Budget Gorger

[Rivilen]

Hi.
Here is my Deck:
(Sideboard is missing, because i dont know what should i put in it. ).


// Lands
    2  Ancient Tomb
    1  Bayou
    4  Polluted Delta
    8  Swamp
    4  Underground Sea

// Creatures
    1  Ambassador Laquatus
    4  Worldgorger Dragon
    2  Xantid Swarm

// Spells
    2  Animate Dead
    4  Buried Alive
    3  Careful Study
    3  Compulsion
    2  Dance of the Dead
    4  Dark Ritual
    1  Demonic Tutor
    4  Duress
    1  Entomb
    3  Lim-Dul's Vault
    1  Mana Vault
    2  Necromancy
    1  Sol Ring
    2  Stifle
    1  Vampiric Tutor

I need some help with the deck, because sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesent. Maybe you can give me some tipps to make the win more constantly.
(PS: sry for my bad english, but im german and my english is not the best)

[sa17dk]

Can you explain some of your card choices? Because all it looks like is you took out the Bazaars and Squees and replaced them with "budget" cards, and the deck just doesn't work that way.

For example, I'd like to know how Compulsion has been working for you. In my experience, Compulsion feels too slow without Moxen.

[Shock Wave]

What in God's name are you cast Stifle on if you have no Bazaars!?

[virtual]

I fail to understand what stifle has to do with having Bazaars at all.  

You can't stifle 1/2 of the effect, so it seems like you want stifle or don't want stifle regardless of your draw engine.

Can someone shed some light on this if I'm missing something?

-Virtual

[Thug]

I fail to understand what stifle has to do with having Bazaars at all.

You can't stifle 1/2 of the effect, so it seems like you want stifle or don't want stifle regardless of your draw engine.

Can someone shed some light on this if I'm missing something?

-Virtual

Stifle stops wasteland(s), which is pretty important if you play with Bazaars...

On the deck:

- Do you really need to blue, it gives you some discard outlets, but also slows you down a lot. Maybe its an idea to think about a mono-black version geared more towards speed, cards like Spoils and Unmask are much faster than what you got there.

- The tombs look pretty bad, since you got little use for colorless mana, I would replace them with coloured lands. Same counts for Mana Vault.

Just some food for thought.

Koen

[Rancor1]

First of all, you should only play a budget dragon deck in the scrubbiest of metas, as without the bazaar draw engine, it can't cope with FoW too well.

I would cut blue alltogeather, as it doesn't have much use here, as well as entomb, as it just sucks. Compulsion is too slow without power. I would make this deck focused on playing a buried alive ASAP. I'd add 4 Spoils, 1 Demonic consultation, and some Unmasks/Therapies in place of blue.

In addition, you only have six animate spells. I prefer eight, you can get away with seven. If you go the spoils route, you should have all four animate deads.

[dicemanx]

Here is a neat budget mono-B WGD/Reanimator deck:

creatures (9)
========
4x Worldgorger Dragon
2x Verdant Force
3x Shivan Hellkite

animate effects (8)
============
4x Animate Dead
1x Dance of the Dead
3x Necromancy

enablers (10)
========
3x Buried Alive
3x Zombie Infestation
3x Jalum Tome
1x Entomb

disruption (10)
=========
3x Last Rites (this is also an enabler)
4x Duress
3x Cabal Therapy

Mana sources (23)
============
4x Dark Ritual
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Lotus Petal
4x Ancient tomb
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Badlands
1x Mountain
4x Swamp


SB (15):
======
4x Nevinyrral's Disk
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Blood Moon
3x Null Rod
2x ???


The idea behind the deck is to combine reanimator with WGD, and load up on heavy disruption with the Therapies, Duresses, and The Last Rites. Jalum Tomes allow you to go off by animating your WGD even if there are no other creatures in the yard. The Ancient Tombs are there to help power out early Tomes, Buried Alives, and Rites, along with the Disks and Blood Moons in the SB. There is nice potential synergy between Therapy and Zombie Infestation, which could be further emphasized by adding Squees (which combo very well with Tomes, ZIs, and can be hard cast to flash back Therapy). I prefer to ditch the squees in favor of large mean that can be animated outside of the Dragon combo, but the Squee route has potential.

The SB packs your secret weapon: Nevinyrral's Disk. There is no better way of sweeping away all the problematic permanent-based hate such as Ground Seals, Planar Voids, or Tormod's Crypts. Just make sure to Duress/Therapy away all of their counters before unloading the Disk.

[Rancor1]

While you have an interesting take on the deck, I can see many reasons why the Buried Alive verion is better.

Firstly, Jalum Tome is an interesting and nice touch, but it is just way too slow. It is useless unless you are comboing, and if you focus the deck on playing a buried alive, you wouldn't need to combo without winning while  you're at it, as you'd have a "win" creature in the 'yard already.

In addition, focusing the deck on buried alive allows you to cut down on reanimatable creatures. You could just play two or three dragons, a laquatus, and a v. force, for instance, instead of all the nine that you play.

Buried alive also lets you cut such "bad cards" as entomb and last rights. While those are not actually bad, they are very slow enablers. Last rights is strictly inferior to unmask, and entomb only fetches one creature, so it is good only when you need to draw the game out.

[c hurrle]

I'd dump Compulsion for Read the Runes. RtR can't be hit by Misdirection like Stroke of Genius can and it is a full turn faster than Compulsion. I'd also move the XSs to the sideboard, though that's really just personal preference. Unless you anticipate a lot of Back to Basics, I'd also swap 4 Swamp for 4 Gemstone Mine.

[Bulls on Parade]

On a serious budget when Bazaars and/or proxies are not available, there's still a half-decent direction to take this deck. It ends up like a slightly more likely to crap out deck after Bargain comes out than Trix, but makes up for that in the sense that you can hardcast the combo turn 2 extremely easily, plus it costs like <$100 to build from scratch.

2 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Ambassador Laquatus
4 Buried Alive
1 Entomb
4 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead
2 Necromancy
4 Duress
4 Academy Rector
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Entomb
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence
3 Seal of Cleansing
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fastbond
4 Dark Ritual
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scrubland
1 Caves of Koilos?
2 Swamp

Ancient Tomb would be sweet, but it might be a little too much life loss. I threw Fastbond and ESG's in to make it more reliable after Bargain's in play.

If you ever get to play with 5 proxies, I'd highly recommend Spoils Dragon. It's an awesome deck, and I've played it in events where I could have played fully-powered U/B/G Dragon instead. Really though, try out the Rector deck, and I promise you'll find it's a lot better than your other similar budget options.

[dicemanx]

While you have an interesting take on the deck, I can see many reasons why the Buried Alive version is better.

The so called "Buried Alive" version, as originally conceived by Axemurder a few years ago when Dragon was just arriving on the scene,  has a tough time because it is so dependent on Buried Alive. You have introduced an alternate discard mechanism in your build (Compulsion) which unfortunately lacks synergy with the rest of the deck, and you're packing  chaff like Careful Study, Entomb, and Stifle. These cards all have their uses in various WGD builds (Stifle to protect Bazaar, Careful Study and Entomb in builds that run large numbers of Intuition/Cunning Wish/Read the Runes), but they lack power in yours. It is interesting how dismissive you are regarding alternate, highly synergistic approaches, and yet your build is just not sound fundamentally.

Firstly, Jalum Tome is an interesting and nice touch, but it is just way too slow. It is useless unless you are comboing, and if you focus the deck on playing a buried alive, you wouldn't need to combo without winning while you're at it, as you'd have a "win" creature in the 'yard already.

Jalum Tome is hardly "useless unless you're comboing". If you hadn't noticed, the Tome is an artifact version of Compulsion. I'd play Compulsion were it not for the fact that I'd rather cut blue entirely. The Tome can be used to cycle through your deck outside of the combo, finding your disruption and animate spells.

In addition, focusing the deck on buried alive allows you to cut down on reanimatable creatures. You could just play two or three dragons, a laquatus, and a v. force, for instance, instead of all the nine that you play.

The entire point of the deck is that it plays the role of reanimator in some situations. Therefore, it packs quite a few reanimatable creatures and a lot of discard effects as well. The deck is meant to be synergistic. I know what "advantages" a WGD deck focused on Buried Alive has, but I'd rather focus on tight synergy and giving you options outside the combo via the reanimator route. I do this because I believe that a WGD deck based on Buried Alive doesn't work well at all.

Buried alive also lets you cut such "bad cards" as entomb and last rights. While those are not actually bad, they are very slow enablers. Last rights is strictly inferior to unmask, and entomb only fetches one creature, so it is good only when you need to draw the game out.

Last Rites cannot be compared to Unmask, so to state that Unmask is "strictly" better is silly. Last Rites doubles as disruption and is an enabler, which is pretty amazing in a deck that packs 9 reanimatable creatures.  Entomb is also hardly bad in a reanimator deck. These cards are also not slow by any stretch, given that I decided to run so much mana acceleration including 4 Ancient Tombs. This deck is meant to be a turn 3 deck: Buried Alive or Last Rites early (within the first 2 turns), then Animate on turn 3.

[Ghost]

Deck

Entomb is there twice.

[Rancor1]

@ dicemanx:
We are talking about fundamentally different decks. The Buried Alive version (mine) is more focused on winning quickly; getting the combo off asap. This justifies Unmask over Last Rites, Spoils over Tome, etc. Yours is more based on resilliency in the long run. It has the ability to play the reanimator game when necesary, something mine cannot do due to the dependence on Buried Alive. This justifies the use of slower cards like Last Rites, Tome, Entomb, etc. Like I said, these are not bad cards, just too slow for a list that is singlemindedly focused on winning. Which you play is entirely metagame dependent, as each has their on strengths in their own environments.

The so called "Buried Alive" version, as originally conceived by Axemurder a few years ago when Dragon was just arriving on the scene, has a tough time because it is so dependent on Buried Alive. You have introduced an alternate discard mechanism in your build (Compulsion) which unfortunately lacks synergy with the rest of the deck, and you're packing chaff like Careful Study, Entomb, and Stifle. These cards all have their uses in various WGD builds (Stifle to protect Bazaar, Careful Study and Entomb in builds that run large numbers of Intuition/Cunning Wish/Read the Runes), but they lack power in yours. It is interesting how dismissive you are regarding alternate, highly synergistic approaches, and yet your build is just not sound fundamentally.

I am not quite sure who you are talking to towards the middle of the paragraph. It seems like you switch the direction of your little rant.

I do this because I believe that a WGD deck based on Buried Alive doesn't work well at all.

What do you mean by doesn't work well, that is not consistant, or that it is suseptable to hate? The latter is true, which is why you would play it only in an environment that is either a)scrubby, or b)plays decks that cannot handle the speed. However, the former is not true, as it reliably wins turns 2 to 3 almost always, usually with Duress/Unmask backup.

Last Rites doubles as disruption and is an enabler, which is pretty amazing in a deck that packs 9 reanimatable creatures.

As I said, if you cut the Last Rites, you cut some of the reanimatable creatures.

Entomb is also hardly bad in a reanimator deck.

Entomb is excellent in a reanimator deck. BADragon (Buried Alive) is NOT a reanimator deck, it is a combo deck. You point again answers itself.

What we have here is two different decks; an explosive combo and a "tame" yet resilient combo, analagous to Belcher to TPS.

[dicemanx]

However, the former is not true, as it reliably wins turns 2 to 3 almost always, usually with Duress/Unmask backup.

Predictably, you are yet another person who comes along sprouting how your WGD version "kills reliably" on turn 2-3, and "usually" with disruption back up. It's a wonder why we're all not playing, ahem, "BADragon" rather than the slower BUG Bazaar version.

The only reliable turn 2-3 kill WGD version is Spoils Dragon, which is a decent deck but has many issues. Bazaars make all the difference, and they make Spoils of the Vault work. Without Bazaars and with Entomb restricted, it is otherwise difficult to construct a WGD deck that is both fast and resilient to disruption. Spoils Dragon and the current BUG builds share one thing in common - they are highly redundant builds with a high degree of synergy - something the initial build presented here lacks, and something that a version that solely relies on Buried Alive lacks.

The build I presented, contrary to your belief, is actually designed to have a faster goldfish rate than a pure Buried Alive deck. I thought that this would be obvious from a mere casual examination of the build. It is also designed to double as a reanimator deck, but this doesn't detract from the main focus (combo kill) or from the goldfish rate.

[Anders Noer]

I've had relatively consistant turn 3-4 kills (goldfish) with a U/B version.

Buried Alive was MVP in this deck. Combined with Intuitions I still think this is a fairly strong version. And there's no shame in winning through Cunning Wish, if your intuitions sends ambassador to your hand with no discard outlets. The Buried Alive version goes for the throat FAST but is more susceptible to hate (which is why you Buried Alive for 1 Dragon + 1 Ambassador only - and keep the last dragon in the deck for later use if necessary).

This is the list I've been testing...

4 Force Of Will
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

4 Buried Alive
3 Intuition
2 Cunning Wish

4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

2 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Ambassador Laquatus

1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

4 Dark Ritual
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Swamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus

Sideboard:
1 Aerial Caravan
1 Stroke Of Genius
1 Coffin Purge
1 Entomb
1 Frantic Search
1 Fact Or Fiction
1 Stifle
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Defense Grid
2 Verdant Force
3 Chain Of Vapor

EDIT: The lack of draw engine in this deck is a HUGE problem... either you win FAST or you don't win at all... It's a "balls up front!" type deck. Take care out there...

EDIT 2: Error in the decklist. My bad!

[erictehfatz0r]

Why do you only run 2 Worldgorger? If you're more susceptible to hate, would that mean that you'd need to include more WGD to produce consistency? Also, I think that the Animate effects must be in the range of 7-9, if you wanted to use a budget version of the deck, in order to increase the chance you have to draw them.

This is a budget Gorger? Erm... I don't recall any of the Moxen, the Lotus, the Recall, or the Walk budget cards. Maybe that's just me though.

[Rancor1]

Predictably, you are yet another person who comes along sprouting how your WGD version "kills reliably" on turn 2-3, and "usually" with disruption back up.

Wow, I make myself out to be a little kid, haven't I? I am not advocating that this is a good deck (BADragon is a pun, get it?) If you are on a budget, however, and are playing in a scrubby metagame, then yes, this is a decent choice.

The only reliable turn 2-3 kill WGD version is Spoils Dragon, which is a decent deck but has many issues

You do realize, of course, that BADragon plays spoils.

I am trying to compromise here, though. For reference, here is a BADragon list with an untested conversional sideboard.

3 WGD
2 Laquatus

4 Buried Alive
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric
4 Spoils
1 Demonic Tutor

4 AD
3 Necromancy
1 Dance o' de Dead

4 Duress
4 Unmask

6 Swamp
3 ESG
1 Chrome
1 Sol Ring
1 Crypt
1 Vault
8 Black Fetches
2 Bayou
1 Petal
4 Ritual

4 Xantid Swarm
3 Zombie Infestation
4 Verdant Force
1 Entomb
3 Others

Or something like that. The MD somewhat tested, not the SB. I think that It is useful to be able to quickly win, but in the right matchups, to be able to turn the deck into a quasi-reanimator deck.

[Anders Noer]

Why do you only run 2 Worldgorger? If you're more susceptible to hate, would that mean that you'd need to include more WGD to produce consistency?

Since this version has no discard outlets (apart from Cabal Therapy'ing yourself), you're aiming to resolve Buried Alive as soon as possible (Intuition if that fails. The problem with Intuition is getting Ambassador in hand and having to spend 1UU playing him). Because og the importance of resolving Buried Alive, you don't want any dead draws. a WG dragon drawn is just that.

I actually think it adds to the consistancy by playing only 2 dragons in this build.. i have neither spoils, compulsion or bazaar to make the deck benefit from extra copies of dragon. This deck needs 2 only because it plays Intuition. 1 would be enough otherwise. Intuition for 3 Buried Alive is sometimes better than for Dragon, Dragon, Ambassador, if you have the time to do it.

Also, I think that the Animate effects must be in the range of 7-9, if you wanted to use a budget version of the deck, in order to increase the chance you have to draw them.

I play 7. That or maybe one more is sufficient in my experience.

Sorry 'bout the "budget full p9" version.. I always found bazaars to be the problem, not the power. Once again: My bad!

[erictehfatz0r]

I see your point on all that you said, and it's all good about the moxen, it does seem like Bazaars are harder to find...

How do you feel  running 3 Necromancy? Are they slower/faster than running, say, 4 AD, 3 Dance of the Dead, and 1 Necromancy? Have times changed?

It's been over a month since I played my version, but that's the number of animate effects i have, along with 3 Compulsion/4 Buried Alive, since I own 0 Intuition.

[JamesPr]

So what is in your guy's opinion the strongest build of spoils dragon?  I think this post need's more of a direction to it, one that summarizes the main points and what a budget 5 proxy worldgorger dragon decklist should look like.  I'm planning on building a spoils dragon deck for my meta, and I need some of you to work together to help me with what the strongest, most resilient, and fastest spoils dragon deck would be on 5 proxies.

I may be way off, because I'm never actually played dragon but I'll edit rancor1's list so that it includes power, and has some blue mana so it can actually use laquatus to deck it's opponent.

3 WGD
2 Laquatus

4 Buried Alive
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric
4 Spoils
1 Demonic Tutor

4 AD
3 Necromancy
1 Dance o' de Dead

1 Ancestral Recall (Proxy)

4 Duress
4 Unmask

3 Swamp
1 Island
1 Mox Emerald (Proxy)
1 Mox Jet (Proxy)
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy)
1 Black Lotus (Proxy)
1 Chrome
1 Sol Ring
1 Crypt
1 Vault
8 Black Fetches
1 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
1 Petal
4 Ritual

4 Xantid Swarm
3 Zombie Infestation
4 Verdant Force
1 Entomb
3 Others

[dicemanx]

I would seriously suggest to not bother with any Spoils build unless you can proxy Bazaars. The Bazaars are so key for the fast goldfish rate that they should be proxied ahead of any power. In a 5 proxy event I'd stick to proxying 4 BoB and 1 Lotus, and use ESG and Ritual for mana acceleration, exactly as in PTW's original Spoils build. Also, you might want to reconsider using 2 Ambassador Laquatus - perhaps 1 Ambassador and 1 Queen. You don't want to be sacrificing game 1 vs any Oath decks you might face.

[Rancor1]

If you're playing on 5 proxies, I would take the deck in a "normal" dragon direction, with squees (although I would not play compulsion unless you have moxes.)

Ancestral Recall alone is not reason enough to add another whole color to a deck. Buried Alive gets the Ambassador in the 'yard anyway, so you'll never need to cast it. Other than that, I like your list. I agree that you should switch one laquatus to something else. If you don't like queen (or can't get one,) you could also play Caller of the Claw or V.Force.

[Copperhead]

My cheap (very cheap) WGD deck is mono black and has worked well for me, even beating powered control decks. It is basically the type of deck that either wins by 4th turn or doesn't win at all due to the lack of any other kill condition. I use the buried alives to dump a Gorger, Laquatis and something else in my grave yard and hope for the best. I run an entomb and use it as a bail out if my opening hand is crap even after a muligan. All I do is toss the gorger in the grave yard and set off a endless, and pointless, combo to bring the game to a draw and hope that my opening hand is better in the next game. Maybe a cheap WGD deck can win a longer game, I've never tried it myself. I just feel that unless your somewhat powered up, it is best to go in for the ultra fast kill. My two cents...

[maxxx]

i have a list here ( dont look at the side... ) i think could be good


// NAME : bazzaarless dragon
// CREATOR : maxxx
// FORMAT : Classic
        4 Ancient Tomb
        4 Bayou
        4 Polluted Delta
        4 Swamp
       
        2 squee
        1 Chrome Mox
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Ambassador Laquatus
        1 Sliver Queen
        2 Worldgorger Dragon
        4 Elvish Spirit Guide
        1 Necropotence
        3 Dance of the Dead
        3 Zombie Infestation
        4 Animate Dead
        1 Demonic Consultation
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        4 Dark Ritual
        4 Spoils of the Vault
        1 Demonic Tutor
        3 Unmask
        4 Buried Alive
        4 Duress

SB:  4 Xantid Swarm
SB: ...


so here we have a lot of tutor to have what you need...

I think this version is faster

we have an alternate way( slow) to kill ( squee + zombie imfestation)

[sa17dk]

A problem I can already see with the "alternate" kill, is the fact that it's not really alternate. Graveyard hate will kill both engines, so you can't rely on it. Not to mention, the problem you said with the speed is true. The damage just wont add up fast enough to win with it, since you have no other way of damaging the opponent ahead of time.


I was curious, has anyone ever tried using Cabal Therapy instead of Unmask in their builds? And what were the results?

[Rancor1]

Cabal Therapy is better in a slower, more controlling version. Unmask is better when it comes to winning quickly.

[Bulls on Parade]

Cabal Therapy is better in a slower, more controlling version. Unmask is better when it comes to winning quickly.

...Which is the point of Spoils Dragon.