Choices for Dragon.dec

[ELD]

I've been a fan of dragon.dec since worldgorger was printed.  I remember my initial build (with 4 gamble HA!) and the tuning process has continued right up to today.  I feel the power of this deck lies not in it's degenrate speed, but it's ablility to open a window for itself to combo out against control.  I've played it in some very good fields and the key winning tournaments isn't random luck.  Sure, a weaker player can get luck against a stronger player and win.  How often does that weaker player win the tournament though?  It's never happened at a tournament that I've been at.  A first turn win is often shot down by force, so why let that happen when the deck doesn't need to be so suicidal.  I'm in favor of cutting cards like dark ritual (which are essentially only good for first turn wins).  I to see cards like Intuition and Necromancy.  They add tons of depth to all match ups.  These force a control player to be able to defend against the combo at all times.  A control player tapping out for EOTFOFIW might find that they can never catch up with the card advantage from a bazzar now fueled by team squee.  Even better, Necromancy can just end the game in responce as well.  While there are some very good lists floating around the internet, there are always ways to tune a deck for your enviornment.  Here's a couple choices to think about for the main and sideboard.  

First up are Voldian Merchant and Cabal Therapy. I believe these two go together as they improve the deck the most when used in conjunction.  

Voldian Merchant
1U

When {cardname} comes into play, draw a card then discard a card

1/2

The merchant is subtle in its power.  I've seen AndyStok win more than a few games with 4 of these guys main deck.  They allow maximum use with Cabal therapy as well as put the dragon in the yard.  They also promote card advantage with Squee.  They are as close as I've seen to a Ghetto Bazzar of Bahgdad.  Cabal therapy tends to range from a stab in the dark to an insane double duress (Never mind the flashback).  I find this card gets better the more familiar you are with your meta.  It also clears a hand of disenchants or other combo breakers.  Both Squee and Merchant can be sac'ed for the flashback.  Another note is animating a opponents creature (with an excess animate) then flashing therapy to push through the combo.  Of course if you animate the dragon with a merchant in play you get to draw your entire deck and win with counter back up (assuming you're running force)

Anhk of Mishra- Dragon Killer

As you control all the triggers when you animate the dragon, you can stack the effects so anhk damage will never resolve.  This doesn't work if you are using Laquatus for the kill, but feel free to swich him out for Flame Wave Invoker.  Another possibility is Flaming Gambit main, not as good IMHO.  It isn't as good againts decks that can drop a couple early creatures (FEB, Elves, Sligh, Zoo, Fish etc..)  Ankh also stops an opposing dragon deck from comboing out unless they A. have both instant speed kill and necromancy or B. Have no lands out when they combo.  Opposing Anhk's are a good reason to run necromancy as it allows you to win anyways (cast it on their turn)  APNAP freakin rules.  

Well, there are a few cards to think about concerning Dragon.dec  It will probably become popular once chalice becomes legal and Long.dec loses popularity.  If the mirror becomes a common occurance, Anhk may become a very important card.  

I'd like to hear if anyone else has some janky tech for Dragon.  It is always fun to test out new concepts for this very interesting deck.

Peace,
Eric
ELD

[Crater Hellion]

interesting ideas? read my thread in the "newbie" forum. BTW, I'm the kid (with bazaars) who played you with dragon at the cape cod tourney.

[ELD]

Ah yes, I remember our match.  Very intense and I almost threw it away with my untimely coffin purge.  In the end it was combo vs control as the game were drawn out enough.  Back to Basics played the biggest roll in stopping Bazzar from destroying my card advantage.  Good times!  Anyways, enough reminicing.  Thanks for the reply, I checked out your post and I don't understand sliver queen over another Laquatus or Flame-Wave Invoker.  I love the 3/3/3 approach with the animate spells.  I used to play unmask but I'm advocating a different approach more dedicated to being able to win mid-late game.  

Peace,
Eric
ELD

[Crater Hellion]

Flamewave Invoker- If I incorporated red heavily into my deck, I would use Shivan Hellkite for kill because it has a solid 5/5 body for reanimating if need be, which this does not. However, I do not run red at the moment.

Sliver Queen- Same as before, a solid 7/7 body for reanimating. I would not replace Laquatus with Queen because it is a turn slower, but I have no problem running one of each.

hope that helped  \n\n

[ELD]

The Shivan Helkite is an excellent idea.  I will look into the possibility of looking for the reanimator kill as well as the combo kill.  Sliver Queen is interesting, I will test it.  My guess is I'm going to have to stick with the instant death as I do like Anhk quite a bit for the mirror.  I've actually ran Anhk main, as you ran defence grid, to mess with certain strategies.  There is a lot of combo keeper and any deck that runs fastbond doens't like Anhk at all.  
The benifit of Invoker is he can chump and then go to the yard for later.  He can also be cast and then used for Cabal therapy's flashback cost.  This may or may not be more valuable than an alternate way to win ie. beats with a huge monster.  Good deal against a deck that can't race a huge beat stick.  If they do have a (non-swords) combo breaker then your animate was at the worse a duress.  That is certainly better than losing all your permanents.  Again thanks.  

Peace,
Eric
ELD

[dicemanX]

Three things:

1. Red will always be a bad color to splash, as it doesn't really add much to the MD or SB. REBs are not the type of SB hate Dragon wants, and depending on a color when you go off (for Hellkite) is not a good idea. The best reason I can think of to splash red is so that you can hard-cast Squee for flashback cost on Therapy, but there's just no room to run Therapies in the deck, nor would you want to over Duress or FoW.

2. The Ambassador kill can be instantaneous (hence getting around stuff like Blessing or Ankh) if you go off via Compulsion instead of Bazaar. You basically Compulsion until you get Ancestral, and then deck them immediately. This won't happen often, but it gives you a chance to win if you face either hate card game 1.  

3. Vodalian Merchant is some old tech that I had listed in my old primer. If you want to dig around for some more Dragon tech, that primer had a list of numerous other possibilites. Some ideas include using kill cards like Cursed Scroll or Scrying Glass, or burial effects such as Survival of the Fittest and/or Hermit Druid. These choices might be currently inferior in Dragon, but always remain a possibility for the future especially if components get restricted over time (for instance, Intuition might get the axe at some point).

Once the post Mirrodin meta gets more or less established, I will update the Dragon primer, and I will list all the possible variations (fully powered and budget, including the T1.5 sleeping monster) and every possible combo and disruption card that can go into the deck. There are an incredible number of choices out there, far more than what many would believe.

[Smmenen]

Maybe someone should link the primer to this thread.  

I'd say the mere fact of how bizaare Dragon looks right now, but how deadly it is is an indication of the vast quantity of cards that you have tested.

Steve

[Toad]

Quote (ELD @ Oct. 12 2003,04:33)Anhk of Mishra- Dragon Killer

As you control all the triggers when you animate the dragon, you can stack the effects so anhk damage will never resolve.  

This is false. Each player is responsible for the way he stacks all his triggered effects. If multiple effects are triggered at the same time, they go in the stack in a "APNAP" order : those controlled by the active player first, then those controlled by the non active player.

If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, the abilities controlled by the active player go on the stack first, in any order he or she chooses, then those controlled by the opponent go on the stack in any order that opponent chooses. (Comprehensive Rules)

This means if you are trying to go off during your own turn, the stack will look like that :

UP
Ankh of Mishra's damage
Dragon's come into play ability
DOWN

And this will be the state of the stack after each loop, meaning you'll die before generating an infinite amount of mana.

The only weapon you have against Ankh of Mishra is Necromancy used during your opponent's turn, with an instant speed kill like Cunning Wish for Stroke of Genius or Ancestral Recall after Ambassador. This is because the stack will look like

UP
Dragon's come into play ability
Ankh of Mishra's damage
DOWN

And you'll end up with never resolving all the Ankh triggers. This is mostly why Ankh of Mishra is not great against Dragon. With Bazaar on the board, Dragon will find his Necromancy really quickly, or will be able to tutor for it.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Quote (Toad @ Oct. 12 2003,18:25)

Quote (ELD @ Oct. 12 2003,04:33)Anhk of Mishra- Dragon Killer

As you control all the triggers when you animate the dragon, you can stack the effects so anhk damage will never resolve.  

This is false. Each player is responsible for the way he stacks all his triggered effects. If multiple effects are triggered at the same time, they go in the stack in a "APNAP" order : those controlled by the active player first, then those controlled by the non active player.

If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, the abilities controlled by the active player go on the stack first, in any order he or she chooses, then those controlled by the opponent go on the stack in any order that opponent chooses. (Comprehensive Rules)

This means if you are trying to go off during your own turn, the stack will look like that :

UP
Ankh of Mishra's damage
Dragon's come into play ability
DOWN

And this will be the state of the stack after each loop, meaning you'll die before generating an infinite amount of mana.

The only weapon you have against Ankh of Mishra is Necromancy used during your opponent's turn, with an instant speed kill like Cunning Wish for Stroke of Genius or Ancestral Recall after Ambassador. This is because the stack will look like

UP
Dragon's come into play ability
Ankh of Mishra's damage
DOWN

And you'll end up with never resolving all the Ankh triggers. This is mostly why Ankh of Mishra is not great against Dragon. With Bazaar on the board, Dragon will find his Necromancy really quickly, or will be able to tutor for it.

I think he was talking of playing Ankh himself, in a Dragon-deck as mirror-tech. If you control that Ankh, you actually are still able to go off with something like the Hellkite, as, like he said, you stack both effects yourself.\n\n

[ELD]

I was of course talking about ankh as tech against other dragon decks.  Sure, there is no end to the amount of hate you can throw at dragon, but this one isn't thought of very often.  Sure, a card like Tomad's Crypt is thought of as superior in every way, but it's not.  Anhk has at least a  couple properties to be noted.  A two casting cost makes it harder to kill with Keg and Mox Monkey.  No activation cost makes cards like Null Rod useless against it.  I'm not saying Tomad's crypt isn't clearly better.  I'm just saying it's not better in every possible way.  Sure the above information may not be too important in the mirror, but I'm looking to get some ideas floating around.  I am looking for older cards that may have been tested and discarded to take another look.  

Thanks for the responses, I'll certainly be looking foward to the updated primer.
  
"The only weapon you have against Ankh of Mishra is Necromancy used during your opponent's turn, with an instant speed kill like Cunning Wish for Stroke of Genius or Ancestral Recall after Ambassador. "

In regards to this one, Toad, cast Necromancy during their upkeep.  I was going to cut and paste from the comprehensive rules to explain what the draw step is, and how it's better than ancestral in this situation, but I'll end the sarcasm here.  It's late and I don't want to be too over the top with unpleasentness.  Thanks for the effort, I'm glad a few people are interested in dragon, as it a less broken combo deck.  I've always thought if was balanced.  It is fast as hell, but devestated by hate.  A seal of cleansing can mean game over, but it can win before it hits the table.  It isn't a degenerate deck, not to name any names  and I hope it will be in the meta for some time.  

Peace,
Eric
ELD

[MoreFling]

Quote (ELD @ Oct. 17 2003,08:20)and I hope it will be in the meta for some time.  

Which is actually more dependant on the presence of Wasteland than wether or not people are packing Dragon hate. It's actually a quite degenerate combo, since it's stupid, and based off the stubbornness of RnD to just fix the Dragon, since it obviously isn't supposed to do this.

well, whatever  

[Shock Wave]

Quote I'd say the mere fact of how bizaare Dragon looks right now, but how deadly it is is an indication of the vast quantity of cards that you have tested.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that competitive Dragon, given the current B&R List, will never change. The amount of testing that went into this deck is what provided such a freaky decklist. In retrospect, the Bazaars are what sent Dragon over the edge. They are the sole card that Dragon needed in order to make it a winning deck. There are a lot of neat tricks you can do with Dragon as a result of the functionality of the combo, however the optimal cards have already been determined. Barring a few small changes according to play style and metagame, the skeleton of Dragon has been defined and should be left as is.\n\n

[dicemanX]

I just want to add that what put Dragon over the top was Shock Wave's addition of Squees to the Bazaar build to give Dragon a mid-game vs control. The deck works so well now because it has something that previous builds did not - a powerful draw engine.

I also agree that this deck will not change very much in the near future, again barring any major B/R changes. However, there is still "budget" Dragon to consider, mainly because there simply aren't enough playsets of Bazaars to go around, and when available they are usually very expensive. Maybe the madness players will relinquish theirs once LED will get the axe Dec. 1...

Quote Thanks for the effort, I'm glad a few people are interested in dragon, as it a less broken combo deck.  I've always thought if was balanced.  It is fast as hell, but devestated by hate.  A seal of cleansing can mean game over, but it can win before it hits the table.

A Seal hitting the table is hardly game over. You can go off multiple times with multiple animate effects. You can do this by either holding back a land, or with a Necromancy in response to the activation of the Seal. Some even like to play either Rushing River or Cunning Wish to deal with such Dragon hate. Post SB, you have a wealth of options when attempting to deal with their hate, whether it is permanent based, or instant based. This is the glaring weakness of the recent builds that have been played around the world - the SBs are just not optimally built.

Quote  was of course talking about ankh as tech against other dragon decks.  Sure, there is no end to the amount of hate you can throw at dragon, but this one isn't thought of very often.

Ankh *in* Dragon as tech against other Dragon decks is a poor choice, as it doesn't even stop them from going off with Necromancy, *and* it lacks flexibility. There are at least three SB cards that are superior: Coffin Purge, Tormod's Crypt,and Stifle. These cards happen to be useful against other decks too. My preference right now goes to Stifle (I ran 4 in the SB of a recent Carta tourney) for three reasons:

1. Very effective in the mirror
2. Useful against long.dec because it stops Storm *and* it deals with Seals of Cleansing
3. Stifle can stop various forms of permanent-based hate (Seal, Pernicious Deed, Wasteland, etc.)

Stifle is a very flexible SB card. However, do note that it's not the best SB card against long.dec, as they are likely to Duress you at some point when they're going off. If I was expecting many long.decs, I'd for sure play 4x Null Rod. Post Oct.20th, Dragon will have Chalice available instead, which is even better - Chalice can stop certain instant-based hate, such as Coffin Purge and StP, in addition to hosing long.dec.\n\n