Core Concepts
Preamble
Welcome to Chapter 0 of the Doomsday section of the Wiki.
This is the start of your journey into trying to learn a bit more about the deck and hopefully will inspire and help you to progress further with it!
We're Teaching People to Fish
As the Wiki front page states:
This is specifically not a primer as you often see for other decks in Legacy, because primers generally become outdated rather quickly and are more about card choices, decklists, sideboard plans, and so on. The Doomsday Wiki is there to help people to really understand how the deck works and can win in various scenarios.
As a result a lot of the information presented within these chapters is to be taken as guidance only. The format (and the deck) changes as new cards are printed or existing ones banned or unbanned and, with the speed with which conversation and innovation can occur, vastly outpaces the collective authors' ability to keep this site up to date. We try to keep things as high level and universally applicable as possible. As a result do not seek to try and rote memorise any piles presented here but instead try and use them to ingrain core concepts or ideas into your play which you can then supplement with experience as you practice. There are plenty of people out there who will happily share tables of piles. However, it might be worth taking a few losses early on whilst learning the deck. While these preset piles might help you lose less at first, reliance on them in the long run can teach you bad habits and railroad you into suboptimal plays and piles.
There are No Stupid Questions and Very Few Original Ones
Questions are good. Quizzing things helps learning and understanding. If you don't start making inquiries into why things are as they are, then you're never going to get the most out of any deck you play. Conversely though, a lot of the questions you might want to ask are very likely to have been asked before. This is great as it means it is hopefully written down somewhere already! If you think of something you want answered and cannot find it in the chapters there are a few places you can look which might help. First and foremost is the FAQs! Otherwise, articles are dated content which are more likely to have recent changes or information inside them.
The best place to search after the Wiki is the Doomsday Discord. Again the
search function within Discord is your best friend and especially in the
#doomsday-discussion channel you are likely to find the question or a similar
one having been asked before. If you genuinely can't find the answer in any of
the above sources then of course ask away (letting people know you had a good
search for it first!). There is almost always someone online to give an answer!
For non-Discord users there are a couple of other sources such as the
/r/mtglegacy or similar forums where
people sometimes ask questions.
Practice Makes Perfect
As with anything in life there are unfortunately no shortcuts to success. The deck is much easier than people make out however that doesn't mean you won't lose to yourself at least once, or make small mistakes with big consequences or forget how to navigate certain situations. This is fine, this is learning, learning is good.
This is true for any game, format, deck that you need to put the reps in. For many people this may be harder than it sounds. You might have family commitments or a busy work life and thus you only really get to indulge in one Legacy event a month. This is fine, you can work with it. Even if you only have enough time available to read this, you can goldfish as you do. If you have five minutes and a notepad you can theorycraft scenarios in your head and scribble down a pile to try and navigate around it. Got your decklist to hand? Make sure you're happy with all the card choices. Justify each one to yourself. Have the bye at a Modern FNM? Proxy up the deck and have it with you to goldfish. Even just watching content whilst you decompress after a heavy day can help. Have a go at pausing at key points and see if you can find a different or better route than the creator.
Every little bit helps :)
Have Fun
Seriously, please have fun. If you're not finding the deck fun, not enjoying the challenge, or not feeling satisfied then don't force yourself. We won't take offense if the deck is not to your taste. Everyone is different and so long as you are happy in what you do that's great. (Unless you want to play Delver in which case boooo! ... Just kidding) This is also the case with undertaking any activity. If you are not positively benefitting from it then it may be worth taking a step back from it for a bit.
You Keep Saying Pile, What Does That Mean?
The term pile is used to denote the stack of 5 cards with which you build your deck on successfully resolving Doomsday. A large portion of this site is to help you learn how to construct these piles in order to win the game in almost any circumstance. While it would be nigh impossible to enumerate every game states and pile variations, these chapters are aimed to show you the basic concepts behind casting and winning with Doomsday.
Pile Notation
Many of the chapters will showcase a number of piles, their requirements and the instructions to achieve them. For each one we shall present any mana requirements or card requirements followed by the pile as a visual display.
If we take the following example:
+ Cantrip
The cost omits that we require for casting Doomsday as this is an assumed requirement for even considering what pile to build. It requires for casting specific cards in the pile and the ability to cantrip (draw a card). If the chosen cantrip effect costs mana you will need to add this on to the total otherwise presented. In the example of using Ponder as your cantrip you will need + .
+ Brainstorm + X
Sometimes we will use the terminology of X. In this instance X means having any single card in hand, irrespective of what that card is. An X card is normally used in conjunction with Brainstorm and thus is rarely cast but we will explore more of this in another chapter.
The instructions for executing a pile will be included below it. There may be a paragraph or statement exploring some of the ideas within the pile but there should also be a step by step guide in how to execute the pile too.
Let's return to the above example to see how this might be presented:
+ Cantrip
This is a simple pile that uses Ideas Unbound to draw into 2 mana and Thassa's Oracle. It does not play around any interaction the opponent may have.
- Use your cantrip to draw into the pile, draw Ideas Unbound
- Cast Ideas Unbound, draw Lotus Petal x2 and Thassa's Oracle
- Cast both Lotus Petals and crack both for
- Cast Thassa's Oracle and win the game with 1 card left in your deck
You'll notice the term crack here. Crack is a colloquial term for activating a mana rock like LED or Lotus Petal or for sacrificing a fetchland like Polluted Delta.
Acronyms and Abbreviations
The final thing to note is we as a community really like to use acronyms or abbreviations when talking about cards or plays. For cards, the Wiki has a lexicon on the left hand side of each page (or accessible by clicking the menu button on the top left for mobile devices). We may use BS as a term for Brainstorm as an example. For other non-card based examples, if they are related to specific chapters then they should explain them but the primary one to note is PTT which stands for pass-the-turn, simply implying that to successfully execute the pile as intended, you will need to pass the turn one or more times. Sometimes you might see people refer to a double PTT pile. Hopefully as time goes on you will get used to this but again, don't feel bad about asking if any terminology doesn't make sense to you!
Next Steps
Hopefully you are now excited to continue learning and thus the rest of the Wiki awaits. Remember you can always return to this chapter or any other if you need to remind yourself of something or go back a step. That's totally fine. Just go at your own pace! (And hopefully have fun in the process)
It is recommended you read the Wiki chapters in the order presented but feel free to read them how you wish.