[Premium Article] Eternal Potpouri - Doomsday

[Smmenen]

Doomsday is a GREAT deck right now,

but it's still a crap shoot.   

What the heck doe's this mean? I really don't get it. Either its great or its crap...
But I completely agree with all your other statements!

It is a great deck, but i think it is prohibitably difficult to play.   

Regarding the fetchlands, I think its actually risky to run the number of Fetches I have.  The reason is that if you open your hand with Fetchlands and you want to play Dday, you won't be able to lay a land if you plan on winning the next turn.   

The reason the deck is difficult to play is not actually just the dday piles, but going off in the face of resistance.  Mons, Goblin Chef has done a good job showing some piles with card constraints, mana constraints and other constraints, but the real constraint is the cards your opponent might play.   

[zulander]

Yes, but why play 3 off color fetches and 3 on color fetches as opposed to 4 on color 2 off color? By on color/ off color I mean the black vs white aspect of the fetches.

[Smmenen]

Yeah, it should have 4 Deltas before any Strands.   Good point. 

[mistervader]

I've been playing Doomsday for a long time, and I personally feel that while this deck is very good (I love the fact that you've managed to squeeze in Street Wraith!), I think that Quicken really does a lot for this deck. At worst, it cycles for U, and at best, it ensures that you can play Doomsday EOT.

Here is my take on the deck, although do note that I don't have any Moxen on me, or Time Walk. I consistently top 8 in a local non-proxy meta with this deck, and it really is very effective with my Pitch base in lieu of Duress. I only run 2 Unmask, though.

One change I will DEFINITELY make based on Smennen's new decklist though is I am replacing the Beacon with R/D. Beyond that, I am trying to see where I can squeeze in some Wraiths, but I really like the security of Quicken + Doomsday.

The Mana (25):
3 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

Setting Up And Protecting The Combo (24):
4 DOOMSDAY (Well, duh.)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force Of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Quicken
3 Pact Of Negation
2 Unmask
1 Chain Of Vapor

Cards That Fetch Cards That Win (5):
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Cards That Win (4):
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Timetwister
1 Mind's Desire

Finishers (2):
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Beacon of Destruction

[PARKA]

My actual sideboard is:

1 tendril
1 R&D
1 duress
2 Hurkyl's
3 defense grid
2 massacre
4 leyline of the void
1 chain of vapor

[mistervader]

My sideboard looks like this:

1 R and D
1 Tendrils
1 Echoing Truth
2 Rebuild
2 Unmask
4 Extract
4 Extirpate

P.S. Extract is for fighting against Oath and other combo decks who insist on only running 1 kill condition.

And to the guy asking if D-Day is playable without power, I can spot you not having the Moxen and the Time Walk, but don't even try it without the Lotus or Ancestral.

[goobafish]

I will agree with Steve that this deck does require a lot of skill but I do not think that it is too hard to play after reading those 2 articles you posted above and I will also add that you should get a really good night's sleep before hand so you are able to think on the spot. I think that the deck is so unforgiving and risky that you would need a death warrant to play it. When I first looked at the thread I figured how can they stop us when we have so many good disruption spells that they should not have anything relevant in hand when we go of. Boy was I wrong. Against doomsday every card is a disruption spell. Any tutor (merchant scroll, dt, mystical, vamp) is like silver bullet for the opponent if they know how to play against doomsday. We need to 2 for 1 their disruption spells most of the time (unmask and force) and we simply do not have the card advantage to keep up with them. The biggest risk of all was passing your turn after you doomsday. I know people are thinking, why would I pass the turn? I have street wraiths and brainstorms in hand. This is definitely not the case. You normally need to use those street wraiths and brainstorms to find disruption, lands or doomsday and rituals. Once you pass the turn with a doomsday there are so many things that can go wrong. If you build a stack that is dependant on a card in your hand, you can get duressed. You can get stripped or wasted which should stop you in your tracks. You opponent can draw force, drain, stifle, merchant scroll, any tutor, misdirection works, recall and the list goes on. It is just too hard to disrupt, doomsday and win on the same turn, which is what this deck needs to do.

This is why I was so surprised by your cavalier attitude going in.   I thought, well, maybe he knows something I don't - go get 'em Cowboy!   

It's not so much that the doomsday Stacks are *that* difficult to figure out (but often they are), it's the confluence of everything: the question of when to cycle street wraith, when do you play Unmask, when do you try to go off, everything in the face of lots of imperfect information that makes this deck so hard.   

That isn't to say, that in the abstract, I don't think this deck is tournament viable - I definitely do.   But I think you have to be a master with the deck so that you can play it seamlessly and intuitively.   You need to have so much tournament experience , not simply to build Dday Stacks, but to have a sense about the type, quality, and quantity of resistance you are likely to face, because every kind of resistance is going to kill you.   

Put another way, it's like running through a darkened maze - there is only one way out (one way to victory), but your often running blind without a map.   This Dday list is MUCH better than most in that regard, but it's still a crap shoot.   You really have to have an intimate familiarity to consistently find your way out.   Or just be awesome. 

The major issue that I am trying to address is it is not that hard. The examples of when to play unmask, cycle street wraith and all of the above are simply risk plays. There is no way to know if you made the right or wrong risk play, therefore there is no way to judge the difficulty of the deck because any play can be as right as the one before it. The risk plays are random and therefore you have the choice of playing as the reserved player or as the risk-taker. Here is a prime example:

You have a hand that allows you to win the same turn (let's say second turn when you are on the play) without any information besides a fetchland or counter backup or you have the opportunity to disrupt you opponent with duress , pass the turn, play doomsday on your turn and attempt to win. Now. Look at the facts. If your opponent draws a wasteland, mana drain, misdirection, merchant scroll, demonic tutor, vampiric tutor, mystical tutor, ancestral recall, strip mine, extirprate or countless other cards, you loose the game after you have duressed then doomsdayed. If you go off the same turn you are banking on them not having in 8 cards a Force, Misdirection, Ancestral Recall, Stifle, Extirprate or even a brainstorm into Misd or Force. To choose which path you take is purely based on your play style, and has nothing to do with skill. I believe you are confusing the skill intensive with the random. Just because your play panned out for you does not mean it was the right way to play it.

Here is another example:

I duress my opponent till he has only creatures in hand. His deck contains multiples of Misdirection, Wasteland, Strip Mine, Stifle, Force of Will, and Brainstorm. I decide to doomsday then pass the turn banking on him not getting the topdeck. It was a risk that I took and I won because of it. This does not mean that it was the right or ideal play.

I don't understand where the difficulty proposed is coming from. I can understand you claiming the deck to be hard, which is totally understandable giving the total unforgiving nature of the deck, but I do not understand where you are finding the fact that it is almost unplayable because of the difficulty. If anything the deck is unplayable because it is based on randomness. If you can disrupt so that the path is clear then you do, If you can't you take a risk. It is as simple as that.



A few more points:

What I would change about the deck:

I believe that Unmask>FOW or Misd. So I would go -1 misd or pact for the 4th unmask and possibly -1 fow for 1 duress

The 4 deltas make sense because of the swamp. I like the manabase, and found it to be quite effective, but I would probably go -1 island +1 sea.

The sideboard in my opinion has some very core elements and some choice slots. My core would be

Doomsday Slots
1 R and D
1 Tendrils
1 Sins of the Past (Awesome when needed)

Protection and Doomsday Slots
2 Wipe Away

Protection
4 Defense Grid


Beyond that there inst really much needed, because everything you side out is hurting the point of the deck. I would never side in extracts, but I might side in extirpates in the mirror or against ichorid. You definately need some anti stax cards, probably not rebuild (chalice @3 hurts WAY more than @2) but probably hurkyl's. Massacres are really good against Meddling Mages and weenie rush, I would not ever side in Leylines, you will just loose from diluting your deck.

[mistervader]

A few more points:

What I would change about the deck:

I believe that Unmask>FOW or Misd. So I would go -1 misd or pact for the 4th unmask and possibly -1 fow for 1 duress

The 4 deltas make sense because of the swamp. I like the manabase, and found it to be quite effective, but I would probably go -1 island +1 sea.

The sideboard in my opinion has some very core elements and some choice slots. My core would be

Doomsday Slots
1 R and D
1 Tendrils
1 Sins of the Past (Awesome when needed)

Protection and Doomsday Slots
2 Wipe Away

Protection
4 Defense Grid


Beyond that there inst really much needed, because everything you side out is hurting the point of the deck. I would never side in extracts, but I might side in extirpates in the mirror or against ichorid. You definately need some anti stax cards, probably not rebuild (chalice @3 hurts WAY more than @2) but probably hurkyl's. Massacres are really good against Meddling Mages and weenie rush, I would not ever side in Leylines, you will just loose from diluting your deck.

Would you say that even against Oath, there are better cards to side in against them than Extract? I find hitting them for Extract really hurts their deck immensely.

What would you side against Oath if not Extract? I seriously would want to hear better options.

In any case, looking at my current decklist, I am thinking that I would probably keep Quicken or alternate them with Street Wraith (Quicken is only 1/2 turn slower, but Cantrips and is reusable from the yard. Furthermore, finding it during blind Desires and Doomsday is mad good. This has happened to me several times in the past.). If I do use Street Wraith though, I will add to my Unmask count, upping it to 3 or 4. My main problem with Unmask is that I don't have too many black cards to pitch to it if I don't have the Wraiths, since I took out Duress in favor of Misdirection and Pact of Negation.

Why I advocate the MisD+Pact in place of Duress should be obvious: I simply don't want to invest mana in disrupting my opponent while going off.

[goobafish]

I fail to see how extract helps you whatsoever. First off you are faster than them so to take out one of their creatures is nonsensical, especially because they can barely kill you any faster with that second creature. Extract is card disadvantage which you do not want in the place of relevant disruption for their multiple counterspells and perhaps a chalice. Instead of siding in extract, why don't you try defense grids and combo them out? There is no need to side in anti-oath cards, you are not a control deck.

[Midknight]

What happnes if, they let the Doomsday resolve, then counter one of the key cards, like Black Lotus. What happens when you don't have enough mana to go off? Do you Duess or Unmask or hold a Force to protect agaisnt counter?

[Smmenen]

I will agree with Steve that this deck does require a lot of skill but I do not think that it is too hard to play after reading those 2 articles you posted above and I will also add that you should get a really good night's sleep before hand so you are able to think on the spot. I think that the deck is so unforgiving and risky that you would need a death warrant to play it. When I first looked at the thread I figured how can they stop us when we have so many good disruption spells that they should not have anything relevant in hand when we go of. Boy was I wrong. Against doomsday every card is a disruption spell. Any tutor (merchant scroll, dt, mystical, vamp) is like silver bullet for the opponent if they know how to play against doomsday. We need to 2 for 1 their disruption spells most of the time (unmask and force) and we simply do not have the card advantage to keep up with them. The biggest risk of all was passing your turn after you doomsday. I know people are thinking, why would I pass the turn? I have street wraiths and brainstorms in hand. This is definitely not the case. You normally need to use those street wraiths and brainstorms to find disruption, lands or doomsday and rituals. Once you pass the turn with a doomsday there are so many things that can go wrong. If you build a stack that is dependant on a card in your hand, you can get duressed. You can get stripped or wasted which should stop you in your tracks. You opponent can draw force, drain, stifle, merchant scroll, any tutor, misdirection works, recall and the list goes on. It is just too hard to disrupt, doomsday and win on the same turn, which is what this deck needs to do.

This is why I was so surprised by your cavalier attitude going in.   I thought, well, maybe he knows something I don't - go get 'em Cowboy!   

It's not so much that the doomsday Stacks are *that* difficult to figure out (but often they are), it's the confluence of everything: the question of when to cycle street wraith, when do you play Unmask, when do you try to go off, everything in the face of lots of imperfect information that makes this deck so hard.   

That isn't to say, that in the abstract, I don't think this deck is tournament viable - I definitely do.   But I think you have to be a master with the deck so that you can play it seamlessly and intuitively.   You need to have so much tournament experience , not simply to build Dday Stacks, but to have a sense about the type, quality, and quantity of resistance you are likely to face, because every kind of resistance is going to kill you.   

Put another way, it's like running through a darkened maze - there is only one way out (one way to victory), but your often running blind without a map.   This Dday list is MUCH better than most in that regard, but it's still a crap shoot.   You really have to have an intimate familiarity to consistently find your way out.   Or just be awesome. 

The major issue that I am trying to address is it is not that hard. The examples of when to play unmask, cycle street wraith and all of the above are simply risk plays. There is no way to know if you made the right or wrong risk play, therefore there is no way to judge the difficulty of the deck because any play can be as right as the one before it. The risk plays are random and therefore you have the choice of playing as the reserved player or as the risk-taker. Here is a prime example:

You have a hand that allows you to win the same turn (let's say second turn when you are on the play) without any information besides a fetchland or counter backup or you have the opportunity to disrupt you opponent with duress , pass the turn, play doomsday on your turn and attempt to win. Now. Look at the facts. If your opponent draws a wasteland, mana drain, misdirection, merchant scroll, demonic tutor, vampiric tutor, mystical tutor, ancestral recall, strip mine, extirprate or countless other cards, you loose the game after you have duressed then doomsdayed. If you go off the same turn you are banking on them not having in 8 cards a Force, Misdirection, Ancestral Recall, Stifle, Extirprate or even a brainstorm into Misd or Force. To choose which path you take is purely based on your play style, and has nothing to do with skill. I believe you are confusing the skill intensive with the random. Just because your play panned out for you does not mean it was the right way to play it.

Here is another example:

I duress my opponent till he has only creatures in hand. His deck contains multiples of Misdirection, Wasteland, Strip Mine, Stifle, Force of Will, and Brainstorm. I decide to doomsday then pass the turn banking on him not getting the topdeck. It was a risk that I took and I won because of it. This does not mean that it was the right or ideal play.

I don't understand where the difficulty proposed is coming from. I can understand you claiming the deck to be hard, which is totally understandable giving the total unforgiving nature of the deck, but I do not understand where you are finding the fact that it is almost unplayable because of the difficulty. If anything the deck is unplayable because it is based on randomness. If you can disrupt so that the path is clear then you do, If you can't you take a risk. It is as simple as that.

Have you considered the possibility that it just *appears* random?   But when aggregated into a large enough sample it's not random at all? 

Remember, when I was developing this deck back in 2005, I remember lots of games where I was two fisted testing.

When I was playing this deck against other decks, from the perspective of the other deck it became very clear that there was often only one bath to victory for the Dday deck.   The problem was that it *appears* random from the perpsective of the Dday deck and perhaps even from the perspective of the opposing deck.  But if you aggregate all these instances together, I believe that the correct path clearly emerges.   The problem is that our sample sizes will always be too small to recognize path is correct. 

[goobafish]

Have you considered the possibility that it just *appears* random?   But when aggregated into a large enough sample it's not random at all?

Remember, when I was developing this deck back in 2005, I remember lots of games where I was two fisted testing.

When I was playing this deck against other decks, from the perspective of the other deck it became very clear that there was often only one bath to victory for the Dday deck.  The problem was that it *appears* random from the perpsective of the Dday deck and perhaps even from the perspective of the opposing deck.  But if you aggregate all these instances together, I believe that the correct path clearly emerges.   The problem is that our sample sizes will always be too small to recognize path is correct.

I will use the term "stopper" to refer to cards that can stop you from combing off.

In that case it is important to disregard all testing where you are "two fisting". As an opponent you have all the information possible about the game state. You know what cards you have in hand and in your deck that can stop the opponent dead in their tracks. To have this information as the doomsday player is totally impossible in an actual tournament setting. You do not know your opponents deck card for card, you do not know their sideboard or sideboard plan and most of all, you do not know their hand or their game plan.

When you aggregate a series of random events and hands, you get just that, randomness. You cannot aggregate a series of events, because that would be simply looking at a decklist, there is absolutely no difference. Their hand is totally random, the cards that they have that can stop you are random, and should be proportional to the amount of "stopper" cards in their deck. The problem is that the "should" does not dictate the reality of a game because of the total randomness of opening hands and draws and the fact that your opponent gets only 1 draw (or more with mulligans) and does not generate a necessarily proportional draw, but gets a random draw.

[Midknight]

This deck seems unstable, as the same with Belcher. There to many what if, that could fizzle you out, when combing. The same with Belcher; you invest alot of one time mana spells, to try to cast belcher and activate it. When it does get counter you usually loose a bunch of cards. It can take turns to try to set up again. Well, unless you have an active Welder on hand. Thats the gamble that comes along with combo in general. Does the rick factor of winning, out weigh the hate agaisnt it. This deck can be gold fish very easy but the factor of playing agaisnt a field of a ton of decks. Knowing when and what to do at the right time, seems very difficult.

[mistervader]

What happnes if, they let the Doomsday resolve, then counter one of the key cards, like Black Lotus. What happens when you don't have enough mana to go off? Do you Duess or Unmask or hold a Force to protect agaisnt counter?

Isn't that the worry of ANY combo deck, to begin with?

These worries are less valid when you have a disruption suite like Duress + Unmask + Force, or in my case, Unmask + Force + MisD + Pact Of Negation.

If you lose the counterwar, most likely, you were meant to lose the game anyways.

Unlike Belcher though, Doomsday doesn't auto-lose to hate cards like Null Rod. Unlike a good few combo decks, Tormod's Crypt hardly hurts Doomsday. Unlike most combo decks, Chalice for 1 hurts D-Day MORE than Chalice for 0 does. With that in mind, while D-Day is a very risky deck to play, it's also the one that is least simple to board against.

I've played this deck in my meta for so long already, tweaking the deck a bit every expansion that comes out, and I can't believe I missed out on the R&D tech when my attention was already called to it by Steven's High Tide list.

[Auracon]

It is also worthy to note that this deck is very resilient to graveyard hate when comboing with doomsday, and is not very mox dependent (vs. kataki). In a field of ichorids, hulks, longs, and gifts maindeck graveyard hate will see play, but this is one of the few combos to be able to ignore it.

From what I see the cards that disrupt the deck most are counters (duh), ancestral recal (hurts any deck when played, but here it actually kills), extract, and a few lock pieces. This is the same set of cards that disrupt any other combo deck (with exception for extract... but who plays that).

Also how often are you able to combo off without using doomsday (just yawg tendrils kill)? Can this deck compete against regular long (which seems faster)?

[mistervader]

It is also worthy to note that this deck is very resilient to graveyard hate when comboing with doomsday, and is not very mox dependent (vs. kataki). In a field of ichorids, hulks, longs, and gifts maindeck graveyard hate will see play, but this is one of the few combos to be able to ignore it.

From what I see the cards that disrupt the deck most are counters (duh), ancestral recal (hurts any deck when played, but here it actually kills), extract, and a few lock pieces. This is the same set of cards that disrupt any other combo deck (with exception for extract... but who plays that).

Also how often are you able to combo off without using doomsday (just yawg tendrils kill)? Can this deck compete against regular long (which seems faster)?

In my experience in the two years I've been running Doomsday, the plan C kill of Yawg/Twister into Tendrils happens about a third of the time. Sometimes, you just have a hand with so many rituals and a lone Demonic Tutor, that there's no other course of action but to go for the Plan C kill.

Regular Long is indeed faster, but it's not a presence AT ALL in my local, non-proxy meta. I more often run into Gifts as the tier-one deck, and of course, Oath is another frequent factor in my metagaming. This deck can compete against Long, although in my case, it's mainly in outracing Long.

Stephen's build is better suited to face off against another combo deck due to 3 Duress + 3 Unmask. Discard spells against fellow combo are far better than FOW/PON/MisD. In my case, I don't care, since my disruption suit is meant for control, and with Landstill, Gifts, and Oath as frequent decks I need to deal with, I'd rather worry about control, since usually,I'm the only straight-up combo player in my meta.

[Matt-216]

Regular long might be faster, but if you get to go first as a DD player, you can just hit them with your disruption and usually seal the game right there...same goes for almost any other combo deck, as a DD player, if you get to go first, or they don't have a first turn kill, you can drive their hand to rubble and still settle in for a win.

After “some” testing vs. a few decks, namely; Fish, Stax, Bomberman, Boberman, Gift control, Gift combo, Manaless Ichorid disruption, Manaless Ichorid fast version, Mana Ichorid, Flash/Hulk combo, pitch long, and finally Grim long, (yeah played against most of my friends, we even did a gauntlet run to randomize most of the plays to see how different players would react with or against the deck).

I made the following modifications to the core of the deck:

-1 Strandyou guys already debated on it
-1 Island-u/b can be a lot more fun and a mono u can be problematic at times when you’re trying to combo harder sooner.
-1 Chain of Vapour I’ve been debating it for a little while and I ended up realising that the only time I needed a bounce during those matches we’re to either: bounce a Meddling Mage, bounce the result of Empty the Warren, Bounce Hulk combo at the right time or bounce a chalice at 0, 1 or/or 3… anyway, I realised that I was mostly interested in bouncing stuff that Chain of Vapor couldn’t deal with or that Echoing truth could deal with, just as well.
-1 Pact of NegationThe card is nice; however, in a well played and controlled match up, I’d rather have Duress or Unmask to be sure of what the opponent has in hand, too often I had the card in hand and ended up brainstorming it back into the deck to win with Unmask/will or just some disruption/DD. As a result, I chose to replace it with either Duress or Unmask. The card has some pretty nice potential in Gift matches, and I found it quite useful in certain DD stacks to defend the combo but, I don’t believe it has its place main deck.
-1 Time walk I debated a bit on this one, I wasn’t sure if I should take it out but I realised that, personally, I would overestimate the card most of the time and make risky plays based on it. Seeing that, I chose to put the Twister back in to get back the option to use the TPS killing style.

+1 delta
+1 sea
+1 Echoing truth
+1 Unmask
+1 Time twister


As for the Sideboard, I’d probably run the following:


4 Leyline
1 R and D
1 Tendrils
1 Duress
3 defense grid
1 chain of vapour
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Massacre

[mox apricot]

for oath i would sb engineeded plague. its just as good as chalice @2

You've already received both verbal and full warnings for violating Rule 1, Deficient Writing Skills, but they don't seem to have deterred you. In light of your previous infractions, I'm issuing a Full Warning (your second), and demoting you to Restricted Posting. Earning a third Full Warning will get you a Ban.

Incidentally, this post also violates Rule #4, Lack of Content. You are strongly encouraged to read our Rules of Posting.

-Jacob

[mistervader]

Regular long might be faster, but if you get to go first as a DD player, you can just hit them with your disruption and usually seal the game right there...same goes for almost any other combo deck, as a DD player, if you get to go first, or they don't have a first turn kill, you can drive their hand to rubble and still settle in for a win.

After “some” testing vs. a few decks, namely; Fish, Stax, Bomberman, Boberman, Gift control, Gift combo, Manaless Ichorid disruption, Manaless Ichorid fast version, Mana Ichorid, Flash/Hulk combo, pitch long, and finally Grim long, (yeah played against most of my friends, we even did a gauntlet run to randomize most of the plays to see how different players would react with or against the deck).

I made the following modifications to the core of the deck:

-1 Strandyou guys already debated on it
-1 Island-u/b can be a lot more fun and a mono u can be problematic at times when you’re trying to combo harder sooner.
-1 Chain of Vapour I’ve been debating it for a little while and I ended up realising that the only time I needed a bounce during those matches we’re to either: bounce a Meddling Mage, bounce the result of Empty the Warren, Bounce Hulk combo at the right time or bounce a chalice at 0, 1 or/or 3… anyway, I realised that I was mostly interested in bouncing stuff that Chain of Vapor couldn’t deal with or that Echoing truth could deal with, just as well.
-1 Pact of NegationThe card is nice; however, in a well played and controlled match up, I’d rather have Duress or Unmask to be sure of what the opponent has in hand, too often I had the card in hand and ended up brainstorming it back into the deck to win with Unmask/will or just some disruption/DD. As a result, I chose to replace it with either Duress or Unmask. The card has some pretty nice potential in Gift matches, and I found it quite useful in certain DD stacks to defend the combo but, I don’t believe it has its place main deck.
-1 Time walk I debated a bit on this one, I wasn’t sure if I should take it out but I realised that, personally, I would overestimate the card most of the time and make risky plays based on it. Seeing that, I chose to put the Twister back in to get back the option to use the TPS killing style.

+1 delta
+1 sea
+1 Echoing truth
+1 Unmask
+1 Time twister

Well, in my case, since my gauntlet is mostly control, I'd rather go for the Pitch base. However, I am sorely considering switching the ratio of 3/4 Pact of Negation vs. 2 Unmask into the other way around, essentially doing 4 Unmask and 2 Pact of Negation. My only problem with this switch is this also means I have to give up Quicken, which has been saving my life so many times already because of EOT Doomsday, but I guess that's functionally the same as Doomsday - Cycle, right? Or am I missing something?

Anyways, a full set of Unmask in my deck means I needed more black cards to pitch, so I guess I'm biting the bullet and taking out Quicken (sigh... my one and only improvement on the deck in a vacuum, and I now have to take it out. ) and putting in the Wraiths so that I'd have a higher density of Black cards.

I like my Twister, and since I don't have Time Walk, I really don't know where I'm going to put my Imperial Seal in at this point. I like replacing the bounce with Echoing Truth, though. I think that's a better choice, just in case I need to deal with multiples.

Timetwister is something I sorely miss from Steve's decklist. That thing has saved me more times than I'd care to count.

[PARKA]

I think that DD don't need a especial sideboard agains otah. This deck is more solid and faster than otah (angel's version) and the disrupting set of mandeck are suficient in this match, but, if you think that is a bad matchup, extract isn't the solution. Really you need cast 2 extract to win the game. Is you spend this time to tutoring the combo pieces, you win the game directly.

[mistervader]

I think that DD don't need a especial sideboard agains otah. This deck is more solid and faster than otah (angel's version) and the disrupting set of mandeck are suficient in this match, but, if you think that is a bad matchup, extract isn't the solution. Really you need cast 2 extract to win the game. Is you spend this time to tutoring the combo pieces, you win the game directly.

I guess winning through the control is the best option. Knowing Oath, it would be best to run Extirpate to really cut them off from their permission in Game 2. I don't think Extract is a hot idea, now that you call my attention to it.

Extirpate has been helpful for me when it comes to winning the matchup against a control deck. It's served me well more than once.

[scutakicker]

Doomsday Scenario Question--Stifled Mind's Desire
I was watching a match with Doomsday vs Fish over the weekend & here was the situation. The DDay player went off, R&D'd off Desire and proceeded to cast Tendrils followed by Tendrils, either copy of which would have been lethal on its own. The Fish player proceeded to cast double Stifle and won the game. But...he could have easily stifled the Desire, meaning R&D would have resolved but nothing else.

What I'd like to figure out is this--if Desire is Stifled, what piles can be constructed to ensure that you can go off the next turn (assuming the opponent has no further disruption) or at least give you the greatest possibility. To give the specifics of this situation... Board: Underground, Underground, Mox Sapphire. Hand: Leyline, nothing else. Graveyard: Ancestral, Lotus, Dark Ritual, Mind's Desire, Research/Development. Available Cards for R&D: I don't have an exact decklist, but assume that you have access to anything that might legitimately be in a DDay deck or sideboard.
 
We tried several approaches and ran up against some issues, mostly with mana, some due to the fact that you only get 4 cards in random order, compared to the normal 5 cards stacked from Doomsday. The followup question is what piles might be possible if some of the constraints are slightly different, especially having either slightly more mana.

[mistervader]

Doomsday Scenario Question--Stifled Mind's Desire
I was watching a match with Doomsday vs Fish over the weekend & here was the situation. The DDay player went off, R&D'd off Desire and proceeded to cast Tendrils followed by Tendrils, either copy of which would have been lethal on its own. The Fish player proceeded to cast double Stifle and won the game. But...he could have easily stifled the Desire, meaning R&D would have resolved but nothing else.

What I'd like to figure out is this--if Desire is Stifled, what piles can be constructed to ensure that you can go off the next turn (assuming the opponent has no further disruption) or at least give you the greatest possibility. To give the specifics of this situation... Board: Underground, Underground, Mox Sapphire. Hand: Leyline, nothing else. Graveyard: Ancestral, Lotus, Dark Ritual, Mind's Desire, Research/Development. Available Cards for R&D: I don't have an exact decklist, but assume that you have access to anything that might legitimately be in a DDay deck or sideboard.
 
We tried several approaches and ran up against some issues, mostly with mana, some due to the fact that you only get 4 cards in random order, compared to the normal 5 cards stacked from Doomsday. The followup question is what piles might be possible if some of the constraints are slightly different, especially having either slightly more mana.

Just one thing...

Assuming Desire was for 4, the guy should've fetched a Duress from his RFG pile before he used Tendrils.

Anyways...

The problem with this scenario is that the only guaranteed way to get the cards you want is to simply wait it out two turns. Waiting it out by a turn relies on incredible luck.

If you can afford to do it in two turns, stack LED and Y.Will.

If you REALLY need to gamble, I'd do Gush, LED, Y.Will. And I'll pray I topdeck Gush.

Assume I did. Here's what happens:

I tap my U.Seas for UB, bounce them, and Gush. I plop down LED, and a Sea. I tap Sapphire for U, producing mana for Y. Will.

I cast Y. Will, respond to that by saccing LED for BBB. So far, 3 spells.

From my 'yard, I replay LED and Lotus, sacrificing them for UUU and GGG respectively. I now have UUUBBBGGG floating.

I cast the Dark Ritual and this gives me UUUBBBBBGGG floating.

I recast the 2 Tendrils from the 'yard, or if I'm feeling fancy, I go infinite.

Either way, it's really the luck of the draw in this scenario. If you don't get Gush, you lose.

Here's another scenario, but unlike the first one, where your odds were 33%, your odds here become 50%.

Get 4 cards: 2 Brainstorm, Dark Ritual, Yawgmoth's Will.

If you topdeck a Brainstorm, cast it. Put back Leyline and Brainstorm. Cast Dark Ritual, cast the Will.

Replay Lotus. Sac for BBB.

Recast 2 Rituals. BBBBBBB.

Tap your Sapphire. BBBBBBBU. Cast Tendrils 1.

Cast Tendrils 2.

Take note: Tendrils in your scenario WILL be in your Graveyard.

[Harlequin]

Underground, Underground, Mox Sapphire... is certainly rough.  I have been testing the deck with full moxen and Tolarian and with that list:

Tolarian, Frantic Search, Yawg, Mox Emerald.

If you draw Will as your first card
Cast Will.
Cast Lotus -> sac for UUU, cast AR to draw the remaining 3 cards left in your deck.
Cast Tolarian + Emerald.
Cast Reseach (with U floating).
Get Jet, Lotus, Mox, Research
Tap Tolarian for UU cast Frantic Search and pray you don't hit Research.
Untap Tolarian, and no matter how you slice it you should have enough mana to cast Desire for like 5-6 storm.  With research in the deck you win as normal.

----

If you draw Tolarian, pass turn, and pray you draw Frantic Search. 

Play tolarian, cast frantic seach.  Draw the last two cards and keep will in hand.  nothing floating fully untapped. 
Cast Will leaving tolarian.
Play lotus, emerald out of the yard.
Tap Tolarian emerald for Research (UU floating)
Get Tendrils, Rit, Rit
Cast AR (U floating, lotus still not spent)
Cast Rit, Rit, LEYLINE!
Tendrils for 18 lifeloss? 

Odds----
Yawg: 25% chance
Tolarian/Frantic: 16.7% chance
Loose: 58.3% chance


--------------------------
Edit ---  Actually there are many ways to almost win after passing the turn twice.  I'm not going to run all the examples but here is one:

Draw Emerald pass.. then Will
Cast Emerald, cast will with EMERALD open
Cast lotus, Cast Research UU floating (taped out).
Get Crypt, Petal, Tendrils (your deck is now Frantic, Tolarian, Tendrils, Crypt, Petal).
Cast AR (with U floating).  Hope you draw Frantic + Tolarian. 
If you draw Frantic, I think you win nomatter what.  Either way, after you cast Frantic You discard Leyline, and Petal... and ought to have enogh mana off the 2 untapped seas + tolarian to cast Tendrils.  It may not even be letal... 16 life?

If you Draw Tolarian (then emerald) and then Will I think you can still get it to work out.  That brings the win % up signifigantly...

1 Turn win: 25%
2 Turn win: 33% + 16% = 50%?
----------------

[mistervader]

Unfortunately, I think I'm wrong. I completely forgot that it was Desire that got hit by Stifle, not Tendrils. Therefore, there's no chance I can do what I was hoping to pull off.

Well, the best option is still the Gush option, then. While I know you have a 67% chance of not getting it right, if you do, the process becomes autopilot.

The double-Brainstorm plan doesn't work simply because you don't have any mana whatsoever to cast Desire, AND R/D. You needed 4UUUG to pull it all off, and you flat-out don't have the means to generate U and G mana, UNLESS you rely on Gush.

[Sam101]

I tested the deck for a couple times, and here is the pile I used when my opponent had a chalice @ one.

-Top-
Gush
Black Lotus
Minds Desire
R/D
-Bottom-

Note: Thats Only 4 Cards...You can do that with DoomsDay

This pile win you the game next turn If you have 2 untapped islands in play, as well as another mana source (cabal rit, mox, lotus petal, an untapped land etc)

This stack only yeilds 2 storm copies, which means it will resolve three times.

1st Copy --> R/D (the one in your deck). Play it and fetch Sins of the Past + another R/D
2nd Copy --> Reveal either Sins or R/D and do nothing
3rd Copy--> Reveal either Sins or R/D.  Play R/D for the win condition.  Play Sins targeting the Mind's Desire in your graveyard.  Play Mind's Desire.

Win

[mistervader]

I know it's a shot in the dark, but I just wanted to ask...

Would anyone mind if I posted my new Doomsday primer on a new thread here? Do note that I've been doing this primer on my own time, and since I haven't seen Smennen's new article as I don't have premium, I was writing in a semi-vacuum.

It'll be in three parts, and I just finished the first part. If there are no violent reactions to it, I'd like to post my primer here for people's perusal.

Thanks!

That's completely fine.
-Jacob

[islanderboi10]

So I have a question, I was throwing together Pitch Long, when a friend of mine suggested I play this.
Is this deck superior to PitchLong in a metagame of Ichorid, Control and combo?

Thanks.

[psly4mne]

So. Gush is unrestricted. This seems to help Doomsday (although we need to worry about the GAT matchup), but what do you cut to fit the rest of the Gushes?

[Le Pougnezu]

I think it will help Doomsday, and I would personnaly cut a couple or three street wraiths, and maybe a Doomsday.
Wraiths and Gushes have the same role, except that Gush digs deeper, and may even be followed by a playing a land that has been bounced. It's blue, for FoW (ok, Unmask uses black cards, so I'm quite unsure if the color shift is beneficial).
Digging a Doomstack with Gush allow completely new (and exciting) stacks. It will certainly speed the deck and give it more options.

I'ms still unsure about how many Gushes should be put into : 3 or 4, keeping a couple wraiths or just one?
Digging with wraith and digging with Gush seem to be completely different approaches for building stacks anyway.

Gush could also enable the Doomsday deck to shift to storm mode if needed : you have more than efficient draw engine (brainstorm, gush...) you still have acceleration, although less than in Longs, and the tendrils option.
Put one tendrils in the deck, one in the side, and keep a R&D for the Doomsday option.
Maybe in this case Unmasks could be replaced by Gushes.