Doomsday 2008

[AmbivalentDuck]

Gush is unrestricted, my build from 2008 only loses 3 Brainstorm which are readily replaced with Ponder/Preordain/Sensei's Divining Top.

UBr Doomsday
AmbivalentDuck

LANDS (14):
4  Underground Sea
1  Snow-Covered Island
4  Polluted Delta
2  Bloodstained Mire
1  Swamp
2  Volcanic Island

CREATURES (4):
3  Dark Confidant
1  Ingot Chewer

OTHER SPELLS (42):
1  Black Lotus
1  Lotus Petal
1  Mox Jet
1  Mox Sapphire
1  Mox Ruby
4  Dark Ritual
2  Thoughtseize
4  Duress
4  Force of Will
1  Mind's Desire
1  Tendrils of Agony
1  Empty the Warrens
1  Yawgmoth's Will
1  Research/Development
3  Doomsday
1  Vampiric Tutor
1  Demonic Tutor
1  Mystical Tutor
1  Ancestral Recall
4  Brainstorm
3  Gush
1  Time Walk
1  Chain of Vapor
1  Extirpate
1  Engineered Explosives

SIDEBOARD(15):
1  Ingot Chewer
1  Empty the Warrens
1  Fire/Ice
3  Extirpate
1  Necropotence
2  Pyroclasm
2  Engineered Explosives
1  Hurkyl's Recall
2  Threads of Disloyalty
1  Tormod's Crypt

Why play this particular build (or something evolved from it)?
-The red splash makes it particularly resilient to "brown."
-Engineered Explosives proactively answer Spheres, Fishy lock critters, and Time Vault.
-Even in Gush's heyday, I only found that I needed 3 Gush, and they're primarily an combo enabler.

I think the deck is playable replacing 3x Brainstorm and 1x Extirpate with Ponder and 3x Divining Top.  And since the "Wishes" got errata-ed, Research//Development becomes Meditate.

[mistervader]

To keep the U count going, I'd rather keep it at only 1 Top, and the rest would be Preordains.

I would also use Timetwister instead of Meditate for the R/D slot, and tbh, I'm fairly iffy as to what that Engineered Explosives will do for you. Wouldn't Rebuild/Hurk's be better in this slot, or do you actually plan to kill your own Bobs?

Alternatively, I still like the Channel-Lich combo, and if it came down to it, I'd cut R/D and one other card for the two cards (Possibly Mind's Desire.).

As for the board, no love for Old Man of the Sea? I think it's better than Threads in Vintage. Failing that, Sower isn't terrible, either.

I wish you could run G instead of R, though (Although there is no way you can replace something like Ingot Chewer, truth be told.). An Oath sideboard plan for Doomsday seems like a ton of fun, especially if your Oath critters are aimed against Stax and/or Dredge. Of course, I'm biased, because my two most-played archetypes are combo and Oath.

[wiley]

To keep the U count going, I'd rather keep it at only 1 Top, and the rest would be Preordains.

I would also use Timetwister instead of Meditate for the R/D slot, and tbh, I'm fairly iffy as to what that Engineered Explosives will do for you. Wouldn't Rebuild/Hurk's be better in this slot, or do you actually plan to kill your own Bobs?

Alternatively, I still like the Channel-Lich combo, and if it came down to it, I'd cut R/D and one other card for the two cards (Possibly Mind's Desire.).

As for the board, no love for Old Man of the Sea? I think it's better than Threads in Vintage. Failing that, Sower isn't terrible, either.

I wish you could run G instead of R, though (Although there is no way you can replace something like Ingot Chewer, truth be told.). An Oath sideboard plan for Doomsday seems like a ton of fun, especially if your Oath critters are aimed against Stax and/or Dredge. Of course, I'm biased, because my two most-played archetypes are combo and Oath.

Top allows for DD piles that require less mana, and it generally does more than preordain could even if its only on board for 1-2 turns (not to mention better synergy with bob).  Granted with only 15 blue cards including force it may be hard to keep force protection up, but usually you only needed to cast 1 force in a game (from my experience when I was testing the deck back then, and many decks had as much or more disruption than current decks).

Twister opens up a can of worms when you DD if you have more than 2 other cards in your hand, as you may not get all the pieces you need post twister.  Also, you would have to have at least 2 cards in hand for a post DD twister to not kill you.

Green isn't currently supported in the list and would take a large overhaul of the mana base to be supported, so channel is a hard sell, especially in a field of shops.

Old Man can't take a goyf or a built up dryad or let you attack with a stolen pridemage.  It is also summoning sick.  It might still be better though, I've never actually played with him.

[mistervader]

Granted Twister can blow up on you if you botched D-Day + Twister, it's not the reason why I wanted it in the deck, but rather, because Twister has, in my experience of playing Doomsday, allowed me to win off its back on turn 1, 2, or 3 so many times without having to require Doomsday at all.

I view it this way: 4 Doomsday + 1 Necro are five game-winners, given the right circumstances. Timetwister in a combo deck would be more of the same.

As for G, I recognize it's mainly wishful thinking, but ultimately, if I were to make the switch, I would simply cut R. However, that's not feasible at the moment, not when Chalice at 1 would shut out your panic button (Claim), and the rest of your key cards (AR, Topdeck Tutors, Chain, Dark Ritual...)

I like the Old Man because it's 2/3, so it can block most 2/2 bears, then steal someone the next turn, and really screws up your opponent's tempo. Still, Sower is overall the best in this scenario, except if your mana can't handle it.

And lastly, if you're really keen on running Topx3, I think I wouldn't be too afraid of whiffing on Twister.

[emidln]

Alternatively, I still like the Channel-Lich combo, and if it came down to it, I'd cut R/D and one other card for the two cards (Possibly Mind's Desire.).

Those options are largley worse than Desire/Beacon tbh. Without destroying your sideboard, there are only really two good options for a pass the turn pile (that doesn't cost 5-8 life after Doomsday) right now:

U next turn + 2* additional cards in hand/play/yard post DD

Recall
Lotus
Twister
Lotus Petal
Tendrils of Agony

The idea here is that you Recall into Twister, Twist into Doomsday, Doomsday for Lotus, Petal, Tendrils, then Recall into your 2nd Doomsday pile. Pact makes the whole thing safer vs blue decks. This is a variant of piles posted by Becker in the NLD thread a few years ago (he had Dark RIt over Petal and had an initial cost of UB so that he could go infinite (cast Tendirls every other iteration of the pile).  

If you have one of those cards in your hand as one of your two, you can add in a Pact of Negation in your top4 cards to protect your pile. If your opponent counters Ancestral Recall, but doesn't immediately win, you can still Twister and win the game (I've done this a couple times against an opponent who was Duressed, had nothing, then topdecked a counter).

*other numbers higher than 2 work, but their results are mixed and you can't use the steps in this pile

The other good pass the turn pile is the classic Desire/Beacon pile. This has a current advantage over R&D of not requiring you to load up your sideboard with extra fluff (the best solutions for a Desire/R&D pile I found involved either double Tendrils or sideboarding Walk, Emrakul, and R&D). The downside is that Mind's Desire is terrible the majority of the time you happen to draw it (particularly in a MUD-filled metagame like we have today).

If you include Fastbond (which you really should do, it's fucking insane), you can do something like this (again, credit to the old NLD thread):

Gush
Fastbond
Gush
Yawgmoth's Will
Research//Development

It plays out like this:

Draw Gush for the turn, float BG, cast it drawing Gush and Fastbond (Storm 1)
Cast Fastbond, float B (Storm 2)
Play your land per turn, then another land (take 1 damage), float GBB, cast Gush drawing Will+RnD(Storm 3, 1 damage)
Play both of your lands (take 2 damage), floating GUBBB, cast RnD, floating BBB, for Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Tendrils of Agony, any card (Duress/TS/Pact are good choices) (Storm 4, 3 damage)
Play Yawgmoth's Will with no mana floating (Storm 5)
Play Gush drawing X, X (Storm 6)
Play both of your lands (take 2 damage), floating BU play Gush (Storm 7, 5 damage) (if you draw Dark Rit + Tendrils, you might just be able to win on the spot if your opponent is at 18 or less)
Play both of your lands (take 2 damage), floating BUUG, play Gush (Storm 8, 7 damage)
Play Dark Ritual (Storm 9)
Play Cabal Ritual (Storm 10)
Play Duress/Thoughtseize/RnD for extra storm (Storm 11)
Play Tendrils of Agony with at least 11 storm


You need BB and G from your lands/petals/lotus/moxen at some point, so this pile works best with Trop/Sea in play, but there are other combinations that work. For each island beyond the first two, you can save yourself one point of damage.

The drawbacks here are that you need to put at least 2 cards that are, at worst, not optimal in the sideboard, and you lose a Dark Ritual from the main. In AD's Storm-focused build this is probably not going to be possible, but it's not actually not a big deal in something built closer on NLD (along the lines of the list I post down below).

The problems with the Lich's Mirror/Channel pile is that it requires very specific numbers of additional cards in play/hand/yard otherwise it can become extremely prone to fizzling. Particularly if you have a number that isn't 7, you may run into a situation where the following occurs:

You didn't draw Lich's Mirror.
You didn't draw Ancestral Recall.
You didn't draw your win condition (Tendrils/Stroke of Genius seem to be the best two, but I'd have to assume in these builds you'd be running Tendrils).

If you have more than 7 but less than 10, you can run into a situation where you draw Recall but can't actually kill the opponent. You can also fizzle on your first iteration by drawing Recall + Tendrils but not Lich's Mirror or Black Lotus.
 

As for an actual list, I've been playing something that is very close to the old Next Level Doomsday lists. It has become more focused on Doomsday since Gushbond is noticeably worse, but it still appears to offer a good mix of disruption, speed an resilience.

My list has been looking like:

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Gush
4 Force of Will
1 Pact of Negation
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
3 Nature's Claim
2 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Fastbond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Doomsday
1 Necropotence
1 Timetwister
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Snow-covered Island

My sideboard has been a mix of:

3-4 Energy Flux
additional Trop Island/basic Island/Swamp (depends on my exact board if I need a swamp)
Chain of Vapor (extra storm enabler, a way to not be 100% cold to Mage/Teeg)
Xantid Swarm or Duress
Leyline/Yixlid Jailer
2nd Tendrils as an out to Extract
4th Nature's Claim/Naturalize/Rebuild

I've been considering making changes to the maindeck to support Desire + Beacon so that I can have a pass the turn pile that doesn't require cards in hand, but I'm not sure it's actually necessary (the Twister pile can win even if you get Duressed as long as you weren't holding Twister or Recall.

The green Mox is something I'm on the edge about. On one hand, it's an extra way to cast removal, to pay for removal vs spheres, and to cast sb Swarm (which is huge vs blue since you're almost pre-siding vs MUD). On the other hand, most of the deck is almost all blue and black colored symbols so when it's not casting Swarm or Nature's Claim, it's probably dead.

I've wanted to experiment with SDT since I love it so much in Legacy (SDT + Chain of Vapor piles are particularly awesome), but I haven't really had the time.

I considered the Oath sideboard plan with 0-3 Forbidden Orchard along with some Terastadons, but I haven't been able to test that sideboard yet. The Claim/Recall/Force stall plan into a quick Doomsday/Energy Flux appears to be pretty good as a solution to MUD/Stax, at least as good or better than I've seen from a blue deck so far.

[Lemnear]

Cut the pact, the twister, and Rituals to add 4 Lotus cobras and 2 additional Lands to the list

Cobra dodges resistors unlike ritual. An example of a nice turn

1st turn: Drop tropical, mox, cobra
2nd turn: play fetch for u.Sea, Tap for Black having 3 b in Pool Thanks to cobra. Cast doomsday with the 3 black and Stack:

Fastbond
Gush
Minds desire
(disrupion)
Research/Development

Tap trop for g and gush, Drop fastbond and go nuts

I know this needs Cobra, DD and gush but there are many piles that kill with Cobra and you always Need a Way to Cast DD and a draw spell so this has no downsides

I would consider cutting a bit around playing a Set of duress and only 3 doomsdays and maybe more moxen to make Cobra a turn 1 drop to Fight spheres

[emidln]

durr...Lotus Cobra...durrrrrrrr

Lotus Cobra is awful in a deck with 2 Moxen. If you resolve Doomsday with gush and hand and two lands in play, you don't need any additional life or mana floating. This pile should be pretty obvious:

Black Lotus
Ancestral Recall
Lotus Petal
Yawgmoth's Will
Tendrils of Agony

Stacking disruption into that pile isn't necessary as any counters are aimed at your Ancestral Recall.

Further, Lotus Cobra isn't even that good at dodging spheres. You still have to pay one mana per spell after your initial Doomsday, and Doomsday still costs 1BBB or more. I'd be running extra lands more EE/Nature's Claim before I even considered Cobra with the setup currently in the deck.

As I mentioned, Mind's Desire is dead and RnD isn't good unless you throw otherwise dead stuff into your sideboard.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

2nd Tendrils as an out to Extract

well sir I think you should more be worried (if all) by these cards:
Sadistic sacrament. jesters cap.

and just another tendrils won't fix that.

also, to dodge chalice 1 and spheres i really love engineered explosives. (although you dont run any colorless sources to cast explosives @ 0 when paying for spheres.)

[emidln]

also, to dodge chalice 1 and spheres i really love engineered explosives. (although you dont run any colorless sources to cast explosives @ 0 when paying for spheres.)

I can at least potentially win through Chalice @ 1. EE @ 2 destroying spheres would be a lot more relevant.

[Lemnear]

durr...Lotus Cobra...durrrrrrrr

Lotus Cobra is awful in a deck with 2 Moxen. If you resolve Doomsday with gush and hand and two lands in play, you don't need any additional life or mana floating. This pile should be pretty obvious:

Black Lotus
Ancestral Recall
Lotus Petal
Yawgmoth's Will
Tendrils of Agony

Stacking disruption into that pile isn't necessary as any counters are aimed at your Ancestral Recall.

Further, Lotus Cobra isn't even that good at dodging spheres. You still have to pay one mana per spell after your initial Doomsday, and Doomsday still costs 1BBB or more. I'd be running extra lands more EE/Nature's Claim before I even considered Cobra with the setup currently in the deck.

As I mentioned, Mind's Desire is dead and RnD isn't good unless you throw otherwise dead stuff into your sideboard.

What Kind of thinking in a Box is that to Claim that Cobra is bad because "doomsday only plays 2 moxen"? The whole Concept needs a rework due to mud and mana denial in general (spell pierce, spheres etc.).

Away from that:
Dear folk, What does EE give you, H. Recall or Claim could Not? If mud drops a golem instead of a resistor, EE is dead and killing multiple spheres is Not an argument with only two moxen and 12 Lands to create 4+2 mana to blow up 2 spheres

[emidln]

Reworking like maindecking extra lands, maindecking Natrue's Claims and H.Recalls, and sideboarding Energy Flux and additional lands? Test the matchup, it's actually winnable with the list I posted.

If Dark Ritual is bad against spheres, Lotus Cobra on next to no Moxen is worse. It's a turn two play against a deck with a lot of sphere effects. Dark Ritual at least gives you the hope that you can open Rit+DD+Force. Lotus Cobra offers no hope at all, other than maybe getting to chump block 3 of the 9 precursor golem damage.

[Lemnear]

Man, I know that cobra without moxen is not good ... You're telling the obvious. But by your logic DD is a bad card and not worth considering 'cause it's only playable with Dark Ritual ... And I'm asking "Why are you only play 2 Rituals?"

Cobra beats and lowers nescessary stormcount as well

[emidln]

Man, I know that cobra without moxen is not good ... You're telling the obvious. But by your logic DD is a bad card and not worth considering 'cause it's only playable with Dark Ritual ... And I'm asking "Why are you only play 2 Rituals?"

(A) your example is bad given that its easy to resolve dd via rits/lotus/gush(replay land).
(B) why do I want to play cards that are otherwise awful (offcolor moxen) in order to replace a card that works on fewer slots? 4 rit vs 4 cobra + 3 additional moxen.

If you want moxen (crypt is better than ruby or pearl) to play through spheres, that's fine (in the abstract, i'd argue that they're really bad in the deck I posted), but you don't need to make your rituals more expensive and slower to do that.

Cobra beats and lowers nescessary stormcount as well

Lowering storm count isn't valid. You always have necessary storm count if your opp is under 20 when you go off via DD.

[mistervader]

Hmmm... yeah, I guess I'm just too confident about the Channel loop (I've never fizzled out in tournament play for the time the combo existed, and DD was my ONLY deck in tourneys from Alara to M10.) because I personally never lost when looping. Of course, back then, I ran Top and 4 Street Wraith to aid me in not fizzling my combo, and it's pretty obvious that 4 Street wraith won't pass the mustard in the deck this time around.

My one gripe with Desire/Beacon is that the reason we switched to Channel for a while was because the Channel Mirror loop didn't require Brainstorm if you held a combo piece in your hand, and Beacon definitely would. Outside of that, I certainly agree that the beacon kill is simpler, more elegant, and downright better, since Mind's Desire is less of a dead card than Channel or Mirror.

[pierce]

dude I loved that deck in 08, but was too bad to play it well. Way too bad. Then again, I met Paul Mastriano the day I played it because he was playing it too. Never have I seen him so frustrated with a deck.

Any chance you could go through all the piles again? I haven't been playing much MTG these past few months, and would punt countless times without them.

[AmbivalentDuck]

My list has been looking like:
0 Sensei's Divining Top

Could you quickly comment on the choice of Preordain over Top?

[Doomsday]

I wouldn't call Mind's Desire "dead" in a deck full of rituals, tutors, card draw, yawg will, etc.  For pass the turn piles I'd rather have RD (plus two Tendrils sideboard) than uncastable unpitchable Beacon maindeck.  I will definitely splash green rather than red.

[median]

I hope this isn't a necro, but I'm working with this shell and wanted some feedback. Mainly how often you have people have had fastbond hit with natures claim, and what the thinking is on trying to squeeze tinker in, it's been good against mud with 5 artifacts and i'm unsure if anyone else has tried it.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Since you only run two-three Moxen and no Sol/Crypt/Vault, Tinker has lower utility than in other combo builds.

[emidln]

I actually had Fastbond in my deck originally, but cut it after a lot of testing. It's not so much that it gets Nature's Claimed, but at the high end, you're running 14 lands. The only time Fastbond is really good is when you side in extra lands vs Workshops. Even then, unless you want to run junk like Preordain (which is really inconsistent), you're not going to find Fastbond working for you. Sure, you can make mana off it combined with Gush, but (a) you cannot chain gushes unless you spend tutors that should be finding Necro, Will, Lotus, or Doomsday or (b) you Gush into Gush into Gush every game (in which case you're obviously a superhuman and have no business mocking us mortals in this thread). Gush without Fastbond does a couple things:

Makes the extra black on turn 3 against decks without Wasteland.
Protects you from the non-workshop Wasteland decks.
Makes winning turn 2 really common.
Keeps your blue count fairly high

Preordain over SDT was because, at the time, I didn't really understand how the deck interacted in the metagame. I'm now playing SDT over Preordain.

Tinker is another animal. If there was a great solution vs stax right  now (is there? I haven't really investigated what the Scars artifacts can do for me as much as I've tested against them), I feel like it could be supported off:

Lotus
2 Mox
Petal
2 SDT
1 Sol Ring
1 Crypt (SB)
 
Crypt is sideboard right now for two reasons:

Pass the turn Desire->R&D Kill (Leyline, Helm, Mana Crypt)
Extra help against Workshop decks (3 life is worth paying for 2 spheres).

Sol Ring is only in the maindeck because I don't have room for it in my sideboard, although it's possible that these two should be flipped since there's a higher chance of me wanting to have Crypt (due to casting into Spheres and H.Recalls maindeck) than Sol Ring.

If you notice, I'm playing Desire, and it's because someone showed me an R&D kill that I thought was worthwhile:

Leyline of the Void
Helm of Obedience
Mana Source

We're probably playing Leylines already, and extra mana sources against Stax have been found to be needed. This reduced the amount of cards that we wish we didn't play down to 1, and Helm was already an arguable choice if we're playing a deck full of tutors, draw, and Leylines.

The plan that has been working for me against workshops is:

3 Island
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring

4 Force of WIll
3 Spell Pierce

2 Hurkyl's Recall

4 Doomsday
1 Necropotence

4 Gush

SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 1 Mana Crypt


My full list is:

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp
 
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
 
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Gush
2 Sensei's Divining Top
 
4 Doomsday
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
 
1 Research//Development
1 Tendrils of Agony
 
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Necropotence
1 Timetwister
1 Mind's Desire
 
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
3 Thoughtseize
1 Pact of Negation
2 Hurkyl's Recall
 
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 1 Sol Ring
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor

[AmbivalentDuck]

Tinker is another animal. If there was a great solution vs stax right  now (is there? I haven't really investigated what the Scars artifacts can do for me as much as I've tested against them), I feel like it could be supported off:

Lotus
2 Mox
Petal
2 SDT
1 Sol Ring
1 Crypt (SB)

You'd go almost immediately to Myr Battesphere for the +4 permanent count and huge butt given that it's primarily an answer to Stax.

If you notice, I'm playing Desire, and it's because someone showed me an R&D kill that I thought was worthwhile:

Leyline of the Void
Helm of Obedience
Mana Source

Nice find!

[median]

Thanks for the helm kill. I only use fastbond for the pass the turn pile you mentioned earlier, and to occaisonly chain gushes to find doomsday or a tinker. I was wondering how often other people had had their fastbond nature's claimed post doomsday, but with the helm kill it seems like a moot point.
Would it be worth it to run mind's desire in the side and gush into it? I have more room there at the moment, and I can still dodge chalice @0 that way. 

[Doomsday]

Yeah I like that R&D into Helmline kill.  Speaking of, can you get me my stormboards password somehow?  I lost it.

EDIT:  Nevermind emidln I found it, sorry if this should have been a PM.

And I can't take Fastbond out of this deck.  Gush is too good not to run for same-turn piles, and Fastbond is too good not to play with Gush.

[median]

I ended up answering my own question. The Obeyline pile with lotus and ancestral is much more resilient than gushes, it can win through wasteland/strip mine and you can still build it to beat a chalice at 0.