Back at Pro Tour Aetherdrift, Domain solidified itself as a dominant force in Standard. The deck’s powerful mix of control elements and ramp, as well as its ability to turn the corner with Zur, Eternal Schemer make it an elite choice.
If you’re tired of losing to the menace, it seems there may be an off-the-wall strategy that’s extremely well-positioned in the matchup. One player took a Dimir Doomsday Excruciator for a spin in a League and emerged undefeated.
They played Domain the first three rounds, didn’t drop a game, and claimed that the Domain matchup feels like “a bye.” This archetype has boasted some other decent results recently as well, including a top 32 finish in a Showcase Challenge a few days ago. The deck is far from fool-proof, but it does have some appeal in the current metagame.
The Combo
- Mana Value: BBBBBB
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 6/6
- Card Type: Creature- Demon
- MTG Sets: Duskmourn
- Card Text: Flying. When Doomsday Excruciator enters, if it was cast, each player exiles all but the bottom six cards of their library face down. At the beginning of your upkeep, draw a card.
The main goal behind this deck is to control the game long enough to assemble a two-card combo to end the game. The combo revolves around Doomsday Excruciator and Jace, the Perfected Mind, and is extremely simple to execute.
See, Doomsday Excruciator exiles all but the bottom six cards of both players’ libraries. From there, you need to find a way for the opponent to mill out first and lose the game via drawing from an empty library. Well, Jace accomplishes this task easily. All you need to do is use its -X ability to mill your opponent’s last remaining six cards, and you’re golden.
In many matchups, as long as you can keep the board clear, you can slam Jace the turn before you cast Doomsday Excruciator. That way, you can jam your six-drop, follow up by milling your opponent and win the game when they take their turn.
In some cases, even if you don’t have Jace at the ready, you can get the job done with Restless Reef. Restless Reef only mills your opponent for four cards, but that still puts the race in your favor, so long as the opponent doesn’t have a way to mill you like a Jace of their own.
Control Elements
- Mana Value: 2U
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Sorcery
- MTG Sets: Aetherdrift
- Card Text: Look at the top five cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
The rest of the deck is built to help you get to your combo on time and keep you alive. Obviously, Doomsday Excruciator is an expensive win condition. Luckily, you have the tools necessary to keep your opponent off-balance.
As you might guess, this deck utilizes a ton of removal. Go for the Throat, Sheoldred’s Edict, and even board wipes like Deadly Cover-Up make an appearance. It’s essential to keep beatdown decks under control so you can get to your finishers.
On top of your removal suite, you’ll also find two key card selection engines that dig for your combo pieces. New Aetherdrift staple Stock Up joins Mazemind Tome as cards that ensure you’ll find one of your two copies of Doomsday Excruciator in a reasonable time frame. These cards do a good job helping you hit your land drops as well.
Adaptive Gameplan
- Mana Value: BBBB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Stats: 5/5
- Card Type: Creature- Phyrexian Horror
- MTG Sets: New Phyrexia, Masters 25, Phyrexia: All Will be One
- Card Text: Trample. Whenever a source deal damage to Phyrexian Obliterator, that source’s controller sacrifices that many permanents.
We mentioned this deck’s elite Domain matchup as being a big selling point for playing it. This deck certainly has the tools necessary to win against a slower deck like Domain. First of all, Domain doesn’t apply much pressure at all in the early game. Second, you have tons of answer to Zur and whatever enchantments get animated. Above all, Domain doesn’t play much in the way of Counterspells or other ways to disrupt your combo kill.
However, you won’t always have the luxury of playing against Domain. Fortunately, this deck is built to handle aggressive creature decks as well. The removal suite (which includes a playset of the super efficient Cut Down), of course, prevents you from falling too far behind. Once you get to games two and three, though, you have an even more robust gameplan.
This is because this deck comes prepared with a bit of a transformational sideboard. Rather than relying on a somewhat slow and clunky combo, you get to bring in a playset of Phyrexian Obliterator from the sideboard to act as your primary win condition.
Mono-red and Gruul aggro have little recourse against the huge monster, since damage-based removal like Witchstalker Frenzy forces them to sacrifice a bunch of permanents. So, in sideboard games, you can play a full control gameplan, using Phyrexian Obliterator and Restless Reef as your finishers.
A Problematic Matchup
- Mana Value: WU
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Instant
- MTG Sets: Murders at Karlov Manor
- Card Text: Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner’s graveyard.
With this deck well set up to handle both hyper aggressive shells as well as Domain, you might think the deck covers all its bases. Unfortunately, there is one matchup that’s highly concerning: Azorius control.
Azorius control lines up favorably in a number of ways. This deck’s enormous removal package is mostly dead in the matchup. Your good cards in the matchup, such as Mazemind Tome and Jace, aren’t guaranteed to resolve versus No More Lies and Three Steps Ahead.
Furthermore, your Azorius control opponent doesn’t even have to win the game via combat damage. Instead, they can just mill you out with their playset of Jace. Even with Sheoldred’s Edict as an answer to opposing Planeswalkers, Jace is still a huge problem.
Azorius control has been on the rise in recent weeks. If you’re going to play Doomsday combo, be aware that you may face some polarizing matchups. In a field filled with Domain and aggro, though, Doomsday combo is a strong choice, so keep this deck on your radar.