Help with Dragon - and a side rant

[NWI Team_Zilla]

After all of these posts/suggestions, do have have an updated list with sideboard? If so, I think you should post it, so that we may give you more help with the deck more easily.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

NWI Team_Zilla: It seems at this point, the current deck list would be as follows:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
4 Badlands
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

4 Worldgorger Dragon
3 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy
2 Dance of the Dead
1 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Shivan Hellkite
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Night's Whisper
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

Sideboard:
2 Verdant Force
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Sundering Titan

About the only cards I've seen mentioned not in this listing that may be under consideration are Gamble and Twisted Abomination. Are either worth a slot in this deck? I'm a little hesitant about running Verdant Force, only because (as I've mentioned before about how I feel when it comes to building a deck) it's nearly impossible to hardcast. Is there any other real option?

[NWI Team_Zilla]

Ok, I was thinking of a was for R/B to gain some sort of compulsion as a way to win without using Bazaar of Baghdad, I came across Jalum Tome, an artifact form of compulsion to act basically as additional Bazaar's as compulsion would in the U version of the deck.  I'm not sure though if the deck even needs such additional means of discard/comboing, but I think it would be worth testing if the deck does require an alternate rout to comboing out, especially in a Wasteland/Strip Mine heavy metagame.

Now, I have a question, how is Night's whisper treating you?  I am a big fan of it, but it seems to me that Spoils of the Vault/Demonic Consultation would be a cheaper/easier way to get the piece that you need, though I suppose that with such an addition, you will be more partial to changing the "Aimate Dead's" to to playsets of 4, instead of 3, 3, and 2.  Any way, you have probably tested them both, so I would like to know what your thoughts concerning them are.

I am also a little confused why you have both 2x Sundering Titan AND 2x Verdant Force... You allready have 3x Shiven Hellkite maindeck if you want to bash face, so why have 4 more in the SB?  I can understand Either 2x Sundering Titan OR 2x Verdant force in anticipation for a certain metagame, but it seems like, that with your current build, your just wasting 2 slots that probably won't even be seeing play.  Do you feel you need both(all 4 of them), and why do you feel this way? 

Also I am curious as to why you do not have REB's in your SB, without Xantid Swarms (green), how are you supposed to force through a threat on a control/aggro control based deck?

And one more curiosity, what is the reason for having the 2 Rack and Ruins?, maybe I am having a brain fart here and can't see any key artifacts you would want to knock out instantly (in other words artifacts that E.E. can't handle).  And if there is a big target that I am forgeting, why not up the count to 3 or 4, to make your draw of them more consistant.
Sorry if I am being a little ignorant in my questioning, but I feel that I am more help to you if I know what decks you are trying to beat, or improve the match-ups of. 

Well, I hope I was of some help to you, good luck.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

NWI: I'll start with the sideboard questions first. To wit, an earlier reply from boogie man (formatting slightly changed to emphasize relevance):

I would say to take out the two sulfurous springs for a swamp and a mountain, since you can't go infinite with the springs. and probably use 3 animate dead and 2 dance of the dead, since animates are generally better. I would also take out the necro, because that is the most disynergistic card in the deck. put in another shivan dragon. that will allow for better reanimations.

I' dput 2 verdant force in the sideboard for stax, 2-3 rack and ruin for workshop, 2-4 pithing needle in the side for fish, CS and other wasteland decks, 2-3 engineered explosives for aggro/stax, and 3-4 chalice of the void for storm combo, gifts, and control slaver.

do you think that unmask would fare better in the main than therapies?

As for Titans, courtesy of Hi-Val:

Your sideboard should have Sundering Titans to plop down against control. They're quite the beating.

So thus the explanations for the Titans, Forces, and R&R's. I've not yet tested out this deck; at this point I'm looking to get a decent useable version set up before testing it out. With Necropotence not an option, the next best draw I can think of for black/red is Night's Whisper. I've run Consult in Sui before, and I don't mind it so much, but Spoils feels like 'if it's not in the top X cards, you lose the game.' How do you feel about Gamble instead?

At this point, my only concern would be seeing a DSC being Oathed up or Toothed out (yes, I've seen T1 T&N.. be afraid, be very afraid), as it's hard to remove if it makes it into play. As for testing.. I'll be honest, I'm looking at putting a solid deck together first, trying it out, and then seeing what feels wrong - which could be anything from a card not doing what it should, to not understanding how to handle that situation properly (eg, bad sideboarding). I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier, but I don't play much tourney MTG at all, at least since sometime in O/O/8th Standard (and only T2 at that point), unless you count pre-releases. My Vintage experience is based on I think four tournaments, one of which I believe was pre-6E rules. Am a familiar with a large list of cards? Fairly. Do I have a clue what most of the decks do, or are even called? Not really. I need to find a good way to 'cram' deck understanding, which is why (back to the rant for a moment) names like Academy don't do anything for me. OK, I understand you use it to get a lot of mana, because that's what it's good for. And I presume a lot of the deck is blue. But then what? At least Oath - if you mention it's Oath of Druids - tells you right then and there that it's a way to get out creatures fast, and it's easy to figure out that it's best run almost creatureless, so put in the best creatures you can. At any rate.. once I have a 'settled' deck list, I'll test it out and see what happens. If a card doesn't seem right, I'll have to determine whether it's the card, or me. If it's the card, that's easy to fix. If it's me.. that might take some getting used to.

OK, post is long enough.. I'll look back later

[cssamerican]

With Necropotence not an option, the next best draw I can think of for black/red is Night's Whisper. I've run Consult in Sui before, and I don't mind it so much, but Spoils feels like 'if it's not in the top X cards, you lose the game.' How do you feel about Gamble instead?

Everytime someone says this I am amazed. You logic is that Spoils sucks because if the card you need isn't in the next 15 or so cards you lose because it kills you :::News Flash::: If the card you need is 15 cards down you are going to lose anyway because Night Whispers isn't going to put it in you hand anytime soon. Oh, Gamble sucks because if you have a couple cards in hand (which happens all the time in this deck) and you Gamble for Animate Dead there is a good chance you will be discarding Animate Dead. In which case you have thin your deck of win conditions, which of course is not a good strategy at all.

[NWI Team_Zilla]

@ cssamerican, Dragon usually has like 4-5 cards in its hand every turn because of the great engine that is Squee, which would promote the use of Gamble.  However, cssamerican is also correct in his logic behind Spoils of the Vault, Spoils is used as a means to win NOW, not in 3-4 turns after waiting to get combo pieces or more disruption.

@ Thrull, my question was: why would you have Rack and Ruin in your SB?, not what matchups should I be using it against...  Sure, Rack and Ruin is good against Workshop, but is there a specific artifact that they are playing that interferes with your ability to win, and if so, how do you know that Rack and Ruin is the best way to get rid of those such artifacts? 
And my question about Sundering Titan/Verdant Force was meant to be more like, "Can we put only 2 creatures in those slots that do well against both decks?" or, "Are you really concerned with those matchups, and if so can we come up with a better creature to fullfill that roll?" Considering you have no playtesting in against either of the decks leads me to question why you would even build a SB for it yet... I would wait until you test and figure out what your bad matchup's are, then, you build your sideboard to reflect those matchups.  Just some advice.

So now I ask that you answer my questions to a better degree than "this is good against this deck," give your reasoning behind the card choices.  Anyway,  please don't take what I said as a put-down, I want to help make the deck better, but no one can do that without seeing how the deck performs, and what YOU think may make the deck better.  As allways, good luck with the thread.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

cssamerican: I appreciate the input that you've given thus far; I've looked at your R/B Dragon deck (originally posted on another site; if you know who Loron is, you probably know what site), and am trying my hand at a version that will work for me. Finding Black/Red card drawing isn't easy, and the best I've been able to find thus far is Night's Whisper (as Necropotence's drawback quite handily removes it from contention). When I saw Gamble, I thought of the ability to discard Squee or a win condition, which means for an extra 2-3 mana THAT TURN you can go off. I agree though that discarding a win condition is not a good plan, so finding something to replace it is a good idea.
It took me a while to get used to using Consult, as it's a little tricky to run if you're not used to it - considering that, short of Death Wish, you likely won't get ANY of the cards back. Spoils is Consult with life loss attached, and with as many less-than-four-ofs in this deck as I currently have listed, you better hope you get it soon, unless you re-design the deck (such as how yours is) to compensate. I suppose I could always try Browbeat

NWI: I understand what your question was; I hadn't got as far as looking at a sideboard yet. When boogie man and Hi-Val made their suggestions, I simply put them together, not worrying so much about whether certain spots would be redundant. I do agree though that the sideboard should wait until I'm familiar enough with the deck to see how much trouble what decks are giving me, and build the appropriate sideboard. *chuckles* Maybe run Kiki-Jiki in the sideboard (to animate, of course) along with Sundering Titan to give some real headaches But seriously, when the deck itself seems about finished, I'll try it out and then start looking at the sideboard. For now, consider it as 'space filler', to be more seriously looked at later.

[the boogie man]

the reason for the sided in creatures isn't to completely lean on, they are just there in case they get dropped into the yard. against stax, your main goal is still to go off, but if you happen to drop a titan into the yard vs. control slaver, you animate it and you buy yourself 3-4 turns and amnesty against mana drain if it happens early enough.

[Lunar]

If you have lotus/jet whatever why are you worried about RB dragon?  Why arent you playing 5-color dragon? The mana base isnt much more and it at least is good and doesnt rely on hellkite beats...

Perhaps in your area you can get away with bad budget builds of dragon...but common they really need blue...and they probably could use green as well...red is only needed if you are running the 5-color build and want hellkite to win with...The only half decent build running red ive seen (that isnt 5-color) is Nick Cantrells from top 8 at chicago...but I still wouldnt call that an optimal list...

I know this isnt super helpful, but it is realistic...5-color shouldnt put you too much more in the hole budget wise, but it will put you a step ahead for a good deck...(5-color is less than UGB since it doesnt rely on 7 dual lands)

@ the guy who said witness is never hard casted....you are incorrect...I have found many many times where I have wanted to hardcast the witness...in fact if I can I ALWAYS will to recur things I need that have been countered /whatever....

Just for reference cantrells deck list is this

 Vintage deck, by Nick Cantrell
8th place at a StarCityGames Power 9 Tournament tournament in Chicago, Illinois, United States on 2005-07-31

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Creatures
1 Caller Of The Claw
4 Worldgorger Dragon

Enchantments
2 Animate Dead
1 Dance Of The Dead
2 Necromancy

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Entomb
4 Force Of Will
3 Intuition
3 Stifle
1 Vampiric Tutor

Legendary Creatures
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Sorceries
1 Careful Study
2 Deep Analysis
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Time Walk

Basic Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp

Lands
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

His list could be converted to 5-color somewhat well if you want to save money on not getting 6 duals/5 fetchies

The following is the real important part to succesful dragon lists though...

4 Force Of Will
3 Intuition

....

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Lunar: I'm going R/B because I have access to the Lotus, Jet, and Ruby, as well as the duals and fetches for it. Anything else that would be important, such as a Sapphire or Force of Will, I don't, and I'd like to minimize the amount of proxying I'd need to do ahead of time. So far, according to that list, I'll need to proxy:

Mana Sources: Crypt, Sapphire, Delta x4, Sea x4, Volcanic x2
Combo Parts: Kumano, may find myself needing a pair of WGD, Dance, and Necromancy
Draw/Search: Ancestral, Intuition x2, Bazaar x4, Squee x4, Time Walk
Control: Force of Will, Stifle x2

That's taking into account what I have and what I can get my hands on easily. The list I gave brings me down to needing combo parts and the Bazaar/Squee engine - much easier to get cards for something like that. It's not a question of the mana base; it's a question of what can I obtain. I had a friend who played for a very long time and has had all the power at one point or another. He has a R/B Nether Void LD deck, and still has the Lotus and Moxen for it, which is where I'd be borrowing them from. Apart from that - my own card collection is a very big pile of crud, so I'm trying to build it the best way I can. (Incidentally, for those just joining us, this was pointed out at least once if not twice on the first page of the thread. Always a good idea to read as much as you can; it saves much aggravation on both sides.)

[Lunar]

Kumano though is just a different version of hellkite, you can take him off that list of cards you need to proxy..

I was simply pointing out that EVERY dragon deck ive seen do well in real tourneys has Force of Will and Intuition in them (not to mention bazaar/squee)

You can run city of brass and gemstone mine as an alternate (and signifigantly cheaper) mana base when compared to dual lands.

Some of the other proxies would be tougher to account for

but the goal would obviously be to proxy up the remaining moxen, ancestral, timewalk and the bazaars...

this leaves you with just the midrange stuff that you would need...but they are cards to keep in mind if you plan on playing T1 for a while...force of wills and mana crypt are cards any T1 player SHOULD have anyways...squees and intuitions are a little tougher to justify though I guess...

Of the cards you named though dance of the dead and necromancy and WGD and even Kumano/hellkite as well as stifles should be pretty easy to get cheap.

Maybe its just something you should look to aquire over the next few months...as you get better at dragon you should look to improove the deck anyways...

[NWI Team_Zilla]

I think Thrull was pretty clear that he knew that blue versions were better and he is choosing to play a B/R version.
And B/R dragon is actually a lot faster than it's blue counterpart, and does well at smaller events(as in not Starcity Tournys), but is trades speed for instability.

[Lunar]

I know what you are saying...just trying to put things into a better frame of mind though...the blue versions arent that far out of reach in reality...

The trade off in stability for speed can make a big difference in deck quality though...its like comparing meandeck tendrils to death long to TPS 

Meandeck SX prooved to be too instable to really do well overall (yes I know it did make 1 top 8 spot) Deathlong is more stable and thus generally better...I think this is what you are comparing the BR dragon deck he wants to build to...TPS however has a whole ton more good tourney finishes for the past 2 years...its slower, but more resilient to hate and thus does better over a longer period of time...

Of course this doesnt mean that DeathLong is bad...it just means that if you really want to do well tourneywise (over a period of time) TPS is probably the better option...

That is how I would relate to this dragon thread...

I wasnt ever trying to be rude about it, but im trying to point out that the blue versions might be more worth shooting for than the thread starter previously thought...I dont see anything wrong with that.

They were just things to keep in mind as his Dragon experience grew...

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Well I went out into the city today and picked up some of the cards I'm looking for. I think I'm at the point where I can reasonably ten-proxy this deck list as is, after having spent Cdn$60 (about US$50) on 3xSquee, plus some of the other stuff I need. I'm not looking so much to budget the deck as to make an initial build that I am comfortable with, and once I've played it for a while, then I can look at what I'd like to change in it. Deckbuilding isn't just 'here's a list, play that', it's an evolutionary process. Get me to a reasonable starting point, and if I find it's worth my while to try to improve it, I'll do so. Of course, if I decide it's not worth it, most of the cards for it are still globally useful

At any rate, the base of the deck is nearly done, so I'll start slapping it together and see how it feels goldfishing a bit. It's a big difference feeling the cards in your hand vs trying it on Apprentice/MWS/whatever.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Update to deck list:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Vault
4 Badlands
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

4 Worldgorger Dragon
3 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy
2 Dance of the Dead
1 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Shivan Hellkite
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultations
1 Infernal Contract
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

After some further discussion here and in the chat room, a little extra search and draw is a good thing. Infernal Contract is in there simply for the extra draw power (four cards for three mana is some good), and sometimes - more so with a deck that discards a lot, like Dragon will, until you get Squee's online - it's not so much card quality you need as card quantity. If Necropotence was a good fit for this deck, it would go in instead, but losing GY access is bad in Dragon.

Better?