UB Doomsday Control

[Blue Lotus]

Combo-control in the format has two finishing combinations to choose from, oath and vault-key. The following deck tries to kill using doomsday; an approach that I think has merits. First, the deck I am testing:

1 Ancestral recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts ungiven
1 Merchant scroll
1 Mystical tutor
1 Ponder
1 Vampiric tutor
1 SDT
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Duress
4 Force of will
3 Mana drain
1 Mindbreak trap
2 Spell pierce
2 Thoughtseize

1 Chain of vapor
1 Darkblast
1 Rebuild

1 Emrakul
1 Darksteel colossus
1 Doomsday
1 Shelldock isle
1 Time walk
1 Tinker
1 Twiddle
1 Yawgmoth’s will

1 Black lotus
1 Mana vault
1 Mox emerald
1 Mox jet
1 Mox pearl
1 Mox ruby
1 Mox sapphire
1 Sol ring
1 Flooded strand
3 Island/Snow island
4 Polluted delta
1 Scalding tarn
2 Swamp
1 Tolarian academy
4 Underground sea

The list has some fairly standard stuff.  A few things:

On the kill

What is the doomsday kill? There are two I use, on with top active, and one with out. The first is with SDT active. Cast doomsday and stack the library this way:

TOP
Brainstorm
Black lotus
Time walk
Shelldock isle
Emrakul
BOTTOM

Activate SDT. Draw and cast brainstorm. Play and crack lotus for blue. Replay SDT; reorder your library to put shelldock on the top. Tap SDT to draw shelldock. Play shelldock removing emrakul. Cast time walk untapping shelldock and activate shelldock. Swing on the emarakul turn. Pass, swing for the victory.

You have to pass back after the annihilator 6 trigger. It isn’t inconceivable that you would lose, but you will have all your mana untapped and should be able to handle any last ditch effort by your opponent.

If you have enough mana available (2bbbuuu), you can replace lotus with twiddle and win without passing at all.

The second kill is without top active. Cast doomsday and stack your library this way:

TOP
Brainstorm
Twiddle
Time walk
Shelldock isle
Emrakul
BOTTOM

Pass. Draw and cast brainstorm. Play shelldock removing emrakul. Cast twiddle untapping shelldock and activate shelldock. Swing on the emarakul turn. Cast time walk, untap and win.

With this kill, you pass after casting doomsday. It isn’t as explosive, but it does require only one card. Also, this kill can beat an on the board wasteland. Both kills require at least two cards in hand. If I am top-decking and rip doomsday, or I burn through my hand trying to resolve doomsday, I stack my library this way:

TOP
Shelldock
Mana drain
Mana drain
Mana drain
Emrakul

This kill is the slowest, but you don’t have to resolve anything after doomsday. Wasteland stops this handily. If you put them on holding a wasteland or do not want to give a chance to draw one, resolve doomsday and stack your library this way:

TOP
Tinker
Mana drain
Mana drain
Mana drain
Darksteel colossus

Why use this kill? Doomsday is an on-color single-card combo. Much like Tezz the seeker, you cast this card, pass, and win. Unlike tezz, doomsday is a sorcery, not a permanent. You do not need to protect doomsday after it resolves as opposed to tezz and oath. The kill does take up four slots (shelldock, emrakul, doomsday, twiddle) as opposed to three for tezz, but can win through a null rod handily.

On the cards

Draw/tutors:
1 Ancestral recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic tutor
1 Gifts ungiven
1 Merchant scroll
1 Vampiric tutor

Well gee these look familiar.

1 Mystical tutor

Usually, I am on the fence about mystical, but in this deck it is a house. Every single card you can cast it can get except for SDT. This is one of the perks of using a sorcery to win over an enchantment or planeswalker or artifact.

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ponder
1 SDT
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Thirst for Knowledge

Restricted draw package. Dark confidant is not an option; you can’t cast doomsday with that guy on the field. I run this instead. Not a bad consolation prize. Top is just bananas and it has great synergy with doomsday as well.

Disruption:
1 Duress
4 Force of will
3 Mana drain
1 Mindbreak trap
2 Spell pierce
2 Thoughtseize

The duress/thoughtseize/spell pierce split is very fluid. I might cut the duress and add a thoughtseize or another bounce spell.

Answers:
1 Chain of vapor
1 Darkblast
1 Rebuild

No red means a nice strong mana base. But no fire/ice. I think darkblast is required. I also like chain. Again, without a permanent as a win condition, this can never really hurt you. The only main deck target I have is Darksteel, and that could become inkwell if I find myself repeatedly wanting to cast chain after tinker.

The kill package:
1 Emrakul
1 Darksteel
1 Doomsday
1 Shelldock isle
1 Time walk
1 Tinker
1 Twiddle
1 Yawgmoth’s will

Yes twiddle is gross. But it is necessary. Plus it taps a tarmogoyf, so basically its time walk #2.

Tinker is not great in this deck. You can’t get time vault or key, you can only get Darksteel. That isn’t awful, but it isn’t great, but I can’t see myself cutting it.

Mana:
1 Black lotus
1 Mana vault
1 Mox emerald
1 Mox jet
1 Mox pearl
1 Mox ruby
1 Mox sapphire
1 Sol ring
1 Flooded strand
3 Island/Snow island
4 Polluted delta
1 Scalding tarn
2 Swamp/Snow swamp
1 Tolarian academy
4 Underground sea

5 basics are ok, eight artifact mana means null rod hurts, but is for the most part ignorable. I haven’t experimented with a splash, but my theory is a deck that plans on casting doomsday one turn (bbb) and twiddle, brainstorm and shelldock activation the next (uuu) can’t really support a third color.

Some answers to questions that will come up:

You lose to ancestral!
Yes, but ancestral is must counter anyway. Actually, if you hold your ancestral the whole game and try to get off a win with it, then I’m pumped. Or I cast tinker, you cast ancestral in response, counter war, then I mindbreakdance all over your face. Hilarity ensues.

Both of your kills lose to diabolical edict!
The lack of diversity between the kills could be a problem. If people start main decking 4 diabolical edicts, then this plan isn’t the best choice. Maybe vault/key could come out of the board?

Why Darksteel?
If you use the doomsday > tinker plan, DC does a possible 33 damage before you deck yourself. Inkwell does 21, and Sphinx does 18. DC is the most consistent in this regard. It still kills the fastest as well.

So what are your thoughts?

[Killane]

why on earth would you play d-day without a Tendrils package?

[covetousrat]

I think hes pushing Doomsday towards the control role. Its like Drain Tendrils with 0 Ritual vs TPS. However it feels kinda weird to use only 1 Doomsday. It uses a total of Doomsday+3 dead slot in it. Wouldn't it be just better to go for Tezz, TV+Key in these slots or even just play Drain tendrils? I think the best Doomsday if your going for resiliency will be Bobs. Bobs increases your matchup against Stax, Tezz and Fish. But flipping Emrakul is not cool. Bobs fits in the more traditional combo of Desire+R&D.

[Delha]

why on earth would you play d-day without a Tendrils package?

Because if you do, you should probably just run TPS or ANT instead?

[Blue Lotus]

why on earth would you play d-day without a Tendrils package?

Well that deck isn't really viable

I think hes pushing Doomsday towards the control role. Its like Drain Tendrils with 0 Ritual vs TPS. However it feels kinda weird to use only 1 Doomsday. It uses a total of Doomsday+3 dead slot in it. Wouldn't it be just better to go for Tezz, TV+Key in these slots or even just play Drain tendrils? I think the best Doomsday if your going for resiliency will be Bobs. Bobs increases your matchup against Stax, Tezz and Fish. But flipping Emrakul is not cool. Bobs fits in the more traditional combo of Desire+R&D.

Well as I wrote Confidant isn't an option, you can't cast doomsday with bob out without decking yourself. I chose doomsday over tezz because doomsday is more flexible, easier to cast, and you do not have to protect it like tezz after it resolves. You are sacrificing one slot in your deck for more overall flexibility. For instance, if you are facing stax with a bunch of lock pieces out, you can stack: rebuild, tinker, bot, counter, counter. With tezz this isn't an option, especially if a golem is out.

Edit: Whoops I meant tangle wire

[Blue Lotus]

I have radically changed the deck.

UBr Doomsday Control

3 Dark confidant
1 Ancestral recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic tutor
1 Gifts ungiven
1 Merchant scroll
1 Mystical tutor
1 Ponder
1 Vampiric tutor
1 SDT
1 Thirst for Knowledge

4 Force of will
3 Mana drain
1 Mindbreak trap
2 Spell pierce
2 Thoughtseize

1 Fire/ice
1 Chain of vapor
1 Darkblast
1 Rebuild

1 Erratic explosion
1 Darksteel colossus
1 Doomsday
1 Twincast
1 Time walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth’s will

1 Black lotus
1 Mana vault
1 Mox emerald
1 Mox jet
1 Mox pearl
1 Mox ruby
1 Mox sapphire
1 Sol ring
1 Island
4 Polluted delta
2 Scalding tarn
3 Volcanic island
1 Tolarian academy
4 Underground sea
1 Swamp

-1 Fact or fiction
-1 Skeletal scrying
-1 darkblast
-1 Emrakul
-1 Shelldock
-1 Twiddle

-1 Flooded strand
-1 Island
-1 Swamp

+3 Dark confidant
+1 Twincast
+1 Erratic explosion
+1 Fire/ice

+1 Scalding tarn
+2 Volcanic island

This my new take on doomsday as a control finisher. The new list adds red, Confidant, and swaps out emrakul for a new kill.

My issue with the old doomsday kill was that two cards could easily stop it: Diabolic edict and wasteland. Diabolic edict is also effective against tinker > bot, so the kills lacked diversity. Wasteland is an uncounterable card that shows up in multiple archetypes.

Also, it wasn’t possible to run dark confidant with the old kill, as it would deck you. I can say without much trepidation that confidant is the most powerful unrestricted card in vintage. I think it is wrong to not use it. Sure, confidant is not a great topdeck, but it straight up wins games when landed early. Furthermore, running top has great synergy with both doomsday and confidant.

Furthermore, the old kill couldn’t really run red. Not having access to REBs really hurt the mirror. The cards red gives you access to out of the board help all around. The mana base is weaker, but the old version of the deck had to play around wasteland anyway; you weren’t gaining much from the strong mana base.

Finally, the new kill is doomsday and two other cards, the old was doomsday and three other cards. A slot is gained. Though the new kill is weaker against spheres, it is uneffected by wasteland. Given the number of decks that run spheres and the number of decks that run wasteland, I think it is a good trade-off.

What is the new kill?

Cast doomsday. Stack your library this way:

Ancestral recall
Black lotus
Twincast
Erratic explosion
Darksteel colossus

Pass. Cast ancestral. Cast erratic explosion, cast twincast targeting erratic explosion. Reveal DSC twice for 22 damage. If they have null rod out, you can replace lotus with academy or volcanic island.

The new kill gives more flexibility and is a little more elegant. Plus, twincast has its uses (more so than twiddle anyway).

The biggest problem this deck has is getting bbb for doomsday. However, as a control deck, you are not trying to run out a win condition as fast as possible. Wasteland on a u.sea hurts, but you are going to outdraw most decks that play wasteland so it is never a nail in the coffin.

If you are interested, here are a bunch more doomsday stacks.

If you have a confidant out, cast doomsday and stack your library this way:

Lotus
Time walk
Twincast
Erratic explosion
DSC

Also, if you have a cantrip in hand and enough mana, you can go off without passing. Some examples:

SDT in play:

Recall
Time walk
Twincast
Erratic explosion
DSC

You can win with out passing with brainstorm, ponder, merchant scroll, fire/ice, demonic tutor, or rebuild in hand:

Recall
Lotus
Twincast
Erratic explosion
DSC

Some more examples:

With Recall in hand:

Time walk
Black lotus
Erratic explosion
Twincast
DSC

With time walk as your cantrip just use the original:

Ancestral recall
Black lotus
Twincast
Erratic explosion
DSC

With Thirst (and two cards/one artifact to discard):

Time walk
Black Lotus
Erratic explosion
Twincast
DSC

There are ten ways to win immediately with doomsday, six with confidant in play. They all cost at least five mana, and usually seven. So this is an option, just not a common one.

If you have DSC in hand:

Time walk
Brainstorm
Erratic explosion
Twincast
Land

DSC in hand, confidant out:

Lotus
Brainstorm
Erratic explosion
Twincast
Land

[Stormanimagus]

Ancestral recall
Black lotus
Twincast
Erratic explosion
Darksteel colossus

Pass. Cast ancestral. Cast erratic explosion, cast twincast targeting erratic explosion. Reveal DSC twice for 22 damage. If they have null rod out, you can replace lotus with academy or volcanic island.

Umm. . . I hate to burst your bubble, but Erratic Explosion costs 2R and Twincast costs UU. that means you'll need UUU2R to combo out. Seems pretty awful to me. Shelldock was much better.

[AmbivalentDuck]

why on earth would you play d-day without a Tendrils package?

Because if you do, you should probably just run TPS or ANT instead?

I've seen nice Mystic Remora shells that are in no way inferior to TPS or ANT.  The real issue is that he's adding a million dead cards to a control shell.

[Delha]

why on earth would you play d-day without a Tendrils package?

Because if you do, you should probably just run TPS or ANT instead?

I've seen nice Mystic Remora shells that are in no way inferior to TPS or ANT.  The real issue is that he's adding a million dead cards to a control shell.

I agree completely that perfectly valid Remora shells exist. That said, I don't believe anybody in this thread even mentioned Remora until now.

Killane was saying he should run Doomsday with a storm kill, and I said that I doubted the superiority of such a list when compared to TPS/ANT.

[Killane]

why on earth would you play d-day without a Tendrils package?

Because if you do, you should probably just run TPS or ANT instead?

I've seen nice Mystic Remora shells that are in no way inferior to TPS or ANT.  The real issue is that he's adding a million dead cards to a control shell.

I agree completely that perfectly valid Remora shells exist. That said, I don't believe anybody in this thread even mentioned Remora until now.

Killane was saying he should run Doomsday with a storm kill, and I said that I doubted the superiority of such a list when compared to TPS/ANT.

I agree, all I was saying is that against anything other than Shops, a Storm kill is better than anything other kill condition for doomsday. What I was saying was not "if you want to run a Storm deck, run Doomsday" but rather "if y want to run a Doomsday deck, run Storm".

[AmbivalentDuck]

And what I'm saying is that if you want control and storm in the same deck, run Remora Tendrils.   I wouldn't have said that in the Gush era, but the world has changed.  Back then, Extirpate was Glasses of Urza (telling you when you could safely go off) in addition to a Gush and Dredge hoser.  That let you conditionally play some amount of control.  And then you could also support Engineered Explosives since you could choose X=0 or 1 and still pay using two colors...blowing up all Spheres since Lodestone hadn't been printed yet.

Nowadays, Explosives doesn't hit Lodestone and Extirpate has no functional equivalent.   The "combo" of Ritual, Duress, Extirpate is also gone due to the nearly highlander contents of most blue decks.

[Blue Lotus]

Ancestral recall
Black lotus
Twincast
Erratic explosion
Darksteel colossus

Pass. Cast ancestral. Cast erratic explosion, cast twincast targeting erratic explosion. Reveal DSC twice for 22 damage. If they have null rod out, you can replace lotus with academy or volcanic island.

Umm. . . I hate to burst your bubble, but Erratic Explosion costs 2R and Twincast costs UU. that means you'll need UUU2R to combo out. Seems pretty awful to me. Shelldock was much better.

Wait do I need to post the oracle text of black lotus?

I've seen nice Mystic Remora shells that are in no way inferior to TPS or ANT.  The real issue is that he's adding a million dead cards to a control shell.

basically, its tezz minus tezz, vault and key and adding doomsday, explosion, and twincast. The only difference is that vault key can win out of no where while doomsday has more flexibility. An argument that this is strictly worse than tezz may be valid, but it isn't supported by hyperbole.

[Delha]

[quote author=Stormanimagus link=topic=40826.msg566076#msg566076 date=12800769
Umm. . . I hate to burst your bubble, but Erratic Explosion costs 2R and Twincast costs UU. that means you'll need UUU2R to combo out. Seems pretty awful to me. Shelldock was much better.

Wait do I need to post the oracle text of black lotus?[/quote]
No, you need to explain why this kill is better than Ancestral/Lotus/Shelldock/Cloud/Emrakul. Your version demands on top of Lotus, whereas the Shelldock package is self contained.

[merfolkOTPT]

Ancestral/Lotus/Shelldock/Cloud/Emrakul

I may be wrong here and if so i apologize, but doesn't this stack kill you.  Cast ancestral get lotus shelldock cloud lay down shelldock pull our emrakul library is 0 cards...? 

[Delha]

Ancestral/Lotus/Shelldock/Cloud/Emrakul

I may be wrong here and if so i apologize, but doesn't this stack kill you.  Cast ancestral get lotus shelldock cloud lay down shelldock pull our emrakul library is 0 cards...?

Sorry, my bad. You're supposed to use BS in that slot. I was halfway remembering the stack for when you have Top on board, and mixed the two together by mistake.