I went to a small Vintage tournament today and brought my Doomsday-Oath deck, which I like to call Druid's Doom (but not out loud). I've been working on the deck for quite a while now, and had just acquired enough pieces of it to put me under the 15-proxy limit. So it was time to test it for real. First, a few words about the deck:
Doomsday was my first love in Vintage, but it just has a terrible matchup against Shops. Oath does not have such a bad matchup against Shops. Since both decks can use the same creature as their win condition, I pretty much just slapped the two decks together. After some tweaking I came up with this list:
I wouldn't say that either win condition is the primary one. As you'll see in the report section, I won more with Doomsday, but in testing I tended to win moreoften with Oath. Which one you go for is very situational. Typically whichever is easier/shows up first is the one you go for. When presented with both, you have to consider your options. Usually, I find that baiting out counterspells with Oath and then winning with Doosmday is a good way to go, since Oath is less all-in, so you're safer if it ends up resolving. In general, Oath is a safer win and Doomsday is a quicker and more powerful, but more fragile win. It is also possible to combine the two. With an Oath out,a DDay pile like [Ancestral, Lotus, Probe, Probe, Maniac] will win you the game on your next turn, whether with oath or drawing and playing the maniac.
As for the sideboard: I've found that the 4 leylines is all you really need against graveyard decks, since racing them is a possibility. I way overdid it on the shops hate, especially since there ended up being only one shops deck there. But the shops matchup is pretty dreadful even with Oath, so lots of hate is probably required. Between the main and board, I had 8 pieces of Artifact Hate. Six might be enough. The flusterstorms are for control and combo. The needles were sort of a catch-all, since I really had no idea what the metagame would be like. I rarely sided them in, but needle naming Jace or Wasteland is usually decent.
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Tournament Report
This is all from memory, so if anything seems goofy, point it out.
It was a pretty small tournament with 10 people. We did 4 rounds, with a cut to top 4.
Match 1 vs. WUB Bomberman (win 2-1)
game 1:
I got a quick Oath with force backup. Maniac comes out and sticks around for the win. He looks through my graveyard in my last upkeep so he can see what he's up against. He looks confused.
game 2:
I side in Flusterstorms for Hurkyl's and Sol Ring. Mull to 5, something like Orchard x2, force, imperial seal, vamp. I keep it, but both my tutors get misstepped. He's playing slowly trying to keep me under control. I draw into an oath, but he played a Grafdigger's Cage and started beating in with Confidants and spirit tokens, which eventually kill me.
game 3:
I open up with Gitaxian Probe, Underground Sea, Lotus, Doomsday, duress, and some other crap. He mulled to 6 and didn't look happy,
so I went for the turn 1 win and it got there. UGsea, lotus, DDay --> [Ancestral, Lotus, DRit, Yawg, Tendrils], free GProbe to draw ancestral
and kill with storm of 11.
Match 2 vs. Gush Control with snapcasters and skylashers and no fastbond (I asked him after since I never saw it) (lose 0-2)
Game 1:
He just had a wall of counterspells and I just had bad draws. Once again my vamp got misstepped, and even though I played ancestral, both preordains,
and the ponder, I never found a win condition, my last ditch Yawgmoth's Will got countered, and his creatures bumped me off.
Game 2:
Side in flusterstorms for Hurkyl's and Sol Ring. Pretty much the same deal as game 1. I mull to six, stick an oath, he nature's claimed it, and I never got back in the game.
Match 3 vs. Shared Fate (win 2-0, sort of)
I got paired down, against my brother, who came with me. He was 0-1-1 at this point and wouldn't be making it to the top 4 even if he won out. I asked him if he would scoop to me, and he agreed like a bro. We played a few games and he wrecked me, so I was glad he scooped to me. (side note- I don't consider this matchup to be representative of the power of my deck. His Shared Fate deck is unique to say the least (and surprisingly decent), and my deck has a uniquely terrible matchup against it.)
Match 4 vs. Gush tendrils w/ at least 3 regrowths (win 2-0)
Game 1:
We trade some disruption, and I land oath. He attempts a chain of vapor on it, and I force it. Lab maniac comes out, and he regrows his Chain.
In my next upkeep, I oath away my deck and flashback Memory's journey to put a duress back in my deck. I draw it and duress the chain. he let me do it since he had another regrowth, and thought he had another turn. but I flashed back Deep Analysis and won. (Note: If both of us had been paying attention, I would have put Brainstorm back in my deck, then flashed back Analysis first and responded to the Chain with Brainstorm. But we both misplayed, mine was just less bad)
Game 2:
I side in the Flusterstorms for Hurkyl's and Sol Ring (Starting to see a trend here). I have a hand with 2 rituals, Deep A, an oath, and some lands. He drops a crapton of moxen, lotus, tolarian academy, and passes the turn. I draw a mox and go for the oath. he hardcasts force and I pass. He draws and plays a trade routes. Eventually I draw ancestral, and cast it to draw a doomsday. He has only one card in hand, so I go for it. He taps some moxen, and uses trade routes to draw a card. It's FoW, but he's one mana short
of hardcasting it. I have enough gas to go off with tendrils for exactly 20.
3 of 4 people wanted to split, but one other guy wanted to play it out, so we did.
Semifinals vs. UBr Landstill (win 2-1)
Game 1:
This was a pretty tense game. Landstill is another awful matchup for me, since it has countermagic and wastelands. We each drew some cards and built up our resources, and I duressed him a few times and he wasted two of my lands. Luckily I drew plenty. He started attacking with a factory, and it got to a point where I had a doomsday, a ritual, and one land on the board, with another in my hand. and I decided to go for it. If the game went on much longer, there would be no way for me to win with his overwhelming card advantage, so I deemed it worth the risk. Doomsday resolved and my pile was [Ancestral, lotus, maniac, probe, probe]. I passed the turn and hoped for the best. He drew a strip mine, stripped my land and
attacked me down to 6 before passing. I drew ancestral, dropped the land in my hand, and combo'd out. He didn't have countermagic.
Game 2:
I ditched my Sol Ring, Hurkyl's, Deep Analysis, and Brainstorm (which is kind of weak without shuffle effects) and brought in Flusterstorms and the Needles. Landstill did it's Landstill thing, and slowly ground my hopes and dreams to a lifeless nub, like you'd see after a botched amputation. I actually had a great hand, but all of it got countered. Then he dropped a standstill, which I broke immediately with an ancestral. I drew little of use, and eventually died once he took control of the game and started beating down with 2 Mishra's Factories and a couple of spirit tokens.
Game 3:
Going in to game three I had little hope, since I knew I got lucky game one and just got aced game 2. I was on the play, and my opening 7 was utterly broken. I think it was DDay, Lotus, Probe, Chromatic Sphere, Force of Will, Ponder, Land, or something along those lines. Turn 1 Tendrils kill with Force backup. So I went for it. My opponent had kept a hand with wasteland and force which would have slaughtered me had my hand been anything else. Fortunately for me, broken-ness won the day.
Instead of playing out the finals, my would-be opponent and I just split. I was more than happy to do that, since he was the only guy playing Shops today and I probably would have gotten mercilessly slaughtered.
The weakest link in the deck is the manabase. In testing I was never able to make fetches and such work. I never had all my colors as consistently as I would have liked, so I switched to rainbow setup, since I was already playing the Orchards. I'm probably just bad at building a manabase though, so if anyone can make a manabase that doesn't do most of the opponents work for them I would be grateful. Even with Oath, the complete vulnerability to wasteland makes Shops and other wasteland decks a nightmare to do battle with.
The myriad angles of attack in the deck make it very resillient and hard to combat, not to mention powerful. But it has a certain inherent fragility, since
Doomsday is fragile by nature and the Maniac is not a giant indestructible monster. This makes the deck unforgiving and tough to play.
I think perhaps the Flusterstorms should be maindeck, but I'm not sure what to take out. I could sub them for the pierces.
On the whole, I love the deck. It's fun to play, powerful, and unexpected. If you enjoy playing rogueish decks that are still competitive, try throwing something like this together. If anybody has suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them. Any ways you think the deck could be improved? Things to add? Things to take out? A better manabase, please?
Clearly Sol Ring wasn't cutting it for you. Maybe ditch it to add another dual land, or shock land of what ever colors you seem to be shortest on.
Also Deep Analysis just seems awful. Even Enlightened Tutor would be much better, or a Crop Rotation to get the land you need.
Glad you had a great time!
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Vintage! Where the early game is Shuffling, the midgame is Mulliganing, and the Late game is turn 1
Clearly Sol Ring wasn't cutting it for you. Maybe ditch it to add another dual land, or shock land of what ever colors you seem to be shortest on.
Also Deep Analysis just seems awful. Even Enlightened Tutor would be much better, or a Crop Rotation to get the land you need.
Glad you had a great time!
Actually, deep analysis was in there for a very specific reason. Basically, it lets me win out of my graveyard after Oathing away my whole deck but only having three mana on the board (memory's journey, putting back YawgWill and Lotus, and something else, flashback Deep A). It might not be worth it though, since by the time I got to the point where winning out of my graveyard became an option I usually had 4 mana or a ritual in hand. I did cast it a couple times throughout the day, and it was never awful. But perhaps there is something that could be better there. I had Regrowth in that slot for a while and it was pretty strong. I might go back to that.
I think cutting Sol Ring for another land isn't a bad idea, it was mostly there to try and mitigate the taxing effects of Shops decks. But Crypt is better since it can help me land Oath on turn 1. Also I drew lot of 1-landers throughout the day, so an extra land might be good.
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Doomsday was my first love in Vintage, but it just has a terrible matchup against Shops. Oath does not have such a bad matchup against Shops. Since both decks can use the same creature as their win condition, I pretty much just slapped the two decks together. After some tweaking I came up with this list:
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
2 Underground Sea
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Forbidden Orchard
Disruption
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
2 Spell Pierce
Winning
4 Doomsday
4 Oath of Druids
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
2 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Brainstorm
1 Deep Analysis
Utility and Such
4 Dark Ritual
1 Time Walk
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Memory's Journey
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Steel Sabotage
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Nature's Claim
2 Flusterstorm
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ancient Grudge
I wouldn't say that either win condition is the primary one. As you'll see in the report section, I won more with Doomsday, but in testing I tended to win moreoften with Oath. Which one you go for is very situational. Typically whichever is easier/shows up first is the one you go for. When presented with both, you have to consider your options. Usually, I find that baiting out counterspells with Oath and then winning with Doosmday is a good way to go, since Oath is less all-in, so you're safer if it ends up resolving. In general, Oath is a safer win and Doomsday is a quicker and more powerful, but more fragile win. It is also possible to combine the two. With an Oath out,a DDay pile like [Ancestral, Lotus, Probe, Probe, Maniac] will win you the game on your next turn, whether with oath or drawing and playing the maniac.
As for the sideboard: I've found that the 4 leylines is all you really need against graveyard decks, since racing them is a possibility. I way overdid it on the shops hate, especially since there ended up being only one shops deck there. But the shops matchup is pretty dreadful even with Oath, so lots of hate is probably required. Between the main and board, I had 8 pieces of Artifact Hate. Six might be enough. The flusterstorms are for control and combo. The needles were sort of a catch-all, since I really had no idea what the metagame would be like. I rarely sided them in, but needle naming Jace or Wasteland is usually decent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tournament Report
This is all from memory, so if anything seems goofy, point it out.
It was a pretty small tournament with 10 people. We did 4 rounds, with a cut to top 4.
Match 1 vs. WUB Bomberman (win 2-1)
game 1:
I got a quick Oath with force backup. Maniac comes out and sticks around for the win. He looks through my graveyard in my last upkeep so he can see what he's up against. He looks confused.
game 2:
I side in Flusterstorms for Hurkyl's and Sol Ring. Mull to 5, something like Orchard x2, force, imperial seal, vamp. I keep it, but both my tutors get misstepped. He's playing slowly trying to keep me under control. I draw into an oath, but he played a Grafdigger's Cage and started beating in with Confidants and spirit tokens, which eventually kill me.
game 3:
I open up with Gitaxian Probe, Underground Sea, Lotus, Doomsday, duress, and some other crap. He mulled to 6 and didn't look happy,
so I went for the turn 1 win and it got there. UGsea, lotus, DDay --> [Ancestral, Lotus, DRit, Yawg, Tendrils], free GProbe to draw ancestral
and kill with storm of 11.
Match 2 vs. Gush Control with snapcasters and skylashers and no fastbond (I asked him after since I never saw it) (lose 0-2)
Game 1:
He just had a wall of counterspells and I just had bad draws. Once again my vamp got misstepped, and even though I played ancestral, both preordains,
and the ponder, I never found a win condition, my last ditch Yawgmoth's Will got countered, and his creatures bumped me off.
Game 2:
Side in flusterstorms for Hurkyl's and Sol Ring. Pretty much the same deal as game 1. I mull to six, stick an oath, he nature's claimed it, and I never got back in the game.
Match 3 vs. Shared Fate (win 2-0, sort of)
I got paired down, against my brother, who came with me. He was 0-1-1 at this point and wouldn't be making it to the top 4 even if he won out. I asked him if he would scoop to me, and he agreed like a bro. We played a few games and he wrecked me, so I was glad he scooped to me. (side note- I don't consider this matchup to be representative of the power of my deck. His Shared Fate deck is unique to say the least (and surprisingly decent), and my deck has a uniquely terrible matchup against it.)
Match 4 vs. Gush tendrils w/ at least 3 regrowths (win 2-0)
Game 1:
We trade some disruption, and I land oath. He attempts a chain of vapor on it, and I force it. Lab maniac comes out, and he regrows his Chain.
In my next upkeep, I oath away my deck and flashback Memory's journey to put a duress back in my deck. I draw it and duress the chain. he let me do it since he had another regrowth, and thought he had another turn. but I flashed back Deep Analysis and won. (Note: If both of us had been paying attention, I would have put Brainstorm back in my deck, then flashed back Analysis first and responded to the Chain with Brainstorm. But we both misplayed, mine was just less bad)
Game 2:
I side in the Flusterstorms for Hurkyl's and Sol Ring (Starting to see a trend here). I have a hand with 2 rituals, Deep A, an oath, and some lands. He drops a crapton of moxen, lotus, tolarian academy, and passes the turn. I draw a mox and go for the oath. he hardcasts force and I pass. He draws and plays a trade routes. Eventually I draw ancestral, and cast it to draw a doomsday. He has only one card in hand, so I go for it. He taps some moxen, and uses trade routes to draw a card. It's FoW, but he's one mana short
of hardcasting it. I have enough gas to go off with tendrils for exactly 20.
3 of 4 people wanted to split, but one other guy wanted to play it out, so we did.
Semifinals vs. UBr Landstill (win 2-1)
Game 1:
This was a pretty tense game. Landstill is another awful matchup for me, since it has countermagic and wastelands. We each drew some cards and built up our resources, and I duressed him a few times and he wasted two of my lands. Luckily I drew plenty. He started attacking with a factory, and it got to a point where I had a doomsday, a ritual, and one land on the board, with another in my hand. and I decided to go for it. If the game went on much longer, there would be no way for me to win with his overwhelming card advantage, so I deemed it worth the risk. Doomsday resolved and my pile was [Ancestral, lotus, maniac, probe, probe]. I passed the turn and hoped for the best. He drew a strip mine, stripped my land and
attacked me down to 6 before passing. I drew ancestral, dropped the land in my hand, and combo'd out. He didn't have countermagic.
Game 2:
I ditched my Sol Ring, Hurkyl's, Deep Analysis, and Brainstorm (which is kind of weak without shuffle effects) and brought in Flusterstorms and the Needles. Landstill did it's Landstill thing, and slowly ground my hopes and dreams to a lifeless nub, like you'd see after a botched amputation. I actually had a great hand, but all of it got countered. Then he dropped a standstill, which I broke immediately with an ancestral. I drew little of use, and eventually died once he took control of the game and started beating down with 2 Mishra's Factories and a couple of spirit tokens.
Game 3:
Going in to game three I had little hope, since I knew I got lucky game one and just got aced game 2. I was on the play, and my opening 7 was utterly broken. I think it was DDay, Lotus, Probe, Chromatic Sphere, Force of Will, Ponder, Land, or something along those lines. Turn 1 Tendrils kill with Force backup. So I went for it. My opponent had kept a hand with wasteland and force which would have slaughtered me had my hand been anything else. Fortunately for me, broken-ness won the day.
Instead of playing out the finals, my would-be opponent and I just split. I was more than happy to do that, since he was the only guy playing Shops today and I probably would have gotten mercilessly slaughtered.
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Thoughts on Playing the deck:
The weakest link in the deck is the manabase. In testing I was never able to make fetches and such work. I never had all my colors as consistently as I would have liked, so I switched to rainbow setup, since I was already playing the Orchards. I'm probably just bad at building a manabase though, so if anyone can make a manabase that doesn't do most of the opponents work for them I would be grateful. Even with Oath, the complete vulnerability to wasteland makes Shops and other wasteland decks a nightmare to do battle with.
The myriad angles of attack in the deck make it very resillient and hard to combat, not to mention powerful. But it has a certain inherent fragility, since
Doomsday is fragile by nature and the Maniac is not a giant indestructible monster. This makes the deck unforgiving and tough to play.
I think perhaps the Flusterstorms should be maindeck, but I'm not sure what to take out. I could sub them for the pierces.
On the whole, I love the deck. It's fun to play, powerful, and unexpected. If you enjoy playing rogueish decks that are still competitive, try throwing something like this together. If anybody has suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them. Any ways you think the deck could be improved? Things to add? Things to take out? A better manabase, please?
Also Deep Analysis just seems awful. Even Enlightened Tutor would be much better, or a Crop Rotation to get the land you need.
Glad you had a great time!
Actually, deep analysis was in there for a very specific reason. Basically, it lets me win out of my graveyard after Oathing away my whole deck but only having three mana on the board (memory's journey, putting back YawgWill and Lotus, and something else, flashback Deep A). It might not be worth it though, since by the time I got to the point where winning out of my graveyard became an option I usually had 4 mana or a ritual in hand. I did cast it a couple times throughout the day, and it was never awful. But perhaps there is something that could be better there. I had Regrowth in that slot for a while and it was pretty strong. I might go back to that.
I think cutting Sol Ring for another land isn't a bad idea, it was mostly there to try and mitigate the taxing effects of Shops decks. But Crypt is better since it can help me land Oath on turn 1. Also I drew lot of 1-landers throughout the day, so an extra land might be good.