Help with Dragon - and a side rant

[Mindstab_Thrull]

OK. I'm tired of running generally scrubby decks. The best deck I have right now is Suicide Black, and for a budget deck it's ok, but when 90% of my wins come from an opponent's mistake as opposed to my deck or playskill, and the wins are rare, it's time to find a new deck. That being said, I've decided to take a shot at Dragon, because I have access to Black Lotus, Mox Ruby, and Mox Jet, and there aren't any other red/black decks that interest me at this time. I don't think I can feasibly try ten-proxying it with a third colour, so I'm trying for a straight Red/Black build. My completely untested deck list is as follows:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
4 Badlands
2 Sulfurous Springs
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Swamp
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

4 Worldgorger Dragon
2 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy
3 Dance of the Dead
1 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
2 Shivan Hellkite
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Necropotence
4 Night's Whisper
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

No sideboard as of yet.

Again, as I said, this is to be strictly Red/Black; no blue, white, or green splashing, as I don't have access to anything to fix the mana base other than what I mentioned. When I'm at the point where I can start affording to put in other colours (more duals, fetchies, etc), I will be more than willing to entertain it as an option, but right now, as they say, it just isn't in the cards. Off the top of my head I know I will have to proxy the Bazaars and at least a couple Squee's. Any and all constructive suggestions would be appreciated.

As for the side rant - I really hate seeing decks named a card that can't in and of itself win you the game. The classic example would be Academy - OK, I know it runs Tolarian Academy, but what does it DO? And the current culprit is Gifts. Fine, it runs Gifts Ungiven, but it says nothing about the deck. Names like that leave too much conceptual variation - it's like calling Invasion/Odyssey/7E Psychatog 'Fact or Fiction'. I don't have an issue with a deck being named from a movie or tagline or whatever - Cerebral Assassin is a great name IMO because it references the deck's flexibility via transformational sideboarding - but naming a deck after a card.. naming it after a support card is just a bad idea overall IMO.

[Twan]

IMO, competitive Dragon cannot be run without these requirements:
1) At least 7 disruption
2) Alternate win condition
3) Being able to afford Squees. Proxy a few things too like Lotus, Jet, etc.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Well, I think I can account for #1 and #3. As I mentioned, I actually have the Lotus, Jet, and Mox available to me, so those I don't need to proxy, so I'm able to save three proxies that way. Four each Duress and Cabal Therapy should be able to give enough disruption to get me a chance to go off. As for an alternate win condition, I can either dome the opponent with the unbounded mana combo and pipe it through the Shivan Hellkite, or actually hardcast either that or the Dragon and swing. Does that count for alt-win?

[the boogie man]

yeah, reanimating and beating sounds like an alternate win condition to me.

[Rico Suave]

As for the side rant - I really hate seeing decks named a card that can't in and of itself win you the game. The classic example would be Academy - OK, I know it runs Tolarian Academy, but what does it DO? And the current culprit is Gifts. Fine, it runs Gifts Ungiven, but it says nothing about the deck. Names like that leave too much conceptual variation - it's like calling Invasion/Odyssey/7E Psychatog 'Fact or Fiction'. I don't have an issue with a deck being named from a movie or tagline or whatever - Cerebral Assassin is a great name IMO because it references the deck's flexibility via transformational sideboarding - but naming a deck after a card.. naming it after a support card is just a bad idea overall IMO.

But when the support card is the reason the deck wins, you can name it after the support card.

For example, when playing 4 FoF mono-U, it was exactly that.  You didn't win because you played Morphling.  You won because you cast FoF, established a state of control over the game wherein your opponent could no longer win, and then played a win condition.  It just so happened that Morphling was the best at winning the games where you weren't quite in complete control.

For example, if the mono-U player Drains the first spell an opponent plays, casts FoF the next turn into 2-3 more counters, and continuously just counters the opponent's cards and draws more through FoF, do you really think the deck should be called Morphling?  Morphling could hit turn 40, but FoF is doing the dirty work on turn 2-4 and all through the rest of the game.  In that instance, I would call it a FoF deck.

Perhaps this is just a misconception of what people say when they mean a card that wins the game.  Yawgmoth's Will wins the game, as does FoF.  No, Will won't take their life total to 0 or deck them in the traditional sense of the word winning, but when was the last time you saw somebody play Will and end up losing?

As for Academy, it wins because it provides you with a terribly large mana advantage over your opponent.  This wins because you are able to do more things faster than your opponent.  It wins the game from a strategic point of view - a resources battle.  If you have more mana than your opponent, you will win more often than not for the same reasons that a general with 1000 troops will more often than not defeat a general with 100 troops.  Do you think the battle was won by the general, or by the sheer number of troops?  It would certainly be the troops, due to a vastly superior pool of resources with which to use against the opponent.  This is why people say Academy wins, and why people would name the deck after the card.  When you can play Academy and draw your entire deck, it no longer matters what you kill with because at that point it is merely a formality.  You have already won, it's just a matter of going through the motions.  A player with 7 counters in hand has already won against a player with 0 cards in hand, even if their life total isn't 0 and even if they don't have their win condition yet.  In other words, there is more to the game than just winning, but there is much to do in the form of setting yourself up to win.  Academy sets you up and puts you into a position where you can win, but you would never be casting that lethal Stroke/Tendrils/BrainFreeze if it weren't for Academy.  It just doesn't work without Academy, which is why the deck is named after it.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Boogie Man: Do you have a better idea for an alt win, considering I'm restricted to Black/Red?

Rico: Perhaps, but my issue is that the deck name should be able to tell you something useful about the deck. When a player says 'I'm playing Slaver', you know the deck is based around that player getting to the point where he or she can take over your own game and quite conceivably kill you with your own deck. Oath is based around Oath of Druids, which will let you drop a fatty straight into play from your library. Decks like those have an obvious connection to the card they are named after. When it's Academy or Gifts, however, there is no connection. It's like the Necro decks of old, pre-restriction. Fine, it runs Necropotence, which you can use to fill your hand whenever you want.. but now what?
The example you used (Draining into unrestricted FoF to get more counters, and so forth) I wouldn't call a FoF deck, because it's not based on FoF; it's based on control of the game. I'm not very imaginative with deck names, so I'd simply call a spade a spade. Without more then what you told me, I'd call it Mono-Blue Control. Does FoF play a key part in the deck? Sure, but so do Force of Will, Mana Drain, Brainstorm, and a host of other cards
All I'm saying is that naming a deck after a support card is a bad idea because it doesn't say enough about the deck. A deck name, like a book or movie title, should give enough description to interest people who may play it. Which is a better name for the movie: Return of the Jedi, or C3P0's Continuing Adventures?
'Nuf said about the rant; I'd rather more input on the deck Got any ideas?

[Rico Suave]

You do realize that you are being very hypocritical by saying that FoF.dec doesn't explain what it does, but Cerebral Assassin is somehow a good name.

FoF.dec DOES say what the deck does: it draws cards and establishes control.  Academy is used to cast busted combo cards, and Necropotence is used to draw busted combo cards. 

If you asked me to give you a modern "Academy" or "Necro" decklist I would be able to do that within probably 5 cards of an established archetype.  Just because you may not know what somebody means when they say Academy/Necro doesn't mean it isn't a good name.  It is VERY accurate, in fact. 

[the boogie man]

I would say to take out the two sulfurous springs for a swamp and a mountain, since you can't go infinite with the springs. and probably use 3 animate dead and 2 dance of the dead, since animates are generally better. I would also take out the necro, because that is the most disynergistic card in the deck. put in another shivan dragon. that will allow for better reanimations. I' dput 2 verdant force in the sideboard for stax, 2-3 rack and ruin for workshop, 2-4 pithing needle in the side for fish, CS and other wasteland decks, 2-3 engineered explosives for aggro/stax, and 3-4 chalice of the void for storm combo, gifts, and control slaver. do you think that unmask would fare better in the main than therapies?

[Hi-Val]

Your sideboard should have Sundering Titans to plop down against control. They're quite the beating.

As for naming conventions, I agree. I think that instead of Oath, we should call the deck "Akroma" and Slaver should be "Pentavus Beats". Even though this directly contradicts what you yourself said you liked. Gifts and Academy are analogous to Oath and Slaver. They're the cards that do the bulk work. The actual kill is a final coffin nail. If I am Slaving you, I can just beat down with Obstinate Familiar for the win. If I Gifts for the kill, I can Channelball you out. The kill is irrelevant. The way I get there though, is relevant.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Seems my rant is getting more action than the deck *heh* Methinks that should move over to another thread. I hereby vote the rant in THIS THREAD be stopped here and now, and it can be discussed elsewhere if there's an appropriate forum for it. Sensible? BTW, no I'm not saying 'Well, I can't think of anything better to say about it so I'll just shut it up', I'm all for continuing it, but maybe somewhere else instead of in a forum that should be for strategy etc.

Boogie Man: Why do you say you can't go infinite with Springs? Or are you referring to the red mana usage in the Hellkite's activation cost? If that's the issue, then I can see swapping them out. Animate vs Dance makes sense, now that I think about it. Is Necropotence really that bad in this deck? I'm not sure I understand why..
As for your sideboard suggestions, I don't understand Verdant Force being used for the Stax matchup, but then again I'm not completely familiar with what Stax is to begin with. Relatively speaking I'm a n00b at Type 1 tournamentwise (Sui-Tog at Waterbury?), even though I've been around the game a very long time. How does VF help against Stax?

[the boogie man]

verdent force is super pimp against stax because the main card that they use is [card]smokestack[/card] and verednt force makes it near imposible for them to win a permanent war against a huge 7/7 beatstick and consitant tokens. not to mention that it is impossible for an aggro deck to win either, unless they combo out. and hival is correct about titans, I skimped on him. sorry.

you can't go infinite with the springs because they deal you damage when they tap, so you'd be taking as much damage. and the [card]necropotence[/card]. the clause about removing cards from the game while discarding them makes it impossible to combo out.

can someone please tell me what I did wrond here? the stupid link doesn't work.

You should just use the [ card] [ /card] tags, but if you want to make a url it's just [ url=www.nameofurl.com]text[ /url]
-Jacob

[Mindstab_Thrull]

OK, the Force I can understand now. Stupid question time - what about Orochi Hatchery as a temporary replacement until I can get my hands on a VF? As for the Sulfurous Springs, I see where you're coming from there, although they aren't Cities of Brass.. you can tap them for colorless and take no burn off it. But I see your point. As I have two swamps in the list, do you think I should split them for a mountain and a swamp, or two mountains?. And for Necro, I see your point there. I completely forgot about the discarding effect, which in most decks isn't an issue - but with Welder and Dragon decks, it is.

OK.. so far what we have is this:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
4 Badlands
4 Basic lands - at least 2 of which are swamps
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

4 Worldgorger Dragon
3 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy
2 Dance of the Dead
1 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Shivan Hellkite <-- one replaced Necropotence - is there a better idea?
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Night's Whisper
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

Sideboard:
2 Verdant Force
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Sundering Titan

[the boogie man]

since red isn't all that important till you win, I'd say 3 swamp 1 mountain. and the decklist looks good to me.

[LotusHead]

For some budget beats and utility, I have always admired Twisted Abomination. SwampCycling (BadLands fetching)  5/3 regenerator lets you risk going off with just the Worldgorger Dragon in the yard. They animate in a pinch, block non 11/11 trampling fatties and can be hard cast! (granted, this was in Bazaarless Dragon...)

So far you have 4 maindecked Instants (Entomb/Necromancy).  Since you want to stick to B/R Dragon, consider Price of Glory? Hates on almost everyone. 

[the boogie man]

price of glory sounds great. The swampcycler sounds good too, and the buried alive slots are expendable since you have bazaars and draw. I'd max out @ 2 though, since they are a lot worse than other options.

[cssamerican]

price of glory sounds great. The swampcycler sounds good too, and the buried alive slots are expendable since you have bazaars and draw. I'd max out @ 2 though, since they are a lot worse than other options.

Price of Glory is not a very good way to protect the Dragon combo. For example, you animate the Dragon and in response to the comes into play trigger they cast Swords to Plowshares. They lose the one land they tapped to cast Swords to Plowshares and you lose the Dragon and all of your permanents. Any opponent will lose the land when faced with losing the game, so it really doesn’t deter anything. Defense Grid would be a better alternative in this case because it is possible that it might prevent them from casting a game saving spell on you. However, Defense Grid as a big downside when it comes to Stifle. This is because Stifle counters the leaves play trigger, which means when it is played your Defense Grid isn’t even in play. You also need to realize none of these solutions do anything to protect you from cards like Seal of Cleansing. So be very careful when trying to choose various ways to protect your combo.

Most people don’t seemed to understand that Buried Alive in many cases is better than other cards like Entomb. This is because they allow you to either set-up your draw engine when you have a Bazaar of Baghdad in play. Or they can allow you to get the combo and the win without the need to have a Bazaar of Baghdad to cycle through your graveyard for your win condition. People seem to overlook this a lot, but it is very important since it comes up a lot, especially against decks packing strip effects.

Mindstab_Thrull:
Another approach when playing BR Dragon is to only play the mana that you need and just go for the win. If you get caught drop some more mana and try again. You will be surprised by how many times you can just win, or how many times you can overwhelm players in the early part of the game. I do not think this is the best approach for a fully powered player who as access to the cards needed to play BUG or 5-Color Dragon. However, in the case where you are restricted to just BR it might very well be the best way to build the deck. I posted this in another thread, but since this thread is the one getting all the attention I will just post this concept here as well.

BR Dragon, by cssamerican
 
Creatures
1 [card]Eternal Witness[/card]
4 [card]Shivan Hellkite[/card]   
3 [card]Squee Goblin Nabob[/card]   
4 [card]Worldgorger Dragon[/card]   

Spells 
4 [card] Buried Alive[/card]   
4 [card]Dark Ritual [/card]   
1 [card]Demonic Consultation[/card]   
3 [card]Spoils of the Vault[/card]   

Enchantments 
4 [card]Animate Dead[/card]   
4 [card]Dance of the Dead[/card]
4 [card]Necromancy[/card]

Artifacts 
1 [card]Black Lotus[/card]   
1 [card]Chrome Mox[/card]   
1 [card]Lotus Petal[/card]   
1 [card]Mana Crypt[/card]   
1 [card]Mox Jet[/card]   
1 [card]Mox Ruby[/card]   

Lands 
4 [card]Badlands [/card]   
4 [card]Bazaar of Baghdad[/card]   
4 [card]Bloodstained Mire[/card]
4 [card]Polluted Delta[/card]
2 [card]Swamp[/card]

Even if you choose not to go this route there are some things you can take from my list. For one you will notice that all but two of my non-Bazaar lands can produce red mana. This is really important because you do not want to be in a situation where you have to pass up winning opportunities because you are unable to get red mana. Another important thing is to run a lone Eternal Witness. This will allow you to get a Mox Ruby into play in those times where you have a Bazaar of Baghdad but do not have access to a Badlands. And last but certainly not least, run four Shivan Hellkites. This way you can animate them and put serious pressure on decks even if you fear they are running a ton of removal. It is almost like Duress on a stick because if they have removal they have to use it on the Hellkite if their life becomes and issue. Which of course doesn’t take long to happen when you hitting them for five a turn.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Boogie Man: The only reason I was thinking of splitting 2/2 on Swamp/Mountain as opposed to 3/1 is because I may find myself in a situation where I have to hardcast either the Hellkite or Worldgorger, and I have this odd belief that every card in every deck should be hardcastable one way or another.

LotusHead: Yeah, Twisty sounds fun, although I wonder how good it would be in this deck. Does the fact that the builds it was in didn't have Bazaar make that much difference to the deck?

LotusHead/Boogie Man/cssamerican: Sounds like what the deck really needs is a counterspell or misdirection effect, and the only things that go through my head right now are Molten Influence and Shunt, and only Shunt might be vaguely playable.

cssamerican: I found a posting - I think it's yours - on another website about Dragon and I was looking into it. Would it be hard to remove the Witness and replace it with Yawgmoth's Will, to keep it strictly Black/Red (see my first line of this reply), and still potent?

[Razgreiz]

Don't know much about BR Dragon, but do you really need the 4 shivan helkites?  I was just thinking maybe 3 or 2 is enough since when you Combo off you can search for it with Bazaar.  Also, this may not be of importance to you, but I saw white weenie pull out ivory mask, so if Helkite is your only kill condition, there might be a problem.  I'm just saying a second kill condition might be good.  I even saw someone running cranial extraction so becareful.  Another thing, if you want to add Yag Will, why not instead run 1 Burning Wish?  I haven't seen what your SB looks like, but Burning with could get you Yag Will, or anything else that could help you. 

[cssamerican]

cssamerican: I found a posting - I think it's yours - on another website about Dragon and I was looking into it. Would it be hard to remove the Witness and replace it with Yawgmoth's Will, to keep it strictly Black/Red (see my first line of this reply), and still potent?

No. Witnesses only real use in this deck would be to get you a red mana source in those cases where your milling your deck with Bazaar and have no cards in hand, You can't do that with Yawgmoth's Will. This is going to sound very complicated, but once you do it a couple of times it is much easier than it first appears. Start by running the loop and milling yourself until the Witness hits your graveyard. Then you change the target of your animate effect to the Witness. When the Witness comes into play return and additional animate effect to your hand. Then restart the loop by animating the Worldgorger Dragon. Now every time the loop runs you get to return a card to your hand. Return a Mox Ruby and another animate effect. Stop the loop, play the Mox, then start the loop back up with the animate effect in your hand. Now you can generate and endless supply of red mana.

Don't know much about BR Dragon, but do you really need the 4 shivan helkites?  I was just thinking maybe 3 or 2 is enough since when you Combo off you can search for it with Bazaar.  Also, this may not be of importance to you, but I saw white weenie pull out ivory mask, so if Helkite is your only kill condition, there might be a problem.

If someone plays Ivory Mask then just animate the Hellkite and beatdown, that is one of the beauties of running four Hellkites. You don't always have to win by comboing out, sometimes it is the better just to animate the fat and swing a few times. There is nothing wrong with doing that from time to time. Now, if your opponent can get an Ivory Mask in play by turn 2 or 3 and a couple of Pro-Red flyers out by turn 4 then you will probably lose, but really what are the odds of running into this senario? And remember this is only a plausible defense game one, after that you can bring in things to fight that type of hate.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Razgreiz: I don't think I'd like to go lower than three, as the odds of drawing one when you have 3 vs 4 isn't great, but 2 vs 3 is big, and 2 vs 4 is huge. It partly depends on how much search/tutor/ditch power you have in the deck, and if you noticed, my list consists of 4 each Bazaar/Squee, 4 Night's Whisper, 1 Entomb, 3 Buried Alive, and 1 Demonic Tutor (plus 4 fetches).. and with all that you have to be able to get a WGD and a Hellkite into the yard and an animation effect in your hand. Is that enough? I'm not sure it is, myself, as the Whispers and Demonic Tutor don't in and of themselves help you put a card in your GY - although either could get you cards that do. And I keep hearing people mentioning 'a second win condition' - does using fat over direct damage not count as a second win? *curious* As for the sb it's mostly artifacts and creatures, so Burning Wish won't really help much - Death Wish would be the better choice IMO.

cssamerican: Would Flaring Pain help at all against Ivory Mask, or would Anarchy be a better card? Or should I just look at EE and Chalice to solve that?

[LotusHead]

help at all against Ivory Mask

It may sound lame, but Lab Rats (B plus buyback of 4) puts a 1/1 rat token into play. Rat beatdown and it doesn't target. (like animating a Sliver Queen)

The Twisted Abomination can fetch up your dual lands and then later be reanimated for either defensive purposes or beatdown.

As to what my old Dragon deck was like, no it didn't have Bazaars (hadn't seen the wonderfull world of 10 proxies out here yet), but it DID have blue w/4 Force of Wills and 2 Intuitions.  I'm addicted to blue. )

Good luck. You know your meta better than we do.

[NWI Team_Zilla]

To get around Ivory Mask, just play Caller of the Claw as a win, I actually think, though it may sound weird, that your kill condition should go something like this:
Dragon combos out(no resistance), you Animate Dead Eternal Witness to get back Animate Dead(or what ever) then start the combo again(via enchanting dragon again), basically get every card in you graveyard/library into your hand, then cast a Final Fortune(I said it would be weird) and Caller of the Claw, and thus winning on your final turn.  This would mean that you could cut all but 1 Hellkite(and you don't even need it).
Usually I do something similar against Parfait(Ivory Mask) with my B/U/g build, only I use Time Walk Instead of Final Fortune.
I also would suggest that you playtest some Gamble's in there, because like if you have a Dragon in your hand but no animate spell, you can go for an animate spell, and with a little bit of luck throw the dragon in your yard and start comboing out.
Good luck with you deck.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

LotusHead:
- Yeah, I suppose there's worse ideas.. is there a token generator for R/B that can go as an Instant? The only way Lab Rats is playable is once you have a way to stop the loop. Best alternative I can think of off the top of my head is Ghitu Fire, which will let me play it as an Instant.
- I understand why you'd use them, I was asking how they turned out. With 4 Fetches and 7 creatures you can beat with, would Twisties be needed?
- As for my metagame, I haven't a clue as of yet. I'd have to ask dicemanx about that, and see what he says, as he plays where I would be playing. Keep in mind I don't play T1 very often - about as much as I play prereleases (which I've made every one since Planeshift).

NWI Team_Zilla:
I understand a lot of people play Caller and Witness, but read my first post on this thread. I'll quote the bit for you:

Again, as I said, this is to be strictly Red/Black; no blue, white, or green splashing, as I don't have access to anything to fix the mana base other than what I mentioned. When I'm at the point where I can start affording to put in other colours (more duals, fetchies, etc), I will be more than willing to entertain it as an option, but right now, as they say, it just isn't in the cards. Off the top of my head I know I will have to proxy the Bazaars and at least a couple Squee's. Any and all constructive suggestions would be appreciated.

And this little bit in a later reply:

Boogie Man: The only reason I was thinking of splitting 2/2 on Swamp/Mountain as opposed to 3/1 is because I may find myself in a situation where I have to hardcast either the Hellkite or Worldgorger, and I have this odd belief that every card in every deck should be hardcastable one way or another.

Thus my insistance that the deck be strictly red-black. Adding a third colour would be very awkward doing things that way; I'd be relying on Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, or Mox Diamond (and maybe Chrome Mox) to be able to produce the Green should I need it, and I just don't have access to the duals. Gamble, on the other hand, sounds like an intriguing idea, and I just might have to test that out.

[NWI Team_Zilla]

Don't take this the wrong way, but don't you realize that Eternal Witness isn't ever hardcasted in dragon?  I play a U/B/g version, as forementioned, and the only reason why green is actually in the deck is for the Xantid Swarms out of the SB.  If you draw Eternal Witness/Caller of the Claw, just throw them away with Bazaar of Baghdad and reanimate them when you get the combo going.  I am sorry if I'm being redundant, but I just don't think that you understand the reason that Eternal Witness/Caller of the claw/Ambassador Laquatus/ect. are in the B/U/x versions.
I think that at least testing such additions could make a serious impact towards making this deck better.  And though you said that you wanted the deck to be kept strictly B/R, I didn't quite understand what you meant by that until I read your reaction, what I think you were trying to say, is that you just don't want the deck to look anythink like the mainstream builds of dragon, and you want to be able to win the easiest way possible, whether that be comboing out with dragon or just simply reanimating a Hellkite and bashing face.  Once again, I'm sorry If I sound negative, and once again good luck with the deck.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

NWI Team_Zilla: I actually DO understand that Eternal Witness etc aren't typically hardcast in Dragon, but it's not something I'm comfortable with. Let's take an extreme example: First turn, opponent drops Meddling Mage naming Animate Dead, second turn MM for Necromancy, third turn Cranial away Dance of the Dead. Now what? Your Eternal Witnesses won't see the light of day unless you can get rid of the Mages. If you're able to actually PLAY the Witness, however, the Shivan Hellkite in your graveyard might be able to give you an out - or at least a chance to swing. I do understand why they are in the other versions; it's just something I've always felt about being able to play the game. If you have NO reasonable way to hardcast it, why use it, when other options are likely available?

[LordHomerCat]

If thats the case, what is your hellkite doing in the yard?  Seems like at that point (and pretty much every other time), you should just be pitching the witness to a Bazaar activation, and keeping your dragons in hand for when you get to 14 mana or whatever hellkite costs.  The reason to use it, is that its the best win condition available to the deck, as it lets you draw your whole deck in hand, and do whatever you want with it, with infinite mana available, and ignore Gaea's Blessing and whatever other randomness you might face (in normal dragon, where Laquatas is the win condition most of the time)

[Jacob Orlove]

Let's take an extreme example: First turn, opponent drops Meddling Mage naming Animate Dead, second turn MM for Necromancy, third turn Cranial away Dance of the Dead. Now what?

First of all, it'd be easier to just say Chalice 2 and Chalice 3 on the table, which might actually happen. If it does, your best bet is honestly to just hardcast Worldgorger and start beating down. It only costs 6 mana, after all, and Lotus can give you RRR.

[Dante]

Let's take an extreme example: First turn, opponent drops Meddling Mage naming Animate Dead, second turn MM for Necromancy, third turn Cranial away Dance of the Dead. Now what?

First of all, it'd be easier to just say Chalice 2 and Chalice 3 on the table, which might actually happen. If it does, your best bet is honestly to just hardcast Worldgorger and start beating down. It only costs 6 mana, after all, and Lotus can give you RRR.

You should be siding in Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives, Bounce, etc to be dealing with this anyway.  So yes, if you

1. Don't sideboard properly AND
2. They get 2 of the same MM/Chalice down

then you can be quite stuck....main issue, sideboard properly.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Jacob: True, I hadn't thought of that. I haven't played much tournament Magic of any sort (save pre-releases) since about Odyssey/Onslaught Standard. You've seen some of the deck ideas I've had, and having said that, I gather you can understand why it didn't come to mind. And don't even ask what I played at January's Waterbury (the last Vintage I attended) - suffice it to say, a bad deck and an ok deck smashed together with substandard replacements needed, and tossed together VERY last minute. That's why I'm trying to come up with a Vintage deck that I feel comfortable with and can put together - and the Lotus and two Moxen are the only power I have access to.

Dante: <nitpick> I don't feel the deck I'd be running would be able to run Deed as that would mean a green splash, and I don't have access to any green-based duals to use. Also, as I've mentioned, I want to keep the deck STRICTLY red/green, without splashing for a third colour. While this may not be the best way to do it, it's what I feel most comfortable with at this stage, until I can get cards to help fix it.. maybe some Bayous and Taigas and Wooded Foothills, or something. </nitpick>
Seriously though, what about something like Pyroclasm or Innocent Blood to get rid of them?

[Dante]

Dante: <nitpick> I don't feel the deck I'd be running would be able to run Deed as that would mean a green splash, and I don't have access to any green-based duals to use. Also, as I've mentioned, I want to keep the deck STRICTLY red/green, without splashing for a third colour. While this may not be the best way to do it, it's what I feel most comfortable with at this stage, until I can get cards to help fix it.. maybe some Bayous and Taigas and Wooded Foothills, or something. </nitpick>
Seriously though, what about something like Pyroclasm or Innocent Blood to get rid of them?

I'd have to see your whole sideboard and sideboarding plan to see if those slots are worth it just for Meddling Mage.  Things like Explosives/Deed (which you don't want to run, but these babies along with Xantids are one of the primary reasons to run green) and even powder keg would be better at removing MM since they can hit T. Crypt as well (and EE/Deed can hit Ground Seal too).  This is one of the best reasons for EE (and Deed) in that it can take out ANY permanent-based hate they have.

If you're not going to run green, EE is probably the best as it can remove T. Crypt, Meddling Mage, Chalice for 2/3 (remember x=0 once the Chalice is in play), Ground Seal, and Seal of Cleansing.  for example if a 5cStax deck sides in Ground Seal, t. crypt, AND Seal of Cleansing (along with Chalice), your EE has the option to get rid of ANY of them.  that's why cards like EE (and Deed) should be in the side for the cards mentioned above.