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nineisnoone
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« on: June 16, 2008, 01:26:44 pm »

Worldgorger Dragon is one of my favorite decks.  Nothing says cool like resurrecting a Dragon to create infinite mana.

My list:

2 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus

4 Worldgorger Dragon
3 Mulldrifter
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae

3 Necromancy
3 Animate Dead

4 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
3 Deep Analysis
3 Read the Runes
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Demonic Tutor

4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress

Wishboard:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gush
1 Research/Development
1 Force of Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Stroke of Genius
8x Sideboard

Specific Cards:
Cunning Wish - Burning wish was restricted because it was able to tutor up Yawgmoth's Will.  Of course, Cunning Wish can't do that and is more expensive.  However, it does tutor for early card advantage (Ancestral Recall and Gush) and win conditions (Vampiric Tutor, Entomb, and Stroke of Genius).  Typically, you'll tutor for Recall, Gush, and then a win condition.  Either an Entomb (if you have the win otherwise) to put a Dragon in the yard, Vampiric to upkeep an Animate on top of your deck, or Stroke of Genius if you are in the loop.

While you do miss out on playing Recall by itself, you still get the +2 card advantage.  And Wishes serve as wins and answers so they have great utility.

An additional benefit to this is that it actually works well with Leyline of the Void since you'll just be able to Wish your Ancestral Recalls back over and over again. 

A main phase Gush also puts +3 cards in hand so if you had 4 other cards in hand, it provides a discard outlet.

Duress/Thoughtseize - Dragon has tons of cards that can stop it make it lose mid-combo.  Chain of Vapors and Swords to Plowshares being the most common of them.   While FoW can stop them, it puts you in a dangerous position of the FoW sticking or you losing the game.  Duress/Thoughtseize however allows you to see the opponents hand to know whether or not they have a means to disrupt your combo.  It also is card parity and gives Dragon strong early game disruption.

This version of Dragon is meant for attrition.  Early game Duress/Thoughtseize to disrupt the heck out of your opponent while you build up your mana base.  Then you Wish, Mulldrifter, Deep Analysis to replenish your hand.  Alternatively, you still have the option to go for the quick combo victory if you get the right cards.

Mulldrifter - It's 2 cards for 3 mana, and if you Animate Dead on it it's 2 cards and a 1/2 flier for 2 mana.  It also serves as a Win Condition while on the board during a Dragon loop.  Lastly, while it does not win while it is in the graveyard after an Animated Dragon, it does draw 2 cards and put a 1/2 flier into play for free, which is not a bad minor play and still sets you up for drawing into a second animate for the win.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2008, 02:01:01 pm by nineisnoone » Logged

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vartemis
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« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2008, 02:26:56 pm »

There is already a discussion here.  Does your thread warrant another one?

j
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nineisnoone
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« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2008, 02:36:07 pm »

As opposed to the other half-dozen different Long/Slaver/Fish/Stax variant threads?  ::shrug:: 

There are a couple of new ideas here (4x Wish with Ancestral in the SB, and Mulldrifters) that had not been seen in lists or even discussed to a great extent.  Nor is the discussion to the link you posted referring to a specific list, but is rather addressing WGD against hate in general and it's potential in the new metagame.

That being said, if you think the list is redundant and doesn't offer anything useful to look at, don't look at it.  I posted it separately mainly for the reason that I didn't want to get either thread on a tangent discussing/criticizing my deck. 
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fury
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« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2008, 02:56:50 pm »


Did you test any matchup against archetypes ? The list seems to be well built, but I wonder if you can beat aggro-control and Ichorid with it.

The idea of Mulldrifter is excellent. I had also tested it, it replaces well Deep Analysis.

The 4 Wish may be a bit slow, and make the deck less resilient. You cut down the most important card in Dragon : Intuition. Any Dragon player should play it. It's a tutor, and a graveyard digger. Are Brainstorm and Ponder necessary ? You cut 2 bazaar for them, but is it interesting ? Bazaar can shuffle Darksteel Colossus into the library, no need of Brainstorm or Ponder for that.

And how do you manage gravehate like Leyline of the Void ? 4 disrupt spells are good to protect the combo, but sometimes, the opponent will be able to fetch an Extirpate and to play it before you can disrupt him...
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« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2008, 11:11:09 pm »

Looks like your muldrifter idea has taken off.  I hope my previous post wasnt construed as saying your idea didnt have merit.  What I meant was that you should be posting your stuff into the other post so we can keep all this great info in one place instead of it getting lost in multiple threads.

j
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nineisnoone
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« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2008, 10:20:31 am »

Looks like your muldrifter idea has taken off.  I hope my previous post wasnt construed as saying your idea didnt have merit.  What I meant was that you should be posting your stuff into the other post so we can keep all this great info in one place instead of it getting lost in multiple threads.

j

S'all good.  Very Happy

Did you test any matchup against archetypes ? The list seems to be well built, but I wonder if you can beat aggro-control and Ichorid with it.

I haven't done much testing yet.  I'm still not perfectly happy with the deck and the Sideboard wasn't decided at the time (which makes it difficult to play since I'm banking a lot on Wishes) and I'm testing out some new cards so I haven't quite had a deck yet to test... but the way I envision it....

Against Aggro-Control, it depends on the sort of clock they have on because the answer is typically a Wish.  Luckily Wishes can't be Extirpated (well, unless they Duress it first).

Cunning Wish -> Slaughter Pact/Snuff Out for Tarmogoyf, Juggernaut, Dreadnought, Magus of the Moon
Cunning Wish -> Darkblast for Welders, Confidants, Shamans.  Though it's inefficient, this will probably be my answer against 2 toughness creatures as well.

4x Thoughtseize is huge against them since you can typically get a creature (and typically their bigger ones) so it can give you creatures to Animate against them.

Ichorid is blah.  Though I'm working on it. Post board I at least have 4 Extirpates.  Mulldrifters can randomly take out some bridges.

Workshop:  Mulldrifter ignores 5 of the 9 spheres.  Cycling Clear ignores all of them.  On play the Duress/Thoughtseize effects can be huge.  On draw, it depends on what they drop on turn 1.  Additionally, we have Wish->Rebuild. 

Storm:  8x Duress/Thoughtseize and 2x Extirpate maindeck and only 1x Brainstorm to hide their better cards is usually enough to slow them down.

Slaver:  As long as you don't walk your Mulldrifters into Mana Drains you should be okay.  If they are lazy about their graveyard you can punish them with an Animate spell.

Oath: I run 4 Clear maindeck.

The idea of Mulldrifter is excellent. I had also tested it, it replaces well Deep Analysis.

The 4 Wish may be a bit slow, and make the deck less resilient. You cut down the most important card in Dragon : Intuition. Any Dragon player should play it. It's a tutor, and a graveyard digger.

My main problem with Intuition is that it is a very graveyard/deck reliant card.  Any card I want I have to have 3x of in deck, and the best combination (3x Deep Analysis) isn't good against Extirpate/Leyline of the Void/Tormod's Crypt, etc.

I'm offering Wish as an alternative to Intuition (so it's the same speed Intuition would be).  Intuition -> 3x Deep Analysis = +2 cards for 5 Mana (assuming 1 flashback).  Wish -> Ancestral = +2 Cards for 4 Mana.  Or alternatively Wish->Gush +1 cards for 2 mana (assuming you can replay a land that turn) or Wish->Skeletal Scrying for +X cards for X+4 mana.

Additionally, if your Recall gets RFG, then you can Wish it back.  Wish, Recall, Wish, Recall = +4 cards for 8 mana.  This gives it an advantage over Intuition against Extirpate/Leyline/Crypt as Intuition is horrible against them.

So in terms of CA it is *roughly* the same.  Intuitiion -> 3x Deep Analysis is great (and better) when you get the full mileage out of it, but Wish works just as well in the beginning and doesn't need the graveyard to function properly and allows me to not run Deep Analysis which I find to be sub-optimal without support.

As far as a Tutor goes, Wish tutors for the same cards and without having to add 3x of the card to the deck.  Most main deck cards are redundant anyways.  Wish->Entomb can get your Dragon to your graveyard off a Wish just like Intuition could.  And Wish->Pull From Eternity gets it into your graveyard when Intuition couldn't.  I could run Vampiric in the board (I currently don't), but that could also get you any card in your deck as well.

Are Brainstorm and Ponder necessary ? You cut 2 bazaar for them, but is it interesting ? Bazaar can shuffle Darksteel Colossus into the library, no need of Brainstorm or Ponder for that.

And how do you manage gravehate like Leyline of the Void ? 4 disrupt spells are good to protect the combo, but sometimes, the opponent will be able to fetch an Extirpate and to play it before you can disrupt him...

Brainstorm and Ponder were just place holders.  I've cut Tinker as well.

Against Leyline I'm running 4 Clear maindeck because it cycles if I don't need it.  Against Extirpate, I like the Pull from Eternity option.

I suppose given 4x Maindeck Cunning Wish, the full sideboard should be listed.

SB:
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Gush
1x Skeletal Scrying
1x Darkblast
1x Slaughter Pact/Snuff Out
1x Entomb
1x Pull From Eternity
1x Rebuild
4x ??? Ichorid Hate, probably Tormod's Crypts, but I'd rather have something more useful generically.
2x Extirpate

The main deck has also changed a bit.  This might be a change for the worse, but I'm trying some new things out.

4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Duskmantle, House of Shadow
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
(21 Mana sources)

4 Worldgorger Dragon
4 Mulldrifter
(8 Creatures)

4 Animate Dead
2 Necromancy
(6 Animates)

4 Cunning Wish
4 Clear
3 Read the Runes
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Brainstorm
(13 Draw/Tutor)

4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
2 Extirpate
2 Mana Drain
(12 Disruption)

A little more on the card choices.

Zero Bazaar of Baghdad
Highly, controversial I'd imagine.  I don't like Bazaar because it doesn't generate mana, and particularly in this Deep Analysis/Squee-less deck, there aren't that many card I want to be dumping into my graveyard.  Plus against Extirpate/Crypt/Leyline it is much more costly to straight out loose those cards.  Duskmantle, Cunning, Read, and Mulldrifter in play to me are sufficient win conditions.  No Bazaar also frees up a card slot that Oona or Witness would take.

Duskmantle, House of Shadow
New card I'm trying out.....  With an Underground Sea in play, it wins on a Dragon loop.  Mill the opponent's deck, then mill your own until you get a Mulldrifter in the graveyard, then pass the turn.  I cut off the off-color Moxes for this, giving Gorilla Shaman fewer targets.  Technically, you have more Wasteable targets, but that can actually be a bonus.  Dustmantle is a win-condition while it's on the board, which means that it's a priority to take it out.  Which may make them opt to take out the Duskmantle over your Underground Sea.... maybe.

No Tinker
I've just started trying this configuration out, but with Clear in the main deck and Pull From Eternity as Wish target, I don't really worry about alternate win conditions.

Extirpate
Well, since I decided to run 8x Duress/Thoughtseize, it made sense to run it.  Plus it helps out against Ichorid.

Mana Drain
Read the Runes, Mulldrifter, and Cunning Wish I have plenty of Drain outlets.  I mainly like this because I can threaten a Mana Drain with it in my deck.  Read the Runes, Cunning Wish, and cycling a Clear give me legitimate instant speed options if no good target comes up.

Clear
It cycles under 9spheres or any deck that doesn't run enchantments.  And it gives me 4 main deck outs against Leyline of the Void.  As a bonus it hits Oath.

Thoughtseize
This card is particularly important because I cut Bazaar so I had fewer ways of getting rid of a Dragon. 

Snuff Out/Slaughter Pact
Which to play.  4 life can be hefty on top of everything else, but Snuff out does allow for the instant turn around with a Animate.  Slaughter Pact would push you back a turn....  Snuff Out can't deal with Magus though.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2008, 10:57:29 am by nineisnoone » Logged

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« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2008, 10:52:49 am »

When it comes into play, Grozoth can only tutor for things with CMC = 9, not 9 or less.  What do you have in you deck CMC = 9?

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nineisnoone
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« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2008, 10:56:48 am »

When it comes into play, Grozoth can only tutor for things with CMC = 9, not 9 or less.  What do you have in you deck CMC = 9?

j

Everything if I don't read the card correctly!  Blah.  I just swapped it back out for a Brainstorm.
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« Reply #8 on: June 18, 2008, 09:12:32 pm »

Back in the day I played dragon, so I think it's cool that people are discussing it as playable again. Your list seems kind of weird to me though.

Duskmantle: Really? I understand your reasoning for it, but it just seems really sub par, especially as a 3 of. I think If I was playing this and ever saw more than 1 I'd be fairly unpleased. As a win condition on infinite mana, isn't 1x Oona just better?

No Bazaar: This screams wrong to me. While 4 may or may not be the right number right now with graveyard hate a-go-go, I'm fairly certain 0 is the wrong number. It's just such a powerful card. It makes Deep Analysis better, it makes the deck much more explosive, and it cant be countered like Read the Runes.

Mana Drain: Drain never really struck me as a dragon card. I guess the list you present has a lot more colorless requirement than most dragon decks, so if a build like your turns out to be good, drain might be amazing. I just don't see either happening.

Cunning Wish v. Intuition: Intuition was always, at least to me, the best card in dragon. It lets you find whatever you need to win. It basically reads "Eot, set up your combo, get your last combo piece, or get ready to draw a lot of cards." If Mulldrifer takes the place of Deep Analysis then Intuition does get weaker, but I still think it is better at getting the deck to win than cunning wish is. Though, a single or maybe 2 of cunning wish allows access to Stroke of Genius to win the game or to get sideboard cards game 1. The Wish, I think, is a cool idea, but I don't think replacing Intuition entirely is correct.

White Splash: I had to look up what Clear did, actually. The white splash here seems to be the most innovative thing in your list. I like Clear, and Pull From Eternity is an interesting way to combat Extirpate on Dragon. That said, wouldn't Chain of Vapor just be better than Clear. It's much more versatile, and while it doesn't cycle it isn't on a splash color and it handles more than just Leyline and Oath. On that note, do these need to be maindeck? I understand that you have a wishboard, but the only deck that maindecks Leyline is Ichorid. Seeing as we don't know what the metagame will look like yet, you could be right about this, but I just don't think you need 4 maindeck answers for Leyline that don't answer other non-oath threats.

6 animate spells: This is just a minor nitpick. Back in the day dragon ran 7 or 8 animate spells. Now that the Mulldrifter plan seems to be the new tech, animates get more functionality. I'm not saying that I'd go above the old standard of 8, but 6 seems low.

Ancestral Recall in the board: I don't know that I can get behind this, even in a 4 wish version of the deck. It's just to good of a to not be able to raw-dog it.

Also, how do you get dragon into the yard reliably? 3 RtR and Wish-> Entomb seems like not enough to quickly be able to go off if you have to. Again, i would stress the inclusion of some number of Bazaars, likely 3 or 4, and some number of Intuition to be able to set up your combo. If you're worried about bazaar not producing mana, you can always borrow a page from Dawn of the Dead's playbook and run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or Riftstone Portal.

That's just my 2 cents on the deck. I haven't done any testing with it yet, but I hope to in the near future. Keep up the good work.

~Mike
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« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2008, 11:14:48 am »

I would probably never play dragon without 4 bazaars, they just speed everything up.

I don't think mulldrifter replaces DA, but it is nice as an additional draw-card.

I've been playing this for a couple of days now:
Mana: (21)
6 Fetch
4 U. Sea
2 Island
7 Solomoxen
1 Mana vault
1 Mana crypt

Combo pieces: (16)
4 WGD
4 Bazaar
1 Oona
3 Animate dead
3 Necromancy
1 Dance of the dead

Draw/Search: (14)
4 Deep analysis
4 Intuition
3 Read the runes
2 Mulldrifter
1 Ancestral recall
1 Demonic tutor
1 Time walk

Disruption: (7)
4 FoW
3 Duress

Haven't really tested w/sideboard yet, which obviosly changes things ALOT.

There's some cards i've thought about changing...mainly duress and (yes) demonic tutor.

The thing is that i haven't really found the duress's needed, 4 FoW seems to be enough.
Demonic tutor has mainly just slowed me down, every time i've had it in my hand i've wished that it was something else...It's just a weird thing to cut but i've really thought about cutting it.

Basic island has screwed me over a couple of times aswell, but i'm not sure if i'm ready to go with "All-nonbasics" just seems risky.

If i where to cut 3 duress/1 demonic i'd probably add:
1 Mulldrifter
1 Animate spell (probably just animate dead)
2 Answers (Chain/repeal/e. truth)
OR 1 answer and the 4th mulldrifter.

It seems to me that with mulldrifter dragon can really rip through it's library insanely fast often i've been drawing like 4+ cards each turn after the first.

Alternatively i could just add in 2x Sundering titan (platz could be used vs. ichorid), 1 tinker, 1 animate spell.

I haven't started working on the SB yet, but i've really thought about adding white as it seems to be the color with the best answers to extirpate (Chant/Abeyance) I'd probably go with abeyance as it shuts down faerie macabre, but i'm not really sure if anyone would want to play that card anyway, Why bother preparing for cards noone plays? Wink

There's also the question about going with 8x duress effects, but i simply haven't needed the 3 in my decklist so maxing them out seems suboptimal to me.

All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, since i have hardly done extensive testing.

/Zeus
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nineisnoone
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« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2008, 01:19:21 pm »

Thanks for the replies.

LennonMarx: 
Duskmantle -
Well, the cards that I straight-up cut for the Duskmantles were the off-color Moxen.  So aside from powering out early game (which is a big drawback), they play out roughly the same.  And unlike the Mox, they do provide a win-condition.  Which I feel is a fair trade.  While Oona wins in a similar fashion, this card and Oona really had no relation in terms of whether they made the deck.

That being said, I've been fairly happy with it, maybe 3 is too much though.  And I do miss the Mox for speed, and I'd like to cram them back in there. But like I said, I'm just cutting the Moxen for it, so it's not like I'd be drawing into business spells anyways.  And since I don't go the FOW route, I'm going to be Duress/Thoughtseizing early game any case.

No Bazaar - This is the reason why I didn't have Oona, as I don't find it to be that useful unless you are running Bazaar.  That being said, Bazaar definitely should be in the deck.  The more I think of it, the more it should be a 4-of. 

It was really more a point of abject stubbornness that lead me away from it.  That and it always irritated me when I'd drop it early and activate it just to draw and it just not being worth it.  But that's a play error not the error of the card.

And how can I call the deck DragQueen without Oona!  Clearly an oversight on my part.

Mana Drain - I agree; it's a waste.  I mean you can Drain into a hardcasted Mulldrifter, but what's the point?

Cunning Wish->Intuition (Ancestral in the Sideboard) - The main thing with me is I don't really want to run Deep Analysis, and I don't find Intuition to be that good otherwise.  Outside of that there isn't much that intuition can do that Cunning Wish can't by Wishing for Entomb or Vampiric.  Plus it gets SB cards game 1.  Ancestral in the SB is the biggest downside imo as I had envisioned that as my first Wish target (along the lines of Scroll->Ancestral).  But I've liked both Gush and Scrying off a Wish so I'll probably just put Ancestral back in the main deck.

White Splash:  Yeah.  With 4x Wish it doesn't make much sense to run 4x Clear in the main deck, the first change I knew I had to make was to pull those cards for something else and put either Aura Blast or Demystify in the SB as a Wish target.  I can't take credit for Pull From Eternity though, that was someone else.  I just stole it.  Smile

Animates: I'll probably bump it to 7 or 8.  At 7/8, I had always seen to many so I didn't think I'd miss them at 6... But I have.

Dragon into the Yard:  Yeah, that was actually a big concern with cutting the Bazaars, but 4x Thoughtseize can chunk it into the Graveyard as well.  Of course, I think I'll be adding them back in (though Read the Runes is now on the chopping block).

zeus-online
I know what you mean with Demonic Tutor!  Unless you haven't draw into Ancestral, there really aren't that many really good cards to tutor for.  Or at least paying an additionally 2 mana to play.
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« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2008, 01:22:30 pm »

just wanted to let everybody know that there is already a topic for this in vintage open forum

--> http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35962.0 <--
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