PRIEMER’S PRIMERS: IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (by Tyler Premier of Legitmtg.com)
Welp, here we are. In my last primer I asked you which deck you wanted to see next, and you overwhelmingly voted for Doomsday. For you masochists out there, I hope you’re happy.
Doomsday is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most complicated deck in Legacy. It may even be the most complicated deck in all of Magic. It’s a deck made for only the maddest of Magic players, with hundreds of possible configurations and exponentially more lines of play. For the purpose of brevity, I’ll be covering the three most popular non-Storm builds: Laboratory Maniac, Shelldock Isle, and DDFT.
SLOW DOWN, WHY DO PEOPLE BUILD AROUND THIS CARD?
The biggest reason people play Doomsday decks is because of a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes mental illness, which is probably why alongside Dredge and Oops All Spells it’s one of my favourite decks to goldfish. After that, the main reason is that Doomsday decks play like intricate puzzles for you to solve. It’s the Extreme-level Sudoku of Magic. It’s the 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that’s 60% sky. It’s incredibly skill-testing, equally rewarding, and most importantly it’s crazy fun to play.
SO WHAT DOES THE DECK ACTUALLY DO?
The core of the archetype, Doomsday, allows you to search your deck and graveyard for any five cards and exile the rest. Then you get to put those five cards on top of your deck in any configuration you want. With these five cards you should be able to win the game through whatever combo you feel like running. To back this up, non-Storm Doomsday variants typically run a suite of 10-12 counterspells to stall for time and force through your combo.
YOU’VE GOT MY ATTENTION. WHAT’S THE MOST COMMON VERSION OF THE DECK?
If you’re going to see a non-Storm Doomsday deck, it will most likely be the Meandeck Doomsday deck popularized by Steve Menendian.
MEANDECK DOOMSDAY
Creatures (1)
1 Laboratory Maniac
Spells (42)
4 Doomsday
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Unearth
1 Mental Note
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Misdirection
1 Pact of Negation
3 Spell Pierce
2 Divert
1 Darkblast
Lands (18)
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Island
2 Swamp
What this build wants to do is resolve a Sensei’s Divining Top, then cast Doomsday with plenty of countermagic in hand. While the order of the pile is often specific to the context of the game, from my experience the pile usually goes (from top to bottom): Brainstorm, Mental Note, Laboratory Maniac, any card, Unearth. What this allows you to do is Brainstorm into Mental Note, Lab Maniac, and the extra card, putting Maniac and the extra on top of your deck. You then cast Mental Note to put the extra and the Lab Maniac in the graveyard, drawing Unearth. You cast Unearth to put Lab Maniac on the battlefield, then draw a card, either by a cantrip or activating your Top to win from Laboratory Maniac’s ability.
This is one of the more straightforward builds of Doomsday, and for players looking to get into the archetype, this is the build I recommend practicing with. This version is not without its weaknesses, of course. Graveyard hate really preys on this build, and while countermagic can help mitigate this, you only have so many counters to work with. An early Relic of Progenitus or Tormod’s Crypt sneaking through your counters can be backbreaking due to Blue and Black’s general inability to handle resolved artifacts. As well, cards like Leyline of the Void and Faerie Macabre hose your graveyard while being untargetable by traditional countermagic. For this, the deck tends to run three Chain of Vapor to bounce the permanent-based hate, and while Faerie Macabre is less common, I recommend at least two Stifles because of its versatility. Another option is to run the Shelldock Isle combo in the sideboard to negate your opponent’s graveyard hate altogether. Which brings us to….
DOOMSDAY ISLE
Creatures (5)
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Laboratory Maniac
spells (37)
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
3 Daze
2 Dark Ritual
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Doomsday
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
2 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
Lands (20)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Darkslick Shores
2 Shelldock Isle
Now this a deck that speaks to me. Here the order of the pile is less necessary as your goal is to Brainstorm into Shelldock Isle and Cloud of Faeries. You then play the Shelldock Isle and trigger Hideaway, putting an Emrakul under it. Next, play Cloud of Faeries to untap Shelldock Isle and a Blue source and pass the turn. During your opponent’s turn you can activate the Shelldock Isle and cast Emrakul. Congratulations, you now have two straight turns of attacking with a 15/15. This version also has two backup plans just so you`re not entirely reliant on Doomsday-into-Shelldock Isle. Just in case you’ve drawn one of your Emrakuls, you have four Show and Tells to drop them into play like a regular Sneak and Show deck. Also, if for whatever reason your Shelldock Isle plan does not go off, such as a Wasteland in response to the Cloud of Faeries, the deck runs one Laboratory Maniac to draw and cast after decking yourself.
This variant is slightly slower than its Laboratory Maniac counterpart due to the lack of Rituals, but with its main deck alternate win conditions and being unaffected by graveyard hate cards, I personally enjoy it more. You just have so many different avenues of attacking the opponent that you rarely get stuck against opposing sideboard cards. However, this deck isn’t impervious to everything, and there are still some cards that can interact with your attempts to combo. Stifle, Wasteland, Karakas, and Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker all do a number on your combo, either by stopping the Shelldock from activating or by handling your Emrakul. Running Pithing Needles and Stifles of your own in the sideboard can handle the cards that attack your Shelldock Isle, and your numerous counterspells should be enough to protect you against Stifle and Revoker. Just in case a Pithing Needle slips through the cracks, I also advocate running Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth.
Sideboard (15)
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
Of all the Doomsday variants to show up at competitive events, Doomsday-Fetch-Tendrils (DDFT) is certainly the most popular these days. This is also the most complicated deck I’ve ever played. Unlike the previous decks, the piles you make in DDFT are entirely context-specific. There is no one pile that you just always make, and there are entire Excel spreadsheets dedicated to mapping out the different lines you can make.
DDFT plays out very much like a regular Storm deck like ANT or TES, but it runs six main deck Doomsdays (3 Doomsday/3 Burning Wish) to set up your combo. What makes this deck unique compared to other Storm decks is that your win conditions are all in your sideboard. The deck still plays all the same Rituals and cantrips as regular Storm, as well as a set of Sensei’s Divining Top to set up your draws and draw a free card once you’ve cast your Doomsday. The deck also protects itself better than other Storm decks due to its seven main deck discard spells. This makes a lot of hate cards that traditionally hurt Storm like Flusterstorm less threatening.
While it does a better job of protecting itself and combing off, DDFT is also much, much slower than ANT. Because there’s no Ad Nauseum, Infernal Tutor, or Past in Flames, DDFT typically lacks the explosiveness to combo off on turn 1-2. DDFT is fairly reliant on hitting Doomsday to get going, and while the Burning Wishes and extra cantrips help, it requires more turns to set up and figure out what your piles are going to look like and how you’re actually going to win.
SO IS THIS DECK JUST UNSTOPPABLE OR WHAT?
Doomsday decks, while very resilient to most hate cards, have one glaring weakness: You have to actually resolve Doomsday before you have a hope of winning. This makes counterspell-heavy decks like Delver and Sneak and Show especially annoying to play against. Meandeck Doomsday is especially hurt by decks like Miracles and Deathblade that run main deck graveyard hate, and both builds are susceptible to Death and Taxes. If you can sneak the Doomsday in against Death and Taxes early enough you should be okay, but as the entire deck is just hate bear lock-down cards, you have a lot of hoops to jump through. Now that Spirit of the Labyrinth has been printed I expect Death and Taxes to welcome it with open arms, and that spells trouble for cantrip-heavy builds like Meandeck. Combo decks like Storm and Dredge are also capable of comboing off faster than Doomsday, so if you have a counter-light hand you might have a difficult time keeping them in check.
DDFT doesn’t have many of the same weaknesses traditional Storm does, but it still has weaknesses. The Hymn to Tourach/Liliana of the Veil decks like Jund and BUG can be particularly oppressive, as they can rip your hand apart before you get a chance to combo. As well, decks with permanent-based Storm hate like Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist can also be brutal to fight. While you have a main deck Chain of Vapors and two Massacre in the sideboard, these two creatures can come down early enough to slow you to the point that you just get beaten to death by 2/2s. Lastly, while seven main deck discard spells are certainly helpful on the play, there are many combo decks like ANT, Dredge, and Oops All Spells that can kill you before you get a second turn. Here you pretty much need to play control for the first few turns by stripping away your opponent’s hand and slow them down long enough to fire off your own combo.
FINAL VERDICT. WHY SHOULD I BUILD THIS DECK?
You should build with Doomsday because of the sheer variety of the deck. Compiling Doomsday piles is some of the most challenging Magic you can play, and a well-versed Doomsday pilot who knows the ins and outs of the deck is incredibly difficult to play against.
As well, it’s important to remember that even though these three variants are the most common, if you have a pet combo you want to run, by all means go for it! Prior to this article I was toying around with the following pile: Predict, Brain Freeze/Grapeshot/Bitter Ordeal, Conjurer’s Bauble, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Second Sunrise. Here you Predict yourself naming your Storm card and draw Bauble and LED. Play them both and sac the LED for three White, crack the Bauble returning nothing, to draw Second Sunrise, then cast it getting back Bauble and LED. Repeat the process, only this time getting back Second Sunrise with the Bauble. You just repeat the loop over and over until you have enough Storm to crack the Bauble returning your Storm card for the kill. There are tens of thousands of possible combinations, and the only hindrance is your imagination.
Doomsday is an incredible engine and an amazingly fun deck to play. It takes a very special type of psychopath to perfectly pilot Doomsday, and if you want to play a deck that challenges you and makes you have to think, this is the deck for you.
@adam W:
Adam, thank you! I hear your advice concerning Doomsday Fetch Tendrils (DDFT). The article that inspired my deck actually introduced me to DDFT. It's really good! It's a mini primer on Doomsday variants. You can find it here: http://legitmtg.com/competitive/priemers-primers-its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/). It really has my gears turning. As I've been testing my home brew, it will probably never be tier 1 but it does appear fairly competitive. Although I would love some help to make it better. It is a blast to play!
@Mad Mat:
Thanks Mat and good call! I read False Cure incorrectly. I thought it read "whenever a player gains life, that player "INSTEAD" loses 2 life for each 1 life he or she gained". Sadly I will need all four Reverent Silence on the pile to go off. It doesn't ruin the deck at all but it cancels the turn one win condition as I mentioned above. That was a rare occasion anyway. However it is still a solid turn 2-4 turn win and is a blast to play.
@Everyone reading this:
To make the False Cure combo work with Doomsday you need one of either a Desperate Research or False Cure in hand or have a Sensei’s Divining Top in Play. If you meet one of these requirements you can go off the following turn or same turn if you have a Sensei's Diving Top in play or Gitaxian Probe in hand.
If you have either a Desperate Research or False Cure in hand you will search for which ever one you don’t have and put it on top of the pile followed by four Reverent Silence. So your pile will look like one of the two following piles depend on which one you have in hand:
Your alternative to the above combo you will need to make the Laboratory Maniac combo work with Doomsday you need any two of either a Sensei’s Divining Top, Lion’s Eye Diamond and either/or a Plunge into Darkness or a Desperate Research in hand.
If I have a library with less than less than 7 card and I cast Desperate Research do I die or do I simply reveal what I do have left in my library? It doesn't say "draw a card" it says "reveal the top 7 cards" and "put those cards into your hand".
This is what I run when playing mono-black. This deck is a beast and beats up on Delver all day long. I also run a black white version with Stoneforge Mystic, Vindicate and Lingering Souls.
As of yet I have no sideboard so I could certainly use some help with that and any other constructive criticism and/or ideas are welcome! I haven't tested it in a tourney yet but with multiple routes to victory it feels very strong. It probably needs more disruption but not sure what to cut. Here it is:
This deck goes off regularly by turn three or four however often it will go off turn one. There are three routes to victory.
1). The first and ideal route doesn't use Doomsday. You want to cast False Cure followed by two or more Reverent Silence. With these in hand and a Lotus Petal or Dark Ritual you can go off turn one. You don't need Doomsday at all in this situation. You can also play the reverse of this hand, two False Cure followed by one Reverent Silence but you will need more mana.
You will need to pile your deck differently depending on what cards are in your hand. Often you won't have a False Cure in hand so you will need to pile it on top followed by the usual. Remember you need four mana to cast Desperate Research and False Cure in the same turn. So sometimes you will need to pile a Dark Ritual. In other occasions you will need to pile an Unmask or Thoughtseize to push your False Cure through an opponents counter magic. And in rarer occasions you will need to pile a Bayou so you can power your Reverent Silence.
If you happen to have Laboratory Maniac in your hand don't fear, you can still go off using this route. When you cast Doomsday pile LED on the top and Unearth on the bottom. Next turn when you draw your LED cast your Desperate Research cracking LED in response forcing you to discard your Laboratory Maniac grab your Unearth and use the floating mana to cast it on your newly discarded Maniac and boom you win!
In all three routes remember to use Gitaxian Probe or Sensei's Divining Top after you've piled your deck to move through the piled cards quicker. You will want to get to your Desperate Research etc.. as soon as possible and for every card you pile in front of it you will be slowed a turn unless you have one of these guys.
Make sure your opponent doesn't have counter magic in hand via Thoughtseize or Unmask. Gitaxian Probe will help you out with this. Pray you survive long enough to get the combo off. Have fun!!!
This deck has a distant cousin called Turbo Discard and was around during the Tempest block. It used 4 Demonic Consultations to find The Rack and stack them up. Ensnaring Bridge, Cursed Scroll, Null Brooch and Grafted Skullcap were used in the control build the aggro version used Cursed Scroll, Skittering Skirge, Hypnotic Specter and Maze of Ith. Kick ass deck. As far a Legacy goes we now have Nyxathid and Oona's Prowler.
This deck is a work in progress however it holds up in play tests. Alas it has not yet seen tournament play but I will be piloting it this weekend. So I will return with tournament results.
It is fairly self explanatory and operates a bit like a cross between the old school Miracle Grow decks and traditional Pox.
Begin your game by raping your opponents hand with early discard such as Duress and Hymn to Tourach followed by further disrupting the board with removal such as Pox, Smallpox and Grave Pact. Finally drop your beasties and lock them down with Contamination and Braids, Cabal Minion. Note that most of your creatures have a habit of returning to the table and have perfect synergy with your lock mechanisms. Carrion Feeder often gets very big giving it that old school Miracle Grow feel. The fact that it is mono colored can also give it an advantage as you won't be the target of non-basic hate.
I'm still working on piecing a sideboard together and could use some suggestions. Any recommendations, thoughts, comments and productive criticism on the overall deck in general are also welcome.
PRIEMER’S PRIMERS: IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (by Tyler Premier of Legitmtg.com)
Welp, here we are. In my last primer I asked you which deck you wanted to see next, and you overwhelmingly voted for Doomsday. For you masochists out there, I hope you’re happy.
Doomsday is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most complicated deck in Legacy. It may even be the most complicated deck in all of Magic. It’s a deck made for only the maddest of Magic players, with hundreds of possible configurations and exponentially more lines of play. For the purpose of brevity, I’ll be covering the three most popular non-Storm builds: Laboratory Maniac, Shelldock Isle, and DDFT.
SLOW DOWN, WHY DO PEOPLE BUILD AROUND THIS CARD?
The biggest reason people play Doomsday decks is because of a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes mental illness, which is probably why alongside Dredge and Oops All Spells it’s one of my favourite decks to goldfish. After that, the main reason is that Doomsday decks play like intricate puzzles for you to solve. It’s the Extreme-level Sudoku of Magic. It’s the 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that’s 60% sky. It’s incredibly skill-testing, equally rewarding, and most importantly it’s crazy fun to play.
SO WHAT DOES THE DECK ACTUALLY DO?
The core of the archetype, Doomsday, allows you to search your deck and graveyard for any five cards and exile the rest. Then you get to put those five cards on top of your deck in any configuration you want. With these five cards you should be able to win the game through whatever combo you feel like running. To back this up, non-Storm Doomsday variants typically run a suite of 10-12 counterspells to stall for time and force through your combo.
YOU’VE GOT MY ATTENTION. WHAT’S THE MOST COMMON VERSION OF THE DECK?
If you’re going to see a non-Storm Doomsday deck, it will most likely be the Meandeck Doomsday deck popularized by Steve Menendian.
MEANDECK DOOMSDAY
Creatures (1)
1 Laboratory Maniac
Spells (42)
4 Doomsday
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Unearth
1 Mental Note
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Misdirection
1 Pact of Negation
3 Spell Pierce
2 Divert
1 Darkblast
Lands (18)
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Island
2 Swamp
What this build wants to do is resolve a Sensei’s Divining Top, then cast Doomsday with plenty of countermagic in hand. While the order of the pile is often specific to the context of the game, from my experience the pile usually goes (from top to bottom): Brainstorm, Mental Note, Laboratory Maniac, any card, Unearth. What this allows you to do is Brainstorm into Mental Note, Lab Maniac, and the extra card, putting Maniac and the extra on top of your deck. You then cast Mental Note to put the extra and the Lab Maniac in the graveyard, drawing Unearth. You cast Unearth to put Lab Maniac on the battlefield, then draw a card, either by a cantrip or activating your Top to win from Laboratory Maniac’s ability.
This is one of the more straightforward builds of Doomsday, and for players looking to get into the archetype, this is the build I recommend practicing with. This version is not without its weaknesses, of course. Graveyard hate really preys on this build, and while countermagic can help mitigate this, you only have so many counters to work with. An early Relic of Progenitus or Tormod’s Crypt sneaking through your counters can be backbreaking due to Blue and Black’s general inability to handle resolved artifacts. As well, cards like Leyline of the Void and Faerie Macabre hose your graveyard while being untargetable by traditional countermagic. For this, the deck tends to run three Chain of Vapor to bounce the permanent-based hate, and while Faerie Macabre is less common, I recommend at least two Stifles because of its versatility. Another option is to run the Shelldock Isle combo in the sideboard to negate your opponent’s graveyard hate altogether. Which brings us to….
DOOMSDAY ISLE
Creatures (5)
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Laboratory Maniac
spells (37)
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
3 Daze
2 Dark Ritual
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Doomsday
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
2 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
Lands (20)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Darkslick Shores
2 Shelldock Isle
Now this a deck that speaks to me. Here the order of the pile is less necessary as your goal is to Brainstorm into Shelldock Isle and Cloud of Faeries. You then play the Shelldock Isle and trigger Hideaway, putting an Emrakul under it. Next, play Cloud of Faeries to untap Shelldock Isle and a Blue source and pass the turn. During your opponent’s turn you can activate the Shelldock Isle and cast Emrakul. Congratulations, you now have two straight turns of attacking with a 15/15. This version also has two backup plans just so you`re not entirely reliant on Doomsday-into-Shelldock Isle. Just in case you’ve drawn one of your Emrakuls, you have four Show and Tells to drop them into play like a regular Sneak and Show deck. Also, if for whatever reason your Shelldock Isle plan does not go off, such as a Wasteland in response to the Cloud of Faeries, the deck runs one Laboratory Maniac to draw and cast after decking yourself.
This variant is slightly slower than its Laboratory Maniac counterpart due to the lack of Rituals, but with its main deck alternate win conditions and being unaffected by graveyard hate cards, I personally enjoy it more. You just have so many different avenues of attacking the opponent that you rarely get stuck against opposing sideboard cards. However, this deck isn’t impervious to everything, and there are still some cards that can interact with your attempts to combo. Stifle, Wasteland, Karakas, and Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker all do a number on your combo, either by stopping the Shelldock from activating or by handling your Emrakul. Running Pithing Needles and Stifles of your own in the sideboard can handle the cards that attack your Shelldock Isle, and your numerous counterspells should be enough to protect you against Stifle and Revoker. Just in case a Pithing Needle slips through the cracks, I also advocate running Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth.
DOOMSDAY FETCH TENDRILS
Spells (49)
4 Doomsday
4 Lion's Eye Diamon
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rain of Filth
3 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Doomsday
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Ponder
Lands (17)
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
Sideboard (15)
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
Of all the Doomsday variants to show up at competitive events, Doomsday-Fetch-Tendrils (DDFT) is certainly the most popular these days. This is also the most complicated deck I’ve ever played. Unlike the previous decks, the piles you make in DDFT are entirely context-specific. There is no one pile that you just always make, and there are entire Excel spreadsheets dedicated to mapping out the different lines you can make.
DDFT plays out very much like a regular Storm deck like ANT or TES, but it runs six main deck Doomsdays (3 Doomsday/3 Burning Wish) to set up your combo. What makes this deck unique compared to other Storm decks is that your win conditions are all in your sideboard. The deck still plays all the same Rituals and cantrips as regular Storm, as well as a set of Sensei’s Divining Top to set up your draws and draw a free card once you’ve cast your Doomsday. The deck also protects itself better than other Storm decks due to its seven main deck discard spells. This makes a lot of hate cards that traditionally hurt Storm like Flusterstorm less threatening.
While it does a better job of protecting itself and combing off, DDFT is also much, much slower than ANT. Because there’s no Ad Nauseum, Infernal Tutor, or Past in Flames, DDFT typically lacks the explosiveness to combo off on turn 1-2. DDFT is fairly reliant on hitting Doomsday to get going, and while the Burning Wishes and extra cantrips help, it requires more turns to set up and figure out what your piles are going to look like and how you’re actually going to win.
SO IS THIS DECK JUST UNSTOPPABLE OR WHAT?
Doomsday decks, while very resilient to most hate cards, have one glaring weakness: You have to actually resolve Doomsday before you have a hope of winning. This makes counterspell-heavy decks like Delver and Sneak and Show especially annoying to play against. Meandeck Doomsday is especially hurt by decks like Miracles and Deathblade that run main deck graveyard hate, and both builds are susceptible to Death and Taxes. If you can sneak the Doomsday in against Death and Taxes early enough you should be okay, but as the entire deck is just hate bear lock-down cards, you have a lot of hoops to jump through. Now that Spirit of the Labyrinth has been printed I expect Death and Taxes to welcome it with open arms, and that spells trouble for cantrip-heavy builds like Meandeck. Combo decks like Storm and Dredge are also capable of comboing off faster than Doomsday, so if you have a counter-light hand you might have a difficult time keeping them in check.
DDFT doesn’t have many of the same weaknesses traditional Storm does, but it still has weaknesses. The Hymn to Tourach/Liliana of the Veil decks like Jund and BUG can be particularly oppressive, as they can rip your hand apart before you get a chance to combo. As well, decks with permanent-based Storm hate like Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist can also be brutal to fight. While you have a main deck Chain of Vapors and two Massacre in the sideboard, these two creatures can come down early enough to slow you to the point that you just get beaten to death by 2/2s. Lastly, while seven main deck discard spells are certainly helpful on the play, there are many combo decks like ANT, Dredge, and Oops All Spells that can kill you before you get a second turn. Here you pretty much need to play control for the first few turns by stripping away your opponent’s hand and slow them down long enough to fire off your own combo.
FINAL VERDICT. WHY SHOULD I BUILD THIS DECK?
You should build with Doomsday because of the sheer variety of the deck. Compiling Doomsday piles is some of the most challenging Magic you can play, and a well-versed Doomsday pilot who knows the ins and outs of the deck is incredibly difficult to play against.
As well, it’s important to remember that even though these three variants are the most common, if you have a pet combo you want to run, by all means go for it! Prior to this article I was toying around with the following pile: Predict, Brain Freeze/Grapeshot/Bitter Ordeal, Conjurer’s Bauble, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Second Sunrise. Here you Predict yourself naming your Storm card and draw Bauble and LED. Play them both and sac the LED for three White, crack the Bauble returning nothing, to draw Second Sunrise, then cast it getting back Bauble and LED. Repeat the process, only this time getting back Second Sunrise with the Bauble. You just repeat the loop over and over until you have enough Storm to crack the Bauble returning your Storm card for the kill. There are tens of thousands of possible combinations, and the only hindrance is your imagination.
Doomsday is an incredible engine and an amazingly fun deck to play. It takes a very special type of psychopath to perfectly pilot Doomsday, and if you want to play a deck that challenges you and makes you have to think, this is the deck for you.
Adam, thank you! I hear your advice concerning Doomsday Fetch Tendrils (DDFT). The article that inspired my deck actually introduced me to DDFT. It's really good! It's a mini primer on Doomsday variants. You can find it here: http://legitmtg.com/competitive/priemers-primers-its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/). It really has my gears turning. As I've been testing my home brew, it will probably never be tier 1 but it does appear fairly competitive. Although I would love some help to make it better. It is a blast to play!
@Mad Mat:
Thanks Mat and good call! I read False Cure incorrectly. I thought it read "whenever a player gains life, that player "INSTEAD" loses 2 life for each 1 life he or she gained". Sadly I will need all four Reverent Silence on the pile to go off. It doesn't ruin the deck at all but it cancels the turn one win condition as I mentioned above. That was a rare occasion anyway. However it is still a solid turn 2-4 turn win and is a blast to play.
@Everyone reading this:
To make the False Cure combo work with Doomsday you need one of either a Desperate Research or False Cure in hand or have a Sensei’s Divining Top in Play. If you meet one of these requirements you can go off the following turn or same turn if you have a Sensei's Diving Top in play or Gitaxian Probe in hand.
If you have either a Desperate Research or False Cure in hand you will search for which ever one you don’t have and put it on top of the pile followed by four Reverent Silence. So your pile will look like one of the two following piles depend on which one you have in hand:
1). False Cure, Reverent Silence, Reverent Silence, Reverent Silence, Reverent Silence
2). Desperate Research, Reverent Silence, Reverent Silence, Reverent Silence, Reverent Silence
Your alternative to the above combo you will need to make the Laboratory Maniac combo work with Doomsday you need any two of either a Sensei’s Divining Top, Lion’s Eye Diamond and either/or a Plunge into Darkness or a Desperate Research in hand.
Sorcery (18)
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Innocent Blood
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Sinkhole
4x Smallpox
2x Thoughtseize
Creature (14)
4x Abyssal Persecutor
4x Bloodghast
4x Dark Confidant
2x Gatekeeper of Malakir
Instant (4)
4x Dark Ritual
Planeswalker (2)
2x Liliana of the Veil
Land (22)
2x Mishra's Factory
14x Swamp
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Wasteland
As of yet I have no sideboard so I could certainly use some help with that and any other constructive criticism and/or ideas are welcome! I haven't tested it in a tourney yet but with multiple routes to victory it feels very strong. It probably needs more disruption but not sure what to cut. Here it is:
FALSE CURE DOOMSDAY
Sorcery (23)
4x Desperate Research
4x Doomsday
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Reverent Silence
2x Thoughtseize
1x Unearth
4x Unmask
Land (17)
4x Bayou
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Peat Bog
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
Creature (1)
1x Laboratory Maniac
Instant (10)
4x Dark Ritual
4x False Cure
2x Plunge into Darkness
Artifact (9)
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Sensei's Divining Top
This deck goes off regularly by turn three or four however often it will go off turn one. There are three routes to victory.
1). The first and ideal route doesn't use Doomsday. You want to cast False Cure followed by two or more Reverent Silence. With these in hand and a Lotus Petal or Dark Ritual you can go off turn one. You don't need Doomsday at all in this situation. You can also play the reverse of this hand, two False Cure followed by one Reverent Silence but you will need more mana.
2). Your main plan and your most common route to victory is to cast Doomsday. Ideally if you happen to have a False Cure in your hand pile your deck with Desperate Research on top followed by four Reverent Silence. Next turn when you draw your Desperate Research cast it and name Reverent Silence. You then put your entire deck (the four Reverent Silences) into your hand. Cast False Cure followed by all four Reverent Silences for 48 points of damage. Make sure you have a Bayou in play or you can't cast Reverent Silence for free.
You will need to pile your deck differently depending on what cards are in your hand. Often you won't have a False Cure in hand so you will need to pile it on top followed by the usual. Remember you need four mana to cast Desperate Research and False Cure in the same turn. So sometimes you will need to pile a Dark Ritual. In other occasions you will need to pile an Unmask or Thoughtseize to push your False Cure through an opponents counter magic. And in rarer occasions you will need to pile a Bayou so you can power your Reverent Silence.
3). Your alternative route is to get Senei's Divining Top in play before you cast Doomsday. Next pile LED on the top and Laboratory Maniac on the bottom with random fillers in the middle. Next turn when you draw your LED lay it and cast Desperate Research or Plunge into Darkness grabbing Laboratory Maniac. In response crack your LED floating three blue mana after which your Desperate Research or Plunge into Darkness will resolve nabbing you a Laboratory Maniac. Cast Laboratory Maniac with the floating mana and then crack your Sensei's Divining Top to draw a card for an auto win.
An alternative to this if you don't have a Desperate Research or Plunge into Darkness in hand is to pile LED on the top followed by three Gitaxian Probe and then Laboratory Maniac. Burn through the remainder of your deck via Gitaxian Probes and respond to the last one the same way you would with a Desperate Research and finish off the same way as above.
If you happen to have Laboratory Maniac in your hand don't fear, you can still go off using this route. When you cast Doomsday pile LED on the top and Unearth on the bottom. Next turn when you draw your LED cast your Desperate Research cracking LED in response forcing you to discard your Laboratory Maniac grab your Unearth and use the floating mana to cast it on your newly discarded Maniac and boom you win!
In all three routes remember to use Gitaxian Probe or Sensei's Divining Top after you've piled your deck to move through the piled cards quicker. You will want to get to your Desperate Research etc.. as soon as possible and for every card you pile in front of it you will be slowed a turn unless you have one of these guys.
Make sure your opponent doesn't have counter magic in hand via Thoughtseize or Unmask. Gitaxian Probe will help you out with this. Pray you survive long enough to get the combo off. Have fun!!!
3x Duress
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
2x Contamination
1x Grave Pact
1x Pox
1x Phyrexian Arena
KILL
4x Bloodghast
4x Carrion Feeder
4x Gravecrawler
2x Braids, Cabal Minion
2x Bitterblossom
1x Reassembling Skeleton
4x Dark Ritual
19x Swamp
It is fairly self explanatory and operates a bit like a cross between the old school Miracle Grow decks and traditional Pox.
Begin your game by raping your opponents hand with early discard such as Duress and Hymn to Tourach followed by further disrupting the board with removal such as Pox, Smallpox and Grave Pact. Finally drop your beasties and lock them down with Contamination and Braids, Cabal Minion. Note that most of your creatures have a habit of returning to the table and have perfect synergy with your lock mechanisms. Carrion Feeder often gets very big giving it that old school Miracle Grow feel. The fact that it is mono colored can also give it an advantage as you won't be the target of non-basic hate.
I'm still working on piecing a sideboard together and could use some suggestions. Any recommendations, thoughts, comments and productive criticism on the overall deck in general are also welcome.