Backstory behind this list: I used to love playing Doomsday when Top and Probe were both legal, but stopped playing after the ban. I realized a while ago that enough good cards to fill those slots have been printed since those bannings that DDFT might not be in a horrible place right now, so I went looking for modern day DDFT lists to see if I've missed any sleeper cards in the past 5 years, and lo and behold I came across the sample list on DDFT.wiki which was more or less everything I was looking for in a deck list, so I made modifications to the deck list to my own personal tastes (taste is subjective though and I probably just made the list worse)
TL;DR: 99% of the credit for the list goes to the wonderful people behind DDFT.wiki
Now, the bit where I ramble about card choices and matchups in a non-organized fashion because this is as much for me as it is for you
The DDFT matchup vs Delver is already not great, adding stack permission actively makes the deck draw much worse in 90% of other matchups as SDT isn't a legal crutch anymore, so I've just min-maxed my deck to abuse Burning Wish as much as possible.
This however lead me to another another problem: having 0 maindeck wincons is sometimes a bad call. My solution was to turn to what I believed is the strict downgrade version of this deck (Meandeck Doomsday) and copy-paste their wincon, which is the Thassa's Oracle/Unearth/Predict pile that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's surprisingly good. Unearth cycles and can get grabbed from the yard by Doomsday, so you can just cycle it with some amount of confidence, at least in game 1, and Predict has strong synergy with both Ponder and Brainstorm, so that leaves Thassa's Oracle as the only truly dead card in the deck when you draw it. It's in the same slot as Tendrils would be in the maindeck, but you have to play around removal. If you kill with storm game 1, this kill gets much better game 2 because you most likely won't have to play around removal at all.
Another consideration to make with jamming the zombie oracle kill in a Burning Wish deck is that it makes you a lot freer to grab Cabal Therapy with a Burning Wish as a setup
The 1/1 split between Infernal Contract in the main and Cruel Bargain in the side is because it's zero-cost to do so and slightly increases the gotchas vs people who don't know the matchup/peg you for Pact Spanish Inquisition. As for playing these cards themselves, they're a great way to bootstrap yourself into a storm kill with Doomsday. In particular, if your opponent has been whacking you with a Batterskull all game, you can set up a mini-Tendrils with Infernal Contract and then crack LED->Flashback Echo, redraw the cantrips and fast mana you used to storm the first time and fire it off again. The pile for this is different each time and it'll probably look like absolute nonsense, as these piles typically are incredibly dependent on your hand and field, so I'm not going to even try. Put the Echo on bottom though, that'll save you a lot of punts in the long run.
The 1/1 split between Edge of Autumn and Street Wraith is essentially just more protection against Surgical and some Doomsday piles leave you with 2 life and the need to draw exactly 1 card for a non-mana cost. You can also cycle Edge or Wraith in response to removal on Thassa's Oracle to draw the last card of your deck and win on the stack despite disruption, which is a fun and easy way to get your opponent to side out their creature removal.
Thassa's Oracle replaces Laboratory Maniac in the same slot as the CMC is one lower and you don't necessarily have to counter a removal spell or set up a line that draws from an empty library to win.
Past in Flames got added to the board because it generates mana and cards by the boatload. Originally I was somewhat hesitant about it, but I found myself killing more with it than the Time Spiral it replaced. I know you’ve gotta make deck building choices based on results, but that swap stung a bit
You can grab the Oblivion half of Consign//Oblivion with Burning Wish and then cast Consign at EOT before you go off
Echo of Eons + Lion's Eye Diamond is a very strong synergy and Echo in general gives our deck a lot of staying power. Who knew cards that say "Draw 7" are good?
Veil is disruption that cantrips and I really don't need much more excuse to run it than that
Ideas Unbound has no downside if you kill your opponent the turn you cast it, and a much less significant downside than Meditate if you whiff
Empty the Warrens has aged poorly and, even when it was good, it wasn't really that good. I know that when you need it, you really need it, but this'll probably be the first thing that gets cut from the deck realistically. I've been considering cutting it for either a third Flusterstorm, a second Cabal Therapy, or a Sylvan Library/Mirri's Guile. I honestly don't think there's ever been a time where I've thought "making X goblins here is going to be good enough." With how the deck is set up, I'm leaning pretty heavily on Doomsday resolving to generate any amount of storm that would make enough goblins, and if I'm resolving Doomsday then it's generally easier and quicker to either Tendrils my opponent or Unearth everyone's favorite Merfolk Wizard. Any color of mana that isn't black is one we will be bottlenecked on, unlike the more cantrip/disruption-heavy Meandeck variants which are all base-blue, and unlike TES, we're not running red rituals.
Rain of Filth is Dark Ritual number 9 and honestly is kind of disgusting
Act on Impulse replaces Infernal Contract/Cruel Bargain as my big draw spell of choice vs fast decks that care about my life total
2x Chain, 2x Flusterstorm, and 1x Hope of Ghirapur get sided in to your taste in matchups where you need a lot of disruption
Since everything else is a wish target, it's entirely your discretion whether or not you bring it in or leave it in the board. Honestly I really don't sideboard much with this deck, the wishboard is just too nice to have
To be real, I can't speak on how matchups generally play out with this list because I haven't had the time to put in the reps yet, so I'll write all that out and organize this pile when I can speak confidently on all of it
And now, the cards/packages I chose to not include but show up in the archetype and also why:
Meditate's downside is worse than Ideas Unbound, even though having two UU cards in the maindeck (other is Thassa's Oracle) does hurt for a deck that would love to be mono black
Shelldock Isle + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was always my least favorite package that showed up in these decks. Shelldock is a land that enters tapped and dies to Wasteland, providing the relatively negligible benefit of having Emrakul in play. There were some cool things you could theoretically do eons ago where you'd set up a Doomsday pile that Shelldock/Emrakul'd and then used Cloud of Faeries to untap it and yes the inclusion of an Emrakul in the 75 does make your Show and Tell deck matchups better, but the package is clunky and makes your Delver matchups worse, specifically the versions of RUG running Stifle. Your Show and Tell matchup is already pretty good because you're running 3 Duress and effectively 4x Cabal Therapy by way of Burning Wish, and they're already a turn slower than you on average, whereas Delver is maybe 70% in their favor just by virtue of being a base-blue tempo deck with a consistent clock. By hedging the bet that you're already going to win vs Sneak by being faster, you can devote more sideboard slots to beating Delver. Shelldock/Emrakul is simply too cutesy for 2020
Personal Tutor would probably make the cut as a one-of if it was Mystical Tutor, but even then it's pretty iffy. The card disadvantage hurts a lot and we've already got a virtual 7 copies of Doomsday
It's probably just correct to run Wishclaw Talismans in this deck, up the artifact mana to support Mox Opal, etc etc etc, but once you start going down this road you inevitably reach the conclusion that TES with a Doomsday in the sideboard is the optimal way to play Doomsday in a Legacy deck and we're not here to not put Doomsday on the stack in every game we possibly can. Also worth noting that Peer Into the Abyss is a) in the TES wishboard slot I’d put Doomsday in and b) better at winning the game than Doomsday
I had Time Spiral in the sideboard because Doomsday->Burning Wish->Time Spiral lines are some of my favorite skill testers out there, but the card just doesn’t stack up anymore :(
Force of Will has been omitted from the deck purely due to deck space constraints. That's it, I just had to cut something, it's a perfectly fine card in the archetype unlike our next entry on the list
Daze is good by virtue of being a free soft counter, but it's usefulness is extremely limited and if you're casting Daze in Doomsday it just feels SO BAD because the deck is not exactly mana-efficient and you're running Rain of Filth in conjunction with six cards that cost BBB, five cards that have UU in their cost, and a smattering of cards with either R or G in their mana costs. It's like the deck is fighting against itself 99% of the time you cast it, and I honestly feel like trying to accommodate Daze has lost me more games than it's won
Thoughtseize costs life. Doomsday, Infernal Contract, Cruel Bargain, and my opponent's Delver of Secrets all will already knock enough life points off me in an average game anyways, so I try to avoid opening myself up to getting bolted out as much as possible. It's not incorrect to run, purely a personal taste thing
Peer into the Abyss looks sick but 7 mana is a pretty tall order for something that's gonna eat a Force of Will. Very win-more
So why play this list? When you get to do your thing, you feel like a galactic brain cowboy yeehawing your way through your entire deck and a portion of your sideboard. You only need to actually resolve a few spells, so it’s got a surprisingly okay matchup versus a lot of things you wouldn’t necessarily expect, like staxy decks.
There’s all sorts of lines of play that will be entirely unique to that exact game, making it a great archetype for people who normally have deck ADHD to really get into. Running Burning Wish means that almost every set will give you at least one fun new toy to play with, and plenty of cards that’d otherwise just be trade fodder get a chance to really shine. Ideas Unbound, Meditate, Infernal Contract, Time Spiral, Ill-Gotten Gains, Rain of Filth, and even Eye of Nowhere have all seen play in this 75-card pile of amazing jank. It’s like Nic Fit for people who want to play good cards, or The Epic Storm for people who want to play bad cards. Just try it out, you’ll fall in love
CHANGELOG:
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Hope of Ghirapur became another Veil of Summer
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Grapeshot became Toxic Deluge
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Time Spiral got swapped for Past in Flames
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3x Duress became 2x Defense Grid, 1x Tainted Pact, hopefully allows me to go off more efficiently when blue mana is the bottleneck. I’m testing this very tentatively, in sort of the same role the 1x Divining Witch used to fill back when Thoracle just got printed and people were super hyped on breaking it
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Took out Act on Impulse for a By Force, I never wished for the Act on Impulse because Cruel Bargain or Doomsday are usually just better targets and there’s lots of hateful permanents nowadays.
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Empty the Warrens became Ponder in my wishboard after 3 games in a row where I wanted to Burning Wish for a Ponder to win the game off Doomsday, but I had to settle for a pile of dumb goblins instead
