Solemnity to combo with unlife?

Solemnity as a card doesn't do enough on its own to warrant a slot. When it is comboing with Phyrexian Unlife, the life total buffer isn't very relevant as protection, and other DD decks completely ignore it.

Since this is a combo deck, there are few slots dedicated to prolonging life or anything like that. Unlife is in the list for its Ad Nauseam interaction.

As someone who's never played with/against a Doomsday deck, how would you win with it in this deck?

mad_hatter_md01

There are two main ways to win with this deck. Doomsday is the primary win-condition, and you pile with Laboratory Maniac in a way which you can run through your 5 card library in a single turn. That pile is constructed so you can draw through it, play Maniac, then draw into an empty library, and then win. Essentially, we just deck ourselves with a Maniac in play.

The other way to win involves Ad Nauseam and Angel's Grace, or AG+AN. This combo allows us to draw our deck and then play Maniac and draw to win in a similar way to Doomsday, it's just much easier since playing with your deck in hand makes life really good.

There is a way to win post-AG+AN using Windfall if you have Maniac exiled and Pull from Eternity is also useless. This happens when Maniac is hit by Praetor's Grasp. The line is as follows:

1. Draw deck

2. Cast Brainstorm to put Yawgmoth's Will and maybe Pact of Negation on top of your library (ideally though, lead with Silence before any of this)

3. Cast Windfall

4. Everyone else draws 80+ cards, you draw the two on top

5. Cast Yawgmoth's Will

6. Cast Windfall, everyone will draw, again, 80+ cards, and you win since Angel's Grace prevents you from losing when you draw into an empty library

This line is also very resilient, and believe it or not, will win right through graveyard shuffle effects like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth! When sequenced in the order above (and leading with Silence), no amount of hate or deck construction will actually prevent you from winning. If graveyard hate is on the table, after Silence, bounce it with Chain of Vapor. If the hate is real and everywhere, feel free to put Cyclonic Rift in your list to just clear out the board post-AG+AN.

If you want an in depth look at how to win using Maniac + DD, I'll direct you below for a technical discussion:

Doomsday Primer

commenting bc the list is great

marsthesoos

<3

good little write up!

marsthesoos

Thanks. I didn't realize that a lot of people were not happy with the swap from Skuloth's to mine in the LabManiacs conglomerate. So I tried to link the things they wanted and provide a starting point for learning the deck, and explain my card choices.

i had to come check out your deck from Skuloth's

what exactly are you doing with the cendelabra? unless i am missing something, it seems kind of a strange card since you aren't gaining mana off it of unless you are using mana rocks to untap lands. you do have a couple rocks, but it just seems like you could be doing something different here. like Auriok Salvagers (even though it's more mana), which is a combo with Lion's Eye Diamond, to create infinite mana. or Snapcaster Mage maybe?

i also run Pongify which is absolutely hilarious, but totally unnecessary.

demonicgrizzly

Hey I'm not lost in the void for this one.

Both Skully and I run Candle. It compounds mana made from High Tide by essentially untapping lands and floating from each land used to untap Candle. It gives you an obscene amount of mana in synergy with that card, which we use pretty often.

The deck doesn't do much with infinite mana however. So I have cut those combos. Additionally, the Bomberman combo is the most fragile one, so it's worthwhile have a way to win after.

I have cut Snapcaster Mage, since I felt it hurt playing on curve or holding up mana efficiently.

Pongify is pretty good in the list though. I don't feel like I need it.

@AlwaysSleepy: I agree Time Spiral is terrible here; but could you talk more about Mind's Desire? It seems like a fair replacement, although I've also tried Future Sight which provides good value turn over turn, and also combos with Helm of Awakening and Sensei's Divining Top which are already in the list. Although Future Sight is generally kind of weak the turn you play it.

How does Mind's Desire generally work with Doomsday? Do you flip the doomsday off of the Desire? It seems hard to do it the other way (casing doomsday and THEN mind's desire).

The other card I really like is Phyrexian Unlife... have you tried it? Makes Zur + Ad Naus a pretty attractive line.

mmcgeach

Hey dude. Here's the rationale for me running it. Generally the 6 CMC payoff cards are kept to a minimum, especially in Zur, so I picked Mind's Desire as the only one for the following:

1. It's an excellent payoff card by itself. It becomes the primary line when you have a single tutor and can cast a number of spells to make mana -> tutor out Yawgmoth's Will -> do the stuff again -> confirm a win since it's just so good. Really it's a top end which is extremely difficult to stop.

2. Re: Doomsday. Short answer is both. Long answer is on lines where I am casting Doomsday to win with excess resources, Mind's Desire is in my opinion the optimal line, since it will prevent your opponents from having any way of stopping you post-DD opener. It's also great to just outright exile Doomsday with it. It may seem win-more, and in this scenario it could be. So next reason.

3. It's one of the few cards which I believe can actually pull you from the depths into a win. Sometimes things aren't going well and you can't stick a Zur. You can go for some short storm line and top it off with Mind's Desire. It won't always work, but it's a strong enough card to keep around to provide that kind of out in those situations.

I'm not often using Mind's Desire, though. The common lines are Naus -> Grace -> Naus, or a resource light DD cast. But I'm never unhappy to have it available. And it's a stronger payoff card than Time Spiral. Plus the Doomsday lines with it are pretty much unbeatable.

On to Future Sight, it could be playable thanks to the DD piles it turns on, but I think it's impact is overall not swingy enough to include. It's also trying to fill a role Grace/Naus fills in the deck, which I think we're not in need of a back up for.

Phyrexian Unlife - Great card. Love it. Not in this list, so if you really want, Mind's Desire -> Phyrexian Unlife is a fine swap. I play it in paper since I don't have a Candle/Twister. I'll include a note on it in the description.