Hey People!Im new here so sry if i break some unwritt...

[safl]

Hey People!

Im new here so sry if i break some unwritten rules. The thing is im tired of seing those "this is a budget dragon build" and then the main draw-engine is based on the very-rare, very-expensive Bazaar of Baghdad. It simply p****s me off!
I would have to give all the cards i own to get my filthy hands on them!

So instead of just sit here and whine, i made my very own build, based on the well-known 'worldgorger+animate of some sort' combo, playtestet a bit and went to the monthly local tournament and made a 2. place in a semi-powered metagame.
Im quite pleased with the deck, and without any further adou, here it is, enjoy!

// Mana base
    4 x Polluted Delta
    4 x Bloodstained Mire
    2 x Badlands
    1 x Swamp
    2 x Island
    4 x Underground Sea
    1 x Lotus Petal
    1 x Mana Crypt
    4 x Dark Ritual

// The nice creatures, hellkite for alternate win
    4 x Worldgorger Dragon
    3 x Ambassador Laquatus
    1 x Shivan Hellkite

// Cheap-ass get to the combo 'tech'

    3 x Buried Alive
    1 x Entomb

    1 x Animate Dead
    1 x Necromancy
    4 x Dance of the Dead

    4 x Brainstorm
    4 x Careful Study
    3 x Tolarian Winds

    1 x Spoils of the Vault
    1 x Demonic Tutor
    1 x Vampiric Tutor
    1 x Mystical Tutor

    4 x Duress

// Sideboard
    2 x Chalice of the Void
    4 x Naturalize
    1 x Tropical Island
    1 x Bayou
    3 x Null Rod
    2 x Red Elemental Blast
    2 x Defense Grid

There's a great deal of harmony in the deck, by combining the draw/discard spells. And using a "fetch-land" to get rid of the crap you just discovered with Brainstorm on the top of your lib is a nice thing. Or using brainstorm before the Tolarian Winds to place a Dance of the Dead on the top. There are plenty off ways to get to the combo og getting there is great fun  Try it your self!

My sideboard is a little weird, the Null Rods, Chalice and Defense Grids are a MUST in allmost any metagame, the rest is just stuff i threw in against Planar Void, Tormod's Crypt and stuff that hates your graveyard and other random threats that might show up.

Just my 2 cents to the community, live long and prosper

Simon

[MadManiac21]

First off I would like to suggest that you take a look at Bebbe’s Dragon/reanimater build,
As he has had a reasonable amount of success with it (even though it does have bazaars).

A couple of things that I would change right off the bat would be to;

Add:
VERDANT FORCES
Intuitions
3/3/2 Animate/Dance/necromancy
Sol Ring
Chalice of the Void MD
*Tainted Pact
*Force of Will

Lose:
The extra ambassadors
Maybe the red
A buried alive or 2
Other things that correspond to my other suggestions, possibly tolarian winds, careful study, etc.

Reasons why?:
Verdant force is a HOUSE against aggro decks, and seeing as you are running a budget
Version of a combo deck, you kinda need something to stop the early beats. This beast
Not only stops aggro cold, but it doubles as a win condition.
Intuitions can get all the same things as buried alive, but at instant speed, PLUS you can put that reanimation spell into your hand ASAP.
Sol ring is the MOST BROKEN card evar. Run it.
Chalice can be dropped for 0 to stop long.dec and other things running power (as you don’t have many 0 casting cost cards), plus it improves your matchup against aggro.
Tainted Pact COULD be used as another fetch/search, but you would want to up the redundancy of the deck.
You may also want to consider Force of Will, as saying “No” in today’s game is just too big to pass up.

You only need one ambassador to go off, 3 is just overkill.
Red doesn’t seem to be an integral part of the deck. Yes, it allows for another kill in the way of damage, but it makes you have to run more non-basic lands. If I were to run another combo-kill besides for ambassador, you may want to consider sliver queen, as she’s also a 7/7 fattie.
You wont need as many buried alive’s if you add intuitions.
Whatever else you feel necessary.

I had also been tossing about the idea of building a budget dragon/reanimate type deck without the bazaars but for 1.5 play. The list is not yet complete (and is not t1) so it doesn’t really fit here. Some of these suggestions should help out a good amount.

[BreathWeapon]

I was working on the same thing after a 2 AM meal at Denny's last night.

I've got a loose skeleton that I think B/U should adapt to using.

"B/U Dragon"

Disruption

4xForce of Will
4xDuress

Search

4xIntuition
4xRead the Runes
1xWindfall
1xDemonic Tutor
1xMystical Tutor

Animates

4xNecromancey
4xAnimate Dead

Combo

4xWorldgorger Dragon

Kill

3xCunning Wish

Mana

1xSol Ring
4xDark Ritual
1xStrip Mine
4xWaste Land
4xFetch Land
4xUnderground sea
4xSwamp
4xIsland

Sideboard

4xChalice of the Void
3xVerdant Force
1xStroke of Genious
1xFact or Fiction
1xFrantic Search
1xVampiric Tutor
1xDiabolic Edict
1xSmother
1xHurkyl's Recall
1xCoughin Purge


By itself, Read the Runes is much better than Careful Study. It does the exactly same thing and can be used to draw your entire deck for Cunning Wish once Dragon goes off. It also has awesome synergy with Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Will, which are necessary if you don't have Ancestral Recall and Time Walk sitting around IMO. Its a little low on Mana Sources for my tastes. I want to includeEntomb, but I just don't have the space for it, and Vampiric Tutor is more flexible

Edit: Decided to drop Necro/Will for Frantic/Entomb for now.

[MadManiac21]

4x Read the Runes? Hmm.. Without the artifact acceleration from the p9, I think it is really hard to abuse this card early on. Yes, it would be a mid-late game breaker, but in a dragon/reanimater deck the goal is to be going off by turn 3-4 or to have something like verdant force on the table.

Necro is a great card drawer, BUT as you said you need the runes to get rid of him. I think its too many intensive to depend upon those two to counter act one another (unless you plan on always drawing something like buried alive/intuition).

I would maybe run a runes or 2, but not 4. Will isnt needed, as you can't combo off on that turn. Sol ring, mana crypt, lotus petal, and other cheap mana accel NEEDS to be run, in my opinion. This skeleton needs some work, and even then it would most likely be a better 1.5 deck (not to say that it can't still wreck havoc in unpowered environments). Stifle may also want to be used, to stop opposing wastes/combos/crypts.

[Crater Hellion]

I have long advocated Read the Runes in U/B Dragon (especially in budget decks) and it's purpose is to serve a careful study function but moreso to double as a kill condition.

[BreathWeapon]

Read the Runes really isn't even all that slow. You only need to pay 1U instead of U to drop a Dragon. Considering that it also doubles as a win condition when Dragon goes off, i'd rather have it over any other possible card I can think of in this deck ... other than Bazaar.

Right now, i'm debating dropping Necro and Yawgmoth's Will for Frantic Search and Entomb. Its a question of combo speed vs staying power, and i'm not sure which this deck needs/wants more. I'll I know is, Necro and Yawg win games by themselves. Eh, i'll cut them and see how things go.

Cheap acceleration isn't needed or warranted IMO. It gets caught up in CotV, which this deck will use as a 4 of out of the SB. It just doesn't have the room for it, and thats what Dark Ritual is there for anyway.

[Crater Hellion]

Necro and Will are both counter-productive. make the switches.

[dicemanX]

I am planning to add a budget-budget T1 build to the Dragon primer very soon, because safl is right - Bazaars are quite difficult to find and most budget players cannot get a hold of them.


There are basically two ways that you can build a Budget Dragon deck. The first way is to pack the deck with lots of creatures and go for spells that would allow you to discard them from hand. Running all 4 WGDs is a must if you choose this strategy. Some discard spells to consider are:

Bazaar (obviously, but difficult to find/afford)
Compulsion
Read the Runes
Last Rites
Jalum Tome

Careful Study is generally too weak to include. Even if you are fortunate enough to discard a Dragon to it, you still need a kill spell to go with it.

When building your WGD deck using these cards, it's usually a very good idea to mix Dragon and reanimator strategies. The best reanimator creatures are either Verdant Force or Sliver Queen, but Plated Slagwurm deserves some serious consideration as well. Verdants are excellent in winning games outright against aggro and artifact-prison decks, while Slagwurms are better when facing decks with lots of creature removal. The Queens can be used with the Dragon combo to generate infinite tokens, but outside the combo the token generation could be too slow.

Here is an example build:

Budget WGD (build by Morphon, with suggestions by DicemanX)

4x Worldgorger Dragon
1x Ambassador Laquatus
3x Verdant Force

4x Animate Dead
4x Necromancy

3x Buried Alive
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Entomb
4x Jalum Tome
2x Scrying Glass

4x Duress
4x Last Rites

4x Dark Ritual
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
14x Swamp
3x Ancient Tomb
1x City of Traitors

SB

4x Defense Grid
4x Powder Keg
3x Tormod's Crypt
4x Null Rod


This build is mono-B, as it is debatable if blue adds anything significant to the deck. Also, notice that Buried Alive is still used as an alternate way of burying creatures. Don't forget the acceleration in budget builds - apart from the obvious Dark Rituals and Sol Ring, there are also the often-overlooked Tombs/Cities and Mana Crypt.


The alternate way of constructing Dragon is to mainly go for Burial effects instead of discard effects. This cuts down on the number of creatures you'd have to rely on, giving you extra space in the deck. The downside is that you are losing the most effective way of getting creatures in the graveyard. The principal Burial effects are:

Buried Alive
Intuition
Entomb

Since Intuition and Entomb only put a single Dragon in the graveyard, you have to run instant-speed win conditions in order to win when you go off, such as:

Cunning Wish
Read the Runes
Scrying Glass
Cursed Scroll

Intuition itself counts as a win condition, as long as you have ways to win with it when you go off. For instance, you could Intuition for Cunning Wish if you run 3 of them, or you could Intuition for Aerial Caravan and another non-Dragon creature and end up putting a Caravan into play. The Caravan, by the way, is greatly superior to the Ambassador in this build. Read the Runes is mentioned in this list, but don't run too many copies when using a low creature count. Multiple copies are advisable if you are following the first strategy that I outlined above.
 

Here is an example build:

2x WGDragon
1x Aerial Caravan

3x Animate Dead
3x Dance of the Dead
1x Necromancy

4x Intuition
3x Buried Alive
1x Entomb
3x Cunning Wish
1x Read the Runes
2x Scrying Glass

1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor

3x FoW
4x Duress
3x Defense Grid

1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
3x Underground River
3x Swamp
2x Island

SB:

1x Stroke of Genius
1x Rushing River
1x Read the Runes
1x Coffin Purge
1x FoW
4x Powder Keg
1x Defense Grid
2x Verdant Force
3x Chalice of the Void


This build avoids using Rituals, as they are not very good accelerants of the 3-cc blue spells. Instead, the Tomb and City counts have been increased.



One word of caution: Outside of the established T1 Bazaar-Dragon powerhouse, it is highly doubtful that an optimal Dragon list exists. I have only presented some example builds here - I am not suggesting that these are the only ways to build the deck. As long as you pick one of the two strategies, and construct your deck to be as synergistic as possible, you cannot go too wrong.\n\n

[morphon]

This is a (near) re-post from a different thread. They told me the discussion here would be a better home.

Well, I've been working on Bazaar-less mono-B dragon decks for a few weeks now, and have come up with this list as the most redundant/consistent build so far. I wound up cutting Last Rites as a discard spell because it often was not doing the job. At 3cc, I could rarely play it the turn I would go off, so I couldn't use it as a safety peek before winning, and it wound up slowing the deck down by at least a turn if not two. Topdecked hate is a problem in my meta (somewhat casual, but with some W/U Parfait with 4x StP!). Most importantly, while it could get one of the 4x Dragon out of my hand while simultaneously raping my opponents hand, Last Rites did not further my position to win. I still needed to topdeck a Jalum Tome or a Buried Alive to go infinite. I needed the fastest casting-cost curve out there, so I would up using Unmask and Duress as my discard spells (often pitching Rites).

Also, because of the degree of creature-control strategies I play against, the Verdant Force/fatty of choice is so much dead weight. This is a metagame call, in a completely unknown meta, or  meta that I knew to be full of creatures, I may move the Verdants from the SB to the MD.  This also pushed me further from the Last Rites route, since without all the alternate beatdown strategies being as useful, I had to make room for cards that would directly enable me to combo-out.

Anyway, as far as mono-B non-Bazaar Dragon decks go, I think this build is the most consistent getting to infinite mana.


Budget Dragon.dec (with many thanks to DicemanX for a must-read primer and friendly suggestions)

Infinite Engine
4x Worldgorger Dragon (infinite mana)
4x Jalum Tome (Infinite card-selection during main-phase)
3x Undead Gladiator (Infinite card-selection during upkeep)
1x Ambassador Laquatus (kill card)

Final Bits
4x Necromancy (instant-speed reanimation)
4x Animate Dead (sorcery-speed reanimation)

Tutors
4x Buried Alive (first part of the two-card combo)
1x Entomb (broken graveyard tutor)
1x Demonic Tutor (wow, this just makes you feel powerful)
1x Demonic Consultation (careful with this one)
1x Death Wish (plan B, 9th reanimation enchantment, more disruption, 8th card-selector)
1x Spoils of the Vault

Disruption Core
4x Duress (the black counterspell)
4x Unmask (the black Force of Will)

Mana Acceleration
4x Dark Ritual
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring

Land
15x Swamp

SB:
1x Blackmail
1x Scrying Glass
1x Consume Spirit
2x Dance of the Dead
3x Defense Grid
3x Alternate Reanimation Targets (your choice, but I would recommend Verdant's, or if you can't afford them, the Mirrodin rare Living Hive - and I always have a Triskelion in the board)
4x Metagame hate card (your choice)

Just a few notes:
You have four ways to win.

1.Play Buried Alive to stock the graveyard, then just cast a reanimation enchantment. Can happen as early as turn 1.

2.Use the Tome to discard the Dragon, then cast a reanimation enchantment. Filter through your entire library until you dump the Ambassador, then just win. This usually turns out to be the most common way to win.

3.With a Dragon in your graveyard and Undead Gladiator either in your hand or in your graveyard, cast Necromancy during your upkeep. Use the cycling and return of the Gladiator to filter through your deck to find the Ambassador. Undead Gladiator can also trade itself in the graveyard with a card in hand - so it doubles as a way to get a drawn Dragon in position. Note that this method cannot use Plan B, at least not directly, since you would have to break the infinite loop by changing the target of Necromancy to the Gladiator. When this happens, you cannot go off that turn unless you have a Triskelion in the board and Death Wish it out, somehow manage to put it into the graveyard or hard-cast it, then put three damage on the stack per usage. Is this possible? Yes, but not really recommended due to the intricate nature of such a setup. Fairly complex stacking would have to be employed for this to work. If you want to do this, practice it a bit first.

4. This has rarely happened in a game: If you have the Dragon in the graveyard, as well as a reanimation spell in hand, Death Wish can be used to grab the single copy of Scrying Glass in the SB. You can then go off and draw up your entire library, once you have enough mana, cycle away a Gladiator, then change targets on the enchantment, thus ending the loop. Then cast either Jalum Tome or Unmask yourself (don't worry, the card disadvantage doesn't matter when you are holding 40-odd cards) to get the Ambassador in the graveyard. Reanimate the Dragon, let both enchantments get legal targets until one of them counters on resolution due to no more creatures in the graveyard, cycle the other Gladiator to stop the last remaining loop, finally dump the mana into Laquatus and pass the turn. This situation has come up at least twice in playtesting. Just make sure there is only one Dragon in the graveyard, or otherwise you may find it difficult to pass the turn (or remove all of your permanents permanently), depending on how you stack it. Again, this one takes a bit of practice.

This redundancy makes it much easier to use the limited selection of tutors - and makes up for the fact that Jalum Tome is orders of magnitude slower than the Bazaar.

Anyway, I've had a great time playtesting this deck with some of my friends. It is much, much faster than any aggro deck I've seen (possible exception of Mask, which is more like a combo deck anyway) - I've never had to cast Undead Gladiator as an emergency blocker, though that is possible.


I'm open to all comments.

[BreathWeapon]

I really dislike mixing ReAnimator and Dragon in Mono-B. It feels like it would simply be stronger as a strict ReAnimator deck. In the absence of Bazaar's ReAnimator is simply more depndable than Dragon. Irregardless of the instantaneous kill that Dragon provides, it takes an additional turn or two to get the Dragon and win condition together it seems.

I also agree that for Mono-B Dragon, Jalum Tome > Last Rights. Not only does your deck need a way to get the Dragon into the Grave Yard, but a way to find its win condition. Jalum Tome does just that. Last Rights is an awesome card, but i'd rather run it in ReAnimator where its added discard and tempo constraints are an advanatge instead of a  minor boon and nuisance. I'm starting to feel as tho' Mono-B Dragon is a lost cause in comparison to its B/U brother.

As far as B/U Dragon, which is where Dragon truely belongs in budget IMO, Read the Runes is awesome in any number. Its an outlet/win condition, and even with only 4 Dragon to discard to Read the Runes ... its been a total house for me.

Edit: I'm going to try out Death Wish/Spoils of the Vault, they could be amazing.

[skycreatoR]

It looks like most of the replies just take what per definition sounds better, and exchange the contents of safl's deck with that. The deck is bloody good, it performs damn well too, why alter it before trying? It does not need another win.cond, rather a few tweaks.

Try it, then whine - i know how well it works.

[morphon]

skycreator:
I wasn't whining about safl's deck. It looks good. Nor was I trying to replace a few things to "alter" it. That being said, Safl uses four colors in his design, uses a lot more search instead of redundancy and has less disruption. In other words, his build and mine are just plain different builds. I am sure, depending on the meta, one may be a bit better than the other. However, Safl's build does not use any counters - which means it is just as easily hated out by topdecked permanent cards (Tormod's Crypt, Seal of Removal, Aether Spellbomb, Sphere of Resistance, Planar Void) that cannot be Duressed away once they are in play (and there is only Naturalize and REB in the Sideboard).

BTW: Naturalize, Duress, or REB will not stop a flashbacked Coffin Purge, or Ray of Revelation flashbacked in response to the CiP ability of the Dragon. Heck, even a Withered Wretch can keep you from winning. All of these problems the Safl build shares with mine - probelms that the fully powered version given by Dicemax does not have. My finger points at me as well.

So the question I have is this: why trade the redundancy and color-stability of the Mono-Black build with a four-color version susceptible to non-basic hate and packing less disruption? Now that the meta is becoming prepared for Dragon (prepared for fully powered builds), can we come up with a budget version that effectively prepares for the hate? I agree that it will probably run some blue, but how much?

[Razvan]

Well, here's my biatch! Sadly, it's 61 cards, I am not sure what I should cut out, maybe one Dance of the Dead?

Mana (24)
4x Dark Ritual
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
4x Gemstone Mine  worked for Long.dec... should work here  !
4x City of Brass
1x Mox Jet (only one I own  )
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt

Disruption (8)
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy

Blue Digging (8)
4x Compulsion
4x Brainstorm

Digging (7)
4x Buried Alive
1x Entomb
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor

Combo (14)
4x Animate Dead (1b)
4x Dance of the Dead (1b)
2x Necromancy (1bb)
3x Worldgorger Dragon
1x Ambassador Laquatus

Anyhow, brief explanation of each part:

4x Dark Ritual - Free 2 black mana, what else can you say?
4x Underground Sea - In a black/blue deck, this is self-explanatory.
4x Polluted Delta - Fetch the above.
4x Gemstone Mine - Great lands. Funny interaction with the Dragon. The drawback isn't really a problem, since you shouldn't drag the game too long anyhow.
4x City of Brass - Best 5 color land. They cannot be fetched with the Delta, but who cares? Delta fetches the Underground Seas, which are superior.
1x Mox Jet - Again, a Mox. Why explain?
1x Lotus Petal - A temporary mana fixer.
1x Sol Ring - Broken mana adder, Sol Ring is just about the first thing to go, as I really need colored mana, but it's neat allowing me to do fast compulsions.
1x Mana Crypt - See above. Better, as it's free.

Disruption (8)
4x Duress - Best disruption card in the game, it allows you to see whether it's safe to combo.
4x Cabal Therapy - If you time it right after duress, it's good, otherwise shoot for whatever you think is harming you (FoW, StP, etc...)

Blue Digging (8)
4x Compulsion - A great way to sift through cards fast, giving the lack of Bazaars.
4x Brainstorm - This little card is pretty neat, considering it can do so many tricks. You can even use Laquatus on yourself, should you need to cast it, and get stuff in the 'yard with the help of Brainstorm.

Digging (7)
4x Buried Alive - This an intuition, it really doesn't matter too much. While intuition CAN fetch you the other combo cards, you only have 4 creatures, and 10 combo cards. Which are more likely NOT to be drawn?
1x Entomb - Dowright broken, a 1 casting cost instant demonic tutor... gee!
1x Demonic Tutor - A fanstastic tutor, just in case!
1x Vampiric Tutor - See above.

Combo (14)
4x Animate Dead - I am not sure which is the best, but this is the standard by which the other 2 are measured. Also, the best picture.
4x Dance of the Dead - See above.
2x Necromancy - See above.
3x Worldgorger Dragon - It doesn't really work without it.
1x Ambassador Laquatus - See above.

While I realize that this list isn't exactly new, i believe the unstable mana base is actually a blessing in disguise, as it allows you to thin your deck and never really be lacking off-color mana. 5-color lands are always... "random" so to speak, but being able to use both colors with the same efficiency really comes in handy after sideboarding.

[Blofeld]

Quote (Razvan @ Nov. 24 2003,12:17)4x City of Brass - Best 5 color land. They cannot be fetched with the Delta, but who cares?

I care!
You can't go off if if your only lands in play are cities or your opponent has enough Waste/strip effects to reduce your lands to Cities only.

Thus - cities suck in dragon. 4 Fetchis, 4 Underground Sea, 4 Gemstone Mine is a perfectly good mana base - Fill in some basic lands to survive nonbasic hate or some Tropicals/Bayou for Xantid Swarm SB splash - this should do the trick.

[BreathWeapon]

Lol, Unmasking yourself is tech. My opponent never saw it coming