U/B/G Dragon

[Some Might Say]

As I've been owning 4 Bazaars of Baghdad for years, I decided to play Dragon after Madness had become boring. Black and blue should be obvious as colours, I also added green for Xantid Swarms and possible sideboard choices. As you will see, the deck isn't full powered, in fact I only have access to two power cards; a Black Lotus and a Mox Jet. I'll just start with posting the decklist and go on with explaining card choices in the maindeck and sideboard.


3 Duress
3 Compulsion
4 Force of Will
3 Lim Dul's Vault
2 Dance of the Dead
2 Necromancy
3 Animate Dead
1 Entomb
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Stifle

4 Worldgorger Dragon
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Sliver Queen

1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Tropical Island
3 Island
2 Swamp


My metagame is a mixture between all types of decks with aggro probably being the most popular archetype. There are many Fish-Decks, Food Chain Goblins, Oath and some Bird Shit. Apart from these decks, control decks like MonoU or Control Slaver are played as well as combo decks like TPS or Salvager.

I decided to play three different animator spells because many decks in my metagame run Meddling Mages. My lack of Moxen and thus of speed is the main reason why I chose to play three Animate Dead over the more expensive Necromancy.

The Stifles are cards I'm not sure about. Usually they are useful against almost every deck, but there are of course cases in which you can't use Stifle but it's at least pitchable to FoW. I thought about Deep Analysis, maybe they would be better in this slot but somehow they seem a bit slow to me. What do you think?

The Sliver Queen is in the deck because it can go for the combo kill if Ambassador doesn't work, it can be a beatstick and it can be pitched to FoW. I don't play Witness in the maindeck because I would have to add some crappy draw spell for the kill as I don't have Ancestral Recall. Caller of the Claw isn't really needed either because there are almost no decks playing Root Maze in my metagame.

I'm not sure about the mana base. So far it works quite good, do you think four Tropical Islands are needed? The two Bayous aren't that necessary either, maybe I should remove one for another basic Island?

Now let's have a look at the sideboard which has not really been tested that much so far:

4 Chain Of Vapor
3 Sundering Titan
3 Hydroblast
1 Stifle
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Eternal Witness
1 Inspiration

I chose to play Chain over Echoing Truth because the one mana difference in casting cost can be decisive. Sundering Titan should be clear, it's just plan B against some decks. I included Hydroblast because sometimes I lose randomly against Food Chain.
The Eternal Witness is now in the sideboard along with it's best friend the crappy draw spell, in this case Inspiration. That's not really good I know and somehow wastes a slot but Witness is the best kill option against some decks and especially against Oath.

So what do you think of the deck, my maindeck and sideboard choices and the questionable cards?

Thanks in advance.

[Bulls on Parade]

You aren't running Intuition, arguably the most important card in the deck. I suggest you immediately cut 1 Compulsion and 2 Stifle (move to SB) for 3 Intuitions, and would probably cut the Entomb for the 4th Intuition (although I'm probably the biggest proponent of Entomb in Dragon, so maybe find room for it elsewhere). But, you're not running Vamp which is probably better than Entomb.

Queen is decent, but Eternal Witness is better and uses up one less slot than Ambassador/Queen. However, if you're not playing with Proxies and don't have access to Ancestral and/or Walk, forget about Witness. Edit: sorry, you said that you don't have access already.

I'd suggest also 4 Duress MD with 3 Xantids in the side. To be honest, however, the deck can overcome control just fine without any Xantids, which means you can cut down to 2 colors and run 4 or so basics. Which is sweet. 4 Trops is way overkill if you keep green though, cut it down to 2.

Dance vs. Animate is largely irrelevant if you move to the Witness kill, until games 2 and 3 when you side in Titan where Dance becomes pretty awful compared to Animate.

Cunning Wish is also something I've been playing around with a lot, and makes up for the fact that you don't have access to power cards- run a wish or two for utility if need be, and run a Stroke of Genius SB for your kill condition (return wish via Witness, and wish for Stroke).

[Some Might Say]

I was thinking about Intuition of course, but it seemed to be to slow for an almost unpowered version of this deck. Let's assume that normally I don't have any artifact mana acceleration. I would have to play 3 mana-producing lands to play Intuition which means that I could play it in the forth turn considering the fact that I'd probably play Bazaar first turn. The Intuition won't end the game of course, so it would take at least another turn to finish the opponent. I also experienced that I often have only two mana-producing lands and a Bazaar, so maybe three mana isn't really good for a card that doesn't end the game in this unpowered version.

I don't really want to remove that Xantid Swarms because somehow I don't feel that I would stand a chance against a control deck or Fish without them. They are a must counter / must removal target for many decks and improve so many matchups that I don't think it would be good to remove them.

I thought about cutting one or two Tropicals and one Bayou for 2 more Islands and one Swamp. I'm not sure if only 2 permanent green mana sources are enough to support three or four Swarms. What do you think about the overall mana base? I don't have many mana problems so far although the manabase is quite narrow.

You are right when you say that Dance isn't good when you are reanimating creatures. Maybe I should go up to four Animate Dead and one Dance? But here again I have to say that Meddling Mage is played often and in most cases they name Animate Dead with it, so maybe four of them aren't that good. I could also go up to three Necromancies and one Dance but I feel that the Necromancies are a bit slow. On the other hand, they have the advantage of being an instant which makes them good to play around hate cards or to play them in the oppents turn so that the Sliver Queen kill can come immediately without waiting another round.

[oldbsturgeon]

im guessing you are not in a position to proxy. when i wanted to play that deck and couldnt use proxies i would use elvish spirit guide to accelerate out cards like necromancy or intuition. and even with only 1 mox in the deck at the time it worked well. i would suggest trying them out at least. if however you can proxy, my guy of  choice was triskelion as you could get as many counters as you wanted and win that way. ambassador, i never liked as you couldnt beat oath and couldnt deal with an angel. while memnarch can get angel, i have it in the board instead as i feel the trike does the job better.

[Some Might Say]

You are right, I'm not in a position to proxy. The Elvish Spirit Guides sound a bit random, were they really working for you? Another problem would be to find slots for them.

I need Witness for the Triskelion kill, don't I? This wouldn't make it an option for me because Witness isn't good in unpowered decks as we discussed above. Memnarch sounds good though. I think I'll ad one to the SB or maybe even try it in the maindeck.

Edit: So far I removed 1 Tropical Island and 2 Bayous for another two basic Islands and one Swamp. This leaves me with three Tropical Islands as permanent green mana sources, I hope this won't cause any problems in casting the Xantid Swarms.

[wannabe_player]

You are right, I'm not in a position to proxy. The Elvish Spirit Guides sound a bit random, were they really working for you? Another problem would be to find slots for them.

I need Witness for the Triskelion kill, don't I? This wouldn't make it an option for me because Witness isn't good in unpowered decks as we discussed above. Memnarch sounds good though. I think I'll ad one to the SB or maybe even try it in the maindeck.

Edit: So far I removed 1 Tropical Island and 2 Bayous for another two basic Islands and one Swamp. This leaves me with three Tropical Islands as permanent green mana sources, I hope this won't cause any problems in casting the Xantid Swarms.

we all know that dragon is very weak on hate and controls...
you have to put there as less as you can non-basic lands to avoid wasteland for example...if you do this you will be screwed on mana of some color...
maybe is better to put in some cards like counterspell or mana drain because there are a lot of coffin purges, root mazes,ground seals,swords to plowshares...

[oldbsturgeon]

yea the ESG were not too bad at all. they also gave me green when i needed it for sure and could accelerate out those things like intuition and the likes. i only used 2 as more and they were not cool, but in a budget build they work. put them where a mox would go if you had them. the other option i used was dark ritual as they helped play the more expensive stuff as well. while it is true about the wasteland issue you need to be able to get green for the xantids as they basically are the reason the deck can go off so easily. if your area is full of wastelands as well, this deck could be rough to play. i was playing it at a time wastelands were low, but as fish is coming back, they will be high for a while.

[vartemis]

In my local area we have an unpowered type 1 tournament where dragon is very prevalent.  If you are running fairly unpowered,  my recommendation would be to drop it down to max 2 colors.  the obvious is black, but the other color is mainly dependant on your card collection (as you are not in a position to proxy), and your local metagame.

Blue:

Gives you counters, gives you tutorage via intution.  Gives you a more reactive deck.  The advantage is if you include witness you can loop with the dragon a few times without producing mana to return some counters to your hand before you finish or want to dump a ton of mana in your pool.  Counters in hand stop the bouncing or killing of the dragon leaving you sitting their with your fly down and suffering from 50 billion mana burn.

Green:
Gives you xantid swarm.  also gives you caller of the claw, which i find superior and safer than the Queen.  You dont have to float a ton of mana with the caller, and it gives you 2/2s.  Of course the Queen is a bigger beatstick on its own, but the token creatures are what will do the killing.

Red:
Gives you The Master Yamabushi or Shivan Hellkite as a kill condition.  You can just deal 20 to your opponent't dome instead of having to wait till your next turn to attack if you are going to use the Queen or Caller.

Other cards to consider:
You mentioned that you do not have access to all the moxes.  Nor do I, but even if I did I wouldn't necessarily run them all.  Why are you not running dark ritual?  This potentially allows you to pop first turn, or second turn at worst.  If you are not a fan of intuition, why not run buried alive?  First turn ritual for buried alive, dropping dragon, and your 2 kills, or even a dragon and 2 squees to set up your draw engine.  If you are running a lot of black in the deck, another card to consider is Unmask.  It is a relatively cheap rare, and can be good for picking out that one force in their hand before going off.

I dont use all of this in my deck, its just different options.  I personally run monoblack with badlands for yamabushi.  I'm not going to post a decklist, not cuz its secret tech, but this is to critique yours and help you.

Best of luck,

j

EDIT:

As for the wasteland problem, you could always look at putting some pithing needles in your sideboard.  Then when playing game 2 wait till you get one, drop it for wasteland, then drop your bazaar.  Yes it could get countered, but if it does, it's one less counter for your animation spells.

[PieterW]

I wouldn't play esg, I think that it is usually smarter to just be a little slower.

I also think you should cut compulsions en stifles for intuition because the card can do so much, get squees, get a animate, set up the creatures etc etc

And 3 xantids mainbord seems a little overkill, aren't there any staxx decks in ur metagame? You mentioned there was a lot of aggro