Meandeck Doomsday

[Telkku]

Havent Seen one in long time and i really like doomsday, tried to make some improvements to my old one and heres the list. Problem is that you need to wait 1 turn after doing doomsday wich gives your opponent time to get ready and he knows exactly what your 5 cards are so if he counters your ancestral recall your kind of screwed so its pretty fragile.

Meandeck Doomsday

Lands : 14

4 x Polluted Delta
4 x Underground Sea
4 x Flooded Strand
2 x Flooded Foothills

Blue : 20

1 x Gush
1 x Brainstorm
1 x Ponder
1 x Ancestral Recall
1 x Time Walk
1 x Misdirection
1 x Mystical Tutor
1 x Personal Tutor l
1 x Mind's Desire
1 x Pact of Negation
4 x FoW
4 x Daze
1 x Hurkyl's Recall
1 x Chain of Vapor

Black : 21

4 x Unmask
3 x Duress
4 x Dark Ritual
2 x Cabal Ritual
4 x Doomsday
1 x Demonic Tutor
1 x Vampiric Tutor
1 x Imperial Seal
1 x Yawghmoth's Will

Red : 1

1 x Beacon of Destruction

Artifacts : 4

1 x Black Lotus
1 x Lotus Petal
1 x Mox Jet
1 x Mox Sapphire

SB :

4 x Leyline of the Void
3 x Tormods Crypt
4 x Energy Flux
3 x Hurkyl's recall
1 x Echoing Truth

Ive been playing against all kinds of decks (legacy, vintage, standard and crappy without any idea ) and won bout 50 % of the games before i made this new list with but 10 improvements. So any comments, and i dont wanna hear any comments about " why to even make doomsday deck in first place " . I had 12 lands before and it was enough but trying with 2 more now.

Sideboard really needs some new cards, havent really thought about it since i made changes to the deck.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I think that Duress and Thoughtseize are better than Unmask because you don't have to pitch cards to them.  Unmask being free can speed up the deck, but I think the stability/consistency of Duress/Thoughtseize are better, since Doomsday is about taking time to set up the win rather than going balls to the wall on speed.

That said, you might want to consider running a few Street Wraiths, since they allow you to go off the turn you cast Doomsday, though it does take UBBBB.

I am curious as to why you don't run Necropotence or any basic lands.  Necro is insanely good, and Waste Land can really screw you up.

What's up with the singleton Pact of Negation?  Seems rather narrow as it's only useful the turn you go off after casting Doomsday.

[Telkku]

Have to think about Wraiths, its just alot of mana then, have to test it. Good point though.
And ye, ill add 1 + 1 basic lands to the list now that you enlightened me, forgot about that totally.
About necropotence. It is very good card but the problem is that i usually go for combo turn 1 - 2 so i dont have even time to cast it or mana cause its spent to tutoring turn 1 or doomsday turn 2. And 2nd, it eats alot of life and with doomsday + thoughtseize ( as u suggested ) you'll be so low on life that opponent could just finish u before combo goes through. At least Fish / aggro decks. Ive been trying thoughtseizes too, but usually i have 2-3 black cards i dont need at that moment ( turn 1 ) so i can use it to Unmask and then use the mana for something else like A-Recall or ponder or so on, or even another disc. Last the pact -> If i have any mana source in my hand and no counters before casting doomsday i always add pact to the 5 cards cause i usually win the game that turn if no one uses counter, and if uses then i have pact. If its in starting hand or so i can always use it to FoW or MisD.

Ill add the basic lands now and test still abit more with thoughtseize.

More comments would be nice off course.

I thought about the Wraiths allready and basicly it doesnt speed it up at all, then you just postpone your combo by 1 turn gathering up mana before you launch, but then the opponent doesnt know that your doing it. Bad thing in this is that if you dont have counter in your hand your kind of screwed cause your 5 cards has to be : A - call, Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, Mind's Desire and Beacon. So no pact this time then. And you need 3 base mana, or 2 + 1 mox or 2 + black lotus / petal to launch. So not possible at turn 1, or might be with EXACTLY right cards and possibility is like 1-3 % for that . Ill try the deck with 1 Wraith today.

Does anyone has any experience vs Stax with doomsday? Thats the only deck i havent played against with new build, and thats the one i fear the most. Some advices against stax ?

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Necro: Think of it as Doomsday number 5.  It costs BBB and life, but if you resolve it and live until next turn, you most likely win.  Necro also gives you the resources to make sure your wins are protected.  If you were to run Wraiths, it could also give you the necessary acceleration to produce the mana to win the turn after casting it (not that hard when you are drawing 10+ cards turn 1).

You have a good point that it is hard to use Wraith to combo the same turn as casting Doomsday, but sometimes it can be worth the extra set up.  A lot of times the problem I found when playing Doomsday is that I would resolve Doomsday, then simply have to pass the turn and pray.  Most of the time I would rather pay all the mana to win in one turn than break it up over 2 turns and risk getting disrupted.  This strategy is also much better against Stacks, because you can Hurkyl's their stuff at the end of their turn and then go off on your turn without giving them time to replay any of their locks.  Of course, this plan doesn't always work, but I think it is the best plan you have against Stax other than a silly hand like turn 1 Doomsday with Fow backup on the play.  The other thing you could consider is sbing 4 Dark Confidant against them as well, since the extra card advantage helps you to fight wars of attrition that Stax would otherwise win.

Another suggestion: I think you should add a single Tendrils of Agony for an alternate storm kill.  This would let you go off using Rituals+Tutor+Will instead of just Doomsday for Beacon+Desire.  Depending on what you have in hand you can also sometimes set up Doomsday piles with the Will+Tendrils kill.  I think this is important because a lot of times I found that I couldn't go off because I had Beacon in hand, and with only 1 Brainstorm it is hard to get rid of it.

[nhk]

Disclaimer: I haven't played Doomsday in a while and wasn't that good of a pilot when I did.  But I think I understand how the deck works well enough.

Personal Tutor sucks, I know it fetches Doomsday but I wouldn't run it in any deck.  I would run Grim Tutor before I would run Personal Tutor.  And I wouldn't run Grim Tutor either.

I would include one Street Wraith to tutor for.  Street Wraith is a Time Walk if you have enough mana to cast Doomsday and go off in the same turn.  I wouldn't run more than one because life is at a premium in this deck and it makes mulligan decisions harder.

I would cut to 0-1 Unmask - again, it's good to be able to tutor for it if you have a card to pitch to it but in general you don't want to draw it.  There is simply better disruption available.

I don't see a reason to run less than 4 Duress.

Pact of Negation is fine as a 1of, I'd leave it in.  It's great protection once you are ready to win, which means you want it as a tutor target.

Tendrils is an auto-include in any deck that has cards named "Yawgmoth's Will" and "Dark Ritual".

I don't see a reason not to run Necro.  If you think the anti-synergy with Doomsday sucks, then run 1 Necro and 3 Doomsday.  Necro is simply a better card.  Unless you are already low on life, Necro and Doomsday both read "You win the game next turn."  Your opponent must counter Necro.  They can wait to disrupt Doomsday on their turn or your next turn.

There are a bunch of other singletons that are useful in random corner cases that you probably actually want: Lion's Eye Diamond, Chromatic Sphere/Star, Timetwister (yes, there are Doomsday piles with Timetwister in them), etc.  If you're building the same Doomsday pile every game, you're doing it wrong.

[Telkku]

With necro do you use vapors to bump it back to hand cause will of course wont work when its on table?

[nhk]

Yawg Will works fine under Necro.  You can't use your discarded extra cards since they're rfg, but anything else that goes to your graveyard is fine.

Not e the wording on Necro: "Whenever you discard a card".  If you cast a spell, for example, it still goes to your graveyard.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Two comments:
1.  Meandeck Doomsday was NOT the ultimate evolution of the list.  See here.  UBr easily won more tourneys as the build relied less on the slow combo aspect of the deck and more on the ease of suddenly comboing out.

2.  Sadistic Sacrament is now strictly better than Doomsday except against dredge.  Doomsday was a 2-3 card combo (ritual, Dday, draw spell).  Sadistic Sacrament is a 1-2 card combo (ritual, sacrament).

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

2.  Sadistic Sacrament is now strictly better than Doomsday except against dredge

And Stax, and Fish.

Sacrament is really only good against Tezz, Oath, and opposing combo decks, and even then it doesn't always win the game because they could always have a win condition in hand.

I think a better comparison to make to Doomsday is Hermit Druid.  Both will win the game on the next turn, but Druid is cheaper. (Of course Doomsday can go off the same turn with a draw spell, but as previously noted this takes quite a bit of mana making it difficult to achieve--obviously the build with unrestricted Gush was better suited to this)

[AmbivalentDuck]

Doomsday (the card) was not particularly strong against any sideboard disruption.  I usually went down to one copy vs Fish and leaned hard on EtW.

Against Stax, you want a crippling early threat and again, that was EtW since it shut down both Tangle Wire and Smokestack.  Doomsday is horrible in that matchup since it basically cannot play through Spheres.

Doomsday *was* an incredible answer to other Gush decks thanks to its heavy discard and disruption package (maindeck Extirpate on Gush->dead in the water). 

[Smmenen]

Two comments:
1.  Meandeck Doomsday was NOT the ultimate evolution of the list.  See here.  UBr easily won more tourneys as the build relied less on the slow combo aspect of the deck and more on the ease of suddenly comboing out.

2.  Sadistic Sacrament is now strictly better than Doomsday except against dredge.  Doomsday was a 2-3 card combo (ritual, Dday, draw spell).  Sadistic Sacrament is a 1-2 card combo (ritual, sacrament).

Meandeck Doomsday was designed in an environment where Gush was restricted.   And Doomsday was not a good choice in the Gush environment, imo.   

[AmbivalentDuck]

And Doomsday was not a good choice in the Gush environment, imo.

I strongly disagree, the Gush meta broke down into Duress/Thoughtseize + butts vs Gush vs dredge (w/Leylines).  Extirpate on Gush crippled the offensive capabilities of those deck while Extirpate on FoW was an opportunity to go off unhindered.  Doomsday (the card) is also a natural predator of Duress-based disruption since you go off from the top of your library.  The ability that Gush-era Doomsday had to go off in a way that depended neither on the grave nor on the hand was amazing.

I picked an awesome deck for the St. Louis meta and won months of tourneys with it.  Flash was admittedly under-represented, but almost everyone was packing 4x Leyline in the sb or even main.

Also, we played Doomsday very differently as evidenced by our decklists: I played disruptive control with a sudden and unpredictable combo finish, you played combo with disruption to clear the way. 

Just as telling:

I just wouldn’t feel comfortable playing it without an incredible amount of practice and experience so that I could rely more on my intuition and subconscious pattern recognition.

You wanted to go balls to the wall when appropriate and leaned on Duress to clear out disruption and help you to know when to go off.  I maneuvered for fleeting control and took advantage of it or relied on the more robust Bob-Tendrils package when I had to go all-in against impending hate.