[Deck/Primer] NLD- Next Level Doomsday

[XxtSundaybxX]

Next Level Doomsday...I love it...well done Becker.

[Webster]

I'm also trying Snuff out in the board for Mage/ Annoying Cards like Teeg.

Chain of vapor and/or pongify should be better than snuff out since you can scroll for them. If you're set on running something that isn't a merchant scroll target, then I would suggest massacre before anything else since it kills pretty much everything that is white that you care about.

Speaking of Duress vs. Shops, what is your opinion of them in that matchup? How many do we want to keep in? I guess it mostly depends on what and how many cards you plan on sideboarding against Shops in the first place.

If you're playing against non-aggro workshop and are bringing in dark confidant, it seems like you would have a hard time keeping duress effects in since you're going to be bringing in about 8 cards (4 dark confidant, swamp, 2-3 bounce/EE). Against aggro workshop where they put signifcant pressure on your life total, dark confidant doesn't seem as good as thoughtseize.

If there is one matchup I play more than any other, its vs stax. I've definitely been asking myself that same question in the stax match up. Right now I am of the opinion that duress effects should be replaced by removal/ bounce. In most stax match ups I'm trying to beat a combination of the following cards: sphere effect, wire, chalice, and wasteland. With NLD's ability to doomsday, gush and win in a single turn I've been having a lot of success with a couple of  ingot chewers (for chalice and thorn obv.) and hurkyl's recalls. If you plan on seeing a lot of stax, I'd definitely urge you to test splashing red

Ingot chewer just doesn't seem as good as engineered explosives to me; granted, I haven't played with chewer and may just be completely wrong. Being able to support chewer means you'd have to run at least 2 volcanic islands between main and sideboard which seems weak if you have to put 1 in the SB. I really like leyline and dark confidant for various matchups and those take up a lot of room. Further support from a basic swamp is even less room for "real" sideboard cards. If you ran a volcanic in the sideboard, then you'd probably have to cut the swamp which doesn't seem that great of a plan. You could run the 2 volcanic islands in the maindeck but then you'd only be working with a list that has one basic land which also doesn't seem that great if you're expecting a lot of stax.

[GUnit]

Errr, Massacre won't kill teeg, but I think you're right about the removal; it should definitely be something scrollable.

[Webster]

Errr, Massacre won't kill teeg, but I think you're right about the removal; it should definitely be something scrollable.

Yea, I'm aware that massacre doesn't kill Gaddock Teeg; bounce or pongify is better there since you obviously can't cast massacre but can cast generic bounce spells that are good in other matchups. Running bad cards like smother, ghastly demise, deathmark, and slaughter pact just seems like a horrible dilution of the deck.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Has Volcanic Island/Empty the Warrens been tried out in this deck?  It requires a smaller storm count to be effective than Tendrils and for Doomsday we can use Research to shuffle in Tendrils.

Yes, and it's basically an entirely different deck.   The difference between 1-2 Trops vs. Volcanics is huge.  EtW requires some sort of control behind it so that they can't just win around you.

More on topic, I found Hurkyl's Recall to be extremely weak main because I could never get the mana to cast it.  You basically ignore non-sphere artifacts, so I'd aim your artifact hate at Spheres and just run EE.  I also saw mention of a sideboard R&D.  I've had more success bringing in extra copies of Tendrils and EtW bringing my maindeck win condition count to 5 (or 9 counting Confidants).  I know EtW isn't a possibility, but what about something like Dryad?

I'm definitely going to try out this build.

[Webster]

More on topic, I found Hurkyl's Recall to be extremely weak main because I could never get the mana to cast it.  You basically ignore non-sphere artifacts, so I'd aim your artifact hate at Spheres and just run EE.  I also saw mention of a sideboard R&D.  I've had more success bringing in extra copies of Tendrils and EtW bringing my maindeck win condition count to 5 (or 9 counting Confidants).  I know EtW isn't a possibility, but what about something like Dryad?

I'm definitely going to try out this build.

If you're expecting chalice of the void at all, then I would say that running hurkyl's recall (or echoing truth) is still mandatory. I got bent over by chalice with the deck configuration that I used at yesterday's tournament because I didn't have a hurkyl's in the main. I know that it's really weak in a lot of matchups so it should be a metagame call for how much bounce you want to run.

My problem with substituting tendrils over research/development in the sideboard is that you have a problem when you get put into the following situation:

Leyline of the void is in play. Black lotus and other common doomsday pile cards have been played and have thus been RFG'd. For whatever reason you cannot go off with fastbond due to an insufficient life total. In hand you have research/development.

My reasoning behind playing research/development in the sideboard is that you would be able to recover necessary doomsday pile pieces and research/development so that going off with doomsday is still going to be an option. If you run tendrils in the sideboard instead of research/development, you don't have that option baring a very odd gamestate.

[Negator13]

My problem with substituting tendrils over research/development in the sideboard is that you have a problem when you get put into the following situation:

Leyline of the void is in play. Black lotus and other common doomsday pile cards have been played and have thus been RFG'd. For whatever reason you cannot go off with fastbond due to an insufficient life total. In hand you have research/development.

My reasoning behind playing research/development in the sideboard is that you would be able to recover necessary doomsday pile pieces and research/development so that going off with doomsday is still going to be an option. If you run tendrils in the sideboard instead of research/development, you don't have that option baring a very odd gamestate.

Exactly. That's precisely the reason I think 1 R/D in the board is mandatory, along with one main.

Congrats at your top 2 split with the deck, by the way. Nice to see the deck making waves already.

[AmbivalentDuck]

So, what would you board it in against?  As far as I'm concerned, you're bringing in a dead card.  Also, going off with Dday through Leyline is pretty trival unless you used the Lotus itself to cast Dday.  You should be able to do it with Rituals, Gushes, Brainstorms, and that lone R&D in hand.  I'd *way* rather bring in Mind's Desire than R&D against Leyline and I consider Mind's Desire a pretty dead card that's only boarded in when I *must* be able to pass the turn into a grave-independent kill (ie. vs Ichorid).

[Negator13]

Well you don't actually have to board in the second R/D, because if you have to cast Research to shuffle in used Lotus/Ancestral, you can also shuffle in the other R/D from the board.
That said, I've actually been thinking of running 1 Mind's Desire MD, to make the Brainstorm and the pass-the-turn kills more reliable. If I do, then I won't need the 2nd R/D in the board.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I've always play with a copy of mind's desire maindeck. I sort of consider it a must. Like you said, it gives you more playable pile and turns on the "dd pass the turn" play, wich can add to the speed of your deck.
Not to mention casting mind's desire on its own isn't that bad either.

[Jo84]

I disagree with you regarding MD. I admit it makes DD piles much easier, but first of all it´s a dead card without Doomsday. If you focus on DD alone, it may be fine to include, but I can´t see how this card could be good in NLD. The deck has too few bombs to make Desire good outside a DD pile. Twister and Tendrils are nice to hit. Fastbond and Will sometimes too, but in most cases you will hit draw spells which can´t create a massive amount of card advantage as each copy of Desire took one card away from your hand.

Also I have mixed feelings about Desire in DD piles. Stifle really loses you the game when your pile depends on casting a Desire whereas Stifle shouldn´t matter when you use the other piles mentioned on the 1st page as you can fire off some Duresses before your lethal Tendrils.

I know I talk about one card that will crush you when you MD Desire, but this deck plays much slower then Doomsday.dec, so chances are much higher that they get a Stifle and as you play slower you will have more ressources in your "past Doomsday" turn so Desire isn´t mandatory in this deck in my opinion.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

@ jo84.
I definitely understand your reasoning behind not wanting MD main deck. At first I thought about cutting it as well, but ended up keeping it due to having more options in DDay piles. That is the main reason for keeping MD, it can give you options for faster kills then you would otherwise be allowed. After casting DDay, you’re typically in a fragile spot, a disruption of any sort can leave you a dead in the water, forcing the right spell or stifling MD or TOA. I would really disregard stifle on MD as a reason for not playing it; if you’re not playing MD they could always opt to hit your TOA. In any case, stifle is not trickbind, so you just pact it just like everything else. I've also found MD piles are great for removing Platz. Typically without MD and R&D you can only get 3 cards from R&D, being lotus, petal TOA. MD brings that up to a minimum of 4 allowing you to get platz removal x 2.
Personally, I feel like MD provides a large amount of versatility that helps you navigate game situations where DD gush won't quite do it (though they often do).

Honestly, casting MD is not optimal, but in testing I've won a few (not a lot, but enough to want me to keep the play around) empty gifts match up off MD storm 6ish (granted I run 3x doomsday). Between the tutors gush scroll and DDay, you can make things happen. Running over DDay, with MD is really amazing, but if nothing else MD can typically get some control (from scroll, and gush draw), and DDay top decked or in hand

If your testing shows that MD isn’t very good for you, I guess its not a “must”, but If your looking for options or speed, I’d test it.

[AmbivalentDuck]

MD is for matchups where speed > threat density and vulnerability.

In my UBr build, I typically board out everything uniquely Doomsday and board into Bob Tendrils when I'm not confident that I can protect a Dday kill from FoW/Stifle/etc.  The converse of that is bringing in the Mind's Desire when I'm more worried about just casting Dday before Duress/Spheres/grave hate hit the table.

[Gaagooch]

Mind's Desire might become more valuable to the deck once shadowmoor becomes legal.  I'm not 100% sure how Faerie Macabre will affect vintage if it affects it at all.  It can obviously hose most Yawgmoth's Will strategies, and can take out some cards in response to you even casting DDay.  It may not be that big of a worry as I really don't know what deck will play it, especially in the maindeck at the moment.  But it can become a problem card. 

I disagree with you regarding MD. I admit it makes DD piles much easier, but first of all it´s a dead card without Doomsday. If you focus on DD alone, it may be fine to include, but I can´t see how this card could be good in NLD. The deck has too few bombs to make Desire good outside a DD pile. Twister and Tendrils are nice to hit. Fastbond and Will sometimes too, but in most cases you will hit draw spells which can´t create a massive amount of card advantage as each copy of Desire took one card away from your hand.

Also I have mixed feelings about Desire in DD piles. Stifle really loses you the game when your pile depends on casting a Desire whereas Stifle shouldn´t matter when you use the other piles mentioned on the 1st page as you can fire off some Duresses before your lethal Tendrils.

I know I talk about one card that will crush you when you MD Desire, but this deck plays much slower then Doomsday.dec, so chances are much higher that they get a Stifle and as you play slower you will have more ressources in your "past Doomsday" turn so Desire isn´t mandatory in this deck in my opinion.

Desire isn't mandatory in this deck, in fact I don't think it fits in most Gush based combo decks, but I have not taken the proper amount of time to test my ideas on that and will not subject you to them.  If they have Stifle, chances are you can Desire for as much as you want, most of the time a smart player will stifle the storm on the tendrils that is killing them.  Desire cannot kill them in a five card deck, unless you have a pile where tendrils is the only card left in deck and a desire for one will be lethal.  Desire is still a bomb in this list, although not the biggest bomb by far.  It also allows you to randomly chain together Gush's, and Merchant Scrolls to create enough storm where you can Desire for 5-8.  Obviously you would much rather have the Doomsday, but in cases where I can for some reason not cast DDay, or have not drawn into/tutored for it Mind's Desire adds a little more to the deck. 

I don't know what spot everyone is testing it out in.  IMHO I do not like 4 ponders, I believe somebody had already mentioned that.  Having played combo in vintage for the entire time I've played vintage, and having played with 4 ponders for quite some time at this point.  I really have to disagree with 4 of them.  In a bomb light deck like this they can help you find a bomb yes, but when you have to draw one bomb, and hope it doesn't get countered because of the other two cards on top of your deck I find that to be quite bad.  It might just be me, I may just have an unhealthy obsession with the card Mind's Desire, but I really think the card fits into this deck and adds to it rather than taking away from it, which is the opposite of how I currently view 4 ponders. 

[Negator13]

As many people have expressed, the danger with adding cards like Pact of Negation and Mind's Desire to augment the Doomsday aspect of the deck is that you begin to focus too much on the Doomsday kill. You gain power and streamline the deck in the abstract but in practice you will find that the loss of flexibility and increased amount of dead/suboptimal cards without DDay are not worth the gains. For example, I've been trying out (roughly) -4 Ponder, -1 Misd, +1 Emerald, +1 Walk, +1 DDay/Seal, +1 Mind's Desire, +1 Pact of Negation. There are things I like about this version, namely that it makes the DDay plan much more reliable and consistent, especially with pass-the-turn kills. However you now run a serious risk of drawing dead cards frequently (Tendrils, Pact, Desire, R/D, redundant DDays). You also lose the flexibility that Ponder gives you, especially with regard to the Gushbond-> Will aspect of the deck. Remember, Doomsday is only supposed to be your route to victory roughly half the time, not 75% or 90%. I think I am going to keep 1 Ponder dropped for the Mox Emerald, which i have found useful in casting second turn Scroll-> Recall, and it allows me to cast Fastbond without having to search up a Trop, which is nice for easier hardcasting of DDay later. I think Pact is best in the sideboard as a singleton, although that slot is easily interchangeable with the md Misd. The jury's still out on Timetwister, it's definitely better with the 3rd mox in the deck. Testing will tell.

[Jo84]

Smart Doomsday players will shuffle a Duress into their deck together with Tendrils so they have the option to first play Duress for free and then pull out their lethal Tendrils, so I can´t see how holding Stifle for Tendrils and not Desire would be anyhow smart.
Furthermore when you Stifle the Desire they MAY shuffle some cards into their library with R/D (if they are lucky or have suffiicient number of turns left) and wait some turns until they put a lethal hand togehter, but that depends on you neither drawing/tutoring Ancestral Recall nor any kind of Disruption (FoW, Duress, Thoughtseize, Stifle) nor any kill option. Really really rare scenario and even then you did your best as letting Desire resolve will end in getting your Stifle duressed and your life points eaten up by Tendrils.

[Bongo]

So what is the current list?

I've been tinkering around with this:


3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual

4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Timetwister

2 Doomsday
1 Research/Development
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Force of Will
1 Pact of Negation
4 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall


Sideboard:
1 Research/Development
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Dark Confidant
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Thoughtseize or Extirpate?
1 Swamp or Pact of Negation?


Twister and LED give you even more Doomsday piles. Imperial Seal stuck me as being too powerful to omit, since you can set up easy turn 2 wins. I cut 3 Ponder since I felt they're kinda weak. The remaining Ponder is needed for a Doomsday Pile.
The sideboard strategy is where I'm having the most difficulties. What do you board OUT in various matchups? I'm also unsure about the last two sideboard slots.

What do you think about the maindeck?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Sacrificing resilience for speed isn't a great idea.  Two of your choices are dead when you aren't killing: LED and Pact.  If you want faster kills, I strongly recommend at least making them more resilient by adding MD over LED.  I can't think of a pile where LED is actually necessary to have a zero-mana (beyond dday) kill.

Also, my sideboard (for UBr Dday with 4 Confidant main) looks like this:

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1  Empty the Warrens
SB: 3  Extirpate
SB: 1  Chain of Vapor
SB: 1  Mind's Desire
SB: 1  Slaughter Pact
SB: 2  Engineered Plague
SB: 1  Necropotence
SB: 1  Threads of Disloyalty
SB: 1  Faerie Macabre
SB: 2  Cursecatcher

Extirpate (3 sb + 1 main)
-Lets you play control in a way that no other card does.  It turns all of your combo protection into proactive disruption and stops Flash/Gush/Ichorid. 

Necropotence
-I keep it in here against an online meta.  Probably undesirable in any real meta.

Cursecatcher
-Destroys Ichorid, can be pitched to FoW, and helps to slow down other combo decks while protecting you.  Duress 7-8.

Engineered Plague
-Answers goblins, random aggro, Oath (spirits), Flash (slivers, zombies...have to know explicitly), and Gro (Dryads).

With 4 Confidant + 2 Tendrils + 2 EtW, I board into full Bob - Storm without any reliance on any particular spell resolving.  I play Bob storm against control, Dday combo against aggro, and Extirpate + random finish against combo.  In my local, Bazaar-heavy meta, Dday rips through the aggro that I'm most often playing against.

[Negator13]

Twister and LED give you even more Doomsday piles. Imperial Seal stuck me as being too powerful to omit, since you can set up easy turn 2 wins. I cut 3 Ponder since I felt they're kinda weak. The remaining Ponder is needed for a Doomsday Pile.
The sideboard strategy is where I'm having the most difficulties. What do you board OUT in various matchups? I'm also unsure about the last two sideboard slots.

What do you think about the maindeck?

My current build has been fluctuating between the posted list, and a build like yours with less Ponder and more situational cards. Right now I'm running 1 Ponder, 1 Desire, 1 Emerald, and 1 Time Walk in those 4 slots, and I still have MisD maindeck over Pact.

I think you just have to take sideboarding match by match, just pay close attention to what cards are the least useful game 1 and board them in for more useful cards.

What Doomsday pile do you need that one Ponder for? (out of curiosity)

[tomjoad]

What Doomsday pile do you need that one Ponder for? (out of curiosity)

I have made piles where a) I had to pass the turn and b) I did not have 3 Islands already in play. With a Ponder you can Ancestral yourself, then Ponder to draw the last card (where-as Brainstorm would kill you). Fairly situational and uncommon, but it lets you draw your whole pile after a DDay when double Gush is not an option.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

had you concidered
instead of:  ancestrall then ponder
 
playing: brainstorm then ancestrall.

when I first started playing dd initially I wanted ponder because of things like you mentioned,  but after a while I realized I just wasn't thinking it through and ponder isn't necessary for any winning piles

[coyoteuglly]

I had an opening hand today on MWS of 2x Dark Rit 2x Doomsday 1x Thoughtseize, USea, R/D.  Is there a pile that allows you to win on turn 2 if you cast Doomsday on turn 1?

[kkoie]

I had an opening hand today on MWS of 2x Dark Rit 2x Doomsday 1x Thoughtseize, USea, R/D.  Is there a pile that allows you to win on turn 2 if you cast Doomsday on turn 1?

T1 - Play usea, cast rit, cast doomsday for Ancestral, Lotus, Petal, Will, Tendrils
T2 - Draw ancestral
Cast ancestral for Lotus, Petal, Will (1storm)
Play lotus (2storm)
Play petal (3storm)
sac petal for U, lotus for BBB
play thoughtseize (4storm, UBB floating)
play rit (5storm, UBBBB floating)
play will (6storm, UB floating)
play lotus (7storm)
play petal (8storm)
play rit (9storm, UBBB floating)
sac petal for G, sac lotus for UUU, play research (10storm, UUUBBB floating) for lotus and petal (or anything else)
play ancestral (11storm, UUBBB floating) drawing lotus, petal, and tendrils
play lotus (12storm)
play petal (13storm)
play tendrils

granted this is sans protection for your ancestral, which is the weakest link in the chain.

[Thegreatgonzo]

Your brand new deck :

Ancestral recall
Black lotus
Yawgmoth’s will
Lotus petal
Duress

Your turn 2 :

Untap underground sea
Draw Ancestral recall
Tap underground sea for blue
Play Ancestral recall (stormcount 1)
Draw Black lotus, Yawgmoth’s will, Lotus petal
Play petal,(stormcount 2) sac for black, play the ritual from your hand (stormcount 3)(BBB floating)
Play lotus, (stormcount 4) Sac lotus for UUU
Play yawgmoth’s will (stormcount 5) (BUU remaining)
Play petal, lotus, ritual (stormcount 8, BBBUU floating)
Sac lotus for blue (BBBUUUUU floating)
Sac petal for green, play research (stormcount 9, BBBUUUUfloating)
Shuffle Tendrils of agony and lotus in your deck
Play Ancestral recall from the yard (stormcount more than lethal, BBBUUU floating)
Draw Black lotus, Tendrils of agony, Duress (or pact, or whatever)
Play lotus, play duress (just for fun, and for stifle), play tendrils for the win.

It’s quite risky, since almost every decent turn 1 piece of disruption from your opponent owns you. But against “sorry-I-forgot-it-was-vintage.deck”, I think this pile works.

[Purple Hat]

why not play turn 1 rit, rit, thoughtsieze, doomsday? and then either of the stacks from previous posts?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Or even better:  Rit, Thoughtseize, decide if you should even be playing Dday this turn, Rit, Dday.

[ErkBek]

After thinking about Andy's hand and reading the last few posts I figured out the kill we've all been waiting for, the pass the turn kill.

There is no additional requirements beyond having UB or UG for mana. It does a guaranteed 18 damage and up to 20 if you're willing to gamble just a little and your mana is 2 islands (90% of the time it's a kill). If your mana is land + mox it deals 20 damage 100% of the time. Here's the stack.

Ancestral
Lotus
R/D
Yawgmoth's Will
Tendrils

Ancestral (U)
Lotus for GGG
Will (G)
Lotus for UUU
R/D (UU) -> shuffle in Lotus, Petal, Gush, Gush
Ancestral (U) (storm = 6)
Gush (storm = 7)
Lotus for BBB (storm = 8) (UBBB)
Petal (storm = 9)
Tendrils (storm = 10)

If you don't hit a Gush on R/D that means you've got Lotus, Petal, and Tendrils which is good enough for 18.

If you mana looks like Mox + Land you can follow the same stack except shuffle in Lotus and Chain of Vapor. This way you'll Ancestral into this line of play:

Lotus for BBB (UBBB) (storm =7)
Chain the mox (BBB) (storm =8)
Mox and tap it (1BBB) (storm = 9)
Tendrils for 20

[Negator13]

Nice. Well done. That's actually huge, because it completely negates any need for Mind's Desire and makes Time Walk the clear choice over Ponder. My list is now the one in the original post, -2 Ponder, +1 Emerald +1 Walk.

[AmbivalentDuck]

because it completely negates any need for Mind's Desire

Certainly in the maindeck.  Mind's Desire can win through grave hate. 

[OwenTheEnchanter]

Do you really need Emerald, seems bad to me. Also why are people in this thread so concerned about killing Gaddock Teeg nobody plays that trash.