The real Dragon power;)

[benthetenor]

It seems that several people want to run Shivan Hellkite. Is there any reason why that's not Kumano, Master Yamabushi? In the event that he's in your hand and you can't combo off, Kumano is much, much better than the Hellkite. He's much more castable and he removes creatures from the game at the cost of a point of p/t and not being able to fly. What that amounts to is 5 turns of swinging instead of 4, and having to burn out all of the creatures, not just the flying ones. Since you're going to want to kill creatures anyway, that seems fine to me. The added benefit of removing Welders and Gorilla Shamans and anything else for Yawgmoth's Will seems better than Flying.

[Quality_Bear]

Whenever I can't combo out I almost always wind up animating a hellkite. That being said having a 5/5 flying dragon would in more cases be better than a 4/4 with a slightly superior burn ability.

Kumano is fine though, but as I've already stated for the love of god don't go anywhere near Sliver Queen or Caller of the claw. I don't even find Witness to be very special. Just stick with Laquatus/Hellkite or Kumano.

On a more random note I would like to state that I used to run 2 Lim Dul's vaults, but cut both of them. I've found that I've rarely ever needed the tutoring...

Ok that wasn't very productive for the thread now was it? Sorry I haven't slept in 3 days. But in the end we'll all be playing my build, or a version very close to it. I need some sleep and pizza.

[Scott_Limoges]

Have you considered running a three color dragon build opposed to 5C.  Balance and the win condition are the only slots that are not BUG.  Also, the benefit of a 5C SB is only marginally better than choices available for BUG, barring Gorrilla Shaman, and you don't run him...

How has Burried Alive treated you?

[Cr0v4x]

Hi,

Buried Alive isn't good for several reasons. Let's first start with one of the advantages of playing Buried Alive. Buried Alive can place 3 creatures in your graveyard. Intuition on the other hand can only place 2 creatures in your graveyard and one creature to your hand. That means that u have to be able to place a winning condition in the graveyard.

Let's assume you play Buried Alive on Squee, Worlgorger Dragon and Ambassador Laquatus/Shivan Hellkite/Kumano, Master Yamabush/Caller of the Claw/Sliver Queen/Eternal Witness (just to have covered all possibilites). Then u can simply play Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead/Necromancy and just win. If you instead run Intuition you have to take something like Worldgorger Dragon, Worldgorger Dragon, Amabassador Laquatus/Shivan Hellkite/Kumano, Master Yamabushi/Caller of the Claw/Sliver Queen/Eternal Witness. That gives you most certainly the two Worldgorger Dragons in your graveyard and the third card in your hand. If this is early in the game and you have no other creature in your graveyard u cannot really go for the win as u miss an alternative target for the animate-spell to leave the loop. The only option here would be the Caller of the Claw but that doesn't end the loop either.

Consequently you might argue that Buried Alive is a whole lot better than Inution as it can win right away. Therefore we have to look at the other advantages of Inution to be able to consider which card is actually better. First of all Intuition is a blue card and can thereore be pitched to Force of Will. Second of All Intuition can get sooooo many different cards and is therefore a tutor-effect. You can just get triple Bazaar/Force/Duress/Xantid Swarm/animate-spell or u can just place 2 Deep Analysis (always depending on your build) in the graveyard. This is a huge advantage in reference to Buried Alive which can only lead to one decision: to play Intuition over Buried Alive.

[dicemanx]

It seems that several people want to run Shivan Hellkite. Is there any reason why that's not Kumano, Master Yamabushi? In the event that he's in your hand and you can't combo off, Kumano is much, much better than the Hellkite. He's much more castable and he removes creatures from the game at the cost of a point of p/t and not being able to fly. What that amounts to is 5 turns of swinging instead of 4, and having to burn out all of the creatures, not just the flying ones. Since you're going to want to kill creatures anyway, that seems fine to me. The added benefit of removing Welders and Gorilla Shamans and anything else for Yawgmoth's Will seems better than Flying.

Practically speaking, the advantages that you list for Kumano are largely irrelevant. In fact, Hellkite is marginally better simply because he's a superior animate target, which turns out to be the only issue that matters on occasion, especially if you are runing Orchards. However, any WGD deck that runs Kumano over Hellkite will barely see any difference in the results.

As far as win conditions go (Witness, Laquatus, Hellkite/Kumano, Sliver Queen, Memnarch etc), they largely don't matter, as long as you pick two win conditions that cover each other's weaknesses. Because of this, I tend to prefer win conditions that make good animation targets outside the WGD combo, which means Hellkite and Sliver Queen in 5C.

Also, the benefit of a 5C SB is only marginally better than choices available for BUG

5C SBs have very powerful choices against very specific match ups (Oath and Stax) that have no equals in BU or BUG SBs. However, its not just the SB that decides between 5C and BUG - its also color consistency - ensuring that you can play Xantids(*) AND have access to both U and B, particularly for LDVs, which will always be the superior tutors in Bazaar based WGD builds. Granted, once you start adding more draw spells (TfK, DAs etc) LDVs are no longer that critical, as you can draw by force into what you need. Whether such an approach is superior is debatable, since there is almost no consensus how this deck should be built anymore.

* I indicate Xantids as the disruption spell of choice because there is little reason to run BUG over BU otherwise.


Regarding Buried Alive: I would never outright dismiss the card, because it is the *only* spell that can turn WGD into a 2 card combo. However, making WGD into a 3 card combo (like the Bazaar based builds for the past 3 years) doesn't translate into a slower combo deck because of the mass redundancy of its combo pieces, AND the fact that its pieces typically have good flexibility. As mentioned above, the major advantage of using something like Intuition is the tutoring effect, which is quite important to the success of the archetype. As a side note, I am frankly puzzled why decks only run 3 Intuitions when they should certainly be running all 4.

I think that if we were to redesign WGD to include Buried Alive, it would have to be pulled away from the 4 WGD + Bazaar + Squee shell. You really only need 2 WGDs to make Buried Alive work, which saves you some slots.

[Cr0v4x]

@ dicemanx

Well ... I think playing Buried ASlive will additionally lead to concentrating a lot more on the color black as you might then consider playing dark rituals to support the speedkill. then u might furthermore consider playing 4 Duress + Unmasks and so on ...

The only thing that makes BUG Dragon superior in reference to 5c Dragon is that you get to play 2-3 basic lands. I do not think that this will ever help you win the critical matchups like Oath and Stax. Furthermore your opponent will most likely concentrate on wasting your Bazaars to assure you cannot create massive cardadvantage. Furthermore you can still sideboard in the Sacred Grounds to be able to cope with this factor. You don't really have to worry about fish decks running Wastelands because the will most certainly not play any recursion for Wastelands. Against Stax the Sacred Groudns in addition to Rack and Ruins are a real force I wouldn't want to miss out.

[dicemanx]

@ dicemanx

Well ... I think playing Buried ASlive will additionally lead to concentrating a lot more on the color black as you might then consider playing dark rituals to support the speedkill. then u might furthermore consider playing 4 Duress + Unmasks and so on ...

This was something that Roland Bode tried before Entomb got restricted, and given that WGD has lost its good match-ups (control decks, which now have crippling combo finishes, and Stax, which received a tremendous upgrade with Null Rods and/or all the additional WGD-unfriendly cards in UbaStax), perhaps it's worth revisiting. You could nix the Bazaars and Squees completely and just focus on both the 2 (Buried Alive) and 3 card combos (Intuition and Read the Runes/Cunning Wish) with lots of mana acceleration. Perhaps it might not work, but no one as far as I know has retried some of the old ideas. It seems that people are glued to the Bazaar + Squee approach, which itself faces a huge problem in that it has lost its effectiveness because comparatively slow and because it's so tragically vulerable to Pithing Needle.

The only thing that makes BUG Dragon superior in reference to 5c Dragon is that you get to play 2-3 basic lands. I do not think that this will ever help you win the critical matchups like Oath and Stax. Furthermore your opponent will most likely concentrate on wasting your Bazaars to assure you cannot create massive cardadvantage. Furthermore you can still sideboard in the Sacred Grounds to be able to cope with this factor. You don't really have to worry about fish decks running Wastelands because the will most certainly not play any recursion for Wastelands. Against Stax the Sacred Groudns in addition to Rack and Ruins are a real force I wouldn't want to miss out.

Yes, I agree. Although I lack enough empirical evidence, it is theoretically arguable that no basics and having access to Sacred Ground AND Life from the Loam (there's another card with huge possibilities) trumps trimming down the colors and adding some basics. Of course the argument is hardly that simple, because for example non-5C builds will always have a tough time with Oath, especially if Oaths have some combination of Ground Seals and/or Pithing Needles.

In my opinion if a WGD player wants to take full advantage of a more stable mana base, he should dump G (or any other side color) and run straight B/U. Or, by the same token, if he dabbles with G for MD Xantids and SB options, he might as well go 5C instead of BUG.

[Cr0v4x]

The problem I see when going back to U/B which was announced as the best color combination in the beginning of this thread is that you have a whole lot of difficulties coping with several situations. UBG Dragon takes advantage of Xantid Swarm but Xantid Swarm can be replaced by Duress (Duress can even prevent your opponent from doing his thing additionally protecting your gameplan). Nevertheless Xantid Swarm is a really strong card even though I experienced that U/B can fight through a massive wall of disruption and hate by playing Duress, Stfile, Engineered Explosives and so on. Nevertheless U/B has difficulties handling Oath and Stax. In my opinion playing UBG doesn't improve these matchups. This color combination makes only life from the loam, oxidize, naturalize and  pernicious deed available. These card only help litte or let's say this more focused: these cards do a whole lot less than the cards made available. Therefore we end up playing 5c Stax if our feared matchups are Stax and Oath. If these decks aren't played a whole lot or only unpowered Oath I agree that one might go back to U/B.

[Hi-Val]

I think it's silly to say that 4 basics are outweighed by Loam and Sacred Ground on the board. Dragon always seems to win on very narrow margins with Dragon. When I say narrow, I don't mean that it's an even match, because Dragon seems to be favored there, but that it does it with the barest resources possible and usually at the last second. Because of this, I've found it folly to rely on Loam to pull me out of the quandry of having no basic lands and thus, being unable to ever break out of a Crucible/Waste lock. Loam looks like a good addition at first; however, it still costs a draw step, 1G and 3 cards from the library to even stay in the game against an active Waste. I'd rather have my opponent's wastelands sit useless on their board instead of giving them what is essentially a Time Walk when they strip out my land. Even one Wasteland hitting a land can critically slow Dragon down.

Regarding Sacred Ground, it most certainly is The Nuts. However, is it strong enough to be relied upon to protect a manabase that's being attacked by Null Rod in addition to all the other Stax components now? SG is only available postboard, while at the same time Stax is bringing in Seal of Cleansing. It seems to me that the approach of using specific cards to fight one of the most prevalent matchups in the metagame right now, especially when those cards are on the sideboard and won't be there for a good third to half of your games, is putting all your eggs in one basket.

Green off the board gives Deed, X-men and Ray of Rev, all of which are fine cards. Deed in particular does a nice number on Stax; I'd rather have it than Rack and Ruin, all told, because Stax is a permanent-based deck (look at Vroman's Ubastax list; it has 59 permanents). The main resource of Dragon is the hand, while Stax relies on putting lots of things into play. Deed blows everything they have away. This includes the Welders they have as well. Deed is more effective against Welders that are juggling Tangle Wires in and out of play. I will give you readily though that Deed is harder to cast for BUG lists than RnR is for 5c lists.

[dicemanx]

I think it's silly to say that 4 basics are outweighed by Loam and Sacred Ground on the board.

Keep in mind we're discussing BUG vs 5C (rather than B/U vs 5C), which as I look back on my reply might not be very clear. BUG can probably afford 2 basics at most, because the more basics it adds the less color consistency you get and the more difficult it becomes to resolve early Xantids or post SB Deeds (arguably your best SB card, because it is essentially a "catch-all" card). In other words, if you're going to go basics heavy, you might as well stick to BU. In fact, I wonder if its possible to successfully run a completely impervious BU mana base of something like 5-6 fetches, 2-3 Swamps, and 5-7 Islands, without running Underground Seas at all.   

Loam looks like a good addition at first; however, it still costs a draw step, 1G and 3 cards from the library to even stay in the game against an active Waste. I'd rather have my opponent's wastelands sit useless on their board instead of giving them what is essentially a Time Walk when they strip out my land. Even one Wasteland hitting a land can critically slow Dragon down.

Loam's primary function should be to recur Bazaars - that would be about the only reason I would add it to any WGD builds. This means that you might be dredging 0 or 1 time on average, depending on whether your Bazaar ever gets hit; Loam will also let you Intuition for Bazaars without fear, and otherwise keep draws that are too dependent on Bazaar and thus more vulnerable to Wasteland. Whether LftL actually *does* improve any match-ups, or makes your mana base less vulnerable to non-basic hate, remains to be seen.

WGD incidentally has some interesting ways of tackling attacks on its non-basics, some of which are buried in this thread. Pithing Needle and CoW need examination, especially if WGD builds shift to TfK as an alternate discard route. WGD can also extend the focus on artifacts and TfK by shifting to hybrid strategies that use Welders and Titans for alternate kill (a strategy that brought me success in a small event some time ago but obviously needs further testing). The increase in the NUll Rod numbers and the appearance of Pithing Needle certainly has altered how this deck should be built, but I haven't seen any satisfactory solutions or proposals yet. This is about the worst meta that WGD has found itself in over the last 3 years, and its tough to come up with something that works well.

[Scott_Limoges]

Regarding the 5C vs. BUG SB debate, the focus of concern seems to be directed at sacred ground, obviously implying a SB hoser against stax.  In defense of BUG Dragon in regards to stax, an important overlooked fact is the strength of fetchlands in this match-up.  Any BUG should contain 7 to 8 fetchlands.  The obvious strength of fetchlands in Dragon are their similarity to basic lands - being immune to wastelands.  The Dragon combo should only require tapping a set of lands twice - once at the end of opponents turn (to intuition, entomb, RTR) and once on your turn (to animate) - which is extremely feasible.

Given that Sacred Ground can be compensated via basics, fetchlands (presented in contex above), and lotl - is the 5C manabase in Dragon optimal?

[nataz]

how does BUG dragon beat oath AND stax in the same SB, that I think it the question.

I dont think that there is any argument that deed can do a number on Stax in certain situations, but what does a BUG Dragon build SB in against an oath deck that most certainly should be bringing in ground seal, and may possibly have pithing needles, in addition to 5 strip effects and a decent disruption package (a combonation of Duress, FOW, Chalice, Leak, Rod, etc.)

Ray of Revaltion is huge in the Oath match up, not only killing Oaths, but also taking out any ground seals. It plays well with Bazaar, and for obviously similar reasons can fight though both discard and counters, not to mention its dirt cheap to cast.

Sacred ground is good, but I don't think its fair to look at it in a vacuum. Its not sacred ground vs. BUG dragon, its Sacred ground + Ray vs. BUG Dragon.

Something else to think about is the idea of modulating speed to deal with different types of hate/decks. A while ago I watched Bulls on Parade go undefeated at waterbury for some ridiculous streak with a mono-black dragon list. I'm pretty sure it ran spoils/dark rit, and I know for a fact that it was running buried alive. It lost a lot of umph by running a mono color, but it was fast, reaaly fast.

I wonder if you could tweak the SB of a BUG list (or even a 5 color list) so that it delt not with specific hate cards, but instead modulated the speed of the combo vs. the possible threats you would face.

[vartemis]

WGD can also extend the focus on artifacts and TfK by shifting to hybrid strategies that use Welders and Titans for alternate kill (a strategy that brought me success in a small event some time ago but obviously needs further testing). The increase in the NUll Rod numbers and the appearance of Pithing Needle certainly has altered how this deck should be built, but I haven't seen any satisfactory solutions or proposals yet. This is about the worst meta that WGD has found itself in over the last 3 years, and its tough to come up with something that works well.

But at what point does it cease to be dragon and becomes CA?  Is CA the natural evolution of dragon?  Don't get me wrong, I love dragon, but with so many new problems, is the deck good enough anymore?  I had talked to DicemanX about trying to get around BOB hate by using it as my final land drop, before the kill.  This makes me less resiliant to wastelands, yet totally wastes my draw engine.

So what does this mean?  Maybe BOB/Squee is old tech.  Maybe dragon as we have known it is dead. Maybe we need to look for a new way to work it.  I got to thinking about what other decks use for draw engines/tutoring/entombing, and the first deck that came to mind was gifts.  An initial first draft of the deck looks something like this:

// Lands
 Â       1 Island
 Â       1 Snow-Covered Island
        1 Swamp
 Â       4 Bazaar of Baghdad
 Â       4 Polluted Delta
 Â       3 Tropical Island
 Â       3 Underground Sea
 Â       1 Tolarian Academy
// Creatures
 Â       2 Eternal Witness
 Â       2 Worldgorger Dragon
// Enchantments
 Â       2 Dance of the Dead
 Â       3 Animate Dead
// Spells
 Â       1 Ancestral Recall
 Â       1 Crop Rotation
 Â       2 Cunning Wish
 Â       1 Entomb
 Â       1 Fact or Fiction
 Â       3 Gifts Ungiven
 Â       1 Mystical Tutor
 Â       1 Vampiric Tutor
 Â       4 Force of Will
 Â       4 Mana Drain
 Â       1 Demonic Tutor
 Â       2 Life from the Loam
 Â       2 Merchant Scroll
// Artifacts
 Â       1 Mana Crypt
 Â       1 Mana Vault
 Â       1 Sol Ring
 Â       1 Black Lotus
 Â       1 Mox Emerald
 Â       1 Mox Jet
 Â       1 Mox Pearl
 Â       1 Mox Ruby
 Â       1 Mox Sapphire
// Sideboard
SB:  2 Back to Basics
SB:  1 Chain of Vapor
SB:  4 Chalice of the Void
SB:  1 Coffin Purge
SB:  1 Darkblast
SB:  1 Gifts Ungiven
SB:  1 Fire/Ice
SB:  1 Oxidize
SB:  1 Read the Runes
SB:  1 Stifle
SB:  1 Tormod's Crypt

OMG what a pile!

Some of my choices I am sure are going to stun you.  No duress or Xantid?  Nope, I have 4 Drains and FOW.  Sure a first turn duress is good, but what this deck is looking for is a first turn tutor, preferably an instant, but with the moxes a first turn Merchant Scroll can still be a great play.  99% of the time you will be tutoring for a drain or FOW.  Worst case scenario this deck needs {G}{B} to go off with just an animate and a gifts.  Thats alot of mana.  A drain for 3 or 4 can really help the deck, dropping it down to only {G}{B} to go off.  Yes that is more than dragon used to cost to go off, but this provides backup incase this blows up in your face. You can also gifts on your opponents turn and then it only costs you {G} to go off.  Here is your scenario:

1) Assuming you have an animate spell, opponent plays a 3 or 4 casting cost spell and you drain it.
2) your turn you gifts into dragon, crop rotation, bazaar and Life from the Loam.
3) odds are you will get the dragon and Life from the loam in your hand, as this requires the most mana and work for you.
4) Cast Loam and bring back whatever Bazaar and any other 2 useful lands.
5) Cast your animate spell FTW

No matter what they give you, as long as you have an animate in your hand, they are dead.  I know this is an ideal situation, but you can run it out longer if you dont have the mana available all at once.  You can gifts into land if you have everything you need already in your hand.

As you go off, what I do is mill myself until I have a witness and an animate spell in the grave.  I animate the witness and bring back the other animate, then restart the loop, similar to CA.  I then mill myself until I have pretty much everything in the grave, save a few cards (you'll see why in a bit), and all the cards in my grave end up in my hand via the witness.  I continue to loop without bazaaring, ancestraling my opponent with a mitful of counters.  By doing it this way, if I go off without counters, my opponent is forced to end the combo right away, and I dont die to burn.  If I loose all my permanents, it sucks, but I wont be dead. I have loam to rebuild my mana base, and I will more than likely have another animate spell coming up soon.  As soon as I hit 2 mana I'm goin off again.

There are a few card choices I made that I am not completely sold on, but want to try them out as they work in gifts and Slaver.

Tolarian - with all the moxes and accel I figure it will at least be another island, but odds are good it will tap for at least 2 or 3 to help cast a gifts/drain.  With a crop rotation in hand, you can drop a mox or two, get a green source and turn it into a first turn mana drain, which can be brutal against certain decks like stax.

FOF - same casting cost as Gifts, but could end up being better as you get to see 5 cards.  Some games this has been amazing, other times I wished it was another maindecked gifts.

Cunning Wish - Sometimes you just wish you had the right answer for game 1.  I find I am always siding them out game 2 for whatever I am wishing for, but to have an answer game 1 for a deck can be great.  As well, if an opponent removes ancestral from the game, I can get it back.

Merchant Scroll - originally I had 1 of these and 1 Imperial Seal, but I kept wanting to get the card in my hand instead of ontop of my library.  It fetches a ton of stuff you can use for the deck, particularily gifts and protection.

Mana Vault -  Just there for the gifts and tolarian

Eternal Witness for the kill - she works and can kill every deck.  She allows me to put my entire deck into my hand.  Earlier in the game I can cast her for free with a lotus, returning the lotus back to my hand.  A few swings of damage is never a bad thing.  It may cause an opponent to use a creature removal spell on her instead of the dragon.  I can also use it as an expensive regrowth, in the event that I loose something I really need. In the event that an opponent has made themselves untargetable, (if its a permanent) I bounce it by wishing for the chain, or (if its a spell), I end the cycle with 1 animate spells, 4 FOW, and 2 Drains in my hand, and pass the turn.  If they can play through that, then they deserve to win.  If not, then I go off the following turn, replenishing my hand again before I kill.

Sideboard choices:

2 Back to Basics - the only nonbasic this deck really needs is trop, and that is only if you are loaming. still testing it.
1 Chain of Vapor - obvious wish target
4 Chalice of the Void - sided in against belcher and stax.  It is one more permanent to sac, gives me a boost for tolarian
1 Coffin Purge - wish target
1 Darkblast - wish target against welder
1 Gifts Ungiven - wish target(if really hard up for it) or sided in against control matchups
1 Fire/Ice - wish target against oath if I need that extra turn
1 Oxidize - wish target
1 Read the Runes - wish target while going off without bazaar.  Generate a ton of mana and wish for this
1 Stifle - wish target against tendrils

I would like to find a way to fit Krosan Reclamation in.  That way if something gets milled while going off, and my combo gets shot, then I can Loam some lands, and then reclamation some animate spells back into my library. Only problem is I dont know what to cut.  Maybe put it in place of the lone crypt in the side.

The deck is by no means complete, and I would love to get any advice on it.  What I am mainly trying to do is think outside the box about how to work the deck.

j

[nataz]

1) Assuming you have an animate spell, opponent plays a 3 or 4 casting cost spell and you drain it.

*ouch*, that is almost never going to happen consistently unless you are playing against a horrible player.

I applaud your effort, but relying on a 3-4 mana drain to speed up your combo may be too ambitious. I know of at least a couple of groups that tried dragon and Gifts, including myself, but to my knowledge nothing really came of it. Basically, the combo was just really expensive, and because the loop relied on dragon, it was also prone to lots of common dragon hate. Not to mention the deck is basically a one trick pony, unlike most other gifts builds which can switch from DSC mode into Combo mode (either FV, Rebuild-> Tendrils, or Will -> Tendrils)

I can't seem to find any of my old decklists, but heres a list of stuff that I tried off the top of my head

- LFTL + Cycling Lands
- Only 1 Bazaar, x Compulsion, 1 LFTL
- Dance + animate + Necro to make gifts piles easier
- 5 Color mana bases
- DSC + Tinker as a back-up

[UR]

Also I strongly advise people to say away from Fow.

1) It requires a blue mana card
2) You often pitch something you need don't counter unless you really need to.
3) Duress works much better against some matchups.

Sliver Queen/Caller/Witness are all susceptible to creature hate, and queen/caller don't even win you the game on the turn you go off.

That seems better. I've tried cutting the FoW, but I missed it a lot. The 'harm' that it does sometimes (not being able to cast it and all that) is outweighed completely by the fact that it counters important stuff when you really need to a very significant number of times and ofcourse it it required when running the Eternal Witness kill.

I'm going to write a report on yesterday's tournament in which I T8-ed with Dragon and post it as soon as possible here on TMD.

[Quality_Bear]

I've come to my own observational conclusions that fows are more of a metagame choice, rather than an intrinsic defense advantage. Dragon being forced to lose early game tempo, as well as card quality quite often spells it's own grizzly demise. Also, if you're having to deal with Gifts or Slaver in the infamous worldgorger defensive stance, it's quite likely they will have double the countermagic you boarded in, making it very difficult to ice a bomb or lock component. Many of the upper tier decks have both their own countermagic backup, and many others have a very high redundancy of lock pieces that you must contend with. This does not look good for the mighty Dragon... Dragon no...

While a good portion of it does pertain to the number of Dragons you have boarded in, in most desired scenarios I wouldn't really want to resolve an intuition. As an unquestionably useful utility, the card can sometimes cause you to stall out, as well as deter your quality of cards. Deciding between a 3rd or 4th intuition could easily be perceived as a metagame call, mainly for when you have to balance out the needs for both speed and consistency.

Eh yo, straight up you really don't need a third ldv, seriously man 2 is enough. You gotta expand your mind man, goodnight Dragon.

[Hi-Val]

The real reason FOW is bad is because it forces you to run Compulsions to make enough blue cards for the deck and compulsion is mad slow.

Is Dragon even worth playing these days because of Leyline of the Void? I suppose it depends on the dominance of the card, but it presents a strategy problem that Dragon has a really hard time dealing with because it comes down for free before you can Duress/FOW it, it's 4 mana so it's hard to Deed away and you can't pitch Ray of Rev to flash it back if you need to. Time will tell, I suppose.

Also, you DO know that Ray of Rev has a green flashback cost, right? Which means BUG Dragon can run it and just pitch it to the graveyard when it needs to fire it off, making an un-Duressable Erase that also pitches at no harm. If you have Mox Pral or Lotus, you can actually cast it too, how laucky.

[dicemanx]

Is Dragon even worth playing these days because of Leyline of the Void?

Are people actually going to use this beast? Even if they are (and I'd wager few if any do) it will pretty much force WGD to support Ray of Revelation if they want to make Bazaar based card drawing meaningful.

[nataz]

Also, you DO know that Ray of Rev has a green flashback cost, right? Which means BUG Dragon can run it and just pitch it to the graveyard when it needs to fire it off, making an un-Duressable Erase that also pitches at no harm. If you have Mox Pral or Lotus, you can actually cast it too, how laucky.

Well aware, but part of the problem of the oath match-up is getting things to the GY in the first place. This is besides the fact that Oath will often have up to 7 very viable targets (4 oath + 2-3 ground seal) plus FOW so its nice to be able to draw it once, and cast it twice rather then draw it once, find a way to get it into the GY, and then cast it once.

I think that the oath match-up is one of the few instances where the dragon deck (UBG or 5Color) is trying to play control, and being able to play ray twice is huge. You can't race seal/oath, so you mind as well sit back for the long game and hold your disruption for the Tinker.

 Â 

[UR]

Is Dragon even worth playing these days because of Leyline of the Void?

I took first place in the Swiss of a 45 person tourney last Sunday. So it is definately playable right now. Maybe if people start playing more graveyard hate I'll have to rethink my deck but for now it is just fine.

But lets look at the Force of Will. My list runs the following blue cards;

4 Force of Will
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Compulsion
3 Intuition
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

I feel that is enough to support it. The Compulsion is in the deck to picth to the Force of Will as well as provide me a discard outlet if my opponent is running Pithing Needle (which I haven't seen once in the last two tournaments I've played).

Dragon isn't a control deck and you aren't going about countering a whole lot of stuff... just the stuff that interferes with your combo when you are trying to go off. I rarely have problems with casting it and like these things a whole lot.

I don't see a lot of metas where Duress (for instance) is strictly better than FoW. I myself have been rather dissapointed with Duress and moved them to the sideboard. FoW on the other hand can stop random brokenness and has saved my butt so often I can't cut it...

[Jacob Orlove]

Is Dragon even worth playing these days because of Leyline of the Void?

Are people actually going to use this beast? Even if they are (and I'd wager few if any do) it will pretty much force WGD to support Ray of Revelation if they want to make Bazaar based card drawing meaningful.

Keep in mind that unlike Planar Void, the Leyline is NOT triggered. You'll have to cast Ray from your hand if you want to destroy it.

[Dante]

I had been doing testing previous to the SCG Chicago from October 2005.  I had been playing some dragon (a "standard" 5c-build similar to the one Hale used at Gencon).  I came to the conclusion that Compulsion was crap, but was worried about Pithing Needle.  I tried a version with 3 TFK and 2 Gifts (i.e. you can Gifts for just 2 cards, your kill and a Dragon, and they both go in the yard), but it ended up being a turn slower than previous versions.  It may have been good with totally revamping the mana base, but I didn't have time for that.  (Also, I have the feeling that heading the Gifts route is probably just an inferior version of the DSC/Tendrils plan).

Peter had a 5c version that he suggested with a radically different disruption/protection base.  I played with that a little and came up with this:

4 Dragon
4 Bazaar
3 Squee
1 Shivan Hellkite
1 Sliver Queen
1 Life from the Loam

3 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

1 Ancestral
3 LDV
4 Intuition
1 Demonic
1 Vamp

3 Pithing Needle
3 Abeyance
3 Xantid Swarm

4 City
4 Gemstone
4 Orchard
1 Glimmervoid
8 Artifacts

Sideboard:
2 Sacred Ground
3 Ray of rev.
2 Oxidize
1 Abeyance
3 Chalice
2 Titan
1 EExplosive
1 Deed


I ended up 4-2-1 around 25th place or so.

One of the losses was to Uba Stax, but it should have been a draw (I committed a procedural error that led to me getting a loss instead).  It was a tough match - I won game 1 by ripping an animate the turn before getting Uba/Welder locked.  Game 2 he won (turn 1 uba and  null rod).  Game 3 was a draw.  Game 4 should have been a draw, but I gave it away.  Regardless, he had turn 1 or 2 Uba in every game, which puts huge pressure on me since I need to find Intuition ASAP (or blind dredging).

The other loss was to the new UB Fish deck that ended up 11th or 12th.  I won game 1 on turn 1 I belive, maybe 2.  Games 2 and 3 he opened lotus, land -> Withered Wretch, null rod.  I still almost pulled out both games (he had daze AND fow when he needed to).  So both games, while it looked like an auto-win for him with Wretch + Null Rod turn 1, I was this close to pulling it out.

My wins were 1 jank deck and 3 Gifts decks (two meandeck gifts, 1 more SSB style.  2-0, 2-0, 2-1).  FYI - I sided in 2 Titans and the 4th Abeyance vs Gifts.

The draw also should have been a win, but my opponent had all 10 of his proxies out and I misread his board (he had a disk untapped, but no mana).

My notes from the report I wrote at the time (but never posted):

- the Oxidizes saved my ass in multiple games where no other spell could (maybe naturalize, but rack and ruin would have been too expensive).  Even though it’s only 1-for-1, I was so glad I added these.
- Life came through in two games when I needed it to, but still seemed eh...
- This configuration is very favorable vs "standard" Gifts barring horrible draws/topdecking.

In further conclusion, if Uba Stax (5c or mono-red) is going to be popular around this area (I belive 4-6 people were playing it just from the St Louis area alone), then Oxidize needs to stay.  The combination of Null Rod and other lock parts means I need CHEAP, quick removal.  I said this in other threads, Null Rod combined with mana denial (5 strips, other stax lock parts, chalice, daze, etc) is FAR scarier than Tormod's Crypt or instant graveyard removal, which can and should be played around.  Null Rod + others means I only get to cast 1 spell per set of turns (my turn + their turn).  For a deck like Dragon, not being able to overload the opponent (barring quick turn 1-2 win) = game loss. Looking back, in this area, I'd probably run 4 Oxidize (in my two losses, Naturalize possibly would have worked, but doubtful, and Rack and Ruin would have been WAY to costly).

Other conclusions from this + other testing:

- with the needles, I never had Wasteland problems all day, just null rod problems.  As Null Rod decks flourish (at least around here), that will cause more of a problem than graveyard hate, because Dragon relies on the artifact mana to get around the mana/tempo loss of dropping a Bazaar.

- If I had to go back for that particular SCG, I'd have 4 Oxidize without question.

- I found vs mana denial decks, I only had 1 real chance to cast a 3cc spell, but even then only some of the time, thus the oxidize.  This also helps in that if they Chalice for 1, it doesn't affect my animate spells (usually if not set to zero, they shoot for 2 or 3, depending on what they've seen).

- I really want to work in Entomb, probably for one of the other non-Intuition tutors or Squee.

- Squee's time may have come and gone.  In 2004 with 3/4cc being the most played deck, the long-term advantage of Bazaar/Squee, even with their wastes, was awesome.  With most good "control" decks now having combo finishes (slaver has that option, Gifts main plan), Squee's time probably has passed and other disruption/graveyard enhancing cards/tutors/drawing should be explored.

that's just my collection of notes and thoughts over the past few months..

Bill

On an unrelated note, a good doomsday stack that gets around Chalice 0 is :

Mental Note
animate dead
Dragon
Kill
random card 5

[Outlaw]

Loam's primary function should be to recur Bazaars - that would be about the only reason I would add it to any WGD builds. This means that you might be dredging 0 or 1 time on average, depending on whether your Bazaar ever gets hit; Loam will also let you Intuition for Bazaars without fear, and otherwise keep draws that are too dependent on Bazaar and thus more vulnerable to Wasteland. Whether LftL actually *does* improve any match-ups, or makes your mana base less vulnerable to non-basic hate, remains to be seen.

Keep in mind that having a life from the loam + bazaar and 3 lands is an alternative to squee (may seem weird but its amazing).  Draw 2 off BoB, pitch 3 lands, dredge life from the loam and repeat, this way you dig super deep every time trying to get a dragon into the bin. 

[Lunar]

Keep in mind that having a life from the loam + bazaar and 3 lands is an alternative to squee (may seem weird but its amazing).  Draw 2 off BoB, pitch 3 lands, dredge life from the loam and repeat, this way you dig super deep every time trying to get a dragon into the bin.

The tradeoff here though is that you are using a draw step to dredge where you dont have to with Squee...obviously there are pros and cons to filling your yard though with dredge...The scenario you list only works if you have access to an animate spell already or dont need to hurry up to draw into one.

[Dante]

Loam's primary function should be to recur Bazaars - that would be about the only reason I would add it to any WGD builds. This means that you might be dredging 0 or 1 time on average, depending on whether your Bazaar ever gets hit; Loam will also let you Intuition for Bazaars without fear, and otherwise keep draws that are too dependent on Bazaar and thus more vulnerable to Wasteland. Whether LftL actually *does* improve any match-ups, or makes your mana base less vulnerable to non-basic hate, remains to be seen.

Keep in mind that having a life from the loam + bazaar and 3 lands is an alternative to squee (may seem weird but its amazing).  Draw 2 off BoB, pitch 3 lands, dredge life from the loam and repeat, this way you dig super deep every time trying to get a dragon into the bin. 

Except that LFL costs 1G and -1 card for dredging the LFL, whereas using Squee is free.

e.g. - look at it best case

Bazaar Squee
return 3 squees to hand
draw step (+1)
tap bazaar, draw 2 (+2) discard 3 squees (the returning and discarding of squees cancel out exactly)

net total each turn = +3 cards, 0 mana.  uncounterable.

LFL
assume LFL and 3 lands in hand
turn 1: draw step (+1).  tap bazaar draw 2 (+2), discard 3 lands.  Cast LFL (1G Mana), get 3 lands back.  1st turn total = 3 cards, 1G mana
turn 2: dredge draw step (get LFL back).  tap bazaar draw 2 (+2) discard 3 lands.  Cast LFL (1G mana) get 3 lands back.  2nd turn total = 2 cards, 1G mana...

and so on....so it's a little more mana intensive, is one less card per turn after the first...

[Outlaw]

Oh please dont get me wrong, I wasnt saying anything bad about Squee or warranting to not run it.  I have personally just seen it happen where a dragon cannot find squees but has LFtL in his hand and use it to his advantage.  Just showing the different uses for the card 

[Quality_Bear]

Squee is too good to be true in this deck, there is no reason for anybody to run less than 4.

[dicemanx]

Squee is too good to be true in this deck, there is no reason for anybody to run less than 4.

This is too absolute of a statement. The reason why Squee needs re-examination is the following:

1. Bazaar is more difficult to keep in play or keep it active - not only are there greater incidences of Wastelands and CoWs in the environment, but Pithing Needles are on the rise too. Squees have an unhealthy dependence on Bazaar.

2. The decks against which Squee + Bazaar had the most significant impact were midrange control decks. With the advent of Gifts decks, it is becoming more difficult to make a relatively slow draw engine meaningful if the opposing control deck is threatening to outcombo you. Against other archetypes, particularly other combo and Stax/Stax variants, Squee + Bazaar have a smaller impact because single Bazaar activations tend to be sufficient to win games.


I'm not saying that Bazaar + Squee's time is at an end, but its certainly the case that it has lost its power compared to 2-3 years ago. It might be time to start examining alternate or complementary discard/draw engines to deal with Needle/heavy Waste environments and/or to up its goldfish rates.

[nataz]

new draw engine: Dark Confidant

Pro:
- On color .: can often be played first turn off mox + land
- can be animated
- Turns useless life -> cards
- Beats for two!
- Sacc's to cabal therp (okay, now I'm really reaching, but still...)
- uhh, provides alt. target for darkblast instead of X-men?

Con:
- Doesn't dig as deep as Bazaar as quickly/ sloooow, no actualy CA until the second draw, turn three at the earliest
- Gives Darkblast a Target
- Hitting a Dragon can be an issue

[cssamerican]

I'm not saying that Bazaar + Squee's time is at an end, but its certainly the case that it has lost its power compared to 2-3 years ago. It might be time to start examining alternate or complementary discard/draw engines to deal with Needle/heavy Waste environments and/or to up its goldfish rates.

It might be advantageous to look into building a speed version of the deck. No one is really playing that much instant based hate. Many list only have a single copy Echoing Truth in the main not much more in their board. I used to play around with a B/R version that used Spoils of the Vault and Demonic Consulation and It was extremely fast...Okay here it is:

DragonBall, by cssamerican
Creatures - 9
1   Eternal Witness
4   Shivan Hellkite   
4   Worldgorger Dragon   

Spells - 15 
4   Buried Alive   
4   Dark Ritual   
1   Demonic Consultation   
3   Spoils of the Vault
3   Duress   

Enchantments - 12 
4   Animate Dead   
4   Dance of the Dead   
4   Necromancy   

Artifacts - 6 
1   Black Lotus   
1   Chrome Mox   
1   Lotus Petal   
1   Mana Crypt   
1   Mox Jet   
1   Mox Ruby   

Lands - 18 
4   Badlands   
4   Bazaar of Baghdad   
4   Bloodstained Mire   
4   Polluted Delta   
2   Swamp

Just in case you are wondering Eternal Witness lets you go off without having a permanent red mana source. You just run the loop until you get a  Mox Ruby, Chrome Mox, or a playable land that produces red mana in your graveyard then stop the loop play the red mana source, then start the loop back up and go for the kill.

You could probably run a full set of [card]Plated Slagwurm[/card]s in the board specifically for the UW Fish match-up as its the only one really packing a lot of fast removal at the moment. And I guess you could run some Pithing Needles for stuff like Crypt if need be.

The deck is risky, but if you don't run into anybody really prepared for it you should have a lot of favorable match-ups.