options for a dragon deck

[oldbsturgeon]

after looking over many of the dragon decks, and topics regarding dragon builds, i wanted to share my take on the particular deck. most of the list in standard, but it does include some differecnes.
3 worldgorger dragon
4 squee goblin nabob
3 xantid swarm
1 eternal witness
3 animate dead
3 necromancy
1 dance of the dead
4 bazaar of baghdad
3 compulsion
3 lim duls vault
4 force of will
3 intuition
1 duress
2 cunning wish
1 ancestral recall
4 underground sea
4 polluted delta
2 tropical island
2 bayou
1 swamp
1 island
1 black lotus
1 mox jet
1 mox sapphire
1 mox emerald
1 mox pearl
1 lotus petal
1 mana crypt

current SB
3 pernicious deed
2 chalice of the void
1 memnarch
1 sundering titan
2 verdant force
3 stifle
1 stroke of genius
1 coffin purge
1 chain of vapor

as i said at the beginning most of the list is standard but i would like to share my reasons behind picking the others
2 cunning wish: throughout my testing with dragon i wanted to be guaranteed to have force backup if i needed. looking over most of the lists revealed that dragon typically has 14-15 blue sources. if you look at this one, it has 16. the one card may not make a whole lot of difference, but it does increase the percentages slightly.
also i realized that it could be possible that something could happen to the recall and that i would not be able to win without it. i began trying out the wishes and stroke as an alternative and it began to show results. while it was rare that i ever had to use it, sometimes i did. the board also contains 2 other wish cards in coffin purge and chain of vapor. both cards cost a single color so i am usually able to play it when i wish for it. i have found that the chain is really nice against oath, while the coffin purge can sometimes take out that important welder target and such.

1 duress: this spot is somewhat funny as when i was building the deck i was not sure exactly what to put in here. it was possible i could use a maindeck verdant or memnarch. i was never really a big fan of the force and memnarch was always unnecessary outside of the oath match. duress came to mind. i always liked duress in the main, but the list is so tight that it was always really difficult to find room for them and the FoW and xantids. 1 duress however was possible and so i used the spot for that. many times the duress acts as the 4th xantid, allowing you to be able to go off unhindered. it should be noted that you could always take out the 2 wishes and use those 2 spots for additional duress. going down to 14 blue may be okay and the added protection would insure that the combo will happen.
i plan to stay with this current cofig. as i find that hate is rather low right now for dragon, which is nice as it allows me to not be so careful and try out cards like wish. i guess if you see lots of hate use those spots as duress

1 lotus petal: in many builds this is where the mox ruby would go. here is my reasoning though: xantid swarm is rather important for this deck to have online as it says, "when i attack i win" but they can be sometimes difficult to cast. sure i have the duals(in fact i have an extra) and emerald, but i cant always count on them to show up right away. they usually do, but in many games i had difficulty acquiring green to play them. this is why i chose the petal. it acts almost always as a second emerald, but can be used for others things of course. the board also runs 3 deeds and they require green. the petal can ensure that you will have it if you need it. i have tried ESG in this spot before and while its okay, i often found myself discarding it to bazaar, so i never got to even use it.
 as you may have already guessed by now, i also dont own a ruby, making this choice mandatory. in reality the pearl and the ruby are in the same class here and can be replaced by the petal. i however would not suggest that both cards be replaced with something as the deck really needs at least 1 of the sources to be permanent.

i want to say one last thing before ending this post, and that regards budgetizing this deck. while it can win, as i had to play it that way before i got the moxen, the alternate choices are inferior as they only provide temporary mana. you can play with the recall and do fine, but you need the moxen and lotus to make the deck work. and anyone trying the deck out without bazaars needs to know that the deck with not work. it becomes really bad then.
i hope that i can get some comments on this as i would really like to hear what others think about the choices
thanks
chad

[gothcracker]

u said that a dragon build without bazaars will not work. i find that very false. i run dragon without bazaars and i do just fine. all it takes is a buried alive then a following animate to win the game.

[oldbsturgeon]

sure the buried alives function similarly in the way that bazaar gets the cards into the yard, but losing bazaar means that you also lose the best uncounterable draw engine in the game. bazaar+sqee is so amazing that it is hard for control, even CS, to make up that card advantage. this is why bazaars are needed.
without the bazaars you are in essence playing a bad reanimator deck, that happens to be using the dragon combo.

[Rastadon]

Yes, everyone can see the obvious advantage of Bazaar of everything else.

Usually, on what turn to you win? What's your mana excelleration?

On a separe note, how do you acually win with verdant force? Sure you can smack with a 7/7 right away, but that's not an instant kill.

[oldbsturgeon]

the deck goldfishes consistantly on turns 3-4 and while it has a turn 2 win it is vulnerable to disruption that early. i actually like to play it safe and go for it on turn 4 even if i could do it on 3 unless i suspect that waiting the extra turn would be harmful.
in terms of accelleration the standard mox, lotus config. but you can see that in the original post.
with regards to the verdant force win, it requires you to stop the animate loop on squees while recurring time walk with the witness to take infinate turns, thus attacking with the verdant. while ben kowl recently placed high with dragon, utilizing the verdant force kill, i found it to not suite my needs. also i found time walk to not exactly suit the decks needs. as you notice, it is absent from my list.
here is the reason. say you have a rather subpar hand but it includes time walk. you may be inclined to keep the hand, believing that the extra turn will draw you intos something more useful. while it could, if the hand is rather bad to begin with, you end up essentially wasting the time walk. if you want to read further into this i suggest you read dicemanxx's dragon primer on this issue. this is where i saw the logic on dropping the time walk from. it can be found in the primer archives.
the 2 SB verdants are there for the aggro match up as they are real threats in those games. in fact many times they are brought in just to soak up graveyard removal to allow the combo to get through.

[gothcracker]

if your facing alot of aggro, u will not need the Vforce. due to the fact that youll go off before they can slip in with enough to kill u. Ive played FCG, numerous times with my dragon, and ill go off turn 2-3 consistently due to the fact i know they have nothing to really stop me.

[oldbsturgeon]

thats true, against FCG they dont have any threats game 1, so you can combo out as fast as possible without any worries. ive actually done that match many times as i have both decks, and it is almost always in the dragon player's favor. the verdants come in though 2nd game because as i said, any yard hate is usually directed at them. as you know people still play sligh and sui and stompy( not sure why) and they are for those matches. to be honest though i find myself bringing them in quite often in a number of matches for the bait factor. they are strong and must be dealt with immediately. this is probably why Kowal decided to maindeck 1 when he finished 3rd in richmond.

[Rastadon]

Thanks for clearing that up. Why Animate Dead over Dance of the Dead? Also, do you find that Necromancy is a bit tough to cast sometimes? In my build, I try to get 3BB as soon as possible for Buried + Dance and I find Necromancy a bit tough to cast sometimes.

[oldbsturgeon]

when you bring in the big guys from the board, the CIPT on the dance really hinders those guys, so i only have 1. i guess i could go all 4 animates but, i seem to only have 3 here so i use 1 dance.
i see the problem that you have with casting necromancy. you are also having to play buried alive on the same turn. sure getting 6 mana could be tough and in your case i would probably go with the animate in their place. for me since i have bazaars i only need 3 at most to go off.
the downside of dropping necromancy is that you wouldnt be able to win end of turn or in response to targeting the other animate spell. maybe only run 2 necromancy in your build?

[Kowal]

I maindecked the Verdant Force in Richmond because a vast portion of the metagame were Stax and 5/3 variants, which the Verdant Force pretty much autowins against.

In the northeast, say, Syracuse, I'd maindeck Memnarch.  Oath is largely irrelevant, it's to prevent getting locked out of the game with Platinum Angel.  You'll notice my list from Richmond had no maindeck solution to platts other than animating my opponent's welder:  That's because only about an eighth of the room had Platinum Angel in their lists.

Cunning Wish is pretty bad.  If your Ancestral gets removed, you can just go off with Time Walk and apply beatings until your opponent is dead.

[oldbsturgeon]

i saw a list that T8 at turin last year that had 2 cunning wish main. now i think they had way too many targets and probably found themselves with little time to get the cards they need, but with only really 1 card to get its not that bad. the other 2 cards arent used much, but have the option to work if needed.
i still really dont like time walk main all that much, and this has been discussed a whole lot in many other posts, including discussion regarding your tournament report. anyway with xantid out the wish for stroke isnt bad, as its like doing it with recall as it can also be played multiple times with witness.
now i may change it soon to add in something else but for now ill keep trying the wishes.

[Kowal]

In a deck with Bazaar of Baghdad, Time Walk is a sorcery speed Ancestral Recall with the untap mechanic.  I don't even board it out.

[dicemanx]

On the Verdant issue: not only is Verdant strong against Stax, it helps deal with a pre-board problem card often seen in Stax or 5/3: Seal of Cleansing. If I anticipated lots of Shops, then Verdant would be a good idea. Otherwise, it's superfluous.

On the Cunning Wish issue: I'm not fond of these in Dragon. At all. While some winning Italian decks used them in the past (along with stuff like Crop Rotation, Deep Analysis, Scrivener, Entomb etc), I think that they are not powerful enough for inclusion in the deck. The other problem is that SB slots in WGD are incredibly precious, and wasting them on spells like Stroke and Coffin Purge is just limiting your options.

Also: only 3 WGD? I think 4 is an auto-include. You really need to maximize redundancy in terms of your most critical combo pieces.

[oldbsturgeon]

in actuality i have been noticing that another dragon could be used. 3 will usually get me the one i want but in some instances they seem to never appear. a 4th could help that. i also believe i may try memnarch back main, which would mean byebye wishes. oh well. i wanted to give them a shot and i still will but i think that it could be for the best that they go.

[gothcracker]

got a question, now i might be like way wrong why has no one mentioned running the good ol' laquatus as a kill condition.

also a method ive been playing with not for serious play but its fun and flashy is running with aerial caravan and having a tendrils of agony in the deck.

i know its not the norm. but its fun

[Necrologia]

got a question, now i might be like way wrong why has no one mentioned running the good ol' laquatus as a kill condition.

also a method ive been playing with not for serious play but its fun and flashy is running with aerial caravan and having a tendrils of agony in the deck.

i know its not the norm. but its fun

Laquatus has trouble with Oath's blessings and Slaver's Weld into Platz play. It also requires you to float vast sums of mana, potentially resulting in lethal mana burn should you be disrupted.

Running Tendrils main is awful. It's a wasted deck slot that's only marginally useful when comboing off. That's why Witness is a popular win condition in dragon right now. It avoids lots of built in hate, and can potentially be useful even when you're not mid combo.

[gothcracker]

i guess u got a point about the laquatus. i'll have to try the witness kill. havent tried it yet.

about the other part. its not as bad as it sounds. u use aerial caravan to draw your entire deck. play out all spells and then tendrills for the kill. since ur able to cast all the force of wills with ease. its well protected. but it is for fun i wouldnt use it in a tournament.

[oldbsturgeon]

i think that you have the right idea about what this post is about, options for a dragon deck. the caravan idea is similar to what i was wanting to do with the wishes. something that is slightly different but works well.

in dicemanx's old primer on dragon, he lists a huge number of alternate kills, one of them being the caravan. however i have yet to see any lists that suggested the tendrils as kill card.  if people have really tested it and found it to not work i would like to know. however if you are saying it is bad just because you can, thats not really too good.

take for instance cunning wish. i know that dicemanx has tried this card out and has found it not perform up to par, and so i value his imput on why they should be cut. this is what i want to hear about gothcracker's suggestion

[dicemanx]

One thing I stress in the primer is that your combo pieces should be as flexible as possible. This is why Cunning Wishes (which can fetch disruption and other goodies) are superior to the single minded cards like Tendrils or Highway Robber. This is also why U is splashed for Intuition instead of running Buried Alive. This is also why Witness is preferred over Laquatus (among other reasons of course, such as the problems with Oath/Welder mentioned above).

[gothcracker]

how is having the tendrills/caravan kill not flexible. u combo for a million of U/B mana, u reanimate the caravan, u "draw your deck", u play out everything in your deck like duress, moxes, rituals, the kitchen sink, etc.; leaving force of wills in hand. u cast tendrils for the kill. uve already duress them like 3 times. and have counter back up. how is that not fun and "flexible"?

[Purple Hat]

What diceman means is that your kill card should do something other than just kill your opponent.  For example when using the witness kill you can use witness like a regrowth or to beat down in long games, you can use ancestral to draw cards(duh) and time walk to take an extra turn (double duh).  When using cunning wish as a kill card you can fetch answers as well as kills.  When using Helkite or sliver queen you can beat with them and Helkite also kills welders and other annoying things.  The problem with the tendrils kill is that tendrils doesn't do anything other than kill your opponent, it doesn't help you go off and it doesn't help you win the games in which you aren't going to be going off.

Hale

[oldbsturgeon]

thats a good explanation purple hat. sure it can work, but you could find yourself wanting something in that spot that could do alot more. i really dont think though that you should give up on it if you like it. you are allowed to play whatever you like, and if something works for you go for it.

[gothcracker]

thanks oldbsturgeon, thats what im talking about. i dont like my decks being like everything else out there. someone's gotta try new things. if it wasnt for people trying new things, we'd all be playing beatz. lol

[ill_Dawg]

of course i am an old asshole who hasn't played t1 in a year, but i would  advocate krovikan horror for the backup kill slot.  he is a bad squee, h e kills welders, and he wins the game with the witness.  the k-whore really deserves consideration as a 1-of.

hope this helps

-=ADAM=-

[oldbsturgeon]

now thats a card i have never heard of being suggested.  however i think that the 4 squee is enough for the combo to get going and adding an extra guy isnt needed. i do think maybe in a spoils version 1 might be okay but the 3 color build is too tight to make room for it. thanks though for an original idea.

[Malhavoc]

Yes, using kill cards that could be useful anytime is a great way to build a good deck. In my past dragon builts I used to be able to kill my opponent just by having the dragon in the grave, the animate spell, and:

- kumano/shivan hellkite in the grave
- bazaar in play (to mill the deck for kumano/shivan)

OR a random (non-worldgorger) creature in any graveyard (such as squee) and:

- intuition in hand
- or cunning wish in hand

This is because I used to play with 3 wishes (then making intuition a excellent tutor for the wish), and having in the sideboard not the stroke (which can be countered, or even worst can be misdirected upon you), but an unusual couple of cards: brain freeze and another cunning wish (yes in the sideboard!). The aim was to use the dragon loop to gain three mana and cast cunning for cunning, then continue the loop for other three mana and get the old cunning with the new fetched one, and so on, just to raise the storm counter, then getting brain freeze in the end and cast it to mill opponent's deck. The only problem is we either need another creature to stop the loop and make the opponent draw from the empty deck next turn, or an ancestrall to cast at him, or a stifle to stop the dragon's loop. This however was something I used to do before oath decks became so popular... with gaea's blessing coming back so often this could have become a bad choice.

[oldbsturgeon]

something like this particular method of winning is pretty interesting and i have seen this done before in T2 with elves and pemmin's aura, though the deck never got underway.
however it seem a rather flashy way of using laquatus. sure you get the utility of wish and with 3 intuition is useful, but i find that 3 spots for this card would be hard to make. not only that but with 3 i would think you would often find them in the opening hand, wishing (no pun) it was something else. that is how i feel when i have only the 2 in the deck. that is why with persuasion, dicemanx explained to me why it was not the best card to run. with that said here is the current list of mine
4 worldgorger dragon
4 squee goblin nabob
3 xantid swarm
1 eternal witness
1 memnarch
3 animate dead
3 necromancy
1 dance of the dead
4 bazaar of baghdad
3 compulsion
3 intuition
3 lim dul's vault
1 ancestral recall
1 duress
4 force of will
4 underground sea
4 polluted delta
1 swamp
1 island
2 tropical island
2 bayou
1 black lotus
1 lotus petal
1 mox pearl
1 mox jet
1 mox emerald
1 mox sapphire
1 mana crypt
SB
2 sundering titan
3 chalice of the void
3 pernicious deed
2 verdant force
3 stifle
2 tormod's crypt
pretty standard stuff i feel. any strange card choices in your opinion i probably discussed in the first post, so check out my explanations.

[Bulls on Parade]

4 worldgorger dragon
4 squee goblin nabob
3 xantid swarm
1 eternal witness
1 memnarch
3 animate dead
3 necromancy
1 dance of the dead
4 bazaar of baghdad
3 compulsion
3 intuition
3 lim dul's vault
1 ancestral recall
1 duress
4 force of will
4 underground sea
4 polluted delta
1 swamp
1 island
2 tropical island
2 bayou
1 black lotus
1 lotus petal
1 mox pearl
1 mox jet
1 mox emerald
1 mox sapphire
1 mana crypt
SB
2 sundering titan
3 chalice of the void
3 pernicious deed
2 verdant force
3 stifle
2 tormod's crypt

You can run fine with 3 Squee in a deck with Intuition.
You should probably run the 4th Intuition.
Why Dance of the Dead over the superior 2cc animate spell?
The single Duress is extremely random.
You can definitely cut a Bayou since you aren't running Duress
Lotus Petal would be much better off replaced with a Sol Ring

Edit:
Read your explanations, still think everything I said makes sense.

[oldbsturgeon]

4 intuitions were run at one time but it was really unnecessary. with regards to 3 squee, dicemanx and kowl should back me up on this when saying that there is no reason why you would want to cut a squee, it part of the big draw engine that makes the deck. you need 4
the dance, besides only being able to find 3 animates in my junk, protects the dragon under the rare circumstance of fireblast+bolt. though this doesnt come up too much in establish vintage play, it can happen around here.
see i live in WV and pretty much no one here plays T1. when they do they play bad stuff like burn and stompy because its cheap. in this case the dance actually is useful
sol ring, while providing 2 mana, it isnt 0 and that takes away from its desire in the deck, plus its added colorless i really dont want.
the duress is actually really nice and isnt really random at all. like i said its like a 4th xantid. in reality, i see myself probably adding duress to the board, as i find im not really fond of stifle really. as its been said before stilfe works for some and others it doesnt.

[gothcracker]

i agree with oldbsturgeon, duress is awesome in dragon. lets u fish out there hand get rid of that counter before u go off, thats if you havent see a swarm yet.