legacy doomsday combo platter

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So Many Insane Plays The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 1 So Many Insane Plays The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer I. Introduction Doomsday is awesome. Doomsday is among the coolest Magic strategies ever. Vintage players, like myself, adore Doomsday, and have for many years. Legacy players, and especially a cabal of combo players, have grown equally fond of Doomsday. Legacy Dark Ritual players want to be the coolest kid in the room, and let‟s be honest, they are. Doomsday players are the true magicians of Magic. They are the David Copperfields and David Blaines. They bewilder their opponents with a mastery of the format and complex formulas that most can‟t wrap their heads around. When Laboratory Maniac was spoiled, I gushed about its potential as a Doomsday win condition in my Innistrad set review . Within a week of testing, it became clear that I had created a deck that Brian Demars said “broke the format,” which I used to Top 8 one of America‟s marquis Vintage events, the Waterbury. To this day, my Vintage Doomsday deck is one of the most interesting and popular specialty decks in the format. What is not known, however, is that during that time I have been secretly working on a Legacy build as well. It‟s taken literally months of testing and tuning to develop. Allow me to blow your mind. I‟m pleased to introduce: Meandeck Doomsday, by Stephen Menendian Business (36) 4 Doomsday 1 Laboratory Maniac 1 Unearth 1 Mental Note 4 Sensei‟s Divining Top 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Force of Will 2 Misdirection 1 Pact of Negation 3 Spell Pierce 2 Divert 1 Darkblast Mana Sources (24) 4 Dark Ritual 2 Cabal Ritual 4 Polluted Delta 2 Flooded Strand 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Underground Sea 3 Island 2 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Devastation Tide 3 Flusterstorm 2 Massacre 4 Dark Confidant Licensed to Chung-Hei Lo for individual use. This is sold for individual use only and may not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without the expressed written consent of Eternal Central.

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 1

So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer

I. Introduction Doomsday is awesome. Doomsday is among the coolest Magic strategies ever. Vintage players, like myself, adore Doomsday, and have for many years. Legacy players, and especially a cabal of combo players, have grown equally fond of Doomsday. Legacy Dark Ritual players want to be the coolest kid in the room, and let‟s be honest, they are. Doomsday players are the true magicians of Magic. They are the David Copperfields and David Blaines. They bewilder their opponents with a mastery of the format and complex formulas that most can‟t wrap their heads around. When Laboratory Maniac was spoiled, I gushed about its potential as a Doomsday win condition in my Innistrad set review. Within a week of testing, it became clear that I had created a deck that Brian Demars said “broke the format,” which I used to Top 8 one of America‟s marquis Vintage events, the Waterbury. To this day, my Vintage Doomsday deck is one of the most interesting and popular specialty decks in the format. What is not known, however, is that during that time I have been secretly working on a Legacy build as well. It‟s taken literally months of testing and tuning to develop. Allow me to blow your mind. I‟m pleased to introduce: Meandeck Doomsday, by Stephen Menendian Business (36) 4 Doomsday 1 Laboratory Maniac 1 Unearth 1 Mental Note 4 Sensei‟s Divining Top 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Force of Will 2 Misdirection 1 Pact of Negation 3 Spell Pierce 2 Divert 1 Darkblast Mana Sources (24) 4 Dark Ritual 2 Cabal Ritual 4 Polluted Delta 2 Flooded Strand 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Underground Sea 3 Island 2 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Devastation Tide 3 Flusterstorm 2 Massacre 4 Dark Confidant

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 2

1 Cabal Therapy 3 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Echoing Truth If your mind isn‟t blown, then you are probably a little bit confused or perhaps even skeptical. That‟s because no one in Legacy has seen a dedicated list like this before. Much like when European explorers beached on North America or when NASA astronauts landed on the moon: you are seeing something totally different from all that has come before. I will explain all in this article. But, very briefly, this deck wins with Laboratory Maniac, and not Tendrils of Agony. And it does so for a measly two mana post-Doomsday. The most popular Legacy Doomsday variant is known as Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils (DDFT). A common version of this deck recently made top 8 in the renowned Bazaar of Moxen tournament, a 724 player Legacy tournament. Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils, by Tristan Polzl Business (31) 4 Silence 3 Orim's Chant 1 Chain of Vapor 4 Sensei‟s Diving Top 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe 1 Ideas Unbound 3 Burning Wish 3 Doomsday Mana Sources (29) 2 Lotus Petal 4 Lions Eye Diamond 4 Dark Ritual 1 Rain of Filth 1 Karakas 4 Polluted Delta 4 Flooded Strand 1 Tundra 2 Volcanic Island 2 Underground Sea 1 Scrubland 1 Plains 1 Swamp 1 Island Sideboard (15) 1 Doomsday 2 Tendrils of Agony 1 Infernal Contract 1 Massacre 1 Time Spiral 1 Virtue‟s Ruin 1 Empty the Warrens 1 Duress 1 Shelldock Isle 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 2 Serenity

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 3

1 Slaughter Pact 1 Chain of Vapor This decklist looks very much like the lists from GP Amsterdam. In fact, Tristan‟s deck bears a remarkable resemblance to Christoph Alsheimer‟s Top 32 decklist. It shares the common Ideas Unbound-fueled kill (Ideas Unbound can draw Burning Wish and a pair of Lion‟s Eye Diamonds, for example). So, by doing this simple sequence: Orim‟s Chant, Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Gitaxian Probe to draw Ideas Unbound, Ideas Unbound, drawing a probe and two LED‟s. Play both LEDs. Stack probe, and pop the LEDs, drawing Burning Wish, which you play for Tendrils. From there, Tendrils of Agony will be lethal. This deck needs to build a critical mass of spells in hand: it wants to have a Doomsday or access to one, a way to play it (such as a Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, or Lotus Petal), a way to protect it (such as Orim‟s Chant or Silence), and a way to draw the Ideas Unbound (such as Probe, Top, Brainstorm, or Ponder). One of the differences in Tristan‟s list is the presence of Rain of Filth as a singleton and alternative way to generate additional Black mana when Silence/Chant has resolved. One of the weaknesses of this deck, as well as other iterations of this approach to Doomsday, is significant mana base vulnerability. Even with a host of fetchlands and a few critical basics, this deck‟s 4 mana needs can often only be satisfied by dual lands (absent a Dark Ritual), which expose this deck to a well-timed Wasteland. I‟m also not a big fan of the way that these Doomsday lists are lean so heavily on White disruption instead of Blue disruption. That said, one of the key advantages of Doomsday over almost any other imaginable kill is that it is virtually a one-card combo. All of the format‟s other major combo decks require you to assemble two cards: Show and Tell and a threat, Sneak Attack and a threat, Hive Mind and a Pact, Dream Halls and Conflux, and so on. Doomsday needs only a Ritual or Petal to play it. Perhaps that‟s why, in a format teeming with combo decks and tactics, Doomsday performed so well. Compared to Show and Tell or Sneak Attack decks, Doomsday is far more compact and efficient: Doomsday is nearly a one-card combo. It‟s also faster. While my deck shares those traits, my deck is completely different from the more popular Doomsday decks in the format. My sole purpose in developing this deck for Legacy is solely to reaffirm my bona fides as a Legacy auteur, and not just a Vintage master. I have had an unbelievable amount of fun with this deck in doing so. My deck has almost none of the weaknesses of more popular Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils. First, it need not have a storm count at all. The win condition is Maniac, and not Tendrils or Empty the Warrens. That means you need not build towards a storm count or even worry about storm! Put away your storm counter forever. That also means that you don‟t lose to niche cards like Ethersworn Canonist or Arcane Laboratory, or even a well-timed Orim‟s Chant. Not using Tendrils as a win condition also means that you are immune to cards like Leyline of Sanctity and Gaddock Teeg, which you can simply ignore. Secondarily, unlike DDFT, this deck doesn‟t have complex multi-color mana requirements; in fact, it‟s ridiculously simple. A formula I will be repeating over and over again is: „two draws, two mana‟ post-Doomsday. That‟s the simple formula for winning with this deck. No need to worry about complex combinations of Black, Red, Blue, and White mana ever again. Third, this deck‟s mana base is two colors and you need never be Wastelanded again. This deck can easily win by only playing basic lands. In fact, it‟s designed to do precisely that. There are many other advantages to playing this deck, which I will carefully canvass in this article. But perhaps the most important advantage of all is that it is a multitude of times easier to play. Don‟t get me wrong, the Doomsday piles can be complex, but the math and the calculations are orders of magnitude simpler. This deck is actually playable, and provided you read this article and learn this deck, you could be winning tournaments near you very soon.

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 4

It‟s true that my list opens the door to a few other vulnerabilities – seemingly creature removal and graveyard hate – but when you read this article, you will see how these seeming weaknesses are quite easy to play around, and the deck has been designed to both minimize and mitigate these weaknesses. Every single card in this deck has been very carefully tested, and has earned its place. This article is a comprehensive primer on Legacy Maniac Doomsday. I will explain how the combo works, how to create optimal Doomsday piles, why this is the best Doomsday variant, how to play this deck, and why you should play this deck. I truly believe that – at this particular moment – this is one of, if not the, best decks in Legacy. And the reason is simple: this deck has good matchups against the UR and RUG Delver decks, and is much better than every other combo deck out there. It‟s more compact, faster, more efficient, and more resilient than other combo decks.

II. The Combo Innistrad‟s Laboratory Maniac provides the best and most natural Doomsday finisher of all time. Doomsday itself tutors for the Maniac and performs the critical function of depleting your library to the point where the Maniac may win the game. More importantly, the Laboratory Maniac kill offers unheard of possibilities in terms of resiliency to disruption. You can pack your Doomsday piles with counterspells and targeted discard to ensure that your win condition works. In Vintage, the standard Doomsday stack is:

You draw the Ancestral, and cast it to draw Gush, Lotus, and Maniac. You play Lotus to cast Maniac, and then cast Gush to trigger Maniac to win the game. This strategy is elegant because it wins the game the turn after you Doomsday for just one mana. It‟s also resilient. If they counter Ancestral Recall, then you can Gush into the Lotus and Maniac, then win the game the following turn. If they counter Gush, then you

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 5

play Maniac and just wait them out. If they counter all of that, you have Yawgmoth‟s Will as yet another contingency backup. There are many non-standard Doomsday piles that can be constructed to provide additional resilience, if Yawgmoth‟s Will is not enough. You can pack in disruption spells into the piles. So, for example, another Doomsday pile might look like this:

If you have four lands in play, you can play Gush to draw Gush and Flusterstorm, and then Gush again to draw Maniac and another Flusterstorm, ensuring that you resolve the Maniac. If they counter the first Gush, then the next one will draw you Flusterstorm and Maniac. Unfortunately, except for Maniac and Flusterstorm, none of these cards are legal in Legacy. Neither Gush, nor Ancestral, nor Black Lotus is legal in Legacy. So, how do you can you efficiently win the game after playing Doomsday? There is no Gush to immediately draw cards to win the game. This is simple fact that deterred me from believing that Maniac would be a superior finisher for Doomsday in Legacy. That is, until my teammate Mike Bomholt, the genius behind the deck Iggy Pop, discovered another ingenious combo: Mental Note + Unearth. Simply put, Mental Note does three things:

1) Removes three cards from the top of your library, 2) Put Laboratory Maniac into your graveyard 3) Draw Unearth to play Maniac

Observe. You cast Doomsday, and you set up this pile, for example:

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 6

You draw Gitaxian Probe, and play it, drawing Mental Note. You then play Mental Note, putting Deep Analysis and Laboratory Maniac in your graveyard. Mental Note draws Unearth. Play it, returning Laboratory Maniac to play. Now, if you can activate a Top, play a Probe, Ponder, Brainstorm, Preordain, or flashback Deep Analysis you will win the game. There are many possible permutations of this stack, which I will discuss at length in this article. The key point to appreciate is that Mental Note (which can also be substituted for Thought Scour) plus Unearth is the quickest way to empty your library and win the game for just UB mana after you cast Doomsday. This means you can win the game the same turn you played Doomsday with just two additional mana and two additional draw triggers. This is the formula for winning: „two draws, and two mana.‟ The first draw is to draw the first card in the stack, and the second draw is to trigger Maniac to win the game with no cards left in your library. The two mana are simply needed to cast Mental Note and Unearth. That‟s all you need.

III. Setting Up and Executing the Combo In the next section of this article, I will canvass the range of possible scenarios you will need to become familiar with (and you will) to play this deck. The good news is that these scenarios are not nearly as daunting as they are for Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils. You need not consult a 30-page spreadsheet to operate the combo. However, what you will need is a clear sense of what you are trying to do. That‟s why this section is more important than the actual piles I will review in the next section. A. Three Principles You Must Know Before I describe how to set up and execute the combo, there are three things you need to understand, three principles of play, if you will:

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 7

Principle 1: The first thing you need to understand is that at some point this deck is essentially a two card combo: a Ritual + Doomsday (or one card if you‟re not using a Ritual). All of your early game is devoted to finding a Ritual and a Doomsday. Principle 2: The second thing you need to understand about this deck is that the fundamental turn of this deck is turn three. You cannot win on turn one, and it is very difficult, almost impossible, to win on turn two. The goal is consistently setting up a turn three kill. Sometimes you will win after turn three, but that is the goal. Principle 3: The third thing you need to understand are the specific requirements for winning the game. Generally speaking, you need „two draws and two mana.‟ This is why I call this the most important rule to understand: the two draw, two mana rule. More specifically, you will need to be able to do the following four things post-Doomsday:

1) Draw the first card in the Doomsday pile. 2) Play Mental Note (putting Maniac and another card in your graveyard) 3) Play Unearth returning Laboratory Maniac to play. 4) Draw a card to trigger Laboratory Maniac to win the game.

These four things are encapsulated in the “two mana, two draws” rule. And these requirements almost never change. However, what does change is what these requirements mean for your specific circumstances. Broadly speaking, there are two possibilities when it comes to executing the combo, and you need to have a deep understanding of the requirements of both:

1) Winning the game the same turn you play Doomsday. 2) Winning the game the next turn (i.e. pass the turn).

Winning the game next turns satisfies one of the two draw requirements: drawing the first card in the Doomsday pile. If you attempt to win the game the same turn you play Doomsday, you‟ll need a way to draw the first card in the stack. One of the most important skills with this deck is learning when to attempt to win the game the same turn as resolving Doomsday and when you should pass the turn after resolving Doomsday. The reasoning goes beyond mana requirements or even available draw triggers; it involves situational threats and life totals as well. These factors determine the optimal time to play Doomsday. Unless you have been heavily disrupted, you will almost never pass the turn twice after you resolve Doomsday. But you will often wait to play Doomsday until the most efficient time. This is a hard lesson. If you buy this article, put together this deck, and then begin to play it, and do the following, you are playing this deck wrong. Turn One: Play land, cast Dark Ritual into Doomsday. That play will lose the game most of the time, although there are rare exceptions. There are two basic ways you should be setting up this combo. In general, you should either be playing Doomsday on turn two, and winning on turn three, or you should be playing Doomsday on turn three (or later) and winning the same turn. These are the two standard ways to win with this deck, and I will explain both. Sometimes you will be in a position to play Doomsday and pass the turn and then win the game, but that is an exception to the general rule. In the next two sections of this article, I will delve into both scenarios.

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 8

B. Casting Doomsday and Passing the Turn If you play Doomsday on turn two, your goal is to win on turn three. That means you will be passing the turn. That also means you will be passing the turn at 8 life or less, on average. What that means is that you need to be sure that your opponent can‟t bring you below 3 life. So, if you fall to nine, your opponent can‟t be permitted to inflict more than 6 damage in between your second and third turn, or if you are at 8 life, they can‟t be allowed to do more than 5 damage between your second and third turn. That means they can attack with a flipped Delver, but they can‟t be allowed to resolve a Lightning Bolt. Here is a broad overview of the three turn sequence: Turn One: Play land, cast set up spell (Sensei‟s Divining Top, Ponder, Brainstorm, Thoughtseize, etc). Turn Two: Play land, cast Dark Ritual (or Cabal Ritual) into Doomsday. You can even play a spell here before playing Doomsday, like Thoughtseize or Top, or hold mana up to play Divert or Spell Pierce to protect Doomsday. Depending on your hand and available mana, you might make this pile:

Turn Three: Draw and cast Probe for free to draw and play Mental Note, and then Unearth on Maniac. Then, simply activate a Top, cast another Probe or play a Blue cantrip to trigger Maniac to win the game. There are many variations on this basic sequence, and I will cover them all in greater detail in the next part of this article, but I will also provide some examples now. If you have a third mana available, you may wish to put Brainstorm on top, and use the Brainstorm to draw the Mental Note. The benefit of this is that you can exchange a blank card in your hand for Pact of Negation with Brainstorm. That pile would look like this:

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 9

A blank or dead card in your hand, such a superfluous Ritual or extra Doomsday, can be traded for the Pact of Negation or other spell to protect your kill. The other major variation is if you have a fetchland drop for the turn. The fetchland performs a similar function to the Probe by simply thinning your five card library by one card. Your pile may look like this:

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 10

The execution looks like this: Turn One: Play land, and some kind of setup spell. Turn Two: Play land, cast Dark Ritual into Doomsday. Turn Three: Cast Mental Note, binning two cards and drawing Unearth. Cast Unearth to return Laboratory Maniac to play. Play fetchland, and activate it putting Underground Sea into play. Attempt to draw a card to win the game. As you can see from this pile, putting a land in the pile is a great idea if you have a fetchland as your third land drop, as it will save you a life post-Doomsday. However, you need not actually have Top or Probe at the end there. You can be holding a Probe, Brainstorm, or Ponder and play it off the Sea to win the game at the end there. As you can see, there are tremendous possibilities and variable options for building Doomsday piles on turn two, but the core idea remain the same: you need to set up three things on turn three.

1) Casting Mental Note. 2) Casting Unearth. 3) One additional draw to trigger Maniac to win the game.

The draw needed to draw the first card in the pile is already satisfied by the natural draw for the turn. While doing all three may seem like a daunting task, it‟s actually not when your deck is full of these cards. Doomsday does most of the heavy lifting for you. All you need to do is using your early game library manipulation, like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Top, to set it up. In fact, that is the cardinal rule of this deck: you basically want to make sure your opening hand has one of these three cards. C. Casting Doomsday and Winning the Same Turn The difference between playing Doomsday on turn two and winning on turn three is that you will need one more draw. You need a way to draw the first card in the stack. Allow me illustrate. Suppose your opening hand is:

Turn One: Play Island, cast Ponder, drawing Bloodstained Mire. Turn Two: (Draw Dark Ritual for the turn). Play Bloodstained Mire, fetch Swamp, cast Sensei‟s Divining Top. Turn Three: Cast Dark Ritual into Doomsday, setting up this pile:

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 11

Cast Gitaxian Probe from your hand to draw Mental Note. Then cast Mental Note, binning Laboratory Maniac and drawing Unearth. Then cast Unearth returning Laboratory Maniac to play. Play Polluted Delta and fetch Underground Sea (leaving zero cards in library). Activate Top (or play another Blue cantrip) and win the game immediately. As you can see, if you don‟t have a Top in play, you‟ll need another Probe or another Blue cantrip in hand to win immediately, but you can do it without much hassle. The trick is making sure you can protect your combo at the same time, which is why cards like Spell Pierce, Divert, Force of Will, Misdirection, and even Pact of Negation come in handy. My favorite pile in a scenario like this often involves Brainstorm:

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 12

As explained in the previous section, Brainstorm allows you to exchange a dead or useless card in your hand for the Pact of Negation, which will protect the rest of your combo, and dig a card deeper into your library. You will still, however, need to have one additional way to trigger the Maniac, such as a Gitaxian Probe in hand or a Top in play. The Brainstorm on top pile allows you to have extra protection for your entire combo. If you don‟t have the mana to protect your combo and win the same turn, you need to evaluate whether you should wait a turn. It‟s often better to try to Doomsday and win the same turn rather than wait and risk getting burned below a critical life threshold. To summarize this part of the article there are two basic scenarios: playing Doomsday and passing the turn, or playing Doomsday and winning the same turn. The latter is a much safer play, but requires more of you (cards and/or mana). Specifically, you need a way to draw the first card in the stack. The former opens you up to getting burned out or attacked to death, but it also gives you more ways to protect your combo.

IV. The Doomsday Scenarios Perhaps the most challenging aspect to playing Doomsday is creating the optimal Doomsday pile at any given time. There are many possibilities that depend on the unique game situation and your needs. By comparison, the Fetchland Doomsday Tendrils deck has practically infinite number of pile options. You can canvass this impressive document to get a sense of the possibilities. The possibilities for building piles with Meandeck Maniac Doomsday are also daunting, but simplified in key respects. Opponent‟s life totals? Irrelevant. Storm count? Irrelevant. That said, there are other things that must concern you, such as creature removal, for example. The standard Maniac Doomsday pile looks like the piles just covered in the previous part of this article. They vary depending on your life total, available mana, and your available card draw. For example, if you have a fetchland in play, then there is no need to put a Gitaxian Probe in the pile. In general, you need the following requirements to win the game:

1) A Ritual. 2) Doomsday. 3) Blue mana to play Mental Note. 4) Black mana to play Unearth. 5) Two Draws: A draw to draw the first card in the Doomsday stack, and a draw to trigger Maniac to

win the game. It is the fourth and fifth requirement that typically distinguishes the scenarios in which you attempt to win the turn after you play Doomsday or the same turn. If you intend to pass the turn after playing Doomsday, your next turn draw step will supply one of the draws needed to win the game. In addition, it will also supply the Black mana you need to cast Unearth. If you intend to win the same turn you play Doomsday, you‟ll need an additional draw to draw the first card in the Doomsday pile, and an additional Black mana. If you want to play Doomsday and win on turn 3, you will need to be able to play:

1) Dark Ritual 2) Doomsday 3) Mental Note 4) Unearth 5) And draw two cards (say, with Gitaxian Probe and a Top in play)

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 13

That means you‟ll need to generate at least BBU mana from your lands in addition to having a Dark Ritual in hand. If you don‟t have a Probe in hand, then you need to wait another turn to play another land to be able to cast a cantrip like Brainstorm or Ponder. This is what makes Probe and Top so important: they are either free draws or draw triggers, or they can be invested in a different turn. I may be offering too much explanation here, because, with practice, you will come to understand the importance of the “two mana, two draw rule,” which basically covers all of the points just made. In each scenario, the key is to identify the requirements you need to win as quickly as possible with protection. If you believe you‟ll need to play both the Force of Will and Divert in hand to protect your combo, you need to factor that in. Specifically, the first place to start is with mana requirements. Calculate everything you need to play. If you already have a Top in play and a Probe in hand, you only need two mana to win on turn three. However, if you, for example, have neither, but a cantrip in hand, such as a Brainstorm or Ponder, you will need an additional mana to trigger the Maniac. And, if you figure you need to play the Divert in hand, you‟ll need yet another mana. With these basic parameters in mind, let me now canvass the range of Doomsday scenarios, including the ones already covered. Scenario 1: Standard Doomsday Pile for Winning Next Turn If you plan to win the game next turn, then, as described above, you need only one additional draw to win the game. What you will need is at least two mana available, and likely three unless you have a Gitaxian Probe in hand. Your Doomsday pile is going to be:

If you have additional mana available, you can substitute the Gitaxian Probe on top for a Brainstorm or a Ponder, or simply hard cast the Probe. The fourth slot is usually going to be milled away, so you may wish to have another land in that spot or a counterspell such as Pact of Negation or Force of Will, in case you sense that one of your key spells like Unearth might be countered, or for other emergencies. Scenario 2: Standard Doomsday Pile for Winning Next Turn Variant: With a Fetchland Drop

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 14

If you have a fetchland drop, that will negate the need to put a Probe into the pile. That‟s because you can fetch a land out of your library after drawing the Unearth. Your Doomsday pile is going to be:

The second slot can be anything, but protection is recommended in the event things go awry. The difference between the standard and the fetchland drop variant is that your fetchland can remove the last card out of your library before you trigger Maniac. Scenario 3: Standard Doomsday Pile for Winning Next Turn Variant: An Additional Blue Mana If you are setting up, for example, a turn 3 or 4 win, and you will have at least 3 mana on turn 3, you can put a Brainstorm at the top of the pile instead of a Probe. The advantage to doing so is that the card that is usually labeled “blank” can be filled a utility card in exchange another card in hand. Your pile might be:

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 15

You can untap, draw Brainstorm, and then put back Maniac and a card from your hand. Mental Note will then mill the Maniac and the useless card from your hand, and you have Pact of Negation to protect both the Unearth on Maniac and the final spell or effect that will trigger the Maniac. Scenario 4: Standard Doomsday Pile For Winning Now: Turn 3 If you are skittish about passing the turn before winning (a totally understandable concern), and you wish to win the game the same turn you cast Doomsday, then you will need at least 3 mana on the table, and two draw triggers. If you intend to do so on turn 3, you will need either two Gitaxian Probe in hand or a Gitaxian Probe in hand and a Top in play. Your Doomsday pile will look like this:

Scenario 5: Standard Doomsday Pile For Winning Now: Turn 3 with a Fetchland As already covered by Scenario 2 above, a fetchland changes your pile. If you have a fetchland, you can set up this same Doomsday pile as Scenario 2: Mental Note Anything Laboratory Maniac Unearth Swamp/Underground Sea The fetchland allows you to replace the Probe in the pile, and to also alter the ordering of the pile. Scenario 6: Standard Doomsday Pile For Winning Now: Turn 4 or Later If you are setting up a turn 4 Doomsday, you will have more flexibility in the kinds ways you can generate draw triggers to win the game. You need not have strictly, for example, two Probes or a Probe and a Top. You can play a Brainstorm or a Ponder to generate a draw trigger. The pile will look largely the same as

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Scenario 4 or Scenario 5, but with that critical difference. Also, you can substitute a Cabal Ritual for a Dark Ritual in casting the Doomsday. It should be noted that you cannot use Cabal Ritual to cast Doomsday on turn 3 and win the same turn. Scenario 7: Mental Note in Hand Having Mental Note in hand functions similar to having Unearth in hand, with a couple of key differences. Mental Note allows you to win the game more quickly. You can use Mental Note immediately to mill the top two cards of your library, and then draw the third. Here‟s how that might be executed:

From this position, all you need is another draw trigger to win the game. You could put a Brainstorm in the middle of that pile as well, if you have an additional mana. However, if you have a Brainstorm in hand and the mana to play it, you could set up a different pile, like this: Anything Maniac Unearth Anything Anything Once you cast Mental Note, you can then play Unearth on Maniac, and cast Brainstorm to win the game. Alternatively, you simply replace the Mental Note in a standard pile with a Pact of Negation, Divert, Duress, Misdirection, or Force of Will, much as you might with Unearth. Scenario 8: Unearth in Hand Of all of the Doomsday scenarios, having Unearth in hand can often be the most beneficial. This is because Mental Note can be set up to draw you a piece of protection instead of being relied upon to draw Unearth. So, for example, you may place Pact of Negation or another counterspell into the Unearth slot.

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Your Doomsday pile might look like this:

Or if you have a fetchland in play:

Having an Unearth in hand basically allows you to use Doomsday to tutor for a piece of protection. If you have both Unearth and Mental Note in hand, you just meld the two scenarios above.

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Scenario 9: Laboratory Maniac in Hand Unfortunately, this is one of the worst scenarios in general. Of all of the combo parts, Laboratory Maniac is the one card you almost always want to be in your library. If you have Maniac in hand, you have one of two options: 1) you need to Brainstorm or 2) hard cast Maniac and win from there. Of course, you can set up Doomsday stacks with Brainstorm in them (see Scenario 3). If you don‟t have the additional mana available, then you can‟t set up the traditional Doomsday stack. You will need to either do Scenario 3 above, modified as follows:

The third slot is up for grabs, depending on what you feel would be best in that situation. You will be putting the Laboratory Maniac into your library when you play Brainstorm. The upside to the situation is that you are guaranteed to have a disruption spell in your hand after Brainstorm resolves. The downside is that it means you can‟t Doomsday on turn three and win the same turn. For how to build Doomsday piles without using Mental Note + Unearth, see the next scenario. Scenario 10: Hard Casting Maniac: Winning Without Mental Note + Unearth Combo There may be scenarios where you will need to hard cast Laboratory Maniac to win the game. There may be several reasons for this. One reason might be that your opponent has a Thorn of Amethyst or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in play, and playing multiple spells per turn is just not feasible. Another reason might be that your opponent has graveyard hate in play or in hand that would remove your Maniac from game, such as Scavenging Ooze or Leyline of the Void. No worries. There are many ways to set up piles that win the game without having to use the Mental Note + Unearth combo. They do, however, take more time or require more mana. This should be obvious since the entire purpose of the Mental Note + Unearth combo is to win the game in the most efficient way possible. The simplest way to approach the scenario is to imagine that your opponent has a Leyline of the Void in play. Your goal is simple: cast Maniac and trigger it. Leyline doesn‟t prevent this from happening at all. I can‟t count the number of times I‟ve easily beaten these tactics.

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You might simply construct the pile like this:

By simply taking out your graveyard, they don‟t actually take away the milling power of Mental Note. Your goal is to hopefully play both Maniac and Mental Note in the same turn. The real trick in this kind of scenario is to hard cast the Doomsday, and hold the Ritual in hand. In other words, you want to play turn three or four Doomsday by hard casting it without a Ritual, and then use the Ritual to play the Maniac on the next turn, ideally. In one particular game where my opponent had a Scavenging Ooze in play, I hard cast the Doomsday, going to 7 life, making this pile:

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He then attacked me with Ooze down to 3 life. I untapped, drew and played Brainstorm, drawing the Maniac, a land and Mental Note. I put back an extra land from my hand and the land. Then, I cast Dark Ritual, Top, Maniac, and played Mental, milling the card that was in my hand and the land, and drawing Pact of Negation. I then activated Top for the win, and countered his Plow in response. The key constraint with Leyline in play is that you need a bit more mana to operate the combo. It merely slows you down a turn. But there are many ways to win around Leyline or Scavenging Ooze or other graveyard hate. Just remember that you‟ll need to generate three mana to play Maniac, and you‟ll likely need to play Mental Note and generate another draw. That means you‟ll need, on average, 5-6 mana post-Doomsday instead of a mere 2-3. Scenario 11: Opponent Has a Permanent in Play or Spell in Hand That Can Kill Maniac at Instant Speed This could be a Grim Lavamancer, an active Umezawa‟s Jitte, a Lightning Bolt in hand, or any number of other cards. The key to winning in such a scenario is the have more draw triggers available to trigger Maniac than they have removal effects or spells. For every Swords to Plowshares or Grim Lavamancer activation, you want to have a way to trigger the Maniac, and win the game in response. Here is a common scenario: your opponent has a Swords to Plowshares or Lightning Bolt in hand. You set up the standard kill. Instead of activating Top to win the game, wait. Wait until your next draw step, and if they try to Plow or burn the Maniac in response, then activate Top to win the game in response to that. Scenario 12: Darkblast There are a number of scenarios where you may wish to put Darkblast in your Doomsday pile. For example, if your opponent has Grim Lavamancer or Thalia, you can put Darkblast at the top, and then use it on your first draw. Then, you can use it very similarly to Mental Note. On your next turn, you can dredge the top 3 cards, and draw Unearth for the final card in your library. Your stack might be this:

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Darkblast doesn‟t draw the Unearth, but it actually mills more cards than Mental Note. You can even kill 2/2 creatures by casting it twice in the same turn. If you are concerned that your opponent might topdeck or played a Thalia post-Doomsday, you may wish to create a pile like this anyway. Those basic twelve scenarios cover the kinds of variations you might see in game 1 scenarios. The truly difficult scenarios arise when you are forced to mix and match scenarios. I had one particularly confounding situation where I had Unearth and Brainstorm in hand after playing Doomsday. Example: I was playing against Maverick, and I resolved a turn 2 Doomsday, and I had Underground Sea, Underground Sea, Massacre, Unearth, and Brainstorm in hand. Suppose I had just a Swamp and an Island in play. How would you build the pile? For some reason, this pile just confounded me, and the reason is because you are mixing and matching piles. Having Brainstorm already in hand was – for me – particularly confusing because I‟m used to putting it on top of my library. A Brainstorm into Brainstorm pile is naturally confusing. Add to the fact that I have Unearth in hand, and I just couldn‟t wrap my brain around what to do. What would you do here? As described at the beginning of this section, the key to figure out the requirements for winning. You need at least one mana to play Unearth and one to play Mental Note. In addition, you will need a mana to play Brainstorm to exchange some good stuff for unnecessary stuff. Then, you will need a way to trigger the Maniac. You may not need a mana for that, if you can get Probe into the pile to do that for you. In other words, you will need at least 3 mana. With that in mind, here‟s the pile I built:

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The plan is simple. Draw the Pact of Negation for the turn. Cast Brainstorm, drawing Mental Note, Gitaxian Probe, and Maniac. Put back an extra land and the Maniac. Play Mental Note, binning Maniac and the land in your graveyard, drawing Force of Will. Play the additional Sea in hand, to play Unearth on Maniac. You will be tapped out. Now, cast Probe to win the game. What actually happened in the game was that my opponent played Ethersworn Canonist on his turn. As you can see, I had Massacre in hand, which took care of that card easily, and from that point I untapped and won. Had I needed to, I could have used the Force of Will to protect my Maniac by pitching Probe, and simply planned to win on my next turn draw step. It‟s also possible that, if he wasn‟t applying much pressure, I could have built even more counter protection into the pile, such as, for example, putting a Spell Pierce or Divert instead of a Force at the bottom. If you had one more mana, that would have stopped another spell, such as a Plow. I introduce this particular pile to explain how, from scenario to scenario, your piles will change, but the basic guidelines remain the same, and to illustrate how confusing things may get. The lesson here is to just think fundamentally: figure out what you need to win, first, by looking at your mana requirements. Then, work backward from your mana to the pile, and then fill in the other slots by building in protection. As you encounter new situations and develop your own piles, please share them with me either via Twitter @SMenendian or through Eternal Central.

V. Card Choices In this part of the article, I will cover the design choices I‟ve made with this deck both by explaining the purpose of key cards and explaining why I did not include other considerations. After much testing with the deck, I came to realize what the essential cards were, and which cards were less important. In the process, you will understand how this deck was constructed. A. Essential cards This is the list of cards that would be required or mandatory in any Doomsday list built designed this way: that is, a focused combo deck using the Maniac kill. There are other ways to design a Doomsday deck, such as by playing a more controlling set of cards. But assuming you wish to be able to win by turn three with any consistency, here‟s what I‟ve found are the required cards: 4 Doomsday Your primary strategic objective. If we view this deck as a collection of tactics and a series of strategic goals, this is the primary strategic objective: to set up, execute, and protect Doomsday. Everything that follows Doomsday is, while not pro forma, is often the less difficult stuff. While you may not always play Doomsday as soon as possible, you need to max out on Doomsdays so that you can play it on turn two or three when you wish to. 4 Brainstorm

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The best way to set up your primary strategic objective and to trigger your kill mechanism. Also essential for maximizing Doomsday as a five-card tutor, by helping trade useless cards in hand for stronger situational answers. 4 Sensei‟s Divining Top A similarly effective way to set up your primary strategic objective and free way to trigger your finisher. 4 Ponder The next best way to set up your primary strategic objective and to trigger your finisher. 4 Gitaxian Probe The most efficient way to trigger your finisher and to thin your deck post-Doomsday. Necessary to winning the same turn you play Doomsday without having additional mana. Play Tip: If you have Probe in your opening hand, it is often more correct to not play it. The purpose of Probe is largely to draw the first card in the Doomsday pile. Only play Probe if you really want or need to know your opponent‟s hand, or if you have an additional Probe to use. 4 Force of Will The best and most flexible spell for protecting both your primary strategic objective and your finisher. 1 Laboratory Maniac Your kill mechanism. 1 Mental Note or Thought Scour This sets up the finisher, but which card you choose in this role is debatable. Mental Note does not target a player, so it cannot be Misdirected or Diverted. Thought Scour, on the other hand, has slightly more flexibility in that it can target the opponent. So for example it could mess with the top of their library if they have cast Enlightened Tutor, Doomsday, or some other tutor. This is a relatively rare instance in Legacy at the moment, so generally you will be better off with Mental Note because of the simple fact that it can‟t be Misdirected and you can‟t be interacted with along those lines. 1 Unearth Gets the finisher into play. 4 Dark Ritual The best way to cast your primary strategic objective. 18 Lands The critical resources necessary to accomplish all of your strategic and tactical goals. In testing, these 49 cards were pretty much necessities.

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These cards are central to:

1) Finding or assembling a Ritual + Doomsday 2) Casting Doomsday 3) Winning post-Doomsday 4) Triggering Maniac 5) Protecting yourself and your combo

Sensei‟s Divining Top and Brainstorm are clearly the two best draw spells. Top is incredible because it can be used to activate Maniac without any mana investment that turn. That is also why Probe is so important. Probe allows you to not only see your opponent‟s hand, but to get a draw for no mana. There is no other card that can do that. Probe is necessary to winning quickly. Some people have suggested alternatives to Force of Will, but Force of Will is simply the best and most flexible option. I have discovered in testing that few decks can actually stop you from resolving Doomsday when shielded with even minimal Blue countermagic. The alternative spells, like Orim‟s Chant, don‟t always work for a similar reason: you may need to pass the turn after playing Doomsday (or have an additional mana up to cast Chant). Plus, you can‟t afford to add White into your mana base with how omnipresent Wasteland is in Legacy. One of the keys to this deck is fetching out basic lands on turn one and two. With those 49 cards labeled as essential that leaves 11 open slots. I will go through some of the other cards I considered. B. Possible Cards Deep Analysis A singleton Deep Analysis can be quite valuable in a number of respects. First, it can be flashed back to win the game post Unearth, and it naturally falls into the graveyard. It can also be useful to just naturally draw 2 cards in the mid-game. However, I found that I almost never flashed it back post-Doomsday. Therefore, I cut it. Lotus Petal/Cabal Ritual I think it is important to have additional ways to accelerate out Doomsday beyond Dark Ritual. Both Lotus Petal and Cabal Ritual offer advantages and disadvantages. Both Cabal Ritual and Lotus Petal make it possible to cast a turn two Doomsday, although turn two Doomsday with Lotus Petal may require an Underground Sea, and expose you to Wasteland. On the other hand, Lotus Petal allows you to play Brainstorm or another Blue cantrip on turn three, after a turn two Doomsday. In that respect, Lotus Petal is often better than Cabal Ritual. Ultimately, I find Cabal Ritual to have slightly more value. There are many times where you will have threshold and generate 5 mana, and you can use that additional mana to cast Unearth or Top post-Doomsday. Shelldock Isle/Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Originally, I thought it would be most advantageous to have two different kills, for versatility and flexibility. However, over time I realized that the Shelldock Isle kill almost never worked against most top decks. Not only does it take too much time, but it is far more easily disrupted.

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The Shelldock Isle Doomsday stack looks something like this: Shelldock Isle Duress/Counterspell Duress/Counterspell Laboratory Maniac Emrakul, the Aeons Torn You draw the Shelldock Isle and put Emrakul under it. You then untap, and activate it, putting Emrakul into play and triggering a new turn. The following two turns you attack to win the game. As others have pointed out, you don‟t want Emrakul near the top so that it doesn‟t accidentally get Vendilion Cliqued into your hand. As you can see, there are several significant limitations to this kill. First and foremost, it takes multiple turns post-Doomsday to win the game. You need to put the Shelldock Isle into play (which you can hopefully do the same turn you cast Doomsday). Then, you need to activate it, which takes yet another turn. And then, you need to attack unmolested. You often won‟t even win the game until your second attack, by which time you will have depleted your entire library. Of course, there are ways to mitigate each of these problems – such as by playing Cloud of Faeries, to untap Isle, but that requires adding more cards to the combo mix. The second problem is that a Wasteland or Stifle causes you to lose the game. Similarly, there are ways to combat this, but it highlights the vulnerability this card puts you in. It‟s not only slow, but it‟s much easier to disrupt. Duress/Inquisition of Kozilek/Thoughtseize I initially began with 4 Duress, and quickly realized how limited that spell is. Inquisition is arguably better, but can‟t hit Force of Will in an opponent‟s hand. Thoughtseize is highly effective, but painful to cast, and ultimately, I believe, worse than Blue spells. Pact of Negation Pact of Negation is potentially amazing. It‟s a zero mana Force of Will, with a drawback. The main problem with Pact of Negation, besides not being able to stop key threats opponents play like Thalia or Jitte, is the fact that you will often want to play Doomsday and win the next turn. I think Pact is worth running as a singleton for certain Doomsday piles, but not good enough to run as a full set. Misdirection Misdirection is the next best substitute to Force of Will. Not only does it function like Force of Will in protecting your Doomsday, but it also similarly protects your Maniac from Plows and Burn. Divert/Spell Pierce The strength of Misdirection alerted me to the strength of Divert. Divert is similar to Spell Pierce. But one of the key advantages of Divert over Spell Pierce is that Divert can be useful in the mid and early game, where your opponent is trying, for example, trying to burn you quickly post-Doomsday for the win. Divert in that situation is better than Spell Pierce in many situations, although it is certainly up for debate. Ultimately, Divert generates card advantage by directing their burn at their creatures. Spell Pierce is very important for the combo and control matchups, but Divert is almost as good there. The key for Divert is that Divert can create card advantage for you, by making your opponent burn their own creatures or Plow their own creature.

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RUG Delver decks will attempt to burn you before attacking because they will often try to get threshold for their Nimble Mongoose. This is a perfect time to Divert it to their Delver. Likewise, in corner cases you can catch players off guard by Diverting their Stifle to their own fetchland. Spell Pierce, however, can counter both Show and Tell and Sneak Attack, which Divert cannot. That‟s one of the main reasons I run the ratios that I do. I very much like running multiple copies of Divert main deck Divert, though. Daze I‟m a huge fan of Daze in Legacy, but this deck relies too heavily on basic Swamp for Daze to be reliable, and you don‟t really want to set yourself back land drops. Hymn to Tourach Hymn to Tourach can be an effective way to generate some raw card advantage. However, it isn‟t tactically focused, and therefore not quite good enough for a deck like this. Darkblast A nice utility card that functions in multiple ways: it kills creatures, like Delver, Thalia, or Lavamancer, but also can be used in Doomsday piles to mill. Its dual role is the reason I run one main deck. Ghastly Demise Probably the best removal spell you can use simply because it is the cheapest all purpose removal spell that can kill both cards like Tarmogoyf, Delver, or Knight of the Reliquary as well as combo disrupting creatures like Thalia and Scavenging Ooze. That said, after much testing I don‟t think that it‟s quite good enough for the main deck, or presently room enough in the sideboard. Careful Study Careful Study may be a valuable singleton. It can definitely help in situations in which you naturally draw the Laboratory Maniac. It can also be useful in a compressed stack, in which you can‟t actually use Mental Note to draw Unearth. But the best possible potential for Careful Study is turning garbage cards in your hand into good ones. So, if you have excess land or superfluous creature removal in hand, you can stack Pact of Negations into the Doomsday stack, and use Careful Study to draw them. Temporal Mastery Temporal Mastery is a very tempting and attractive option. It allows you to construct absurdly linear Doomsday piles, such as this one: Temporal Mastery Temporal Mastery Temporal Mastery Temporal Mastery Laboratory Maniac Imagine turn two Dark Ritual, Doomsday, you can win effectively the next turn as long as you have a way to trigger the Maniac and a third land to cast it.

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Devastation Tide Similar to Temporal Mastery, Devastation Tide is a tempting post-Doomsday trick. Again, my concern with both is that there are too many games in which you will want to win the same turn you cast Doomsday. Miracles won‟t trigger the same turn. However, both Miracle cards can be cast under normal circumstances, by simply setting it on top with Top, Ponder, or Brainstorm. That makes them attractive options. I prefer Devastation Tide as my all purpose bounce spell, however, it fails in one key respect: it can‟t bounce a Choke efficiently. That‟s why this deck simply needs to play around Choke rather than be concerned about getting Choked. Show and Tell Show and Tell can be a very powerful secondary kill, since you can then pack in Emrakuls and have the potential to combo out with Doomsday. For example, my teammate Mike Bomholt has suggested packing in Show and Tell into the sideboard for a post-board game changer. For that, you would pack in 4 Show and Tell and 4 Emrakul in the sideboard, which would greatly limit your sideboarding options. C. Sideboard Options Show and Tell/Emrakul/Shelldock Isle These are cards I covered in Part B that would also be justifiable sideboard options. After much testing, I have found them to be fairly ineffectual. Either a Stifle, Wasteland, or Karakas (all of which are very commonly played in Legacy) can answer the Shelldock into Emrakul plan, or I simply am killed before I can attack with Emrakul. I have found, after much testing, that the focused kill with Maniac is superior. The key is to simply be prepared for creature removal and graveyard hate. Divert Excellent sideboard tactic for the same reasons it‟s a strong maindeck choice. Flusterstorm Flusterstorm is simply too good against combo and control decks to omit altogether. It is more limited in scope than Spell Pierce for example, so it is probably better in the sideboard, but Flusterstorm provides the ultimate tactic in stack control. Dark Confidant/Cabal Therapy I have found that I prefer the Dark Confidant/Therapy sideboard plan against heavy control decks. Devastation Tide removes Counterbalance from the table, and the Confidant helps you overwhelm them otherwise. Dark Confidant can be accelerated out with Rituals, and can be useful at aiding Doomsday piles. But the real kicker is this: you can put Cabal Therapy into the Doomsday piles for additional value. Check this out:

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This is a standard pile with Dark Confidant in play. The Confidant will draw you the Pact on your upkeep, and then on your draw step you draw Mental Note. You play Mental Note, dumping Therapy and Maniac into your graveyard. You flashback Therapy, sacrificing Dark Confidant, to clear out their hand before casting Unearth. It‟s incredibly difficult to stop. The other thing that‟s attractive about Dark Confidant is that your opponent might sideboard out Spell Snare given the dearth of 2 casting cost spells in your main deck. This makes Dark Confidant especially effective post-board. Rebuild/Echoing Truth I run Devastation Tide instead, because it provides more flexibility. Stax decks are also very fringe in Legacy at this moment. Massacre/Dread of Night/Death Mark/Engineered Plague All of these options are attractive options, but ultimately I prefer Massacre. Massacre is the cheapest of these options, and has only one key disadvantage: it can‟t be played if Gaddock Teeg is in play. Otherwise, it‟s golden. Your mileage may vary. Surgical Extraction/Extirpate/Leyline of the Void/Bojuka Bog/Nihil Spellbomb/Tormod’s Crypt There are a range of graveyard hate needs: Dredge, Reanimator, and other graveyard decks require dedicated graveyard answers. I could elaborate on the reasons for or against almost any one of these potential answers. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. Leyline and Nihil Spellbomb are particularly attractive given the fact that I have Rituals and need draws to win the game, respectively. To be quite honest, I‟m not sure which set of four anti-graveyard cards is best. My testing, oddly enough, suggests that Bojuka Bog may be the best option. The reason is simple: it taps for mana. I can play Bojuka Bogs on consecutive turns, and then hard cast a Doomsday with enough life to win the game the next turn. Dredge players and even Reanimator players often lead their first turn with a Careful Study or Breakthrough. I would also consider bringing in a Bojuka Bog in a matchup that has lots of land destruction. You can use Bojuka Bog as another land. The ideal sequence against Dredge may just be

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turn one and two Bojuka Bogs followed by turn three Doomsday for a turn three win. I realize that Leyline is more efficient, and I‟m not convinced that Leyline isn‟t just better against Dredge, but I like the fact that Bog taps for mana. Surgical Extraction seems more versatile against things like control or Reanimator, but it‟s obviously less effective against Dredge. Nihil Spellbomb might simply offer the best combination of answers. Here are my sideboarding plans, and for reference one more time, my decklist: Meandeck Doomsday, by Stephen Menendian Business (36) 4 Doomsday 1 Laboratory Maniac 1 Unearth 1 Mental Note 4 Sensei‟s Divining Top 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Force of Will 2 Misdirection 1 Pact of Negation 3 Spell Pierce 2 Divert 1 Darkblast Mana Sources (24) 4 Dark Ritual 2 Cabal Ritual 4 Polluted Delta 2 Flooded Strand 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Underground Sea 3 Island 2 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Devastation Tide 3 Flusterstorm 2 Massacre 4 Dark Confidant 1 Cabal Therapy 3 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Echoing Truth Matchup UR & RUG Delver Blue Control Maverick Dredge Combo

In +3 Flusterstorm +1 Devastation Tide +4 Dark Confidant +1 Cabal Therapy

+2 Massacre +1 Devastation Tide +1 Echoing Truth

+3 Nihil Spellbomb +3 Flusterstorm +1 Echoing Truth

+3 Flusterstorm

Out -2 Cabal Ritual -1 Darkblast

-2 Cabal Ritual -1 Darkblast -3 Gitaxian Probe -1 Ponder

-2 Cabal Ritual -2 Gitaxian Probe

-2 Cabal Ritual -1 Darkblast -2 Misdirection -2 Gitaxian Probe

-1 Darkblast -2 Cabal Ritual

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 30

VI. Playing Meandeck Maniac Doomsday Playing Meandeck Maniac Doomsday may seem much easier than playing many Legacy or Vintage combo decks, but that doesn‟t make this deck easy to play. In addition to all of the usual skills of manipulating a Blue deck, there are a few key principles for play that I thought I would share with you that should help you make the right plays more consistently. The first principle of play that you should follow is the simple, but often badly executed, principle of mana stability. Your goal in the first two turns is to get a Swamp and an Island into play. In general, you don‟t want to play an Underground Sea unless absolutely necessary. Wasteland is the most played card in Legacy, so don‟t make the mistake of playing into it frivolously. The ideal sequence of land production is probably something like this: Turn 1: Island. Turn 2: Swamp. Turn 3: Underground Sea (and win). The reason I prefer this sequence is that begins with Island is because it facilitates a broader range of turn one plays, such as Ponder, Brainstorm, Gitaxian Probe, and Sensei‟s Divining Top. Swamp is, however, an acceptable Turn 1 play, especially if you are casting a Top that turn. The fetchland configuration is designed to help you get two basic lands into play on the first two turns. What you want to avoid is a situation where you play Doomsday, with the minimum requirements of mana in play for winning the game next turn, only to have one of your lands destroyed by a Wasteland. So, for example, suppose you play turn two Doomsday, and you have a third land in hand. Your plan is to win the game on turn three with just enough mana. If they Wasteland an Underground Sea in play, you will no longer be able to win next turn. It‟s for that reason that you often want Sea to be your final land drop. Otherwise, Sea is here simply for general mana stability. There will be times when you can‟t avoid a turn one Sea. You may be holding a Swamp and a Sea in hand. These hands are keepable, especially if you have Ponder or Tops in hand. What I am describing is the optimal sequence, and the sequence you should execute whenever possible. The second major principle of play is knowing which hands to keep. As a general rule, you should not keep a hand that doesn‟t have a Doomsday, Brainstorm, Ponder, or Top in it. You will want at least one of these cards in hand. So, for example, I would not usually keep a hand that looks like this:

A hand like this might be quite tempting, but it‟s simply unreliable. Barring extreme circumstances, I cannot think of a hand that I would consider keepable that didn‟t have one of the four cards I already

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listed in it, pre-board. The simple reason is that your chances of being able to execute your combo in the near term are too slim, despite the degree of disruption such a hand might have. The third piece of guidance I will share is that you need to carefully and efficiently manage your draw spells. This largely involves careful and efficient sequencing. So for example, if you have a hand that has Top, Ponder, and Brainstorm, you need to be very careful to use these cards in a way that maximizes the quantity of cards you will see in the shortest amount of time possible. This will also depend upon what shuffling effects you have in hand. Example 1: Suppose your opening hand is:

How might you sequence these spells and land drops? I‟m not sure I can provide you with an exact answer to this question, but the general rule you want to follow is that you would like to see fresh cards or at least 2 new cards every time you play Ponder or Brainstorm. For that reason, I prefer to lead with Ponder, and then play Brainstorm next. You would have the chance to shuffle after Ponder or the turn after Ponder, depending on the cards you want to draw and keep. Example 2: Suppose your opening hand is:

How might you sequence these spells and land drops?

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This example is a bit more clear cut. I would sequence the land drops with the Swamp being played first, so that you can cast Top. I would then activate Top on upkeep to look at the top 3 cards, searching for a Doomsday. If you don‟t see a Doomsday, I would play turn two Delta into Island, and cast Brainstorm or activate Top yet again. The fourth piece of advice is to simply think through the situation. Always keep in mind the requirements of winning, and consider what resistance you might face. Don‟t, for example, walk into a Daze when you don‟t have to. Play around Plow if possible. What‟s so brilliant about this deck is how resilient it is to creature removal. In the ideal case, you simply respond to the removal by triggering Maniac. All you need to do is have a draw trigger (or protection spell) ready for each piece of removal. The final piece of guidance I wish to convey is perhaps the most important: Patience. If your opponent has no board pressure, there is no need to combo out as quickly as possible if waiting is going to allow you to protect the combo more vigorously. It‟s only when your opponent is applying pressure that you need to execute Doomsday quickly. Ironically, it‟s often better to let your opponent damage you and attack you a lot before playing Doomsday. This is because playing Doomsday causes you to lose half your life. It‟s ideal to take as much damage before playing Doomsday to minimize the amount of life you lose from Doomsday. So, for example, if your opponent attacks you to 12, Doomsday will only take you to 6. But if you are 18 life, Doomsday will take you to 9. It‟s better to give your opponent an attack or two and build a better defense than to try to Doomsday and risk being critically disrupted. If your opponent has no board pressure at all, or is just attacking with a 1/1 creature, work to build up an enormous defense before even bothering to execute Doomsday. Create a situation where you can do everything either in one turn or with maximum protection. Just remember that you have more disruption than any other deck, and you have a greater density of disruption given your card draw and library manipulation.

VII. Conclusion I have but a few superlatives to describe how amazing this deck is. It‟s broken, bonkers, ridiculous, and insane. It‟s fast, efficient, compact, disruptive, and incredibly resilient. I can easily see this deck causing not just waves in the metagame, but even becoming one of the favorites among Legacy experts and Magic pros generally for the opportunities for skillful play. That said, if this deck picks up steam, there are threats that will have to be addressed. A well timed Thought Scour on your library from an opponent or an Extirpate could heavily disrupt the piles you‟ve so carefully constructed. The good news is that you can still play around them to some degree. The brilliance of the Maniac kill is not just that it is so compact, but that it is so resilient! It attacks the game from an utterly unique angle. You can not only build in plenty of disruption to protect your kill, but you can draw up contingency plans to the end of the earth. If your opponent tries to disrupt you, you can just hard cast Maniac, protect it, and win when you can‟t draw any more cards. It‟s little wonder I‟ve had so much fun designing and developing this deck. The only sad part is that my baby is now public domain. My months and months of hard work and toil are now for your benefit. Whenever I work this hard on a deck – and that only happens a few times a year at most – it‟s a labor of love. That‟s why I play Eternal, and likely why you do as well. I‟ve enjoyed this deck so much that I‟ve practically ignored Vintage for several months now. I‟ve had far more fun playing Legacy than perhaps any time since the original Flash Hulk deck. There is no upcoming Grand Prix I may attend to unleash this on, and I can‟t guarantee that metagame shifts in the future will

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be as accommodating to this deck as the current metagame is. That‟s one of the reasons I offer this now. But rest assured, I will be playing this deck with you for the foreseeable future. This is the kind of deck that is endlessly entertaining for the kinds of amazing game situations and brilliant Doomsday scenarios that it offers. You will never get bored thinking through Doomsday scenarios and impressing your opponents and spectators alike. It‟s a deck that rewards practice and experience, and that grows with you as a player. Even better, it‟s a deck that will cause you to grow while you play it. I hope you have as much fun as I have had. Strike while the iron is hot! One last note: I would recommend avoiding sharing this deck with friends or the temptation to spread this article to random people on the Internet. You‟ve spent good money on this article and on this piece technology. If you pirate this article, you will be the one losing the most value from it. The fewer people that read this article means the greater value you will derive as a reader, and a player of this deck. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me here or give me a shout on Twitter. Until next time, Stephen Menendian @SMenendian on Twitter

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So Many Insane Plays – Legacy Doomsday Device Primer Supplement First of all, I want to thank all of you for taking an interest is this amazing deck, and thank all of those who contacted me by social media or otherwise. I not only had great fun designing and developing this deck, but playing it and getting to watch other people enjoy it as much as I have. As is so often the case, last minute changes to my deck were made. Big tournament focus often leads to developments or improvements that can‟t be forced otherwise, and this deck was no exception. In this supplement, I will explain those changes and provide a few other critical tips for play, as well some other useful commentary.

How to Efficiently Resolve Doomsday The night before SCG Columbus, where I decided to unveil this deck to the public, I wasn‟t out having drinks with friends. Instead, I was in my bedroom at my desk practicing Doomsday piles. I ran through 21 situations before deciding to go to sleep. That practice was designed to accomplish at least two things. First, I wanted to be adept at resolving Doomsday, and to be able to resolve Doomsday as quickly as possible in a tournament setting so that there was no complaint or concern over slow play. Second, I wanted to make sure I could quickly think through different situations and different needs. Let me provide you with a quick tip on how I resolve Doomsday that I used throughout the tournament and developed and honed the night before. When you cast Doomsday, and your opponent indicates it resolves, first put your graveyard onto your library. Then, make sure you have some room directly in front of you. You may need to move your permanents to one side of the playing area or the battlefield. Next, make two piles. First, go through and remove the following three cards: Laboratory Maniac, Mental Note, and Unearth. These three cards go into the first pile. Then, either after you have pulled out those three cards or while you are pulling out those three cards, pull out, and put into a second pile, at least these four cards: Brainstorm, Gitaxian Probe, Pact of Negation, and an Underground Sea. These are four most common cards you build around the first three. I have found this to be the fastest and most effective way to physically create your Doomsday piles. Pile 1 has the three key cards (unless one is in your hand), and Pile 2 has the most common cards you‟ll put into the Doomsday piles. This shouldn‟t take but more than 30 or so seconds to create these two piles. Then, pick up both piles and start creating your stack. Obviously, you will order it Mental Note above Maniac above Unearth. The only other question is what you put in between and above or beneath them. The most common stacks are as follows.

PILE 1 PILE 2

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Note: a very commonly used variant of this stack with Gitaxian Probe instead of Pact of Negation is: Brainstorm, Mental Note, Probe, Maniac, Unearth

I would say these three piles make up well more than 50% of all the piles you would normally create with Doomsday. It‟s for that reason that those 7 cards are the cards you want to pull out first, and in the piles I mentioned. The last pile is a pile you make when you are going to win the same turn you play Doomsday and you have a fetchland in play or you are about to play.

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The first two piles are more common piles you use after you pass the turn. The first pile is there to exchange Pact for an extraneous card in your hand. The second pile makes sure you have a draw trigger (in this case Gitaxian Probe) after resolving Unearth. It‟s for speed when you‟ve spent all your other resources and you have plenty of countermagic or protection in hand.

Updates and Sideboard Changes for StarCityGames Columbus Legacy Open The day before the tournament, Brian Demars called me with some suggestions for my deck. Months before, Doug Linn had suggested Spellskite for my sideboard, but I had unfairly dismissed the card as too slow and inefficient. Brian sold me on the card, and convinced me to cut the three Flusterstorms from my sideboard for two Spellskites and a second Cabal Therapy. The Spellskites were golden for me all day at the tournament, and I wish I had a third. Spellskite does so many important things. First, it protects the Maniac. It can suck up two burn spells or one Plow spell for just two life or a Blue mana. Second, it can disrupt the opponent in other ways, like redirecting the effect of a Scryb Ranger or a Grim Lavamancer. Third, it‟s just a giant wall. It‟s incredible against Maverick, which can‟t really get over it aside from Knight of the Reliquary, and which Mother of Runes can‟t protect from either. It can block their creatures up until the final turn where it can block and protect the combo. It‟s a great wall against almost everything else. It‟s also really useful to have a creature like this in play because it activates your Misdirections and Diverts when your opponent has no creatures in play. My favorite play is turn three Spellskite, and when they try to Plow it or burn it, Diverting the last burn spell or plow to their creatures. What a blow out! Going forward, I probably wouldn‟t play less than 3 Spellskite in the sideboard. The other change was adding the second Cabal Therapy. When I shared the Cabal Therapy plan with Brian, he was really impressed. You‟ll recall that the stack with Dark Confidant in play is:

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So you‟ll begin the turn by revealing Pact of Negation to the Dark Confidant trigger, then drawing and casting Mental Note (dumping the Cabal Therapy into the graveyard along with Maniac), and you then flash Therapy back, sacrificing the Dark Confidant in play. Brian pointed out that there might be some games where I‟ve exiled one of my Therapies, and I‟d definitely want a second to find with Doomsday. Then, in testing, it was evident to me how insane Therapy is against the combo decks in the format. They all need to accumulate their combos in hand: High Tide, Sneak, Show and Tell, even Tendrils Doomsday. With 4 Gitaxian Probe, it‟s truly insane. In my second round of the SCG tournament, I was playing against High Tide. In game two I opened the game with: Turn One: Cast Gitaxian Probe, seeing two High Tides in opponent‟s hand. Play Underground Sea into Dark Ritual, cast Cabal Therapy naming High Tide, and cast Dark Confidant. Suffice to say, I won the game. The sideboard plan against combo decks was something like this: -1 Gitaxian Probe -2 Cabal Ritual -2 Ponder +3 Dark Confidant +2 Cabal Therapy

Updated Decklist Meandeck Doomsday, By Stephen Menendian Business (36) 4 Doomsday 1 Laboratory Maniac 1 Unearth 1 Mental Note 4 Sensei‟s Divining Top 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Force of Will 2 Misdirection 1 Pact of Negation 3 Spell Pierce 2 Divert 1 Darkblast Mana Sources (24) 4 Dark Ritual 2 Cabal Ritual 4 Polluted Delta 2 Flooded Strand 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Underground Sea 3 Island 2 Swamp

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Sideboard (15) 2 Massacre 3 Spellskite 4 Dark Confidant 2 Cabal Therapy 3 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Devastation Tide/Echoing Truth This is the list I would have run if I had played the tournament again, and the list I would recommend going forward. Against some decks, you might just want the entire creature package, bringing in 7 creatures and 2 Cabal Therapies, but more testing will bear out those scenarios. A number of other things occurred to me over the course of the tournament. I felt very comfortable with the configuration I ran, but I could imagine how some folks would be more comfortable if the deck, for example, had another Pact of Negation. Feel free to experiment with what makes you comfortable.

My StarCityGames Columbus Legacy Open Round 5 Feature Match If you haven‟t had a chance to watch it, please watch my video feature match from the StarCityGames Columbus Legacy Open Round 5 by clicking the link below (it begins at the 6:39:00 mark): http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/320234415 In the first game, I made a critical mistake. See if you can spot it (the commentators didn‟t). Watch it again now… Did you catch it? The commentators went out of their way to suggest that if my opponent hadn‟t been Jedi mind-tricked that he should have just waited to Plow my Maniac. However, did you see the error I made? On turn four, the turn I played Doomsday, I played a Polluted Delta and fetched out a Swamp, giving me two Swamps and two Islands in play on the battlefield. Given that I was holding Force of Will and Spell Pierce, that made no sense, since I was going to make one of the standard piles from above: Brainstorm Mental Note Pact of Negation Laboratory Maniac Unearth In order to play Spell Pierce, Brainstorm, Mental Note, and Unearth, I need UUUB, and I fetched out a Swamp giving myself UUBB. Because I blundered in fetching out the wrong land, I wasn‟t able to both play Spell Pierce and Pact of Negation to counter both his Plows (which I knew were in his hand from an earlier Probe). Yet, that was exactly my plan going into the Doomsday. That game is a cautionary tale for making sure that you have precisely calculated your mana needs before you play Doomsday. Had I simply fetched out the correct mana source, I easily win that game without any controversy. Give yourself a hand if you correctly identified the fetchland error. You are well on your way to playing this deck in a tournament with success.

Be Aggressive I lost at least two game 1‟s, and two matches as a result, by playing too conservatively when I didn‟t know what my opponent was playing. I will talk more about this in my full tournament report (which I hope to write in the near future *fingers crossed*), but don‟t be timid about playing Doomsday. Doomsday almost

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So Many Insane Plays – The Legacy Doomsday Device Primer - 39

never gets countered anyway. The only thing that matters is protecting yourself and your combo post-Doomsday.

Beating Graveyard Hate One question I keep hearing over and over again is how do you beat Surgical Extraction, Tormod‟s Crypt, or Leyline of the Void? With ease. As an example from the tournament, I Diverted a Surgical Extraction onto my opponents fetchland (when he had a Knight of the Reliquary in play). And in the second game, when my opponent had Tormod‟s Crypt, I just played double Dark Ritual Doomsday Maniac on the penultimate turn. It‟s very easy to build a pile to beat graveyard hate. In fact, you should be prepared for graveyard hate post-board. All you need to do is have a Ritual in hand or two more mana. This was discussed in the full primer, where I showed this pile.

But perhaps the more common pile would be simply to Mental Note into the Maniac, with a pile like this: Mental Note Blank Blank Gitaxian Probe Laboratory Maniac You just cast Mental Note (binning two cards), then draw into Probe off Mental Note, and then cast Probe to draw Laboratory Maniac.

Winning on Turn Two Finally, and I don‟t think I mentioned this in the article, but you can play Doomsday on turn two or earlier. You just need to be very careful about doing it. If you play Doomsday on turn 1, you probably want to have at least 2 other lands in hand. You can win on turn 2. It looks like this:

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Turn 1: Play Polluted Delta into Swamp into Dark Ritual into Doomsday. Turn 2: Draw Mental Note and cast it, binning Maniac and a blank, drawing Unearth. Cast Unearth returning Maniac to play. Cast Gitaxian Probe to trigger Maniac and win the game. All you need to win the game on turn two with a turn one Doomsday is a second land and a Gitaxian Probe. Note that you can also win on turn two by playing Doomsday on turn two. It looks like this: Turn 1: Land, go (or play a cantrip or a Top). Turn 2: Play land, cast Dark Ritual into Dark Ritual into Doomsday. Cast Probe into Mental Note. Cast Mental Note binning Maniac, drawing Unearth. Cast Unearth returning Maniac to play. Cast Sensei‟s Divining Top and activate it or play another Probe. Notice that winning on turn two requires at least one Probe for either scenario. Although very risky and generally not recommended, you can also just play Doomsday on turn one, and then pass twice. It looks like this: Turn 1: Play land into Dark Ritual into Doomsday. Turn 2: Draw Force of Will or another counterspell. Play a land. Turn 3: Draw Mental Note, and play it, binning Maniac and a blank, drawing Unearth. Play Probe or a land + cantrip, or activate Top to trigger Maniac and win the game. I hope this supplement helps! As always, please contact me at @SMenendian on Twitter or reply here if you have any questions!

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So Many Insane Plays – Doomsday: The Puzzling – Five Puzzles to Blow Your Mind! - 1

So Many Insane Plays - Doomsday: The Puzzling – Five Puzzles to Blow Your Mind!

Introduction As a lover of the game of Magic, I must also enjoy puzzles. Seen from a certain point of view, almost any game state within Magic can be viewed as a puzzle. You decipher relevant information from scattered clues. You employ deductive logic to eliminate choices and narrow your options. Induction, also, is a part of Magic: guessing what your opponent might have in hand based upon what is likely in their deck, and based on what they’ve played so far. Every game state, every battlefield, and every scenario invites us to perceive more than is apparent – to delve below the surface, acquire insight, and thereby secure victory. One of my favorite Duelist columns was Mark Rosewater’s The Puzzling. Inquest Magazine also featured a similar column. The most memorable columns presented situations so dire and grim that defeat seemed imminent, and nothing you could do would possibly prevent it. Yet, as fun, intricate, and compelling as these exercises were, there was always an element of unreality to them. They resembled Magic, but they didn’t feel like a normal game of Magic. The situations were often so absurd and far-fetched that it strained the imagination to think that they might actually arise even in casual play. A good measure of suspension of disbelief accompanied most of the good Rosewater puzzles. The best puzzles are the ones that not only stretch our minds and challenge our intellects, but do so in an environment or context that is believable and relevant. Fortunately, Eternal formats supply such a context. The Eternal player, especially the combo pilot, can distill the basic elements of a game in the terms of a puzzle: an opponent’s countermagic and disruption, your limited mana and resources, and a single turn or two to manipulate your cards. These elements eliminate lines of play and narrow your decision trees to the most exacting and precise branch. The relevant aspects of an opponent’s deck can often be reduced to a series of simple questions. What is your plan if your opponent has Force of Will? How do you beat a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben? How do you play around Tormod’s Crypt? And so on. And so it is possible to devise puzzles that are not only challenging and interesting, but also realistic and pedagogical. For your entertainment and education I have devised five puzzles of increasing difficulty for the Legacy Doomsday pilot. One of my favorite aspects of the game is solving real world puzzles. I hope you enjoy these as much I would.

Meandeck Maniac Doomsday In late 2011, I began developing a new strategic approach to Legacy Doomsday, just as I had done in Vintage. Innistrad’s Laboratory Maniac offered the most natural Doomsday victory condition ever printed. Doomsday creates the conditions for winning the game with Maniac, while also tutoring for the Maniac and the tools to play, protect, and trigger it. With the library manipulation and powerful mana acceleration available in Vintage, I was able to create a deck that is capable of winning the game almost immediately after resolving Doomsday. All that was needed was a Gush in hand and two Islands (or blue dual lands) in play. In Legacy, a similar set of conditions could be created. All that is needed is two mana and two draw triggers to win the game post-Doomsday. For example, using Doomsday you could stack your deck as follows:

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All you need is a way to draw the first card, a draw to trigger the Maniac, and a mana to cast both Mental Note and Unearth. Although this might be the “standard” Doomsday stack, it is not necessarily the most common. If you have one more mana available and an additional card in your hand, you can set up this pile:

This stack allows you to exchange Pact of Negation for a card in hand for one additional mana, getting you a free counterspell out of the deal. You can Brainstorm the Mental Note, Pact of Negation, and Maniac into your hand, and then put back your superfluous card and Maniac, which are then binned by

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Mental Note, which draws Unearth, which can reanimate the Maniac back into play (with an empty library). Another common variant is:

This pile allows you to win without requiring an additional mana or life to cast another Gitaxian Probe. Instead, all you need is a fetchland in play to fetch out Underground Sea (or a Swamp) after casting Mental Note, which will thin your deck by an additional card. It works like this: Step 1: Draw Mental Note. Step 2: Cast Mental Note, putting Pact of Negation and Laboratory Maniac into the graveyard, and drawing Unearth. Step 3: Activate a fetchland, putting Underground Sea into play. Step 4: Cast Unearth, returning Laboratory Maniac to play. Step 5: Use a second draw trigger to draw from an empty library, triggering Maniac to win the game. After unveiling the deck at the StarCityGames Legacy Open in Columbus, where I managed to take the deck to a Top 32 finish, I published a Legacy Doomsday Device Primer that not only explains not only how to play the deck, but provides an overview of twelve different Doomsday piles based upon cards in hand and in play. Because I was in contention for Top 8 for most of the tournament, I had several feature matches, including one that was video recorded here. Kevin Cron and I also podcasted about several Vintage and Legacy Doomsday scenarios in the So Many Insane Plays Podcast #15, if you just can’t get enough Doomsday!

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The popular response to this deck has been remarkable, and has generated relentless requests for an updated decklist. Despite repeatedly posting card updates and clues on Twitter and on The Source, people keep asking, so let me get this out of the way now. Meandeck Maniac Doomsday, Updated 10/15/2012 By Stephen Menendian Business (37) 4 Doomsday 1 Laboratory Maniac 1 Unearth 1 Mental Note 1 Predict 4 Sensei’s Divining Top 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Force of Will 1 Misdirection 1 Pact of Negation 3 Spell Pierce 3 Flusterstorm 1 Chain of Vapor Mana Sources (23) 4 Dark Ritual 1 Cabal Ritual 4 Polluted Delta 2 Flooded Strand 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Underground Sea 3 Island 2 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Devastation Tide 2 Massacre 4 Dark Confidant 2 Cabal Therapy 3 Spellskite 3 Nihil Spellbomb Let me briefly review the changes from the original versions of the deck presented in the Legacy Doomsday Device Primer. Predict I included a Predict almost immediately after SCG Columbus. Predict is essential. Predict chiefly serves two roles in this deck. First, Predict is a source of early or mid-game card advantage. For example, a turn one Ponder or Brainstorm followed by a turn two Predict will net you a card, and dig you deeper into your library. It’s also an instant, which means you can play it on your opponent’s end step, and not have to choose between holding up

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countermagic for their main phase and generating card advantage. Second, Predict can play the role of Brainstorm and Mental Note in a Doomsday pile. It can put Laboratory Maniac into a graveyard, like Mental Note, but also put Pact of Negation into your hand, like Brainstorm. Predict is very much like Mental Note: it digs you through 3 cards on top of your library, but puts two of them into your hand instead of just one (albeit for an additional mana). One standard Predict pile looks like this:

Or, if you have a fetchland in hand or play it might look like this:

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There are many other possibilities with Predict, but those are some of the more important ones to bear in mind. Observe, however, that Predict alters requirements of winning from UB mana + 2 draw triggers to UB1 mana + 2 draw triggers. Predict costs one more mana, but makes up for it in terms of card advantage, so it is not just a useful tool, but essential. It creates solutions that otherwise do not exist to various predicaments. It also allows you to pitch Mental Note to Force of Will or Misdirection because you have an additional way to go off post-Doomsday without having to hard cast Maniac. The density of library manipulation and the value of having a Predict in hand when you cast Doomsday means that Predict is rarely, if ever, a bad draw. That suggests that a second Predict might be a worthwhile inclusion. I’m inclined to agree, except that I cannot decide on what I would cut for it. Chain of Vapor The previous version of this deck used a Darkblast as both spot removal and situational, post-Doomsday library dredging. Darkblast helped kill Grim Lavamancer, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and other pesky creatures. While Darkblast is useful, I have since turned to Chain of Vapor instead. Chain of Vapor is blue, and is more versatile in that it can remove a wider range of disruptive threats. Chain of Vapor can also bounce my own permanents, which is surprisingly important. Flusterstorm Perhaps the most divisive inclusion in my earlier list was Divert. I used Divert as a way to generate card advantage, by redirecting a burn spell or other removal spell to an opposing creature, and to resolve or counter key spells. However, the continuing rise of Show and Tell decks illustrated the need for more ‘hard’ counters. Flusterstorm fits that bill. It not only counters Show and Tell, but it makes it almost impossible for them to protect it with their own counterspell protection. Flusterstorm is an ideal counterspell for Show and Tell and combo-heavy environments. I have not definitively settled on the particular configuration of countermagic that I believe is optimal. I would like 2 Misdirection, especially if Abrupt Decay sees significant play in Legacy. Flusterstorm is best in an environment heavy with Show and Tell, and Spell Pierce is just more flexible overall. I have even considered adding a single Duress or Thoughtseize maindeck again, since it could be part of a Doomsday pile, and help prepare you for Cabal Therapy post-board. Not to mention it could trigger an advantageous counter-war. These are things that you should consider as you tailor the deck to your own needs and metagame. Lotus Petal In my original Primer, I discussed Lotus Petal in the context of additional accelerants, and explained that I ultimately settled on Cabal Ritual instead, after vigorous testing. I have not yet made the leap, but there may be a case for a singleton Lotus Petal. People have sometimes suggested Lotus Petal, but often, their Doomsday piles are not properly built. For example, putting a Lotus Petal into a Doomsday pile with Brainstorm does not make much sense since you could have substituted the Brainstorm with Gitaxian Probe. By way of example, suppose you created this Doomsday pile:

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Here, you draw Brainstorm, say with a Gitaxian Probe in hand, and play Brainstorm, essentially exchanging a card in hand with Petal, by drawing Note, Petal, Maniac, and putting back Maniac and a card in hand. Then, you cast Mental Note, Petal, and Unearth. Had you just put Probe in the Brainstorm slot, you would not have needed the Petal to play Unearth in the first place. However, there may be a number of corner cases in which a Lotus Petal would actually solve otherwise unwinnable situations. Here are some: 1) If you already have Mental Note or Unearth in hand, but are one mana short from winning this turn and already played a land. You could put Petal in the slot of one of those cards, just as you normally would put Pact of Negation. 2) You need to use Brainstorm anyway because, for example, you have Laboratory Maniac in hand, but again, you have already played your land for the turn. 3) You already have Brainstorm in hand, and it’s your first post-Doomsday draw, and you will need the Petal to win this turn because you have already played a land for the turn. Credit is due to Brandon Adams for making me think more about these corner cases. You should consider how relevant these corner cases are to you, and how often they might arise.

*** The reader response to my Legacy Doomsday deck has been gratifying and humbling. On the other hand, I’ve been disappointed that no one has thus far managed to put up a Top 8 finish with this archetype on the SCG circuit, since I believe it is capable of doing so. These puzzles should not only provide hours of entertainment and fun, but they should help collectively improve our skills with this archetype in the process. Please resist the urge to skip ahead to the solution to a given puzzle without trying to really crack it first! Creating puzzles like this is a labor of love and a rare treat – so take your time to work through them and enjoy the fruits of your efforts! Not only will it be so much more rewarding to you, but you will get much more out of this article if you force yourself to create the neural pathways and connections with this archetype as you work through these progressively challenging puzzles I’ve devised for you. Enjoy!

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So Many Insane Plays – Doomsday: The Puzzling – Five Puzzles to Blow Your Mind! - 8

Puzzle 1: “Expect the Expected” (Difficulty: EASY) It’s the second round of your local Legacy tournament. Your opponent, Dale, is playing Legacy Burn. You were afraid of this matchup, and your fears have been justified. Although you have a fast combo kill, it also eats up half of your life, leaving you in an especially precarious position. Dale has thrown all of the burn he can at your head, and yet you are still standing at 6 life. Dale has a Keldon Marauders in play and two tapped Mountains.

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It’s now your third turn, and your hand is a single Gitaxian Probe, and your board has two Islands, a Swamp, and a Sensei’s Divining Top in play. You cast Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Doomsday (with BBBB floating), falling to 3 life, and your opponent rather clumsily and hastily announces a Fireblast at your head, sacrificing two Mountains, despite the fact that he clearly doesn’t have priority. You let him put it on the stack anyway by giving him priority because you anticipated this play. In fact, you planned for it. You knew that if he had a Fireblast in hand, the only way to win this game was to let him play Fireblast before you tried to draw the first card from your Doomsday stack. Sometimes, when playing Doomsday, you have to set and gently nudge your opponent into traps, letting your opponent make intuitive, but incorrect plays, knowing that’s the only way you can win. What Doomsday stack did you build, and how do you stop Dale from killing you and win the game this turn? For the solution to Puzzle 1, please see page 19 of this article.

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Puzzle 2: "In Search of a Solution" (Difficulty: MEDIUM) Your opponent Teddy is playing Maverick (G/W Aggro), and he has a smug look on this face. You trounced him in the first game, but now he’s onto your plan. And he’s got the perfect answer. He played turn one Noble Hierarch to accelerate into a turn two Aven Mindcensor, which you couldn’t Flusterstorm or Spell Pierce, and you didn’t have a Force of Will in hand to stop. Aven Mindcensor is devastating because it prevents you from searching for the parts you need to win the game with Doomsday. Teddy’s got you cornered, and you can tell that he knows it. He’s clearly enjoying this game, savoring it as he squeezes the life out of you. You dropped a second turn Sensei’s Divining Top, and started using the Top to try to and make sure you can use your fetch lands to actually find land before using them, and perhaps even get lucky and dig up your singleton Chain of Vapor or pair of Massacres, which you haven’t yet seen, but brought in post-board. Teddy played a Knight of the Reliquary on turn 3, and started swinging with it and with Mindcensor while you spun Top looking for a Doomsday. All you were able to find was a Laboratory Maniac, which you played anyway, in the hope that you might be able to find a Doomsday before he kills you, and randomly win despite the Mindcensor. You countered his Swords to Plowshares on your Maniac with Force of Will, but his Knight of the Reliquary is growing and has you on the ropes.

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Last turn, you were finally forced to block his 6/6 Knight with your Maniac since you were at 8 life, and have now fallen to 6 due to being pecked at by the Mindcensor. Your opponent has just 1 card in hand now, and you think it may be a Swords to Plowshares, which you infer he didn’t want to use unless he had to, anticipating you would block anyway.

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Your graveyard contains: Polluted Delta, Brainstorm, Force of Will, Gitaxian Probe, Laboratory Maniac. On Teddy’s end step, you spun the Top to see these three cards (two of which are new to you – since you cast Probe last turn after Topping to try and dig deeper into your library): Underground Sea Mental Note Doomsday You are incredibly relieved to see a Doomsday! Unfortunately, your reflexive happiness is tempered by the conscious realization that it is too late. It is too late to cast Doomsday with Laboratory Maniac in play, which was your long standing plan. Given the board and your hand, what line of play gives you the best chance to win this game, defeat Teddy, and win the match? For the solution to Puzzle 2, please see page 21 of this article.

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Puzzle 3: "Off the Top!" (Difficulty: HARD) Your opponent, Randall, is very well known to you. It can be said, fairly, that he is your nemesis. He seems to have your number because you have never beaten him. The last time you faced him, he knocked you out of the Top 8. He has a reputation for playing the best decks, and he’s playing RUG Delver now, convinced he's going to smash you yet again. You want to prove him otherwise, yet how can you wipe that smirk off his face?

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Randall is sitting pretty. He has two flipped Delver of Secrets (Insectile Aberration), as well as a 3/4 Tarmogoyf on the battlefield. Unfortunately, you are at a precarious 8 life, and are dead on board to his next attack! Your opponent has four cards in his hand, and you have seen a Force of Will and Spell Snare earlier in the game with Gitaxian Probe. You are convinced he has sculpted a very good hand for this situation to counter your deck’s goal: Force of Will, a blue spell, Spell Snare, and probably a Lightning Bolt as well. You won the roll, and played first. It is now your fifth turn’s first main phase. You have played a land every turn so far except this one, and you have 4 cards in your graveyard. Your battlefield looks like this:

You have used your card draw and a bit of time to sculpt your hand and finally find a Doomsday, which, thanks to a recent Ponder, is now sitting on the top of your library. Unfortunately, your opponent is on the verge of winning the game before you can use it! It is game one of your match. Assume your opponent has Force of Will, a blue card, Spell Snare, and a Lightning Bolt in hand. How do you win this game and defeat Randall for the first time? For the solution to Puzzle 3, please see page 23 of this article.

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Puzzle 4: "The Arcane Laboratory Maniac" (Difficulty: VERY HARD) It is the first round of your first Legacy tournament, and although you have never played Doomsday before, you have been practicing every day. Doomsday seemed like the most interesting and fun Legacy deck you came across in your meandering examination of the format, and so far, your expectations have been met. You tested the deck, read everything you could find about it, and felt completely prepared. Unfortunately, you were not prepared for this situation! In game one, everything went as planned, and you quickly dispatched your opponent, Jason. However, Jason was ready to fight you in game two. He played an early Ethersworn Canonist to slow you down and make it impossible for you to combo out quickly, followed a few turns later by a Gaddock Teeg to take most of your pitch countermagic out of the equation, as well as Massacre. Of course, as is the case in situations like this, you drew a Force of Will shortly afterward.

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On the other hand, you managed to scrabble together some measure of defense in the meantime, with a Spellskite to block on the ground and a Sensei’s Divining Top that’s helped you sculpt your hand without turning off your counterspell defenses (since these artifacts can be played without counting towards your per turn spell limitations of the Canonist). However, these tactics are now clearly insufficient. Gaddock Teeg is responsible for shutting down half of your hand, and Jason has just resolved Knight of the Reliquary, which will do serious damage in short order. His Knight is large, in charge, and about to start crashing across your ramparts. After Topping for multiple turns, you were surprised to see Laboratory Maniac. You cast Laboratory Maniac last turn. You had been holding Doomsday, and having Laboratory Manic already in play may give you a slim chance to win this game, provided you can protect it!

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Your opponent’s last move was a Knight of the Reliquary, which has just entered the battlefield as a 5/5, and you know that the last card in his hand is a Swords to Plowshares. Assume the top of his library is either a fetchland or a Wasteland. You decide you should cast Doomsday this turn. Although he has Swords in hand, he cannot use it this turn because he is tapped out. You tap the Swamp and two Underground Seas to cast Doomsday, going from 16 down to 8 life. What is your plan for winning? Bear in mind that you sideboarded as follows: +1 Devastation Tide +2 Massacre +3 Spellskite -2 Gitaxian Probe -3 Flusterstorm -1 Ponder For the solution to Puzzle 4, go to page 28 of this article.

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Puzzle 5: "Are You at the Top of Your Game?" (Difficulty: MASTER) It is the final round of the tournament, and you are facing your worst matchup. Win, and you are in the Top 8. Lose, and you go home. Your opponent Trent is playing UW Control. This is the quintessential Combo vs. Control matchup. Turn after turn you have sculpted your hand, and the only spells you’ve played are Sensei’s Divining Tops.

Your only certain advantage is the fact that your opponent does not know what you are playing. After some thought and a few pensive moments, Trent decided to cast Humility – a preemptive measure against a Show and Tell or a Reanimation spell you might have. He does not yet know you are on Doomsday. You decide this is the time to go for it. You’ve dug in your heels, played tight and hard, and after a brutal counter-war, in which you have completely emptied your hand, you have managed to force through and resolve your Doomsday. Nonetheless, Trent’s Humility prevents your Laboratory Maniac from winning this game. Not to mention, if the opponent untaps, he will undoubtedly be able to reload a handful of countermagic onto the stack. How can you win the game, this turn, before letting Trent untap to take control of this game once and for all? For the solution to Puzzle 5, please see page 30 of this article.

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Solution to Puzzle 1: Expect the Expected (Difficulty: EASY) The key to this solution is using Predict because it is an instant speed draw spell that can also bin the Maniac for you at the same time. Brainstorm can’t do this. Here’s the solution. Step 1: Build this Doomsday pile:

Step 2: Pay a mana to spin Top, and then tap activate Top in response, drawing Predict. Step 3: Allowing the Top “spin” to resolve, rearrange the top three cards of your library as follows: Laboratory Maniac, Sensei’s Divining Top, [blank/anything]. You have BBB mana floating. Step 4: Still in response to Fireblast, tap an Island to cast Predict, naming Maniac, and putting Maniac into the graveyard, drawing Pact and Top. You have BB mana floating. Step 5: Cast Pact of Negation targeting Fireblast. Step 6: Cast Gitaxian Probe, drawing Unearth. You are now at 1 life. Step 7: Use a black mana to cast Top, and activate it to draw Brainstorm. You have B mana floating. Step 8: Cast Unearth to bring back Laboratory Maniac. You have zero mana floating. Step 9: Tap your Island to cast Brainstorm to trigger Maniac and win the game. There are two other obvious ways to stop Fireblast. The first is to activate Top directly to draw Pact or a Misdirection. The problem with either one of those is that you will lose the next turn to his Keldon Marauders. The other obvious way to stop Fireblast is to build a Doomsday pile to Top into Brainstorm, rather than Predict. Brainstorm will draw a counter to Fireblast, but it will not win the game this turn. Regardless of what you Doomsday for, Brainstorm cannot draw Pact, Mental Note, and Maniac – all of which are needed to win – because you will have to draw the Top you put on top.

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Suppose, for example, you build this Doomsday stack:

If you activate Top to draw Brainstorm, you can Brainstorm into Top, Pact, and Mental Note, putting back Probe and Top. You can then cast Pact on Fireblast, and then cast Mental Note, binning Top and Probe, but not Maniac. You could potentially invent a solution by Brainstorming into Predict, but all you are doing is clearing one card from the top of your library for the exact same effect and for one more blue mana, which does not solve the puzzle.

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Solution to Puzzle 2: "In Search of a Solution" (Difficulty: MEDIUM) First of all, there is a deterministic solution to this puzzle – not one that relies on probability or even good luck to find the right card. So, if your solution was to try to dig for a Massacre or Chain of Vapor, go back and try again before reading on. (You didn’t think I would give you a puzzle without a clear solution, did you?) The key to the solution is realizing that Aven Mindcensor does not prevent you from searching your graveyard, only your library. Therefore you will be able to build this library, regardless of what else is on the top of your library, with components from your graveyard and the top of your library. Here’s how. Step 1: Be sure that when you resolve your Top activation on Teddy’s end step you put Doomsday on the top of your library so that you will draw it in your draw step. Step 2: In your first main phase, tap your Swamp to cast Dark Ritual, followed by Cabal Ritual, generating BBBB total mana. Step 3: Cast Doomsday, with B mana floating, going to 3 life. Build this stack:

Note that these are all cards that are either in your graveyard or on top of your library. You have not seen Unearth, so you are not able to put Unearth into a Doomsday pile. Step 4: Tap your Sensei’s Divining Top to draw Brainstorm. Step 5: Tap an Island to cast Brainstorm, drawing Top, Mental Note, and Force of Will. Put back Spell Pierce and either one of the fetchlands to the top of your library. Step 6: Tap another Island to cast Mental Note, binning both cards, drawing into Laboratory Maniac. Step 7: Play the other fetchland, and sacrifice it to put Underground Sea (which is obviously in the top 4 cards of your library – in fact, it is the only card in your library!) into play, going to 2 life. Your library is now empty.

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Step 8: Replay Sensei’s Divining Top using the B mana still floating from earlier. Step 9: Tap your last untapped Island, and both Underground Seas to cast Laboratory Maniac. Step 10: Tap Top to draw from your library (which is empty), and trigger Laboratory Maniac to win the game. If your opponent tries to Plow the Maniac, cast Force of Will pitching Flusterstorm, ending the game at 1 life. Note: If you fell for the trap of playing a fetchland first, to achieve Threshold, with Cabal Ritual the solution will not work. That was a red herring to throw you off the real solution. There are two reasons why. First, you need the Mental Note in the top 4 cards of your library when casting Doomsday. Second, you need the fetchland to thin your library post-Doomsday.

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Solution to Puzzle 3: "Off the Top!" (Difficulty: HARD) The key to solving this puzzle is to remember (or discover, depending on whether you ever knew) that Unearth cycles. This puzzle tests that critical bit of knowledge. Unless you realize that fact, you will not be able to solve this puzzle. The puzzle is set up to make you think that you will Gitaxian Probe for the Doomsday, and then Gitaxian Probe again post-Doomsday. If you were unable to solve this puzzle, it is likely because you got stuck pursuing solutions along those lines. There are good reasons to suppose that this is the correct line of play. For one thing, having Unearth in hand means that you can Mental Note into anything you want or might need. Instead of using Gitaxian Probe to draw Doomsday, the correct solution requires you to cycle Unearth to draw Doomsday. Here is the sequence that solves this puzzle. Step 1: Tap a Swamp and cast Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, generating BBBBB mana. Use two mana to cycle Unearth, drawing into Doomsday, and floating BBB mana. Step 2: Use the remaining black mana to cast Doomsday, going to 4 life. Build this library stack:

Note: the second card in the stack (depicted as Gitaxian Probe, is essentially a blank and does not matter what card it is). Step 3: Play Bloodstained Mire. Step 4: Pay 2 life to cast Gitaxian Probe, drawing Mental Note. You are now at 2 life. Step 5: Tap one of your Islands to cast Mental Note, putting the blank card and Laboratory Maniac into your graveyard, and drawing into Unearth. Step 6: Tap the second Swamp to cast Unearth. Step 7: Sacrifice the Bloodstained Mire to put Underground Sea in play.

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Step 8: Tap either the Underground Sea or your second Island to cast Gitaxian Probe to draw from your (now empty) library, triggering Laboratory Maniac to win the game. If your opponent plays Force of Will or Lightning Bolt at any point, cast Pact of Negation protected by Flusterstorm. So, for example, if your opponent plays Lighting Bolt on the Maniac when you cast the second Gitaxian Probe, play Pact of Negation. If they Force your Pact, cast Flusterstorm with your second Island or the Underground Sea (depending which you used to cast the Probe). If they try to Bolt you when you cast the first Probe, perform the same action – cast Pact protected by Flusterstorm. If you successfully solved this puzzle, congratulate yourself! If you did not, let me explain why Probing pre-Doomsday to draw Doomsday does not work. First, if you Probe before playing Doomsday, you will not have enough life to both Probe again and use a fetchland. As a general rule, the lower your life total, the less life you will lose to Doomsday. If you have 10 life points, you will lose 5 to Doomsday. But if you are at 6 life, you will lose only 3 to Doomsday. In a sense, Doomsday multiplies the life loss you’ve suffered so far. If you Probe into Doomsday, and cast it, you will have only 3 life. The Probe takes you from 8 to 6. The Doomsday will take you to 3. This means you cannot both pay life to cast a free Probe and use a fetchland. Similarly, if you try to use a fetchland before casting Doomsday, you will be in the same situation, because your life will be five pre-Doomsday, and two post-Doomsday (not enough to pay the Phyrexian Mana cost of 2 life to cast Gitaxian Probe). As long as you Doomsday before casting Probe or using Fetchland, you will only fall to 4, and be able to do both. Secondly, if you try to Probe into Doomsday, you will have to compensate for the life loss by using additional mana. This would work except that you have a very critical bottleneck. Because you need to be able to counter two spells from your opponent’s hand, you must always have at least one blue mana available for Flusterstorm. If you lack the life to cast a Gitaxian Probe with Phyrexian mana, you will need to tap a land to do so. This would normally work, except that the bottleneck will appear when you are most vulnerable to disruption. Follow the intuitive, but incorrect, sequence of Probe, Doomsday, Probe: Step 1: Play Gitaxian Probe to draw Doomsday (going to 6 life). Step 2: Tap a Swamp to cast Dark Ritual, Doomsday (going to 3 life), creating this pile: Mental Note Blank [any non combo card basically] Laboratory Maniac Brainstorm Blank (see the graphic immediately below)

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Step 3: Play Gitaxian Probe into Mental Note (going to 1 life). Step 4: Tap an Island to cast Mental Note, binning blank and Maniac, drawing whatever you want, although Brainstorm is probably ideal. Step 5: Tap a Swamp to cast Unearth, bringing Maniac back into play. Step 6: Tap your second Island to cast Brainstorm to trigger the Maniac. Note that you have one card left in your library so Top would not work here. The problem with this sequence is that it loses the game to Lightning Bolt + Force of Will, since you have no blue mana available when you cast Brainstorm. If you could thin your library by one card, you could use a Top to trigger the Maniac, which you could easily play with the second Ritual when you cast Unearth. However, you are at 1 life by the end of the sequence – not enough life to even use the Bloodstained Mire. In other words, the problem with this intuitive sequence is that you do not have the life to fetchland out the Sea as the last card, and you can’t cast Brainstorm to win the game without cutting yourself off of Flusterstorm as a consequence. A logical question would be to ask what if you fetchland before casting Doomsday? Even though you won’t be able to thin your library post-Doomsday, at least you’ll have one additional mana available to use Flusterstorm. That idea doesn’t pan out either. Observe the following sequence. Step 1: Cast Gitaxian Probe to draw Doomsday (going to 6 life). Step 2: Play Bloodstained Mire, and use it to find Underground Sea (going to 5 life). Step 3: Tap a Swamp to cast Dark Ritual, and then cast Doomsday (going to 2 life), building the same pile from Step 2 in the preceding example above above:

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Step 4: Tap an Island to hard cast Probe, drawing Mental Note. Step 5: Tap another Island to cast Mental Note, binning Blank and Maniac, drawing Brainstorm. Step 6: Tap a Swamp to cast Unearth, bringing Maniac back into play. Step 7: Tap Underground Sea to cast Brainstorm for a draw from your (now empty) library, trigger Maniac to win the game . Step 8: Potentially lose the game to Lighting Bolt + Force of Will from the opponent, since you have no blue mana available. While pre-Doomsday fetchland gives you one more mana to work with, you have to expend the mana to hard cast one of the Probes, so it’s a bad trade-off. There is a third logical possibility that some of you undoubtedly came across by putting Brainstorm on top of the Doomsday pile. Since you do not use the second Ritual in the “Probe, Doomsday, Probe” sequence, you have an extra card you can Brainstorm on top of your library in exchange for something else, like Force of Will or Misdirection. Give yourself some credit if you came up with this idea, even though you were unable to find a final solution. Here’s how it would play out: Step 1: Cast Gitaxian Probe to draw Doomsday (going to 6). Step 2: Tap a Swamp and cast Dark Ritual, Doomsday (going to 3 life), making this pile:

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So Many Insane Plays – Doomsday: The Puzzling – Five Puzzles to Blow Your Mind! - 27

Step 3: Cast Gitaxian Probe (going to 1 life), drawing Brainstorm. Step 4: Tap an Island to cast Brainstorm into Mental Note, Misdirection, and Laboratory Maniac, putting back Maniac and Dark Ritual. Step 5: Tap and Island and cast Mental Note, binning Maniac and Ritual, drawing Top. Step 6: Tap a Swamp to cast Unearth, bringing Maniac back into play. Now you can cast both Pact of Negation and Misdirection (pitching Flusterstorm), but you have no mana to play the Top. Alternatively, you could cast Dark Ritual, Unearth, Top, but then you will not have the additional blue spell in hand to cast both Misdirection and Pact. You needed the other Ritual to cast both Top and Unearth. Either way, you are forced to pass the turn and lose the game or get Bolted to death. The sequence works the same if you try to use a fetchland pre-Doomsday. Again, you are forced to use the additional mana to hard cast Probe because of the life constraints.

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Solution to Puzzle 4: "The Arcane Laboratory Maniac" (Difficulty: VERY HARD) Devastation Tide, Massacre, and Chain of Vapor are conspicuously mentioned as being in your deck post-board as red herrings. Neither Devastation Tide, Massacre, nor Chain of Vapor lead to complete solutions. Setting up Devastation Tide would be an excellent answer with Top in play, provided Gaddock Teeg was not preventing you from casting it. If not for Mr. Teeg, you might be able to activate Top to Devastation Tide the entire board on your opponent’s turn. In fact, that trick – triggering Devastation Tide as a “miracle” on your opponent’s turn with Top – was a tempting basis for a puzzle that I ultimately deciding not to use for this article. Both Gaddock Teeg and Canonist prevent you from playing Massacre this turn as well. And Massacre cannot be used at instant speed like Devastation Tide. Canonist prevents you from playing Chain of Vapor this turn as well, since Doomsday causes you to “spell out.” It is possible to set up a pile where you can Chain of Vapor Gaddock Teeg, and then Devastation Tide the rest of the board, but not in a timely manner. The relevance of a Wasteland or fetchland being on the top of your opponent’s library is the fact that he can use it to enlarge the Knight to 6 power, which also means that he will be able to kill you if he attacks with all of his creatures and you do nothing about it. You cannot suck up an alpha strike. You have to act on his turn. The first key to solving this puzzle is building a Doomsday pile that can win at instant speed while maximizing your spell wattage under the Canonist. Namely, Mental Note (or Predict) into Brainstorm. This is the general trick for defeating Canonist with Maniac in play. This sequence of spells allows you to spread out your key spells across two consecutive turns, but deny your opponent another attack step. Specifically, you have to survive an attack on your opponent’s next turn, then cast Mental Note (or Predict) on your next turn, and Brainstorm in your opponent’s upkeep to win the game after that. The problem here is that Jason can kill you before you get to your next turn. With Maniac in play, your goal is obviously to empty your library as quickly as possible and trigger the Maniac. The problem is that your opponent has a Knight of the Reliquary in play, and can potentially rush you, so you have to address his attack step first. There are two ways to do this depending on what he does. You may have come across either solution. One involves blocking with Maniac. This is counter-intuitive because it goes across the premise of the puzzle – winning as quickly as possible with Maniac in play. The other involves Chain of Vapor for one of the branches. Here’s the general solution. You cast Doomsday, and build this pile: Unearth, Mental Note, Chain of Vapor, Brainstorm, Underground Sea There are only three things he might generally do next turn: 1) nothing. 2) attack you with some or all of his creatures. 3) attempt to Plow one of your creatures. If he does nothing, then the solution is quite easy. Your Spellskite will be able to redirect the Swords to Plowshares at whatever point you need, and you need only draw one more card, use a Polluted Delta, and cast Brainstorm or a Mental Note to trigger Maniac to win the game. Specifically, you will rearrange the pile with Top on his end step to put Mental Note on top of your library. Then you will untap, draw Mental Note and cast it, binning Unearth and Chain of Vapor, drawing Brainstorm. Play Polluted Delta from your hand. Cast Brainstorm on his upkeep to win the game. If he responds with Plow, fetch out Underground Sea, and respond again with Top.

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If he attacks you first with all of his creatures, you can announce that Maniac will block the Knight and Spellskite blocks one of the other creatures. At this point, one of two things will happen. Either the Maniac will die to the Knight or he will try to Plow the Maniac here. If he attempts to Plow the Maniac, you can redirect it to the Spellskite by activating Spellskite. Untap, draw Unearth. Spin Top to put Brainstorm on top of your library. Activate Top to draw it. Play Polluted Delta, and fetch out Underground Sea. Cast Unearth on Maniac, pass the turn, and cast Brainstorm on his upkeep to win the game. If he tries to Plow the Maniac before attacking, then you simply redirect the Plow to Spellskite in the first instance, and block the Knight with Maniac to survive his attack all the same. Execute the same sequence. Draw Unearth. Activate Top to draw Brainstorm. Play Polluted Delta, and fetch out Underground Sea. Cast Unearth on Maniac, and pass the turn. Cast Brainstorm on his upkeep to win the game. You may have noticed that Chain of Vapor resolves one branch of play. You can build this pile:

If the first thing he does is to play Swords on your Maniac, you should activate Spellskite to redirect the first Swords to your Spellskite, and then, without passing priority, activate Top to draw Chain. If that resolves, cast Chain of Vapor on Knight. When Chain of Vapor resolves, he might try to copy it to bounce your Maniac or anything else. If he does, activate the Spellskite again in the same manner to redirect the Chain copy from your Maniac to your Spellskite, going to 4 life. Then, on your turn, replay the Top and play the Polluted Delta in hand. Activate the Top to draw Brainstorm. Fetch out the Underground Sea. Play Brainstorm to win the game. Another solution that you may have thought about uses Predict, with the following pile: Predict, Laboratory Maniac, Mental Note, Underground Sea, [Blank] You would cast Predict naming Maniac (binning it in the process), drawing Mental Note and Underground Sea, and then potentially casting Mental Note to win the game with Maniac in play. The reason this does not work, despite being very close, is the presence of Spell Snare in Randall’s hand that would counter your Predict.

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Solution to Puzzle 5: "Are You at the Top of Your Game?" (Difficulty: MASTER) The key to this puzzle is manipulating multiple Tops in tandem effectively and interfacing them very carefully with a very specialized and unique card in your deck: Chain of Vapor. Step 1: First, you build the following Doomsday pile:

Step 2: Then, tap three Islands floating UUU mana. Tap one Top to draw Mental Note. Cast Mental Note, binning Top and Maniac, and drawing Chain of Vapor, leaving UU mana floating. Step 3: Now things get tricky. Tap the second Top, and respond by tapping the third Top. On top of the stack, cast Chain of Vapor targeting a Top, and once that resolves, sacrifice a land to target the other Top in play, with U mana floating. Sacrifice yet another land to target the last Top. Sacrifice one more land, and this time target Humility, bouncing it to your opponent's hand. You have one land left in play. Step 4: Your two Top draw activations resolve, drawing you Unearth and Underground Sea. Step 5: Play Underground Sea to cast Unearth, targeting Laboratory Maniac. Step 6: Use your last mana to replay a Top, and tap it to win the game by triggering Laboratory Maniac! This puzzle is more potentially confusing than truly difficult, but now that you’ve learned how to interface Tops with Chain of Vapor, it will be easier to apply in real games! I would like to credit Arimind on MTGSalvation for inspiring this scenario!

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Conclusion By now you have not only learned a lot more about Doomsday, but about yourself as well. The puzzles are as much a reflection of the game as they are our thinking process. How did you approach these puzzles? What was your method of analysis? How did you organize all of the disparate strands of information? Did you aggregate all of your mana at the outset or use it bit by bit, as I represented, in the solutions? These puzzles challenged every facet of your game: your ability to think deductively and inductively, your knowledge of the card text (even minutia), obscure rules areas, and even your ability to anticipate what your opponent might do. But at the core, each puzzle turned on one key bit of information: anticipating that an opponent will try to burn you out as soon as you resolve Doomsday, recognizing that Aven Mindcensor does not prevent you from searching a graveyard, the knowledge that Unearth cycles, finding a counter-intuitive solutions under severe constraints, and finally, interfacing Chain of Vapor's copy ability with multiple Sensei's Divining Tops. These puzzles are pedagogical not because they force us to confront what we don't know, but because they teach us how to think. We have to organize our thinking in a rigorous, logical way without losing one bit of our creativity. These puzzles meld right and left brain thinking. What more could we ask for in a card game? Until next time, Stephen Menendian Author’s note: Special thanks to Brandon Adams for helping review this article for accuracy and errors. If you notice any potential errors please contact us at [email protected] ASAP. Thank you!

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