[Premium Article] DOOMSDAY RETURNS: How to Build Doomsday Piles and Win in T1

[Smmenen]

http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2261

Editor's Blurb:

Hot off a Top 8 at the Waterbury/TMD 15 Open playing Doomsday, Stephen Menendian has written a primer on this unusual and exciting archetype. In this primer Stephen explains optimal deck construction, Doomsday piles, and sideboarding options and plans. With over 15 different Doomsday scenarios analyzed with detailed graphics, this article is a treat for all Magic lovers!

Is Doomsday now the premiere Gush strategy with the printing of Innistrad’s Laboratory Maniac? How does this Doomsday puzzle work? Find out all of these answers and more in So Many Insane Plays – DOOMSDAY RETURNS!

Stephen Menendian takes an in-depth look at Doomsday and Laboratory Maniac, and how the two combine to form a ferocious and resilient combo deck in Vintage. He comprehensively examines card choices, interactions, and more than 15 various Doomsday stacks. This 21 page primer on Doomsday in modern Vintage is a must read for every serious aspiring Doomsday player, as there are so many insane options in this beast of a combo deck!

 

Back in the day, people really enjoyed my article on the Doomsday Scenarios.   With the new combo kill, I've done it all over again.

This article is over 21 pages with tons of images.  I hope you really enjoy this!

Stephen

[Odd mutation]

Hi Stephen,

Just bought the thing.

Read one page: how do you cast Gush wih just one land in play and not enough mana?

Robrecht

[Smmenen]

Can you be a little more specific?  There are 15 different specific scenarios -- if there is an error in one, I'd like to correct it, but I'm not sure which you are referring to. 

[Kiriyuu]

Interesting article, and a really interesting deck.

Can you explain briefly why you don't play demonic consultation? It's the card that probably comes to everyone's mind first when they think of laboratory maniac.

Thanks : )

[Smmenen]

Good question: it's a bad Doomsday.   First of all, unlike with Doomsday, you don't win the turn you resolve Consult.  Second, with only one Lab Maniac, consult is kinda risky.  You could run two Maniacs, but Consult would still be risky.   

This deck simply uses Doomsday to BOTH tutor for the Maniac AND Empty the Library.   

[Kiriyuu]

Thanks for the quick answer. That makes a lot of sense : )

[Daenyth]

I'd agree with that. I've been brewing a doomsday list this week and consult never felt like the worst card in the deck.

[forests failed you]

The Doomsday deck is the most consistent and broken Vintage deck that I have seen since Flash.  And it is better than Flash...

[minusblindfold]

The Doomsday deck is the most consistent and broken Vintage deck that I have seen since Flash.  And it is better than Flash...

How come you didn't play it @ waterbury?

[Stormanimagus]

@Stephen. How often are you able to cast Teferi's Realm through sphere effects? Seems like you'll have a hard time getting to a stable 1UU against shops almost ever.

-Storm

[forests failed you]

The Doomsday deck is the most consistent and broken Vintage deck that I have seen since Flash.  And it is better than Flash...

How come you didn't play it @ waterbury?

There are a bunch of reasons.

The first one is that since I only get to play Vintage a couple of times a year, I really wanted to play something that I would have a fun time battling with.  I don't actually enjoy playing non interactive, math oriented, figure out Doomsday piles, combo decks.  If I am going to drive 13 hours to go to a non professional level event, I am sure as hell going to play something I enjoy playing!

Secondly, I wanted to play the Vintage Snapcaster Control deck that I designed.  Although I thought the Doomsday deck was a better deck, I felt that my deck was also really good, and since I had spent a week actually building and tuning it I wanted to jam it at least once.

Thirdly, Steve didn't share the fact that he had broken the format with anybody until the day before the tournament.  So, I didn't have time to actually have the cards to play available to me (I don't play with proxies), nor would I have had enough time to actually play with the deck to feel comfortable with the deck.

[Odd mutation]

Can you be a little more specific?  There are 15 different specific scenarios -- if there is an error in one, I'd like to correct it, but I'm not sure which you are referring to. 

Sorry, I was referring to the first two pages:

||Library Top|
1) Ancestral Recall
2) Gush
3) Laboratory Maniac
4) Black Lotus
5) Yawgmoth’s Will
||Library Bottom||

= turn 2 kill, which requires two lands to alternate cast the Gush.

Obviously you're counting on two lands in your opening hand... I just didn't see it mentioned.

Apologies for the shortness -/stupidity- of my post... not my usual respons...

Thanks for the article! I was just building a Maniacal Doomsday deck myself.

Robrecht

[Meddling Mike]

The Doomsday deck is the most consistent and broken Vintage deck that I have seen since Flash.  And it is better than Flash...

Wow, that's quite a statement. Could you elaborate?

[Onslaught]

The Doomsday deck is the most consistent and broken Vintage deck that I have seen since Flash.  And it is better than Flash...

This is a scary thought.

Perhaps Brain Freeze can be a viable sideboard card against Doomsday?

[AmbivalentDuck]

The Doomsday deck is the most consistent and broken Vintage deck that I have seen since Flash.  And it is better than Flash...

This is a scary thought.

Perhaps Brain Freeze can be a viable sideboard card against Doomsday?

Unless Steve regressed it, you already run 4x Flusterstorm to protect the combo.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

Could you post the decklist here, since I assume ray is goimg to be posting the t8 anyway

[Smmenen]

Could you post the decklist here, since I assume ray is goimg to be posting the t8 anyway

Article is about as much as a big mac. . Ray will post the list soon enough, and I'm sure people who bought it wouldn't like me posting it in case they want to play it this weekend. 

I'm writing my report for next Monday. If you have stack questions I didn't answer, pose them now and I'll put them in a q&a section in my article next week. 

[Cruel Ultimatum]

Could you post the decklist here, since I assume ray is goimg to be posting the t8 anyway

Article is about as much as a big mac. . Ray will post the list soon enough, and I'm sure people who bought it wouldn't like me posting it in case they want to play it this weekend. 

I'm writing my report for next Monday. If you have stack questions I didn't answer, pose them now and I'll put them in a q&a section in my article next week. 

Thats ok, just wanted it to play for this weekendafter brian is hyping it as the next flash  . Also congats on fellow waterbury t8 competetor.

[H]

Paypal isn't letting me buy it anyway right now.  No idea why or if it is just me, it just says "At this time, we are unable to process your request. Please return to Eternal Central and try another option."

[JACO]

Paypal isn't letting me buy it anyway right now.  No idea why or if it is just me, it just says "At this time, we are unable to process your request. Please return to Eternal Central and try another option."

Please try again now. I believe PayPal was having an issue earlier, but I just tested from IE9, Firefox, and Chrome and made successful purchases each time from EC in the past minute, so I think whatever issue PayPal was having has been rectified. If you continue to have problems please PM me. Thanks!

[nataz]

I bought it, and I liked it, but I could have done with less images and more analysis. When the majority of the article is stack discussion all of those graphics are a waste of space. That said, this article is a great shortcut for those who have never played doomsday or don't have much practice making doomsday piles. It's an aquired skill and Steve does a good job going through the more common permutations.

Question for steve, did you ever want a singular pact of negation for your protection piles? Did you ever consider trying to fit in unmask?

@ the better than flash comments
getting to use the gush bond engine, yawgmouths will, and an alternate path to victory, and a smaller combo package are all pretty solid.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Could you post the decklist here, since I assume ray is goimg to be posting the t8 anyway

...I'm sure people who bought it wouldn't like me posting it in case they want to play it this weekend.

Don't even try that bullshit.

List will be within 8 cards of this:
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Doomsday
1 Necropotence
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Force of Will
4 Flusterstorm
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Gush
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Preordain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Laboratory Maniac
SB: 3 Steel Sabotage
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Mana Crypt
SB: 1 Sol Ring
SB: 1 Tinker
SB: 1 Blightsteel Colossus
SB: 1 Mox Emerald
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Time Walk

It's conceivable that he'd cut 1-2 Doomsday/Dark Rits for the countermagic he mentions.  He also may not be playing with the Gitaxian Probe technology that emidln and I favor, probably to support Mental Misstep.  As far as Teferi's Realm, if I thought I could manage enough mana to cast Rebuild...well...we wouldn't be running zero of them.

I'm not sure why he'd run additional countermagic since the "blue" and "Fish" matchups are already rock solid.  Like any Ritual combo deck, it chokes on Spheres.  Some additional H Recalls/Steel Sabotages/Spell Pierces could be moved main, but Xtreme Games is light on Workshops. 

[JACO]

Don't even try that bullshit.

List will be within 8 cards of this:
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Doomsday
1 Necropotence
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Force of Will
4 Flusterstorm
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Gush
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Preordain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Laboratory Maniac
SB: 3 Steel Sabotage
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Mana Crypt
SB: 1 Sol Ring
SB: 1 Tinker
SB: 1 Blightsteel Colossus
SB: 1 Mox Emerald
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Time Walk

It's conceivable that he'd cut 1-2 Doomsday/Dark Rits for the countermagic he mentions.  He also may not be playing with the Gitaxian Probe technology that emidln and I favor, probably to support Mental Misstep.  As far as Teferi's Realm, if I thought I could manage enough mana to cast Rebuild...well...we wouldn't be running zero of them.

I'm not sure why he'd run additional countermagic since the "blue" and "Fish" matchups are already rock solid.  Like any Ritual combo deck, it chokes on Spheres.  Some additional H Recalls/Steel Sabotages/Spell Pierces could be moved main, but Xtreme Games is light on Workshops.  

Guess what, All Star? Your main deck is more than a DOZEN cards off, which is actually an assload of cards that actually make a difference for a combo deck, and your sideboard has a whopping 5 cards that are the same.

Any more Shaolin dart throwers out there?

[Bibendum]

Shaolin dart throwers.... I kinda laughed out loud.

As for the deck, I played Steve but I ripped out of my mind and was on shops, which is two things that i'm sure are not what this deck is hoping to see. Im interested to see the list im not a combo player but it sure looks fun!

[cvarosky80]

Bought the article (It's $3, I spend nearly triple that a day on cigarettes, so buying these articles is, if anything, prompting a healthier lifestyle for me ) out of curiosity (Never actually played a Doomsday deck before) and was intrigued enough to proxy it up and try it out. That was something! Against everything but Shops, the deck is a beast. The Shops matchup, however, yeah.....Pretty terrible.....even post board. I was, however, shocked as to how effective the Teferi's Realms were as to buying me time to work around the Sphere effects. It's an intriguing deck, and I certainly will test it further. It's actually a lot of fun to play in any other matchup that doesn't involve Tangle Wire.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

I am sensing some hostility...sorry I asked.

[Smmenen]

I bought it, and I liked it, but I could have done with less images and more analysis. When the majority of the article is stack discussion all of those graphics are a waste of space. That said, this article is a great shortcut for those who have never played doomsday or don't have much practice making doomsday piles. It's an aquired skill and Steve does a good job going through the more common permutations.

Thanks! It's a difficult task to balance detail with brevity.   For people who want really deep analysis, they should check out my Innistrad set review.   I even covered Maniac and Doomsday there, with three of the piles covered here in that set review! My goal here was to familiarize the reader with the new Doomsday combo -- which is so very different from what's been used in the past.   

My hope, though, is that having walked through these increasingly complex stack situations, they will come to appreciate just how strong this combo is.   For example, the "Control hand" combo is really intended to illustrate how this deck wins through multiple countermagic after resolving Dday, and is probably one of the most impressive scenarios in the bunch.   Also, very different scenarios like the one I outlined against Workshop or the one involving Time Walk -- hopefully broaden the reader's perspective and appreciation of the possibilities.   

The good news is that the stack piles aren't nearly as complicated as they were in 2004.  This deck is not only a much better deck, it's much easier to play!   The hardest thing isn't selecting the 5 cards in most cases, it's positioning them properly.

Question for steve, did you ever want a singular pact of negation for your protection piles? Did you ever consider trying to fit in unmask?

Good questions (I can tell you were attuned to the article ).

I never tested Unmask, but Pact of Negation definitely was seriously considered -- along with Misdirection, and a few other spells.   Pact of Negation makes sense as disruption spell in some Dday stacks, but it's ultimately not worth using the slot, over, say, a Flusterstorm or Thoughtseize. 

Unmask was very good in my original Dday list, but we have so many better options today, and this deck, unlike the old Dday, isn't going for a t1 kill.   

@ the better than flash comments
getting to use the gush bond engine, yawgmouths will, and an alternate path to victory, and a smaller combo package are all pretty solid.

Yeah -- in the Waterbury, I won at least half my games with Gushbond engine into Tendrils, and less than half by casting and resolving Dday.  That's another thing that makes this deck soooo lethal: if they counter your Dday plan, you just fall back on winning with Yawg Will into Tendrils.   The other thing is that your deck actually gets stronger as the game goes on due to Gush and virtual card advantage.

Best Gush deck ever ? 

Suffice to say, this deck will definitely appear in the 3rd edition of my Gush book.

Bought the article (It's $3, I spend nearly triple that a day on cigarettes, so buying these articles is, if anything, prompting a healthier lifestyle for me )

I'm glad to hear that    Having an addition to Vintage Magic is an addiction worth having

out of curiosity (Never actually played a Doomsday deck before) and was intrigued enough to proxy it up and try it out. That was something! Against everything but Shops, the deck is a beast. The Shops matchup, however, yeah.....Pretty terrible.....even post board. I was, however, shocked as to how effective the Teferi's Realms were as to buying me time to work around the Sphere effects. It's an intriguing deck, and I certainly will test it further. It's actually a lot of fun to play in any other matchup that doesn't involve Tangle Wire.

Basically, I tested Cat Stax vs. this post-board and kept testing and tuning my sb plan until I was winning a solid majority of post-board games.   Game 1 is really weak, obviously, but the post-board plan is very strong.   Yes, Tangle Wire is the one hitch in Teferi's Realm plan.  That's the one card that needs to be countered or Thoughtseized at all costs

I'm glad folks are enjoying this.   Jaco did a great job with the images, and I hope it made the scenarios spring to life. 

[emidln]

AmbivalentDuck, the gist is that he cut the Ritual package for infinite+1 disruption to become a control deck using Doomsday as a Tinker plan. Only he can run 4 Doomsday, he can win this turn, and he can build in protection. Seems like a bargain at 5 slots. He's now playing a Gush Control deck that runs 4 copies of Super Tinker.

[Onslaught]

Suffice to say, this deck will definitely appear in the 3rd edition of my Gush book.

Do a print run for the third edition of the book and I'll buy one just for the pics of cool Doomsday hands.

[mistervader]

They say great minds think alike, but I'm hardpressed to think of a single other person who would've ditched a certain 4-of in practically *all* other Doomsday decks prior to this one.

True, Lab Maniac wasn't a huge surprise as a boon for Doomsday, but there's no question that the way you put the pieces together is just elegant and well-thought out, even if some might argue it was all intuitive.

I could consider maybe a slot or two to replace, but for the most part, this deck is very tight and does what it needs to do.