By Christina “cecillbill” Page 

Darkness/Water/Fire Control is one of the most dominant decks in the current environment. It has been a consistent top four performer for many sets, and even gained some new tools from Thundercharge of Ultra Destruction. Despite several “anti D/W/F” decks springing up, the build is still a top choice amongst many duelists. Many players are drawn to the potent creature removal, card drawing, creature recursion, and speedy win condition choices offered by the three civilizations as a conglomerate. While there tends to be a common card pool shell for many D/W/F builds like Illusionary Merfolk, Searing Wave, Terror Pit, Twin-Cannon Skyterror, Corile, and Locomotiver, many players add their own personal touches to the build that range from the under-appreciated like Dark Reversal to the off-color like Holy Awe splash. You might even find a certain underplayed Shadowclash of Blinding Night creature included in the lineup: Doboulgyser, Giant Rock Beast. 

 Doboulgyser, Giant Rock Beast is an interesting piece of creature control and a win condition rolled into one. The win condition part of the creature’s makeup resides in its Double Breaker status. Double Breaker ties into win acceleration. As a hitter in a control deck, it makes all the careful and methodical plays pay off when you’re able to finish with something big and scary that lacks summoning sickness. And, its 8000 power is enough to handle the likes of Crystal Lancer and overrun defense. Its creature control aspect comes in the hand of its at-summoned effect: when you put Doboulgyser into the battle zone, you may destroy one of your opponent’s creatures that has power 3000 or less. Doboulgyser’s destruction effect helps negate some of the card advantage you’d grant an opponent if it swings for two shield breaks, especially since you don’t increase your field presence when you play an evolution.  

In conjunction with cards like Searing Wave, Crimson Hammer, Apocalypse Vise, and Burst Shot you can compound the stifling effects creature removal has on your opponent’s options when you also run Doboulgyser. You can cut down on his late-game swarm numbers or his ability to evolve his creatures. With a list of targets like Locomotiver, Bronze-Arm Tribe, Magris, Corile, Aqua Hulcus, Phantom Fish, Sairus, Kooc Pollon, Rikabu’s Screwdriver—Doboulgyser’s kill effect should be put to good use more often than not. And, with a CIP destruction effect, your opponent may need to closely evaluate how desirable Doboulgyser is as a bounce card target.  

 

 

As an evolution, Doboulgyser’s playability must to take into account its base creature selection. There are nine evobaits to help him hit the board, ranging in cost from 2 to 6 mana. In terms of a Control strategy, players most often turn to Meteosaur and Magmarex. The good thing about Meteosaur and Magmarex is that they are sources of card advantage themselves. Meteosaur can kill a 2000 or below guy when it enters play, and Magmarex zaps all 1000 guys when it hits. Magmarex as a trigger can be set with Emeral or be hit randomly, and even is a neat way to expedite your own Propeller Mutant’s at-destruction discard. A play of Meteosaur/Magmarex followed by Doboulgyser offers up more creature kill redundancy. The 2 mana power attacking Blazosaur Q has seen play in the Rock Beast evo line due to its cheapness, but Control decks as of late skip the tiny creature due to the 2 drop being home to control oriented weenie creatures like Emeral. Doboulgyser’s main shortcoming is that its base creatures, in terms of the control-oriented ones, are 5 mana creatures with 2000-3000 power. It’s a slow creature to play and has evo material that’s fragile. Doboulgyser has appeared in some top four Invitational decklists in decks sporting Nature’s acceleration to speed up its appearance.

D/W/F is all about reaping card advantage over an opponent through relentless kill and hand control tactics, and in the right metagame Doboulgyser can be a viable option within that strategy. In my own meta, I’ve had 1^st and 4^th place finishes with a pre-Thundercharge Doboulgyser Control D/W/F deck. Today I’d like to share a post-Thundercharge Doboulgyser Control D/W/F deck that placed 3^rd at a 5 Civilization tourney in Berlin, Germany:

Doboulgyser Control

3^rd Place 5 Civilization Tournament—Berlin, Germany
created & played by: ^^Knuffle_Tigger^^ 

2x Doboulgyser, Giant Rock Beast
2x Magmarex
3x Meteosaur
4x Pyrofighter Magnus

3x Twin-Cannon Skyterror
2x Searing Wave
2x Apocalypse Vise

3x Emeral
2x Illusionary Merfolk
4x Corile
4x Aqua Hulcus
3x Phantom Fish
2x Energy Stream

4x Locomotiver
2x Propeller Mutant
4x Terror Pit
2x Lost Soul
2x Hopeless Vortex

Total: 50 cards

The Deck: Same Synergies, Slightly Different Taste

^^Knuffle_Tigger^^’s Doboulgyser Control has many of the same control plays as most US metagame D/W/F Control decks, but adds a twist in its creature kill lineup in the form of the Rock Beats evo line. The deck, like all D/W/F controls, tries to squeeze your ability to win by hitting your field and your hand constantly, out-draw you to reach answers/threats, build up card advantage with its CIP effect creatures and spells, and then seal up the game with support from its summoning sickness-less hitters. Let’s take a look the deck’s plays by mana cost:
2cc—5 cards

Emeral

Propeller Mutant

This deck isn’t going to be the aggressor unless an opponent gets a slower start, has no defense out, and Knuffle_Tigger draws these guy in his first hands. Otherwise, these guys out early exist to trip up an opponent’s thinking game. One of the threats, Propeller Mutant is irksome. If killed with something like Phantom Dragons’ Flame your opponent just turns him into a 1 for 2 for you. Emeral trades a card or sets a trigger (Loco, Rex, Pit), and combos with Folk for either a 7^th turn drop pairing on early drop then Merfolk. These guys can do a suicide number if out early versus Rushers. In the late-game their cheapness can help add to the attack runs. 

3cc—13 cards

Pyrofighter Magnus

Aqua Hulcus
Phantom Fish
Energy Stream 

With 13 cards at the 3 spot, this deck shouldn’t miss getting something on the board by turn three often. What is played will likely depend on what answers and threats an opponent has in play. If there’s a tapped hitter but no discernable threat on board or defense Pyrofighter might come out to break a shield or hit a tapped threat. It’s an irksome creature for the opponent to face due to its return to hand ability. However, the more likely the play is either going to be defensive with Phantom or draw with Hulcus (or one of the two mana guys) to get out something that sticks on the board first, especially if the two drop was missed. Hulcus can slap a weenie and Phantom answer some speed. Stream is likely in the same boat as Pyro—played if threat level is low and a hitter is not immediately needed. It’s an in-game call as to what gets played. 

4cc—4 cards

Locomotiver 

Loco is the deck’s only “max out mana” option at the 4 spot, but it’s a great one. It can help speed decks going into topdeck mode faster, and chip into early stocked hands a bit—possibly could come out sooner via trigger. It’s one of those 2 for ones that help the deck build card advantage over the long haul. In any event, a 3 mana or 2 mana option can be played here as well. The available mana might not get tapped out here, but most of the cheaper plays are strong here too. 

5cc—15 cards

Magmarex
Meteosaur
Illusionary Merfolk
Corile
Searing Wave
Hopeless Vortex

15 cards at the 5 spot with 13 being removal should tell you that this deck wants to start stabilizing the board or at least chipping way some threats to hang in the game at this point. Maxed out, Corile is likely the top play versus another Control deck and Searing Wave/Magmarex versus speed/Control. Folk will likely be played if Emeral is out and the opponent’s field is not out of hand. Vortex might see play if major threat is something big. Since Magamarex is a trigger, it might already have seen play as a card given by an aggressive opponent—and hopefully chipped some of the field away to make this turn Corile country to stall that late-game draw. If not, Rex and Meteosaur hard-cast might get the ball rolling for a Doboulgyser drop depending on what’s in hand and in the field or simply just clear away a threat.

6cc—6 cards

Doboulgyser, Giant Rock Beast

Terror Pit 

Cleanup-kill. Pit can handle fat. If evobait is present, Doboulgyser can come on board, kill a weenie, then slam for a kill or two shields. The conditions of the field and the necessity to push for breaks determine what’s played, what’s hit, and what’s the attack target.  

7cc—7 cards

Twin-Cannon Skyterror
Apocalypse Vise
Lost Soul

These are the “okay let’s push for the win” or “get opponent on the ropes big time” cards. Soul nails the hand for all and whatever, hopefully hurting the opponent’s progression and nailing tricky targets like Baza. Vise hits field opponent has managed to re-build or more fat that’s come on board, especially if pit or Vortex were MIA. Twin-Cannon is the type of finisher all the kill and discard builds towards dropping. Got seven mana and it flies into shields or tapped threat, usually.  

The deck’s basic play output starts with shield manipulation (Emeral), irksome threat (Propeller), defense (Phantom), or card drawing (Hulcus/Stream). It then follows up with more irksome threats or creature kill (Pyrofighter), discard (Locomotiver), removal (Corile, Wave, Hopeless, Meteosaur, Magmarex) or card drawing (Folk). To cap off things it does more of the same: kill (Pit, Vise), discard (Soul), threat/answer (Twin, Doboulgyser)—with the ability to stagger those plays at different points depending on the mana buildup, threats out, and cards in hand. As with any deck, the plays made are in-game calls and depend on the matchups.  

Tackling the Deck: Taking Down The Giant Rock Beast Control

^^Knuffle_Tigger^^’s Doboulgyser Control has a lot of great tactical options that can help it churn out answers and threats to trip up an opponent’s game. However, as no deck is perfect and this deck was likely metagamed, there are several ways to trump this Doboulgyser Control and holes you can patch up if you want to build your own Doboulgyser Control deck using some ideas in his deck or try this build: 

1. Hit Fast and Then Hit Some More

The deck is very top heavy with many mid to late-game cards—cards that cost 4 or more mana. It runs 32 such cards. While that’s not unheard of for a Control deck--being top heavy--it’s a trait that leaves room for Speed decks and Aggro-Control decks to make short game of the matchup. The only sweeper shield trigger is Magmarex, and it’s only going to stop 1000 and below guys (typical for weenie rush). Wave comes online turn 5 to trip up Rush and early swarm, but the deck only runs two copies and it includes a loss of a shield which might play to the time advantage of a speed deck. The deck also only runs one set of blockers, and although 4000 power strong, it can only deal with one target at time. Also, it’s hitters besides Pyrofighter might be doing a lot of suicide missions. Therefore, hitting fast and consistently might leave this deck chocking on a lot of great cards in hand but not enough time to use them. Teching in Holy Awe can give you a way of preventing their late-game swarm from slapping you silly or help you go for uncontested hits. Running some cheap hand discard can help knock out sweeper kill that can devastate faster decks. 

2. Control the Control player

Playing in many Control mirror matches has taught me several things: 1. I want to Lost Soul first, 2. I want to be able to draw and draw some more due to hand discard and lost fields, 3. I want to pack sweepers, 4. I want to Corile blockers or stuff that doesn’t sac my hand or too many hitters, and 5. recycle like Reversal is darn handy. There’s more, but the point I’m getting at is Control tactics hurt other Control decks. If you don’t like playing attack-happy decks, then “fighting fire with fire” is another way to approach beating a deck like this Doboulgyser Control. Notice that many of the creatures are weak—they’re susceptible to that same type of weenie kill that the deck runs itself. A Control deck is likely not going to maintain a swarm field to slap you in those famous OTKs if you slam their field in sweeps. Shot, Vise, Magmarex (to a lesser degree), Wave, and Silphy are all viable sweepers. Hitting the hand is also a potent way to cripple the deck’s tempo gains and card advantage. Discard can affect mana development and the ability to make effective plays—and make a slow deck even slower. Running some recursion like Reversal can help curb the damaging effects of kill and discard.  Also, running shield negation Like Bolmeteus Steel Dragon and Cryptic Totem along with cards like Holy Awe can help the field you are able to build cripple your opponent when you deny him use of or access to his shield cards.  

Doboulgyser Control is a slightly different take on a common strategy. There are many ways to run Doboulgyser Control (or D/W/F for that matter), so experiment with different control cards and creatures. If you try this version of the deck or use some of its ideas, then I highly recommend that you test the deck out and metagame it to deal with the deck strategies that you commonly face or anticipate facing. What has worked for another player may need considerable tweaks and lots of playtesting before it works for you (if it does at all).  

What’s Up Next?

We’re going to take an in-depth look at a US metagame D/W/F Control deck that showcases some underplayed cards. Each week I’ll spotlight 1-2 top 4 Invi/5 Civ decks from the US, German, AUS, or UK metagames. This isn’t a deck garage, so I’ll be evaluating builds “as is” in their top four forms only. If you decide to netdeck the decks covered in this article series or use some of the ideas contained in the decks, I highly recommend that you conduct proper testing and metagaming of the decks before you run them in tourneys. If you'd like to share your top 4 Invitational or 5 Civ deck with the Duel Masters community, then hit me up with an email at: kaiserpso@hotmail.com. Please be sure to include your first name or forum nickname, the cards in your deck and the quantities, where you played, and your placing when you send your email.