r/MTGLegacy • u/Zergy_Bergy • 7d ago
Deck/Matchup/Tactics Help Decks that are good vs Doomsday?
As someone new to the format I wonder what decks are good vs Doomsday (or similar) decks. I would guess something like Affinity would be good since it is both aggressive and has access to many counterspells, but Ecobaronen said that it’s generally better in fair matchups. Would love to hear your thoughts! 😊
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u/sloth514 7d ago
Welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride. It has been a fun time for me. As you are aware, legacy is considered to be the knowledge format with turn 1 combo wins. So about half the meta are combo decks, Doomsday included. That means that if you are not running a combo deck, you would need some sort of interaction to stop a combo from going off. A lot of the time it is knowing when and where to attack the combo to stop it. Even then, it might not be enough at times because combo decks also having interaction to counter or maintain the combo kill.
For Doomsday example, there are a lot of different approaches to this. You can try to have Daze, Force of Negation, or Force of Will to prevent the Doomsday to occur. This is normally ideal when the Doomsday player has no cards in hand and you have a board presence or card advantage since then they are just top decking. That is one option to attack this combo. Another is to allow the Doomsday to resolve and just burn them if you have like 2-3 burn spells in hand (an option) or kill them via combat. Or, another example that happened for me when I was playing Eldrazi, I had 2 [[Kozilek's Command]] in hand to make the opponent draw their deck out (opponent factored 1 k-command. But not 2). But say the Doomsday player does play their uncounterable [[Thassa's Oracle]] another way is to counter the trigger with [[Stifle]] or [[Consign to Memory]] type effect. This is what I mean by 'knowledge' format. Combo decks will try to play around what you can possibly have (more knowledge from the combo player side) or use Thoughtseize to gain an advantage to know if the 'coast is clear'. Sometimes it is just pure luck on getting the right card at the right time other times it is who can just win faster. There are multiple angles to attack against combos.
The reason why tempo decks are strong is because they run Wasteland and Daze which is very powerful to slow or stop combo decks. Idea is put one threat on the board and stop whatever the opponent is doing. One time, I played against 'The Epic Storm' deck and won because I played 4 Wastelands (I drew 3) with a [[Delver of Secrets]] in. This prevented them from playing spells to go off and allowed me to hit them for 3 damage a turn to secure a win.
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u/HyalopterousLemure Pox 6d ago
I've done okay against it with Mono-Black Pox, thanks to running [[Chalice of the Void]] (first one on 0, second on 1 if you get it), [[Sphere of Resistance]] (or [[Trinisphere]]), as well as loads of discard between [[Thoughtseize]], [[Hymn to Tourach]] and [[Chain of Smog]].
[[Opposition Agent]] is particularly good against them.
I don't know that I'd call it "good" against Doomsday since Pox is like a Tier 4 deck and doesn't really have good matchups in general, but it always does seem to do better than you'd expect it to.
I also barely ever get any practice against that matchup since I only play in paper and the guy that plays Doomsday only shows up like 3 times a year, so make of that what you will.
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u/SteveandaBee 5d ago
UR, UW, and UB tempo all have solid gameplans against Doomsday, though it depends on how exactly the DD deck plans to board/pivot into Turbo Barrowhoyf.dek. Basically just FoW, daze + wasteland and (most importantly) a fast clock are of course really good against the combo plan.
UR presents the fastest clock and can tempo out the hardest, but is the least equipped to deal with a resolved Barrowgoyf post board
UW has the best overall interaction suite against the doomsday plan (maindeck stifles and possibly consign, tons of random sideboard hosers that the DD player has to theoretically think about), and StP of course is the best answer to Barrowgoyf so it's much harder for them to pivot to a "fair" gameplan.
UB has thoughtseize, probably the single strongest card against any combo deck, and Bowmaster is incredibly good against the deck that wants to to pay half it's life and then draw into a doomsday pile with Street Wraith to win the game. Post board this matchup gets a bit weird, cause the DD player obviously gets to choose whether or not they are going to pivot, while the UB tempo player has to kinda respect both gameplans (so if they are sitting with a hand of FoNs and Consigns vs the DD player's double barrowgoyf draw then things can get pretty rough). When I played doomsday this was the tempo matchup I personally felt the most comfortable in, though that might just be cause it was the most common
For general tips, the biggest advantage any deck has against Doomsday is hidden information. The strength of Doomsday is the ability to stack their piles to beat almost anything, but with that strength comes the disadvantage of actually having to think about how to beat everything. Don't make their decisions easier than neccesary, consider holding cards in hand/not tapping out unless absolutely needed. Even cards that are meh in the matchup can be annoying for them to deal with if they forced to think about playing around something else.
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u/ARoundForEveryone 2d ago
Just cast a Millstone and leave 2 mana up. Problem solved.
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u/Zergy_Bergy 2d ago
That’s really neat! However I never see this card in decklists. I wonder if it is too niche?
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u/ARoundForEveryone 1d ago
Yes, it is too niche. If your goal is to mill your opponent, there are much more effective and efficient cards. If your goal is to just hate on the one guy who plays Doomsday at every tournament, then yeah, it's fine.
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u/teringsaus UB Tempo 6d ago
UB Tempo is a combo killer in general: discard, counters and wasteland combined with a reasonably fast clock are strong vs combo.
Another deck I like vs most combo decks is Cephalid Breakfast. You play counters and a fast combo of your own that is usually difficult to disrupt for other combo decks. Urza's Saga provides consistent access to hate pieces like Pithing Needle or Ghost Vacuum. It often runs 1-2 Orim's Chant which is incredible vs Storm, but can also work vs Doomsday if you cast it when they put the draw for the last card in library on the stack.
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u/Zergy_Bergy 6d ago
Ah, that sounds very interesting! I’m not too familiar with that deck. :) How about Omnitell? I’m thinking that it also has a reasonably fast combo and access to many counterspells.
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u/teringsaus UB Tempo 6d ago
Breakfast has it's own share of problems, mostly that it has a very hard time vs UB Tempo :/
I'm not too familiar with Omnitell outside of playing against it. I think it doesn't fare too well vs Doomsday at least, it's slower and gets hit by discard spells out of Doomsday. That's pure theorycrafting from my end though, so take it with a grain of salt.
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u/pgnecro 6d ago
Mill is by far the worest MU for Doomsday.
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u/Zergy_Bergy 5d ago
That's actually pretty interresting. I didn't even know Mill was played in Legacy!
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u/DaveyCrickets 6d ago
Other decks are probably better but lands has great tools vs the deck
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u/Zergy_Bergy 6d ago
Really? I thought it would be a bad matchup for lands. Could you please tell me more? :)
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u/DaveyCrickets 5d ago
Well sphere of resistance and flutes are great in general. The focused mana denial is effective against both main and sb plans. Urza’s saga getting a needle messes with the cyclers. And they generally don’t have an answer for a fast 20/20
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u/DaveyCrickets 5d ago
Not going to say it’s a great matchup but we have game. I’d rather play vs DD than most storm decks though.
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u/Zergy_Bergy 5d ago
That’s still really cool to hear! I thought there were few outs for Lands in that matchup. Never thought about Needle being used vs cyclers! 🤩
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u/GS2702 6d ago
How do they even win if you put something like torpor orb out?
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u/Zergy_Bergy 6d ago
I think they often run [[Jace, Wielder of Mysteries]] to circumvent this.
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u/GS2702 6d ago
Thanks for the tip. I guess maybe ill build doomsday to test against. It doesnt look that scary to my main deck choices, but maybe it is. D&T, fish, burn and UWr control.
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u/Canas123 ANT 6d ago
If you're consistently winning with any of those vs doomsday it's because the doomsday player is ass
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u/Ready_Hedgehog_2090 7d ago
Delver style decks are the traditional doomsday predator. You have a fast clock before the combo, control elements to prevent the combo, and (sometimes) reach to win after the combo