Gangster Trippin': Cantrip Discipline in Doomsday

Everyone who has forayed into Legacy will know that the blue xerox shell is very prevalent within the format. The shell follows the school of thought that uses cheap, draw a card, effects (colloquial known as cantrips) to enable sculpting of your hand and finding answers when needed. There have already been a number of articles that explore these theories by well known personalities such as Reid Duke, AJ Sacher and Tomas Mar.

• Reid's Guide to Legacy: Using Cantrips Properly
• Fishing Lessons: Pondering Brainstorm
• Everything about four colour control

Please note: the Snapcardster site is no longer running and therefore the link will not function, there are Reddit and The Source threads which can be found discussing the key points of the article here and here respectively.

It was these articles and a question from Doomsday Discord members Wally and Dale Cooper that led to the inspiration to author this. Referring back to the concept of the Xerox shell, Doomsday is a prime example of this in terms of deck construction. In fact, Meandeck Doomsday potentially boasts the highest number of cantrips of any given archetype in Legacy running up to a total of 18 replacement card draw effects within the main deck alone.

In this article we hope to present the following points:

• A summary of the cantrips and their purpose
• The general principles of cantrip sequencing
• Doomsday specific principles of cantrip sequencing
• Discussion of example scenarios

A Summary of the Cantrips Involved

Legacy Staples

The first suite of cantrips are what would be considered the standard Legacy setup. Ponder and Brainstorm can be found of as 4-ofs in most based decks and Preordain as a 2-4 of in many as well.

Ponder

Ponder is powerful tool that allows you to see 4 cards during resolution. It is at its most powerful when paired with a fetchland as this gives you the option to take the best card of the first three observed and shuffle away any potential unwanted pieces with the fetchland. Ponder is best suited for trying to find one specific card which, for our intents and purposes, is normally Dark Ritual, Doomsday or a protection spell like Force of Will.

Preordain

Preordain is normally considered the weakest of the classic suite. Previously it has normally been relegated to combo decks who just wanted additional filtering to find key pieces but is generally considered weaker than Ponder as it sees 1 fewer cards. This point is in direct contradiction to the wording presented in Reid's article.

Preordain is ideal for digging to particular cards. This is why you see Preordain often in combo decks, but less often in fair decks like Delver or Snow. Like Brainstorm, Preordain gets more powerful as the game goes deeper, since you’ll have a clearer picture of what cards you’re looking for.

I think the intent of the words is the same but the way they are presented implies the opposite of the truth.

Brainstorm

Brainstorm has been described as a Pillar of the Format and is considered one of the most powerful spell effects in Legacy. It acts as a way to see 3 cards but can, in effect, give the ability to exchange up to 2 cards from your hand, normally those considered uneeded at the time, and get rid of them, again normally with the aid of a fetchland. This in a sense can be viewed as almost drawing 3 cards with some people comparing it to Ancestral Recall.

Free Cycle Effects

This next pair are mostly unique to Doomsday however Death's Shadow based decks (and some Dredge decks) will also make use of one of them. These are free cycle cards that have little to no relevant text outside of their cycling abilities (other than some specific circumstances). Their use is almost always to provide a mana draw effect after Doomsday has resolved.

Street Wraith

Street Wraith is used by Shadow decks to both thin out their draws and to reduce their life total aggressively. For Doomsday it is a way to enable a lot of the piles made with the added benefit of being a draw effect that is immune to normal countermagic. The main downside of Street Wraith is the fact that, post Doomsday, your life total can be taxed quite heavily so having to rely on paying 2 or 4 life can be pretty punishing. Unlike Edge of Autumn however it can be used even if you have played an aggressive hand via Lotus Petals or if you need to retain a land to return with Daze for example.

In some circumstances, it can be used as an additional win condition. Casting a Street Wraith after your Doomsdays have been hit with a Surgical Extraction effects or your opponent has paid 16 life with Sylvan Library can be a legitimate way to win the game. Against Reanimator there is also the potential to cycle it in response to an Exhume whereby, thanks to the life paid to a Griselbrand and the Swampwalk it can often present a lethal clock out of nowhere.

For an excellent example of Street Wraith as a win condition please watch this video by Nevilshute against Shadow.

Edge of Autumn

Edge of Autumn provides a method of cycling that is less taxing on your life total however can be of much less use outside of the combo. Sacrificing a land can be a heavy costs however sometimes it does mean you can mitigate the downside of a Wasteland effect or similar by cycling in response. In a pinch you can also use it to retrieve the third source in the form of the basic Swamp from the deck but the situations this is needed are far and few between.

The thought process behind it mirrors that of the discard suite utilised. Edge is effectively the equivalent of Duress. Although Duress is generally more narrow than Thoughtseize in effect, the life loss can be significant so a mix is run to provide maximum flexibility.

Pile Enablers

The next pair are not cantrips in the traditional sense as they are more designed to provide raw card advantage in their use. Just like with the cycling cards, they tend to be considered primarily for their use within Doomsday piles however they can have usage outside of this to varying degrees. One is a well known staple for certain builds of Miracles and the other is a historical card from pre- Sensei's Divining Top ban DDFT days.

Predict

Predict pairs effectively with other cantrips as you can use it to provide additional filtering and raw card advantage. It also enables access to Doomsday piles where you cannot make to dig into the pile with. You can make use of effects like the reveal triggers on Delver of Secrets or Counterbalance to gain advantage from your opponent's deck and, in the mirror, it can even disrupt opposing Doomsday piles either milling a key component or causing the pilot to inadvertently draw themselves to death.

Ideas Unbound

Ideas Unbound is a more effective card (resources allowing) during pile construction but a weaker card outside of the combo. It can be used as a large scale Faithless Looting effect to turn a land heavy hand into a speall heavy hand. or provide an explosive boost of cards for a single turn, potentially enabling you to combo off there and then.

Cantrip Sequencing - General Principles

Normally, when playing a fair Legacy deck, you need to filter through your deck in order to find the balance of threats, protection and disruption depending on the situation. In a combo deck, this is normally a bit more hyper-focussed to find the piece/pieces in order to go off as quickly as possible. More often in combo decks you will find yourself shuffling off of Ponders or bottoming 2 off Preordains in order to find what is needed. The following guidelines are only that, general guidelines. As with anything in life there are always possible exceptions or circumstances where an alternative set of ideas are more valid than those presented here so they should not taken as gospel truth.

In general, with your cantrips, you want to try and maximise the amount of cards you see. This gives you the most information to help you make the most informed decision you can in your gameplay actions. If presented with a turn one hand with a single Island, and presented with a choice of leading with a Ponder or Preordain generally it would be better to lead on the latter. This is because the Preordain will let you see up to 3 cards initially and, if a fetchland is found in those 3 and / or the card drawn for your subsequent turn, it will improve the Ponder used.

If you have both and 2 non-fetchlands to cast them with then it is once again better to lead with Preordain. This allows you to see up to 7 cards between the 2 of them. If you have 1 fetchland and 1 non-fetchland then it is better to lead on the Ponder, fetch, then (if desired) play the Preordain. You may not wish to retain all the cards seen from Ponder on the top of your deck and so want the option to shuffle them away. You also don't wish to cast the Preordain to potentially scry 2 cards to the bottom of your deck that are unwanted to then shuffle them back to the top. This is also why it can be beneficial to crack any fetchland in play prior to casting Preordain.

You should always try and cast Brainstorm in conjucture with a fetchland. With this in mind it should rarely be cast on turn 1. The main times this is acceptable are scenarios such as when trying to protect a card in hand from opposing targeted discard or, if your hand is one (common) piece away from a deterministic win, and you think that you are able to find that piece through an end-of-turn Brainstorm. Often though it is still worth not casting it so early in the game.

If you are trying to dig hard to find one particular card, perhaps in a desperation scenario, it might be worth leaving a Brainstorm to be the last cantrip you play. This is because after resolving any Ponders and/or Preordains you have, the Brainstorm cannot clear the top of your library so, although it can see 3 cards, it will not be able to have you view any new ones in isolation. In non-desperation scenarioes it may be better to Brainstorm and then use the scry 2 from Preordain or the shuffle from Ponder to act as a fetchland shuffle however this is generally inefficient in terms of card usage.

Cantrip Sequencing - Doomsday Principles (pre-combo)

Brainstorm Retention

In Doomsday there are a few considerations to make that can sometimes go against what is considered normal sequencing. One example is the use (or non-use) of Brainstorm. We know that Brainstorm, in conjecture with an additional card in hand post-Doomsday resolving, can lead to a deterministic, same-turn win. Let's consider the following hand:

In this scenario we have 2 lands in play, Underground Sea and a Polluted Delta.

It is turn 3.

Normally we would expect, in order to maximise the cards seen this turn, to lead with Brainstorm off of Underground Sea to then fetch away what we get rid of and assume we will be casting Preordain next, maybe Ponder. One thing to consider though, as we are looking for the Doomsday, is that if we find one, we can win the game this turn with Brainstorm. As a result, what might be a better option is to lead on Ponder. This gives us the maximum amount of cards seen for our mana and leaves us with the option to keep one card and shuffle away the rest.

If we fail to find a Doomsday with the Ponder we have the option to fetch and use the Preordain to try again. If our life total is not under pressure then we can play Swamp and cast Dark Ritual and Doomsday this turn. If it is we can play Swamp and pass the turn looking to hit the win on the next. Obviously the matchup and circumstance plays a large role in what sequence or line to work towards but it does mean there are additional considerations to be made before playing an optimal Brainstorm.

Cantrip Retention

Similar to the point above, quite often the scenario comes up whereby you have Doomsday in hand plus the means to cast it but no way to dig into the pile. If the opponent has pressure on board, this could mean you are unable to cast Doomsday until you find some sort of cantrip. Sometimes this situation comes up from poor variance but other times it can be from a misuse of cantrips and an overly aggressive use of them to find the combo / mana pieces.

When working out what you need to win you of course need to note the relative pressure you are under from your opponent. Do you need to cast a Ponder this turn or can it wait until the next? One of the hardest lessons to learn in Legacy is probably when it is fine to play a land and simply say "go". If you are playing against a based control deck, often they will not be able to place any pressure on the board until the later turns or if they do, it is often only something like an Ice-Fanged Coatl. Being chipped away for 1 a turn is fine as it gives you a lot of time to work with so don't feel like you have to use all your mana every turn. This same principle applies to facing against Daze decks like Delver. It's okay to take a turn or two and simply develop your mana without allowing them to trade 1:1 with your cantrips.

Often you might find a situation where you have a pair of cantrips in hand and just need to find a single remaining piece to combo off, perhaps a ritual, Doomsday or protection spell. Depending on what combination of cantrips is in hand, can be crucial in balancing what is best for finding the missing piece and also which is best for accessing the pile. As is alluded to in the meandeck interactions chapter, there can be crucial benefits to favouring one cantrip over another. In a vacuum, Brainstorm is likely the most favourable cantrip to retain. It enables the most mana efficient same turn win piles and, without a fetchland to pair with, can cause you to become locked when searching for the final piece.

If picking between Ponder and Preordain, Ponder is obviously favourable to be able to see more cards than Preordain can to maximise the chance of finding the final piece required. Preordain is also more favourable in playing around shuffle effects like Surgical Extraction. The table below, taken from the interactions chapter, shows the calculated probability of successfully hitting the desired card first within a pile. As can be observed, Preordain gives the most favourable success rate of building a standard same turn win pile.

Cycling

In terms of cantrip retention the best ones to keep back, when allowed, are the free cycle cards; Wraith and Edge. They provide the most mana efficient method to draw into a pile post-Doomsday resolving. As with everything however, this may not always be the case and sometimes using a cycler prior to being in a position to combo can be advantageous.

If you have a dual land in play and an Edge of Autumn in hand and your opponent activates Wasteland, targeting your dual, you can obtain value by cycling the Edge, sacrificing the dual land being targeted, to draw a card. If you are only one card away from having the win, this might not be worth doing, especially if you know the top cards of your library.

The cyclers can also be used to improve the use of setup cards like Lim-Dûl's Vault by enabling mana efficient ways of drawing the cards tutored for within the same turn. You can also use them to access hidden cards on the top of your deck. Hiding a Force of Will or a Daze on the top of your deck, with a Street Wraith in hand, means you can potentially dodge it getting hit by a card like Duress. This particular trick shouldn't be used often as it normally results in card disadvantage but it is something to be mindful of.

Getting Value from Predict

One card that you can easily gain advantage from is Predict. Predict allows you to naturally jump ahead in cards which, in grindy matchups, can be pivotal. Often, thanks to the deck manipulation of other cards within the list, you can find a window where you know the top of your deck in order to correctly name it with Predict. This isn't always the case however and it is common to fall into traps of misusing your cantrips in order to setup Predict. Additionally, Predict is often the last cantrip you leave in your hand when searching for something. A hand of Brainstorm, fetchland, Ponder, Preordain and Predict will likely start with Brainstorm into Fetch, shuffle, Preordain then Ponder. Assuming you shuffle from the Ponder you are left with no knowledge to extract value from the Predict with.

You can get value from Predict by targeting an opponent. Cards like Delver of Secrets or Counterbalance, as mentioned earlier, will cause the opponent to reveal the top of their deck to you. You can then target them, naming the card, to extract the Predict value. You can also try this, assuming you have no better option, after the opponent resolves a Brainstorm (assuming you knew their hand prior through discard) or, specifically in the Doomsday mirror, after they have resolved a Doomsday. You will need to be wary of trying to do this. Cards like Veil of Summer and Leyline of Sanctity can prevent you targeting the opponent and effects that shuffle decks like fetchlands or Surgical Extraction can be used to remove potential advantage from using Predict.

Looting with Ideas Unbound

Many see Ideas Unbound as a purely combo-centric card wit very limited utility prior to the casting of Doomsday. There are two main methods of using it outside of inside piles; filtering and card booming. Filtering basically is the use of it as a glorified Careful Study. If you find yourself with a hand of too many lands, or an abundance of protection in a matchup where it's not needed, you can just cast Ideas Unbound to spend the turn drawing some extra gas and discarding the uneeded cards.

The other option is more of a late game tactic whereby you use it effectively as an Ancestral Recall. If you are low on cards, close to having a winning hand, in a bit of a dire strait and have a decent amount of excess mana you can use it to draw 3 cards to try and hit some business spells. Often you can be able to find Doomsday and the mana to cast it, or spells to protect it, and resolve a win in the same turn, thus avoiding the discard clause, or creating a pass-the-turn pile whereby discarding your hand becomes a non-issue.

Example Scenarios

We shall now present a couple of example scenarios involving cantrip decisions taken from real-life situations observed. The scenario will be given and a question asked about a decision point. The potential answers will then be discussed. As with any situation, there may not be an objectively correct solution but hopefully they will be thought provoking enough to allow you to be able to identify alternative, non-intuitive lines in future games you might play.

Scenario 1 - Edge of Autumn vs. Wasteland

We're playing against Shadow. It is a few turns in and we have cantripped to find a Doomsday on top of the deck with Ponder. As we fear Thoughtseize from their hand we decide to leave Doomsday on top and draw a land in order to protect it. We pass the turn and our opponent plays a Wasteland and fires it off targeting our tapped Underground Sea.

Our board is:

Our hand is:

What's the play?

We have a couple of options here. First is to fetch, cast Brainstorm and hope they try and interact with it so we can "save" our land by returning it with Daze. This is a poor choice and one that is not recommended no matter how "clever" it might feel. The second is to cycle Edge of Autumn, sacrificing the Sea to draw the known Doomsday thus obtaining value from their Wasteland activation. This is often a good play however in this instance it may not be optimal. The third option is just allow the Wasteland to resolve without a response. If we draw the Doomsday next turn we have the ability to cast it off of the Dark Ritual, with Force of Will and/or Daze backup along with mana to pay for Daze or the ability to make a "perfect" Brainstorm pile with Cavern of Souls included. In this instance it is probably optimal to go with the third option which gives you the most flexibility.

Scenario 2 - Last Resorts

We're playing against a Depths deck that has the active Stage x Depths ready on the field. It is game 1 so we gave no way to combat an on board Marit Lage. We have an almost ready hand and some cantrips so we have an out, we just need to try and sequence everything into a win. We enter turn 3 with the following board state and hand:

Our board is:

Our hand is:

What's the play?

Looking at our hand we can see that the only piece we are missing for a win is the Doomsday itself. We have a plethora of potential cantrip options to make use of so we need to ensure we maximise their potential to give us the best chance of finding what we need. We have the potential to become slightly constrained on mana however if we can find it within 2 of our single mana cantrips then we can still win this turn. The key here is to recognise what are the minimum requirements for a winning hand with what we have. Given the hand above, we can win so long as we have a for Dark Ritual and both the Street Wraith and Brainstorm in hand. Given this information we can sequence by playing Tarn, fetching, playing Preordain followed by playing Ponder. This potential for 7 looks should give around a 46% chance of finding one of our four copies of Doomsday. Any cards seen / drawn with the two cantrips such as an additional Street Wraith or Edge of Autumn or Lotus Petal can help change the odds or give additional options but, in a vacuum, this is likely the best sequence to take.

Scenario 3 - Cast or Cycle?

We're playing against TES on the play. We've managed to find a Doomsday however we have not managed to find a ritual or a third mana source as we enter turn 2. Our opponent has just cantripped turn 1 and passed.

Our board is:

Our hand is:

What's the play?

We have a couple of options here. The Daze gives us a little bit of flexibility in terms of protection however given how much artifact mana TES runs currently, it is very likely to be obsoleted if not paired with additional protection. One option to consider is to play Misty and fetch for Bayou to then cast Edge of Autumn. This allows us to guarantee finding our basic Swamp ready to have available on our next turn. This does leave us a little vulnerable however as even then we would not be able to win on the same turn we Doomsday without picking up a Brainstorm and we could not cast our Duress on either turn without finding a 4th source. If we play Misty and fetch another Sea however, we can preordain to try and find a Dark Ritual or B source and cast Duress in the same turn. This helps delay the opponent and gives a higher upside as, if we find the Dark Ritual, we can perform a deterministic turn 3 win with Edge cycling into Brainstorm pile.

Closing Thoughts

As always a wordy read so thank you for taking the time to work through it. I hope the article was enjoyable. It's a tricky subject to broach as there is already so many good resources covering the art of cantripping with the basics such as pair fetchlands with Brainstorm or fetch before you Preordain however I wanted to try and capture some of the non-intuitive thinking that can be associated with playing Meandeck Doomsday.

I would like to give a shout of thanks to Nevilshute who helped review this as I wrote it. He does a lot of great video content so please do check his videos out on youtube if you want to see the deck in action.

Until next time.

Please stay safe, well and punish people for playing non-blue decks.
xxx

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