4. Doomsday at the TSI
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Doomsday at the TSI

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    This weekend, 32 players converged at Geoff Moes' house to play an invitation only magic tournament. We imbibe (Way more than we should) and play vintage, then we watch the Ohio State/Wisconsin Big 10 Championship (Fuck Ohio State, BTW) and then swim in his pool and party.

    Anyway, it was a blast. But the reason I'm writing this is because @sillysam71 (Sam Krohlow) and I have worked together on Doomsday decks several times in the past - He is not very well known because he started playing Vintage shortly before the Midwest Scene died, but trust when I say he is a master at playing Combo decks. I would say Joshua Butker, @Smmenen , Sam and I by far have the most experience with Doomsday in the Format.

    Anyway, we designed and played the same 75, with me going 3-2, and him losing in top 4 after going 4-0-2.

    Here's the list:

    1 Bloodstained Mire
    1 Flooded Strand
    2 Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Scalding Tarn
    1 Swamp
    3 Underground Sea
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Chain of Vapor
    2 Dark Petition
    4 Dark Ritual
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Dig Through Time
    2 Doomsday
    2 Duress
    3 Flusterstorm
    1 Gitaxian Probe
    1 Gush
    1 Hurkyl's Recall
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Lotus Petal
    1 Mana Crypt
    3 Mental Misstep
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Necropotence
    1 Ponder
    4 Preordain
    2 Sensei's Divining Top
    1 Skeletal Scrying
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Tendrils of Agony
    3 Thoughtseize
    1 Timetwister
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Yawgmoth's Will

    Sideboard:
    2 Fatal Push
    2 Hurkyl's Recall
    1 Chain of Vapor
    1 Island
    1 Laboratory Maniac
    2 Pithing Needle
    2 Ravenous Trap
    1 Extirpate
    1 Toxic Deluge
    1 Virulent Plague
    1 Yixlid Jailer

    I ended up beating Thing in The Ice RUG Tempo, Kelly Oath, and Jeskai Bomberman, losing to Lands(!) and 2 Card Monte.

    In game 1 against lands, I used top, fetched, used top, fetched, and found all my duresses and flusterstorms and lands, and literal no business. Eventually dying to a 20/20. In game 3, I gitaxian probe his hand of all blanks, play necro, necro down to 3 (Which is only 8 cards here) and draw a hand that can kill him, but I don't draw a duress or flusterstorm, so I have to go blind. His 1 unknown card after he draws for turn happens to be Mindbreak Trap.

    2 Card Monte was just rough. In game 1 I spin top with fetchlands 3 times to see 9 total new cards, and they're literally all my lands. In game 2, he just demolishes me with Trinisphere + REB, then he grindstones me for value with his two grindstones in play the turn before I can bounce the 3ball and win, and hits both Laboratory Maniac and Tendrils (With Leyline in play). The risk you take playing 2 wincons.

    While most choices are pretty obvious, I wanted to talk about some of our choices.
    Skeletal Scrying over Treasure Cruise, Merchant Scroll, Time Walk, and Mystical Tutor
    Skeletal Scrying gives us another way to use Rituals, and also is instant and non-blue, dodging Pyroblast and giving us a way to refuel the turn before we want to go off. Also, in a pinch it can start your Doomsday Pile for 1B and 1 Life.
    Merchant Scroll is a great card, but when you don't play a lot of colorless mana sources it gets pretty hard, and also we don't need gush to start our piles. Time Walk is an obvious cut in my opinion as I never really want to reset my Storm Count. Mystical I wanted, but with the format being Misstep Haven right now, it made sense not to play.

    Laboratory Maniac is in the sideboard because Removal is ripe in every deck, and we feel with 4 rituals, we're really more of a storm deck - however, we wanted to bring in the Maniac to beat Graveyard Hate.

    Changes I'd make to the maindeck would be:
    -1 Flusterstorm
    +1 Thoughtseize or Duress

    As for the sideboard, it will change every time, but I feel it was pretty okay for the event. I think maybe you want xantid swarms, but I never felt bad against blue decks.

    Sorry for the quickness of this - wanted to get the list public but I'm at work. Feel free to ask questions.

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    @13nova awesome to see Doomsday do well here.
    Did you guys test Night’s Whisper at all in this list with the heavy amount of black? If so, how did it do or why didn’t it make the cut.

    Thank you

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    @poxeveryturn We thought about Nights Whisper, and it's a card way back in the day made it into the deck before, but it's a lot like merchant scroll in that it's not really what i want to do without moxes.

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  • Thanks for the writeup!

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  • H

    As the biggest Skeletal Scrying affectionado in our area back in the day I approve its use here. Deck looks sweet Soly, nice work.

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  • @13NoVa
    What made you go heavy on Dark Ritual this time around? Even recently, your stance on Doomsday was that it needed no more than one or two Dark Ritual.
    Your list looks great. Except I don't use Dark petition.

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    @ten-ten we wanted to go heavier on the storm aspect as a result in the upswing of Oath of Druids.

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    Nice list. It looks very flexible and fun. I haven't been playing hardly at all, but I was testing a similar style list for a bit that seemed like it had a lot of potential. Basically, I was a little more all-in on the speed with a less flexibility.

    I ended up there, because Top, while good, was still a bit awkward sometimes and a mana sink when what I really wanted was business. So, I went with more DD and more Dark Petition and no tops, relying on the Petitions to get Gush (or DD if I already had Gush in hand) to get into the pile. It worked quite well, usually winning by turn 3 or 4 after a duress or 2. Also, the additional moxen allowed for a more liberal use of Defense Grid.

    It fared well against the field, even against Shops pre-thorn restriction (I haven't played since the restriction, so I don't know how much that changed things, but I assume the matchup is easier now). it had a good matchup against Oath due its speed. There's probably a great list somewhere in the middle of your list and this one, but I didn't have a lot of the cards to work with, because I had to proxy a bunch of stuff, including some of the lands.

    As for the 4x Drits. IMO, DD can be either a control or combo deck. The Drit count depends on which you're playing. Soly and Steve tended to the more controlling versions for a long time, and with good results, which is why they advocated toward fewer Drits. I'm not nearly as good of a control player as they are and didn't have the same level of success, so I went with the combo version and, thus, 4 Drits, but it really comes down to personal preference and meta. As soly said, the meta right now seems better suited to the combo version than the control version. Additionally, the loss of gush as 4-of makes it harder for the control version to double-dip on Gush as both a combo piece and a draw engine.

    Good luck with the list.

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    The only changes I'd make is to cut the 3rd Flusterstorm for either the 3rd Duress or the 4th Thoughtseize.

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