[TimeSpiral] DragonStorm Combo

[Anusien]

Dragonstorm has 8 friends: 4 Bogardan Hellkite (CIP for 5) and 4 Hunted Dragon (CIP with 6 points of haste)

Grozoth transmutes for Dragonstorm for 1UU

Mana:
Rite of Flame
Seething Song
Lotus Bloom

Card Draw:
Telling Time
Sleight of Hand
Compulsive Research
Chromatic Star


The trick is getting to 9 mana, but you hardly need to storm at all.  Supposedly, this deck is regularly comboing off on turn 4 on MWS.  I'm wondering if we can make a better build.

[freakish777]

There's a green version for Early Harvest + the new Suspend Rampant Growth, the builder claims a 4.35 turn goldfish rate over 500 goldfishes over on SCG.

[Anusien]

At best on turn 5 you have 7 lands, and each early harvest gets you 4 mana.  Which is nice until you realize you have to find the Early Harvests.  If you're transmuting, each one is getting you 1 mana.

[freakish777]

His lists uses Early Harvest strictly as another ritual, he also runs 4 Rite of Flame and 3 Seething Song (though I think it should be the other way around, Seething Song guarentees +2 mana, if you have 2 Rite of Flames its +1.5 mana each).

Ideally you get

Turn 1: suspend Search for Tomorrow turn 1
Turn 2: Remand a spell or Telling Time
Turn 3: Transmute Grozoth
Turn 4: with 5 lands in play, Harvest up to 7 mana, Song to 9, Rite to 10, Dragonstorm for 4 Bogardan Hellkites.

Additionally, since Search is a suspend spell it can be cast turn 2 with the intention of going off on turn 4 with Harvest as the second spell and Song as the third.

I'm not saying his builds is amazing and holy cow you should run it.  I'm saying he's boasting a pretty mean goldfish, which makes me think if you're going to focus on Dragonstorm you should start with his list (It's on the SCG forums) and see if there's way to either improve it via nullifying weaknesses/inconsistencies by taking the deck in a different direction or making it faster.


EDIT:  Essentially, his list is running Harvest because its better than Lotus Bloom if you topdeck it on turn 3 or later, but other than that, its role is simply to ritual you up and add to the storm.

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

There was a mock standard tournament at Neutral Ground today, and let me tell you, Dragonstorm was EVERYWHERE. Lets start cracking and making this thing a monster because it really is.

[andrewpate]

I have been testing U/R/b with Infernal Tutor and no Grozoth.  The blue side is mostly for setup and protection (Telling Time, Sleight of Hand, Remand) and speeds up the goldfish.  This allows you to rely entirely on red for the kill, which in turn allows you to sideboard Blood Moon.  A few extra Islands maindeck and not many basic Mountains or Swamps helps ensure that you can cast an extra cantrip or two after a Blood Moon comes down on turn 2 or 3.  In testing, Solar Flare has seemed very unable to deal with this, and many other decks run only a few basics and can be wrecked by a surprise game 2 Blood Moon.

Many U/R/b builds on SCG have been running 4 Infernal Tutor, which I think is too many.  I am also looking for a bit of extra protection besides Remand (you don't need too much, since Dragonstorm protects itself from countermagic with Storm, but I'd like a little more).  I am looking at -1 Infernal Tutor, +1 Mana Leak right now.  I like the idea of my opponent playing around it all match after the first one hits, and I think that it is better than Cancel because it does not cost UU (I am currently not running any double-color spells outside red).

[UR]

A few extra Islands maindeck and not many basic Mountains or Swamps helps ensure that you can cast an extra cantrip or two after a Blood Moon comes down on turn 2 or 3.  In testing, Solar Flare has seemed very unable to deal with this, and many other decks run only a few basics and can be wrecked by a surprise game 2 Blood Moon.

Have you tested this with sideboarding? Because I imagine they will bring in a boatload of discard effects post-side. If you tested it with sideboard, how did you handle it?

Also, counterspells are pretty nasty and there is no Duress in the format. Is game one a lost cause against mono-U or U/W variants?

[andrewpate]

Counterspells are something with which I'm working on dealing.  Unfortunately, many people against whom I've tested have not known how to play the matchup that well.  Consider this hand:

Steam Vents
Island
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Seething Song
Seething Song
Dragonstorm

Now, this is obviously a turn 2 goldfish.  And I would generally keep this hand, because anything I draw from this point other than lands is going to help my ability to go off.  However, I would not attempt to go off on turn 2 against Islands because someone who knows the matchup will counter the second Seething Song and force me to manaburn, assuming (correctly, in this case) that I cannot sink the mana I've left floating without getting a full load and casting Dragonstorm.  This hand is good, but not "the nuts" against something like Solar Flare or U/W Control.  Those matchups are where cards like Infernal Tutor and Lotus Bloom really shine, and I would much rather have a Bloom hand that goes off on turn 4 much more safely than a kamikaze turn 2 kill if I'm worried about permission.

My next step in testing is to get a good gauntlet built and start playing more instensively with some teammates I trust.  I have been beating blue control, but not against people who have faced a lot of Dragonstorm before.

Re:  Blood Moon
Yes, I have tested this after board.  I only have the Blood Moons in the sideboard.  The card has been excellent against Solar Flare when it comes in for support cards (I'm still working on the exact sb plan, but I usually remove some combination of Telling Time and Infernal Tutor for the Blood Moons).  As I mentioned, it is almost unrecoverable for them if it does resolve (they can go to 8 cards and discard, topdeck a basic Swamp, and Zombify an Angel of Despair... that's about their best option).  But it is also good because they absolutely must target it with the discard you correctly identify as their sideboard plan for the matchup.  I won a game 2 against Solar Flare just last night when he hit the same Blood Moon with Remand on my turns 3 and 4, then finally took it out with Castigate on his own turn 4.  This was a one for one trade that also randomized his hand (by which I mean to indicate the fact that he can't mulligan after the Remand cantrips).  Meanwhile, I was using my leftover mana to cast Sleight of Hand.  We tossed a few things back and forth for a few turns, but when I casted Dragonstorm for 3 with Remand backup on about turn 8, he had no way of stopping me.  This is just as good a use of Blood Moon as its actual effect.

The Dragonstorm combo is not that fragile.  Dragonstorm itself cannot be countered without Trickbind, which does not seem to be very prevalent, and it's fairly easy to put enough mana on the board and ritual effects in the hand to go off through a counterspell or two.  Smart play can handle a lot of that.  Sure, occassionally you're going to eat a turn 3 Persecute for red followed by Remand on your next two cantrip attempts, but that's no different than what happens to Solar Flare when it meets Zoo's turn 4 goldfish draw.  From what I've seen, discard and permission issues are not enough to make me abandon this deck right now.

[That0neguy]

My freind has been playing UBR with bloom.  As far as counterspells are concerned my freind seems to be able to play around them quite easily with lotus bloom, and even just paying for it since ofter control will be far too slow, and dragon storm is uncounterable, so you have inevitability.

BTW not realy relavant but he got a turn 1 kill, which is pretty damn cool.
Dragonstorm
sulferous springs
rite of flame
rite of flame
seething song
seething song
seething song

[Evenpence]

A few thoughts on the deck.

I've been doing extensive research and testing with T2 Dragonstorm - a few hours a day.

Here are my conclusions:

1)  Counterspells are horrible in Dragonstorm.  Don't run any of them maindeck.  No one beside Mono-U is running maindeck Trickbind, and Mono-U loses to virtually everything.  You don't need counterspells to stop your opponent, and you don't need counterspells to protect your win.  Let me branch off on this point:

Counterspells sit in your hand and do nothing.  The notable exception to this is remand, but it still requires your opponent to play spells.  Spells in combo should either provide mana, provide storm, draw cards, tutor, protect the combo, win, or do multiple combinations of the above.  Remand only falls into 'protecting the combo,' and is worthless game 1, as there's nothing you need to protect it against, except for an occasional persecute or something.  However, you can win before this fairly consistently.  While they do have very narrow plays, they are too narrow to include in the maindeck.

If you're playing U/R, you can fit 4 Remand is fairly easily, but Mana Leak doesn't line up with how you should play the matchup.  You should try to develop a steady manabase, then build up a hand where you have tons of accelerants and a bunch of lands on the table, and cast Dragonstorm at will, being able to play through two counters.  This is unbelievably easy to do, as no blue mage will want to tap out (or even semi-out) against a Dragonstorm player, so they will wait for long periods of time without casting anything, just to make sure you can't go off.  If they don't, punish them for it and win through their singleton counter.  Keeping a hand of immense card manipulation is important in this matchup.

If you're able to build up to 8 lands, you can hardcast bogardan hellkite during their EOT, then, if they don't counter it, kill their team and beat face in, and if they do counter it, demolish them the following turn.  I feel very strongly that URG is the best possible three-color combination against control, and it's faster, so it's probably much better against Aggro as well.

2)  Tron is used in some builds.  This is the worst idea I've ever heard of.

I've even tried Tron to see if it was even remotely useful.  It's not.  Assembling a three piece combo of non-basics is just difficult.  Couple this with the fact that you need to make your manabase suck to run them (cutting important cards of color and cutting important lands), and it's just downright horrible.  Even if you assemble the Tron, you haven't won the game and still need the adequate cards in your hand to actually pull off a win.  Good luck trying to win with a miracle deck.

3)  Card manipulation is absolutely needed.  I don't care what you run, you have to run blue.  The available cards for card draw and manipulation are:

Sleight of Hand
Sage of Epityr
Telling Time
Think Twice
Truth or Tale
Perilous Research
Compulsive Research
Careful Consideration
Tidings

The more expensive cards are really not worth considering.  2U Compulsive Research is pushing it.

4)  Lotus Bloom is a mixed bag.

It comes down turn 4 at it's earliest.  This means that your fastest goldfish should be shooting for turn 4.  I.E., you have to incorporate controllish elements into your deck to support first turn Lotus Bloom, as it would be better as anything else if you're thinking about realilistically comboing out before turn 4.  If your average goldfish is ideally turn 3 (mine is, for example), then bloom needs to be dropped.

5)  Ancestral Visions.

Too slow.  Not an option.

6)  Green.

Green has two options.  One is the Early Harvest build which was spoken about above.  This version definitely shows promise, although you need to cut blue for it to be consistent enough with mana, this forces you to not have powerful manipulation which, although you go off fairly consistently when you get the cards you need, you don't get the cards you need that often.

It is my opinion that a straight red/green build can never be optimal for this reason.  However, as I said, early harvest builds show promise because you can add islands.  Farseek and Search for Tomorrow seem fine in this kind of build.  It can be randomly faster, but generally is about a turn or two slower than the other builds.  It does, however, have a better ability to abuse 2x Dragonstorm against control decks because of Early Harvest being a strong mana and storm ennabler.

The other kind of green deck, imo, is much better and shows incredible promise.  There are several powerful mana accelerants in the format which are early drops.  These are:

Birds of Paradise
Utopia Sprawl
Llanowar Elves
Utopia Tree
Wall of Roots
Farseek
Search for Tomorrow

Decks that are generally URG run a greenish base, splashing heavy blue and light red.  The mana acceleration allows them to combo off earlier than the other versions, and also allows them to more consistently hardcast dragons.  However, their early acceleration (birds, sprawl, elves) are all vulnerable, and they don't create dead cards for the opponent's MD (small creature removal).  These decks very rarely, if ever, run Lotus Bloom as they are generally faster than the rest of the builds.

7)  Infernal Tutor.

Many builds have become URB on the back of Infernal Tutor.  Being able to tutor up multiple rites or songs is extremely powerful, and, if you stall, Infernal Tutor is a house in topdeck mode (although admittedly this almost never comes up).  This causes decks to distort their manabase very badly, as they need to run additional duals to support the tutor, and are sometimes stuck with a dead card in their hand.  Also, there are only 8 red rituals in the deck, so often times, with 4x Infernal Tutor, one can be stuck with it in their hand, which is the bane of this deck.

It is of my opinion that Infernal Tutor is extremely good if one can actually reliably cast it with a good target in hand, so, you will always need card manipulation.  A RGB build cannot exist in my opinion, at least at this point in development.

8)  Number of Dragons.

Anywhere from 4-6 is acceptable - I find most people are playing five, which I particularly like.  A few people that I've been working with the deck on really like 6, as they constantly find themselves drawing two dragons in the course of a game.  I like 5, personally.  If I can ever dragonstorm for the maximum amount of dragons in my deck, even if there are only 2 in there, chances are at least 80% I'm going to win that game unless something has gone horribly wrong (like drawing 4 dragons, lol).

9)  Gemstone Caverns.

Extremely good when they work, fine when they don't.  1-3 is probably the correct number.  It depends on your build.  The green-base builds run less lands, so they can't run Gemstone Caverns reliably.

10)  Gemstone Mine.

Very good in builds with 3 colors.  They usually do their job just enough for you to combo out.  I've never even had close to problems with them.  The deck finds perfect abuse for them.

11)  Grozoth.

I'm currently running 2.  He's really good.  Yeah, he's redundant and annoying in your hand when you already have Dragonstorm in it, but so is another Dragonstorm, so you're essentially playing 4 good Dragonstorm and 2 okay ones.  That's fine with me.

I went from UR to URG.  I'm testing black.  The manabase is surprisingly strong, and this deck is very consistent.  I'll post a finished list soon.

That's all I have for you guys right now - I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of points that I've had opinions on, but that's what I've stumbled across with concerning the deck.  Right now, my goldfish is slightly higher than turn 4 on average, although I don't think I've ever had to take a goldfish to more than turn 6.  As you can tell, I'm very excited about the deck and will be playing it as soon as TSP rotates in, and Crappikawa rotates out.

I wish Brainstorm were legal in T2 so I could be BStorming and DStorming at the same time.

[T00L]

#themanadrain obviously needs more evenpence

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

So has anyone come up with a list that is better then the ones around? I actually want to playtest vs some of them...YES I WANT TO PLAYTES.

[Roxas]

I have two decent versions. First off, the Tron list...

4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
4 Steam Vents
4 Shivan Reef
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Izzet Signet
4 Seething Song
4 Rite of Flame

4 Dragonstorm
4 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Hunted Dragon

4 Sleight of Hand
4 Telling Time
4 Remand
4 Repeal

SB:
4 Imaginary Pet
4 Bottled Cloister
4 Defense Grid
3 Wipe Away

This one is pretty decent against aggro both game one and post-board; it is average against control game one and fairly good against it games two and three.

Here's my most recent non-Tron list...

10 Island
4 Steam Vents
4 Shivan Reef
3 Mountain
4 Izzet Signet
4 Seething Song
4 Rite of Flame

4 Dragonstorm
4 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Hunted Dragon
2 Grozoth

4 Sleight of Hand
4 Telling Time
4 Remand
3 Gigadrowse

SB:
1 Gigadrowse
3 Wipe Away
3 Repeal
4 Bottled Cloister
4 Imaginary Pet

This one SMASHES control both pre- and post-board, but is pretty bad against aggro game one and only slightly better post-board.  I'm considering cutting one Grozoth and the Gigadrowses for four Repeals, moving the Gigadrowses to the sideboard. The problem with this is that it basically throws away the control match game one, since it's incapble of simply overwhelming the counter wall with mana like the first list is.

Note the lack of common cards like Infernal Tutor and Lotus Bloom. I've tested both cards quite a bit and found both to be just about worthless. Lotus Bloom just gets you hosed by the control player's otherwise-useless Repeals, and they also are pretty terrible if found anywhere other than in your opening hand. Infernal Tutor was all right sometimes, but not worth wrecking the mana base for.

[Evenpence]

Roxas, try storage lands against control.  They're insane.

[Disburden]

I thoought I would get this thread going again because I Feel Dragonstorm needs a little work as a deck to be competitive right now. I like the shell of the deck, but feel it is alittle too inconsistant. With that in mind I would also like to mention the most unique Dragonstorm list I have seen to date. It was designed by Japanese player Akira Asahara that recently took second at a fairly big tournament. This is probably the most successful build to date also:

Dragonstorm Japan:

4 Bogardan Hellkite
3 Greater Gargadon
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind      
1 Hunted Dragon

4 Ancestral Vision
3 clockspinning
4 Dragonstorm
3 Remand
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song

3 Chromatic Star
4 Lotus Bloom

2 Sacred Foundry
2 Hallowed fountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Steam Vents
3 Island
3 mountain
4 Flagstones of Trokair


Sideboard:

4 Giant Solifuge
2 lightning Angel
4 Restore Balance
1 Clockspinning
3 Teferi
1 Greater Gargadon


What do you guys think of the list? Is it Viable? Is it better than what we've been doing in the States?  A lot of the deck just looks intriguing.

[Roxas]

I'd say Asahara's list is quite a bit better than anything we've come with (except possibly Brassman's list, which has a fundamentally different strategy), but, as Flores said, it has a lot of subtleties. It would take a lot of practice to figure out how to make the deck both win against control and race aggro, and States is too soon upcoming to get such practice.

[Namingway]

IMO you need to play Gigadrowse to have a chance vs. Control game 1. EOT Gigadrowse, tap all your blue-producing lands, untap, win. The World Champion Makihito Mahara even played 4 Gigadrowses maindeck. 'Drowse is decent vs. Aggro too, since by tapping down all their creatures before their combat phase, it essentially acts as a Moment's Peace, giving you one more turn to go off.