Uncommon Piles

Preamble

There are a number of less commonly used ways to win the game after Doomsday. These may no longer be as relevant as they once were, or simply may not come up often enough in practice to be worth devoting a whole page to, but they are still worth knowing about. We won't go too deep into these topics, as the basics should get you through on the rare occasion this knowledge is relevant.

Shelldock Isle / Emrakul

The interaction between Doomsday and Shelldock Isle is surprisingly elegant. Once you resolve Doomsday you automatically fulfill the activation condition on Shelldock Isle, and also can ensure you hideaway the card you want. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is by far the best card to cast off Shelldock Isle, since you will get an extra turn and can attack to obliterate your opponent's board.

This tech was extremely popular during the height of Miracles' power, since it was immune to counterspells after Doomsday resolved. Blue mages would try to trap you by letting Doomsday resolve, and you could slow-roll out an uncounterable Eldrazi to punish them. It fell out of favor over the past couple years but 2021 has seen a bit of a rennaissance in Meandeck, where it is being used to beat Endurance out of Bant Control decks.

A simple version of the pile looks like this:

Enough life to live for 2 turns post-DD

1. Cast Doomsday and build the above pile, then pass the turn
2. Draw and play Shelldock Isle, hide Emrakul, pass the turn
3. Draw and play Island, activate Shelldock Isle, cast Emrakul, take another turn
4. Cast Duress if you can, attack with Emrakul
5. Attack again next turn if needed. Oracle serves as a backup plan in case they're not dead yet or deal with the Emrakul.

The first 2 cards may be the only ones required to win so we have 3 extra cards to build some redundancy, interaction and backup plans into our pile.

If you have SI in hand and a land drop available, you can do this pile and only pass 1 turn.

If you suspect the opponent has a way to interact with the order of your pile, like Jace's +2, you can modify the pile slightly to play around this:

Ponder on top means Shelldock Isle won't get fatesealed, you have Oracle as a backup plan, and a Doomsday as yet another backup plan to recycle cards in case you need more turns to attack with your 15/15.

Passing Multiple Turns After Doomsday

Passing one turn after Doomsday is sketchy enough, why would you want to pass multiple turns? Well, sometimes it's just what you need to do. If you are severely constrained on resources, or your opponent has a lockpiece you need to remove, or they are chock full of interaction but have no clock, you may find yourself needing to draw multiple cards over multiple turns to deal with such situations. Thassa's Oracle provides a cheap, clean wincon in these types of situations. Lets look at a few example:

Example 1

Tropical Island, Underground Sea on board, no cantrips in hand, Opponent has Chalice@2 - +

This situation is pretty specific, but it illustrates the need to occasionally pass multiple turns. Consider this a post-board game, where you're more likely to have Abrupt Decay in your deck. Perhaps your hand was nothing but a Dark Ritual and a Doomsday, but your opponent has no clock. Make use of Doomsday's tutoring power to find a solution to the Chalice locking your wincons.

1. Cast Doomsday and build the above pile. Pass the turn.
2. Draw Decay, and pass the turn again. Decay the Chalice on their end step.
3. Draw Street Wraith, and cycle it into Oracle.
4. Oracle's trigger will win you the game with 2 cards left.

With this pile, you can even pass 1-2 more turns to draw mana to cast Oracle, if for example you got hit with Wasteland.

Example 2

No mana on board, no cards in hand - , 2 life

1. Pass the turn after casting Doomsday
2. Draw the LED, play it out, and pass again.
3. Draw the Street Wraith, cycle it holding priority to crack LED for
4. Draw Ponder and cast it, leaving floating
5. Draw Oracle and cast it to win with 1 card left.

How did you find yourself in this position? Maybe you cast Doomsday using Lotus Petal and Dark Ritual. Let's not think too hard about it. The point is that if you pass 2 turns, you can win from literally nothing but a couple life.

Example 3

Plenty of lands/mana on board -

This is a very crude example but again, it illustrates an idea. Perhaps you cast Doomsday against a Ux Control deck, assuming it would be countered, but they let it through. Their deck is ponderously slow, and they aren't threatening your life total at all. You could simply pass 5 turns, draw a ton of discard, and try to brute force your Oracle through on the last turn.

Piles with Empty the Warrens

This is another technique, that, while its usefulness has declined sharply with the inclusion Thassa's Oracle, is nevertheless useful to know, since its execution requires no unusual cards. A situation could be contrived where this type of pile was a reasonable option though you are unlikely to encounter such a situation in the wild; for example, your opponent has a Leyline of sanctity and a Meddling Mage naming Thassa's Oracle.

Example 1

Ponder, LED, LED in hand - + - 6 Storm

In its crudest form, you use Doomsday as a tutor for Burning Wish, which then retrieves Empty the Warrens. The remainder of the pile is discard or other interactive spells, to ensure your opponent can't deal with the goblins before they deal with your opponent.

Example 2

Ponder, LED in hand - + + - 8 Storm

In this slightly more complicated variant, you use Doomsday to set up a pile that makes Goblins, and then the next turn you use another Doomsday to add more cards to your deck so you have time to make a lethal attack.

Spoils of the Vault Piles

Spoils of the Vault has interesting applications in piles. While somewhat of an uncommon card choice, Mindkiller Doomsday plays it in multiples and it occasionally appears as a singleton in otherwise normal DDFT lists. It's good to know the types of things it can do. Some of this is also discussed in the original article about Mindkiller Doomsday, but is included here for the sake of completeness.

Example 1

, 3 life

For this pass-the-turn pile, you draw Spoils, cast it and name Oracle, then cast Oracle. Simple as that. The 3 cards in the middle of the pile can be anything, but ideally should be something that can win the game the next turn if Spoils was countered. It can be used to beat a wide variety of hate, such as Mindbreak Trap, Deafening Silence, Endurance, Narset and Leovold, etc., and can play through a Thalia for minimal additional mana. What is more, it leaves you with an empty library so removal is ineffective.

Example 2

Brainstorm, 2 useless cards in hand - + + 3 life

This is similar to some of the piles in the Brainstorm chapter, but Spoils lets you win without leaving cards left in your deck, whereas that would be impossible without it.

1. Cast Doomsday and build the above pile.
2. Cast Brainstorm to draw LED, LP, Spoils, and put back your 2 useless cards.
3. Cast LP, LED, and then, holding priority, Spoils for Oracle and crack LED for UUU
4. Spoils will exile the 2 useless cards and the Island (or whatever you put there) and give you Oracle
5. Cast Oracle to win with 0 cards left in library.

Time Spiral Piles

Time Spiral was a common sideboard card in older Doomsday lists, predating the rise of SDT Miracles. It can still be used to make functional piles, but these days is obviated by Echo of Eons. For this reason the card sees little to no play, but the pile is presented here for its historical interest.

The cost listed in parentheses is assumingly paid for by the lands that are untapped by Time Spiral.

A simple example of a pass-the-turn pile that uses Time Spiral is as follows:

2 cards in hand - + () - 9 Storm

The first wish fetches Time Spiral, which untaps lands that let you play the second Burning Wish to fetch Tendrils.

Note that as with Echo piles, the number of cards left over to shuffle back into your library is important, to avoid decking yourself. Also note that the listed cost assumes that you can produce with the lands that you untap with Time Spiral.

Conclusion

1. These piles will not come up in a typical game, so don't feel you need to memorize them.
2. Many of these piles are high risk in some form or another. Don't be afraid of this though. If one of these types of piles gives you a 10% chance to win, that could be 10% more than any other option.
3. Outside-the-box thinking can be valuable when building piles. Consider these piles your inspiration.