[Article] WGDX vs Flash/Ichorid/Stax

[fury]

@fury, how is that article coming along?

Be patient, here it is ! I would like to share my thinking about this marvellous archetype. The article is not on its definitive version, I will add new comments on it later.

Link

@Zherbus : if you find any interest to my article, you may host it without problems !

Done!

Of course, comments are welcome. Enjoy !


EDIT : Can any moderator rename the topic title into something like "WGDX articles", instead of only WGDX vs GAT ? Thanks.

EDIT2 : The dicemanx's article can be found here

[Zherbus]

I split this into it's own topic. Enjoy!

[fury]

Many thanks for the formatted document and the hosting !

[islanderboi10]

It was a very well written article, and it kind of makes me want to start testing the dragons again.

Thanks!

[DarkfnTemplar]

Your ichorid analysis is somewhat outdated,
It seems to me that your only answer to chain is FOW which will get nabbed or lightning rodded off by a free spell.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Ever the cynic, is this:

GaT. I didn’t test it, but I would consider that adding 3 Xantid Swarm in the WGDX sideboard will, on some way, improve the GaT matchup.

...really appropriate for the open forum?  I was hoping, after DMX article to find further evidence to play the deck; although there's obviously a lot of effort invested, I'm not sure if it has the right direction.

[meadbert]

I disagree with much of what was said about the Ichorid matchup.

First of all you mention that there is a 40% chance of Ichorid having Leyline of the Void in it's oppening hand.  Then you mention that because of Serum Powder it can be 50%?  I have no idea what that means.  Game 1 I always mulligan to Bazaar unless I know for sure that I am playing Ichorid.  In that case I will keep a Leyline hand.  Even if I know I am playing Dragon I still mulligan to Bazaar fearing Tinker->DSC.  If I wanted to mulligan to Leyline I could with 94% probability.

Anyway, because the Ichorid player mulligans to Leyline it is left with 5.8 cards, 1 of which is Bazaar, so there are 4.8 non Bazaar cards.  Really there is a around a 30% chance that the Ichorid players begins the game with Leyline of the Void in play.

Nick runs faster version of Ichorid than I do and probably does better against Dragon in game 1.  I can speak from my own experience to say that game 1 is 75-80% in Ichorid's favor.  First you have the 30% of games where you start with Leyline.  Ichorid wins these.  Then you have the double Bazaar hands.  Once you factor out hands with Leyline this is more common.  Ichorid wins the vast majority of these since it is frequently able to double or triple therapy if not win on turn 2.  This leaves Dragon in top deck mode.  I am aware that Bazaar is great for finding an animate when you need it but with 6 animates a Bazaar still has less than a 1/3 chance of hitting an animate.
Then there are the games where Ichorid is on the play without Leyline or a second Bazaar.  In those games Unmask and Chalice of the Void are brutal.  Basically Ichorid is going to win on turn 3 so Dragon must combo out on turn 2.  If Chalice@0 hits then there is no realistic way to find Bazaar and dump a Dragon and then get two more lands out to pay for Animate Dead.  The most realistic way to do this would be Time Walk, but you don't even run Time Walk.  Chalice@0 almost always pushes Dragon's win back to turn 3.
Unmask is also a huge hoser since Dragon is essentially a three card combo so it is trivial to cut Dragon off from one part of it's combo.  Unmasking Dragon and Bazaar are pointless but grabbing Tutors usually works great.
Ichorid should win the overwhelming majority of games where it is on the play.
Finally there are the games where Dragon goes first.  In these games Chalice is much worse since Dragon dumps it artifact mana first.  Also Intuition can be played before Cabal Therapy so it is easier to find a Dragon.  Still, Ichorid can Unmask/Therapy Animate Deads out of Dragon's hand and win in that manner.  Dragon should win more than half of these games but less than 2/3s.

Note that I run Ancestor's Chose which is pointless against Dragon while Templar runs the Zealot/Sage kill.  Templar's list will frequently combo out on turn 2 so it would do even better when it is on the draw.
Also Dragon lists I test against have DSC in them and get a significant percentage of their wins off randomly Tinker him up on turn 1 or on turn 2 with Walk.  I mention Walk again because it is so important.  Without Time Walk it becomes much harder to beat Ichorid.  Basically Time Walk is a mox that cannot be countered since you can Walk on turn 2 and then drop Bazaar on turn 3 to achieve a turn 2 Combo.  That ability is important in this matchup.

Basically the Ichorid/Dragon matchup is similar to Ichorid/Meandeck Gifts preboard only Dragon is far more reliant on it's graveyard.

The reason Ichorid gets slower post board is that they are bringing in cards that absolutely hate out Dragon.  I run 10 1cc Leyline removal that also happen to stop the Dragon loop.  Others like Templar run 8 ways to remove Leyline.
Since Emerald Charm can function as acceleration by untapping Bazaar Ichorid does not not slow down by much post board.  I would begin by boarding out 2 Ancestor's Chosen and 3 Petrified Fields which do nothing in this matchup so there is not that much speed lost.

I am not sure if you realized this but it turns out that Emerald Charm, Reverent Silence, Wax/Wane and Chain of Vapor all stop the Dragon loop and RFG all of Dragon's permanents.  This is a massive amount of hate that just brutalizes Dragon.

You say that game 2 is 65/45 for WGDX.  What does this mean?  Does it mean that WGDX wins 65% of the time it is on the play and 45% of the time it is on the draw?  If so I strongly disagree agree.  When on the draw Dragon has two ways to win.  First, Ichorid mulligans into oblivion.  Second, Dragon wins on turn 1.  If the game goes past turn 1 then Dragon runs into a ton of trouble as Ichorid has Unmask and Leyline to cause trouble with as well as 8-10 Echantment removal spells.  The fact that you have boarded out Duress and Thoughtseize makes it that much harder to deal with Emerald Charm and Chain of Vapor.  You are limited to two options.  The first option is to have Force backup, which is less likely since the no brainer first card Ichorid players name is Force of Will.  This is doubly true if they are playing Dragon and holding Enchantment removal.  The second option is to play Animate Dead, then in response to Chain/Charm you cast Necromancy and win at instant speed.  This is cute but it takes 5 mana and is thus tough to pull off though Mana Crypt, Mana Vault and Lotus all really help the cause here.

In your example game I found several huge play mistakes by Ichorid.  First, the first Cabal Therapy named "something wrong."  If I have Dryad Arbor in play and Reverent Silence in hand then the obvious card to name is Force of Will since your opponent is less likely to be able to cast animate + Necromancy than they are to cast Animate or Necro with Force backup.

Also I notice that Revent Silence magically disappeared from Ichorid's hand mid game?  Was there a Duress in there that I missed?

The points above are all valid points.  The rest of this is nitpicking.  I am not trying to call you out here since I am sure you got your Ichorid board from other players.  This is aimed at the vintage community in general. 
Presumably Street Wise refers to Street Wraith.  This card is fairly terrible in Ichorid in general and should always be boarded out post board?
Which boarding strategy did you use?  Also, where on earth did Oxidize come from?  Even if that were in my board I would never bring it in against Dragon.  Somehow I just don't see Dragon as likely to play Needle and name Bazaar.  I do not play Contagion because of matchups like this, but for those who do, would you actually board it in against Dragon?  I realize that Dragon runs black and so it certainly could play Jailer, but I think that in game 2 I would make my opponent show me Jailer before I boarded in Contagion.  That said, I run Darkblast instead and I would probably use both Blasts post board for fear of Jailer.  This is only becauee Darkblast is also somewhat effective as a dredger.

Everyone says that Ichorid is so "easy" to play yet everyone makes so many play mistakes with it.  The reality is that Bazaar of Baghdad and Cabal Therapy are two of the most skill intensive cards in magic.


 

[dicemanx]

Interesting analysis Meadbert.

I actually never playtest the Ichorid match-up with WGDX. I never have any intention of including any SB cards for Ichorid specifically (for instance, I wouldn't bother with Leylines or Ixlid Jailers), and if the metagame would contain large numbers of Ichorid then the best approach would probably be to not play WGDX at all. If I did have the misfortune of playing Ichorid with WGDX in an event, I would simply pray that they don't get a Leyline/Bazaar opening hand (and hope that I get to play first to avoid CotV), and hope that they overSB for games 2/3. Fortunately, unlike other decks that use Leyline, Ichorid needs to find a Bazaar in its opening grip, so the actual likelihood of a Leyline making an appearance on turn 0 is diminished.

The reason Ichorid gets slower post board is that they are bringing in cards that absolutely hate out Dragon.  I run 10 1cc Leyline removal that also happen to stop the Dragon loop.  Others like Templar run 8 ways to remove Leyline.
Since Emerald Charm can function as acceleration by untapping Bazaar Ichorid does not not slow down by much post board.  I would begin by boarding out 2 Ancestor's Chosen and 3 Petrified Fields which do nothing in this matchup so there is not that much speed lost.

I am not sure if you realized this but it turns out that Emerald Charm, Reverent Silence, Wax/Wane and Chain of Vapor all stop the Dragon loop and RFG all of Dragon's permanents.  This is a massive amount of hate that just brutalizes Dragon.

Are you sure that all of this is a good idea? Paradoxically, WGDX might actually *want* the opposing deck to SB so heavily with anti-WGD combo cards. WGD has some tricky SB options, and if the opposing deck slows down their gameplan, then WGD might buy itself enough time to assemble the right cards and combo off. You mention removing some "dead cards", but as you also said in your post, other players run faster versions so instead of removing some useless cards in the match-ups, they have to make trade-offs. I also wouldn't necessarily trust 8-10 1-cc anti-WGD cards when you're so bottlenecked on lands - one FoW could literally stop 3-4 anti-combo cards in this manner.

Some other minor nitpicks:

Reverent Silence cannot stop the combo - it is a Sorcery.

Emerald Charm can stop the combo, but cannot make WGD lose its permanents (you can only hit Global Enchantments, but to make WGD lose permanents you would need to hit the animate when it turns into a local Enchantment).

While an Unmask or Therapy can pose some serious problems for a "3-card combo", the only part of the combo that that can be hit by those cards happens to be the most redundant piece (the Animates, which you can count up to 9 if you include the two tutors).

[meadbert]

Thanks for pointing out that Reverent Silence and Emerald Charm do not do what I thought they did.  I do not play with Reverent Silence so I did not realize that it was a Sorcery.  That makes it much worse in this matchup.

This also changes how the example game in the article would have played out so I appologize to Fury.

I would also like to point out that Fury specifically mentioned in the article that the Ichorid player did not know what kind of deck it was playing against.  This could explain the fact that Oxidize was boarded in though I still strongly disagree with playing Oxidize at all and I would be unlikely to board it in unless I knew my opponent were playing Needles.   However, I still claim that against an unknown deck Ichorid should almost always name Force of Will with the first Cabal Therapy.

I also did not realize that Emerald Charm cannot RFG all of Dragon's permanents.  DicemanX is right though.  You can only target an Animate when it is not attached yet, thus you can stop the loop, but you cannot RFG all of Dragon's permanents.

Regarding DicemanX's comments about Unmark and Cabal Therapy not hitting Bazaar or Dragon.
  This is true, but since it is farily unlikely that Dragon starts with both Bazaar and Dragon, Dragon usually must tutor for 1 of those.  This is why hitting the tutors is so powerful.  If Dragon is so luck to start with Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Bazaar and Dragon then they just had a really good game.  If instead they have Demonic Tutor, Bazaar and two Animates then you grab Demonic Tutor and hope Bazaar does not hit Dragon quickly.  Dragon can definitely win games against Ichorid on the play post board, but the odds are against them because Ichorid combines heavy disruption with a quick clock.  Basically Ichorid is running 14 backbreaking card and 12 more semidisruptive cards and at the same time has a 4-5 turn clock.

I would like to go back to the example game.  To me this game does a good job of illustrating why the Rainbowland/Chain of Vapor plan is so much better than the Dryad Arbor/Reverent Silence plan.

In the opponening hand the Ichorid player had Dryad Arbor and Reverent Silence along with Cabal Therapy.  Suppose that instead Dryad Arbor had been City of Brass and that Reverent Silence had been Chain of Vapor.
Ichorid would have been able to hardcast Cabal Therapy on turn 2 and flash it back.  Using the normal stupid formula, the hardcast Therapy would have taken Force of Will and then the the Flashed back Therapy would have grabbed Necromancy. 
This would have left Dragon with Dragon in hand and Bazaar on top.  From there Dragon is in a world of pain.  This pain is compounded by the fact that Ichorid is holding Chain of Vapor which can be used to halt the loop and RFG all of Dragon's permanents once City of Brass is untapped.

The Ichorid player did not know what his opponent was playing though.  From this perspective Chain is even better.  What if Dragon had dropped Pithing Needle?  Chain could have bounced it Eot on turn 1 and then Therapied it away on turn 2.  What if your opponent had quickly Tinker DSC or Platinum Angel?  Again Chain of Vapor saves you.
 

[PhilipJFry]

DicemanX,

Could you weigh in with your opinion on the use of Thoughtseize in WGDX?  It seems that with the now creature saturated format Vintage has become, Thoughtseize might be a good choice to help buy you some number of turns to assemble your combo, while serving the attrition role you would also want it to play.  Should some number of Duress be swapped for Thoughtseizes, as fury did?  Do you think the overall number of Duress effects should remain at 4, increase, or decrease as a result of the change in the metagame?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

[dicemanx]

DicemanX,

Could you weigh in with your opinion on the use of Thoughtseize in WGDX?  It seems that with the now creature saturated format Vintage has become, Thoughtseize might be a good choice to help buy you some number of turns to assemble your combo, while serving the attrition role you would also want it to play.  Should some number of Duress be swapped for Thoughtseizes, as fury did?  Do you think the overall number of Duress effects should remain at 4, increase, or decrease as a result of the change in the metagame?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

I'm currently not in a good position to comment on this because I have been out of the loop for the past 1-2 months, and the format looks to have gotten more creature heavy. however, I have a sneaking suspicion that Duress is still better than Thoughtseize - I can't think of any creatures specifically that I would want to rip out of my opponent's hand that are currently played. If people played very threatening creatures such as Samurai of the Pale Curtain or Withered Wretch, then I would play all 4 Thoughtseizes; in the current meta, I'd probably stick to 4 Duress instead if I had to choose between the two.

Actually, once I start playtesting again, I think I'll take WGDX in a slightly different direction:

-4 Duress
+3 Chain of Vapor
+ 1 Entomb


Transformational SB into:

4 Illusionary Mask
3 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
2 Survival of the Fittest
1 Trygon Predator


I might also experiment with 4 Predators and maybe even up to 4 Confidants instead of the Mask plan. The other option that I was contemplating was to try out 3-4 Abeyances in the SB. Alternately, I was thinking of dumping any tertiary color and solidifying the mana base with Swamps and Islands, and maybe even SB in Ancient Tombs (or try them main deck!) to increase the speed and/or potency of Intuition/Read the Runes and have a nice mana boost against 9Sphere.

[Methuselahn]

I have a sneaking suspicion that Duress is still better than Thoughtseize - I can't think of any creatures specifically that I would want to rip out of my opponent's hand that are currently played. 

Thoughtseize seems like a better card in a number of situations. Specifically,when you can 'Seize a creature (like Tarmogoyf - which combos alright with your Bazaars!) out of your opponent's graveyard and then animate it. 

I haven't tested Dragon in nearly a year, but it seems like this could make the card somewhat practical.

[vroman]

Dragon loses to card type "instant"

[Shock Wave]

Dragon loses to card type "instant"

Wow. Now I've seen some rather ridiculous exaggerations regarding the vulnerabilities of Dragon, but this one definitely wins a trophy. Would you care to expand on what makes Dragon particularly vulnerable to instants? Oh wait, you're playing against opponents that run Animate effects out into a full grip. That makes sense now.

[DarkfnTemplar]

Is it really all that ridiculous?
Think of the best 10 instants in vintage
Now, how many of those stop the combo? I'd say about 8 if you mentioned b storm and ancestral (Which usually help find the other 8?)
Anyways, please refer to my SCG signature for future advice.

[Shock Wave]

Is it really all that ridiculous?
Think of the best 10 instants in vintage
Now, how many of those stop the combo? I'd say about 8 if you mentioned b storm and ancestral (Which usually help find the other 8?)
Anyways, please refer to my SCG signature for future advice.

Yeah, it's really all that ridiculous. The fact that Dragon can potentially lose to an instant spell doesn't mean that it is hopeless against any deck that runs instants, as Robert's post seems to imply. If that's not what the implication is, then what is the point of making such a statement? To clarify that Dragon loses to a well-timed instant? If that is the case, thanks for letting everyone in on some really groundbreaking news. Yes, if you suck something awful, you'll probably walk an Animate effect into an instant; no real epiphany there. As for your SCG signature, I have no idea what you're talking about and don't recall asking for your advice, but thanks anyways.

[DarkfnTemplar]

If that's not what the implication is, then what is the point of making such a statement? To clarify that Dragon loses to a well-timed instant? If that is the case, thanks for letting everyone in on some really groundbreaking news. Yes, if you suck something awful, you'll probably walk an Animate effect into an instant; no real epiphany there. As for your SCG signature, I have no idea what you're talking about and don't recall asking for your advice, but thanks anyways.

Then why are you arguing (calling it a ridiculous oversimplification) against common knowledge?
My signature on SCG is what comes after each of my posts on that forum.
"Please add to the dragon combo thread. It increases the chances of me winning tournaments."
So my advice is (Yeah, you don't want it, got that part. Just stating this so you understand the implications) no matter how much hype you put into WGD, it will always be an inferior deck. However, if people want to try it out in a tourney, feel free. I will gladly help you make a new deck choice.

[dicemanx]

I think Shock Wave's point is that such commentary and unsupported contentions do not belong in the open forum - you should consider posting your statements (including your assertion of WGD's inferiority) in the forum below this one. Positing that WGD is inferior or that WGD "loses to instants" is befitting the basic user forum - please make such comments there if you don't care to offer evidence in support.

Thoughtseize seems like a better card in a number of situations. Specifically,when you can 'Seize a creature (like Tarmogoyf - which combos alright with your Bazaars!) out of your opponent's graveyard and then animate it.

I haven't tested Dragon in nearly a year, but it seems like this could make the card somewhat practical.

Do you see yourself making such a play often? Instead, I envision ripping a key stopper from my opponent's hand before comboing off, and preserving enough life points to not perish via aggro beatdown. Animating a creature after Thoughtseizing isn't likely going to result in a win by beatdown - more likely the merits of such a play are to stall the opponent's ground assault long enough to punch through your combo. My intuition and past experience facing off against aggro and control-aggro archetypes tells me that this isn't a strong plan. Nevertheless I'm only speculating here, and I'd encourage people to test both options. It was already interesting to see Thoughtseize in action in fury's article.

Incidentally, I am appreciative of fury's effort in writing the piece. I know how much time it takes in writing such articles, and even if the games aren't played perfectly (as evidenced even in my article) at least it offers a general gist of how the games can play out. There is much valuable knowledge to be gained here.


To comment on the article in more detail: I actually like the idea of Kataki - I wonder if playing upwards of 4 might be a good idea. The Spheres are a concern, and having a nice solution like Kataki is exciting, although I fear that only 2 is not enough. For WGDX versions that don't support a tertiary color, the other option is Ancient Tomb, which might be run main as per my suggestion in an above post.

I also find the idea of a Fish transformational SB interesting, as well as TAL's suggestion of Tarmogoyfs in WGDX. I'll have to look at that at some point.

Regarding Xantid Swarm: I am more and more unconvinced by this card. I ran it in my SB at SCG:Rochester some time back (where I made two top-8's on consecutive days) but I actually stopped SBing them in towards the end of day 1 against decks that I would have SB them in earlier in the event. I found that they were not necessary, and in fact counter-productive, even though my opponent was siding in disruptive instants (challenging Vroman's theory that WGD loses to instants). While those SCG events were a while back, the basic premise behind the archetypes hasn't changed very much, and I suspect that even now I would hesitate in SBing in Xantids against Instant-based decks. Those decks are usually *too fast* to be using reactive disruption cards against. Xantids merely ensure that your plan gets through, and doesn't stop your opponent's plan. Given that opposing control archetypes have ways of either winning quickly or seizing control very quickly, Xantid might not be the right choice of disruption. 

[fury]

Hi gentlemen,

Many thanks for your comments on my article and on the WGDX build. I haven't time to answer now, but i'll be back

Regards,

[c dizzle]

I have yet to hear anyone mention that Thoughtseize hits "target player". You can use your own Thoughtseize to get a Dragon in the 'yard even if you are facing a Pithing Needle on your Bazaars. It also helps to pick problematic creatures (like Magi of the Moon) from your opponent's hand before they can cause you trouble. I currently play 4 Thoughtseize and 0 Duress.

Also, I have been playing a Dragon build that is Tyrant Oath transformational. The ability to still combo out while essentially ignoring graveyard hate has been incredibly helpful. I played the deck at a small invitational-only tournament in Reno, NV. Though there were only 20 people there, the attendees included Luis Scott-Vargas and some of his teammates. Jon Stocks (2nd place at GP: San Francisco), Chris Davis (a perennial PTQ top 8er on the West Coast), Kevin Shoemaker (a local player who has recently stepped-up his game winning a Workshop and a Mox in the growing west coast vintage scene) and other solid players. I played the deck to 4-0-1 finish in the swiss, IDing with LSV in the fifth round. I won my first two matches in top 8 and split with LSV in the finals. The deck isn't dead, but it is difficult to pilot well.

I like some of the sideboarding options discussed here, but I still like the Oath transformational option more. After the first few rounds of the tournament discussed above, people expected Oath game 2. I stayed Dragon and my opponent had all of the wrong answers post-board. Your opponent is always guessing after game 1 and that gives the Dragon player a significant advantage.

[fury]

Some considerations about your comments.

1) I'm not really convinced by the replacement of Duress for Thoughtseize. The misdirectionable possibility and the loss of life may be annoying for the strategy of Dragon : either Dragon doesn't need to discard a creature, or the loss of life/the misdirection possibility is too risky for him. I would consider a build with always 4 Duress, and perhaps 1-2 Thoughtseize if the metagame obliges Dragon to have more disruption. In my tests, Thoughtseize was quite good, but the replacement has not the expected advantages. Discarding a Dragon with Thoughtseize is not a real good strategy, it's better to use Intuition or Read The runes to achieve victory.

2) On the Ichorid matchup, I tested Dragon against a relative explosive version of Ichorid, which used Reverent Silence and Emerald Charm, not Chain of Vapor. I wanted to test if Dragon could manage the quick clock of Ichorid, and I found that if Leyline is early removed, Dragon can win quickly. But Ichorid also may pack Unmask and Chain of Vapor, which is annoying for WGDX. I didn't test it, but packing Chain of Vapor for Ichorid reduces its speed, and it's an advantage for Dragon. I think that WGDX may manage Chain of Vapor by disruption, and its drawing abilities may balance the Ichorid disruption like Unmask and Cabal Therapy.

Ichorid is a very specific aggro build, but the real problem for WGDX is Leyline, and in the second place Chain of Vapor and its disruption. In the past, Dragon managed some aggro-control with its own disruption and counter base, and I would consider that the Ichorid matchup is not as lost as we would expect. But, dicemanx is right : in tournaments, a lot of Ichorid may drastically go down the statistics of WGDX, in so far as Dragon has a little chance to win in game 1 against Ichorid.

3) On Xantid Swarm, I agree that this choice is quite obsolete. I didn't try Abeyance with WGDX, but I will. It stopped the activated abilities and instant, which is the weakness of Dragon as Robert reminded to us. Moreover, it's not card disadvantage. But Abeyance needs more mana to combo off, 4 or 5 manas to cast it and a reanimation in the same turn. And Dragon fears the split second cards. That's why I chose Xantid, which remains slow and very vulnerable in an aggro metagame. I think the Xantid/Abeyance choice depends on the sideboard choice. I will explain it later.

4) On the sideboard choice, I showed why the Oath plan could be weak in some cases. The MaskNaught sideboard plan seems very relevant in the current metagame. MaskNaught is not very played, so players don't pack a lot of artifact destruction. The clock of MaskNaught is very quick, and may be a real surprise for the opponent. The only drawback I would find to this solution is that if the metagame has more artifact hates, the choice will have less interest. Dicemanx, why didn't you pack Stifle or Trickbind in your MaskNaught sideboard plan ?

Another way I find very interesting is the transformal aggro-fish plan like this :
3 Kataki, War Mage
1 Jötun Grunt
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Meddling Mage
2 Dimir Cutpurse or 4 Tarmogoyf
(Dark confidant ?)

I didn't really think about the count of cards, but the goal of the sideboard is to keep the strong engine of Dragon with a lot of annoying creatures which prevent fast combos or aggro strategies. Dicemanx is right when he said that 2 kataki was not enough for Dragon. I saw it in my tests, the clock suffered from fetching Kataki instead of having it in the opening hand.

The advantage of the fish plan with no Tarmogoyf is that WGDX would need only 3 colors (UGW). We lose cards like xantid (which can be replace by Abeyance) or Tarmogoyf (which lack slows down the clock), but the abilities of the fish sideboard creatures may control the opponent's strategy, and this plan doesn't need the graveyard (excepting Jötun). What do you think of this ?

[neckfire]

how come you dont play squee?

[fury]

how come you dont play squee?

Squee is obsolete. It does nothing alone and must be used with bazaar. Squee needs time to be effective, and the current metagame won't let you use the card advantage of Squee. You will lose before...

In WGDX, Squee has been replaced by Deep Analysis, which makes you draw immediately if you have enough mana (not a problem in Dragon generally speaking).

By the way, I'm testing two types of sideboard for WGDX, a Fish-transformal one, and the MaskNaught one, with a slightly different orientation from the dicemanx's original idea. I will give you comments on these tests as soon as I can.

[neckfire]

funny i used squee with deep and it worked great it was a way that in the gat matchup i could stay ahead on *read*non counterable card advantage helping shore up the control match wins game everything else you can blow out of the water.plus with intuition you can go find 3 squee it works. just an idea.

[meadbert]

Deep Analysis can be a bit of a liability against decks that run several Misdirections.

[IceOaks]

Hi, I've actually played Dragon a long time ago but now I wanna play it again. I'm very impressed but i've some question with regards to certain card choices.

Like 1st, why 3 Necro instead of 3 Animate Dead? The difference of 1 mana might help you combo off faster, won't it? Are there stiuations where Necro is much better?

Oh another card choice is Read the Runes. I was wondering why would you put that over Careful Study? Could you explain the use of RtR in the combo?

I've been playing long for quite sometime hence I like small mana casting costs stuff and those 2 card choices kinda seem weird. Could it be that in my own version of WGDX, i've taken out Sol Ring and Mana Vault, hence those 2 cards don't make sense to me.
Correct me if i'm wrong but shouldn't this deck try to combo off asap with small cc spells to help you hit the right combo pieces?

Haha... Sorry if i'm noob but i'm really puzzled with regards to this new version of Dragon....

[dicemanx]

Necromancy vs Animate Dead:

1) Necromancy helps evade CotV for 2
2) Necromancy allows for instant speed kills and the threat of it makes opponents think twice about tapping mana to cast instants (like end of turn Brainstorm for instance)
3) Necromancy can be used in response to removal effects, such as Tormod's Crypt
4) Necromancy stops Flash combo

Read the Runes versus Careful Study

1) Read the Runes can be used as a combo piece when going off; Careful Study can only deposit a WGD into the graveyard, which by itself cannot do much. For instance, let's say that you deposit a WGD into the graveyard via Intuition, Bazaar (and Bazaar gets Wasted) or RtR/CS. To go off with Animate and win the game, you need  to have either an Intuition or RtR in hand; Intuition would only work if you are running RtR over CS, or if you run 2 kill creatures instead of 1. If you have a CS in hand instead, you cannot go off.
2) Read the Runes can draw a lot more than 2 cards in some cases
3) RtR can bait counterspells end of turn - it is difficult for an opponent to assess how critical resolving the RtR is when cast in such a manner, so it might draw a stopper


Note that this has all been debated before - it would be a good idea to search for older WGD threads for information because the deck hasn't really changed that much over the years. You'll find many interesting pieces of information in those threads.

[fury]

4) Necromancy stops Flash combo

How can this be done ? Necromancy may reanimate Protean Hulk, but the trigger ability of it will resolve, and won't prevent the slivers to come into play from the opponent's library. Or maybe I missed some tricks.

[dicemanx]

4) Necromancy stops Flash combo

How can this be done ? Necromancy may reanimate Protean Hulk, but the trigger ability of it will resolve, and won't prevent the slivers to come into play from the opponent's library. Or maybe I missed some tricks.

I should have clarified this point further. The meta is tilting towards more aggro-control, so it might be difficult to squeeze the slivers past blockers. If Flash reverts back to the older Kiki kill then Necromancy can stop the combo.

[fury]

Read the Runes versus Careful Study

1) Read the Runes can be used as a combo piece when going off; Careful Study can only deposit a WGD into the graveyard, which by itself cannot do much. For instance, let's say that you deposit a WGD into the graveyard via Intuition, Bazaar (and Bazaar gets Wasted) or RtR/CS. To go off with Animate and win the game, you need  to have either an Intuition or RtR in hand; Intuition would only work if you are running RtR over CS, or if you run 2 kill creatures instead of 1. If you have a CS in hand instead, you cannot go off.
2) Read the Runes can draw a lot more than 2 cards in some cases
3) RtR can bait counterspells end of turn - it is difficult for an opponent to assess how critical resolving the RtR is when cast in such a manner, so it might draw a stopper

4) Careful study is card disadvantage. Read the Runes too, in so far as the player discards so many as he draws, but he may want to sacrifice some useless permanents, like mana crypt or mana vault. The sequence land/manavault/manacrypt is card advantage with permanents' sacrifices and digs the library.