Here's my take on this deck:
I don't want to be doing anything on Turn 2 other than playing my second mana dork or Utopia Sprawl, so that I can play Doubling Season on T3. In fact, I don't want to do anything on T3 other than play Doubling Season, so I play 4 copies. I don't want any planeswalkers that don't either win the game on T4 or come down on T3 to help me survive and find the Doubling Season. For me, this deck is not about "playing a kooky fun superfriends deck", it's basically a sideways combo deck that cheats out Emrakul or the opponent's best cards... or both.
Speaking of helping me survive, the cards that make T3 Doubling Season possible also make T2/T3 Madcap Experiment into Platinum Empyrion very easy. I almost always side out the package once I know which hate to bring in.
My version is very streamlined and I find it quite fun:
That's definitely an interesting take. I've always been opposed to the "all-in" plan, though. I don't think of the version that only runs 2 Doubling Seasons as a kooky superfriends deck (though it sort of is), it's a deck that attacks at multiple angles. I mean, how do you win against enchantment destruction? What if you don't draw Doubling Season? Nahiri is good on her own, but Jace often isn't, and Tamiyo is only really good if you're playing creatures of your own that can attack.
The Madcap package is certainly powerful, but what does it specifically do for this deck? I guess it just buys you time while you assemble the combo, since most removal in modern is based on toughness or CMC. My main, worry, though is that you've tripled the number of cards you don't ever want to draw by adding in the Emperions alongside Emrakul. That's a lot of dead draws. I guess Nahiri helps, but still.
Clearly though, Double Moon Walkers isn't a tier one deck, so we need to experiment. And I do think this is one of the more compelling all-in builds, so I'll try it out on Cockatrice some time before I commit to acquiring 2 more Doubling Seasons.
PS: Madcap Experiment skips Emrakul because he's not an artifact.
Here's my take on this deck:
I don't want to be doing anything on Turn 2 other than playing my second mana dork or Utopia Sprawl, so that I can play Doubling Season on T3. In fact, I don't want to do anything on T3 other than play Doubling Season, so I play 4 copies. I don't want any planeswalkers that don't either win the game on T4 or come down on T3 to help me survive and find the Doubling Season. For me, this deck is not about "playing a kooky fun superfriends deck", it's basically a sideways combo deck that cheats out Emrakul or the opponent's best cards... or both.
Speaking of helping me survive, the cards that make T3 Doubling Season possible also make T2/T3 Madcap Experiment into Platinum Empyrion very easy. I almost always side out the package once I know which hate to bring in.
My version is very streamlined and I find it quite fun:
That's definitely an interesting take. I've always been opposed to the "all-in" plan, though. I don't think of the version that only runs 2 Doubling Seasons as a kooky superfriends deck (though it sort of is), it's a deck that attacks at multiple angles. I mean, how do you win against enchantment destruction? What if you don't draw Doubling Season? Nahiri is good on her own, but Jace often isn't, and Tamiyo is only really good if you're playing creatures of your own that can attack.
The Madcap package is certainly powerful, but what does it specifically do for this deck? I guess it just buys you time while you assemble the combo, since most removal in modern is based on toughness or CMC. My main, worry, though is that you've tripled the number of cards you don't ever want to draw by adding in the Emperions alongside Emrakul. That's a lot of dead draws. I guess Nahiri helps, but still.
Clearly though, Double Moon Walkers isn't a tier one deck, so we need to experiment. And I do think this is one of the more compelling all-in builds, so I'll try it out on Cockatrice some time before I commit to acquiring 2 more Doubling Seasons.
PS: Madcap Experiment skips Emrakul because he's not an artifact.
Oh yeah Forgot thought he wasn't half asleep when I wrote that..
That's definitely an interesting take. I've always been opposed to the "all-in" plan, though. I don't think of the version that only runs 2 Doubling Seasons as a kooky superfriends deck (though it sort of is), it's a deck that attacks at multiple angles. I mean, how do you win against enchantment destruction? What if you don't draw Doubling Season? Nahiri is good on her own, but Jace often isn't, and Tamiyo is only really good if you're playing creatures of your own that can attack.
The Madcap package is certainly powerful, but what does it specifically do for this deck? I guess it just buys you time while you assemble the combo, since most removal in modern is based on toughness or CMC. My main, worry, though is that you've tripled the number of cards you don't ever want to draw by adding in the Emperions alongside Emrakul. That's a lot of dead draws. I guess Nahiri helps, but still.
Yep, great points. My older versions of this had a lot more token generation and they were fun too, but often durdled too much and always died to flyers/burn, so I designed this mostly as a Thought Experiment, basically: "How to maximize my chances of
1 - Having 5 mana by Turn 3
2 - Having Doubling Season on T3
3 - Having a game-ending PW on T4
After all that, with remaining slots (4), how to maximize the chance to stay alive that long, or if I'm missing a piece. "
This is why we used to run maindeck Blood Moon, but preboarded hate cards don't work against a lot of decks. I also tried counters, removal, Obstinate Baloth, Blessed Alliance, and a host of different Planeswalkers. The best ones for this purpose in my opinion are Gideon Jura and Ajani Vengeant, but their Ultimates don't win the game.
Re: not finding Doubling Season, that's why I run 4 and that's also the reason Madcap/Emperion package. Idyllic Tutor is too slow because it means at best a T4 DS and T5 win. But since Empyrion pretty much only dies to Path or Artifact destruction, it's pretty good for helping me last til I find DS. Also it's beautiful when they bring in the Paths and Artifact hate and I've taken out that package for 3 Blood Moons and 2 Worships... and they have dead cards.
Regarding enchantment hate, I used to run a few Negates, but then realized that I am bringing in several enchantments in every match, and they can't destroy them all, so I took a more proactive approach. It's not ideal but I wanted more to board in against Burn so I replaced them with Kor Firewalkers.
Anyway, the fun about a brew like this is we can keep changing, and we can play the cards we like the best!
I watched the MTGgoldfisf play through of this deck and was very intrigued.
I'm curious for those are playing it:
Manabase - For a Bloodmoon deck the manabase seems very non-basic heavy. The main reason I like this deck is the T2 Bloodmoon and it seems like the manabase is trying too hard when they'll likely be mountains?
Ramp - It seems like others have addressed this but Arbor Elves are begging for Utopia Sprawl and it seems like that also makes it less vulnerable to the T1 man dork removal. I was thinking a 4x Birds, 4x Utopia SPrawl, 2-3x Arbor Elf and 2x Noble Heirarch is a good ramp package that hopefully won't lead to a bunch of lame draws in the mid to late game?
Interaction - It seems like there is split on whether or not this deck needs removal. If it does, why is everyone going for PtE? That seems completely at odds with the Bloodmoon gameplan by feeding them basics. I think Lightning Bolt will be generally easier to cast and can go to the face when necessary and it should be able to remove an early aggressive threats that could be troublesome.
Enchantment Tutor - Has anyone tried/considered Commune with the Gods to find a creature or the Bloodmoon/Doubling Season?
Yeah, the manabase is nonbasic heavy, but we're also running Oath of Nissa and a bunch of manadorks. Aside from Blood Moon, the only cards that need non-green mana are Planeswalkers. As long as you have one basic forest you should be fine. I've only had my own blood moon screw me over like once.
I really need to do some serious testing with Utopia Sprawl some time. The reason I'm not running it currently is that Noble Hierarch is a great enabler for Tamiyo, Field Researcher's +1 (attack with exalted plant, birds, or even noble if the coast is clear), and I regard Tamiyo as one of the best planeswalkers in the deck. I also really like Sylvan Caryatid because I can leave it up to block and not worry about it getting blown up before combat. I'd also think if you're doing the Arbor Elf/Utopia Sprawl plan you need 4 of each, but maybe not?
Also, what's the payoff? Maybe 10% of the time you can land a turn 2 four-mana planeswalker, and that should be pretty backbreaking. But we're not really ramping into stuff the way that other decks do with Sprawl.
Also, I might agree with you about PtE I actually used to run it in my sideboard, but that interaction never came up. It is a little easier to cast than Bolt if you're running Noble Hierarch.
As for Commune with the Gods, the thing is, you never really want to dig for creatures. They're good to have, but it's very rare that you actually want to go looking for one. If you want card selection, I might recommend Oath of Jace or something else that doesn't select by card type. Ideally, we want something that digs for enchantments or planeswalkers, but there's not really anything that does that (other than, like, Vessel of Nascency?)
It's a shame there are no good Planeswalkers in Rivals. Hopefully Dominaria will have some good ones.
I love the doubling season deck, but I run mine with 4 Utopia Sprawl and 4 Arbor Elf as my ramp. I will test with extra birds when I pick them up next... with Noble Heirarch theyd be great but thats some dollars im not keen to spend right now.
I also currently run Garruck Wildspeaker as he is often "free" and provides a body if needed. For my next iteration I will be dropping his numbers, if not entirely, tho it makes me more dependent an the vulnerable Elf..
For the planeswalker package, Tamiyo Field Researcher is great at tapping down Deaths Shadow.
I'm tempted to throw Kiora in there too, as when they're both out D.Shadow is no longer a problem.
Wincon wise, Jace, Architect of Thought plus Samut, The Tested plus Xenagos, God of Revels plus Emrakul.
I feel that 7 copies between Jace and Samut is probably ideal as, with Doubling Season out it's insta-win.
Jace finds Samut. Samut finds Jace and Xenagos. Jace finds Emrakul. Cast trigger. Haste. 30 power. Anihilator 6. Flying. That should be game.
My question is which and how many supporting PWs are needed to accomplish this. Hence Tamiyo and Kiora and nahiri.
I absolutely love playing this deck and love me some Planeswalkers. My build is more fun than competitive I do manage to do well at FNM and online. I prefer a turn slower with the mana walls that are harder to remove and can provide early blocking, with an inevitability of 4cc Planeswalkers that can ultimate if Doubling Season is out. I also like the randomness of so many ways to win. Just me, perhaps.
Yes, 61 was on purpose. I've tried to cut down but with all the searches and tutors, I like access to every card. I wanted to have a good main deck to handle just about any deck. Ppl do comment they don't know how to sideboard against me. Worship and Doubling Season are hard for opponents to choose which is more devastating.
Control matchups, Keep jamming Planeswalkers to run them out of counters.
Combo like Humans, storm, Scapeshift, really want to race to turn 4 hopefully and have some disruption and tapping down with the current set of Planeswalkers. I admit, I haven't had many matches in paper on these. Mono U Merfolk used to give me problems.
It's a fun deck and exciting to see how it plays out differently. My primary path is Doubling Season into Jace, Architect of Thought or Tamiyo, Field Researcher. But any of the rest of the team is crazy too.
I just wanted to offer up my version as an option with mana walls to help stop early aggro, protect Planeswalkers and ramp like crazy.
So, how about that Jace, the Mind Sculptor unbanning? How many copies do we play? He's not particularly good with Doubling Season, but he's still a really powerful card on his own (and entering with +3 loyalty off DS isn't nothing). I'd play 1 at least.
Also, for the life of me, I can't tell why anyone is still thinking about Samut. Her first two abilities (and especially her +1) are incredibly weak. Yes, her ultimate wins the game, but so does Jace's, Nahiri's, and Tamiyo's. It's true, the last two there don't guarantee a win, but they're a win at least 90% of the time, and they're actually pretty good when they're not going ultimate. Samut is purely win-more.
The defender build is interesting, I kind of want to try that out.
Another random planeswalker that probably deserves testing is Sarkhan Unbroken. Yes, his ultimate does literally nothing, but he draws cards and he's really good with Doubling Season even if you play him first.
Sarkhan is probably not for this deck.
Drawing a card or making a dragon token is nice but there are too many better PW's for this deck that also have game-winning ultimate abilities.
Jace is obviously powerful but is it actually better than Chandra in this deck ? Chandra actually works much better with DS and all her modes are relevant for the deck.
Hello, here are my thoughts on the current topics, and more!
I actually like Jace, The Mind Sculptor in this deck. Sure, he doesn't insta-win with doubling season in play, but that's what the ~8 copies of Nahiri, the Harbinger, Jace, Architect of Thought, and Tamiyo, Field Researcher are there for. Plus, he provides something that this deck desperately lacks, which is dig and filtering. It's pretty common to have an excess mana dork in your hand after turn 4 and since we play a good amount of fetches (~4-6), it's easy to shuffle them away. Plus, he's somewhat capable of defending himself and can win games that drag on too long. I'd strongly consider 1-2 copies. Also, the mana cost for Chandra, Torch of Defiance is somewhat prohibitive (the only other red is blood moon and Nahiri, the Harbinger, which we can cast off Birds of paradise or Utopia Sprawl, etc.), especially for a card that generally has a pretty awkward first turn in play. It's worth some testing though!
Has anyone else tried Gideon of the Trials? I've been testing 2-3 copies alongside Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, and they fill out the curve nicely. Planeswalkers of turns 2, 3, and 4 can be too much for some decks. He can also occasionally close out games.
Blood Moon can win games, but it can also lead to super clunky draws, so I generally like to keep it in the sideboard. Worship is pretty similar, but sometimes our aggro matchup isn't the best, so a copy or two main deck makes sense to me.
Replacing red for black would be super greedy, but you'd get Liliana of the veil and / or Liliana, the last hope. A turn two LotV can certainly win games, plus, you could try Oath of Liliana, which is not the worst card I've seen. She also has a strong (but not game-ending) combo with Doubling Season and can discard excess mana dorks. It comes at the cost of losing Nahiri, The Harbinger and destabilizing the mana base, but certainly offers some raw power.
There are a few cards that stand out here. By far the most exciting is Oath of Teferi.
Oath of Teferi
3WU
Legendary Enchantment
When Oath of Teferi enters the battlefield, exile another target permanent you control. Return it to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.
You may activate the loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control twice each turn rather than only once.
This card might actually be better than Doubling Season. Maybe that's taking things too far, but consider:
It can blink Oath of Nissa to re-trigger it, or Sylvan Caryatid to untap it.
If you drop this on a board with Nahiri at 6, you can immediately ultimate her. This sort of goes for all planeswalkers, you can basically trick the opponent into thinking they have one more turn to deal with your planeswalker than they actually do.
Unlike Doubling Season, this card is better if you play your planeswalkers beforehand. Which allows you to curve out easier, since most planeswalkers are cheaper than 5. You can also don't have to "take a turn off" to play this card if you have any planeswalkers in play, since you get immediate benefit from it.
Doubling most planeswalker abilities is just pretty brutal. They gain loyalty faster and give you double bonuses. Being able to activate Jace, Tamiyo, Gideon of the Trials, or any token producer can be totally backbreaking.
It's legendary, so Thalia's Lancers can search for it, I guess? Plus there will probably be other Legendary Matters cards in Dominaria.
Honestly, I think it's worth trying to redesign this deck from the ground up to make this card the payoff. And unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that deck runs 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor...
Okay, there are two other cards probably worth mentioning.
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
3WU
Legendary Planeswalker — Teferi
4
+1: Draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, untap two lands.
−3: Put target nonland permanent into its owner's library third from the top.
−8: You get an emblem with "Whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls."
Cool card, but I think that most of the time, this actually compares unfavorably to Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Drawing a card for +1 is nice, but we can't really make use of the land untap part, other than Westvale Abbey/Gavony Township. Chandra basically draws a card for +1 and can add mana that's available on your own turn. They both can -3 to kill something, and Teferi is generally better at it. And his ultimate is good, but it won't do anything immediately unless you have Nahiri in play or something. Chandra's ultimate will probably be useful immediately. Overall, probably not better than any walkers we're currently running.
Urza's Ruinous Blast
4W
Legendary Sorcery
(You may cast a legendary sorcery only if you control a legendary creature or planeswalker.)
Exile all nonland permanents that aren't legendary.
Sweeper that leaves all our planeswalkers still standing. Not too much to analyze here, but it seems pretty powerful.
Teferi's -8 turns JtMS into Violent Ultimatum at -0. I've never played this deck before, but that interaction seems pretty immediate. Unfortunately for JtMS, his payoff is double his EtB with Doubling Season, so while really powerful in his own right isn't he a bit lacking while the deck is "going off"?
Howdy yall, been grinding this deck with my own spin, got a top 64 finish anf several good mtgo results. That said samut is not a win more as much as it is an alternative if you get locked out from AoT or Nahiri.
Also emerakul is nice but not required in my opinion. The new Ajani is amazing for this deck.
Also the genesis wave for lands and legendaries might be enough to shift the mana base. Food for thought.
By itself, Kamahl's Druidic Vow seems to be worse than Deploy the Gatewatch in my opinion, and we have already cut deploy the gatewatch. You'd have to play it for at least x=4 to hit most of our planeswalkers, which at 6cmc each, deploy is better. Of course Kamahl is better when going into extremely high mana like x=6-8, but at that cost, I'm not sure the game state would be favorable. However.. May be playable with oath of teferi in deck.
The new Oath of Teferi is absolutely interesting, and I think is worth testing. Decisions would have to be made between cutting the combo entirely, reducing it, or maintaining the combo planeswalkers. With Oath, I could see a wide gameplan on tokens being quite viable. Garruk wildspeaker for example, can +1 and then immediately ulti on the 2nd activation. The main benefit of oath is a tempo advantage as compared to doubling season, but you lose a little bit of the combo finish.
I'll try to go through my list and reevaluate all of the planeswalkers with oath now instead of doubling season.
Does anybody have a list using a split of Doubling Season and Oath of Teferi? This was one of the first decks I built, I just never got around to refining it. How are the matchups in today’s world?
I think the biggest hurdle to overcome with redesigning the deck is our anchor cards. In the original Double Moon Walkers, they were Doubling Season, Nahiri, the Harbinger, Oath of Nissa, and Blood Moon, to a lesser extent. That worked out really well, since Oath and Doubling Season are green, and Oath lets you cast Nahiri easily. But Oath of Teferi is white/blue and doesn't really fit in as nicely. So I see two directions here:
1. Remove green entirely (which probably means we lose Blood Moon) and completely restructure the deck, probably going Jeskai colors with a possible splash of something. The biggest problem here is we lose Birds of Paradise and the other mana accelerators. Honestly, they're a little awkward, since most of the planeswalkers we want to cast cost 4, so even with turn one BoP we're not always casting something good on turn 2, so it might be acceptible to just replace them with Signets or something. Okay, probably not.
2. Just swap out Doubling Season for Oath of Teferi, rework the mana base a little bit, and reassess our planeswalker choices so they align better with our new payoff card. Instead of looking for planeswalkers that ultimate immediately, we should look for planeswalkers that just generate a ton of value.
Of course, neither of these options puts us in black, which gives us Yawgmoth's Vile Offering. This card is a huge blowout if it resolves; I imagine it will often be a 3 for 1: kill their creature, get a planeswalker back, use that planeswalker to kill something else. Black also has Oath of Liliana, which seems good enough. And while I don't think Liliana of the Veil is a good card in this deck, Liliana the Last Hope has potential (not many creatures to bring back, though). I guess the question is, is Yawgmoth's Vile Offering as good of a payoff card as Doubling Season or Oath of Teferi? Probably not, but it would be a great 1-of, at least, if we can support it. There's also the pretty wacky Settle the Score, which lets us do surprise ultimates.
And then there's Urza's Ruinous Blast. I'm not sure this card is much better than just Supreme Verdict or something, but it sure worked out in the standard deck. Karn's Temporal Sundering is our last worthwhile Legendary Sorcery, but you should probably just play Time Warp in that case.
This is my first attempt to just put Oath of Teferi into the existing build. Not much actually changes. Turns out most the planeswalkers that ultimate immediately off Doubling Season are also just really good and work well with double abilities.
Here's the basic card pool I'm looking at. I'd really like to play 1 Yawgmoth's Vile Offering, but I don't think the manabase can support it. Maybe it's just hype and it's actually not as amazing as I think.
Personally I don't think that Oath of Teferi can replace Doubling Season, it is a neat effect but much less powerful (and more akward to cast).
Also, winning the game is better than generating some more value.
Personally I don't think that Oath of Teferi can replace Doubling Season, it is a neat effect but much less powerful (and more akward to cast).
Also, winning the game is better than generating some more value.
Yeah, there's definitely a good chance we're just riding the hype train, here. I definitely want to test it out, since it does have some real advantages over Doubling Season.
Do you still play this deck at all, Dennis? I'm curious what your current build looks like, and if there are any other Dominaria cards you think are worth playing.
From the new set Board the Weatherlight looks pretty interesting and I wonder if it can work together with Oath of Nissa (which it can find) to give the deck better consistency.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty can give us and PW's hexproof which seems good, might be worth a SB slot or two.
From the new set Board the Weatherlight looks pretty interesting and I wonder if it can work together with Oath of Nissa (which it can find) to give the deck better consistency.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty can give us and PW's hexproof which seems good, might be worth a SB slot or two.
Both of those suggestions seem sweet. Is it the norm to run 4 doubling season? I was proposing just adding one or two oaths instead of 4 DS. If we are in a bant-ish shell it seems like casting it wouldn’t be difficult. That said, if it doesn’t work then no big deal.
The more I think about this deck the more I want to brew with it. Has enchantments like Ghostly Prison and the like been tried? Have we tried alternative win cons besides the obvious get Emrakul and attack? It just seems like if we pick the right walkers, their ultimates should just win the game without having to attack. Which brings me to my next point, have we tried Ensnaring Bridge?
Again, I’m new to this deck, I played it when it first came out and haven’t really played it since. I could be completely wrong?
I tested Oath of Teferi yesterday, and I wouldn't write it off just yet. Having immediate board impact felt important, and being able to play it after your walkers allowed for a much more natural curve. I also got to go Nahiri->Oath one game. You should have seen the look on my opponents face.
On the other hand, I also played JTMS in that deck. He was less than stellar, to say the least. I don't think he fits the gameplan to the point of being worth playing.
Have we tried alternative win cons besides the obvious get Emrakul and attack?
My lists play 4 Gideon AoZ, 3-4 Nissa VoZ, and typically a few other token producers (alongside Gavony Township). I'd say that plan wins more games for me than Nahiri does.
I also don't run Blood Moon though, as I've had poor experiences with that card.
They left out the part where Yawgmoth is resurrected,but has been cleansed as Yawgmoth the Redeemed,and now must awaken Chromium so that Karn can fuse with him and create what can only be known as : the ultimate taco.
That's definitely an interesting take. I've always been opposed to the "all-in" plan, though. I don't think of the version that only runs 2 Doubling Seasons as a kooky superfriends deck (though it sort of is), it's a deck that attacks at multiple angles. I mean, how do you win against enchantment destruction? What if you don't draw Doubling Season? Nahiri is good on her own, but Jace often isn't, and Tamiyo is only really good if you're playing creatures of your own that can attack.
The Madcap package is certainly powerful, but what does it specifically do for this deck? I guess it just buys you time while you assemble the combo, since most removal in modern is based on toughness or CMC. My main, worry, though is that you've tripled the number of cards you don't ever want to draw by adding in the Emperions alongside Emrakul. That's a lot of dead draws. I guess Nahiri helps, but still.
Clearly though, Double Moon Walkers isn't a tier one deck, so we need to experiment. And I do think this is one of the more compelling all-in builds, so I'll try it out on Cockatrice some time before I commit to acquiring 2 more Doubling Seasons.
PS: Madcap Experiment skips Emrakul because he's not an artifact.
Oh yeah Forgot thought he wasn't half asleep when I wrote that..
Yep, great points. My older versions of this had a lot more token generation and they were fun too, but often durdled too much and always died to flyers/burn, so I designed this mostly as a Thought Experiment, basically: "How to maximize my chances of
1 - Having 5 mana by Turn 3
2 - Having Doubling Season on T3
3 - Having a game-ending PW on T4
After all that, with remaining slots (4), how to maximize the chance to stay alive that long, or if I'm missing a piece. "
This is why we used to run maindeck Blood Moon, but preboarded hate cards don't work against a lot of decks. I also tried counters, removal, Obstinate Baloth, Blessed Alliance, and a host of different Planeswalkers. The best ones for this purpose in my opinion are Gideon Jura and Ajani Vengeant, but their Ultimates don't win the game.
Re: not finding Doubling Season, that's why I run 4 and that's also the reason Madcap/Emperion package. Idyllic Tutor is too slow because it means at best a T4 DS and T5 win. But since Empyrion pretty much only dies to Path or Artifact destruction, it's pretty good for helping me last til I find DS. Also it's beautiful when they bring in the Paths and Artifact hate and I've taken out that package for 3 Blood Moons and 2 Worships... and they have dead cards.
Regarding enchantment hate, I used to run a few Negates, but then realized that I am bringing in several enchantments in every match, and they can't destroy them all, so I took a more proactive approach. It's not ideal but I wanted more to board in against Burn so I replaced them with Kor Firewalkers.
Anyway, the fun about a brew like this is we can keep changing, and we can play the cards we like the best!
I'm curious for those are playing it:
Manabase - For a Bloodmoon deck the manabase seems very non-basic heavy. The main reason I like this deck is the T2 Bloodmoon and it seems like the manabase is trying too hard when they'll likely be mountains?
Ramp - It seems like others have addressed this but Arbor Elves are begging for Utopia Sprawl and it seems like that also makes it less vulnerable to the T1 man dork removal. I was thinking a 4x Birds, 4x Utopia SPrawl, 2-3x Arbor Elf and 2x Noble Heirarch is a good ramp package that hopefully won't lead to a bunch of lame draws in the mid to late game?
Interaction - It seems like there is split on whether or not this deck needs removal. If it does, why is everyone going for PtE? That seems completely at odds with the Bloodmoon gameplan by feeding them basics. I think Lightning Bolt will be generally easier to cast and can go to the face when necessary and it should be able to remove an early aggressive threats that could be troublesome.
Enchantment Tutor - Has anyone tried/considered Commune with the Gods to find a creature or the Bloodmoon/Doubling Season?
I really need to do some serious testing with Utopia Sprawl some time. The reason I'm not running it currently is that Noble Hierarch is a great enabler for Tamiyo, Field Researcher's +1 (attack with exalted plant, birds, or even noble if the coast is clear), and I regard Tamiyo as one of the best planeswalkers in the deck. I also really like Sylvan Caryatid because I can leave it up to block and not worry about it getting blown up before combat. I'd also think if you're doing the Arbor Elf/Utopia Sprawl plan you need 4 of each, but maybe not?
Also, what's the payoff? Maybe 10% of the time you can land a turn 2 four-mana planeswalker, and that should be pretty backbreaking. But we're not really ramping into stuff the way that other decks do with Sprawl.
Also, I might agree with you about PtE I actually used to run it in my sideboard, but that interaction never came up. It is a little easier to cast than Bolt if you're running Noble Hierarch.
As for Commune with the Gods, the thing is, you never really want to dig for creatures. They're good to have, but it's very rare that you actually want to go looking for one. If you want card selection, I might recommend Oath of Jace or something else that doesn't select by card type. Ideally, we want something that digs for enchantments or planeswalkers, but there's not really anything that does that (other than, like, Vessel of Nascency?)
It's a shame there are no good Planeswalkers in Rivals. Hopefully Dominaria will have some good ones.
I love the doubling season deck, but I run mine with 4 Utopia Sprawl and 4 Arbor Elf as my ramp. I will test with extra birds when I pick them up next... with Noble Heirarch theyd be great but thats some dollars im not keen to spend right now.
I also currently run Garruck Wildspeaker as he is often "free" and provides a body if needed. For my next iteration I will be dropping his numbers, if not entirely, tho it makes me more dependent an the vulnerable Elf..
For the planeswalker package, Tamiyo Field Researcher is great at tapping down Deaths Shadow.
I'm tempted to throw Kiora in there too, as when they're both out D.Shadow is no longer a problem.
Wincon wise, Jace, Architect of Thought plus Samut, The Tested plus Xenagos, God of Revels plus Emrakul.
I feel that 7 copies between Jace and Samut is probably ideal as, with Doubling Season out it's insta-win.
Jace finds Samut. Samut finds Jace and Xenagos. Jace finds Emrakul. Cast trigger. Haste. 30 power. Anihilator 6. Flying. That should be game.
My question is which and how many supporting PWs are needed to accomplish this. Hence Tamiyo and Kiora and nahiri.
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Breeding Pool
3x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
2x Island
1x Overgrown Tomb
2x Plains
1x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
Creatures
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Overgrown Battlement
4x Sylvan Caryatid
3x Wall of Omens
3x Wall of Roots
4x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Kiora, Master of the Depths
1x Nahiri, the Harbinger
1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1x Nissa, Steward of Elements
1x Ral Zarek
1x Samut, the Tested
1x Sarkhan Vol
2x Tamiyo, Field Researcher
1x Vraska the Unseen
Enchantments
4x Doubling Season
4x Oath of Nissa
1x Worship
Sorcery
1x Idyllic Tutor
1x Ajani Vengeant
2x Fog Bank
1x Garruk Wildspeaker
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Gideon Jura
1x Idyllic Tutor
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Rest in Peace
1x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
2x Stony Silence
For Affinity, I like Fog Bank and Stony Silence and maybe Ajani Vengeant or 2nd Ghost Quarter.
Tron Stuff, Ghost Quarter and more token production in Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Garruk Wildspeaker
Control matchups, Keep jamming Planeswalkers to run them out of counters.
Combo like Humans, storm, Scapeshift, really want to race to turn 4 hopefully and have some disruption and tapping down with the current set of Planeswalkers. I admit, I haven't had many matches in paper on these. Mono U Merfolk used to give me problems.
Burn and the like, Leyline of Sanctity of course. Worship and Sylvan Caryatid are fantastic.
Graveyard hate is in Rest in Peace.
It's a fun deck and exciting to see how it plays out differently. My primary path is Doubling Season into Jace, Architect of Thought or Tamiyo, Field Researcher. But any of the rest of the team is crazy too.
I just wanted to offer up my version as an option with mana walls to help stop early aggro, protect Planeswalkers and ramp like crazy.
Also, for the life of me, I can't tell why anyone is still thinking about Samut. Her first two abilities (and especially her +1) are incredibly weak. Yes, her ultimate wins the game, but so does Jace's, Nahiri's, and Tamiyo's. It's true, the last two there don't guarantee a win, but they're a win at least 90% of the time, and they're actually pretty good when they're not going ultimate. Samut is purely win-more.
The defender build is interesting, I kind of want to try that out.
Another random planeswalker that probably deserves testing is Sarkhan Unbroken. Yes, his ultimate does literally nothing, but he draws cards and he's really good with Doubling Season even if you play him first.
Drawing a card or making a dragon token is nice but there are too many better PW's for this deck that also have game-winning ultimate abilities.
Jace is obviously powerful but is it actually better than Chandra in this deck ?
Chandra actually works much better with DS and all her modes are relevant for the deck.
Hitting: Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, Birds of Paradise or Sylvan Caryatid is pretty bad.
There are a few cards that stand out here. By far the most exciting is Oath of Teferi.
3WU
Legendary Enchantment
When Oath of Teferi enters the battlefield, exile another target permanent you control. Return it to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.
You may activate the loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control twice each turn rather than only once.
This card might actually be better than Doubling Season. Maybe that's taking things too far, but consider:
- It can blink Oath of Nissa to re-trigger it, or Sylvan Caryatid to untap it.
- If you drop this on a board with Nahiri at 6, you can immediately ultimate her. This sort of goes for all planeswalkers, you can basically trick the opponent into thinking they have one more turn to deal with your planeswalker than they actually do.
- Unlike Doubling Season, this card is better if you play your planeswalkers beforehand. Which allows you to curve out easier, since most planeswalkers are cheaper than 5. You can also don't have to "take a turn off" to play this card if you have any planeswalkers in play, since you get immediate benefit from it.
- Doubling most planeswalker abilities is just pretty brutal. They gain loyalty faster and give you double bonuses. Being able to activate Jace, Tamiyo, Gideon of the Trials, or any token producer can be totally backbreaking.
- It's legendary, so Thalia's Lancers can search for it, I guess? Plus there will probably be other Legendary Matters cards in Dominaria.
Honestly, I think it's worth trying to redesign this deck from the ground up to make this card the payoff. And unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that deck runs 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor...Okay, there are two other cards probably worth mentioning.
3WU
Legendary Planeswalker — Teferi
4
+1: Draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, untap two lands.
−3: Put target nonland permanent into its owner's library third from the top.
−8: You get an emblem with "Whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls."
Urza's Ruinous Blast
4W
Legendary Sorcery
(You may cast a legendary sorcery only if you control a legendary creature or planeswalker.)
Exile all nonland permanents that aren't legendary.
Just a curiosity.
"Reveal a Dragon"
Also emerakul is nice but not required in my opinion. The new Ajani is amazing for this deck.
Also the genesis wave for lands and legendaries might be enough to shift the mana base. Food for thought.
The new Oath of Teferi is absolutely interesting, and I think is worth testing. Decisions would have to be made between cutting the combo entirely, reducing it, or maintaining the combo planeswalkers. With Oath, I could see a wide gameplan on tokens being quite viable. Garruk wildspeaker for example, can +1 and then immediately ulti on the 2nd activation. The main benefit of oath is a tempo advantage as compared to doubling season, but you lose a little bit of the combo finish.
I'll try to go through my list and reevaluate all of the planeswalkers with oath now instead of doubling season.
I think the biggest hurdle to overcome with redesigning the deck is our anchor cards. In the original Double Moon Walkers, they were Doubling Season, Nahiri, the Harbinger, Oath of Nissa, and Blood Moon, to a lesser extent. That worked out really well, since Oath and Doubling Season are green, and Oath lets you cast Nahiri easily. But Oath of Teferi is white/blue and doesn't really fit in as nicely. So I see two directions here:
1. Remove green entirely (which probably means we lose Blood Moon) and completely restructure the deck, probably going Jeskai colors with a possible splash of something. The biggest problem here is we lose Birds of Paradise and the other mana accelerators. Honestly, they're a little awkward, since most of the planeswalkers we want to cast cost 4, so even with turn one BoP we're not always casting something good on turn 2, so it might be acceptible to just replace them with Signets or something. Okay, probably not.
2. Just swap out Doubling Season for Oath of Teferi, rework the mana base a little bit, and reassess our planeswalker choices so they align better with our new payoff card. Instead of looking for planeswalkers that ultimate immediately, we should look for planeswalkers that just generate a ton of value.
Of course, neither of these options puts us in black, which gives us Yawgmoth's Vile Offering. This card is a huge blowout if it resolves; I imagine it will often be a 3 for 1: kill their creature, get a planeswalker back, use that planeswalker to kill something else. Black also has Oath of Liliana, which seems good enough. And while I don't think Liliana of the Veil is a good card in this deck, Liliana the Last Hope has potential (not many creatures to bring back, though). I guess the question is, is Yawgmoth's Vile Offering as good of a payoff card as Doubling Season or Oath of Teferi? Probably not, but it would be a great 1-of, at least, if we can support it. There's also the pretty wacky Settle the Score, which lets us do surprise ultimates.
And then there's Urza's Ruinous Blast. I'm not sure this card is much better than just Supreme Verdict or something, but it sure worked out in the standard deck. Karn's Temporal Sundering is our last worthwhile Legendary Sorcery, but you should probably just play Time Warp in that case.
This is my first attempt to just put Oath of Teferi into the existing build. Not much actually changes. Turns out most the planeswalkers that ultimate immediately off Doubling Season are also just really good and work well with double abilities.
1 Gideon of the Trials
2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (sorry)
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Oath of Nissa
2 Blood Moon
2 Oath of Teferi
1 Urza's Ruinous Blast (or 3rd Oath of Teferi)
Creatures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Sylvan Caryatid
Lands
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Horizon Canopy
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Breeding Pool
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
2 Gavony Township
1 Westvale Abbey
4 Forest
Here's my fairly naive attempt to "modernize" Saffron Olive's standard deck:
2 Gideon of the Trials
4 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
4 Wall of Omens
1 Thalia's Lancers
Spells
4 Fatal Push
2 Path to Exile
2 Oath of Liliana
2 Oath of Teferi
2 Urza's Ruinous Blast
1 Yawgmoth's Vile Offering
Mana
4 Talisman of Dominance
24 Land
Here's the basic card pool I'm looking at. I'd really like to play 1 Yawgmoth's Vile Offering, but I don't think the manabase can support it. Maybe it's just hype and it's actually not as amazing as I think.
- Oath of Nissa
- Oath of Liliana
- Oath of Nissa
- Urza's Ruinous Blast
- Yawgmoth's Vile Offering
- Doubling Season
- Settle the Score
- Oath of Gideon
- Thalia's Lancers
(gets Oath and generates value when you blink it with Oath)Also, winning the game is better than generating some more value.
Yeah, there's definitely a good chance we're just riding the hype train, here. I definitely want to test it out, since it does have some real advantages over Doubling Season.
Do you still play this deck at all, Dennis? I'm curious what your current build looks like, and if there are any other Dominaria cards you think are worth playing.
From the new set Board the Weatherlight looks pretty interesting and I wonder if it can work together with Oath of Nissa (which it can find) to give the deck better consistency.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty can give us and PW's hexproof which seems good, might be worth a SB slot or two.
Both of those suggestions seem sweet. Is it the norm to run 4 doubling season? I was proposing just adding one or two oaths instead of 4 DS. If we are in a bant-ish shell it seems like casting it wouldn’t be difficult. That said, if it doesn’t work then no big deal.
Again, I’m new to this deck, I played it when it first came out and haven’t really played it since. I could be completely wrong?
On the other hand, I also played JTMS in that deck. He was less than stellar, to say the least. I don't think he fits the gameplan to the point of being worth playing.
Ghostly Prison doesn't prevent them from attacking your walkers, only you, so it seems less than stellar.
My lists play 4 Gideon AoZ, 3-4 Nissa VoZ, and typically a few other token producers (alongside Gavony Township). I'd say that plan wins more games for me than Nahiri does.
I also don't run Blood Moon though, as I've had poor experiences with that card.