Doomsday tournament report, 9/6/2014
2nd place with Doomsday, Michael McGeachie, 33 players, Pandemonium, Boston MA.
I’m writing a tournament report cause I like it when other people write them. I enjoy reading about the salient plays and thinking about the strategy in different matches. Also, its cool to see the perspective of someone playing a different deck and archetype. I hope this is helpful or interesting to you!
I wanted to try playing doomsday at a big event to see if I could really do it. I was worried that it’d be too mentally taxing to make successful piles all day long, and I thought there’s a good chance I’d fall apart by round six or hour seven and fatigue would make my play worse. I think I did alright, mostly, or good enough to win some, but I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement. That makes this deck really interesting – it’s not simple and the lines are frequently complicated, and it presents a lot of opportunities to outplay your opponent, and, alternatively, to outplay yourself.
I’ve really loved the 4-ritual version since it’s a clean fusion of traditional storm and the gush engine and doomsday itself; usually about ~40% of my wins are just storming out with tendrils. I think the ritual-gush synergy is often overlooked. Float a blue and a black, return two seas to my hand, cast gush, cast ritual – that’s a powerful sequence that sets you up for something good.
This is the list I ran:
TNT Doomsday
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gush
4 Doomsday
1 Fastbond
1 Tendril's of Agony
1 Necropotence
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ponder
3 Preordain
1 Night's Whisper
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Force of Will
2 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
1 Misdirection
SB
1 Swamp
3 Snuff Out
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Rebuild
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Trygon Predator
1 Pithing Needle
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Yixilid Jailer
2 Tormod's Crypt
Its heavily based on a list in the Ritual Doomsday thread on themanadrain, by user “dark ritual”. I cut a mental misstep and added imperial seal, cut a preordain for a ponder, and added the 61st card : misdirection. Mostly, I really liked the main deck. The sideboard I found a little weak to both dredge and control. Xantid Swarms are a lot better than extirpate vs. control. Just a ton better, really. I found I couldn’t reliably beat the strong dredge players at Pandemonium without more dredge hate, so I went up to 4. I would have liked to go higher but I needed a toxic deluge for bob and hatebear decks. Snuff out I totally vouch for. It’s great against shops and creature strategies. Although, mostly just forgemaster and metalworker shops builds, which I hoped would be most of the shops players at the event.
The 61st card was a concession to the amount of BUG that we expected, and to them packing abrupt decay. Also I reasoned that with so many tutors, having an extra card in the deck is kind of an advantage, assuming I’m resolving a doomsday or other tutor.
Rnd 1: Rex on Dredge
Rex mulligans to 4, which I don’t think includes bazaar. He powdered hands of 6, 5, 4, and 4. On his turn 2 he casts a proxy unmask on me, and we spend some time deciding if that spell targets. It does, so I misdirect it to him. This lets him discard a dredger, which he wouldn’t have been able to do for a long time. We speculate that he’d have been better off targeting himself to begin with. But after all, I think its probably better I misdirect it; it lets me combo out. Which I do on turn 3, even though I only have one land and used a mystical tutor for dark ritual on my upkeep.
Game 2, I lose to a big horde of bloodghasts. I have turn-one library. I also have ancestral and it finds a tormod’s crypt but it isn’t enough as I don’t have a hand that wins easily. Library is too slow.
Game 3, I have a turn 1 ancestral that gets through after misstep + misstep, and I play a tormod’s crypt. On my turn two, I probe to see his hand is a couple blanks + darkblast; I have two lands and I can DT for doomsday, cast it with lotus and go off with gush into a standard pile: ancestral, lotus, lotus petal, yawgwill, maniac.
I was nevertheless sort of impressed with Rex’s play, and was going to complement him on not missing any triggers (which I think is legitimately difficult in dredge), when Terry, sitting next to us, points out Rex missed his draw step on his last turn.
I side out : 2 force of will, necropotence, duress, chain of vapor. Bring in: 2 tormod’s crypt, pithing needle, jailer, one xantid swarm. Then on the play side out the library for the toxic deluge. Siding out forces seem correct to most people?
Rnd 2: William from Maine on grixis with planeswalkers.
We both get deck checked and William gets a game loss for missing his sol ring from his registration slip.
Game 2: We both counter some of each other’s stuff and between missteps and forces, William is down to 14. I manage to doomsday and pass the turn. My pile is gush, gush, flusterstorm, ritual, tendrils. My hand is duress, land, lotus petal. My opponent draws, passes with three cards in hand and three mana open. I draw, cast duress. He has tinker, blightsteel, and steel sabotage. I take the sabotage, cause I realize I might need that lotus petal. However, I then realize I don’t have a legal target for flusterstorm and can’t generate 7 storm this turn without him casting a counterspell. So I lose! Should have probably taken tinker, pretended like that was a mistake, and let him sabotage the petal.
Game 3: Side in two xantid swarm for maybe mystical tutor and a basic island. I like the side-out-a-basic plan against anything that doesn’t use wasteland, except with this deck it puts my permanent mana source count a little low; that can lead to problems.
Game 3. I have turn 1 ponder which I think gets missteped. I have Turn 2 Xantid Swarm, which resolves. But then he untaps, plays DT for lotus, plays Lotus -> Liliana of the Veil -> sac the xantid swarm. But then I go off with a ritual -> doomsday -> gush, with a force in hand.
Rnd 3: Nic on BUG fish
This is rough one and Nic beats me in two; he makes top 8. I haven’t tested against BUG and I don’t force his first bob, which turns out to be a huge mistake cause my hand wasn’t fast enough.
I side in the two xantid swarm and the 1 deluge and basic swamp.
Game 2: I mulligan a hand with a trop as the only mana source and ancestral with no misstep protection as the only action. My six has no mana source, my five card hand at least has basic swamp, ritual, necropotence (which gets forced, pitching misstep). Then I’m pretty much out of the match.
Rnd 4: ID with Chris Ferry, cause we’re Team Doomsday. We’ll both be 2-1-1, and if we both win the next round, we can get into top 8.
Rnd 5: Andrew Farias on U/R Blood Moon control.
Game 1: I lead with ancestral on his upkeep. He missteps and I misstep back, but he has a second one. My turn 2 I resolve lotus into fastbond, but I don’t have another land. I use a floating green + black for night’s whisper and I find one. I can’t find a use for the other green, but I can preordain. My turn 3 I draw probe, so I probe him. I see force, snap. I play ritual, he plays snapcaster-misstep. Turn three I’ll have 3 underground sea and a blue mox and can hardcast the doomsday. His turn three he has three mana and casts bloodmoon, I float a blue, he goes to combat and I chain of vapor the bloodmoon. He thinks a bit and sacs his volc to chain my fastbond. Interestingly, neither of us can recast the spell that was bounced, him because he only has 2 mana and me because I have no green source. I’m ok with that and cast a doomsday using three land. I make a pass-the-turn pile: ancestral, lotus, yawgmoth’s will, labman, blank. I’m hoping he draws a land and replays the bloodmoon, which I can play around. I’m holding a force and I’m pretty sure he’s out of missteps, so I think the ancestral pile is ok. He draws a blank and I win off my doomsday.
Game 2: He plays two bloodmoons, both of which I force, even though I end up with basic island and basic swamp in play. But I had a hard time finding land and was scared I’d end up stuck with dead fetches in play. We’re both digging for stuff, I’m trying to assemble some card advantage. I duress, and he lets it resolve, and I get to take a flusterstorm. He plays a tormod’s crypt and I look at my full, juicy yard, and get a little sad. Then I topdeck yawgwill. I play it anyway. He blows the crypt. I feel like, make them use it early. I then respond to my yawgwill with a fetch. I get to replay the fetch after will resolves. I’m holding ritual tendrils in my hand, and I’m hoping I can bait him into somekind of war I can win. I gush but he doesn’t bite. I ritual and he doesn’t bite. I nights whisper and he doesn’t bite. I draw library off all that and play it next turn. I have to discard down to 7 but at least I’m on library. Two turns later, I gush again, that resolves, I find lotus and force off gush. I preordain. I probe. I ritual. He finally bites, realizing I’m at 4 storm and if ritual resolves I’ll have 3 black and 1 blue mana. His force is 5 storm, my lotus and tendrils makes 7 and he’s at 14. This match took about 45 minutes. Were the best games of the day.
I make top 8 off breakers at 3-1-1. Turns out my breakers were about the best in the building. Chris, my partner on Team Doomsday, also won, but has worse breakers and gets 9th at 3-1-1.
Top 8. I’m seeded 7th. We use the play-draw rule based on seeding in top 8 and I’m paired against Greg Fenton, on Oath.
Everyone knows I’m on Doomsday at this point (although, it’s kind of a joke going around the room: doomsday doing well at a large event) and I suspect that influences Greg’s mulliganing decision. He mulls to 5. I think I preordain a couple times or maybe have ancestral. At any rate, this wasn’t much of a game, and I probe, see a bunch of nothing, and make a pile that wins.
Game 2. He keeps something with a lot of forces, I assume. His opening is black mox, black lotus, pass. I have library on the draw and that’s pretty much the game there. I stay on library for 6 turns or so until my hand is unbeatable.
Top 4. Taylor “Two-Lands” Pratt on BUG fish.
Game 1: This is an interesting (doomsday) game where he plays a deathrite and passes. I don’t care too much, and decide that the early doomsday is the best doomsday. My turn 1 is : land -> ritual -> doomsday. I only have 1 land and that’s too bad, it’s a little loose but I also have blue mox and ancestral in my hand (and night’s whisper). I pile : ritual, force, lotus, yawgwill, labman. This lets me drop the mox and ancestral into the top three, which gives me five black off lotus -> ritual, which is enough to play night’s whisper and yawgwill. I replay the lotus and play the labman, but I realize I have to pass the turn with lab man in play and no cards in my library. He doesn’t have the abrupt decay, but he does time walk and I force it. That gives me this game. (note: I think a tendrils pile would have won w/o passing the turn, but also w/o a force of will).
Game 2: I play xantid swarm turn 2. He goes to abrupt decay it, and I misdirect to his bob. He untaps and plays another bob and another abrupt decay. I don’t have any action left and I draw into five lands over the next 3 turns.
Game 3: I land the early xantid swarm after misstep + misstep. I get to attack a couple times and resolve stuff like preordain, night’s whisper, etc. I set up a nice hand and then doomsday with xantid protection.
Finals. Paul Ewenstein on UW stoneforge batterskull.
I try to get Paul to split but he won’t. I don’t blame him really, since the difference between 1st and 2nd is 50 bucks, so we might as well play. Unfortunately for me, I haven’t eaten and it’s clear I’m fatigued. I don’t clearly remember these piles, but I impressed myself in not making bad piles particularly often until now. I know in this match I tried to go off early when I could. One game I have force + fluster protection and he has three counters, so I lose with my lab man on the stack. Another game I win cause I have the force for his drain.
Game 2 was kind of cool. He played grafdigger’s cage, and I didn’t care. He played cavern -> Meddling Mage naming doomsday. I had one in my hand. I played gush into ponder and found toxic deluge to kill the mage and doomsday in the same turn, but I lose in the pile.
Third game I think I tried to go off turn 1, but that was the wrong play cause its too hard to make a pile with 1 land in play. Also his turn-1 play was mox pearl -> grafdigger’s, pass. So, I should have realized I could play a longer game with him; try to preordain into a couple lands and set up a good hand while he fumbles around for a blue source. I probed him and it turns out his hand was force, drain, mindbreak trap, jace, blank. Even though I went off on turn 1, I think (in retrospect) the correct pile was a slow one that passed the turn twice: Land, Duress, Gush, lotus, labman. I had probe, fluster, fastbond in my hand, I think. I could play the probe, pass. (Paul’s draw here was 2nd grafdigger’s cage, which he played). I then draw duress, play land for turn. Assuming Paul draws a blank, next turn I can play duress with fluster backup, then gush, replay a land, play lotus and lab man, and pass the turn again, hoping Paul doesn’t hit swords to plowshares. Although, I’d like to find a better pile for that situation (hand : probe, fluster, fastbond; one tropical island in play, doomsday pile to be determined.)
It was a really great tournament. Pandemonium is a great place to play at and I’m always glad to see so many great people show up. I’m happy with the outcome and happy to have dodged shops all day.
Really glad that Paul and I could represent the Tuesday Night Weekly Vintage crew at the top table of the big event. And, really, I can’t complain about losing to Paul - he’s a better magic player than me.
