[Article] Meandeck Doomsday

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8372

JP details my teams efforts on the deck.  Since the deck got revealed and since we set it aside for Oath for SCG II, we didn't have a COMPLETELY finalized version, but the last version I worked on isn't posted in the article.  My team was split about whether to use FOW or not.  I had 4 FOW and only 1 Chrome Sphere (becuase it can be a key part of the 5 card combo) and more basics.  I had 5 Basics 4 Seas and 5 fetch.

Read the article first.  

Here is the last list I thought was strongest.

Here was the last list I had sleeved:

3 Island
3 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground SEa

1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

1 Chromatic Sphere

4 Doomsday
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Timetwister
1 Windfall/Lim-Dul's Vault/Frantic Search/Undecided Slot

1 GUSH
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Brainstorm

4 Duress
4 Unmask
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Beacon of Destruction

The dissension in our team wasn't resolved becuase we decided not to bring it to tournament becuase it got leaked.  The major rifts were over the number of Chrom Spheres and whether to us FOW.  If I recall correctly, Hi-Val wanted Unmasks and Chrome Spheres and I wanted FOWs and Unmasks but only 1 Chrome Sphere on the theory that you just hold Brainstorms if you can.

Also, the Misd i was using would probably have become Hurkyl's.  It probably needs 2 Hurkyl's MD.  

One of the most interesting things about the deck - and the biggest barrier to playing this at tournament is the ridiculous difficultly in finding the proper set of 5 cards.  There were times that I thought there is no way I could possibly win, but with some bizaare combination of Gush and Chrome Sphere I managed to find a win somehow.
I can help answer questions about it if you have any.

EDIT:

JP forgot to mention HOW RELEIVED we were that no one played Dday at Waterbury or the mana drain open or anything like that.  We anticipated quite a bit of DDay but no one played it.

[Komatteru]

I'm a huge combo fan, but how is this superior to TPS or DeathLong (or even Belcher)?  I see that you get a lot of disruption, and that's pretty amazing.  However, TPS also has 8 and DeathLong with 4 (the speed difference is able to offset the 4 less disruption cards) are both already quite excellent.  I mean, there's value in playing something different and something new (as well as surprise value), but DeathLong can already be nightmarishly difficult to play, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of benefit to playing Doomsday instead of that or TPS.  The likelyhood that you will make a mistake is much higher and there needs to be some sort of compensation for that.  DeathLong's difficult of play is offset by its sheer power and speed, and TPS's slower pace is more than made up for by its rock solid mana base and stronger disruption.  This deck seems to fit in somewhere in between those two in terms of speed (let me know if I am wrong), and its difficulty of play and fragility don't seem to be offset with any huge benefit.  As mentioned, this deck is suseptible to every hate card in the format, with what it seems a slightly worse Workshop matchup than DeathLong.  So how does this fit in with the other Tendrils combo decks of the format?

As a side note, the math in the article is correct by the way.  It is significantly more difficult to include Force of Will (you need to use a hypergeometric distribution with two sets of "defective" items, which is pretty complex), but the end limit as written is correct.

[Hi-Val]

It's far better than TPS because when you cast Doomsday, you KNOW that you'll win. Anyone who has Desired for 8 with TPS knows that even then, victory is not assured in the slightest. TPS relies too heavily on draw-7s in my experience, hoping to grind out wins by drawing through them. There's too much chance with that, so instead you can cut the chaff and put in Doomsday.

[Smmenen]

I think the deck this will be competing with is TPS - fighting for the same niche.  I predict lots of skepticism, but if you actually play the deck and try it hard - you will be sold.  It's true that the combo is vulnerable to every single hate ever - but we have immunized quite a bit through various measures.

For each and every single card problem, we have built in a solution to the design.

[Dante]

Since this deck is quite different from the other shortbus deck posted....why not play this?  Just the fact of "Doomsday" getting out wouldn't seem like much of a deterrent..

[Saucemaster]

If I recall correctly, Hi-Val wanted Unmasks and Chrome Spheres and I wanted FOWs and Unmasks but only 1 Chrome Sphere on the theory that you just hold Brainstorms if you can.

Way to leave me out there, Steve.  I was always in favor of the FoW-toting version simply becuase Trinisphere and Chalice scare me that much.  It goldfishes with greater difficulty and you can almost never FoW more than once in a game due to the low blue-spell count, but it saved my ass too many times in testing for me to be willing to cut it.  However, I'd reiterate that, as Steve hinted at, we hadn't really finished testing the thing, and gave it up just as it was moving towards a tuned list.

One thing that Shortbus and Meandeck obviously both concluded is that the deck NEEDS basic lands.  Your mana requirements are frequently too great (often UB up after casting DDay at least) for you to be able to withstand even one Strip effect, much less two.  Unfortunately, this means that you're almost certain to be stuck with a U/B deck; at most, you can fit one more color in, but even that's pushing it.

Also, the Misd i was using would probably have become Hurkyl's.  It probably needs 2 Hurkyl's MD.

That MisD was ALWAYS Hurkyl's in my build.  I actually never really had any problems punching through a counterwall; you have to remember that your deck has 4 spells that almost literally say "I win", so if you have to "waste" a tutor on a Duress or Unmask, do it.  Give your deck the benefit of the doubt that it's going to give you the goods when you need it.

Incidentally, the "undecided slot" in my build was a second Chrom Sphere, as opposed to the second Hurkyl's that I had been considering.  You really should never pass the turn after playing Doomsday unless it's a measured gambit after a turn-1 DDay.  Even then you need to have seen their hand first.

[SpencerForHire]

I would think a reason to play this over other combo decks would be that once this hits it is the end game as pointed out by Hi-Val:

It's far better than TPS because when you cast Doomsday, you KNOW that you'll win. Anyone who has Desired for 8 with TPS knows that even then, victory is not assured in the slightest.

Basicly, with draw 7, or TPS or belcher you might have some better speed, but this is the win.  The second that doomsday hits you should have the game. (Should as in usually, but y'know, sh*t happens.)

As for the open slot, why not Yawgmoth's bargain, I understand that the 6 mana cost is a deterant, but with so many rituals why not?  Once in a blue moon it'll be dead, but the likely hood of getting double ritual is there and with moxen its a pretty good bet you can stick that out.  And once bargain hits play...  You shouldn't have any trouble getting the card you need.

[Machinus]

If you need sphere on the board to go off the same turn you DD, why do you run only 1?

[carlossb]

Thanks guys for the deck. The article was great.
This deck is completely new, so you have here all the right to call it Meandeck  

Well, I tried the first version posted by TSB, but with 4 Unmask and 4 Lim-Dûl´s Vault, and it was fantastic.
The FOW´s were very important, and thanks to 4 Unmask, 4 Duress and 4 FOW you could win consistently against control decks.
However, the main function of Lim-Dúls was to be used as a way to find either Ancestral or Time Walk, in your opponent´s turn.
Then, in your turn, Unmask/Duress your opponent, cast TimeWalk, AND Dark Ritual + Doomsday. It seems a lot of cards, but with the tutors and brainstorms, you usually had 1 FOW to backup.

I think that FOW is necessary in order not to loose to a Trinisphere (5/3 is very popular right now).

@JDizzle:

I'm a huge combo fan, but how is this superior to TPS or DeathLong (or even Belcher)? I see that you get a lot of disruption, and that's pretty amazing. However, TPS also has 8 and DeathLong with 4 (the speed difference is able to offset the 4 less disruption cards) are both already quite excellent.

This deck has 12 disruption main deck (the new version), with nearly the same speed as TPS.

I´m going now to test the new JP-Meandeck version and the Smmenen (with FOW´s): They seem superior at first sight.

Carlos

[jpmeyer]

Here's a good way to put it: it's like you get to run 5 Necros.  Both Doomsday and Necro cost BBB and (more or less) half your life and say "you win next turn."  The minor difference is that Necro says "you WILL win next turn" while Doomsday says "you might win next turn, or you might win this turn."

[shaq]

It's perhaps the first deck in ages to come up with no sol ring. Isn't it necessary at all, mr smmenen?
BTW The deck looks very interesting and absolutely new. Congrats to the development team.

[orgcandman]

Heh, this deck looks quite similar to a deck that I've been working on. The major differences I've seen so far are:

1) The use of unmask. How has it been for you? I can definately see it's value and am excited to try it out in the build.

2) The number of lim-dul's vaults. How have you found 1 working for you? I'm running 2, and sometimes 3, as they not only pitch to force, but can find a chomatic sphere/brainstorm/other draw piece when I want to be assured of a win.

3) The use of tendril's as a win condition. I never considered it, as I was testing a more slow rolling combo version, using green. As you probably have surmised, I found that to be much too susceptible to mana-base hate. I had gone to a pure ub attempt to try and make up for it, which is when I decided to go with the 4 force + 4 duress route. Even after that, it never dawned on me to use tendrils. Mise.

4) how are you finding the cabal rituals. In my testing they were never fully charged unless I were running multiple spheres in addition to the led+lotus petal, as then I would be unafraid to break one immediately, and fill my yard.

5) Why aren't you using mana crypt or sol ring as a way to generate multiple bursts of 2. I was running the crypt, although my chromatic sphere count is higher, so I guess that would be why it would have been cut. Was there any other reason?

Those are all my random thoughts/questions for now. I'm rather curious to hear also, where some of the larger team divides seem to be (IE: what is the proper number of duress to run, what is the proper number of chromatics to run, etc.)

Aaron

[Methuselahn]

It's clearly obvious that you mean guys did your homework by the looks of the lists.  Nice work.

What I'm really trying to figure out is why you have released this article shortly before the big SCG Chicago event.  Does this mean that Meandeck is playing Stax in order to foil Oath and DDay??  We'll see I guess.

[Toad]

The decklist has been designed a long time ago and we decided to hold it because some teammates wanted to play it at the last SCG tourney, which they didnt in the end since Oath was considered as the best metagame choice. That was two weeks ago. Add to these two weeks a couple of days for JP to write the article, then a couple more days for Knut to edit it and find a slot to post it, and you'll understand why the article is released today.

[Hi-Val]

It's clearly obvious that you mean guys did your homework by the looks of the lists.  Nice work.

What I'm really trying to figure out is why you have released this article shortly before the big SCG Chicago event.  Does this mean that Meandeck is playing Stax in order to foil Oath and DDay??  We'll see I guess.

Echoing what Toad said, and I'd like to mention that a lot of people thought we were playing Stax at the last SCG because Steve posted Meandeath articles. Think what you want about whether we're plotting or not, but I just wish our team had half the intelligence that people credit us with : )

Also, the version that I favored had 4 Chromatic Sphere and was seriously on the verge of running Conjurer's Bauble for the cantrip, it's that strong. Steve was on the fringe of development, so I'm not sure if he was aware that we had a version that ran Spheres AND FoW.

EDIT: Think of this as an early gift from Team Meandeck to you. Why? Look at the amount of power played in the deck. You can run this fully powered with ONLY FIVE PROXIES. This IS the deck for people looking to compete without power.

[Saucemaster]

1) The use of unmask. How has it been for you? I can definately see it's value and am excited to try it out in the build.

The Unmasks were in JP's initial build and were so incredible, right from the beginning, that cutting them has never really been seriously considered.  I'm actually not sure whether I like Unmask or Duress more in this deck.  The combo is mana-intensive, and the fact that Unmask is free frequently speeds you up by a full turn.

2) The number of lim-dul's vaults. How have you found 1 working for you? I'm running 2, and sometimes 3, as they not only pitch to force, but can find a chomatic sphere/brainstorm/other draw piece when I want to be assured of a win.

Again, take a look at JP's initial build, that the team started working from.  It had 4 LDV.  In theory, it's a spectacularly elegant card for the deck to run; it pitches to Unmask *and* to FoW, and it's a 4-of tutor.  However, in practice, it was just too slow and clunky.  It was used almost *exclusively* to pitch to Unmask or FoW and just didn't add enough to the deck to justify itself.

3) The use of tendril's as a win condition.

Actually, we debated cutting Beacon entirely, but most of your turn-two wins come from Beacon and Tendrils is a little harder to set up.  That said, in probably the majority of your games, Tendrils is almost entirely set up for you by your hand, and you just have to put Will in the DDay stack.

4) how are you finding the cabal rituals. In my testing they were never fully charged unless I were running multiple spheres in addition to the led+lotus petal, as then I would be unafraid to break one immediately, and fill my yard.

Cabal Ritual is sometimes a bit clunky, but it's worth it.  Remember that in the version that Steve and I were favoring, there's only two Moxen.  You need more acceleration, and Cabal Ritual is pretty much it.  Even in versions with a full set of Moxen and Spheres, Black mana is much, much more important to the deck's functioning.

5) Why aren't you using mana crypt or sol ring as a way to generate multiple bursts of 2. I was running the crypt, although my chromatic sphere count is higher, so I guess that would be why it would have been cut. Was there any other reason?

Crypt has been in and out of builds, and I personally like it quite a bit, because it reduces your Desire/Beacon mana requirements from UB to U1 (you don't have to have black to cast Ritual, so if you're stuck with two untapped Islands, you can use one for Ancestral, play Lotus, tap the other for mana, play Crypt, and you're already at Desire mana).  Sol Ring just isn't worth it.  Some of the builds aren't even playing off-color moxen because they're honestly just too situational.

I'm rather curious to hear also, where some of the larger team divides seem to be (IE: what is the proper number of duress to run, what is the proper number of chromatics to run, etc.)

Well, 4 Duress seems automatic, to me at least.  I can't really imagine the argument that would convince me otherwise.  As for Chromatic Spheres, I think we all agree that we would LOVE to run 4 of them.  It's just a question of finding what to cut.  Hi-Val was working on it; as I mentioned above, my FoW build had two and I was looking at ways to sneak in a third.  FoW is really the deck's design problem right now.  You have to work very hard to make it fit, and even then it's pretty obvious it was forced into shape.

[JACO]

It's clearly obvious that you mean guys did your homework by the looks of the lists.  Nice work.

If by doing their homework, you mean releasing unrefined builds, then sure, they did their homework.

EDIT: Think of this as an early gift from Team Meandeck to you. Why? Look at the amount of power played in the deck. You can run this fully powered with ONLY FIVE PROXIES. This IS the deck for people looking to compete without power.

I'm not sure what you mean by playing it fully powered with 'only 5 proxies,' when by my count there are 9:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister

That appears to be 9 proxies, so unless I'm missing something (which I'm sure I am), in no way can this, or any other real storm combo deck, seriously be run with 5 proxies. Off color Moxes seem to be too important when playing storm, on the off chance that you can't getr main combo going, and have to just drop permanents and cast Rituals to up the sotrm count.

[Saucemaster]

I'm not sure what you mean by playing it fully powered with 'only 5 proxies,' when by my count there are 9

Here was the last list I had sleeved:

3 Island
3 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground SEa

1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

1 Chromatic Sphere

4 Doomsday
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Timetwister
1 Windfall/Lim-Dul's Vault/Frantic Search/Undecided Slot

1 GUSH
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Brainstorm

4 Duress
4 Unmask
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Beacon of Destruction

Jet, Sapphire, Ancestral, Walk, Lotus.

Hi-Val was referring to the list Steve posted, not the final list in JP's article.

[walkingdude]

I’ve been testing a few doomsday builds since the articles and posts went up and have a few thoughts about the artifact removal slot.

Note, my test build is closer to the one JP posted with off color moxen, mana crypt, 4 spheres and no force.

I was initially trying hurkls in the removal slot but after some thinking I suspect rebuild might be better.
4 cases

1. You need to remove some artifacts your opponent has
2. You want to bounce your artifacts to up storm or generate mana
3. You need to do both
4. You don’t need to do either

In case 4 rebuild is better because it can at least cycle.
In case 3 rebuild is better because it can hit both players and hurklys hits only one.

In case 2 hurklys is better since it costs one fewer mana.

Case 1 is the most important case since it’s why the card is in your deck. Realistically, the lock card you are going to go after most often will be 3sphere in which case they cost the same amount.
If they have sphere of resistance hurklys is cheaper, but if they have sphere then they are probably playing old school stax with sphere and chalice main deck, and 3spheres in the board and the match is probably close enough to an auto loss that what card you use won’t matter.

Furthermore if you have even 1 artifact mana on the table that you can reply then rebuild is cheaper under 3 sphere pay 3 get 1 back vs. pay 3 get 0. Likewise it is the same cost as hurklys against non 3sphere artifacts. If you have more than 1 source of artifact mana it’s even cheaper.

So if you play the build with artifact mana, rebuild seems as good as or better than hurkls in most cases.

[Hi-Val]

JACO, I'd love to see what you think is a refined build, or at least why you think ours is "unrefined".

[Ged]

Jet, Sapphire, Ancestral, Walk, Lotus.

Hi-Val was referring to the list Steve posted, not the final list in JP's article.

You are missing Timetwister from Steve's list.

[Saucemaster]

So if you play the build with artifact mana, rebuild seems as good as or better than hurkls in most cases.

 
Nice analysis.  I think there are only two things you didn't cover: one is that if you're playing the build with four Spheres, you don't really want to return them to your hand, since they cost you a mana to replay, and you can't afford to be potentially slowed down by one turn (since after all, in that one turn that it might cost you, they can just replay their 3Sphere or Chalice).

The other question is Chalice, where it's not entirely impossible that they Chalice you for 3 after they Chalice you for 1.  This is a non-issue, however, as the only real reason to do this would be if they knew for a fact that you had Rebuild, but not Hurkyl's, and figured that they could hit Doomsday as well this way.  Unless they know you're running Rebuild (and in that case they might just as easily know that you're running Hurkyl's instead, if in fact you are), Chalice @ 0 (after Chalice @ 1) is pretty much a strictly superior play to Chalice @ 3.

You are missing Timetwister from Steve's list.

Oops.  If I was running it with 5-proxies and had no power, I'd probably sub Windfall for Twister and proxy the five I mentioned, though.

[NCM]

Can be run with 6 proxies?  Awesome.  And my friend has a Twister, so all I have to do is steal that from him in his sleep, proxy for Jet, Sapphire, Lotus, Time Walk, and Ancestral, buy all the other deck components (because I am a n00b)...

...ok, that last part may be a tad difficult (because I am an unemployed n00b)...

Anyway, congratulations to Team Meandeck for building a Doomsday deck that's WAY better than the SCG builds with Disciple of the Vault+Conjourer's Bauble that were running around those forums in September.

However, there is one thing that bugs me; In the thread "Doomsday take 2"(or something like that) in the Vintage Forum (which I can't post on), Smmenen said:

Our article on this deck goes up next week.

I'll explain in great detail how to hate out this deck and how it works from our build things that weren't mentioned in the article.

Well, the articles out so would you mind telling us haters how we can hate it before it plays Control Magic on the SCGP9III top 8 please?

Thanks again for reviving such a cool old combo deck.

[Smmenen]

When we were working on it, I definately didn't help move my designs in a direction that would make them 5 proxy playable - but now that they are, I'd like to say this is Meandecks present to the community like Doug said.  In my opinion, Doomsday belongs back on the restricted list where it belongs.

[BreathWeapon]

 In my opinion, Doomsday belongs back on the restricted list where it belongs.

What justifies this conclusion? Budget players can play something other than Fish and FCG for a change, thus Doomsday needs to be restricted?

While I think Doomsday.dec is superior to TPS as a turn 2-4 Combo Deck, Doomsday has no significant chance of Turn 1 wins like Deathwish and Draw 7. I fail to see what's so abusive about Doomsday here, haven't you been the person adovcating that more people play Combo?

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

 In my opinion, Doomsday belongs back on the restricted list where it belongs.

What justifies this conclusion? Budget players can play something other than Fish and FCG for a change, thus Doomsday needs to be restricted?

While I think Doomsday.dec is superior to TPS as a turn 2-4 Combo Deck, Doomsday has no significant chance of Turn 1 wins like Deathwish and Draw 7. I fail to see what's so abusive about Doomsday here, haven't you been the person adovcating that more people play Combo?

The reason is because resolving a single doomsday gives you all the cards you need to win, given that you have a bit of mana to start with.  It's a basically 1 card combo that wins the game, and thus worthy of restriction, especially since it only costs BBB.  

Look at the number of disruption spells Steve is able to run in his build.  Maindeck 4 fow, duress, and unmask within a broken combo deck with a SURE kill with a BBB card run as a 4 of.  Seems pretty abusive to me compared to what we've had before now... (actually it sounds alot like unrestricted necro combo, except it can win on the same turn it casts the BBB spell, and has no chance of randomly drawing crap and then dying...doomsday is like the "new" necro except even better because it is gaurenteed to give you the cards needed to go off.)

[rvs]

If you need sphere on the board to go off the same turn you DD, why do you run only 1?

I'd still like to get an answer to this one from the meandeck guys, but my stab would be that you would be forced to hang on to Brainstorm if you don't draw your 1 sphere?

I've been playing around with the list, and it's very good. Wether or not I would play it over TPS, is undecided as of yet :p

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

If you need sphere on the board to go off the same turn you DD, why do you run only 1?

I'd still like to get an answer to this one from the meandeck guys, but my stab would be that you would be forced to hang on to Brainstorm if you don't draw your 1 sphere?

In the article a stack to go off with brainstorm is included as well as an explanation of what to do.

[rvs]

In the article a stack to go off with brainstorm is included as well as an explanation of what to do.

In case you didn't notice, I wasn't talking to you. Also, the article has a lot more spheres, so this is totally not an issue. The reason I ask is because hanging on to brainstorm sucks in my opinion in like 75% of the cases. That's why I'm wondering what the people who tested it a whole bunch more than I did think about it.

[BreathWeapon]

 In my opinion, Doomsday belongs back on the restricted list where it belongs.

What justifies this conclusion? Budget players can play something other than Fish and FCG for a change, thus Doomsday needs to be restricted?

While I think Doomsday.dec is superior to TPS as a turn 2-4 Combo Deck, Doomsday has no significant chance of Turn 1 wins like Deathwish and Draw 7. I fail to see what's so abusive about Doomsday here, haven't you been the person adovcating that more people play Combo?

The reason is because resolving a single doomsday gives you all the cards you need to win, given that you have a bit of mana to start with.  It's a basically 1 card combo that wins the game, and thus worthy of restriction, especially since it only costs BBB.  

Look at the number of disruption spells Steve is able to run in his build.  Maindeck 4 fow, duress, and unmask within a broken combo deck with a SURE kill with a BBB card run as a 4 of.  Seems pretty abusive to me compared to what we've had before now... (actually it sounds alot like unrestricted necro combo, except it can win on the same turn it casts the BBB spell, and has no chance of randomly drawing crap and then dying...doomsday is like the "new" necro except even better because it is gaurenteed to give you the cards needed to go off.)

The problem I have with this explanation is that it's nothing new. I'm left wondering why Doomsday Dragon didn't bring Steve to the same conclusion when I posted my list for it 2 months ago.

Yes, I know in 1 version you have a Tendrils Kill and in the other you have a Dragon Kill, but lets brake this down.

1) Meandeck Doomsday is hated by Null Rod and Doomsday Dragon is hated by STP and BEB. Your metagame will have to decide which is the greater draw back.

2) Meandeck Doomsday relies entirely on Doomsday to win. I haven't managed to Gold Fish a single Tendrils Kill with out Doomsday yet, other than Ritual->Necro. Doomsday Dragon only use Doomsday to supplement its paths to victory.

While I agree that Doomsday is a great card, the fact of the matter is that this deck will never win on Turn 1 and is inferior to Doomsday Dragon, in consistancy and speed. If Meandeck Doomsday doesn't utilize FoW, the one card Doomsday Dragon has no equivalent for, to circumvent Trinisphere=GG I see no reason to play it. I played JP's suggested build with out FoW, and it was simply terrible. I lost the same number of games to Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void as I did with Doomsday Dragon, and the deck only offered greater inconsistancy in return.

Even tho' Steve's deck may have 4 additional Disruption Cards, assuming 4xForce of Will, Unmask and Duress, it still relies entirely on Doomsday to win. A Dragon build may have less disruption, 4xUnmask and Duress or Xantid and Duress, but it doesn't rely solely on Doomsday.

So, unless the combination of Doomsday + FoW is simply god awful broken, I'm not convinced that Doomsday should be restricted. While I respect all of the hard work Steve has put into Combo in the last year, I find myself questioning the validity of the proposed decks.

Also, I disagree with the assertion that Doomsday is the "New Necro." Resolving Doomsday==Win or Die. Necropotence doesn't have the same level of associated risk as Doomsday by any stretch of the imagination.