Doomsday 2010

[Jo84]

What can prevent you from winning via Doomsday?
Countermagic (counter the first Drawspell) and Ancestral Recall.

What prevents you from winning via Ad Nauseam?
Luck (too much life loss before lethal) and Countermagic (AN countered)

Only difference is that Doomsday is an All-In Move, which means you will lose the game if your opponent has countermagic.
With Doomsday you have to be sure that your opponent has no counter magic ready, with Ad Nauseam you can just try out and wouldn´t lose immediately if opponent has some counter magic ready.

[Stormanimagus]

What can prevent you from winning via Doomsday?
Countermagic (counter the first Drawspell) and Ancestral Recall.

Much more hoses D-Day than that. Here's a short list off the top of my head for the shelldock kill:

1. Stifle
2. Wasteland
3. Tanglewire
4. Ensnaring Bridge
5. Diabolic Edict

That's just the first 5 I can think of. I'm sure there are more. Just saying that you are wrong that it's only Ancestral and Countermagic.

-Storm

[GrandpaBelcher]

Not to mention your opponent targeting you with Ancestral Recall.

[Killane]

What can prevent you from winning via Doomsday?
Countermagic (counter the first Drawspell) and Ancestral Recall.

Much more hoses D-Day than that. Here's a short list off the top of my head for the shelldock kill:

1. Stifle
2. Wasteland
3. Tanglewire
4. Ensnaring Bridge
5. Diabolic Edict

That's just the first 5 I can think of. I'm sure there are more. Just saying that you are wrong that it's only Ancestral and Countermagic.

-Storm

Ok, there's the thing. Countermagic does nothing against the shelldock kill, unless they counter d-day itself, in which case you are no worse off than having Ad Naus countered, and arguably better off since ANT does no tend to run 4 Ad naus. Items 2-5 do nothing, or very little, against the Tendrils kill. item 1 stops the Shelldock kill and the Tendrils kill, but can be duressed away. one might argue it is better here than vs ANT since AT will likely draw into multiple duress effects while going off, so Stifling the Storm kill is not usuall going to happen there, but nevertheless Stifle is rarely played these days and not the hardest thing in the world to protect against by any means.

Chalice at 1 is a big problem for the Tendrils kill, but not for the Shelldock Kill. Spheres are a big problem for the tendrils kill, but not so much for the shelldock kill, as if you can D-Day at EOT then you will have sufficient mana to perform the kill. Still a problem, but not as killer an issue as vs Tendrils.

the thing is that each kill has a number of silver bullets that stop it, but very very few work against both kills. You can't just let them d-day and hope to counter unless you know you can kill them within 2 turns post d-day, or they go for the Shelldock kill and your countermagic is useless. The shelldock kill brings the countrmagic fight to the resolution of oomsday, whcih is a mh better place for it to be. The only thing that both kills really fear is Ancestral, which may be the most serious issue here.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Ok, there's the thing. Countermagic does nothing against the shelldock kill, unless they counter d-day itself

Completely untrue.  Say that I'm sitting on a Drain, you cast Doomsday with a Sensei's Diving Top on the table.  I let Doomsday resolve and you dump Shelldock into play.  I have a turn before you can bring Emrakul into play.  If you don't put Shelldock on top and instead make it a draw spell, I counter the draw spell, you draw Shelldock next turn, and get an Emrakul two turns after Doomsday was cast.

[Killane]

Ok, there's the thing. Countermagic does nothing against the shelldock kill, unless they counter d-day itself

Completely untrue.  Say that I'm sitting on a Drain, you cast Doomsday with a Sensei's Diving Top on the table.  I let Doomsday resolve and you dump Shelldock into play.  I have a turn before you can bring Emrakul into play.  If you don't put Shelldock on top and instead make it a draw spell, I counter the draw spell, you draw Shelldock next turn, and get an Emrakul two turns after Doomsday was cast.

that would be a bad pile. why would you not put shelldock on top? you Want

Shelldock
Emrakul
Time Walk
Duress
Timetwister

your drain does nothing until  get one swing with an Annhilator 6. If you still have the mana up to cast it after I swing, you loose it to duress unless you drain the duress.

[Delha]

Even though there's no variance in Doomsday piles, however, I don't think resolving Doomsday allows you to win as consistently as resolving Ad Naus does.  There are many more things that can go wrong, so it ends up being much riskier.

When you resolve Ad Nauseam, you should win, barring shenanigans on the deck's part.  And I'm much more afraid of losing to my opponent than losing to my deck.

I think we're hitting some mixup between consistency and resilience. Doomsday will never die while goldfishing, and ANT obviously does. Once we're talking resilience instead, then I have no dispute. It's no secret that Doomsday's all-in nature and need to pass the turn make it vulnerable in ways that ANT is not. That's why I favor building towards a minimization of that disruption window, be it through Leyline, Top, or otherwise.

If Ad Nauseum is Ancestral, Doomsday is Imperial Seal. The former is clearly more exposive. The latter is a sure thing, but slow. What's gonna win you the game more? Ancestral, sure. It's not the more consistent of the two, but it's the more powerful of the two anyway.

That's just the first 5 I can think of. I'm sure there are more. Just saying that you are wrong that it's only Ancestral and Countermagic.

In fairness, there's a lot beyond Luck and Countermagic that can stop ANT as well. Chalice, and Null Rod, for a start. As mentioned earlier, winning with Trinisphere on the table is practically impossible for ANT*, even if they manage to cast Ad Naus. Doomsday can at least run out Shelldock the slow, unprotected way. Before you point towards Hurkyl's (which is equally viable to either deck), it aint on the table anymore. I'm talking about winning through sphere effects, when you fail to dig up an answer.

Ok, there's the thing. Countermagic does nothing against the shelldock kill, unless they counter d-day itself

Completely untrue.  Say that I'm sitting on a Drain, you cast Doomsday with a Sensei's Diving Top on the table.  I let Doomsday resolve and you dump Shelldock into play.  I have a turn before you can bring Emrakul into play.  If you don't put Shelldock on top and instead make it a draw spell, I counter the draw spell, you draw Shelldock next turn, and get an Emrakul two turns after Doomsday was cast.

While technically true, I think you're overestimating what the Drain deck is going to do in that one turn. Let's go with your first scenario (which seems the likely stack when facing a Drain opponent). I Top into Shelldock and drop it. Unless you're holding Key+Tinker or Jace, you're pretty much dead next turn.

Before Inky or Sphinx, did people stop running Tinker->Colossus because it demands passing the turn twice? Shelldock is much harder to answer, with a potentially smaller window. Why include Tezz in decks at all? Tezz->Vault requires you to pass the turn, but people are still running that.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Before Inky or Sphinx, did people stop running Tinker->Colossus because it demands passing the turn twice? Shelldock is much harder to answer, with a potentially smaller window. Why include Tezz in decks at all? Tezz->Vault requires you to pass the turn, but people are still running that.

Tinker->Colossus doesn't cut your life total in half or give you no outs to Tangle Wire, Ancestral Recall, or Wasteland.

[Delha]

Before Inky or Sphinx, did people stop running Tinker->Colossus because it demands passing the turn twice? Shelldock is much harder to answer, with a potentially smaller window. Why include Tezz in decks at all? Tezz->Vault requires you to pass the turn, but people are still running that.

Tinker->Colossus doesn't cut your life total in half or give you no outs to Tangle Wire, Ancestral Recall, or Wasteland.

It does however, fold to Swords, Hurkyl's, Chain of Vapor, Welder, etc. You're also wrong about having zero outs to Wire/Recall/Waste, but that isn't even relevant.

I never tried to claim that Shelldock/Emrakul was the best wincon evar, my point was that everything has weaknesses. The key here is that many of the arguments being used also apply to the strategies in widely accepted decks.

[Stormanimagus]

Ok, there's the thing. Countermagic does nothing against the shelldock kill, unless they counter d-day itself

Completely untrue.  Say that I'm sitting on a Drain, you cast Doomsday with a Sensei's Diving Top on the table.  I let Doomsday resolve and you dump Shelldock into play.  I have a turn before you can bring Emrakul into play.  If you don't put Shelldock on top and instead make it a draw spell, I counter the draw spell, you draw Shelldock next turn, and get an Emrakul two turns after Doomsday was cast.

that would be a bad pile. why would you not put shelldock on top? you Want

Shelldock
Emrakul
Time Walk
Duress
Timetwister

your drain does nothing until  get one swing with an Annhilator 6. If you still have the mana up to cast it after I swing, you loose it to duress unless you drain the duress.

That stack might be solid if you are worrying about countermagic, but if you are worried about racing your opponent (say they are on Oath, TPS or even MUD for that matter) then the superior stack becomes:

Brainstorm
Shelldock
Lotus
Cloud Of Faeries
Emrakul

Cloud of Fae is so much better than Twiddle btw to whoever mentioned that. You get much less mana restriction as Clous is essentially free if you have 1 land out (which you should). Cloud allows for a consistent "win now" approach to emrakul and beats for 1 which can sometimes be the difference between game over and not. Many opponents will be at 16 life by the time you swing from Fetches, FoW, Thoughtseize and such, but less will be at 15. Cloud is a great 1-of include to give you a quick win when you might need that extra turn.

-Storm

[Delha]

I think it's largely dependent on gamestate as well.

Against Drains: If you had to run Doomsday out there unprotected, then I'd want to use a stack with Shelldock on top. If you were able to clear the way with Duress, then yeah, I'd want a speed stack.

Against MUD: I agree that the Cloud stack is probably best in most cases. Since all their answers are sorcery speed anyway, you can just look at their board and build your stack accordingly if they've got a Waste/etc waiting for you. This is one place where Twiddle might win out over Cloud, since you can respond to strip effects. Maybe too narrow though.

[emidln]

Most of TMD probably doesn't know me, but I've worked on Legacy storm a lot. One of my pet projects in Legacy was the utilization of Doomsday in storm originally as a substitute for Intuitions or Infernal Tutors and then as a complement to Ad Nauseam to shore up some of its sketchier matchups. Some thoughts from that perspective:

A sideboard plan of ETW + Time Walk enables Research//Development piles off Mind's Desire and isn't terrible in and of itself against Fish and Stax. Obviously you can't maindeck Time Walk and get it off R//D, but I'm not sure that the effect into a Doomsday pile is that much better than a random cantrip, especially if you have SDT in your deck. An Alternate would be to play 1-2 Tendrils in the sb. 2x sideboard slots wasted is probably worse than not maindecking Time Walk.

Which brings me to another point: Play 4 SDT.

SDT in play,  1U post DD
Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Lion's Eye Diamond
Mind's Desire
Research or Tendrils

SDT in play, U post DD 2 cards

BS
Lotus
LED
Will
Tendrils

1) Doomsday (U)
2) SDT->BS, BS drawing SDT, Lotus, LED put back 2 randoms (0)
3) Lotus  (0)
4) LED (0)
5) Crack Lotus for UUU, play SDT. (UU)
6) Crack LED for BBB, spin SDT with U to put Will on top, draw Will with SDT, Will (U)
7) LED, crack LED for BBB (BBBU)
8) Lotus (BBBU)
9) Brainstorm drawing SDT, random, random (BBB)
10) SDT (BB)
11) Spin SDT putting Tendrils on Top, tap SDT to draw Tendrils, use Black Lotus to cast Tendrils with 10 storm

This next pile requires a Draw4 (Meditate or Infernal Contract/Cruel Bargain), and is slightly worse than it is in Legacy due to a lack of 4x LED to get to your Draw4Mana easier. Draw4Mana is either BBB for Infernal Contract/Cruel Bargain or 2U for Meditate. I prefer Meditate myself, but in Vintage I could see the argument for Cruel Bargain given that it has worked out well in the past for Ritual decks. On the upside, this ignores graveyard hate, wins this turn, can kill through Gaddock Teeg or Chalice @ 0. This might be redundant with Timetwister since it too can win through some number of Chalice or Graveyard hate, although doing so generally requires a lot of mana investment and an exact card count in hand whereas this imposes no such requirements.

The random slot can be a lot of stuff. Duress/Pact of Negation isn't that great since if they have Stifle they'll probably stifle your first SDT or counter your Meditate/Lotus(i.e. Duress only does something if your opponent is greedy). Deathmark/Chain of Vapor is fine for dealing with Gaddock Teeg or Meddling Mage on Tendrils (although Mage likely chants vs Doomsday).

Chain of Vapor gives you at least +1 storm by bouncing LED + whatever else is convenient.

If you replace Lotus/LED with Rit, Rit, the pile costs B more but kills through Chalice @ 0.

Rebuild in the flex slot makes this pile kill through Chalice @ 1.

If you have a lot of mana and are looking for random storm inflation, the flex slot can be SDT and you'll be able to translate any extra mana 1 for 1 into storm.

SDT, 2U post DD
Meditate
Lotus
LED
card with CMC <= 1
Tendrils

Force of Will isn't good enough in this deck. Without Gush and Brainstorm unrestricted, you're relying mostly on Sensei's Divining Top fueled by Lion's Eye Diamond and pass the turn piles to get you there. If you run SDT you don't get to run enough blue to support Force of Will. If you don't run SDT, you risk moving from pile to steaming pile. Pact might be okay as a 1-2 of for putting inside Twister piles and general protection strategy, but your main package in that area is almost certainly 4x Duress and 4x Thoughtseize.

Gush might not be good enough in this deck with a high number of shops and fish due to wanting to fetch out basic Swamp early to fuel Duress and Thoughtseize. Without 4 Gush, you can't really justify warping your manabase to play only islands (and NLD often felt like it wanted a Swamp even with 4x Gush and X Scroll).

FWIW, we don't start Emrakul in Legacy where they have roughly the same metagame presence of Wastelands. In Legacy, it's a gameplan against non-tempo blue decks and an alt-kill when paired with Cloud of Faeries over our traditional 1U, 2 cards SDT/Brainstorm pile since IGG can be extremely dangerous against a burn-heavy deck after halving your life total. If you needed some help against Tezz or to raceIona Oath I guess it's fine, but I can't see it being all that much better than Xantid Swarm or Dark Confidant against Tezz. Xantid is probably fast enough in killing to ignore the drawback of enabling Oath, although Terrastadon rains on your racing parade by killing Shelldock Isle.

I'm also not entirely sure that all of this matters when the OP is actually wrong about ANT. It has the strongest "backup" plan in Vintage in Will (so strong that it's the primary of many decks)  + as much tutoring and card drawing as anyone. Its plan C isn't even that terrible due to playing a ton of bounce and several copies of Tendrils. I guess that requires thinking outside of "durr, 5 mana = concede to me".

FWIW, ANT can beat Shops too by not being so damn greedy with lands along with siding in white lands + Serenity in addition to not being greedy with the maindeck land count (before someone tells me that it can't be done because it's unsynergistic with fast mana, I actually did it last year at an ICBM P9). Maindeck Chains + H.Recall and a decent manabase paired with siding in Serenity is more than enough to roll Workshops all day.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Force of Will isn't good enough in this deck. Without Gush and Brainstorm unrestricted, you're relying mostly on Sensei's Divining Top fueled by Lion's Eye Diamond and pass the turn piles to get you there. If you run SDT you don't get to run enough blue to support Force of Will. If you don't run SDT, you risk moving from pile to steaming pile.

I agree with pretty much everything emidln said, but I'd like to highlight this point in particular.  If you're not running FOW, and if you're using Doomsday(BBB)+1U+Sensei to win the turn you cast Doomsday, you might as well play ANT.  The sole advantage Doomsday has is the ability to win at low life totals with its main engine, but this will usually only matter against Aggro decks.

[emidln]

Force of Will isn't good enough in this deck. Without Gush and Brainstorm unrestricted, you're relying mostly on Sensei's Divining Top fueled by Lion's Eye Diamond and pass the turn piles to get you there. If you run SDT you don't get to run enough blue to support Force of Will. If you don't run SDT, you risk moving from pile to steaming pile.

I agree with pretty much everything emidln said, but I'd like to highlight this point in particular.  If you're not running FOW, and if you're using Doomsday(BBB)+1U+Sensei to win the turn you cast Doomsday, you might as well play ANT.  The sole advantage Doomsday has is the ability to win at low life totals with its main engine, but this will usually only matter against Aggro decks.

It costs BBBU + Sensei + some random cards to win the turn you cast Doomsday. Or BBBU + BS. Or BBBU + Ancestral Recall. Or BBB and win next turn. Or BBB2U and win next turn. Or BBB2U + SDT and win this turn. Or.... you get the idea. It's flexible and can play through just about any issue.

Compared to Ad Nauseam, Doomsday never fizzles. you don't ever flip 2 Ad Nauseams and a Tendrils. Lodestone Golem/MUD is  a common problem that ANT solves with Serenity + Tinker/Will, because once a robot has been smashing you for a turn or two, Ad Naus is no longer an option.

Not running Force of Will has no bearing on whether this is better or worse than ANT. Doing roughly the same thing as TPS, GrimLong, GWSx, etc do, but passing the turn sometimes is what likely gives it this distinction. For what it's worth, I'd suggest something like this if you want to play the deck anyway (it is really fun):

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

1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk
2 Preordain
4 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
3 Doomsday

4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
1 Pact of Negation
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild

1 Mind's Desire
1 Meditate
1 Timetwister
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacomb
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy

SB: 1 Tinker
SB: 1 $ROBOT
SB: 1 H.Recall
SB: 1 Nature's Claim
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 1 Ravenous Trap
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm

Desire probably needs to be replaced with something better since it's fairly lackluster without R//D.

[Rico Suave]

If the goal is to graft Doomsday into a Tendrils shell, it's worth pointing out Chromatic Sphere.  Not only does the Sphere function like SDT, allowing the deck to jump start the combo without having to pass the turn, but it provides a few other key functions in the working of a Doomsday pile that I'll try to demonstrate.  

Look at this pile:

SDT in play, U post DD 2 cards

BS
Lotus
LED
Will
Tendrils

If we replace SDT with Chromatic Sphere, not only do we ease the burden of requiring U post DD, but we open up the following pile without requiring LED or any other cards in hand:

Sphere in play, 1 colorless post DD 0 cards

Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Dark Ritual
Will
Tendrils

Remember, Sphere is in the graveyard so we can replay it via Will and use that as the cantrip to grab Tendrils (and we can target our opponent with Ancestral to produce 10 storm if necessary).  

This brings two key strengths to the table:

1) With less reliance on LED, the criticisms against Force of Will lose ground.  Granted, there may just not be enough blue cards to support it, but I don't think needing LED to Doomsday out should be a primary reason.

2) It brings additional value to off-color Moxen.  When the bottleneck is colored mana, the deck is limited by land drops and scarce restricted acceleration so it's understandable to cut off-color Moxen, but at heart this is still a storm deck and the "back-up" plans of casting Will and/or bounce -> Tendrils all become much more potent with that extra acceleration.  

[TheShop]

I must be overlooking something, can I get a little assistance:

if you go

turn X- sea, rit, doomsday-pass (shelldock on top)

turn X+1- draw&play shelldock, activate using sea. 

Dont you get emrakul and 1 turn to swing with him at that point?  So it just takes 2 turns, not 3 to get him into play?  A comment on when the actual win takes place-if this guy swings, I would venture that you will win, and it takes 1 doomsday turn, and 1 shelldock isle turn right?

This sounds like something that would fit into a heavy control shell and then just squeek a doomsday through.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I must be overlooking something, can I get a little assistance:

if you go

turn X- sea, rit, doomsday-pass (shelldock on top)

turn X+1- draw&play shelldock, activate using sea. 

Dont you get emrakul and 1 turn to swing with him at that point?  So it just takes 2 turns, not 3 to get him into play?  A comment on when the actual win takes place-if this guy swings, I would venture that you will win, and it takes 1 doomsday turn, and 1 shelldock isle turn right?

This sounds like something that would fit into a heavy control shell and then just squeek a doomsday through.

This doesn't work; Shelldock comes into play tapped so you either need to pass a second time or play something (e.g. Cloud of Faeries) to untap it)

[TheShop]

I must be overlooking something, can I get a little assistance:

if you go

turn X- sea, rit, doomsday-pass (shelldock on top)

turn X+1- draw&play shelldock, activate using sea. 

Dont you get emrakul and 1 turn to swing with him at that point?  So it just takes 2 turns, not 3 to get him into play?  A comment on when the actual win takes place-if this guy swings, I would venture that you will win, and it takes 1 doomsday turn, and 1 shelldock isle turn right?

This sounds like something that would fit into a heavy control shell and then just squeek a doomsday through.

This doesn't work; Shelldock comes into play tapped so you either need to pass a second time or play something (e.g. Cloud of Faeries) to untap it)

Thanks.  Reading that reminder text would have been tech before posting. 

[Delha]

I would argue that the wrong approach is being used here. I feel that focusing on a Storm kill is bad because there are other decks that already do the same thing better. As has come up repeatedly in the thread before, Ad Nauseum wins right now, without needing SDT or another draw spell. That's one of the inherent advantages it has over Doomsday.

The reason I favor the Shelldock plan is that it is less vulnerable to Null Rod + Golem. With those two cards on the table, you are much more likely to resolve DD than AN. Additionally, your wincon after that costs U, and is unaffected by either Rod or Sphere effects. This is again much easier than trying to hit 2BB with a hand loaded with dead Moxen and now crippled Rits.

Addendum:
If you're dead set on a Tendrils wincon, I think Doomsday is the wrong shell to choose. I think the primary strength of Doomsday right now come from being a combo deck that is not storm based.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

The reason I favor the Shelldock plan is that it is less vulnerable to Null Rod + Golem. With those two cards on the table, you are much more likely to resolve DD than AN. Additionally, your wincon after that costs U, and is unaffected by either Rod or Sphere effects.

1) Cards cast with Shelldock do cost more due to Sphere effects.

2) I think that you're overstating the ability of the Dday/Shelldock win to play through hate.  Is Doomsday easier to cast through Spheres than Ad Naus?  Of course, but that doesn't mean it's easy to do so.  Any BBB sorcery speed spell is going to be difficult to cast against a Workshop deck.  Furthermore, it's not just Spheres that you have to worry about; Tangle Wire and Smokestack can ruin your day just as easily, or their beaters can race you (Workshop decks tend to run a lot of permanents, so you can't rely on Annihilator 6 to Obliterate them)--not to mention the fact that most Workshop decks run 4x Wasteland+Strip Mine for your Isle.  IMO, the advantage of the Shelldock kill is that it's an uncounterable (although slower) win against Control, not that it's a good plan B against Shop decks.

The best plan against Shop decks is to bounce their board and then kill them in a single turn (if you can cast a BBB sorcery main phase, you should be able to cast a 1U/2U instant at their EOT).

[emidln]

I would argue that the wrong approach is being used here. I feel that focusing on a Storm kill is bad because there are other decks that already do the same thing better. As has come up repeatedly in the thread before, Ad Nauseum wins right now, without needing SDT or another draw spell. That's one of the inherent advantages it has over Doomsday.

The reason I favor the Shelldock plan is that it is less vulnerable to Null Rod + Golem. With those two cards on the table, you are much more likely to resolve DD than AN. Additionally, your wincon after that costs U, and is unaffected by either Rod or Sphere effects. This is again much easier than trying to hit 2BB with a hand loaded with dead Moxen and now crippled Rits.

Addendum:
If you're dead set on a Tendrils wincon, I think Doomsday is the wrong shell to choose. I think the primary strength of Doomsday right now come from being a combo deck that is not storm based.

This is incorrect. The primary strength of Doomsday comes from varied guaranteed that can play through common hate (Chalice @ 0, Chalice @ 1, Null Rod, Gaddock Teeg, etc). Storm is the only way you're going to successfully do this. The shelldock pile in awful in a format where not only are we dealing with Wasteland, but also Spheres, Tangle Wires, and control decks that can really maximize their extra turn. If you cut a land for another Thoughtseize and that Mind's Desire for another Preordain, you're beginning to look like a legitimate alternative to TPS.

Whether TPS or Doomsday can compete with UBx ANT playing Preordain is another matter entirely.

[Killane]

I would argue that the wrong approach is being used here. I feel that focusing on a Storm kill is bad because there are other decks that already do the same thing better. As has come up repeatedly in the thread before, Ad Nauseum wins right now, without needing SDT or another draw spell. That's one of the inherent advantages it has over Doomsday.

The reason I favor the Shelldock plan is that it is less vulnerable to Null Rod + Golem. With those two cards on the table, you are much more likely to resolve DD than AN. Additionally, your wincon after that costs U, and is unaffected by either Rod or Sphere effects. This is again much easier than trying to hit 2BB with a hand loaded with dead Moxen and now crippled Rits.

Addendum:
If you're dead set on a Tendrils wincon, I think Doomsday is the wrong shell to choose. I think the primary strength of Doomsday right now come from being a combo deck that is not storm based.

This is incorrect. The primary strength of Doomsday comes from varied guaranteed that can play through common hate (Chalice @ 0, Chalice @ 1, Null Rod, Gaddock Teeg, etc). Storm is the only way you're going to successfully do this. The shelldock pile in awful in a format where not only are we dealing with Wasteland, but also Spheres, Tangle Wires, and control decks that can really maximize their extra turn. If you cut a land for another Thoughtseize and that Mind's Desire for another Preordain, you're beginning to look like a legitimate alternative to TPS.

Whether TPS or Doomsday can compete with UBx ANT playing Preordain is another matter entirely.

I agree with this post. after reading every response to this thread and sitting back and thinking over it, I've sadly come to the conclusion that D-Day belongs in Legacy now, not Vintage. i've also been doing some preliminary tests with an ANT list tuned to not suck against spheres. Early results have been promising, an wow that deck sure is fast.

i think the Shelldock kill is too vulnerable to Wasteland to serve as the "best" plan B vs Shops. However, i wonder if a version that does this as plan A might not be possible. I don't know what that looks like right now, and frankly I'm too busy trying to find an excuse NOT to play Dredge at my next large event to put a ton of time into this right now.

to bad really. Doomsday is just so cool, but too broken to play casually.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I've actually been curious about an Oath-Doomsday hybrid that can leverage the fact that you already have to run Emrakul.

[Delha]

1) Cards cast with Shelldock do cost more due to Sphere effects.

2) I think that you're overstating the ability of the Dday/Shelldock win to play through hate.  Is Doomsday easier to cast through Spheres than Ad Naus?  Of course, but that doesn't mean it's easy to do so.[snip]

The best plan against Shop decks is to bounce their board and then kill them in a single turn (if you can cast a BBB sorcery main phase, you should be able to cast a 1U/2U instant at their EOT).

1. I can't believe I forgot that. I'm an idiot, sorry bout that.

2. I'm not trying to say that I think it's easy, and I didn't mean to sound that way. I just feel that it's less difficult that trying to storm out an opponent with 13 sphere effects. Neither is going to be fun, I just feel that the most abundant lock pieces in MUD happen to be the same ones that hurt ANT the most. I'd rather run a list where the majority of their hate is at half-value and they have a few pieces that wreck me, as opposed one where the majority of their hate is crippling and the rest are at half-value.

This is incorrect. The primary strength of Doomsday comes from varied guaranteed that can play through common hate (Chalice @ 0, Chalice @ 1, Null Rod, Gaddock Teeg, etc). Storm is the only way you're going to successfully do this. The shelldock pile in awful in a format where not only are we dealing with Wasteland, but also Spheres, Tangle Wires, and control decks that can really maximize their extra turn. If you cut a land for another Thoughtseize and that Mind's Desire for another Preordain, you're beginning to look like a legitimate alternative to TPS.

That doesn't make sense. What piles do you suggest? I suspect that any one you can build will have to jump through at least as many hoops as a Shelldock/Cloud pile would.Decks running spheres are the natural predators for storm decks. If you think this is untrue, I'm not really sure what I can do to convince you otherwise.

Control decks have one turn to combo you out before their board gets wiped. None of the truly common answers (bounce, Swords) are effective against Emrakul. I disagree that a DD list will be a competitive alternative to TPS, be it a storm, Shelldock, or otherwise.

@ Killane: I'm curious how you tuned ANT to not be weak against spheres. Mainboard extra Hurkyl's? Something for PM or another thread, though.

[emidln]

That doesn't make sense. What piles do you suggest? I suspect that any one you can build will have to jump through at least as many hoops as a Shelldock/Cloud pile would.

To win this turn with a Shelldock/Cloud pile, you need the common draw spell and a land drop available. You probably need cards in hand unless your draw spell is Ancestral Recall since a Recall after a different cantrip leaves dead after you shelldock away emrakul (barring antics with LED to discard extra cards out of the hand) and Brainstorm will be ineffective without at least one extra card. This is still subject to Wasteland and Sphere effect slowing you down with Tangle Wire/Smokestack possibly negating your entire plan. This requires you to play otherwise dead cards in your maindeck such as Cloud of Faeries and Pithing Needle (if you want to try to play around Wasteland, but if you do, you probably can't also play around Chalice @ 1 too, and you also likely can't Cloud of Faeries to win that turn).

To play through Chalice @ 0 with a storm kill, you just need a black mana on top of what you'd normally need to cast Rit effects.

To play through Chalcie @ 1, you need one of the following: Meditate, Rebuild, SDT already in play, or Street Wraith as your draw spell and then to use LED/Lotus as accel in your pile.

To play through Spheres, your ability is about the same, except that you aren't requiring 2 slots in your pile to be completely dead. Something for consideration might be Chain of Vapor to bounce your own artifacts and then the problematic sphere (assuming you can get bye with just bouncing one thing and don't need H.Recall) to act as a storm engine and disruption.

Null Rod is as simple as using Rits instead of LED/Lotus, although to be fair, this is common between the two methods.

Gaddock Teeg is addressed by putting Chain of Vapor in your pile. In fact, I mentioned it in the SDT piles I gave.

Storm kill largely ignores Tangle Wire and Smoksetack.

Storm kill doesn't care about Diabolic Edict and can put protection into the pile to deal with Stifle. 

Decks running spheres are the natural predators for storm decks. If you think this is untrue, I'm not really sure what I can do to convince you otherwise.

This is only true for storm deck designers who choose to lose to spheres, similar to choosing to lose to Dredge.

Let's look to history:

Meandeck Doomsday debuted in a format with 4 Trinisphere legal and played by both Stax and Shop Aggro. The solution? Maindeck Rebuild, play a strong manabase with 4 basics, and sideboard Energy Flux. Doomsday could beat the Shop decks.

PitchLong debuted in a format with Meandeck Gifts, UbaStax, and 5c Stax. Did pitchlong concede the shop matchups? No, it played basics with at least H.Recall and had tinker plus a large robot somewhere in the 75. Consequently, PitchLong could beat Stax. (Annecdote: I know several players who will back me up on this, Yespuhyren and Evenpence being two of them, but I nor any players I talked to at that time lost to a storm kill from a storm deck on any turn other than turn 1. We lost to Tinker->Robot often, highlighting its effectiveness as a solution to Shops.)

What can we do now? Might be be include basic lands in our deck and have some plan, be it Serenity, extra bounce, tinker, or energy flux in the sideboard? That's how I'll design my 75, but you're free to do it however.

Control decks have one turn to combo you out before their board gets wiped. None of the truly common answers (bounce, Swords) are effective against Emrakul. I disagree that a DD list will be a competitive alternative to TPS, be it a storm, Shelldock, or otherwise.

Diabolic Edict is played to deal with Inkwell Leviathan, Darksteel Colossus, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind. It's also effective against Emrakul. Further, common dredge/stax hate like Pithing Needle is fine against Shelldock Isle.

@ Killane: I'm curious how you tuned ANT to not be weak against spheres. Mainboard extra Hurkyl's? Something for PM or another thread, though.

The big secret is playing extra lands paired with extra bounce and/or Serenity. You know, like I mentioned a few posts ago.

For reference, an example list and sideboard:

// Lands
    1  Verdant Catacombs
    3  Island
    3  Underground Sea
    1 [DDC] Swamp
    2  Misty Rainforest
    4  Polluted Delta

// Spells
    1 [V09] Necropotence
    1  Tendrils of Agony
    1 [JGC] Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Timetwister
    3  Preordain
    1  Hurkyl's Recall
    1  Rebuild
    4  Dark Ritual
    1  Brainstorm
    2  Cabal Ritual
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Lion's Eye Diamond
    4 [DDC] Duress
    4  Thoughtseize
    1  Pact of Negation
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1 [V09] Lotus Petal
    1  Meditate
    1  Ponder
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Time Walk
    4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Imperial Seal
    1  Mystical Tutor
    3  Doomsday
    1  Chain of Vapor

// Sideboard
SB: 4  Force of Will
SB: 1  Inkwell Leviathan
SB: 1 [V09] Tinker
SB: 4  Leyline of the Void
SB: 1  Extirpate
SB: 2  Pithing Needle
SB: 1  Ravenous Trap
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall

[Delha]

To play through Chalice @ 0 with a storm kill, you just need a black mana on top of what you'd normally need to cast Rit effects.

To play through Chalcie @ 1, you need one of the following: Meditate, Rebuild, SDT already in play, or Street Wraith as your draw spell and then to use LED/Lotus as accel in your pile.

To play through Spheres, your ability is about the same, except that you aren't requiring 2 slots in your pile to be completely dead. Something for consideration might be Chain of Vapor to bounce your own artifacts and then the problematic sphere (assuming you can get bye with just bouncing one thing and don't need H.Recall) to act as a storm engine and disruption.

Null Rod is as simple as using Rits instead of LED/Lotus, although to be fair, this is common between the two methods.

Gaddock Teeg is addressed by putting Chain of Vapor in your pile. In fact, I mentioned it in the SDT piles I gave.

There's a reason I specifically asked for piles. Most of the lists you provided earlier involved Ancestral/BS and Lotus/LED, meaning that a Chalice set to either 0 or 1 locks you out. I may have missed it, but didn't see a list that deals with sphere effects either. What I did see was a lot of talk about piles whrre you have to resolve a second three costed spell even after Doomsday.

I already agreed with your suggestion to run SDT.

Decks running spheres are the natural predators for storm decks. If you think this is untrue, I'm not really sure what I can do to convince you otherwise.

This is only true for storm deck designers who choose to lose to spheres, similar to choosing to lose to Dredge.

That in no way disproves my point. The answers you point towards all support my argument more than disprove it. The maindeck answers in those lists are all the result of deckbuilders addressing an axiomatic weakness.

Diabolic Edict is played to deal with Inkwell Leviathan, Darksteel Colossus, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind. It's also effective against Emrakul. Further, common dredge/stax hate like Pithing Needle is fine against Shelldock Isle.

People far more often run bounce to deal with Tinker bots, since people have been favoring DSC or Sphinx over Inky, and it is a much more flexible answer. Needle does indeed work against Shelldock, but once you start talking sideboards, that just leads to an established saying: Piloting storm against Shops is like playing against a pre-boarded opponent.

@ Killane: I'm curious how you tuned ANT to not be weak against spheres. Mainboard extra Hurkyl's? Something for PM or another thread, though.

The big secret is playing extra lands paired with extra bounce and/or Serenity. You know, like I mentioned a few posts ago

I think you may have misread. I was curious to know how Killane tuned ANT against spheres, not asking for suggestions on how to tune Doomsday against spheres.

[Killane]

@ Delha

My results are prelim, like I said. Basically, emidlin's point regarding extra land and bounce was where I started. I'm not past the "goldfishing with sphere and or Lodestone Golem" effects in play stage yet, and 'm really not wating to start posting results and claims that are backed by nothing. maybe I'm on the right track, but it's far too soon to tell.

[mistervader]

How about just bs into lotus, walk, shelldock? Why bother with twiddle and company?

EDIT: Scratch that, you'd be lacking one card.

Here's what I would suggest, actually...

Do whatever your deck currently does, but run the following two cards:

1. Channel
2. Lich's Mirror

I know this little trick isn't as vogue as it used to be, but think about it: yes, you could have Tendrils still, but you no longer need it all the time for your stacks.

Here's what my stack would look like if I were playing your build, and coupled with Channel and Lich's Mirror:

TOP

Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Channel
Lich's Mirror
Emrakul

BOTTOM

I Ancestral, I play Lotus, I Channel, I mirror, I loop, loop, loop, hardcast Emrakul five times or so, then start taking my five extra turns with Emrakul in play.

Sure, it's terrible if you get countered, but hey, this is why you have Shelldock in case Channel-looping is not too feasible. The one thing you have to understand about the Channel loop combo is that it only requires U to get going, after casting Doomsday. If you are holding the combo pieces in hand, it's perfectly fine, unlike the way it is with the Desire combo that requires R/D in the library.

I really wish I could run 4x Street Wraith in this deck, but I guess that kills the concentration of U cards in the deck.

[waikiki]

Problem with that stack is if you cant draw 7 cards your pretty toasted

[Tobi]

Problem with that stack is if you cant draw 7 cards your pretty toasted

I guess the bigger problem will be not to draw the mirror because you will very likely have more than 7 cards in your library after the mirror triggers:
5 cards from doomsday stack
1 doomsday
plus any cards you had in hand when casting doomsday
plus all permanents you had in play when casting DD

And you need at least 11 life when casting DD.

But apart of that, nice idea