SCG P9 III Report: 3rd Place With The Doomsday Device

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8410

There were good arguments for unrestricting Doomsday. Doomsday combo would seem to be no faster than Worldgorger Dragon, which everyone agrees is "fair combo." I figured, however, that with the Type One card pool, it only takes one truly inspired set of five cards to break the living hell out of it... And so we looked through the Dojo archives to find inspiration. Barely a week had passed when JP showed probably the most elegant win condition ever conceived: Doomsday for Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, Mind's Desire, and Beacon of Destruction.

[Moxlotus]

I decide to take the Mystical, although it might have been the wrong call.

I thought you took the Thirst, because he cast Mystical for the Tutor.

Other than that, what is the deal with heavily reflective sleeves?  How reflective were they and why did they require calling a judge?

[Smmenen]

That's right - I took Thirst.  The sleeves were extremely reflective.  They were one of the new special kind of sleeves with holograms, etc.

[Dante]

I decide to take the Mystical, although it might have been the wrong call.

I thought you took the Thirst, because he cast Mystical for the Tutor.

Other than that, what is the deal with heavily reflective sleeves?  How reflective were they and why did they require calling a judge?

reflective ones have the potential to be "edited"

[Komatteru]

reflective ones have the potential to be "edited"

If they were the "Super Holography" sleeves (front holographs).  Those are just obnoxious to look at.  You can't even tell what color the cards are, let alone read the damn things, unless you look at them from right above (all you see is reflection).  I once told a person playing FCG with those sleeves to change them.  I don't know what all those Goblins do and didn't want to have to hassle just trying to read what all of them do.

On topic, solid report.  Nothing substantial, but overall interesting and a good read, as always.

[DEA]

Because I am the active player, I choose which replacement effect wins. I confirmed this with the judge before going for it and winning.

is this right? i was of the impression that the AFFECTED player decides which replacement effect replaces the event, and should have nothing to do with the active player

in a similar vein, what happens to dsc in a will turn?

[PacmanXSA]

Great article... I'm very upset that I wasn't able to make the tournament due to time constraints.

I've been playtesting similar versions to the one you ran.  You yourself wrote several times that you were in topdeck mode throughout the course of the tournament.  Further to that, did you have problems pitching to FoW or Unmask at all?

Those two issues are the main problems that I have when only running one Lim Duls Vault.  I find that running 2-3 stabilizes the deck a whole lot more.  I'd normally cut Time Walk and a Cabal Ritual, or both rituals in order to fit the aforementioned vaults.  

I know other decklists feature the 4 vaults.  What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Pac

[theorigamist]

The moment came. He had no cards in hand but he draws Fact or Fiction. He moved to his second main phase, and played it. I hard-cast Force of Will and he played Mana Drain.

Where did the Drain come from?

Great report.  I wish I could have gone (I'm so damn close; college takes up all my time).  Great job.

[Necrologia]

Good report. I would have liked to hear what stack you used after Doomsday a bit more often, but other than that it was excellent.

[Nijo]

My hand is something like Land, Mox Jet, Ancestral Recall, Duress, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, and Timetwister. I play Ancestral and it resolves. I played Jet and Duressed him

The play of the courageous

[jdl]

Re: The Doomsday cast too early in your final match.

I'm curious to know what you did choose for five cards, even though you knew you were going to lose.  I would have gone for these five, which would be worth 26 points of damage, assuming that my opponent misplayed horribly and let me actually live long enough to draw them all.

Black Lotus
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Tendrils
Yawgmoth's Will

A 0.0001% chance of winning is still better than nothing.

[Dante]

Re: The Doomsday cast too early in your final match.

I'm curious to know what you did choose for five cards, even though you knew you were going to lose.  I would have gone for these five, which would be worth 26 points of damage, assuming that my opponent misplayed horribly and let me actually live long enough to draw them all.

Black Lotus
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Tendrils
Yawgmoth's Will

A 0.0001% chance of winning is still better than nothing.

Lotus (1)
Ritual (2)
Ritual (3)
Tendrils for 4x2 = 8 (storm count 4)
Yawg Will (5)
Lotus (6)
Ritual (7)
Ritual  (8)
Tendrils for 9 x 2 = 18.

good call jim.

[Machinus]

Brilliant work on Goth Slaver. I don't know how outdated it is but I think it is a great deck.

[Yare]

For example, if you have Gush in hand, you'll want to stack the deck this way:

Ancestral
Lotus
Lion's-Eye Diamond
Yawgmoth's Will
Tendrils

That way you win immediately instead of having to pass a turn. One of the best things I discovered in testing is that if you try hard enough, you can find a win for the most difficult situations. Another unusual win is putting both Beacon and Tendrils in the Doomsday pile.

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you go off with Gush in hand and this stack?  Is there some land requirement beyond the two islands that I'm missing?

Additionally, thank you for giving budget players something to play other than fish.  I admit that I am struggling a lot to figure out exactly how to run this deck, but it's about time I learned to play combo anyway.  It gives me something to do if nothing else.

[Saucemaster]

I think Steve mixed up LED and Lotus in that stack, but there's one easy way to do it: Gush (1 storm), tapping the lands first (you only need one of them untapped, producing U), draw Ancestral and LED.  Play LED (storm: 2), replay an Island, use the U in your pool to cast Ancestral (3), sac LED for black in response.  Draw Lotus, Will, Tendrils with BBB in your pool.  Tap the Island you replayed for U, play Lotus (4), sac the Lotus for BBB (BBBBBBU in pool), play Tendrils (10 points, and now storm is 5), leaving you BBB in your pool; then play Will (storm 6), replay Lotus and LED (storm 8), sac them both, replay Tendrils (18 points, for 28 damage total and one very dead opponent).

And that's without taking into account that you should have played DDay on that turn, then Gushed (as opposed to playing DDay and then passing the turn), which means that you probably played a ritual; anyway, even if you didn't play a ritual, Doomsday on the same turn makes your damage total 32.  With Ritual that's 38 damage (adding the four from the two Tendrils, plus you replay the Ritual before casting the second Tendrils for another 2).

[Jacob Orlove]

You don't replay the ritual if you used it to cast Doomsday. ;)

[Saucemaster]

OMG SHUT UP!!

Yes, you're right.  Still, can we agree that your opponent is very dead unless he's playing his Overgrown Estate combo deck?

Actually, wasn't there some Lich build using Overgrown Estate at some point?

[Necrologia]

Actually, wasn't there some Lich build using Overgrown Estate at some point?

Yes indeed. Turbo Lich killed with the good old fashioned combo of Donate + Lich + Lich + Despotic Scepter. Later this was replaced with the "much" easier to accomplish Nefarious Lich + Donate + Scepter kill. The deck was really hard to play, because once you got going, you could deck youself really easily. That and the fact that losing Lich would kill you.

If I remember correctly, it ran Rectors, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Sterling Grove. I could probably dig up an old primer for it somewhere if you really wanted  

EDIT: It looks like the primer was on the old TMD boards.

http://forums.mtgnews.com/showthread.php?t=120869

Maybe Zherbus has access to it somehow?

[Kowal]

I've got better.  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15084&highlight=

[hellswarm]

a quick question...

how would u deal with a  none artifact threat to your combo?
lets say
 chains of mephistopheles?

this card is spalsh able and tendsto nutter many control decks once it gets acive.
some times this is even found in some veration of 4cc. thes edecks also tend to feature duress and other removal spell along with a full arsenal of counters.

It can be droped out just as fast and is highly effective at nullifing the inital draw 2/3 spell usually required to get the combo effective.

one answer i can spot for sure is chain of vapor.

what i really don't understand is that alot of decks are reliant on drawing more then 1 spell a turn to be effective, y isn;t chains of meph not used alot more today ?

just look at most decks listings
ak's
brainstorms
anscestrals
skeltal scrying
gush
many diffreent viarions of draw 7's
thrist for knowledge
stand still

and many other well used drawing spells. (that i may have forgotten)

y not try to incorperated this punishing card into some new hybrid of control and utilize that advantages of drawing less by hurting them for getting more then 1.

[wonkey_donkey]

a quick question...

how would u deal with a  none artifact threat to your combo?
lets say
 chains of mephistopheles?

this card is spalsh able and tendsto nutter many control decks once it gets acive.

It can be droped out just as fast and is highly effective at nullifing the inital draw 2/3 spell usually required to get the combo effective.

Chains doesn't really kill doomsday, though. If you've got a gush stack, then the discard problem's already gone away. Ok, so some stacks will no longer be effective, but that's certainly not to say that chains kills this combo deck.

Tom