[Discussion] Spoils Dragon

[Vegeta2711]

I'd like to talk about the constantly overlooked and underrated combo deck Dragon. Well not really, I'd like to discuss Dragon's half braindead cousin Spoils Dragon. (Thanks PTW) This should really apply for you people playing in 5-10 Proxy tournaments, since you only really need to proxy the Bazaar's and the Lotus.

Anyways, here's a basic version.

//NAME: Spoiled Dragon
// D
        4 Duress
        4 Xantid Swarm
// Bury
        4 Bazaar of Baghdad
        3 Buried Alive
// Teh Win
        1 Necromancy
        4 Dance of the Dead
        4 Animate Dead
// Search
        1 Demonic Tutor
        4 Spoils of the Vault
// Kill
        4 Worldgorger Dragon
        1 Ambassador Laquatus
        2 Sundering Titan
// Mana
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Jet
        4 Elvish Spirit Guide
        4 Dark Ritual
        4 Bloodstained Mire
        4 Bayou
        6 Swamp
// SB
SB:  4 Null Rod
SB:  4 Chalice of the Void
SB:  3 Pernicious Deed
SB:  3 Verdant Force
SB:  1 Platinum Angel

Obviously you could make a few changes like, more Animates, running Squee, Unmask over Xantid, how many moxes, etc. I'm just giving out a base list here.

Now if you kiddies have forgotten this things goldfish clip, I'll refresh your memory. It generally combo's turn 2 a huge amount of the time and barring a suicide by Spoils practically will win turn 3 if undisrupted. Most of the hate for this deck has slowly faded away into nothingness, including 4cc control in the states.

It also helps that many of the popular decks (Oath and 5/3 being the most notable) have actual bad matches against Dragon. Let alone the faster more annoying version of it. Against most other combo decks, you can match their own goldfish clip and have a board to even the score against the fastest models. The deck is also very simple to pilot when in 'goldfish' mode (the mode you'll be in 80% of the time, since most control decks run nearly no removal anyways) and even when actively figuring out how to dodge hate, it's not too difficult to slow play. It just takes a bit of practice and experince.

Yeah I just wanted to get that out there for more viable decks, esp. for 5 proxy metas.

[Smmenen]

Don't forget you'll need to SB in Ground Seal hate since Oath will SB in Ground Seals and likely Aether Spellbomb as well.

Also Oath will likely have 5 Wastes.

[Dante]

Also Oath will likely have 5 Wastes.

Steve, even in the UGB version, 1 swamp and 1 island + 5 fetch are enough to go off around wasteland (or otherwise be wasteland proof)....b2b is another story.  So in this version, 6 swamps + 4 fetch should be good.

[kirdape3]

You have no way besides TITAN to win around Gaea's Blessing.  Sure, if you go off that will be a major pain in the ass (now you have a Titan, how lucky), but I'll put a good deal of money on being able to race with Akroma there.

[Mark_Story]

I see the verdant force in the board  but what about sliver queen as an alternate win against oath and random blessings.  Making piles of critters is hard to beat, especially with the low amount of removal in the environment.  I think titan is also weakened by the vast number of welders.  Having a titan welded into a lotus is never fun..  I know the queen makes you a turn slower, but the titans are even slower.

[Vegeta2711]

Hum. Brainfart on my part Kird, good catch. I knew there was a reason I had a 2nd win condition in my own version.

Just add Caller of the Claw or Sliver Queen to the MD.

Though an alternate way to win is to just replace Laquatus with Eternal Witness + Highway Robber. That happens to win immediately as well, so that may have a +side all it's own. Every solution does take up one extra slot though.

Edit for post above me:  :shock: I run 2 non-titan artifacts, 4 total. The odds on me having one of these in my grave unless I'm comboing out are rather insignficant. And again, I only listed a base, obviously you can modfiy it on what you'd expect to see. In some metas with fewer control decks I can see Verdant being better, etc. use your own thoughts.

[Bulls on Parade]

Omg I've been playing this deck for EVER. Back when I went to tournaments I maintained that this was THE deck to play if you're a budget player with 5 proxies and although I'm not up with the current meta so much or totally familiar with Doomsday, chances are it's still definitely a solid contender. The list I came to after literally thousands of games looked vaguely like:

4 Worldgorger Dragon
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
2 Sundering Titan
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Sliver Queen
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Duress
3 Unmask
3 Necromancy
4 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead
4 Buried Alive
1 Entomb
3 Spoils of the Vault
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
4 Dark Ritual
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Bloodstained Mire
5 Swamp
SB: 3 Null Rod
SB: 3 Defense Grid
SB: 3 Verdant Force
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
The sideboard/MD configuration is absolutely not set in stone- I played in a lot of tournaments where I thought it would be advantageous to start off with Squees or Titans in the sideboard over other cards (read: when Null Rod turn 1 was really key).

Edit: It's also the easiest competitive deck to play, which is big I think for a lot of 5 proxy players on budgets. It totally goes off turn 2 more than any other deck.

[Smmenen]

Hum. Brainfart on my part Kird, good catch. I knew there was a reason I had a 2nd win condition in my own version.

Just add Caller of the Claw or Sliver Queen to the MD.

Though an alternate way to win is to just replace Laquatus with Eternal Witness + Highway Robber. That happens to win immediately as well, so that may have a +side all it's own. Every solution does take up one extra slot though.

Edit for post above me:  :shock: I run 2 non-titan artifacts, 4 total. The odds on me having one of these in my grave unless I'm comboing out are rather insignficant. And again, I only listed a base, obviously you can modfiy it on what you'd expect to see. In some metas with fewer control decks I can see Verdant being better, etc. use your own thoughts.

The problem against Oath if you use a different win condition than Laquatus is if their only creature is Plat Angel after board (which it will be).  Oath will side in plat angel.  You will make infy slivers and then past the turn to Oath which will then Oath up Platz and win unless you can Deed it away.

[Stupid_Newb]

The problem with this (and Dragon in general) is that it has been hated out. Almost every single deck in the format has some way of dealing with Dragon either maindeck or sideboard. If it's not Ground Seal, it's Tormod's Crypt. If it's not the Crypt, it's Coffin Purge. And some decks have additional cards that screw the deck like Swords to Plowshares and Stifle. I really think it's impossible to make a successful Dragon deck without at least Duress. Duress and Unmask is probably the best way to go. With your current decklist, you might win game one, but game two and three will be alot tougher. You might have to rely on pure luck to win, and that's never something good to do.

[dicemanx]

The problem against Oath if you use a different win condition than Laquatus is if their only creature is Plat Angel after board (which it will be).

Spoils Dragon can and should side in Memnarchs vs decks that play Platinum Angel(s). Sundering Titan is outdated tech.

The problem with this (and Dragon in general) is that it has been hated out.

That's what everybody keeps saying, and yet the few Dragon players that actually play the deck and know how to tweak it properly somehow do well anyway. Every deck will encounter some sort of "hate". It doesn't mean that Dragon just keels over and dies to creature removal or Tormod's Crypt. It does have some interesting resources to fight through the hate. You can't ask for everything for a turn two kill deck - the speed is balanced by its increased vulnerability.

[SpencerForHire]

The problem with this (and Dragon in general) is that it has been hated out. Almost every single deck in the format has some way of dealing with Dragon either maindeck or sideboard. If it's not Ground Seal, it's Tormod's Crypt. If it's not the Crypt, it's Coffin Purge. And some decks have additional cards that screw the deck like Swords to Plowshares and Stifle. I really think it's impossible to make a successful Dragon deck without at least Duress. Duress and Unmask is probably the best way to go. With your current decklist, you might win game one, but game two and three will be alot tougher. You might have to rely on pure luck to win, and that's never something good to do.

I believe that in the very first post it was mentioned that all the hate towards this deck has all but disapeared.  Meaning that it hasn't really been hated out any more.  Making it a decent deck to run.

[jpmeyer]

The problem with this (and Dragon in general) is that it has been hated out. Almost every single deck in the format has some way of dealing with Dragon either maindeck or sideboard. If it's not Ground Seal, it's Tormod's Crypt. If it's not the Crypt, it's Coffin Purge. And some decks have additional cards that screw the deck like Swords to Plowshares and Stifle. I really think it's impossible to make a successful Dragon deck without at least Duress. Duress and Unmask is probably the best way to go. With your current decklist, you might win game one, but game two and three will be alot tougher. You might have to rely on pure luck to win, and that's never something good to do.

I haven't played Dragon in tournies, so I don't know what a suitable amount of hate is.  SCG II had 4 Oath decks with maindeck Gaea's Blessing and with Platinum Angel and 3 Ground Seal in the SB and the other decks had BEBs and/or Seal of Cleansing.  I'll assume that that is hostile.  This is what I saw in the T8 of SCG III:

1st place (5/3):
maindeck:
3 Seal of Cleansing
SB:
1 Seal of Cleansing
3 Hydroblast
2 Tormod's Crypt

2nd place (7/10):
SB:
2 BEB
3 Tormod's Crypt

3rd place (Doomsday):
SB:
1 Chain of Vapor (?)

4th place (Stax):
maindeck:
2 Seal of Cleansing
SB:
2 Tormod's Crypt

5th place (Control Slaver):
nothing of note

6th place (Tog):
SB:
1 Coffin Purge
2 BEB
1 Snuff Out (?)
1 Chain of Vapor (?)

7th place (5/3):
maindeck:
3 Ankh of Mishra (not a big problem)

8th place (rogue Fish):
maindeck:
2 Swords of Plowshares
2 Stifle
SB:
3 BEB
2 StP
2 Disenchant

Where does that stand on the hate continuum?

[Bulls on Parade]

Where does that stand on the hate continuum?

It's such a fast deck that the hate can totally be overcome unless your opponent draws really well and you keep a hand that should be thrown back (I've never mulliganed as agressively as I do with this deck). When people played it, U/W Landstill was a really tough matchup because essentially every spell that did something could screw you over, sans Disk. Still, it was winnable because (Spoils) Dragon is going to get those hands that can Duress/Unmask/lay Defense Grid and still win turn 2.

Ancient Tomb is the reason I went back to mono-black after a lot of tourneys with B/G, because monoblack can beat control already and Tomb helps you curve out so smoothly- turn 1 Grid, which is basically the same as Duress since they can't let it resolve, followed by turn 2 Swamp, Ritual, (5 mana) win is so hot.

[Vegeta2711]

Spoils Dragon can and should side in Memnarchs vs decks that play Platinum Angel(s). Sundering Titan is outdated tech.

Gee Dice, I didn't bother adding it because of that whole 'I don't have blue mana except for Lotus' problem. ^_^ Titan I still think is a decent MD secodnary win btw.

The problem against Oath if you use a different win condition than Laquatus is if their only creature is Plat Angel after board (which it will be). Oath will side in plat angel. You will make infy slivers and then past the turn to Oath which will then Oath up Platz and win unless you can Deed it away

As I said, if it's a big deal, then I'd run Eternal Witness + Highway Robber and win that turn. In fact if I was expecting to see more than one Oath deck, I'd probably make the my main kill over Laqautus. Plus with the E. Witness kill if your still worried about Platy, you can SB in one many CIP creatures that kill it and destroy it while going through the loop. See that's the thing, it's pretty simple to just customize the kill to work around whatever hate tries to keep you from winning once you've already gone off.

Stupid Newb:

Having played with SD for a long time, I can safely say most hate can be played around or neutralized. People just never want to put the small amount of effort in to defeat it. Obviously a large amount of hate is always a issue, but it's one you accept with a combo deck.

JP:

That's pretty light, only the #1 and #8 decks have enough hate to really annoy me. Deck #1 being the biggest issue because nearly all the other decks have hate that dies to Chalice @ 1 or 0 which makes it exceptionally simple to get around.  Basically SD's good hands can equal or beat most 'hate' hands unless they we're good enough to keep w/o the hate cards to begin with.

[pox_reborn]

@ vegeta

In your 1st list you have 3 win conditions. I have not played with spoils dragon but one problem seems to glare out to me. Sometime you will have to use spoils of the vault for a bazaar or dragon or animate in order to go off. Besides the fact that you will sometimes kill yourself due to horrible shuffling and clumps, how often did you find yourself removing your win condition to the point of not being able to win? I know 3 is a pretty safe number but only laquatus can ensure a win next turn (barring blessing) and against other combo decks sometimes you cant afford giving them another turn.

Just wondering what your thought are on these questions.

[dicemanx]

Gee Dice, I didn't bother adding it because of that whole 'I don't have blue mana except for Lotus' problem. ^_^

Think OUTSIDE the box Vegeta .

Spoils or not you should still run blue for the power cards and so that you leave yourself with the possibility to kill with Witness instead of Ambassador. We don't have to limit ourselves to budget builds, and 5 proxy builds don't have to be limited to B/G if the player can at least get his hands on Bazaars.

Spoils Dragon isn't restricted to just B/G - you only need B to go off with Witness, as long as you didn't Spoils away BOTH Recall and Time Walk or BOTH Petal and Lotus AND your secondary win condition (Queen most likely pre-board, and Memnarch post board). Splashing blue barely affects your basic land count as you only need to run a minimum of one Underground Sea, and possibly a Mox Sapphire too.

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.

[Joblin Velder]

Why the Robber and Witness? Wouldn't the robber alone be enough?

[Jacob Orlove]

Why the Robber and Witness? Wouldn't the robber alone be enough?

Without the Witness, you can only reanimate the Robber once at the end of the loop.

[Vegeta2711]

Heh, well since a lot my knowledge comes from using the deck as 5-proxy or budget it never really clicked. After thinking about it for about 11 seconds though, I concur and will come up with a list with AR and TW and 1-2 lands changed to Underground Sea's and give it a try.

[GMontag]

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.

What do you need Memnarch for? Platinums can be dealt with simply by boarding in Oxidizes. Go off with Witness and you can play as many Oxidizes as you want.

[cssamerican]

The way I see it (I have played this deck a lot) unless an opponent can get the Angel out very fast it isn't a huge priority, and even if they do it doesn't prevent you from drawing the game.

Against Oath the gameplan would be to draw the first game, because of the Blessing trigger. Post sideboarding there are several options from running a different kill (As being discussed in this thread) or running a solution card such as Bind. Either way the Oath match-up sucks. Because you have to combat multiple layers of hate (Ground Seal, Gaea's Blessing, and Platinum Angel), through counter magic, and since you don't run Compulsion it is impossible to cycle through your deck to get a solution card. Ex. In response to the Blessing trigger use Compulsion to cycle through you library for Ancestral Recall and so you can cast it targeting them and winning the game. This is the main reason why this deck isn't as good as the Compulsion version.

I love this deck, but in an Oath invested enviroment I would keep in on the shelf. It just isn't flexible enough to deal with so much built in hate, especially when the hate is supported by so many counters. And I can't see anything your going to do to really improve this.

[dicemanx]

What do you need Memnarch for? Platinums can be dealt with simply by boarding in Oxidizes. Go off with Witness and you can play as many Oxidizes as you want.

But why run removal *and* a win condition, when your win condition can double as removal? This saves space in the main deck. The upside to Oxidize could be the fact that it can deal with Crypt, but Explosives are a more flexible form of removal because they can take care of enchantments as well. I'd rather be boarding in Memnarch and EE than Oxidizes.

Against Oath the gameplan would be to draw the first game, because of the Blessing trigger.

Well, given the fact that Spoils versions must run multiple win conditions (two at minimum)  there is no need to be conceding the draw to Oath game 1. Sliver Queen can beat Oath just fine in the first game. Witness is the other option as discussed above, except it relies on Bazaar being in play to go off (or in the graveyard along with an extra animate in hand or graveyard as well). This means that when you Buried Alive you have to get a Queen, not Witness. The other option is to run 3 win conditions: Queen, Ambassador, and Witness and possibly drop the Time Walk in the blue-splash version.

In any case, Game 2 Oath will bring in Ground Seal, which is why you must be ready with Deeds or Explosives. Games 2 and 3 are much more difficult, which is why you must not concede the draw game 1.

[cssamerican]

DicemanX, the problem I have found in running different win conditions together in Spoils-Dragon is that its not dependable. In other words, against Dragon matches you need Amassador as the kill so only running one becomes very risky, against Oath you need something other than Ambassador and once again running one is risky. I think you would be better off just deciding according to your metagame which kill conditions to maindeck and run two of them, and sideboard two of the other win conditions.

My point wasn't to argue the best way to combat Oath, but rather argue because of Oath's popularity this isn't the best deck to play right now. Not only because of the Blessing trigger, but also because of the hate it is going to bring in against you. And unlike the Compulsion-Dragon you don't have the card advantage engines that help you overcome those problems.

[dicemanx]

DicemanX, the problem I have found in running different win conditions together in Spoils-Dragon is that its not dependable.

I think that running 1 Ambassador, 1 Witness, and 1 Queen would be the best call. Any three win conditions are sufficient kill against the majority of decks, with a couple exceptions:

Ambassador is weak against Oath, but Queen and Witness are fine.
Queen is weak against fast combo and the mirror, but Witness and Ambassador are fine.

So unless you actually have to cast Spoils during a game and mill away two of the specific kill cards in the match-ups given above, you should be OK.

My point wasn't to argue the best way to combat Oath, but rather argue because of Oath's popularity this isn't the best deck to play right now. Not only because of the Blessing trigger, but also because of the hate it is going to bring in against you. And unlike the Compulsion-Dragon you don't have the card advantage engines that help you overcome those problems.

Agreed, although Oath can have a particular problem with Xantid Swarm so there's a bit of a trade-off there. If you resolve a Xantid, then it might come down to whether or not you can find removal for ground Seal quickly enough. The Oath itself might or might not be a problem, depending on whether you need to rely on the SotV. But then again if they remove all of their creatures and bring in Platinum Angel, then you might have much more time to work with.

An unpleasant match-up to be sure, but both sides need to make some difficult decisions regarding the SBing. I'm not sure that I'd be so quick to discard Dragon just because Oath is so prevalent. The Blessing can certainly be turned into a non-issue, which just leaves the 3 Ground Seals in the SB and their power in a deck backed by 12 counterspells.

[GMontag]

But why run removal *and* a win condition, when your win condition can double as removal? This saves space in the main deck. The upside to Oxidize could be the fact that it can deal with Crypt, but Explosives are a more flexible form of removal because they can take care of enchantments as well. I'd rather be boarding in Memnarch and EE than Oxidizes.

Perhaps I'm missing something. How exactly are you killing with Memnarch?

[Moxlotus]

But why run removal *and* a win condition, when your win condition can double as removal? This saves space in the main deck. The upside to Oxidize could be the fact that it can deal with Crypt, but Explosives are a more flexible form of removal because they can take care of enchantments as well. I'd rather be boarding in Memnarch and EE than Oxidizes.

Perhaps I'm missing something. How exactly are you killing with Memnarch?

Usually stealing all of your opponent's permanents will effectively put him out of the game

[dicemanx]

But why run removal *and* a win condition, when your win condition can double as removal? This saves space in the main deck. The upside to Oxidize could be the fact that it can deal with Crypt, but Explosives are a more flexible form of removal because they can take care of enchantments as well. I'd rather be boarding in Memnarch and EE than Oxidizes.

Perhaps I'm missing something. How exactly are you killing with Memnarch?

As Moxlotus says, you will normally win after stealing all of the opponent's permanents. However, you can go via Witness *first*, and use Memnarch to take care of the Angel and then use Witness to win the game.

[GMontag]

But why run removal *and* a win condition, when your win condition can double as removal? This saves space in the main deck. The upside to Oxidize could be the fact that it can deal with Crypt, but Explosives are a more flexible form of removal because they can take care of enchantments as well. I'd rather be boarding in Memnarch and EE than Oxidizes.

Perhaps I'm missing something. How exactly are you killing with Memnarch?

As Moxlotus says, you will normally win after stealing all of the opponent's permanents. However, you can go via Witness *first*, and use Memnarch to take care of the Angel and then use Witness to win the game.

Umm... Dragon returns cards to play under their *owner's* control. You are going to have to actually get rid of the Platinum, unless you plan on just beating down with it.

[Moxlotus]

But why run removal *and* a win condition, when your win condition can double as removal? This saves space in the main deck. The upside to Oxidize could be the fact that it can deal with Crypt, but Explosives are a more flexible form of removal because they can take care of enchantments as well. I'd rather be boarding in Memnarch and EE than Oxidizes.

Perhaps I'm missing something. How exactly are you killing with Memnarch?

As Moxlotus says, you will normally win after stealing all of the opponent's permanents. However, you can go via Witness *first*, and use Memnarch to take care of the Angel and then use Witness to win the game.

Umm... Dragon returns cards to play under their *owner's* control. You are going to have to actually get rid of the Platinum, unless you plan on just beating down with it.

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.

[dicemanx]

Umm... Dragon returns cards to play under their *owner's* control. You are going to have to actually get rid of the Platinum, unless you plan on just beating down with it.

You can shut off the Dragon loop and just steal the Platinum. Once you do that, they either die from Ancestral, or get beat down after you Time Walk enough times. In fact, there are so many ways to win - you simply pick whatever method is available depending on what did or didn't get SotV'ed away. There is almost no greater humiliation than defeating your opponent by taking all of his stuff and removing his library from the game.

You could even add a Mind Twist just so that you can achieve the Supreme Victory in Magic (TM): no permanents, no hand, no library. You can even achieve that by making them draw all of their cards with Ancestral, then Mind Twisting everything away. That way, when you write up your awesome report, you can mention that you mind Twisted someone for 40+ cards. How awesome is that .