[Premium Article] Eternal Potpouri - Doomsday

[Tobi]

You will need to wait an additional turn.

Cast DD:

Anc
LED
Lotus
Will
Tendrils

- draw Anc, pass
- draw LED, play LED, cast Anc, sac LED in resp - SC 2, BBB (2 lands open)
- draw Lotus, Will, Tendrils, cast lotus - SC 3
- sac lotus, cast tendrils for 4 - SC 4, BB (2 lands open)
- cast will - SC 5, no mana (1 land open)
- re-cast lotus, led - SC 7
- re-cast tendrils for 8

So it is possible, but risky due to the 2 turns you have to pass.

[diopter]

You just win with a tendrils stack if you remove research/development.

...
What I meant was:
No cards in hand, 3 lands in play for casting DD. It's obvious one can't win the same turn but for even winning the next turn I see no oportunity if Research is rfg.
Imo you can't generate enough storm to kill with the Tendrils if its not the same turn you cast the DD.

If your lands are Sea, Sea, Swamp or Sea, Sea, Sea (which they have to be with Steve's build if you're casting DDay off lands) then the following pile wins you the game next turn:

Gush
Black Lotus
Mind's Desire
Yawgmoth's Will
Tendrils of Agony

With a combination of Street Wraith/Brainstorm and Rituals it is even possible to win the game on the same turn. This is not uncommon.

[Matt-216]

Hmmm...

After looking at the list, I find it rather interesting; however, the absence of Time twister puzzles me and the absence of Chromatic sphere pains me after thinking of the possible stacks. I haven't read the article yet but I intend to do so soon...


After some preliminary testing I have found that:
-Chalice at 1 is a pain
-I miss Twister
-You usually still have cards to play in your hand when you hard cast a DD--> which means you can use brainstorm/recall to combo and get the necessary Storm count on the next turn.
-When my friend linked me this post, he also told me I would have to re-learn all of my Doomsday stacks which is not the case at all.
-Street wraith makes a nice addition

This version of the deck presents an interesting concept and pretty fun at that.
It kept the resilience of the original Doomsday (pretty much) and added some speed to it.


I am also curious as to why Smmenen doubts the deck could be playable, it still looks like a raw version of the deck that needs a bit of tweaking but, overall, it runs a lot more smoothly than the old DD did, except for a few weaknesses…

[goobafish]

I don't think it is as difficult as proposed. The deck is hard, especially on the spot thinking of stacks, and it is definitely not the kind of deck you shuffle together and go to an event with. But with a couple days of studying the deck is not overly-difficult to pilot.

[diopter]

Hmmm...

After looking at the list, I find it rather interesting; however, the absence of Time twister puzzles me and the absence of Chromatic sphere pains me after thinking of the possible stacks. I haven't read the article yet but I intend to do so soon...


After some preliminary testing I have found that:
-Chalice at 1 is a pain
-I miss Twister
-You usually still have cards to play in your hand when you hard cast a DD--> which means you can use brainstorm/recall to combo and get the necessary Storm count on the next turn.
-When my friend linked me this post, he also told me I would have to re-learn all of my Doomsday stacks which is not the case at all.
-Street wraith makes a nice addition

This version of the deck presents an interesting concept and pretty fun at that.
It kept the resilience of the original Doomsday (pretty much) and added some speed to it.


I am also curious as to why Smmenen doubts the deck could be playable, it still looks like a raw version of the deck that needs a bit of tweaking but, overall, it runs a lot more smoothly than the old DD did, except for a few weaknesses…

Timetwister was an ass-pain to use before, although I agree that it is the most regrettable cut.

Sphere is never missed, in general. Wraith is much better.

Chalice at 1 was a pain even with the old Dday lists, although if you notice the stack I posted a few posts above is not affected by it.

I don't know where the tweaking could be done, to be honest. Most of the slots are pretty much set in stone. The manabase could be tweaked a bit, I guess, and the disruption slots could be shuffled around. But I think that the biggest appeal of playing Doomsday is playiing a turn ~2 combo deck with a consistent manabase and turn 1 interactivity. You don't want to compromise those strengths.

[spindrift]

Just out of curiosity, if you search out a [card]Spelljack[/card] with R&D, during a Desire resolution, and you use it on the Tendrils would that be an effective way to up the storm count and win easier? As well, it will give you a free counterspell in case your opponent has something in hand to stop you?

What are your thoughts on this?

[bleakill]

Not sure if this belongs to the rules forum or here, but am I correct in the assumption that a failure to reveal a card off desire due to having 0 cards in the library doesn't contribute to a loss?

[Zarathustra]

Not sure if this belongs to the rules forum or here, but am I correct in the assumption that a failure to reveal a card off desire due to having 0 cards in the library doesn't contribute to a loss?

You answered you own question.  Revealing is in no way the same as drawing a card.  Therefore, you would not lose the game.

-DShell

[Smmenen]

I don't think it is as difficult as proposed. The deck is hard, especially on the spot thinking of stacks, and it is definitely not the kind of deck you shuffle together and go to an event with. But with a couple days of studying the deck is not overly-difficult to pilot.

Well, I'm glad you are so confidant in your abilities. 

I sat for a half an hour trying to crack the puzzle in the article and I'm the one who wrote the primer for the original lists!

Let me put it this way: remember those insane puzzles I came up with for Gifts?   Building the correct Dday piles is harder. 

[diopter]

I don't think it is as difficult as proposed. The deck is hard, especially on the spot thinking of stacks, and it is definitely not the kind of deck you shuffle together and go to an event with. But with a couple days of studying the deck is not overly-difficult to pilot.

Well, I'm glad you are so confidant in your abilities. 

I sat for a half an hour trying to crack the puzzle in the article and I'm the one who wrote the primer for the original lists!

Let me put it this way: remember those insane puzzles I came up with for Gifts?   Building the correct Dday piles is harder. 

Is this because of R&D? I remember you once said that Gifts piles were harder to make than Dday piles (but that was obv. in reference to the old Beacon lists?)

I would also like to know why you think this deck is impossible to play. I can comprehend the difficulty, but I think that the level of mastery required is not as great as Meandeck Tendrils, and the rewards are much much greater.

[goobafish]

I sat for a half an hour trying to crack the puzzle in the article and I'm the one who wrote the primer for the original lists!

Of course you did. You have done most of the work, and as such it makes everyone else's jobs much easier. The deck is very difficult to create your own stacks for, but that shouldn't come up very often once we already have most of the situations with the appropriate stacks that you have presented. You are looking at the difficulty in terms of an innovation, once the information is available the deck is not impossible to play. I will be taking this to a tourney tomorrow so I will let you know how difficult it is.

[jakjakman]

Yo goobafish, good luck tomorrow.  I'd love to hear a report of how you do with the deck.

[Smmenen]

I sat for a half an hour trying to crack the puzzle in the article and I'm the one who wrote the primer for the original lists!

Of course you did. You have done most of the work, and as such it makes everyone else's jobs much easier. The deck is very difficult to create your own stacks for, but that shouldn't come up very often once we already have most of the situations with the appropriate stacks that you have presented. You are looking at the difficulty in terms of an innovation, once the information is available the deck is not impossible to play. I will be taking this to a tourney tomorrow so I will let you know how difficult it is.

Very possibly.   Or it could be that the number of relevant stacks is so great that unknown or unforseen stacks will arise at a frequency that will affect or determine outcomes.   In any case, good luck. 

[Scyther]

You just win with a tendrils stack if you remove research/development.

...
What I meant was:
No cards in hand, 3 lands in play for casting DD. It's obvious one can't win the same turn but for even winning the next turn I see no oportunity if Research is rfg.
Imo you can't generate enough storm to kill with the Tendrils if its not the same turn you cast the DD.

If your lands are Sea, Sea, Swamp or Sea, Sea, Sea (which they have to be with Steve's build if you're casting DDay off lands) then the following pile wins you the game next turn:

Gush
Black Lotus
Mind's Desire
Yawgmoth's Will
Tendrils of Agony

With a combination of Street Wraith/Brainstorm and Rituals it is even possible to win the game on the same turn. This is not uncommon.

hm... until now... I really don't get it.

Tapp 3 lands (3mana - 0 Spell)
Gush into Lotus, Desire (1 spell)
play Lotus and Desire (0 Mana, 3 Spells)
reveal Will and Tendrils
play Will , play'n'sacc Lotus (3 Mana, 5 Spells)
replay 1 land, replay Anc  on oppenent(6 spells)
Replay Doomsday (is this possible?) (0 Mana, 7 Spells)

Tendrils for 16...

what did I miscalculate?

[goobafish]

Gush
Lotus
Desire
Tendrils (8 dmg)
Will
Lotus
Tendrils (14 dmg)

You use tendrils twice and you lay a land from the gush.

[diopter]

You just win with a tendrils stack if you remove research/development.

...
What I meant was:
No cards in hand, 3 lands in play for casting DD. It's obvious one can't win the same turn but for even winning the next turn I see no oportunity if Research is rfg.
Imo you can't generate enough storm to kill with the Tendrils if its not the same turn you cast the DD.

If your lands are Sea, Sea, Swamp or Sea, Sea, Sea (which they have to be with Steve's build if you're casting DDay off lands) then the following pile wins you the game next turn:

Gush
Black Lotus
Mind's Desire
Yawgmoth's Will
Tendrils of Agony

With a combination of Street Wraith/Brainstorm and Rituals it is even possible to win the game on the same turn. This is not uncommon.

hm... until now... I really don't get it.

Tapp 3 lands (3mana - 0 Spell)
Gush into Lotus, Desire (1 spell)
play Lotus and Desire (0 Mana, 3 Spells)
reveal Will and Tendrils
play Will , play'n'sacc Lotus (3 Mana, 5 Spells)
replay 1 land, replay Anc  on oppenent(6 spells)
Replay Doomsday (is this possible?) (0 Mana, 7 Spells)

Tendrils for 16...

what did I miscalculate?

Play Tendrils off Mind's Desire before playing Will - it goes to your graveyard. Then play Will, Lotus, replay the land and tap it for mana, then play Tendrils out of your graveyard again.

[Scyther]

ok ok.. now I got it. Thanks.
But @my question: Is it possible to cast a DD even if <5 cards are in Grave/ Library?

And is it with 2 Researches (1 in SB for example) possible to go for infinitive Spells/ Mana? Imo it looks like but I couldn't figure it out.
Maybe it's just too late for today.. (in my timezone )

[Smmenen]

Regarding SB, I don't really have a well thought out SB to be honest.  Obviously the first auto includes are 1 Research, 1 Tendrils, and probably the 4th Duress.  But my 2005 SB had:

2 Null Rod
3 Old Man of the Sea
3 Back to Basics
3 Energy Flux
and some bad cards (3 Defense Grid - unnecessry imo)

It might not be a bad idea to have Timetwister, but I'm not sure what particular use you get.   

Suggestions are welcome. 

[goobafish]

Isn't Sins of the Past amazing in the board?

I am curious. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out the pile with this hand:

You have just cast doomsday, you must win THIS turn
Your hand is:

Street Wraith
Chain of Vapor


You have 2 seas in play, 1 tapped, you have 2 or 3 storm opponent is at lets say 20 or 19.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Yes, you can go infinite. If the judge accepts the loop...

with ub available, you d-day for e.g. Ancest, Ritual, Lotus, Desire, R/D. Get Ancest, play it, than Ritual, Lotus, Desire.

Reveal R/D, play it for LED, PEtal, Will.

Play Artifacts, Sac for GUUU, Will.

Lotus, LED, Petal, sac all, Ritual, R/D for Lotus, LED, R/D Petal.
Replay Desire

Whenever your library is empty, use R/D to restock it with Ancestral, Rituals, Artifacts, Counters and always keep one  R/D removed for Desire.

If you run out of Desire copies, replay all your mana, Replay R/D for Desire, R/D and a random card, Ancestral into R/D, Desire and whatever. Play R/D for mana and R/D. Cast Desire, return to looping R/D's to remove all your cards for Desire. Restart when necessary.

Now this is a long loop involving face down cards, so a judge might not accept it as a loop (though everything is completely scripted). If he doesn't, you can technically beat 2*10^99 points of life. Practically speaking though, the other players in the tournament will probably beat you to death for taking 24h turns.

Insert Quote

Quote from: goobafish on Today at 09:01:36 AM
Quote
I sat for a half an hour trying to crack the puzzle in the article and I'm the one who wrote the primer for the original lists!

Of course you did. You have done most of the work, and as such it makes everyone else's jobs much easier. The deck is very difficult to create your own stacks for, but that shouldn't come up very often once we already have most of the situations with the appropriate stacks that you have presented. You are looking at the difficulty in terms of an innovation, once the information is available the deck is not impossible to play. I will be taking this to a tourney tomorrow so I will let you know how difficult it is.

Very possibly.   Or it could be that the number of relevant stacks is so great that unknown or unforseen stacks will arise at a frequency that will affect or determine outcomes.   In any case, good luck. 

Actually, I find Doomsday piles far easier than Gifts piles, simply because the number of relevant variables is lower. With Gifts, your goal often isn't to win on the spot but leverage card power into the following turns. Doomsday only accepts a win. In addition, you don't have to allow for your opponent monkeying with your available cards.

We have three variables (and a half) to work with: Mana, cards in hand and carddrawing (the half-variable is 2 Island for Gush).

How we get to D-Day doesn't influence the D-Day piles, so we can start post D-Day (to win on the same turn).

Now, the minimum we can have and have any chance of doing someting is 1 draw-effect + 1 mana, that is

We have Storm =1 (D-Day)


Double Wraith
-this needs storm =3 to work-
Ancestral
Petal
Lotus
Will
Tendrils

Street Wraith + Ancestral
Don't have one yet. Ideas?

Street Wraith +  BS + 2 cards
Lotus
LED
Petal
Will
Tendrils

Wraith + Gush + 2 Island
Lotus
LED
Desire
Ritual
R/D ->infinity and beyond


Street Wraith + U (non-blue mana doesn't help, BB4 for Bargain aside and that kind of obsoletes Wraith)
Ancestral
Lotus
LED
Demonic
Will
Tendrils


Brainstorm +U and two cards (I'm still looking for a 1-card in hand solution)
Lotus
LED
Demonic
Will
Tendrils

Acestral + U
Lotus,
LED,
Street Wraith
Desire
R/D


half-rule time. We do have a 0 mana option, but it needs two Islands
Gush + 2 Island in play and Storm 2
Ancestral,
Petal,
Lotus,
Tendrils,
Will.
l
Gush could allow for winning with BS + U + 1 card in hand + 2 Island. Anybody got an idea?

An infinity-pile (see above, there might be better=lower costed ones out there) is also nice. So once we have found piles for these cases, they make all other higher- costed piles redundant. Those can still be interesting to know for a few rare situations, but these will serve in almost any case. Most hate will make it necessary to deal with it before going for the win anyway, though an anti Leyline/Crypt pile would be especially nice.
The last thing we need is a pile that gets R/D out of our hand, and you thankfully provided it for us.
Piles that do only 18 or 16 might be interesting to know, too,

Now we just have to figure out the pile for winning next turn with minimum resources and maybe one or two specials and we have all twenty D-Day piles that really matter.

I'll edit in other interesting piles as I play more...

/add on: for the sbed, i guess i'd fill up with Leylines. Flash & Ichorid are sure to turn up in relevant numbers now I think and extra-edge helps (especially as you have a ton of useless discard vs ichorid).

As for the d-day pile, default to Wraith + u above.

[someone_unimportan]

Goobafish, you could do this:

Top
Ancestral
Lotus
Mana Crypt
Mind's Desire
Research and Development
Bottom

Cycle wraith -> ancestral, tap U and ancestral -> play Lotus and Crypt, break Lotus for UUU and tap Crypt for 2, Chain of Vapor the Crypt (5 storm)-> play Crypt tap for 2 and Mind's Desire for 7. First one reveals RnD, which you use to shuffle Beacon in (or Tendrils and Will) and kill your opponent dead.

[Phantom Ogre]

@someone_unimportan: Mana Crypt isn't in the decklist.

[diopter]

Street Wraith + U (non-blue mana doesn't help, BB4 for Bargain aside and that kind of obsoletes Wraith)
Ancestral
Lotus
LED
Demonic
Will
Tendrils

Mon your Wraith pile has 6 cards in it.

If you have Wraith + U + at least 2 other cards you can make the following stack and win, assuming you cast DDay off a Ritual this turn:

Brainstorm
Lotus
Dark Ritual
Will
Tendrils

Play it out like this:

Play Brainstorm, draw Lotus, Ritual, Will and put X, Y back.
Play out the mana and the Will, then Brainstorm out of the graveyard to get the Tendrils.
This play generates 8 storm, and the other 2 storm come from having played Dday this turn.

Note that you can even defend yourself with FoW, although that requires you having Fow + Blue card + 2 other cards + Wraith when you've already invested a Ritual and Doomsday and have 2 lands on the board.

Any suggestions on Wraith + U + 1 card?

[goobafish]

Just got back from the event. I top 8 split in a 60 man event for a lotus and ended up with $160 cash.

I really did not like the deck. I got extremely lucky in my pairings, and my opponents for the most part did not even remotely know how the combo worked. For example 3 of my opponents chose to recall themselves as a response to my own recall after a doomsday instead of killing me... The draws were not consistent enough to both fully disrupt the opponent, play a doomsday and win on the same turn without taking a huge risk in passing the turn. I believe I played the deck properly and many people who were there can attest to that, and I do not think it was that hard. Mind you I did not have to deal with very many specific situations like Chalice, Mage or Stax elements. Here are some cool plays that I did.

Here is a cool stack to ensure my opponent does not have any disruption.

-Top-
Unmask
LED
Lotus
Will
Tendrils
-Bottom-

I had a brainstorm street wraith black card and 2 blank. Unfortunately my opponent had a force and a drain...

Another cool play was I had doomsday  brainstorm LED street wraith and some blanks in hand with an island and a sapphire. It took me a while to figure out to brainstorm putting the Doomsday on top cycling street wraith and saccing the LED in response to play the Doomsday.

These were my matchups

Drain Tendrils - Loss
Drain Tendrils - Win (He had a game loss but we played again anyways and I won)
Oath - Win
Grim Long - Win (MVP Unmask and Duress)
Goblins - Win
U/G Madness - Win

I would not play this again.

[Smmenen]

Any suggested maindeck changes?  What sideboard did you run?    The deck is still untuned, imo.   

[goobafish]

My board was
4 Defence Grid
2 Wipe Away
2 Rebuild
1 Duress
1 Research//Development
1 Sins of the Past
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Massacre


I barely boarded in this event. The most common one was -1 misd (which i opted for instead of pact) and +1 duress.

My only maindeck change to your list was the pact to a misd. The changes i would make after is simply -1 cabal ritual +1 personal tutor. Make the deck faster because every play is a risk anyways. I will post with more changes when i get around to looking more into the deck.

Edit to avoid double post:
If you choose to play this deck, never underestimate the Necro Kill. It is extremely effective without using doomsday. Even people who knew how the combo worked would side in crypts and leylines against me which is a not bad for us at all.

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.

[diopter]

My board was
4 Defence Grid
2 Wipe Away
2 Rebuild
1 Duress
1 Research//Development
1 Sins of the Past
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Massacre


I barely boarded in this event. The most common one was -1 misd (which i opted for instead of pact) and +1 duress.

My only maindeck change to your list was the pact to a misd. The changes i would make after is simply -1 cabal ritual +1 personal tutor. Make the deck faster because every play is a risk anyways. I will post with more changes when i get around to looking more into the deck.

Edit to avoid double post:
If you choose to play this deck, never underestimate the Necro Kill. It is extremely effective without using doomsday. Even people who knew how the combo worked would side in crypts and leylines against me which is a not bad for us at all.

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.

I have also observed that you run out of cards quickly. It's natural, the deck's engine is just a massive topdeck tutor. I am currently testing Night's Whisper, and will post my findings here.

[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 impefect 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 thinik 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 resistence 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 intimite familiarity to consistently find your way out.   Or just be awesome. 

[Scyther]

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!

That's actually a reference to Craps, a dice game where you hope to roll ("shoot") well. The implication is that the deck still requires a lot of luck, even though it is very powerful.
-Jacob

[zulander]

I have a question about the manabase. Why wouldn't you run the fourth delta over the third strand? I don't have a premium account so i can't read the article so I'm sorry if you've already addressed this question. It just seems with the lone swamp having four fetches for it instead of three just seems better. The only card where having even number of fetches would be if your opponent played extirpate, even then they'd have more important cards to go after than a delta.