[deck] MADdragon-can it rise again?

[Purple Hat]

In looking over decks to play at SCG the idea of playing one of the older combo decks came up.  Remembering my very abortive match against Richard Mattuizzo at GenCon last year I thought of dragon.  I remember thinking MADdragon looked interesting when I first heard about it because of it's ability to play like a maddness deck and then combo off when that looked like it wasn't working.  

For reference here is a list:

Dulmen 2/8/2004
Benjamin Ribbeck (6-0-1) (1st)

//Draw/Search
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob

//Beatdown
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
1 Uktabi Orangutan
4 Wild Mongrel
1 Anger
1 Gorilla Shaman


//Combo
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Shivan Hellkite
4 Animate Dead



Mana (20):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Bayou
1 Forest
4 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
1 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

//Sideboard:
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Elvish Lyrist
2 Flametongue Kavu
3 Hidden Gibbons
3 Naturalize
1 Uktabi Orangutan
2 Viridian Shaman
1 Wonder

This deck is a little more resistent to hate then traditional Dragon builds due to it's dual nature, but it's also slower.  it plays like a madness deck that sometimes just combos off and wins.  With people looking at madness as an interesting metagame choice and the renewed interest in dragon as the summer season gets underway I'm wondering if there isn't a place in the emerging meta for this type of hybrid-fusion between the two.

So I guess my question is can this deck be revived?  Which direction should it take?  How would it fare in the current meta?

Clearly the deck lacks disruption, but that may not be a problem.  Other aggro-combo decks have found that maindeck disruption slows them down too much and that redundancy of threats is enough to get them through most matches, but options abound for this deck that are simply unavailable to other such decks.  Duress and xantid swarm both seem to be possible choices.  Circular Logic could be playable considering the decks ability to speed cards into it's graveyard (8 discard outlets).  With 7 blue sources (1 mox, 2 trops, 4 fetches) this seems to be a decent idea.  Cutting down the aggro elements of the deck seems to be a possible option for fitting these in, but this deck seems to have the same balance issues as FCG...taking away from one aspect may hurt the deck overall by reducing its ability to switch between its two natures.

I think this deck has the potential to be an interesting choice this summer, but may fall flat in the current meta.  Is anyone else looking at this?

Hale

[goober]

I think that your sideboard might want to make it somewhat transformative.  In every matchup there is one side of the hybrid you want.  Versus FCG you want to combo off quickly.  Versus Control you want to lay down the threats consistantly.   Combo is going to be a problem so you could have a few slots used to hose Draw7 and Belcher.

One thing interesting about Dragon is that the Prison's lock mechanisms aren't very effective.  Trinisphere is beat by this deck's only spell it needs to win costing 2 or 3.  You can respond to Tangle Wire with Necromancy.  Chalice for 2 can be beaten by Shamen or Necromancy.

These is what I would suggest off the top of my head.

2 Dance of the Dead
3 Necromancy
4 Hidden Gibbons
2 Flametounge Kavu
4 Null Rod

This needs a lot of testing, but I think being able to utilize multiple strategies post sideboarding can be very helpful.

[Purple Hat]

goober, I'm not sure Null Rod is necessarily a good idea with so much artifact mana.  I could go to ESG's instead of some of it to play into the madness idea, but that also has it's downside.  but I agree that the clear sideboard path with this deck is to give it the option of getting more madness like or more dragon like.  That's part of what I find to be so interesting about it.  

I think the build needs to shift some to reflect the current meta.  watching you go off on turn 1 in both games against FCG this weekend is what made me think of adding some kind of disruption base to this deck if I played it.

This is still pretty preliminary, and I've been getting up at 5 am to go to work this summer so I haven't been able to do as much testing as I'd like on these types of wacky ideas.

Hale

[everythingitouchdies]

Run Chalice in the Sideboard instead of null rod. Null rod hits your own artifact mana, and chalice can slow down draw 7 and blecher enough for you to combo.

Adding Disruption: I have tinkered with this deck in a variety of ways to fit either duress or a form of counter to this deck with no results. Every slot lost for a disruption spell ends up ebing severely missed. The exception to this is Xantid swarm, because you can pitch him to survival if you dont need him and you can find him with survival if you do. Many times casting xantid swarm and getting it countered is at least as good as having a duress or a circular logic.

[rvs]

You shouldn't play MADDragon because:

a)It's a bad version of dragon
b)It's a bad version of madness

[Purple Hat]

MoreFling
This deck isn't trying to be either madness or dragon.  It's trying to do something different.  If you start with O-Stompy as a basic Agro madness deck then you can either add controlish cards and get the Agro-control deck UG madness, or add 8-12 comboish cards and get the Agro-combo deck Mad Dragon.  Both of these decks use the cards from their appropriate hybrid that have synergy with the discard mechanics necessary for madness.  There is absolutely a large group of common interests between madness and dragon.  this deck is attempting to play upon that synergy.  Furthermore this deck is able to avoid a lot of the hate directed at either Madness or Dragon because it is able to use either aspect to make the kill.  This deck posted good results earlier this year, and may be able to do so again.

[dicemanx]

Well, it's no coincidence that Mad-dragon has not surfaced again after that miracle performance when it debuted on the scene. It is true that you can work around the Dragon hate by focusing on the Madness aspect, but in reality the Dragon combo is more of an "oops, I win" part of the deck (with so few combo pieces included).The main component of the deck - the madness portion, is weakened considerably, especially if you look at that *horrific* mana-base. Both components are painfully slow in terms of the "fundamental turn" so that pretty much every competitve deck in the environment can outrace you or disrupt you badly.

If I were to make a serious attempt at making this deck work, I would up the mana count and increase the Dragon components; but, even then, without any disruption and a poor goldfish rate this deck has little chance.

[Alfred]

I really like the idea of a transformational sideboard. I think the transformational sb should be fully dragon or fully madness. I would just put 15 madness cards in the sideboard, and go with the traditional dragon build game 1. If the matchup is bad for dragon, side in all of the madness cards. This would get around the whole "Bad version of madness, bad version of dragon" thing, at least a bit. The tricky part would be making the deck able to transform into good madness or dragon decks, by only subbing 15 cards.

[Covetous]

Regardless of whether or not you should run this deck at all, I think the following changes should be considered:
1.  -2 animate dead +2 necromancy main deck--why be hosed by chalice for 2?
2.  if going for the convert-to-dragon sideboard, include the 4th worldgorger in the sb...
3.  consider cutting blue from the MD to make it run more smoothly.  I'd consider adding more mana sources in place of the blue cards.  Also, are the off-color moxen right for this deck, which really seems to like its colored mana?  
4.  Is the MD mox monkey that good, or should it be something else (xantid swarm?)
5.  don't SB null rod if you have that many mana artifacts--chalice is a good idea there.
Anyway, good luck with the deck--I have always liked the concept despite the fact that it seems to be weak now that the initial surprise factor has worn off.  In many cases, the first time a deck is played it does very well, but once people have seen it, its power declines.

[Jacob Orlove]

Basic discussion. Moved to newbie.

[Outlaw]

This deck looks very promising, due to resistance to hate via Dragon or Madness.  I totally agree with PurpleHat that the results are looking fairly well, its hard to deal with a deck that can either combo off or smash you with aggro (FCG comes to mind) With dragons solid comboing and madnesses ability to haunt you with constant creatures, ill watch the t8's.