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Domain-ating ExtendedBy Benjamin Ng on June 30th, 2005 · Filed in Extended (Type 1.x) · 8 Comments
Collective Restraint: It basically reads, "you can't be attacked." A mandatory 4-of, especially in an aggro meta. Engineered Explosives: I don't understand why someone would play this over Deed, but it shows up in decklists. Play Deed. Evasive Action: Ultra-Mana Leak is too good to ignore, especially against killer cards like Naturalize or Plow Under. While Evasive Action is not an essential part of the deck, it greatly boosts the deck's chances against combo and control and should at least be considered in every deck. Global Ruin: A great one-two punch when combined with Restraint against monocolor, Affinity or control. However, without Restraint it doesn't help your board position at all, and it doesn't slow bi- or tri-color decks much. Overgrown Estate: How many times would you have to use this before it became a better deal than Heroes' Reunion? Three? Four? Either of those numbers is already too many. Pernicious Deed: A deck was built around this card. The high CMC of Domain's permanents comes in handy here. Temporal Spring: Simply not as good as the card below it. Vindicate: One of the best cards in the game. Allows you to save your Deeds for bigger problems than a Siege-Gang Commander or Sundering Titan. Also makes dealing with said Titan a lot easier, and allows you to destroy a Pithing Needle or Meddling Mage locking your Deed. Wrath of God: Nice outside of requiring two Plains. Generally, Pernicious Deed is better, but Wrath of God prevents regeneration and kills large creatures without killing your Restraint. The control portion of a Domain deck might look something like this:
Library Manipulation Control decks need to find and draw cards, and having access to all colors greatly improves Domain's choice of searchers. All Suns' Dawn: Allied Strategies without the risk of grabbing land. Extremely powerful in the late game. Although Dawn works great with gold cards, bear in mind that Domain has almost no red cards and very few white cards the Dawn can retrieve. Burning Wish: There are a plethora of powerful sorceries Burning Wish can fetch for you. They'll be discussed in the sideboard. Etched Oracle: Mandatory. Five mana for a 4/4 and 3 cards is ridiculous, even if its an artifact. If your opponent wants to use their Naturalize on this instead of Collective Restraint or Pernicious Deed, it's their problem. I highly stress the fact that it costs 5 mana, however; losing this while tapped out is like a 4:1 trade for your opponent. Gifts Ungiven: Wrong deck. I don't suggest it. Sensei's Divining Top: This deck has about as many shuffle effects as Tooth, and 1 mana is nothing especially with all the land-grabbing this deck does. Sterling Grove: In addition to searching out some of the most devastating spells in your deck, it also protects them. An untargetable Genju of the Realm is something to be feared. Note that this must be sacced when Deed pops for anything greater than 1. Worldly Counsel: An instant, more selective Strategies. It's also a weak Impulse if you're mana screwed. Unlike the other spells in this category, you can leave two mana open to bluff an Evasive Action while holding this. As you can see, there are too many options especially in the area of those that rearrange your library. You will have to make a decision as to which ones to cut. The Library Manipulation portion of a Domain deck might look something like this:
Win Conditions: Been aching to use Genju of the Realm? Having access to every color offers Domain a lot of highly undercosted fatties that normally never get to see play. Cromat + Coalition Victory: It's a cute combo, but often Cromat can do the job himself. And there is a far less restrictive 8 mana kill sorcery. Crosis, the Purger: A decent finisher, but not as good as some of the others. Draco: Surprisingly dangerous outside of it being an artifact. Better for laughs than for serious play. Genju of the Realm: This goes with Sterling Grove like bread and butter. Barring Naturalize, a Genju should win you any game especially since it dodges Wrath of God and many other mass removal sorceries. Goblin Trenches: Horrible synergy with Pernicious Deed and not even that overpowering to begin with. Legacy Weapon: It's not much better than a Bringer fetching Vindicate every turn, and it's worse for many reasons. Lightning Angel: I don't see all the hype about this card. It's not THAT much better than a Serra Angel, and you see how much play she gets (in decks). Sliver Overlord: Without any Slivers, this is worse than Cromat. Cromat is surprisingly Morphling-like. Spiritmonger: One of the best combat creatures in the game, but it doesn't trample. Also, unlike some of the cards here Spiritmonger doesn't guarantee you the game if not dealt with. Especially since Trolls can block it all day. Skyreach Manta, Ordered Migration, Tek: Draco > you. Burning Wish, Sterling Grove and Bringer of the Black Dawn are all cards that can lead to winning the game, so your win conditions should vary according to which ones you play. The Win Condition portion of a Domain deck might look like any two of these(having only one is risky due to Cranial Extractions):
Mana Fixing: Here's the tradeoff to all these spectacular cards Domain has access to; you need to have many different basic lands in play. Oh noes. Chromatic Sphere: A quick mana fixer that doesn't clog your hand in the late game. However, it doesn't actually give you land and it's a one-shot. Gaea's Balance: Too slow, but very cool. A shame. Harrow: Kodama's Reach seems superior to Harrow in every way, but Harrow's instant-ness and ability to leave 2 mana open for spells like Evasive Action is surprisingly useful. A nice trick is to pretend you have no available  , but get an Island with Harrow and counter a spell. Kodama's Reach: Guaranteed prismatic next turn. Rampant Growth: A quick, easy way to accelerate to four mana by turn 3. Sakura-Tribe Elder: Rampant Growth, plus an early-game Fog-effect. Four of these are mandatory. Wayfarer's Bauble: A slightly more expensive Growth unless played first turn. On the plus side, it doesn't require green mana and thus allows you to keep forestless hands, which are fairly common. How much mana fixing you play depends a lot on the cost of your spells and how desperate you are to achieve prismatic. Is it worth the extra turn developing mana to get prismatic, knowing that you're likely to get your fifth land eventually due to Top and fetchlands? Will the large amount of mana fixers hinder your late-game topdecking? The mana fixing portion of a Domain deck might look like this: Land: Basic Land: Obviously needed for prismatic. Some colors will be used more than others, and this should be represented in the basic land count. I play with at least two of each land for a few reasons: 1. Redundancy. If you want to play two spells of the same color on the same turn, you need two of the same basic land. 2. Consistency. You should run at least as many basic lands as fetchlands. 3. Safety. You don't want to have to scoop after a Reap and Sow or Sundering Titan. Fetchlands: There is generally no reason not to play as many fetchlands as humanly possible. Fetchlands greatly increase your chances of randomly grabbing your 4th or 5th land and provide a shuffle effect if you use Sensei's Divining Top. If you face HUGE amounts of aggro you can run a few more basic land, but generally the more fetch the better. Painlands: If you really look, there are only a few cards in the deck that depend on you having all five basic lands. In this respect, painlands are acceptable. On the other hand, they don't survive Global Ruin and can't be searched out. City of Brass: You want color smoothing? This is it. Just like in every other control deck, use these sparingly. The Land portion of a Domain deck might look like this: Sideboard: Deed and Restraint are not always enough to prevent being overrun, and Evasive Action is rarely enough to stop a combo. Boseiju, Who Shelters All: Domain has a lot of instants and sorceries. Boseiju also kills Boseijus from opposing players trying to get around your Actions, namely TnN (although that deck shouldn't be a problem with Global Ruin). The most practical application is to Boseiju-power a Global Ruin vs. Tog. Call of the Herd: Some quick defense that can also be wished for in a jam. Cabal Therapy: Wishable Combo/Control Hate. Unfortunately you can only really afford to sacrifice BoPs, so Duress is probably better. Destructive Flow: Some excellent hate against colorful decks, especially since you run no nonbasics. A little redundant with Global Ruin, however. Duress: Wishable Combo/Control Hate. Mana Leak|Stronghold: Extra hate against combo and control. Meddling Mage: Some combo hate. It's a little off-color, so theres a good chance it'll be too slow. Moment's Peace: Sometimes Pernicious Deed and Collective Restraint aren't fast enough. Once Restraint does hit, however, this becomes fairly useless. Naturalize: Some hate against Scepter-Chant and Affinity. Oxidize: Great hate against Scepter-Chant and Affinity. Pithing Needle: Hate against KCI, Tog, etc.. Terminate: More spot removal. Wish targets: Cranial Extraction: Why not? It decimates some decks. Death Grasp: Some life in addition to removal. Haunting Echoes: A great finisher for less than Rude Awakening. Lay of the Land: If you desperately need that final land for a Restraint or Genju. Living Wish: Can be wished for to fetch creatures or Boseiju from the side or return Extracted creatures. Pyroclasm: You already have the red mana to pay for it... which can often be a bad thing because it makes it hard to grab and play on the same turn. Rude Awakening: An unexpected wishable surprise for your opponent. Beautiful with Deed clearing the way the turn before. Wandering Stream: For 5 mana(   + Wish) you can get yourself out of the red zone or buy yourself a few extra turns. Stream also makes you significantly hardier against Tendrils and KCI Fireballs.Wash Out: More time-buying.
Matchups: Goblins: There is nothing Goblins can do to you once Collective Restraint hits; however, make sure it hits by throwing away bad hands instead of keeping them. A wished-for Wandering Stream pulls you out of Sharpshooter range, and then Pyroclasm or Deed mops up. If it's R/g Goblins, side in your Elephants and Peaces, because you can expect Naturalizes which make things much harder. Try to keep your Sterling Groves in play, and if they let the pressure off Wish for an Extraction to take away the Naturalizes. If it's Goblin Bidding, side in countermagic and Duress. Wish for Extraction when you can. Fish: Voidmage Prodigy combined with Pithing Needle can be problematic, but otherwise this matchup is easy pre-sideboard because of Fish's low damage-to-creature output. Once the Voidmages are out of the way the game is yours. Side in your Boseijus and COTHs. You may see some Annuls and your Restraints getting bounced more, but that's about it. Raffinity: Barring god draws, game 1 is fairly easy for Domain. Raffinity has no answer to Deed, so burning is the only option. Wish for Stream ASAP, then Extract the Disciples or Shrapnel Blasts. Sideboard in Peaces and any artifact/Disciple hate. An untouched Needle will lose you the game very quickly; if you don't have any Oxidizes or Naturalizes, the raffinity player has an edge on you. Red Rock: The initial discard onslaught hurts a lot, especially when Duresses come in. However, aggro Rock doesn't have the staying power its name suggests, and by simply stabilizing you can win. Extract the Deeds if you have a chance. If you draw a Bringer, search out another because Rock can only really kill them through Terminate and you don't want your opponent to get lucky. Game 2, side in Peaces. Although Deed and Etched Oracle are great at killing a Rock offensive, you don't want any flukes. You might want to side in COTH too, but remember troll runs it over and it's a token. Tooth and Nail: This game is simply a race of Global Ruin vs. Tooth. You have Evasive Actions, but they have Eternal Witnesses. A resolved Tooth WILL kill you, since they have enough mana to run over Restraint and you can't Deed away anything especially because of Sundering Titan. A resolved Ruin doesn't just destroy most of their land, it also removes all the mana and cards spent developing that land. Duresses, Counterspells and especially Global Ruin in the sideboard is helpful. They may have Pithing Needles and Naturalizes in the board, but that's not what the game is about. Boseijus, on the other hand... Now, you may still be wondering as why this is any better or worse than a Gifts Ungiven deck. Here are the main differences between the decks: Domain has Collective Restraint, Global Ruin and Evasive Action. Instead of recurring cards from the graveyard, it runs multiples of what it needs. Gifts Ungiven has a stronger early game defense and much better recursion. However, it's very reliant on Gifts Ungiven, which is a 4 mana spell. Thank you for reading! and Alex+ for the banner[ I got writer tag! yay! By Benjamin Ng on June 30th, 2005 · Filed in Extended (Type 1.x) · 8 Comments |
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