can play around that postboard with both and preboard if you have a particular hand (i.e. not using LED) in the storm kill).
Sower of Temptation beats the Show and Tell plan. This has been the biggest setback during that route so far.
Wasteland is good vs Doomsday->Shelldock Isle if you know to wait for the Shelldock Isle. Most players see something like Underground Sea->Dark Ritual->Doomsday, pass and immediately waste the Sea if they have it with the sound logic of "he just lost half of his life, stacked his deck, and will probably kill me next turn unless I do something". This makes it extremely profitable to fetch out Sea if going off turn one and then stack an Underground Sea as the card you draw when you untap with Shelldock Isle (that'll let you activate shelldock isle and let you doomsday or tendrils next turn if necessary).
Teeg is good vs the Storm kill game one. Canonist is good vs it all the time. Both of these fall prey to a 15/15 flyer with pro colored spells and annihilator 6.
Mindbreak Trap is good vs the storm kill, but it's grossly misplayed and I often find myself beating aggro players who look for the flashy play of counting my Tendrils instead of my Doomsday or Meditate and then lose to a stacked Duress.
The deck has weaknesses, but it's difficult to exploit these weaknesses fast enough with a clock and in a manner that doesn't just leave you completely vulnerable to the other engine.
the more i read about this deck, the more complex it looks like.
have your playtests gave good results for this deck?
I'm very positive thus far against aggro (zoo, goblins) and have won the few games I've played against chalice aggro. Not much time devoted to testing with finals, but the deck is a beast.
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rsaunder has beautiful eyes. Think of a sunset, sunrise, and cool breeze at the beach rolled into one moment. Now make that moment blue...because those are his eyes
I agree with the exchange of IGG for a Vault. It alters the core of the deck the least of the available options. Multiple Vaults clog up your hand and the ability to play turn one Doomsday and win the next turn (as apposed to waiting a turn to play Emrakul) is very helpful versus aggro. I also have gone back to Duress over Spell Pierce after losing two games in a row to burn in the middle of a Doomsday pile after I'd had to dump my Force and blue card to LED.
As far as things you don't want to see come down off a Show and Tell go, I've lost to Oblivion Ring, Stingscourger, a third merfolk lord, and a third Piledriver. I also am not running four additional dudes to drop in the board, though, so the additional time it takes to set S&T up may be what is killing me. I have had good success boarding in 2 Cabal Rituals and 3 Infernal Tutor to improve the Tendrils plan against aggro game two, particularly after winning with Emrakul game one.
Blazing Archon is unreal good vs Merfolk. They sometimes have spot removal like Seal of Removal or STP, but it generally leaves if you drop Doomsday/LED or try to go off with Dark Rit (i.e. show that you're storm) in game one (even if you're unsuccessful, it's important to let them know that you are storm combo). It might actually be worth playing 3 Blazing Archon/1 Emrakul in the sideboard because dropping it against Merfolk is just that strong.
I don't think the deck really needs that much help vs aggro. You can goldfish on turn 2-3 pretty consistently with Doomsday for Tendrils with IGG in the deck. Duress helps vs burn/mindbreak trap and is generally favored over Force in the aggro matchups. IMO, you want Duress + Deathmark + whatever bounce you have in vs aggro in postboard games unless you're on the play and want to go for the Force/Misd Emrakul plan (that I outlined in the sideboard guide).
If you're going to side in stuff to improve the aggro match, you're going to want 1 Rain of Fitlh, X Cabal Rit + Y Infernal Tutor where X+1 > Y. Extra acceleration helps you win faster with Doomsday in addition to enabling Infernal Tutor. Extra Infernal Tutors just cost a lot of mana to win with (vs Doomsday). With 4 Doomsday, 7 topdeck tutors, you shouldn't be having issues finding the Doomsday you need to combo with anyway. The reasoning behind Rain of Filth is that it lets you combo out with the same net mana as Cabal Rit (most of the time you'll have at least 2 lands on turn 2) while not occupying your blue source which is critical to casting Meditate or a blue cantrip to win the game with.
I agree with the exchange of IGG for a Vault. It alters the core of the deck the least of the available options. Multiple Vaults clog up your hand and the ability to play turn one Doomsday and win the next turn (as apposed to waiting a turn to play Emrakul) is very helpful versus aggro. I also have gone back to Duress over Spell Pierce after losing two games in a row to burn in the middle of a Doomsday pile after I'd had to dump my Force and blue card to LED.
As far as things you don't want to see come down off a Show and Tell go, I've lost to Oblivion Ring, Stingscourger, a third merfolk lord, and a third Piledriver. I also am not running four additional dudes to drop in the board, though, so the additional time it takes to set S&T up may be what is killing me. I have had good success boarding in 2 Cabal Rituals and 3 Infernal Tutor to improve the Tendrils plan against aggro game two, particularly after winning with Emrakul game one.
In case of aggro decks like Merfolks and Goblins, i think it's better to put an Blazing Archon into play than Emrakul.
And what about control and other combo decks, the deck had good results?
In case of aggro decks like Merfolks and Goblins, i think it's better to put an Blazing Archon into play than Emrakul.
And what about control and other combo decks, the deck had good results?
Control decks are mostly a joke. Seriously, play some matches vs NO Bant, Bant Survival, or Supreme Blue.
Combo decks depend on the combo and the sideboard, but ANT is put on a serious clock by DD and has an extremely rough time postboard. Reanimator isn't as much of a cakewalk without Leylines in the sideboard, but your disruption is equal to theirs while your combo is a one card combo that will largely ignore any creature they play (they'd need Iona on Blue + Blazing Archon to stop you from Doomsday into Emrakul + Wipe Away). Extirpate is also tutorable for this matchup. Belcher can be raced if they go for ETW and you have the ability to Force belcher in g1. Postboard, you have Duresses as well.
Dredge can be raced fairly well and disruption in the force of Force/Duress on their draw spells is really hard for them to beat. Extirpate on Narcomoeba probably gives you 1-2 to win.
I'm liking the deck emidlin I'm going to have to sleeve it up and test it.
Against gobbos I don't like blazing archon the most....stingscourger bounces it is the problem and it doesn't solve siege gang commander. I love it against merfolk seeing as how they run little to no removal for it depending on the list.
How could you lose to oblivion ring when you have emrakul in play again? It has pro colored spells and o ring targets while it is on the stack which it can't do obviously against emrakul.
An early emrakul against aggro is fine especially if you get it turn 1 off show and tell. If you shelldock isle it in on turn 3 it is also fine because you cast it netting you a time walk effect and you probably wipe their board with annihilator 6 and if not how will they recover anyway.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
How could you lose to oblivion ring when you have emrakul in play again? It has pro colored spells and o ring targets while it is on the stack which it can't do obviously against emrakul.
O-Ring doesn't actually target anything when it is on the stack. It has a triggered ability when it comes into play, which allows it to hit Emrakul.
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"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire." —Jaya Ballard, task mage
My problem is always finding something to draw into Doomsday with when I don't have Top. I suppose I'm probably doing it wrong with regard to how I play out my cantrips. Rain of Filth is a good call; I'd forgotten about that card, as it just made it to MODO. I'll drop an Infernal for one. I also board in the Tendrils stuff against apposing storm decks; I figure I can goldfish through their disruption faster than they can through mine, and Doomsday for the Emarakul pile against a competent player is scary as hell.
The main aggro decks on MODO at the moment are Goblins and Death & Taxes, both of which play multiple answers to S&T>Blazing Archon. I leave in a miser S&T against D&T to tutor for in case I draw Emrakul, but overall I've found it easier/less nerve wracking to just kill them with Tendrils. It does seem like the nuts against Merfolk, though.
not to rain on the parade of this deck and its fans, but wouldnt it jsut be better to play doomsday tendrils instead? i mean this deck rolls over to one of the most common cards in the format, wasteland, and if they do that you lost already. if you want to protect your build run 4x stifles in the main. but other then that it looks very interesting to say the least, but theres no way this is as consistant as people claim it to be.
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currently playing:
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends
not to rain on the parade of this deck and its fans, but wouldnt it jsut be better to play doomsday tendrils instead? i mean this deck rolls over to one of the most common cards in the format, wasteland, and if they do that you lost already. if you want to protect your build run 4x stifles in the main. but other then that it looks very interesting to say the least, but theres no way this is as consistant as people claim it to be.
Show and Tell doesn't lose to Wasteland. Tendrils of Agony doesn't lose to Wasteland. I play both. I have to wonder if you even looked at the list, let alone did something like goldfish it or, gasp, play a couple games.
If you're going to try to force the shelldock isle plan instead of just switching to an unaffected kill condition, you want Pithing Needle. Needle doubles as a solution to planeswalkers. It's still not worth running.
P.S. I created and documented Legacy Doomsday Tendrils.
first, i have not tried the list yet, and i'm not very experienced with storm. but this list actually makes me want to start.
but i have a quesiton..
wouldn't it be better to run 4 ponder/2 top instead of 4 top/2 ponder?
whats the reasoning?
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1.) Anyone who thinks cancel is viable should be shot. in the face. with a hammer.
2.) You misunderstand, what I was suggesting was the total exclusion of Spellstutter Sprite, because it just isnt that good anymore.
3.) Understand, Dredge is not really a Magic: The Gathering deck. When a card is playable in it, it doesn't mean it's a tournament playable card. It means it's playable in whatever crazy fantasy world that Dredge operates in.
first, i have not tried the list yet, and i'm not very experienced with storm. but this list actually makes me want to start.
but i have a quesiton..
wouldn't it be better to run 4 ponder/2 top instead of 4 top/2 ponder?
whats the reasoning?
SDT enables the cheapest Doomsday piles while providing filtering. Ponder costs one more than SDT (due to playing SDT before the combo turn) and interacts in a worse way with the IGG pile (i.e. doesn't enable it).
emidln, have you ever considered a single copy of Amulet of Vigor or Pithing Needle as "utility" for Doomsday into Shelldock Isle/Emrakul when you want to speed up the kill or play around Wasteland/Karakas? Or have you always been able to just use the Storm combo kill or Show and Tell cheat in those situations anyway, obviating the need for those cards (which are pretty narrow)?
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
Show and Tell doesn't lose to Wasteland. Tendrils of Agony doesn't lose to Wasteland. I play both. I have to wonder if you even looked at the list, let alone did something like goldfish it or, gasp, play a couple games.
If you're going to try to force the shelldock isle plan instead of just switching to an unaffected kill condition, you want Pithing Needle. Needle doubles as a solution to planeswalkers. It's still not worth running.
P.S. I created and documented Legacy Doomsday Tendrils.
Utterly owned.
@ Topic, the deck is stronger than current ANT lists against the current metagame. Which is pretty damn scary. The four defensive forces and five maindeck must-counter spells give it very solid protection against control decks (and other combo decks), as does the redundant elements. Thorn of Amethyst or even Chalice @ various makes it harder to win, but doesn't lock the game out necessarily. Oh, and it's still fast enough to have a solid aggro matchup.
I'm working on this deck and ways to counter this deck right now.
Rules Question: How does Doomsday interact with Aven Mindcensor? You get the top 4 cards of your library + your graveyard to work with, right?
Show and Tell doesn't lose to Wasteland. Tendrils of Agony doesn't lose to Wasteland. I play both. I have to wonder if you even looked at the list, let alone did something like goldfish it or, gasp, play a couple games.
If you're going to try to force the shelldock isle plan instead of just switching to an unaffected kill condition, you want Pithing Needle. Needle doubles as a solution to planeswalkers. It's still not worth running.
P.S. I created and documented Legacy Doomsday Tendrils.
shelldock dies to wasteland as it sits around for a turn waiting to be used. show and tell is hardly reliable in this build since you have no way to tutor up your bomb to drop in. outside of sheer luck with show and tell there is hardly any way this deck can pull a win out of thin air. against naya zoo and goblins sure you can prob pull off a win but against merfolk, countertop decks, landstill, and ANT you roll over to either their sheer speed and better control. anything with hand hate or resource denail completely ruins your deck.
ive tested this on MWS and proxied up what idont have in sleeves and tested and came to these results:
naya Zoo: 70/30 in your favor
domain Zoo: 60/40 in your favor
goblins: 80/20 in your favor
landstill: 40/60 their favor
countertop: 30/70 their favor
countertopNO: 20/80 their favor
dredge: 10/90 them game one then depends on your board picks
ANT: 10/90 in their favor
merfolk: 40/60 their favor
aggroLoam: 50/50
4x.lands: 70/30 your favor
in conclusion i think its worth playing every now and then if your playing againt nonskilled players
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currently playing:
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends
Amulet of Vigor uses the stack, people can respond to the ability by using Wasteland.
I've seen people use Cloud of Fearies in their doomsday stack to immediately untap.
Sorry, I meant play Amulet of Vigor when you want to speed up the kill by one turn (for instance, you're racing), or Pithing Needle against hate like Wasteland and Karakas. Of course, Amulet works fine against a tapped Wasteland.
Both have narrow functions, but both can be played preemptively if you draw into them, so they're not entirely dead and can save you a mana the turn you want to "go off".
I'm sure emidln's tested a lot of cards that didn't make his cut, but I was wondering more specifically about these guys at least as one-ofs in the sideboard.
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
show and tell is hardly reliable in this build since you have no way to tutor up your bomb to drop in.
You mean except Lim-Dul's Vault? Or Mystical -> Tutor to Lim-Dul's Vault since you have all day long against blue decks to make that happen (hint: opening show and tell + mystical tutor is almost always a turn 1 mystical->ldv).
naya Zoo: 70/30 in your favor
domain Zoo: 60/40 in your favor
goblins: 80/20 in your favor
landstill: 40/60 their favor
countertop: 30/70 their favor
countertopNO: 20/80 their favor
dredge: 10/90 them game one then depends on your board picks
ANT: 10/90 in their favor
merfolk: 40/60 their favor
aggroLoam: 50/50
4x.lands: 70/30 your favor
AHAHAHAHA
CB and CB w/NO are so far in your favor that I'd be impressed if you dropped 3 out of every 10 matches. It's not even hard to beat CB as all it requires is resolving a three mana spell, unlike the aggro matches where you must actually do math and know your deck to construct the right Doomsday pile. Their namesake card does very little here and you force them into a stack war in early turns that they are far from prepared to handle. Postboard, it becomes even more of a slaughter as you'll consistently turn 2-3 a bomb with multiple protection while they just sit there and wish you were still playing ANT.
If you think Dredge is 10% game one you didn't even play the deck. They will lose every game you open up Force of Will and blue card. They're not fast enough to race you if you counter a discard outlet/draw spell. Worse for them, they'll lose games where you Tendrils them out turn 2. This is without dedicated yard hate like Rav Trap or Leyline.
Aggro Loam doesn't have an answer to Show and Tell. You can Force their chalices or ignore them en-route to dropping Show and Tell->Emrakul off basics in every game. Their solution to this is praying you don't have countermagic. Further, if they don't lead with Chalice, they can't beat Tendrils.
Landstill is a legitimate issue as they can drop Humility of Show and Tell and Tendrils plan isn't that great vs them in game one. Luckily, they give you all day to sculpt a hand that duresses a couple times into Doomsday. Also lucky for us, Landstill is awful in the metagame and rarely sees play at the top tables.
in conclusion i think its worth playing every now and then if your playing againt nonskilled players
In conclusion, you don't know what you're talking about.
Rules Question: How does Doomsday interact with Aven Mindcensor? You get the top 4 cards of your library + your graveyard to work with, right? I believe so. You'd have your top 4 cards + any cards already in your graveyard as Doomsday is resolving. It's worth noting that, should your library and graveyard total less than 5 cards, you pick as many cards as you have available to you, but you have to try to satisfy the 5 if cards still exist to choose from.
As to whether a 3 CMC solution to a turn 1-2 play is viable, well, I guess that depends on how many Dazes/Spell Pierces you have to play through. I'd guess that it would be a pain in the ass from UW Tempo though.
I'm sure emidln's tested a lot of cards that didn't make his cut, but I was wondering more specifically about these guys at least as one-ofs in the sideboard.
Pithing Needle was tested. It's okay if you don't have S&T as a backup plan (for instance, in the early incarnations of this deck) and you need to force S&T where storm isn't an option (or you just have some spare mana and want to beat Wasteland I guess). The issue with Pithing Needle is that you end up needing a cantrip to make it workable and if that cantrip is Brainstorm/Ponder, you're forced into using Dark Rit + Doomsday to restack your deck unless your opponent is at 19 or less (Emrakul + Rit+Tendrils). If you're not using SDT, it can get mana intensive as you'll need cantrip mana + land drop + 1.
For Doomsday to win this turn with Amulet you need BBB + 1UU + Land Drop + 1 random card in hand. Like it's possible, but I don't know that it's worth the slots. That's really resource-intensive. I haven't actually tested this yet, but the theory doesn't really point to something I want.
P.S. An example of other stuff I've tested: Counterbalance was hilarious in the original builds, but I decided that I was comfortable enough with 8+ disruption and a fast clock vs ANT, Reanimator, and Belcher. If really necessary, these could come back, but I don't know that we need the help that much. ANT is close to a coin flip already and Reanimator is favorable. I'm also unsure if Counterbalance is that much better than siding in an equivalent number of Iona.
This is a deck I've been working on for awhile now. It's a turn 3 UB combo deck with a strong manabase, the best manipulation in the game, and the ability to kill on turn 1 and 2. It plays gameplans that are assembled in the same fashion for very little mana but are hated on in drastically different ways.
The two gameplans:
(A) Cheat Emrakul (or another relevant fatty) into Play
(B) Play a lethal Tendrils of Agony
You have two ways to accomplish (A):
(1) Doomsday into Shelldock Isle
(2) Show and Tell
(B) is almost always accomplished with Doomsday. Doomsday has a couple major Doomsday piles (with hundreds of variations) and a many situational piles. It's a mass tutor that can be used, if you know your deck very well, to pull yourself out of extremely bad situations and manufacture wins out of thin air.
Quickly, I'll go over the main doomsday storm piles:
"the Meditate pile"
Cost: 2U+BBB+CantripMana
Results: min of 7 spells (counting from Doomsday onward)
Meditate
Lotus Petal/Deathmark/Sensei's Divining Top#2
Dark Ritual/Lion's Eye Diamond
Dark Ritual/Lion's Eye Diamond
Tendrils of Agony
If your draw spell is Brainstorm or Ponder, you need Dark Rituals instead of Lion's Eye Diamonds and the total cost is 2UUBBB. If you use Deathmark in this way, the total cost will be 2UUBBBB.
If your draw spell is Sensei's Divining Top the minimum pile can use Dark Rituals or Lion's Eye Diamonds (you either Med into SDT/Rit/Rit/Petal or SDT/LED/LED/Petal, in either case you can play SDT with at least BBBB left over) and costs 2UBBB. If you have Deathmark, you need to use one Dark Ritual and one Lion's Eye Diamond and the pile will cost 2UBBBB. If you use a second Sensei's Divining Top, you can generate lots of extra storm with a minimum of 9 spells (from Doomsday onward) and each mana beyond the 4UBBB gives you one storm.
"the igg pile"
Cost: 1U + SDT in play/Brainstorm in hand + 2 extra cards
Results: min of 11 spells (counting from Doomsday on)
Sensei's Divining Top/Brainstorm
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Ill-Gotten Gains
Tendrils of Agony
The idea here is that you setup a situation where you will Brainstorm into SDT + 2x LED and put back 2 random cards knowing the third card is IGG. You'll play SDT, play the LEDs, then break them for UUUBBB. You use B to spin SDT and put IGG on top of your deck. You cash in SDT to get IGG and play it with U floating to return Brainstorm and 2x LED. You play these to get SDT which you play then spin + cash in to get your lethal Tendrils.
The notable variations to this pile involve having extras of the combo pieces in hand in addition to the 2 random cards. For example, 2 cards + LED with SDT in play/Brainstorm in hand makes the pile only cost U. The catch is that you replace the second LED in the pile with a Lotus Petal so you have mana to replay SDT. IGG or Tendrils can be in your hand as one of the two random cards.
"igg pass the turn pile"
This usually costs 1U (SDT) or UU (Ponder) and makes a min of 10 spells (SDT) or 9 spells (Ponder). It goes like this:
Cost: BBB then you need UU or 1U + 1 card hand + one of the 6 cards that goes in the pile NEXT TURN.
Results: min of 9-10 spells
The stack should look like this:
Brainstorm
Sensei's Divining Top/Ponder
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Ill-Gotten Gains
Tendrils of Agony
Just remove whatever card is in your hand and that's your pile.
For more information about Doomsday piles for storm generation, see the storm boards (teamstormboards.proboards.com) and the document that I coauthored at http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ae...M3Y1OWM5&hl=en
The non-storm pile is a means for cheating a fattie (usually emraku) into play for next to nothing. It requires just that you resolve Doomsday then can either wait the two turns to play shelldock then untap with it, or to draw into shelldock isle somehow and play it this turn so you only pass once. This pile looks like this:
Shelldock Isle
CARD
CARD
Emrakul/Fattie
CARD
I say Fattie because there are times when putting Blazing Archon into the pile and recurring Doomsday into Doomsday alternating with Tendrils of Agony is a good plan (say, your opponent is at a high life total or has too many permanents for emrakul to handle).
Most of the time, your cards will want to be either Force of Wills/Misdirections or a combination of Lotus Petals/Lands, Dark Ritual, Doomsday, and Tendrils of Agony. The former lets you deal with things like edicts or late stifles while the later can play through wastelands before shelldock isle (Petal/land), wastelands on shelldock isle (Rit+Doomsday), more than 6 permanents, more than 30 life, less than 2 turns worth of cards in your library (Doomsday), or just kill your opponent from 19-21 in a single attack (15 from Emrakul + 4-6 point Tendrils).
I'll post more about how to play these matchups and reasoning on these choices in the next few days. Also, I plan on talking about why I play certain cards and not othrs, why I chose certain numbers, and generally why you shouldn't modify my list without extensive testing (as I've done a lot of it).
For now, this is what I'm play, what I'm siding, and how I'm siding in major matchups:
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Shelldock Isle
Acceleration:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Force of Will
Manipulation:
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
1 Meditate
Tutors:
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
Bomby:
4 Doomsday
3 Show and Tell
End the Game:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Duress
3 Misdirection
1 Extirpate
1 Deathmark
1 Wipe Away
1 Show and Tell
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Blazing Archon
// Sideboard Plans
vs Zoo
Play:
-3 Show and Tell
+1 Deathmark
+2 Misdirection
Draw:
-4 Force of Will
-1 Shelldock Isle
-1 Lim-Dul's Vault
-1 Island
+4 Duress
+1 Deathmark
+2 Emrakul
vs Merfolk
-4 Doomsday
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains
-1 Shelldock Isle
-1 Dark Ritual
+4 Duress
+3 Misdirection
+1 Show and Tell
+2 Emrakul
+2 Blazing Archon
vs Counterbalance
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains
-1 Meditate
-1 Mystical Tutor
-2 Ponder
+4 Duress
+3 Misdirection
+1 Show and Tell
+2 Emrakul
vs Reanimator
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Ill-Gotten gains
-1 Meditate
-2 Lim-Dul's Vault
-1 Show and Tell
-2 Ponder
+4 Duress
+3 Misdirection
+2 Emrakul
+1 Blazing Archon
+1 Extirpate
+1 Wipe Away
vs UB Saito ANT
-3 Show and Tell
-1 Lim-Dul's Vault
+4 Duress
The build I'm messing around with is playing Spell Pierce SB in the Duress slot. How has the proactive disruption been working for you?
I'm here to kick ass and play card games.
BZK Level 4 Bad Guy
Consistently smashing blue games one, two, and three.
Stifle's good against both though.
I'm here to kick ass and play card games.
BZK Level 4 Bad Guy
Sower of Temptation beats the Show and Tell plan. This has been the biggest setback during that route so far.
Wasteland is good vs Doomsday->Shelldock Isle if you know to wait for the Shelldock Isle. Most players see something like Underground Sea->Dark Ritual->Doomsday, pass and immediately waste the Sea if they have it with the sound logic of "he just lost half of his life, stacked his deck, and will probably kill me next turn unless I do something". This makes it extremely profitable to fetch out Sea if going off turn one and then stack an Underground Sea as the card you draw when you untap with Shelldock Isle (that'll let you activate shelldock isle and let you doomsday or tendrils next turn if necessary).
Teeg is good vs the Storm kill game one. Canonist is good vs it all the time. Both of these fall prey to a 15/15 flyer with pro colored spells and annihilator 6.
Mindbreak Trap is good vs the storm kill, but it's grossly misplayed and I often find myself beating aggro players who look for the flashy play of counting my Tendrils instead of my Doomsday or Meditate and then lose to a stacked Duress.
The deck has weaknesses, but it's difficult to exploit these weaknesses fast enough with a clock and in a manner that doesn't just leave you completely vulnerable to the other engine.
have your playtests gave good results for this deck?
On DeTora's extra land drop on PT:GTC
I'm very positive thus far against aggro (zoo, goblins) and have won the few games I've played against chalice aggro. Not much time devoted to testing with finals, but the deck is a beast.
I'm here to kick ass and play card games.
BZK Level 4 Bad Guy
As far as things you don't want to see come down off a Show and Tell go, I've lost to Oblivion Ring, Stingscourger, a third merfolk lord, and a third Piledriver. I also am not running four additional dudes to drop in the board, though, so the additional time it takes to set S&T up may be what is killing me. I have had good success boarding in 2 Cabal Rituals and 3 Infernal Tutor to improve the Tendrils plan against aggro game two, particularly after winning with Emrakul game one.
I don't think the deck really needs that much help vs aggro. You can goldfish on turn 2-3 pretty consistently with Doomsday for Tendrils with IGG in the deck. Duress helps vs burn/mindbreak trap and is generally favored over Force in the aggro matchups. IMO, you want Duress + Deathmark + whatever bounce you have in vs aggro in postboard games unless you're on the play and want to go for the Force/Misd Emrakul plan (that I outlined in the sideboard guide).
If you're going to side in stuff to improve the aggro match, you're going to want 1 Rain of Fitlh, X Cabal Rit + Y Infernal Tutor where X+1 > Y. Extra acceleration helps you win faster with Doomsday in addition to enabling Infernal Tutor. Extra Infernal Tutors just cost a lot of mana to win with (vs Doomsday). With 4 Doomsday, 7 topdeck tutors, you shouldn't be having issues finding the Doomsday you need to combo with anyway. The reasoning behind Rain of Filth is that it lets you combo out with the same net mana as Cabal Rit (most of the time you'll have at least 2 lands on turn 2) while not occupying your blue source which is critical to casting Meditate or a blue cantrip to win the game with.
In case of aggro decks like Merfolks and Goblins, i think it's better to put an Blazing Archon into play than Emrakul.
And what about control and other combo decks, the deck had good results?
On DeTora's extra land drop on PT:GTC
Control decks are mostly a joke. Seriously, play some matches vs NO Bant, Bant Survival, or Supreme Blue.
Combo decks depend on the combo and the sideboard, but ANT is put on a serious clock by DD and has an extremely rough time postboard. Reanimator isn't as much of a cakewalk without Leylines in the sideboard, but your disruption is equal to theirs while your combo is a one card combo that will largely ignore any creature they play (they'd need Iona on Blue + Blazing Archon to stop you from Doomsday into Emrakul + Wipe Away). Extirpate is also tutorable for this matchup. Belcher can be raced if they go for ETW and you have the ability to Force belcher in g1. Postboard, you have Duresses as well.
Dredge can be raced fairly well and disruption in the force of Force/Duress on their draw spells is really hard for them to beat. Extirpate on Narcomoeba probably gives you 1-2 to win.
Against gobbos I don't like blazing archon the most....stingscourger bounces it is the problem and it doesn't solve siege gang commander. I love it against merfolk seeing as how they run little to no removal for it depending on the list.
How could you lose to oblivion ring when you have emrakul in play again? It has pro colored spells and o ring targets while it is on the stack which it can't do obviously against emrakul.
An early emrakul against aggro is fine especially if you get it turn 1 off show and tell. If you shelldock isle it in on turn 3 it is also fine because you cast it netting you a time walk effect and you probably wipe their board with annihilator 6 and if not how will they recover anyway.
Currently Playing:
Retired
O-Ring doesn't actually target anything when it is on the stack. It has a triggered ability when it comes into play, which allows it to hit Emrakul.
The main aggro decks on MODO at the moment are Goblins and Death & Taxes, both of which play multiple answers to S&T>Blazing Archon. I leave in a miser S&T against D&T to tutor for in case I draw Emrakul, but overall I've found it easier/less nerve wracking to just kill them with Tendrils. It does seem like the nuts against Merfolk, though.
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends
Show and Tell doesn't lose to Wasteland. Tendrils of Agony doesn't lose to Wasteland. I play both. I have to wonder if you even looked at the list, let alone did something like goldfish it or, gasp, play a couple games.
If you're going to try to force the shelldock isle plan instead of just switching to an unaffected kill condition, you want Pithing Needle. Needle doubles as a solution to planeswalkers. It's still not worth running.
P.S. I created and documented Legacy Doomsday Tendrils.
but i have a quesiton..
wouldn't it be better to run 4 ponder/2 top instead of 4 top/2 ponder?
whats the reasoning?
SDT enables the cheapest Doomsday piles while providing filtering. Ponder costs one more than SDT (due to playing SDT before the combo turn) and interacts in a worse way with the IGG pile (i.e. doesn't enable it).
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingUtterly owned.
@ Topic, the deck is stronger than current ANT lists against the current metagame. Which is pretty damn scary. The four defensive forces and five maindeck must-counter spells give it very solid protection against control decks (and other combo decks), as does the redundant elements. Thorn of Amethyst or even Chalice @ various makes it harder to win, but doesn't lock the game out necessarily. Oh, and it's still fast enough to have a solid aggro matchup.
I'm working on this deck and ways to counter this deck right now.
Rules Question: How does Doomsday interact with Aven Mindcensor? You get the top 4 cards of your library + your graveyard to work with, right?
shelldock dies to wasteland as it sits around for a turn waiting to be used. show and tell is hardly reliable in this build since you have no way to tutor up your bomb to drop in. outside of sheer luck with show and tell there is hardly any way this deck can pull a win out of thin air. against naya zoo and goblins sure you can prob pull off a win but against merfolk, countertop decks, landstill, and ANT you roll over to either their sheer speed and better control. anything with hand hate or resource denail completely ruins your deck.
ive tested this on MWS and proxied up what idont have in sleeves and tested and came to these results:
naya Zoo: 70/30 in your favor
domain Zoo: 60/40 in your favor
goblins: 80/20 in your favor
landstill: 40/60 their favor
countertop: 30/70 their favor
countertopNO: 20/80 their favor
dredge: 10/90 them game one then depends on your board picks
ANT: 10/90 in their favor
merfolk: 40/60 their favor
aggroLoam: 50/50
4x.lands: 70/30 your favor
in conclusion i think its worth playing every now and then if your playing againt nonskilled players
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends
Sorry, I meant play Amulet of Vigor when you want to speed up the kill by one turn (for instance, you're racing), or Pithing Needle against hate like Wasteland and Karakas. Of course, Amulet works fine against a tapped Wasteland.
Both have narrow functions, but both can be played preemptively if you draw into them, so they're not entirely dead and can save you a mana the turn you want to "go off".
I'm sure emidln's tested a lot of cards that didn't make his cut, but I was wondering more specifically about these guys at least as one-ofs in the sideboard.
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingYou mean except Lim-Dul's Vault? Or Mystical -> Tutor to Lim-Dul's Vault since you have all day long against blue decks to make that happen (hint: opening show and tell + mystical tutor is almost always a turn 1 mystical->ldv).
AHAHAHAHA
CB and CB w/NO are so far in your favor that I'd be impressed if you dropped 3 out of every 10 matches. It's not even hard to beat CB as all it requires is resolving a three mana spell, unlike the aggro matches where you must actually do math and know your deck to construct the right Doomsday pile. Their namesake card does very little here and you force them into a stack war in early turns that they are far from prepared to handle. Postboard, it becomes even more of a slaughter as you'll consistently turn 2-3 a bomb with multiple protection while they just sit there and wish you were still playing ANT.
If you think Dredge is 10% game one you didn't even play the deck. They will lose every game you open up Force of Will and blue card. They're not fast enough to race you if you counter a discard outlet/draw spell. Worse for them, they'll lose games where you Tendrils them out turn 2. This is without dedicated yard hate like Rav Trap or Leyline.
Aggro Loam doesn't have an answer to Show and Tell. You can Force their chalices or ignore them en-route to dropping Show and Tell->Emrakul off basics in every game. Their solution to this is praying you don't have countermagic. Further, if they don't lead with Chalice, they can't beat Tendrils.
Landstill is a legitimate issue as they can drop Humility of Show and Tell and Tendrils plan isn't that great vs them in game one. Luckily, they give you all day to sculpt a hand that duresses a couple times into Doomsday. Also lucky for us, Landstill is awful in the metagame and rarely sees play at the top tables.
In conclusion, you don't know what you're talking about.
As to whether a 3 CMC solution to a turn 1-2 play is viable, well, I guess that depends on how many Dazes/Spell Pierces you have to play through. I'd guess that it would be a pain in the ass from UW Tempo though.
Pithing Needle was tested. It's okay if you don't have S&T as a backup plan (for instance, in the early incarnations of this deck) and you need to force S&T where storm isn't an option (or you just have some spare mana and want to beat Wasteland I guess). The issue with Pithing Needle is that you end up needing a cantrip to make it workable and if that cantrip is Brainstorm/Ponder, you're forced into using Dark Rit + Doomsday to restack your deck unless your opponent is at 19 or less (Emrakul + Rit+Tendrils). If you're not using SDT, it can get mana intensive as you'll need cantrip mana + land drop + 1.
For Doomsday to win this turn with Amulet you need BBB + 1UU + Land Drop + 1 random card in hand. Like it's possible, but I don't know that it's worth the slots. That's really resource-intensive. I haven't actually tested this yet, but the theory doesn't really point to something I want.
P.S. An example of other stuff I've tested: Counterbalance was hilarious in the original builds, but I decided that I was comfortable enough with 8+ disruption and a fast clock vs ANT, Reanimator, and Belcher. If really necessary, these could come back, but I don't know that we need the help that much. ANT is close to a coin flip already and Reanimator is favorable. I'm also unsure if Counterbalance is that much better than siding in an equivalent number of Iona.