A Decklist Discussion and Sideboard Guide: Doishy's Turbo Zero Respect

Preface

First of all I guess happy new year everyone!

I hope you're all safe and well going into 2022 xxx

The Wiki author team has generally been against the writing of specific sideboard guides as are often seen across the magic community. Sideboard guides can be very helpful in allowing players to quickly pick up decks they may have seen from other pilots that they enjoy or provide a quick starter if they do not have time to work out the nuances of a deck themselves. However we believe in a more teach a man to fish approach whereby we encourage people to build their deck and sideboard from the ground up and work out what works best for each pilot. There is also a huge amount of potential variation that can be applied to the archetype these days with lists often changing speed, style, colours and all manner of things based on pilot experience, preference and metagame.

It's because of this that we present our sideboard chapter as a series of guiding principles instead of a rigid +x/-y format since we cannot account for every decklist and what might be very common one day could very well become obsolete the next. Even so, there are definitely advantages to having at least one example guide if nothing else to try to promote people to write and discover their own plans. I personally think everyone should have a go at mapping their plans for each matchup at least once, even if you don't follow it perfectly or change your mind completely at least you have gone through and worked out each slot and whether it is justified to hold its place. It also means that you become more aware of the roles each card has so that you can become flexible vs. the unknown.

Because of the demand for it as a one-off article I thought I would provide my own sideboard guide. This is not a guide I have properly written up before but it will be a good exercise for me as well to write it. This guide will also try to explain the reasoning behind some of the decisions and thus discuss both the main deck configuration and my own style of play alongside it. It very well may not be super applicable for you because of how you prefer to play (or because no one else plays my deck) but hopefully it will encourage you to have a go working out your own plans!

Biases

The first things I should write about before even presenting the decklist is about my own playstyle and personal bias towards the deck. These are the core principles behind why I build it like I do and are based on my own play experience and ideals. It might be worth before having a go at this yourself to work out some key points that you feel about your deck so as to understand what you want from it.

I Like Playing Combo-Control

This one is self explanatory. One of the best things about the current iterations of Doomsday is I get to run both all my combo staples Dark Ritual, Lion's Eye Diamond, Doomsday alongside things like Force of Will with a full cantrip suite to boot! This means I can have the choice to play the aggressive role (without all that nasty combat maths that hurts my tiny brain) or pivot to take it slow a bit more until I want to win. This flexibility is something I value highly.

I See Doomsday as a Mono Blue Deck that Happens to Require BBB

This one is a funny one and one I have been citing since Oracle was printed. People often look at me funny when I say this however it is definitely true. The deck pre-Doomsday relies on being able to cantrip, cast countermagic and do the things that blue decks like to do. Post-Doomsday all you need are some draw effects and the ability to make . It's just that awkward bit in the middle where you need to find to actually cast Doomsday itself (and on occasion firing off a discard spell). This is why in regards to manabase I prize over and run a basic Island. It's also why every fetchable land in my deck has the Island subtype and my fetch configuration is Island-centric.

I Hate Relying on the Top of my Deck

The games that I lose which annoy me the most are the ones where it has gone a bit long and I am waiting for that one card to win. The worst is when that one card is literally any card with the text "draw a card" on it. Often it's vs. UGx control piles and I have Doomsday, mana, protection in abundance but the gamestate is such where I cannot do a PTT pile so all I need is any method to dig into the pile post resolution. These are the losses that stick in my mind even more so than the turn 1 blowouts with Blood Moon against Moon Stompy or the "needed to dodge Daze one time" vs. Delver. As a result I run as many cantrips as I can reasonably fit into the deck whilst still trying to retain the elements of the Turbo style. This is why you will see some number of Preordain in the deck alongside Consider and the normal cantrip and cycler suite.

I Tend to be Fast to Cast Doomsday, But Slow After it Resolves

This was something I hadn't thought of before until the lovely Francobolli pointed it out in response to one of my YouTube video uploads:

@Doishy your play style is very much on the aggressive side to cast doomsday and then maybe conservative making the piles. It is good to see both those perspectives.

In this I am trying to slam Doomsday as fast as possible but will often build a pile that passes 1-3 more turns (sometimes the full five) after it resolves. This is why I like having Daze, why I run 3 Personal Tutor and why I am almost the complete Turbo shell but don't go full ham on cycling effects and multiple Considers. It's also why I run Cavern of Souls in the main.

I am Here to Disrespect Delver

I have tried in the past to dedicate a lot of sideboard slots for beating URx Delver decks before and I realised that the games I was winning against them was because of tight play, a little bit of luck and mostly my main deck tools. As a result I decided to run no dedicated Delver sideboard slots and instead just work out a solid plan from the other tools I was using anyways. This is the one matchup I pretty much never deviate from my plan on and I am happy to take my 30-40% win rate against them where I can.

I Like Having Access to a Toolbox

You will notice through the guide I often do not take out Consider, Deep Analysis, Ideas Unbound, Lion's Eye Diamond and I almost always leave in 2 cycler effects. This is because I like having the options to access the instant win Deep Analysis pile, fast Brainstorm piles and resilient Ideas Unbound piles. Even if they seem poor in a matchup, simply having them available to you I think is important because they grant you the most flexibility post Doomsday to tailor the pile to your needs. In all likelihood I should probably cut some number of them more often but I don't... :D

I am Slow to Make Changes to my Deck

I mostly play in paper (and then online when the MTGO all access passes come out). I will always run a 75 for a few events to get a feel for what I like or not and even then almost only ever change 1-2 cards max. Like at the time of writing this I am thinking of changing one sideboard card and that is after about 2 months of playing with the current 75. I think it's important to truly get a feel for what you are running and to try not to make knee-jerk decisions based on one set of bad beats or a single event.

The Decklist

Here is the decklist itself. You can see already some of the construction thoughts that went into it from what was said above. It's a Turbo list so has 3 Personal Tutor in alongside 4 cycling effects to enable swift access to piles. It has Consider, Deep Analysis and Ideas Unbound all in to enable the faster pile building. All lands are Islands so the fetchlands can be perfectly spread out for the corner case Pithing Needle effect naming. There is also a maindeck Watery Grave to act as a 5th Underground Sea. It has 4 Lotus Petals to help speed things up and fix mana. It runs the full set of Forces, Dazes and has 1 Cavern of Souls and 1 Pact of Negation for pile building alongside two maindeck discard spells as additional protection. It also runs 2 Preordain alongside the normal cantrip suite as extra slow fitlering.

As you can see the maindeck is entirely (despite what Edge of Autumn pretends). This means we have a lot of flexibility in being able to add splash colours, if, as and when we need them. The sideboard is designed to offer flexibility in many matchups with certain tools acting as silver bullets in others. I like including a splash colour in my sideboard because I personally see it as a free addition and, at the moment, that splash is however I have done and full 4 colours before in the past. I have also dabbled with but not in the same shell as this.

The last major change I made to the list was removing a Tropical Island from the main, replacing it with the Watery Grave and taking 2 Veil of Summer from the side and replacing them with a 2nd Flusterstorm and 2nd Pyroblast. From testing, although I liked having access to and Veil, I had faced many instances where Flusterstorm was either equal to, or better in certain circumstances. I also wanted to try a third blast effect as in some of the fair blue matchups I was wanting to see them more often.

I will quickly go through the sideboard cards and give a quick summary of their general/expected roles and the justification for having them.

• 1 Chain of Vapor: Catch all permanent answer that is easy on the mana. Helps deal with most things other than Chalice on 1 and even then most of the time that can be ignored. Can also allow the bouncing of your own Oracle to recast in a pinch.
• 2 Flusterstorm: Shines vs. other spell-based combos, helps disrupt cheaper interaction and allows us to force our combo through opposing protection. A very useful tool for multiple fair and unfair matchups.
• 4 Force of Negation: Acting as both combo protection from those faster than us and to complement the Chain by preventing things like Blood Moon, Chalice of the void, Trinisphere etc. from landing onto the battlefield. A very versatile and mana efficient card. Sometimes can be over-boarded.

• 1 Massacre: One of the more specialist tools. This helps deal with a myriad of hatebear style creatures in a very mana efficient way and can be easily found through casting Doomsday. Normally used in non- fair matchups but occasionally can be brought in to fight off Meddling Mage or similar from fair decks.
• 2 Pyroblast: Catch all in matchups as protection, disruption and removal. Anyone who plays Legacy knows how effective these can be in the right matchup.
• 1 Red Elemental Blast: It's like Pyroblast but spelt differently. This is here to simply diversify my blast effects for small percentage points and niche corner cases (although I have had people Surgical them before!).

• 1 Surgical Extraction: Part of the anti-graveyard package. This provides soft turn 0 protection against decks looking to abuse the graveyard. Sometimes I also look to bring it in for the mirror.
• 1 Thassa's Oracle: The second Oracle is a very versatile tool. It allows you to pile with two of them giving multiple chances at resolving it and allowing you to go up to a devotion of 4 which helps bypass things like Endurance. It also increases your pseudo blue card count for Force pitch purposes by +2 (because you now have 2 cards in the deck eligibile to pitch whereas before you could never pitch your lone Oracle). It also blocks Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben really well in a pinch.
• 1 Tormod's Crypt: The second part of my anti-graveyard package. This one is nice as it can just sit in play whilst you get prepped or be added to a pile to help defend against various tools like Cephalid Coliseum or even Endurance whilst you go for the win. It's less precise than Surgical but is a lot more effective.
• 1 Volcanic Island: Finally it's a land that makes . It helps cast our blast effects. Not much else to say though you could consider to bring it in as an additional bad Island in matchups where maybe you don't want Cavern.

The Actual Sideboard Guide Bit

Here I will list decks in the order that I think of them. I will be trying to add cards I have on my radar that I wish to respect, cards on my radar I might respect less and variations to what I might board based on how I am feeling (because I am very inconsistent sometimes). Please note this is a snapshot and should not be considered gospel. The presence of spice in an opponent's deck can result in variations being made if they are needed and you should always try to critically identify whether something seems sensible to you. If you don't like an idea written here you don't have to follow it :)

UR Delver, Grixis Delver, RUG Delver

• Respect: None of it. Maybe Monkey...
• Disrespect: The rest
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Street Wraith
• Bring in: 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Thassa's Oracle

Try your best. Play around Daze, Monkey, Bolt, Wasteland, and Stifle when you can. Don't play around them when you can't. If they have Torpor Orb, good for them. They obviously wanted it more. The changes we make are because of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer because us having our own discard hit us is devastating. Second Oracle lets you act a bit ore aggressively in pile building and also acts as a buffer to random instances of having your sole win condition exiled to monkey.

Death and Taxes

• Respect: Deafening Silence, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Rishadan Port
• Disrespect: Thalia, Archive Trap, Solitude, Mindbreak Trap, Ethersworn Canonist
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Street Wraith, 1 Cavern of Souls, 1 Pact of Negation
• Bring in: 1 Chain of Vapor, 1 Massacre, 2-4 Force of Negation, maybe 1 Thassa's Oracle

Death and Taxes is an interesting deck because in theory they have all the right tools to win, but often they need multiple of them in one go to actually make it happen. Often Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is too slow to do anything and can be ignored, especially post Doomsday. The scary cards are the ones that tax your mana or life total. Wasteland and Rishadan Port can be devastating if having to go slow so aggressive mulliganing is advised. Kaldra Compleat is also a house simply because it is the fastest threat that they have. I have listed Spirit of the Labyrinth as the main card to respect because post Doomsday it not only slows you down in progressing your pile but also has a feisty attack of 3 which can quickly knock you down.

Stompy Decks

• Respect: Blood Moon, Trinisphere, Opposition Agent
• Disrespect: Chalice (to an extent)
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Street Wraith, 2 Preordain, 1 Pact of Negation
• Bring in: 4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 1 Chain of Vapor

These matchups can be the easiest wins or the hardest losses and sometimes it is a toss of the dice based on respective mulligans which can decide it. Cavern stays in because Chalice on 2 ruins your day otherwise. Try to avoid keeping hands that die to Chalice on 1 unless that hand can just win on the next turn. It's a swingy matchup but very winnable.

Oops all Spells, BR Reanimator, Madness

• Respect: The fact they are faster than you. Burning Inquiry
• Disrespect: Most of their deck
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Edge of Autumn, 2 Preordain, 1 Pact of Negation, 1 Island, 1 Cavern of Souls
• Bring in: 4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 1 Surgical Extraction, 1 Tormod's Crypt, maybe 1-2 Flusterstorm

Another swingy set of matchups. Their best hands will beat your best hands. Vs. Reanimator try to fight their graveyard enablers like Entomb or Faithless Looting. Vs. Oops fight them however you can. These matchups I personally find favourable but again, they can be very swingy.

I'll be honest, I don't think I have ever faced the Madness deck in the wild. As a result this is a purely theory-crafted setup from having checked MTGGoldfish for the most popular Legacy decks at the time of writing this and just thinking "this'll be similar to the other fast graveyard strategies".

Elves

• Respect: Allosaurus Shepherd and Endurance
• Disrespect: Choke
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Street Wraith, 1 Cavern of Souls
• Bring in: 2 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 1 Chain of Vapor, maybe 1-2 Flusterstorm

Thanks to the 2 card combo of Endurance + Allosaurus Shepherd or Shepherd + Natural Order this can be a tough fight in my opinion. I like to try and go fast whilst being able to fight the green interaction. Some people like to bring in Massacre but that is not an axis I really want to fight them on.

Lands

• Respect: Endurance, Red Elemental Blast, Sphere of Resistance
• Disrespect: Choke, Wasteland, Ghost Quarter
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Street Wraith, 2 Preordain or 1-2 Daze
• Bring in: 4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 1 Chain of Vapor

Lands very much has done a lot of work to try and shore up their combo matchups. Nowadays you can expect to see both permanent and stack-based interaction to join their usual share of mana denial elements. The trick here is to just make sure you can keep up post Doomsday and to retain Cavern of Souls in case of REB or the occasional rogue Chalice. Don't ever try and fight them with grave hate vs. the Loam plan, it's not worth it.

TES, ANT

• Respect: Silence and Orim's Chant
• Disrespect: The rest
• Take out: 1 Cavern of Souls, 2 Preordain, 1 Island, 1 Street Wraith
• Bring in: 2-4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 2 Flusterstorm

Because of the sheer mass of interaction we can bring to the table and the advantage in a topdeck war, we need to be careful about overloading too much on permission. Storm variants are one of the matches I am considering not bringing in the full 8 Force effects in for because we can easily dilute our own plan too much in it. I don't bother bringing in REB effects because it's not the cantrips we want to fight over.

8-Cast, Urza Echo

• Respect: Force of Will, Echo of Eons, Torpor Orb
• Disrespect: Chalice, Emry
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 2 Street Wraith, 2 Preordain, 1 Island
• Bring in: 2-4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 1 Chain of Vapor, maybe 2 Flusterstorm, maybe 1 Volcanic Island, maybe 2 Pyroblast, maybe 1 Red Elemental Blast

These two decks I know are very different to face but I feel like I wanted to put them together. Urza Echo feels very much like a stompy deck that can run Forces and can be very tough, especially with Hullbreacher effects so involved. 8-Cast feels easier with less explosiveness traded in for more consistency. Either way, don't be afraid to let Chalices resolve and just try to power out a quick win. My plan for these decks keeps changing as I try different things but I was reasonably happy with the plan enacted which can be seen in (shameless plug) this video and this video.

Blue Soup: Stryfo Pile, BUG Zenith, Bant, Miracles, 4c Control

• Respect: Endurance, Meddling Mage, Dress Down, Flusterstorm
• Disrespect: Any deck with Yorion as a companion
• Take out: 2 Street Wraith, 1 Watery Grave, 1-2 Daze, maybe 1-2 Force of Will, maybe 1-2 Preordain, maybe 1-2 Personal Tutor
• Bring in: 1 Thassa's Oracle, maybe 1 Chain of Vapor, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Volcanic Island, maybe 2 Pyroblast, maybe 1 Red Elemental Blast

The main difficulty in facing Blue Soup decks is that they could have anything in them. It's a pain in the arse because it's all beatable but if you fail to identify splashes or board for the wrong things you can get blown out because a lot of them bring in so many different cards. Generally 1 for 1 interaction is good and you want to be able to still have the ability to go under them but not be too disadvantaged if the game drags on. I try to always keep at least 2 cycling effects even in these matchups.

Jeskai Soup: Saga, Ragavan, Delver, Stoneblade

• Respect: Meddling Mage, Dress Down, Lightning Bolt, Ragavan, Day's Undoing
• Disrespect: Red Elemental Blast
• Take out: 2 Street Wraith, 1 Watery Grave, 1-2 Daze, maybe 1-2 Force of Will, maybe 1-2 Preordain, maybe 1-2 Personal Tutor
• Bring in: 1 Thassa's Oracle, maybe 1 Chain of Vapor, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Volcanic Island, maybe 2 Pyroblast, maybe 1 Red Elemental Blast

Or

• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Street Wraith
• Bring in: 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Thassa's Oracle

Like Blue Soup but harder thanks to Ragavan, Nimbler Pilferer and Expressive Iteration. Often these might as well all be Delver decks just with Meddling Mage to annoy us. You can very well justify bringing in Massacre or Chain of Vapor in these matchups. Again deck variance in the opposing field can cause difficulty in selecting what to bring to the table.

Cloudpost

• Respect: Endurance
• Disrespect: The rest
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Street Wraith, 2 Preordain, 1 Pact of Negation
• Bring in: 4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 1 Chain of Vapor

Cloudpost seems to be the best matchup for the deck. Remember no matchup is unloseable, but sometimes it feels that way here. Just don't get blown out by Endurance or Torpor Orb and you'll be fine.

Painter

• Respect: Grindstone, Torpor Orb, Blood Moon, Trinisphere
• Disrespect: Nah, gotta respect Painter
• Take out: 1 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 2 Street Wraith, 1 Preordain, 1 Daze
• Bring in: 4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 1 Chain of Vapor

This can be a real tough matchup. A smart Painter player can really do well and playing around an on-board Grindstone can be a real headache.

OmniShow

• Respect: People who still run Release the Ants. Cunning Wish for Trickbind
• Disrespect: People who run Shared Summoning
• Take out: 2 Street Wraith, 1-2 Preordain, 1 Island, 1 Pact of Negation, maybe 1 Watery Grave, maybe 1 Lion's Eye Diamond, maybe 1 Deep Analysis
• Bring in: 2-4 Force of Negation, maybe 1 Thassa's Oracle, 2 Flusterstorm, maybe 1 Volcanic Island, maybe 2 Pyroblast, maybe 1 Red Elemental Blast

I love OmniShow and field it as my secondary deck of choice. Unfortunately it is definitely clunkier than Doomsday and we have a huge advantage in being able to make resilient pass-the-turn piles that win via their own Show and Tell.

Sneak and Show

• Respect: Daze
• Disrespect: The rest
• Take out: 2 Street Wraith, 1-2 Preordain, 1 Island, 1 Pact of Negation, maybe 1 Watery Grave, maybe 1 Lion's Eye Diamond, maybe 1 Deep Analysis, maybe 2 Daze
• Bring in: 4 Force of Negation, 1 Thassa's Oracle, 2 Flusterstorm, maybe 1 Volcanic Island, maybe 2 Pyroblast, maybe 1 Red Elemental Blast

Sneak and Show feels like a swingier OmniShow in terms of matchup. It's one of the matchups I have experimented with Daze being brought in and out depending on play vs. draw. Should still be favourable.

That's It

I'm not going to list each and every archetype in the format and apologies if I have missed yours. There are lots of cool decks and many are really fun to face. I'm also not going to map the mirror because that is another matchup I change my mind on all the time and we're not here to fight other Doomsdayers, right? RIGHT?!

Closing Thoughts

There you have it. An attempt at presenting a sideboard guide and the thoughts that go behind it. As you can see it's not super well defined and, as I said before, I deviate from it quite often but hey! It's a good starting point. One thing I will note is that I find having 3 blast effects a little too many perhaps so I might look to cut one for something but for what? That remains to be seen.

I would strongly advise you to 1. Not try to mimic my decklist because it is very much made for me and 2. Have a go at building your own little sideboard guide as it's a very good exercise to go through. Even if you do disregard it afterwards.

Until next time.

May you not get bored with all this siding.

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