Going Back to Basics: A Serious Look At Dragon

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=7215

To my discussion of Dragon there.  I preetty much some up my entire feeling on the deck right there.   But I didn't post my list in that discussion.  Here is what I have together at the moment, and I'll explain my choices.   Hopefully any strategic questions you might have are answered by my bit on the deck in the article.

Smmenen's DARGON - Inspired by the Old School
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
4 Compulsion
3 Duress
4 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead
3 Necromancy
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Sliver Queen/ Other card
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
5 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Swamp
2 Island

Sideboard (Tenative)
3 Stifle
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Verdant Force
3 Very Large Men
3 Chain of Vapor

Explanations:

In the article I explained that this deck is a pile of terrible cards.  It held together tenuously through a weak force in magic when composed of bad cards: synergy.  In the article I divided the deck into parts to empahsize that the redundancy produces predictable hands that can be averaged through some simple math.  The first set of cards is the 3 Duress, 4 FoW, the second set is the 8 red creatures, the next is the 8 Animate Spells, and finally the X outlets (4 Bazaars and ?? Compulsion) plus the much slower 4 Intuition (partial outlets).  

When you line up these numbers you see that the probabilities are on the side of this deck.  If you do some quick calculations you will see that of ALL these components, the Outlets are by FAR the most important to actually see.  Why?  If you draw 4 Squees and no Dragons, it doesn't matter that you don't see Dragon if you have an outlet becuase you know you'll see Dragon soon.  If you have no outlets every card in this deck is terrible becuase the components are awful.  If you have the outlet, it doesn't matter what you draw becuase much like Infernal Spawn of Darkness, itsssss coming!   You will win, and more than that, you have the recurring threat of winning.  

In other words, YES, I would rather have 3 Dragons or 3 Force of Wills than not have 4 Compulsions.  That is what I have been leading up to.  Running less than 4 Compulsions is simply nothing less than insane.  If my explanation of the importance of outlets doesn't convince you of this point, there are two reasons:

1) Like Katzby (Abe Corson) and others, you beleive this deck is and should be a turn 2 deck 100% of the time.  This is a seriuosly flawed strategy in my view.  If you want to play a fast combo deck play Belcher or better yet Draw7.  If you want to play a very powerful and highly disruptive Combo deck that is highly redundant and doesn't fizzle out, you can play Dragon.  Building the deck to win on turn 2 simply requires a level of inconsistency that is intolerable if it is not necessary.

2) You don't have enough experience with this deck.  Bazaar is the card you use to beat Scrubs, or just randomly win.  Compulsion is almost all of the time preferrable win condition becuase you can set your hand and pull all kinds of cool tricks using Necromancies.  Compulsion is the card you want against good decks, Bazaar is what you want to blow by bad decks.  

Consider against Fish: This deck can go: Island, Swamp, Compulsion without having to break a fetchland becuase it has such a high basic count.  I have cut Green to enjoy the benefits of basic lands - key if you expect to abuse Compulsion.

Force of Will:  I am firmly of the belief that almost every good Type One deck runs Force of Will.  There are two decks that spring to mind that I respect that do not: FCG and Belcher.  The problem with Force of Will historically has been the low blue count.  My build has 16 blue spells and amply supports FoW here.  Moreover, it is built to make it most potent.  Xantid Swarm is NOT a replacement for FOW.  

So how does my deck play out?  This deck is really geared to slow play.  What that means is that you maximize disruption and go for the turn 3 win with 1/5-/1/6 of the time turn two wins.  Yes it is slower than some other builds, but this build, of any build I've seen before, has the most consistency with Force of Will.  

The SB shores up any flaws this deck has.  

The thing most people ignore is that this is very much a tempo oriented deck becuase of the threat of winning on turn 2-3.  As such, cards like Chalice are better than Null Rod becuase you don't need to stop your opponent from winning (combo), you just need to slow them down 1-2 turns so that you can win in the meantime.  Likewise with the power of Stifle.  Stifle a single Welder Activation if you want - becuase it is Time Walk.   But it is more than Time Walk - with this deck it may have just won you the game before they get another turn.  

Man Plan: I am interesting in testing the man plan against Fish, but I am open to alternative men for that plan.   I have done my testing and I find this deck to be the most potent Dragon build and the most equipped to win.  Compulsion provdes the best means of victory for people who know what they are doing.

Stephen Menendian

[Hi-Val]

Good thread! Any deck with Dragon's level of inevitability needs to be constantly remembered. Four things:

1. I'd run two ambassadors main. If nothing else, it pitches to FoW and really is the best win condition.

2. Is there a spot for Lim-Dul's Vault in here? The card acts as a pitchable Vampiric that sometimes sets up insane Bazaar tricks.

3. The "other" slot in the maindeck should be Caller Of The Claw over pretty much everything else, including Sliver Queen. It dodges Root Maze and Damping Matrix and pretty much all the other hate that stops Ambassador. Bears die just as easily to Deed as Sliver tokens do.

4. Is this the only route that Dragon can take? I prefer running Green in mine not just for Xantids but for Deed as well. The card lets you sit back and wait for that Animate. It's a reset switch that most decks cannot avoid. It is a superb reason for running green.

And why the Colossi on the sideboard? Don't they always shuffle in?

[Smmenen]

Good thread! Any deck with Dragon's level of inevitability needs to be constantly remembered. Four things:

1. I'd run two ambassadors main. If nothing else, it pitches to FoW and really is the best win condition.

I'm not certain of this.  You may be right, but if that is the case, then I'd cut the Sliver Queen for 1 Lim-Dul's.

2. Is there a spot for Lim-Dul's Vault in here? The card acts as a pitchable Vampiric that sometimes sets up insane Bazaar tricks.

I cut the remaining Lim-Dul's for the second win condition.

3. The "other" slot in the maindeck should be Caller Of The Claw over pretty much everything else, including Sliver Queen. It dodges Root Maze and Damping Matrix and pretty much all the other hate that stops Ambassador. Bears die just as easily to Deed as Sliver tokens do.

It is absolutely critical that I keep at least 16 blue spells.  So No.

4. Is this the only route that Dragon can take? I prefer running Green in mine not just for Xantids but for Deed as well. The card lets you sit back and wait for that Animate. It's a reset switch that most decks cannot avoid. It is a superb reason for running green.

You sneaky fish player.  I am convinced that the basics provide the best answer to the threats this deck faces: wastelands, mana denial, Blood Moon, etc.  

Steve

[BlkXplsn]

So, this leads to the next question... is this "theory" or "tested". I would think that a tested decklist wouldn't have stuff like an accidental colossus that doesn't work at all in it.

Anyhoo...

Personally, when I play dragon, I don't want to see more than one intuition. I'll play 2 intuitions and 2 lim duls vaults... Vaults are simply amazing in this deck. I also think you have too many compulsions in your deck, but that may be just because I'm playing the vaults. As far as Sliver Queen, I love playing 1 A.L. and 1 S.Q. simply because sometimes I want to animate but know that if they have a stifle\stp\cunning wish -> beb I won't be able to recover. 7\7's that make more critters and cost a whole 1B or 2B win games as well.

[Smmenen]

I was clear in the first post that the SB was "tentative".  The maindeck is tested - it has been carefully tested, but the SB has not been - which is why I'm open to suggestions.  

See the first post for my explanation on Compulsion.  In my view, Vault is not a substitute.  Vault is not a real outlet, it is merely a blue Demonic or Vampiric with some additional properties.  I'd rather have turn one Compulsion.  

The reasons you offered for Sliver Queen are why I am using 1/1 configuration of win conditions.

Steve

[Hi-Val]

Heh, my comments were completely without bias! I swear!

I just found through testing that Deed is the absolute wrecking ball that the deck needs to get around maindeck hate and such, as well as dumb sideboard crap. I will say that Chain does a damned good job as well though.

I hadn't considered that Sliver Queen pitched to FoW, we'll chalk that one up to reading comprehension. What reason is there for running it over Caller though, aside from the color?

And I know that it is not unheard of in at least monoblack Spoils Dragon to make the Very Large Men into Sundering Titans. The problem matchups are Hulk and Gay Red. Animating a fatass into play that has a side effect of nailing a few of their lands coming and going is pretty good, and works nicely as a secondary win condition.

And now we arrive at the question of what to do against Slaver! With a deck that sometimes will kill itself while slaved, what is the best choice when facing that deck? My plan of attack would be to combo the hell out as quickly as possible, because if they're going to make you go off on yourself, you deserve to lose for being stupid enough to sit on the win conditions.

Basics have always been a pretty big problem with Dragon, at least in three color. I currently only have a basic swamp in my gauntlet deck, but I get the feeling that adding a basic Island could do a bit of good. Also, the sideboard includes Carpet of Flowers, which pretty much negates the problem of Strips. Jank, yes, but it powers up Compulsion and lets you  find a way out of manascrew.

[dicemanx]

Glad you got the ball rolling on this one. I'm interested in what others have to say about this build and Dragon in general.

A few notes for now:

1) Sliver Queen vs Caller vs nothing - The Ambassador remains the strongest win condition, so that gets included for sure. The only question is, is a second win condition necessary, and if so, what should it be? Well, I would avoid a second win condition unless you anticipate one of two scenarios:

A. Heavy use of Damping Matrix and Root Maze - Consider adding Caller. Keep in mind though that Dragon does *not* lose to these cards, which are already quite rare in the meta (Matrix might appear in SBs, but rarely in the MD). Therefore, Caller might not even be necessary.

B. Stifle/Removal heavy environment - You should run Sliver Queen. Queen is your "man-plan", and it allows you to use your Animates to soak up Stifles or other removal. Without it, a single Stifle in an opponent's hand can render your Animates useless unless you draw some disruption.

2) Tutors - Lim Dul's Vault is certainly very powerful and worthy of consideration. I would never use Slaver as a reason to not run this card, if that's what worries people. I'd consider cutting a Time Walk and a Compulsion for two Vaults. I don't believe it is imperative to run 4 Compulsions, especially if you replace one with a powerful tutor. Time Walk has already been discussed before, and it remains an iffy card choice in my opinion. I also think it's a mistake to cut the Vampiric (for the 4th Intuition), and maybe even the Demonic Tutor. The Bazaar is still Dragon's strongest card, so having a number of tutors at its desposal to fetch Bazaars is a good idea. The only thing to be careful about is not loading up on too much on 2-cc spells, because Chalice for 2 is quite troublesome for Dragon.

So:

-1 Time Walk
-1 Compulsion
-1 Intuition

+2 Lim-Dul's Vault
+1 Vampiric Tutor

Is one possibility. I don'tbelieve that 4 Intuitions are absolutely necessary, as oftentimes you don't want to see more than one during a game unless the first one gets countered.


3) B/U/G vs B/U - This is a tough call, but I'd have to give the edge to the green splash. Blood Moon is a minor consideration, since very few decks run it in the SB - Slaver runs 2, and FCG runs 2-4. Other non-basic hate (Wastelands, Strip Mine) is typically reserved for Bazaars, so the necessity for such a high basic land count might be questionable. For instance, if they target your mana-producing lands, you can try to use Bazaars to get out of mana screw. B/U will certainly be much more consistent, but you are losing so much without the G. Instant speed removal remains the biggest concern to Dragon, (much more so than the 5 Waste/Strip effects that a deck might run) and Xantids are the ultimate way of protecting the combo. As I mentioned in the other thread, you want to have Xantids against Landstill, Keeper, Hulk, Fish, EBA, and Control Slaver (or anything else with 4 Drain 4 FoW). Losing Pernicious Deed is less serious, as permanent based hate can be handled by B/U builds, but Deeds are still a great way to fight the hate *and* buy you time against permanent-heavy decks.


More later.

[Shock Wave]

BU Dragon is obsolete, no offence intended. I've gone this route before, with 4 Compulsions, and the problem is that it is extremely U intensive and extremely slow. 3 basic Swamps in this deck are definitely not the way to go. Duress is also pretty weak right now.

On a positive note, I agree that Dragon needs 4 FOW and should never, under ANY circumstances, run any other type of disruption in that slot.

The best approach with Dragon is still BUG. It needs to utilize mass advantage spells like Pernicious Deed and Xantid Swarm in order to compete right now.

Edit: DicemanX's analysis is spot on.

[rvs]

It's funny how you have 3 Very Large Men in your sideboard listed twice. Once under Very Large Men, and once under 3 Verdant Force :p
Other than that, I agree with Richard.

[Smmenen]

I do not agree with the last three posts.  

I think what is needed more than anything at the moment is some very close analysis of the game plan and deck... give me a few days, the post will be pretty massive so I'll try and get is up soon.

Issues to Address: 1) BUG v. UB, 2) 2nd Win Condition, and 3) Issue of Number of Outlets which overlaps with 4) Limdul's vault issue.

I'll address the last two first, and then attempt to delve into the first.  In my view, the last two questions are the most important.  Adding Green is a formality if it is TRULY needed.  I'm not convinced that it is, but it doesn't require a fundamental change of the sort that the 4th Compulsion requires.  

1) Breaking Down and Building up Dragon

Let me break down the deck into ratios.  I do this not to say that this is what you are going to get, but as a theoretical tool for analyzing the deck - it also incorporates the decks game plan.  So don't argue with the methodological analysis for themoment, because it has a point.

Keeping in mind that, on average, if you have 8 of any card set in your deck there is one every 7.5 cards, on average.  If you have 7, there is one every 8.514 (assuming a 60 card deck).  

Let me construct a hypothetical hand then.

8 Red Creatures
= Average of one in the opening hand
8 Animate Spells
= Average of one in the openin ghand.
7 Disruption spells (3 Duress, 4 FoW)
= good shot of getting one in your opening
8 Artifact Accellerants
= 1 in your opening hand

So far our hand is: Animate, Red Man, Duress/FoW, and a Mox.  
There are 14 mana producing lands in the build I advocated.  That is slightly less than 2 in your opening hand.  

So that gives us a pretty average Dragon deck so far:
2 Lands, 1 Artifact, 1 Critter, 1 Disruption spell, 1 Animate Spell... and you know what.  This hand is TERRIBLE.  Imagine that the 7th card is anything but an outlet.  The remaining cards are outlets, Intution, Time Walk, and Ancestral.  If the 7th card is another disruption spell, Animate, land, artifact, or critter you MUST mulligan the hand.  

What does that say?  That says to me that the MOST important card in the entire deck is the outlet.  Not running 4 Compulsion is thus more than ludicrous to me - it is just silly.  

The analysis I presented is a key starting point for analyzing the deck.  The next step is going through the game plan and recognizing some variances in the analysis I just presented.  I could go through and cook up some more hypothetnical hands with 1 land and 2 Animates, etc, but that really wont advance the point.  

The next step in the analysis is a game plan analysis.  That is more complicated, but before moving on I want to address where I beleive the flexibility in design lies.  Some of this analysis will point to some of the harder questions that need to be addressed.  

We all admit that you absolutely must have an outlet.  It is the one card that makes this deck run smoothly.  

So 4 Bazaar and 4 Compulsion is an absolute must.  There has been on problem with the 21 Mana Configuration, so we'll assume that that is fine for now.

8 Animates has made them pop up when you need them, since you really only need 1 to win.  

Disruption: a 4th Duress could very easily be played, but there is one constraining externally imposed rule on deck construction that I have used:

YOU MUST HAVE AT LEAST SIXTEEN BLUE SPELLS to make Force of Will *good*.  You can play FOW with less, but it isn't reliable enough to be potent int he situations that you have.  This rule imposes constraint upon the potential changes that might be suggested.  

This leads me to discuss the Win Condition issue as a subpoint about deckconstruction overall.  With 2 BLUE Win conditions, you may then Froce fo Will pitching Ambassador becuase you have another in your deck.  For this reason I think it is absolutely CRITICAL to have 2.  If you don't, you are basically saying that you are only running 15 blue spells for Force of Will purposes - an unaccepable point becuase it logically concludes with my externally imposed rule.  

Therefore, once you add Time Walk, 2 Win Conditions, Ancestral, 4 Compulsion 4 FoW, we need 4 more blue spells.  

Where does that take us?  What this tell us is that there IS flexibility in the decklist, but it is with the Intuitions and NOT with the 4th Compulsion slot.  To fully explore the possibility we need to go through the next step:


2) Game Plan Analysis.
We have been through the statistical liklihood of getting some key cards, not I'm going to run through the game plan and explain why my solutions beat the dragon hate.  I hope to have this up by Monday.



Steve

[dicemanx]

Two points Steve:
--------------------

1. You identify correctly that you need to have an enabler in your starting hand. However, tutors (L-D Vault and the Vampiric or Demonic) are just as good as having an enabler in hand. So, while you run 8 enablers, my proposed changes would leave you with 10. Running 2-3 tutor effects strengthens the deck, especially since tutors are effectively Bazaars #5-7, but are flexible enough to fetch other key components. They can even allow you to drop the animate count down to 7 if you want to make some room.

2. When designing the MD, I'd rather not dictate MD slots based on the minimum number of blue cards necessary to support FoW comfortably as a defensive weapon. I'm still of the opinion that FoW is not mandatory in this deck, because you can usually outrace problematic cards that other non-combo, FoW-packing decks otherwise *need* to stop. FoW is quite draining on your resources in the early going, as you usually have to pitch critical business spells which slows you down. Furthermore, attempting to use FoW defensively requires heavy blue-card support which might force you to run weaker cards; using FoW to force through the combo is a different matter, and requires smaller blue-card support.

By the way, with respect to Sliver Queen enabling the pitchability of Laquatus to FoW - I view that as a mere bonus. The Queen "enables" all of your animate spells and allows you to play more aggressively,whichis a more important consideration. Regardless of the reason, I'd always run one, so that issue is settled.


Match-ups and Xantid vs FoW issue:
----------------------------------------

I would like to know if anyone feels that FoW is superior to Xantid in the following specific match-ups, which I feel are the most critical:

Keeper
Hulk
Landstill
Gay/r
Control Slaver
EBA


Match-ups where FoW is superior, but the question is - does it even matter?:

all aggro (Goblin Sligh, TnT, Madness etc)
FCG
Oshawa Stompy
Workshop Slaver/7-10 split
Stax/wMUD

Match-ups where FoW is superior AND does matter, but then again, you have little chance against them anyways (plus these decks are extremely rare):

Belcher
draw7.dec


Let's talk specifics rather than fawn over the "stopping power of FoW".

[Hi-Val]

I think that the difference between BU and BUG versions is the ideology behind playing the decks. BU seems to be most interested in getting off a very quick, risky kill, where BUG is more interested in getting a protected kill, and thus, will wait longer. I feel that the latter is stronger because speed is not as essential as it was with more combo decks in the environment. With BUG, you get tools that make bad hands worth keeping or pull out of binds. I feel that you can afford to wait another turn or two in the current environment to get a protected, safe kill instead of having to plow balls-to-the-wall into a second turn kill. We know Dragon isn't that fast anyway.

BUG can sit on just four outlets (as Adam Bowers' list shows us) and crank card advantage with Bazaar and stop problems with Deeds. The deck then combos when it has the best chance to. Obviously, this raises problems when you give your opponent more turns to do something. However, the unique nature of Dragon (and really Necromancy) is that when your opponent attempts to win, you can as a last ditch effort try to win in response. There isn't a whole lot that an opponent can do against a Dragon deck to really stop them from winning while furthering their own game plan.

Here's an example to put it all in perspective: Hulk goldfishes on turn 4, while Dragon does on turn 2. Hulk posesses a hell of a lot of counters and such to stop Dragon from winning. So why would you go for the turn 2 risky kill when you can go for the turn 3 guaranteed kill? Also, what about those times when the animate spell is countered and Dragon is forced on the defensive? Xantid Swarm is a one card counterspell in those situations, Force of Will is a two card counter. When topdecking an animate spell, you don't have to wait for another blue card for FoW to be good, you just swing with Xantid and win.

[Dante]

BUG can sit on just four outlets (as Adam Bowers' list shows us)

Nobody but Adam Bowers has seemed to make his decklists work, esp a 19-mana source Dragon deck....or his Bazaar only, no Compulsion, 2 Intuition version.  Like he said in his own posts, his Bazaar's love him and just come to the top when he needs them....

Bill

[Smmenen]

Here is the second part of my analysis and if you thought the first part was complicated, wait until you read through this.

In part I, I discussed the various components of the deck which lead to the inevitable conclusion that the deck must have 8 outlets.  The next step my in argument is to demonstrate that the tutors are not outlets, or as Peter terms them “enablersâ€? – or even if they are, they are simply not replacements for Compulsion.

Then I will attempt to explain why there must be Force of Will and 16 blue spells and then discuss the merits of UG versus BUG.

Here we go:

The argument has been put forward that if I am right about the numbers I crunched, that my argument doesn’t deductively or automatically lead to the conclusion that Lim-Dul’s Vault or a card of similar functioning cannot replace Compulsion.  I am going to explain why it cannot.

Let me walk through two scenarios.  
Scenario One:
The opening hand contains Mox, Land, and Compulsion and an assortment of one more mana, a red creature, an animate, and a disruption spell as my generalized math from part one might suggest.  In this hand we drop Compulsion on turn one.  On turn 1 we have seen 7-8 cards.  On turn two we see the original 7.5 from turn one, and then an additional 1 from the draw step for an average of 8.5 and then finally 9.5 from Compulsion.  On turn three you draw another card giving you 10.5 cards (11 if you drew first) and then 11.5 once you used compulsion.  In other words, assuming you haven’t played Intuition, used Bazaar, or played Ancestral or Time Walk – this also assumes that you haven’t drawn excessive amounts of mana so that on turn three you have 4 mana so that you can Compulsion AND play Animate.  The point is that by seeing 11-12 cards under normal circumstances with a Dragon distributed, on average, one every 15 cards in your deck, the chances that you have seen a Dragon by now are very high.  This isn’t even counting the chances that you played those other spells I mentioned which would increase your chance even more dramatically.   In actually playtest games, these numbers have borne out.  What I’m saying is that almost every time I cast a turn one Compulsion, and even a turn two compulsion, I basically am in a position to play Animate the Dragon by turn three the vast majority of the time.  

The explanation Rich gave explicitly states the false assumptions that underpin the distaste for the 4th  (or any) Compulsion: that it is too mana intensive, and possibly that it is too slow, and basically not better than a tutor.  The assumption underpinning Lim-Dul’s Vault is that it is a replacement for Compulsion, as a contrapositive of the previous assertion, is that it is vaster than Compulsion, not as mana intensive, and gets the job done in the same speed/shape.  

The core of my argument is that this is false.  This is a difficult argument to make and so I will resort to some generalizations based upon statistical probabilities to make my case.  This is, in other words, the slipperiest contention I’m going to try to back.  Two points are worth stating at the outset.  

First, Lim-Dul’s Vault is not a turn one card.  Therefore, it almost always must be cast on turn two with the underlying assumption being that using Bazaar, you can set up for a turn three win.  I’ll address this in a minute.  Second, already explicit in the first point, the design of the deck makes Lim-Dul’s Vault essentially act as a tutor for Bazaar.  Almost never do you use the Vault to set your self up with Compulsion.  This isn’t a bad thing per se, but its worth recognizing what you are doing.  

I contend that the Lim-Dul’s Vault is not faster than Compulsion, is risker, and doesn’t even necessarily set you up for a turn 3 win – and at the very least, no faster than Compulsion would have, had the Vault been a Compulsion instead.  Why?  Compulsion can come down on turn 1 and gets you an additional card on turn 2.  Even if it doesn’t come down on turn one, if you topdeck a mox, you are likely to Duress and then play Compulsion and have a similar effect.  Sadly for Lim-Dul’s Vault, despite being at Instant speed it is much slower and can be countered by any control player to stop you from doing what you need.  Even if it isn’t countered, when you set yourself up, the usual setup simply isn’t as strong as methodically acquiring the card quality and card advantage that Compulsion already has set you up for.  This is because Lim-Dul’s vault is an investment in turn three whereas Compulsion has already garnered you a slight advantage.  

What this goes back to is what I see as the function of Dragon at the moment, and indeed, Type One as a whole.  I’ll be addressing this in a future article, but recalling for the moment how Darren said that Type One was hybridized with combo finishers, I believe that Type One is now characterized increasingly by tempo based decks.  Fish, UG Madness, GAT, and now decks like Slavery and Tog try to create tempo advantages that they draw upon.  Dragon is particulary striking in this respect.  This is why cards like Stifle and Chain are such good SB cards for the deck.  A single Stifle of a Goblin Welder can act as a Time Walk that finishes the game because Dragon untaps and then casts Aniamte and then wins.  A chain of Vapor of a Ground Seal is all that is needed.  It doesn’t matter that the card was permanently disposed of, only that it was dealt with for the brief space of a turn.  This is because the Dragon deck has inevitability even more so than Tog does.  Within the space of a few turns from the opening of the game, it is inevitable that Dragon will be in a position to win with Animate.  Each time it plays a Necromancy on the opponents EOT or Animate on its mainphase, the opponent is constrained because it must attempt to counter the Animate or remove the dragon.  This is one of the problems that Tog has.  It can’t tap out on its endstep because of the constant threat of Necromancy.  In fact, this is, in my view the very definition of Tempo: you have created a game state wherein your opponent has increasingly fewer options.  Your pressure over the game has stunted their own development to the point where they cannot execute a game plan and must pull all of there pieces into a defensive mode (alluding to a chess).  Eventually they have no options and then game ends.  They are unable to execute their own game plan because of the constant threat of losing from the opponents game plan.

This is where my argument for Force of Will comes in.  Force of Will is the ultimate tempo card.  It trades cards for time.  The few faster decks in the format than Dragon will simply try to win immediately and thus not get into the tempo trap that Dragon tries to pull.  It is in those cases that Force off Will is so key.  Furthermore, Force of Will adds a very nice edge to the tempo pressure that Dragon employs.  Xantid Swarm says I’m investing in this creature now so that you can’t do anything.  This, I believe, is a wasted strategy for Dragon.  It is investing in a narrow card that doesn’t have the tempo boost that Force of Will does.  Force of Will is stronger with the card quality of Compulsion – making it easier to use and more likely to see, and Xantid Swarm is the precise opposite.  

Lim-Dul’s Vault does not set up the win any more quickly, is slightly slower at doing so, and carries far more risk because it is slower and because it doesn’t create a card quality advantage for you by turn 2, which Compulsion does.  There is one final point.  Supposing you are going to be drawn into the midgame – which is what the best decks that aren’t faster than Dragon will want to do, Compulsion is a superior card to Bazaar in many scenarios.  It will create a stronger hand, and a stronger board position because Compulsion is so difficult to deal with.  It will find Bazaars which will feed your growing Squee population and will find you mana and Intuitions to assist.  But using Bazaar is more like a burst instead of smooth injection of card quality.  Especially in light of Bazaar’s vulnerabilities to cards such as Wasteland.  Lim-Dul’s Vault therefore, on balance, has a less good chance to pull you into an excellent midgame should the game progress past turn 2-3.  

As for UB versus BUG, either is probably doable.  The only reason I think the UB would have an advantage is that running 4-5 basics makes Compulsion that much stronger when you know that your opponent won’t be wastelanding you for a tempo boost to your own detriment, and because you aren’t as reliant on Bazaars, it isn’t that much of a problem. You know that the mana you played to cast Compulsion will be there to use Compulsion.  In my view, the only question in terms of the UB build is whether the 5th land should be a 3rd Swamp or an Underground River.  In other words, do you run 2 Island, 2 Swamp, 1 River, 4 Sea, and 5 Fetch, or 2 Island, 3 Swamp, 4 Sea, and 5 Fetch?  Either composition is probably acceptable.  

Stephen Menendian

[dicemanx]

Lim-Duls' Vault has a particular strength in Dragon which you didn't address: it's typically a tutor for Bazaar that sets up the next draw (typically a Squee or Dragon). In essence, it's a "double tutor", even if it's a turn slower. After a Vault, you will usually put yourself in a position to win next turn. With Compulsion, there are no guarantees, and you leave yourself at the mercy of probablities while you consume mana to race through your deck. Dragon needs some flexibility via tutors, and those include Vampiric and Demonic, not just the Vaults. Even if one decides to run the 4th Compulsion, I still think the 4th Intuition and Time Walk can be cut for two Vaults, or a Vault and Demonic/Vampiric (especially since there is less dependence on Intuition if you run 4 Compulsion).


Regarding FoW: We can talk about tempo that FoW gives until we're blue in the face, but that isn't what's relevant. What's relevant is whether Xantids give Dragon the edge over FoW in the most problematic match-ups (Hulk, Keeper, Fish, EBA etc). If they do, then they get the nod over FoW. In my opinion and experience, Xantids and Duress stay, FoW doesn't. I know it goes against the theory concerning the importance of tempo and stopping power, but once again I maintain that Dragon should be played more aggressively and should choose powerful proactive disruption to enable victory as soon as possible. Resolving a Xantid (or animating it if it's countered) puts most control decks in total panic mode, because if they don't find an answer fast they *will* lose.  They also function to maximize the use out of your animates, and can also soak up creature removal (getting a Xantid StPed is not a bad thing!).

Like I said, it's the specifics that are important now, not theoretical discussions.

[Smmenen]

Lim-Duls' Vault has a particular strength in Dragon which you didn't address: it's typically a tutor for Bazaar that sets up the next draw (typically a Squee or Dragon). In essence, it's a "double tutor", even if it's a turn slower. After a Vault, you will usually put yourself in a position to win next turn. With Compulsion, there are no guarantees, and you leave yourself at the mercy of probablities while you consume mana to race through your deck. Dragon needs some flexibility via tutors, and those include Vampiric and Demonic, not just the Vaults. Even if one decides to run the 4th Compulsion, I still think the 4th Intuition and Time Walk can be cut for two Vaults, or a Vault and Demonic/Vampiric (especially since there is less dependence on Intuition if you run 4 Compulsion).


Regarding FoW: We can talk about tempo that FoW gives until we're blue in the face, but that isn't what's relevant. What's relevant is whether Xantids give Dragon the edge over FoW in the most problematic match-ups (Hulk, Keeper, Fish, EBA etc). If they do, then they get the nod over FoW. In my opinion and experience, Xantids and Duress stay, FoW doesn't. I know it goes against the theory concerning the importance of tempo and stopping power, but once again I maintain that Dragon should be played more aggressively and should choose powerful proactive disruption to enable victory as soon as possible. Resolving a Xantid (or animating it if it's countered) puts most control decks in total panic mode, because if they don't find an answer fast they *will* lose.  They also function to maximize the use out of your animates, and can also soak up creature removal (getting a Xantid StPed is not a bad thing!).

Like I said, it's the specifics that are important now, not theoretical discussions.

You were the one who once said that Dragon could be built in many ways, and that the fastest builds were not the best.  That was how you explained your build last year.  I agreed.  

My post was an attempt to delve into specifics and avoid theory, with the exception of my discussion of Force of Will.  I could have gone into specifics with Lim-Dul’s Vault but I felt it was a waste of time because I was belaboring the obvious.  Apparently not.  Absolutely I recognize that you generally can find Bazaar + Squee *2, or equivalent goodies.  You can cycle through your entire deck twice with at least half a dozen life to spare.  But I took that into account in my entire analysis.  Lim-Dul’s Vault has far more risk and doesn’t provide the benefits of the late game that Compulsion does.  It has a higher risk of being countered.  The most critical problem is the underpinning assumption that Lim-Dul’s Vault gets you the win just as quickly: it doesn’t.  You may find that the optimal cards to find are Bazaar Squee Squee.  But by the time you have seen as many cards as Compulsion would have shown you, your chances of seeing Dragon AND Animate WITH backup aren’t greater than just playing Compulsion turn one instead of Turn Two Lim-Dul’s Vault and then turn three Bazaar + 2 Squee or even Squee and Dragon with Animate ontop  may just get countered and then you have to try again.  Whereas with the Compulsion route, your card pool is just as good and you have as good of a chance of seeing Force/Duress and all those same cards.  If you disagree with this point, then I guess I'll just have to run the specific numbers to prove it beyond the basics that I have already described in the last post.  I'm taking into account speed as well.  

Re: Xantid Swarm v. Force of Will.  I’m not disagreeing that Xantid MAY be better in specific matchups – but that just means it’s a SB card that you can SB in, not a card to maindeck over FoW.  Furthermore, the reasons why Swarm has problems over FOW I have already spoke about at length.

If you really want Lim-Dul's - my analysis points to running it over 2 Intuitions, not Compulsion or Time Walk.  I have no problem with that - I just think that at that point, you'll find it unnecessary and probably a matter of fine disagreement rather than something that can be more objectively quantified.

Alternatively, it could be that you are just worried about different matchups.  I am looking forward to Gencon and anticipate that some of the decks we talk about here will fade away.  The important matchups are Storm Combo, Tog, Fish, and Slavery builds.  Storm combo was heavily played at Gencon last year and I have a feeling will be again.  Storm combo is underrepresented outside of that kind of event.  Tog, Fish, and Slavery are the decks that I think Dragon needs to contend with.  The build I have posted I beleive offers a strong way to deal with those decks.

One final point: looking at the matchups that you are worried about, if you examine what I said about how Swarm works with Compulsion versus Force of Will, the Swarm can slow down Compulsion a turn and thus slow down your card quality efforts.  Those matchups that you mentioned have MUCH greater problem with Compulsion than with Bazaar with the exception of Tog.  That all speaks to the holistic view of the deck that I presented.

Stephen Menendian

[dicemanx]

You were the one who once said that Dragon could be built in many ways, and that the fastest builds were not the best. That was how you explained your build last year. I agreed.

I'm not wavering from this assessment. Dragon should still be a fast goldfish deck, but it shouldn't make sacrifices in consistency to go from turn 3-4 goldfish to turn 2-3 goldfish. The whole tutor discussion doesn't just revolve around speed - tutors do assist in assembly of draw engines, and Vaults are particularly effective because of their "double tutor" capability. Call it a bonus that they marginally improve goldfish rates  as well.

But I took that into account in my entire analysis. Lim-Dul’s Vault has far more risk and doesn’t provide the benefits of the late game that Compulsion does.

Perhaps it is here that the problem lies and where we disagree. The Vault, in my experience, has been a valuable tool in getting to the late game by setting up your Bazaar draw engine, and this doesn't entail too much risk. I won't argue that Compulsion is simply stronger over the long haul, but surviving the early game and not getting routed is very important. The Instant speed of the Vault is also a critical part of its strength.

In any case, like I said, the Vault and a 4th Compulsion are hardly mutually exclusive. There's no reason not to look at potential strengths of a 4th Compulsion in testing.

But by the time you have seen as many cards as Compulsion would have shown you, your chances of seeing Dragon AND Animate WITH backup aren’t greater than just playing Compulsion turn one instead of Turn Two Lim-Dul’s Vault and then turn three Bazaar + 2 Squee or even Squee and Dragon with Animate ontop may just get countered and then you have to try again.

Bear with me, but it seems I'm missing something. Compulsion doesn't draw cards, and it doesn't set up the combo, unless you actually draw a red creature to go with it. Vault, on the other hand, helps you set up your draw engine or potential to combo off without that reliance on probability.

It's like saying: Would you rather rather flip a coin to win a million dollars rather than take $250K and walk away. Statistically on average there is a bigger payoff in gambling for the extra money, but does that beat a sure thing? You want to show me statistical proof, but I won't contest the fact that you will be right.

I think top level decks have contingency plans for the times when the probabilites do *not* work in their favor; they do not rely on those probabilities to win matches.

Re: Xantid Swarm v. Force of Will. I’m not disagreeing that Xantid MAY be better in specific matchups – but that just means it’s a SB card that you can SB in, not a card to maindeck over FoW. Furthermore, the reasons why Swarm has problems over FOW I have already spoke about at length.

Xantid is a SB card that can be main-decked as a meta choice. in doing so, you gain an edge in your problematic match-ups and gain extra SB space. The only cost to this is weakening yourself against decks that you will most likely beat anyways, or that you will lose to anyways, FoW or no FoW. Seems like running MD Xantids is a great metagame decision unless you anticipate heavy aggro/combo, which is quite rare. Most metas are filled with aggro and control.

Alternatively, it could be that you are just worried about different matchups. I am looking forward to Gencon and anticipate that some of the decks we talk about here will fade away. The important matchups are Storm Combo, Tog, Fish, and Slavery builds. Storm combo was heavily played at Gencon last year and I have a feeling will be again. Storm combo is underrepresented outside of that kind of event. Tog, Fish, and Slavery are the decks that I think Dragon needs to contend with. The build I have posted I beleive offers a strong way to deal with those decks.

I have no doubt in my mind that Xantids are superior in the Hulk, Fish, and Drain Slaver match-ups. I'd also expect lots of Keeper and budget aggro decks, even though they might not make the top tables in the end. Storm combo is very worrisome for Dragon, but that match-up will not be decided based on the Xantid vs FoW debate. Dragon will lose game 1 much more often than not. Workshop Slaver has only one problematic card game 1: Chalice for 2. Without it, Dragon will outrace an activated Mindslaver more often than not. Even with a resolved Slaver, there are no guarantees.

One final point: looking at the matchups that you are worried about, if you examine what I said about how Swarm works with Compulsion versus Force of Will, the Swarm can slow down Compulsion a turn and thus slow down your card quality efforts. Those matchups that you mentioned have MUCH greater problem with Compulsion than with Bazaar with the exception of Tog.

So by inference, you are suggesting that Xantids are weaker because of the strength of Compulsion against the decks I mentioned? I think that view is to narrow. If you want to discuss a "holistic approach" to Dragon, and the types of synergies the deck wants to generate, how about examining the fantastic synergy between your excess animates and Xantids? Control will desperately fight you over the Swarms, which allows you to include Animates in that battle. Otherwise, all of the animates that you draw are useless on account of instant removal or stifles that you always have to be wary of. For instance, how often do I get scenarios like this: 2-3 mana open, Bazaar in play, Dragon in the grave, FoW back up and a couple of animates in hand. They have 1-2,maybe 3 mana open. Do I try to animate Dragon for the win against Keeper? Fish? Landstill? Not unless I'm a gambling man. Do I sit and wait, for Duress perhaps? Possibly. Now if I had a Xantid, I would have a risk-free plan at my disposal - heck, that Xantid would have probably resolved turn 1. Even if that Xantid gets countered, my Animates will have something to do.

Getting a Xantid to resolve, even if it means temporarily sacrificing card quality the odd occasion as in your Compulsion + Xantid scenario, is very worth it in my eyes and the payoff can be substantial.

[Smmenen]

I aniticipated some of those replies and thought of my answers before you wrote your points.  The first thing I thought you might hit on was the point about using Compulsion to rely on probabilities versus using Lim-Duls to assure certainty.   There are of course the minor points that Fish is capable of doing quite a bit of damage quickly making Lim-Duls more limited in utility, or the point that I have already made about Compulsion coming down quickly.  I realize that we aren't talking about Compulsion v. Lim-Dul's - but some people might take that away from this discussion.  I think the best answer to your point is that magic as a whole is built upon probabilities.  Trying to take away the $250K right now may involve more risk than flipping the coin for $1 million.  I'm sure I could come up with a good analogy if I new more about gambling games.  But what it comes down to is the idea that in magic you shouldn't do more than you have to.  This is why tempo decks are so successful and why pure control is almost no where to be seen.  Mono Blue control can't just win the game - it has to have complete dominance first so that no threat can slip through.  One slip can mean the game.  Xantid Swarm may seal up some holes quite tightly, but it leaves other holes completely open.  Force of Will is more flexible and does the job, in my opinion while Xantid Swarm does not stop a key threat that another deck may play that isn't a counterspell.  This has to be weighed against he benefits to the mana base of running the basics that I run.  I have also found that unlike the old Dragon deck, I can cast multiple Force of Wills with the build I have been using.  In one game against Tog, I had more Force of Wills in hand than I could use 3 FoW, 3 Blue spells, and many other good cards I wanted to keep in hand.  

I think the top level decks do not rely on any one thing.  Slavery cannot rely on Chalice 2 any more than Fish can rely on Null Rod to stop Belcher once and for all.   These decks use these cards not like Keeper used to use Moat - a perrmanent solution that leads to game dominance, but as tempo boosts to threaten the opponent until the next stage of their game plan has developed.  Chalice for, in my experience, isn't very effective at stopping Dragon - it can find Necromancy almost without fail a turn or two after Chalice 2 has come down.  The real threat that I have used to beat Dragon with Slavery is actually Blood Moon - which just goes toward the power of Compulsion and Basics.

Whatever the case, we have arrived at some consensus regarding potential builds.  The debate now needs to shift from debate over the 4th Compulsion to other issues - like Lim-Dul's versus Intuitions, and FoW over Swarms.  I'll do some more thinking and testing and post back here when I have something new to say.

Steve

[BlkXplsn]

With Compulsion, there are no guarantees, and you leave yourself at the mercy of probablities while you consume mana to race through your deck. Dragon needs some flexibility via tutors, and those include Vampiric and Demonic, not just the Vaults.

This is the main reason why I don't run 4 compulsions. I end up having MORE, not less combo enablers due to the many applications of L.D. Vaults. Drawing cards on a smaller scale (than say, a Bargain), even in a redundent combo deck, is not a guarentee. If I have an animate, I can find a discard outlet and\or more protection, etc. I would much rather have my opponent have the possibility of countering a vault over my own inability to draw the cards that I want. Counters can be played around, and if they are countering vault, who's to say I won't untap and kill them?

Playing Xantid swarms doesn't mean you have to not play FOW. I think Xantid swarm alone is too powerful to not include in this deck. The weakening of the mana base is not a good enough to cut green. Deed is also a stong arguement by itself. I do admit I play a couple of basics to try and make it more bearable.

On a side note: I think you (Semenman) have boiled this down too far. This may have to do with the fact that I (and the Canadians apparently) are playing a BUG version, while you are playing a BU version. Our approaches should be different, simply because our decks are different. It may also be because you seem to see the use of vaults as a subsitute for compulsion, which isn't necessarily the case. Or it might be because you are of the mindset that because dragon is so redundant, drawing off compulsion MEANS you draw what you are missing. I don't think that's always true.

Maybe this helps to keep this discussion going.

[Smmenen]

Rather address some of the small points you made because I'd be repeating myself or reconstruing comments already made, I'll just say that we have arrived at a consensus build:

8 Artifact Accellerants:
3 Necromancy
5 1B Animate Spells

Only the Canadian that won, Bryan Fitch?, used 2 Necromancies.  I think most of us agree that that is incorrect.

8 Red Creatures
4 Squee
4 Dragon

Victory Conditions:
We all agree that two are needed.  I use two blue ones to feed FoW:
1 Queen
1 Laquatus

Enablers/Outlets:
4 Compulsion
4 Bazaar
Peter and I are on the same page here.

Disruption:
This differs, so we'll just let this segment "unresolved" but mine looks like this:
4 Force of Will
3 Duress

Other:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Intuition
2 Lim-Dul's Vault (for testing over Intuition three and four).

If I'm reading Peter right, he might be using 3 Intution here and cut Time Walk.  I view this deck as a highly tempo oriented deck and Time Walk is an ultimate tempo card - so on that basis I wouldn't cut it.

Mana:
8 Artifact Accellernats:
no dispute here

4 Sea
4 Delta
1 River
2 Swamp (can be Bayou and Swamp)
2 Island (can be Tropical and Island)

[dicemanx]

Playing Xantid swarms doesn't mean you have to not play FOW. I think Xantid swarm alone is too powerful to not include in this deck.

This is true, but the problem is that Duress is too strong not to include. The ability to check the opponent's hand is huge. It might be possible to drop a couple of combo slots (one animate, and maybe one tutor/Time Walk) and try a 3 Xantid, 3 Duress, 4 FoW configuration.

Enablers/Outlets:
4 Compulsion
4 Bazaar
Peter and I are on the same page here.

I'm still on the 3 Compulsion side until testing would tell me otherwise. I'd still urge people to try 4 Compulsions out and see if it works for them.

Other:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Intuition
2 Lim-Dul's Vault (for testing over Intuition three and four).

If I'm reading Peter right, he might be using 3 Intution here and cut Time Walk. I view this deck as a highly tempo oriented deck and Time Walk is an ultimate tempo card - so on that basis I wouldn't cut it.

Yes, I think that 3 Intuitions is the right number, and feel the Time Walk is not that strong in Dragon. It's a good tempo card but only if you draw it early (ie if it's in the opening hand), but then again, you don't want to see it in your starting seven due to the danger of misevaluating your hand. Aggressive mulligans are important in Dragon; TW messes them up on occasion.

Of the two Vaults, one is possibly replaceable by either Vampiric or Demonic Tutor. Alternately, I think you can ditch an 8th animate and add the Vamp/Demonic. Running 8 animate effects can be too much at times, especially against control.

[Shock Wave]

This is true, but the problem is that Duress is too strong not to include.

Duress is only "too strong not to include" in UB Dragon because there is no other card within a UB card pool that achieves a comparable disruptive effect. When you expand your horizons to BUG, you have the ultimate stopper in Xantid Swarm.

Duress is weak right now. Why has nobody addressed this serious problem with the UB version? How can anybody, with all their marbles still in place, advocate Duress over Xantid Swarm? It is nothing short of sheer lunacy.

Yay, I Duress my opponent and see that they're holding enough plows for every cow in the field. Best of luck going off.

[Jacob Orlove]

Yay, I Duress my opponent and see that they're holding enough plows for every cow in the field. Best of luck going off.

How is Xantid any better in that situation?

[Shock Wave]

How is Xantid any better in that situation?

In that particular scenario, Xantid isn't better. However, the crux of the argument is that if your opponent is holding multiple instant-speed removal effects (BEB, Disenchant, whatever), Duress sucks big, perspiring, goat balls.

Even in that scenario, Xantid Swarm goes 1 for 1 with your opponent's creature removal. The upside is that against control, Xantid says:

"You'd better counter me, or your permission spells are quite useless."

... whereas Duress says:

"Discard one (possibly irrelevent) spell from your hand."

[ill_Dawg]

I have to say that I am on the BUG / Xantid swarm side of the argument.  But, that's just me.  I've also never been a fan of compulsion, but that is also just me.  It's one of those things like a "stable manabase" that I always hear people telling me about and never use.  It's just the way I play.  

In defense of the swarm, what can really be said? It's a green duress with an upgrade, it wins you the game if it hits and isn't dealt with, and most importantly it gives you something to do with all of those useless animates you're holding if it gets countered or killed by something that isn't a plow.  That one is huge, because really what else are you going to do with all of those animates if you can't safely go off.  

The reason I never liked compulsion is that I always found it to be too slow and mana-intensive.  I'd rather be winning the game, or finding a bazaar.  the strippability of bazaar is why I run stifles, stifles also pitch to force and do cool tricks with animate effects.  Despite what was said in the initial post about bazaar being an inferior draw engine to compulsion, I still maintain that it is the best part of the deck.  Maybe that's just because I love the card so damned much, but my bazaars love me and win a lot of games for me.  They come down for free, draw me 2 cards for free, and discard stuff for free.  They don't make chalice for 2 better against me.  They have a cool picture and archaic wording.  They are my friends.  That is why I run more tutors than your perscribed build, I want to find them and turn them sideways.

On a similiar note, I think 2 intuition is the right number; again, this is just for me.  I don't particularly like seeing them because I know that all they are going to do is let my opponant intuition / AK for UU.  The high CC tends to hurt, and they are really only good at getting red guys in the yard to fuel bazaar / set up the win, and I never have problems finding the red guys when it matters.  In my experience they, like time walk, usually just get pitched to FoW.

These are just my ideas and opminions, based on my experience with this deck.  They may be slightly out of date because I've been living in Auschwitz for the past couple of months, but they're mine damnit.

Hope this helps,

-=ADAM=-

[Eastman]

As far as the disruption component in combo, I'm always in favor of duress.

In my experience with combo, fewer games are lost to force of wills, swords to plowshares, and stifles then are lost to null rods, trinispheres, chalices, ground seals, root mazes, and the like.

Duress goes card for card immediately and provides you vital information about the state of their hand, letting you plan your move. It also takes the null rod or Chains of Mephistopheles, etc, that will keep you from winning. Xantid Swarm can't stop those hate bombs that are the real threat to combo.

Incidentally I would play duress before Force in dragon. Force IS powerful and should be included, but the card economy problems the deck often has when trying to go off without slow squee card advantage restricts the usefulness of Force.

[BlkXplsn]

This is true, but the problem is that Duress is too strong not to include.

Duress is only "too strong not to include" in UB Dragon because there is no other card within a UB card pool that achieves a comparable disruptive effect. When you expand your horizons to BUG, you have the ultimate stopper in Xantid Swarm.

Duress is weak right now. Why has nobody addressed this serious problem with the UB version? How can anybody, with all their marbles still in place, advocate Duress over Xantid Swarm? It is nothing short of sheer lunacy.

Yay, I Duress my opponent and see that they're holding enough plows for every cow in the field. Best of luck going off.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

If you think of Xantid as a reusable duress, it might be easier to accept this premise. The only time I've ever wished my xantids were duresses was when I was already in a terrible position. I'm not going to plan for when my deck fails to do what it is designed to do. Also, the fact that short of a plow, the swarm can be animated and continue working is nothing short of strong. In other words, many kinds of removal leave you without permanents in play if left unchecked if you are trying to combo. A duress won't necessarily solve your problem. You don't need to disrupt your opponent. You just need to make it so he can't stop you.

Also, I admit my bias here by stating that before I personalized my build of dragon, I card-for-carded a Bower's list. Since then, I have tinkered around with about every version of dragon I've seen, UBG, Mono black, UB, wishes, Scrivner, etc... and aside from a few minor changes, Adam's simply works the best.

[dicemanx]

Yay, I Duress my opponent and see that they're holding enough plows for every cow in the field. Best of luck going off.

By the same token, if that Duress was a FoW, you'd be in even bigger trouble because you won't see it coming when you try to go off. Duress, like FoW, is essentially a 1-for-1 trade, except FoW actually costs you a potential must-counter spell that you could be using to draw out permission.

I don't think its fair to compare Xantids to Duress. I think that the comparison is between Xantids and Duress *to* FoW. I believe both are better than FoW. Also, there's a correct way of playing Duress in Dragon. You don't automatically Duress freely after top-decking it against a control deck, or otherwise any deck that doesn't play permanent-based hate. Duress is best used to force through the combo or check to see if its safe to start using animates to bait removal/permission.

and aside from a few minor changes, Adam's simply works the best.

If the Bazaars love you like they love Adam in his deck, then I'd agree, his build is the best . He should probably trim them down to three to make even more room, because I have a theory in magic - the fewer copies of a card you include, and the fewer ways you have to tutor for it, the more frequently you will draw it. There is plenty of empirical evidence to back up my claim, at least here North of the border.

[Shock Wave]

By the same token, if that Duress was a FoW, you'd be in even bigger trouble because you won't see it coming when you try to go off. Duress, like FoW, is essentially a 1-for-1 trade, except FoW actually costs you a potential must-counter spell that you could be using to draw out permission.

I don't think its fair to compare Xantids to Duress. I think that the comparison is between Xantids and Duress *to* FoW. I believe both are better than FoW. Also, there's a correct way of playing Duress in Dragon. You don't automatically Duress freely after top-decking it against a control deck, or otherwise any deck that doesn't play permanent-based hate. Duress is best used to force through the combo or check to see if its safe to start using animates to bait removal/permission.

Well, you're right, it's not fair to compare one against the other. What we are trying to do here is determine what the optimal configuration for disruptive slots is, and I strongly believe that Duress does not fit into this equation. I'm not surprised that a lot of people have been having success with Adam's list because he is running Xantid Swarm *and* FOW as his disruption base, which I will adamantly defend as the best choice.

The reason Duress is the weakest link is simple: it does not say no. I don't know how others are playing their Dragon decks, but if my opponent cast Ancestral Recall in the early game, that's a spell I want to stop, regardless of whether I have to sacrifice business to stop it. There are countless other scenarios (that I don't need to recite) to drive home this point. The bottom line, and it's not rocket science, is that FOW counters shit, Duress does not. Sometimes, the difference in the control matchup is the point where either you or your opponent gets their draw engine happening. FOW can be absolutely crucial in this scenario.

There's also the mana-bottleneck issue that we've already established. If your opponent is holding 2 plows and has only 1 source of white mana, Duress isn't very helpful, whereas FOW is golden (and believe me, this isn't a trivial point).

With a Xantid/FOW configuration, you have both a sweeper and a counterspell for desperate times. Peter, if you don't agree with me, that's fine, we'll settle this with some good 'ol fisticuffs

Oh one more minor issue: Please, let's not use the argument about needing 16 blue cards to run FOW in this deck. FOW is needed in an extremely select number of scenarios and typically is cast only once in a game. This isn't a control deck, so the standard FOW ratios do not apply here.