Doomsday is a challenge.

Once you read it, gears start turning. How can we make this work? For three black mana, it reads:

‘Search your library and graveyard for five cards, and exile the rest. Put the chosen cards on top of your library in any order. You lose half your life, rounded up.’

Doomsday is everything black strives for in one card. Intense devotion to black mana is essential. It then pushes the caster further. A cost of blood, half your life total. Finally, it demands your faith. Every other card in your library and graveyard is exiled.

If you seek ultimate power, there can be no hesitation. Cast away everything except for what is necessary.

Doomsday was first printed in Weatherlight. Yawgmoth is set to invade Dominaria. The plane’s only hope for survival is to assemble The Legacy Weapon. The Weatherlight crew takes up the task. The Weapon consists of various artifacts. The Tenth Edition art of shows this the best. The whole piece is an homage to everything that went into creating this destructive tool.

In the end, The Weapon also required something more. Two stones.

One stone in Urza‘s head, one stone in Karn‘s body, and most vital of all Gerrard‘s life. With this great cost paid, Yawgmoth was destroyed, and the Phyrexian Doomsday was no more. The stage is set.

In casting Doomsday we take on the role of Yawgmoth enacting our plan for domination.

The art of Doomsday marries the flavor and function of the card.

We begin with five figures gathered in a vicious orange haze. Five figures, one for each card in your deck. Between each figure is a faint screaming face. Whatever profane ritual is being performed is causing a great deal of pain.

The art has a great sense of velocity. The orange and red give a sense of motion to the piece. Meanwhile, the orb at the center distorts the five bodies to impossibly long proportions.

Going a step further, the five figures are arranged in a pentagon. This is the shape found in the middle of a pentagram. In Doomsday‘s case, it forms an inverted pentagram.

Magic had issues with pentagrams in the past. In Alpha, the art for Unholy Strength (and Demonic Tutor) also depicts an inverted pentagram. This was removed in the 1994/95 printings of the card after public backlash. Unholy Strength received four new illustrations between 1997 and 2014. Perhaps wishing to distance themselves from the Satanic Panic.

I think this is why 1997’s Doomsday features a more subtle nod to the symbol—a calling card for those who work in the shadows.

The symbolism of pentagrams has been seen in various forms over the years. Esoteric groups such as The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is attributed to much of modern occultism. In preparation for rituals, they would often perform “The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram”. A pentagram is drawn with one’s finger to cleanse an area before performing other, more powerful spells.

However, an inverted pentagram could be seen as the opposite. An invitation for evil spirits to join in! Doomsday is often cast with the aid of Dark Ritual. A spell that itself often depicts figures engaging in occult practices.

In gameplay Dark Ritual, followed by Doomsday primes you for the ultimate ritual, winning the game!

Doomsday invites creativity from the caster. With five cards, how can you win the game? This has led to numerous attempts over the years to build the perfect pile.

I’d like to work backward.

Let’s begin with Doomsday in its most current form in Vintage. This is the most powerful, and elegant form of the deck. From here we will move to Legacy. It is a powerful deck, but has some challenges due to the Legacy ban list. Finally, we will go backwards in time to see how Doomsday looked in its earlier renditions over time.

For those not in the know, Vintage is Magic‘s oldest format. There are incredibly few banned cards. Instead, Vintage opts for the “Restricted List”:

If a card is restricted, you can only play one copy of it instead of the usual four. Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, and the Vexing Bauble are all members of this esteemed list.

In Vintage, the core combo is simple: Cast Doomsday. Draw three cards. Cast Thassa’s Oracle for the win.

Let’s assume you have three tapped Underground Sea in play, and a Street Wraith in hand. You cast Doomsday. How do you win?

1. Search your library for Gush, Thassa’s Oracle, Black Lotus, and two other cards. Now we order our library. From top to bottom: Gush, Black Lotus, Thassa’s Oracle, other two cards.
2. Cycle Street Wraith, draw Gush, cast Gush for its alternative cost. Draw Black Lotus and Thassa’s Oracle. Cast Lotus and use it to cast Thassa’s Oracle. You have just learned Doomsday in its purest form. A clean and easy win.

This is the goal for most modern renditions of the deck. It is simple and clean. However, the difficulty of Doomsday comes with all the edge cases. What if our opponent has a counterspell? What if the opponent has an Archon of Emeria in play? As we look at edge cases, other formats, and older decks, this simple win condition we have seen is going to become more complex!

With that said, let’s see how Vintage Doomsday decks get the job done!

The deck can be broken down into five key sections: Combo, Draw, Counterspells, Tutors, Mana. This core is well-defined with some room for flex slots depending on the meta.

The combo section is pretty simple. Four Doomsday, and two Thassa’s Oracle. Two oracles are key, as they give some wiggle room if one gets exiled. For example, when you cast Force of Will! When we cast Doomsday, Thassa’s Oracle will almost always be one of the five cards we select.

Cast Oracle with two or fewer cards in the deck for an easy win!

Draws spells play a dual role.

They help us find Doomsday, and let us draw our key cards after we cast it. Ancestral Recall, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Timewalk make up our cantrips.

Players will then opt for Preordain or Consider to round out the package. Preordain is putting up the best results at the moment. Necropotence, Dig Through Time, and Treasure Cruise are our big sources of card advantage.

These cards can win the game on their own if left unchecked! All three of these spells are restricted, and for good reason! Finally, we have our sources of “free” card draw. Street Wraith, Gush, and Gitaxian Probe. These cards are key to winning with Doomsday. Casting Doomsday and drawing a card for zero mana can be the difference between winning and losing.

Tutors let us find our key cards.

Demonic Tutor is consistently the best of the bunch. For two mana find whatever you want and put it in your hand.

The next two are a little more contentious. Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor put a card on top of your deck. This is where Street Wraith and our “free” draw spells are useful. They can let us turn a Vampiric Tutor into a Demonic Tutor.

Finally, we have the most exciting tutor in the deck: Demonic Consultation. The wording on this one might be a little weird, so here’s a summary:

‘For one mana at instant speed, name any card. Exile the top six cards of your deck. Those are gone forever. Then continue to exile cards until you find the card you named, then add it to your hand. I love the risk-reward factor. If the card you named is in those top six cards, then you’re in for a bad time!’

But, statistically, you’ll probably be fine… most of the time. If you name Force of Will but all four of them are on top of your deck, too bad you just exiled your whole deck for nothing!

Demonic Consultation is also a secondary combo piece.

Cast Thassa’s Oracle, it’s enter the battlefield effect will go on the stack. Before it resolves, cast Demonic Consultation, name Happily Ever After (or any other card that’s NOT in the deck). Exile your entire deck. Let the Thassa’s Oracle trigger resolve.

Congratulations, you just won the game!

The current Legacy Doomsday deck has the same general game plan as Vintage. Cast Doomsday, draw three cards, and cast Thassa’s Oracle.

The deck has to make up for some Vintage staples that are banned in Legacy. Black Lotus becomes Lion’s Eye Diamond, and our Vintage tutors become Personal Tutor.

Legacy does get a notable “upgrade” to its Vintage sibling. Brainstorm is restricted in Vintage, but not in Legacy!

Another notable change, we do not play a four Street Wraith. Legacy is a slower format, the life loss is more relevant. Instead, we opt for Edge of Autumn.

The key difference for Legacy Doomsday is the five cards you search for. Without access to Ancestral Recall or Gush, it is harder to draw enough cards to win outright. Suppose you have just cast Doomsday, you have one blue mana left and a Street Wraith in hand. You can build a pile with Consider, Deep Analysis, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal, and Thassa’s Oracle.

1. Cycle Street Wraith, drawing Consider 2. Cast Consider, put Deep Analysis into the graveyard, and draw Lion’s Eye Diamond 3. Cast Lion’s Eye Diamond 4. Sacrifice Lion’s Eye Diamond to cast Deep Analysis for its flashback cost. Draw Lotus Petal and Thassa’s Oracle 5. Cast Lotus Petal 6. Use your remaining blue mana from Lions’ Eye Diamond, and Lotus Petal to cast Thassa’s Oracle

This is not an impossible pattern to remember. However, it is much more fragile than the Vintage version. Here we have one shot to make the combo work. Meanwhile, a similar Doomsday pile in Vintage could have a second Thassa’s Oracle in the pile to give you a second shot at winning.

Doomsday is still incredibly powerful in Legacy. However, casting Doomsday demands more thought from the player due to the limitations of the card pool. As we move from Vintage to Legacy, we can see the deck morph around the limitations of the card pool.

I would like to now take you deeper into the past. To a time before Thassa’s Oracle.

How do we win without our beloved fish?

Thassa’s Oracle was released in Theros Beyond Death, in January 2020. Oracle is hard to interact with. You need a counterspell. Even if you can kill the Oracle, it still wins the game if the opponent’s deck is empty. Keep this in mind as we discuss these older versions of Doomsday.

The 2010s relied on Laboratory Maniac and occasionally, Jace, Wielder of Mysteries to get the job done. Both cards win the game if you would draw from an empty library.

There are three key problems here:

1. You need to draw from an empty deck
2. Dies to removal
3. More mana

Laboratory Maniac was the first step towards Doomsday becoming a more well-defined deck. Previously, it occupied the same space as storm decks. Doomsday set up our deck for a consistent kill, either with Laboratory Maniac or with Tendrils of Agony.

Chris Albino‘s 2015 deck is a great example. 

Comparing this to a contemporary list, we can get a feel for how these decks differ.

Gush is key to winning with storm and Lab Man. We can draw cards for zero mana, find our combo pieces, and go for a win! Albino opted for one Gitaxian Probe. At this time, the card was not yet restricted. Other players were taking advantage of Probe to increase storm count and check for Force of Will.

Casting Doomsday could go several ways at this time, depending on your storm count. However, let’s assume its turn two. You have two Underground Sea in play. Your hand is Dark Ritual, Doomsday, and Gitaxian Probe. How do you win from a storm count of zero?

1. Cast Dark Ritual and Doomsday. Storm count is two.
2. Build a pile of: Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Yawgmoth’s Will, Lotus Petal, Tendrils of Agony.
3. Cast Gitaxian Probe to draw Ancestral. Storm count is three.
4. Cast Ancestral, drawing Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, and Yawgmoth’s Will. Storm count is four.
5. Cast Black Lotus and Lotus Petal. Storm count is six.
6. Sacrifice both artifacts for black mana.
7. Cast Yawgmoth’s Will. Storm count is seven, one black mana floating.
8. Recast Black Lotus. Sacrifice it for black. Storm count is eight. Four black mana floating.
9. Recast Gitaxian Probe to draw Tendrils. Storm count is nine.
10. Cast Tendrils of Agony for the kill.

The high stakes of a storm turn mean we might not be able to try again if the opponent has interaction. Additionally, miscounting is always possible. I will admit I was not around for this era of the deck. But, I am grateful for the much simpler lines Oracle offers. This era of Doomsday is curious to me. Comparing it to other Vintage and Legacy decks of the time, I had my doubts about its true power.

Why were people playing Doomsday in the first place?

A friend of mine who has been playing Vintage since the early days summed it up well: “People who play Doomsday will play Doomsday“. This quote stuck with me. There is more to Doomsday than just the power level. It is a deck with a history, an identity, and a fanatical following. This leads us to the origins of Doomsday. To a time before even Laboratory Maniac!

We are now in an era where the archives become incomplete. Events from this time feature less Doomsday, and the events themselves are not as well documented.

The Tendrils of Agony storm lines were in full swing in the 2000s. Doomsday was battling for supremacy between The Epic Storm and Ad-Nauseum-Tendrils for the title of best storm deck.

At this point, we see Doomsday has focused on Tendrils of Agony as its main win condition.

But, there was another way Doomsday players were winning games. It was not Tendrils of Agony leading the charge. It was Mind’s Desire!

Stephen Menendian‘s team in 2004 are some of the earliest successful Doomsday pilots. Menendian also published several articles on the deck (linked below). Their teammate, JP Meyer, presents what Menendian describes as “the most elegant win condition ever conceived”. Here’s the pile from top to bottom:

1. Ancestral Recall
2. Black Lotus
3. Dark Ritual
4. Mind’s Desire
5. Beacon of Destruction

Whether you combo off immediately or need to pass the turn, this pile will generate a storm count of three. This results in Mind’s Desire being cast four times. Beacon of Destruction is the only card in your library. You are guaranteed to always hit it, and deal five damage, four times.

The deck earned the duo some wins, and Menendian‘s play-by-play report is a great read. It shows how the deck worked in the context of that 2004 meta.

A couple of months later, Menendian would pen the article “Rehearsing the Doomsday Scenario: Learning How to Build Optimal Doomsday Piles“. Despite its age, this article holds up remarkably well. It details the importance of playing under “non-ideal conditions”. The Beacon of Destruction line is awesome, but it will fold if your opponent gains life.

How do we win if Beacon is in our hand?

What happens if they have counter magic?

Menendian answers these questions and highlights why Tendrils of Agony is so important to the Doomsday archetype. Players were playing Doomsday as if it was an A + B combo deck.

Instead, Doomsday is a toolbox with hundreds of combos. Every game, you need to find the right one!

While some of the exact cards Menendian discusses are different from today’s lists, the skills remain the same. A Doomsday pilot should be aware of their deck and it’s potential. I think Emmanuel Lasker, former World Chess champion, would enjoy Doomsday. His quote “When you see a good move, look for a better one” sticks with me whenever I play the deck.

The oldest record of Doomsday I could find was in a 2021 article “The History of Doomsday: An interview with Emidln” from the team on doomsday.wiki. This was later confirmed in Meyer‘s 2004 piece “Papal Bull: Doomsday’s Back —and in Non-hoax Form!” where Meyer calls it “The original Doomsday deck”.

In this primordial form, the Doomsday pile was made of: Island, Black Lotus, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Regrowth, and Braingeyser.

You may look at those cards and wonder: How does this win a game? That’s because we need more than just these five cards! To win, we also need Timetwister, and any other two cards in hand, as well as two mana to cast the Regrowth in our pile.

In 1997 here is how we Doomsday.

1. Get to a position where you have Doomsday, and the means to cast it in hand.
2. Acquire Timetwister and exactly two other cards in hand. Let’s say they’re both Islands.
3. Cast Doomsday, your entire deck except the Doomsday pile, and your hand is now exiled.
* The Doomsday you just cast will now be in the graveyard
5. Pass the turn and hope you don’t die.
6. Draw an Island off the top of your pile and play it
7. Cast Timetwister. You will shuffle your hand, and your Doomsday pile into the graveyard and draw seven cards.
* Your deck is now empty
* Your Timetwister is resolved and is placed in the graveyard
* Your Doomsday pile, Doomsday, and the two Islands are in your hand
8. Cast Black Lotus and Lion’s Eye Diamond 9. Cast Regrowth targeting Timetwister using lands or some other mana source (do not use Lotus or LED yet).
10. With Regrowth on the stack sacrifice LED and Black Lotus for GGG and UUU
* Timetwister is now in hand
* Everything else is in your graveyard
11. Cast Timetwister using UUG
12. You are now back to step 5, but you have UGG floating. Repeat this process. You will net one blue mana every loop.
13. When you have enough mana, cast Braingeyser for X=60 targeting the opponent.

Look at the sheer setup and effort needed. So many steps, so many things that need to go right! Despite all this, Doomsday was in fact restricted for a period after this.

In 2004, it was unrestricted in Vintage. This is likely why Menendian and Meyer were so eager to take it for a spin around this time.

The deck saw some upgrades between 1997 and 2004 with Gush, Brainstorm, and Lotus Petal. This then brings us back to the 2004 storm era.