[Discussion] Spoils Dragon

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Honestly, just stick with Ambassador/queen as the kill. The only deck thatr runs platz and NO welders is oath in the SB. Instead of butchering your deck to fit in a bad card (memnarch), you can just win by decking them, then stealing their welders with your animates. This does require 2 animates, but by the time you mill them, they'll be out of gass. vs. Oath, the witness kill is probably best.

-Bob

[GMontag]

You have just stolen all of your opponent's permanents, and you have stolen a card that says "you can't lose".  I think you can afford to beat for 3 turns.

Fine, but now you have a win condition that is dependant on what your opponent has out. That seems like it would be a bad thing.

[Addolorisi]

Fine, but now you have a win condition that is dependant on what your opponent has out. That seems like it would be a bad thing.

Since Memnarch is being discussed within the context of "how do I win when my opponent has a Plat in play?" then when that specific context does not apply (when your opponent doesn't have Platz in play), simply use one of your other two win conditions.

The odds of you removing both of your *relevent* win conditions in any specific match are generally pretty low.

[Necropotenza]

Where's Demonic consultation? It seems to be the best tutor in this kind of deck.

[kill doug]

i still don't get the witness+ robber combo would someone please explain it in more depth.  thanx

Here's the answer I sent to the person who actually PM'd me to ask that question:
You go off normally (bazaar and dragon), generating a little mana, and milling most of your deck. Then, you get witness to end the loop, and get back an animate effect. You reanimate dragon again, and witness now gets back a card each time you go through the loop. You get back the necromancy and put robbers into the loop, and kill them with it.

Alternatively, you can use witness to go off with time walk if you're running blue. Just break the loop by reanimating a squee, cast time walk, loop again, repeat, to build up infinite turns. Then kill them with witness or hardcast dragon (off a lotus). Getting back your whole graveyard with witness makes winning pretty easy.

Next time, think before posting. Verbal Warning.
-Jacob

[sWoRdFiSh`]

Where's Demonic consultation? It seems to be the best tutor in this kind of deck.

Demonic Consultation, unlike spoils, removes the top six cards of your library from the game; that alone is very risky for a combo deck that runs very limited win conditions (two at the most in more common builds).

[sWoRdFiSh`]

In my relative average experience in playing both SD and recently, BG dragon(to deal with the increasing popularity of Ground Seals in my meta) the best win conditions for me are still Ambassador Laquatus and Caller of the Claw.
Caller of the Claw, IMHO, is strictly superior to Sliver Queen since you can go off without mana - something CoW's recent rise to popularity is to blame for (getting mana screwed).
Also, there's the random Root Maze; something that my very random meta often consists of.
Furthermore, but less likely, if you're running a BG version, going off even without Bazaars is possible if you happen to draw CotC.
The only advantage I can possibly think of that SQ has is that by itself, it's a very neat animate target.

Eternal Witness kills seems to be interesting, but against Oath, I'm sticking to Coffin Purge(s) as SB tech.
Just dump your purge(s) to your graveyard while going off, mill them for a gazillion, remove those Gaea's Blessing(s) upon trigger through your purge(s), and mill them again for a gazillion.
Works well against first-turn welders too to keep those Platinum Angels from getting welded in after milling their entire library.

[BreathWeapon]

Where's Demonic consultation? It seems to be the best tutor in this kind of deck.

Demonic Consultation, unlike spoils, removes the top six cards of your library from the game; that alone is very risky for a combo deck that runs very limited win conditions (two at the most in more common builds).

I assure you this is a non-issue. I have lost more games to Spoils than I have to Demonic Consultation. If you want to see this for yourself, play the deck with 4xDemonic Consultation and 1xSpoils of the Vault.

When Spoils goes wrong, your dead. When Consultation goes wrong, you can still Animate for the Draw.

[Whatever Works]

Where's Demonic consultation? It seems to be the best tutor in this kind of deck.

Demonic Consultation, unlike spoils, removes the top six cards of your library from the game; that alone is very risky for a combo deck that runs very limited win conditions (two at the most in more common builds).

I assure you this is a non-issue. I have lost more games to Spoils than I have to Demonic Consultation. If you want to see this for yourself, play the deck with 4xDemonic Consultation and 1xSpoils of the Vault.

When Spoils goes wrong, your dead. When Consultation goes wrong, you can still Animate for the Draw.

Consultation does seem like a good fit for the deck, and another reason to run it would be because you can cast a consultation of the first turn or whenever, and still cast spoils later... while if your playing with spoils you can usually only spoils 1 time in a game ... if you were to spoils 2 times and live your either very lucky, or very very lucky...

Kyle

[sWoRdFiSh`]

Well for one, I never considered playing multiple spoils in a single game.
In much the same sense, casting multiple consults in a single game is way too risky for such a deck as dragon is.
Dragon.dec, unlike other combo decks, thrives in redundancy and not explosiveness.
As such, a well built dragon deck would miss 1 or 2 combo pieces in hand most of the times, barring disruption and counterspells.
This ultimately overshadows the "additional" benefit that Demonic Consultation has, being able to be cast in multiples in a single game.
Maybe you should've tutored for Bazaar in the first place.
That way, you would just be "digging" for whatever you like and not desperately tutoring  for it.

Next, arguing that running multiple consulations is better than multiple spoils is kinda pointless.
DC is restricted ya know.
If anyone here plans in running them, planning on running more than 1 copy is plain wishful thinking.
If the purpose, however, in your post is to emphasize the uber brokeness of consult, then let me tell you that yours truly was a pilot of both Necro deck in black summer and UB Donate way back in extended so don't bother.

I echo your feelings about spoils going horribly wrong being more of a personal killer than a "miss-consultation", however.
I personally dropped the spoils and switched to +2 tainted pact, +1 random metagame card, since they're (spoils) just being SB'd out 100% of the time or I often just don't have the guts to cast it in an actual tournament and loose.

[cssamerican]

Without access to Memnarch, Platinum Angel becomes a serious problem unless you want to start messing around with red splashes and Shivan Hellkites. The problem with those win conditions is that you actually need a R producing land in play to go off. This is a serious problem.

I have thought about this a good bit and I not sure if its that serious of a problem. This is the list I have been testing the past couple of days.

BGR Spoils Dragon
Creatures  
1   Eternal Witness  
4   Shivan Hellkite    
4   Worldgorger Dragon    

Spells  
4   Buried Alive    
4   Dark Ritual    
1   Demonic Consultation
4   Duress  
3   Spoils of the Vault    

Enchantments  
4   Animate Dead    
4   Dance of the Dead    
4   Necromancy    

Artifacts
1   Black Lotus    
1   Lotus Petal    
1   Mana Crypt    
1   Mox Jet

Lands  
4   Badlands
1   Bayou  
4   Bazaar of Baghdad    
4   Bloodstained Mire    
4   Gemstone Mine    
1   Mountain    
1   Swamp

Sideboard
3   Squee, Goblin Nabob    
3   Verdant Force    
3   Coffin Purge    
3   Ray of Revelation    
3   Null Rod    

Forcing the deck to work with Shivan Hellkite does have its advantages:
1.) Platinum Angel is no longer an issue.
2.) Gaea's Blessing is no longer an issue.
3.) You can play reanimator in the face of instant removal.
4.) You can do all the above without hurting yourself in the mirror or agaisnt fast combo decks.

I ran one Eternal Witness just so you could go off without red mana, and because it prevents an opponent from catching you in a mana burn situation. (You use Eternal Witness to recycle your Duresses and remove your opponents hand before building up your mana pool)

The lone Bayou is in the deck so post sideboard you could reliably retrieve green mana. This land could be any dual depending on your sideboard. I have actually thought about making it a Scrubland because I am actually not sure what configuration would be best for Ray of Revelation. But as of right now I am still toying with replacing the Duress for Xantids so it stays as a Bayou.