[Article] WGDX vs Flash/Ichorid/Stax

[CHOZO]

Check out this awesome new card they're previewing:



You don't have to splash for any extra colors with this card. It's a flying 5/5 which means you can attack for the win, if you need to. And although it can't deal with Platinum Angel, it can deal with cards like darksteel colossus and gaea's blessing. Yep, I am definitely going to be using this as my win condition when it is released.

[dicemanx]

I'll go on with dice: I can't see how Entomb + Animate is an "I-win" in your build ... you too need an additional keyspell.

In WGDX, Entomb + Animate is a win if you hold any of these cards in hand:

3x Read the Runes
4x Intuition
1x Cunning Wish

That's 8 cards. Your build has 0 cards (because Intuition doesn't allow you to win) and therefore you must have Bazaar already in play.

You also ask what is the big deal with the instant speed kill - that's not why RtR is played (which contributes to enabling such kills). It is played for three reasons: the alternate discard, the ability to win without Bazaar, and the ability to cycle through your deck looking for key spells, even if its card disadvantage. It also takes the pressure off finding Bazaar and reduces the mulligan rate.

Regarding Oona: This is what WGD players have been waiting for - the previous kill card most similar to Oona was Sliver Queen, but it cost you a turn when comboing off.

[vartemis]

Check out this awesome new card they're previewing:

[image of awesomey goodness]

You don't have to splash for any extra colors with this card. It's a flying 5/5 which means you can attack for the win, if you need to. And although it can't deal with Platinum Angel, it can deal with cards like darksteel colossus and gaea's blessing. Yep, I am definitely going to be using this as my win condition when it is released.

She rocks.  I posted her as a dragon kill in the previews thread as soon as I got around to seeing her about 12 minutes after midnight hahaha.  I would still hold the phone on whether she will totally replace the Witness kill.  Here are a few of my arguements:

This really is the best Dragon kill ever. It's Blue, so it pitches to Force. It's a large flier, so it can be reanimated and start swinging. It ignores Gaea's Blessing, as Vartemis points out. And it only requires Blue/Black mana to operate. It can even be hardcast to good effect.

Even harcasting and then using its ability every turn is devastating.  Losing the top 3/4 cards off the top of your library sucks, and and your opponent gets more weenies to ramp up the clock.

Does Oona replace both Sliver Queen/Pentavus and Ambassador Laquatus?  Animate against Stax and start making tokens.  I guess it makes fewer tokens for your mana.

It def replaces Laquatus, but I don't know whether it replaces the eternal witness/ancestral/stroke kill.  The advantage of the witness kill is that it kills right away by forcing them to draw.  With this you would have to wait until their next draw phase.  I dont think that would be an issue because their entire library will be removed from the game.  The only issue I could see is your opponent having something in play that prohibits them from being the target of spells and abilities.  In that case Witness would be the better kill because she can return a bounce utility to your hand to get rid of whatever ails you.  You also have the advantage of drawing your whole deck with the Witness, but I figure if your opponent was going to do something to disrupt you, they'd do it long before you started returning Forces to your hand.  I think I would prefer this over Witness because I can get rid of the Witness and CWish, and put more draw or control in.  You could aways shift the Witness and Wish to the board.

j

[vartemis]

Regarding Oona: This is what WGD players have been waiting for - the previous kill card most similar to Oona was Sliver Queen, but it cost you a turn when comboing off.

Oh man I'm an idiot.  Previously I posted that it sucked a little cuz you had to pass the turn and wait for your opponent to draw. It's been a while since I played Dragon with another kill besides Witness.  Queen used to be done during your opponent's EOT to avoid the majority of spells and get your dudes on the table, so I think, with Oona, the time to go off with a narc would be during your opponent's upkeep or in response to a draw spell like with Laquatus, right?



EDIT: On a funny side note, at first when I saw the card, I thought the name was screwed up because they ran out of room.  I thought it was supposed to say "faeries", that is until I read some of the background info on the latest block hahaha.

[dicemanx]

Oona can kill right away if you end up with a Deep Analysis in the graveyard in the course of comboing off (opponent is unlikely to counter because he would counter the original Animate spell instead). Still, I don't think this will be all that significant but the option is there if it is needed. Oona would still be an amazing kill card without DAs.

Queen used to be done during your opponent's EOT to avoid the majority of spells and get your dudes on the table, so I think, with Oona, the time to go off with a narc would be during your opponent's upkeep or in response to a draw spell like with Laquatus, right?

Not necessarily - you go off whenever the chance of comboing is highest, as opposed to strictly waiting until they are about to draw cards. Plus, whether or not you're able to go off at instant speed is of course dependent on whether or not the Animate spell in hand is Necromancy.

[Negator13]

Wouldn't Triskelavus work as a good win condition for dragon?

[nineisnoone]

No.  You can't loop with a non-dragon creature in play, you end the loop by reanimating the other creature after gaining infinite mana.  I think.  You could only loop with Witness in play because she could grab a 2nd Animate from the GY. So the counter limitation prevents it from being a win.

Witness is cooler, but I think this'll win out due to FOW pitch and being a decent animate target.

[ReAnimator]

Check out this awesome new card they're previewing:



You don't have to splash for any extra colors with this card. It's a flying 5/5 which means you can attack for the win, if you need to. And although it can't deal with Platinum Angel, it can deal with cards like darksteel colossus and gaea's blessing. Yep, I am definitely going to be using this as my win condition when it is released.

I think this does a pretty good job of dealing with platinum angel.
Since it's a 5/5 flyer they can't attack you to death unless they have a way to remove oona from the table in their hand, and you can simply wait forever while they don't draw cards to sculpt the perfect hand of a bounce spell and infinite counterspells/duress. There is no way a platz will save them from oona unless they have a bounce spell and you are at 4 life and managed to not get any tokens from the ability (almost impossible).

I love how her ability is relevant when you just reanimate her normally too.
Vs aggro or stax, producing blockers seems really good, and even vs something like other combo, removing cards from their library is really good, and it shuts down all the top of library tutors. I could see lots of games where you just animate an oona and sit back with counters and duress's and just ride your flying army to victory. Her tokens even have a good interaction with RtR!

Wow just wow she is the total package. Pitching to force and being hard castable is just gravy.

Wouldn't Triskelavus work as a good win condition for dragon?

Not really cause you need to have a necromancy or a witness in order to get the Vus in the loop to create infinite tokens. He doesn't go infinite like the other cards as there are a finite amount of tokens you can create if you have to stop the loop for this guy. There are multiple game situations that can happen where you would only get to reanimate your kill once while stopping the loop.

[dicemanx]

There is no way a platz will save them from oona unless they have a bounce spell and you are at 4 life and managed to not get any tokens from the ability (almost impossible).

Platinum Angel can also win it for them if you mill away your bounce spell with Bazaar while searching for Oona. Still, the likelihood of this scenario arising is extremely slim.

[vartemis]

There is no way a platz will save them from oona unless they have a bounce spell and you are at 4 life and managed to not get any tokens from the ability (almost impossible).

Platinum Angel can also win it for them if you mill away your bounce spell with Bazaar while searching for Oona. Still, the likelihood of this scenario arising is extremely slim.

You could always put Dematerialize or Chainer's Edict in the sideboard for the one in a million chance.

Sorry DX, but I gotta bust this story out when you bring up the point of slim chances.  The only time I've had the priviledge of playing against you was during the open part of a Listowel tournament a couple of years ago.  We were both playing oath with the sisters.  You were winning the token war and I was around 16 life due to fetches and forces.  We were both pretty much in topdeck mode when you oathed up a Razia and knocked me down to 10. In an attempt to get some card advantage, you decided to hardcast your blessing to get a card.  I think you shuffled in some forces or something.  You pass the turn.  I draw nothing of value and pass the turn back waiting for the kill.  You oath again to get Akroma for the kill but she ends up being the last card in your deck.  I couldn't believe it, and the look on your face was priceless!  The magic gods were fickle that day.

j

[fury]

These are the advantages, but they don't come without cost. One issue is proper hand evaluation with a Time Walk in hand, which essentially forces you to determine hand quality with 6 cards only (or 5 if you've mulliganed already). The second issue is the impact on the percentages of mana and combo pieces in a 60 card deck. I'm allowing for the possibility that I am wrong by not including Time Walk, and I know the burden is on me to justify *not* running such a broken card (much the same way that the burden is on the Flash player to justify the exclusion of Mox Pearl in a deck full of critical 2cc cards, an exclusion that I still don't personally understand).

On Time Walk : The probability to draw the main cards of the combo doesn't not really change (there is a gap of less than 1% probability to draw a bazaar or a Worldgorger in a 61 cards' build). So the impact of adding Time Walk in the build in terms of probability is negligible, while the card provides brokeness as we told about it before. I know it's a personal choice, and I would understand that we choose to keep a 60 cards' deck.

The deck was tested few months ago so the oath/staxx/NeoFlash-matchups were not included so the testing back then was more vs. Ichorid/GaT/SliverFlash. I'm not sure if I still have the written testlog but I try to find and post it. So we agreed that speed was a thread to face the meta. Overall in my own testing a hand with Intuition + Duress used to grab Bazaar seems perfect to me. It's obvious that discarding via bazaar is the only way to win in our build but I could say the same about ichorid. Of course you'll hate it that if Needle hits bazaar but you'll hate Leylines and Co. too.

Ichorid 5 colors doesn't rely only on bazaar to draw/discard/dredge. But Ichorid Manaless relies only on Bazaar, yes. That's why its game plan slightly changes after side, because if bazaar is neutralized, Manaless Ichorid lose most of its speed.

To understand the WGDX build, we must clearly separate the problems. The Bazaar dependency in the Dragon archetype is not the same problem than the place of Bazaar in Ichorid builds, or the managing of Leyline to combo off with Worldgorger.

In a very diversified metagame, any build must be adaptable and had to change its plan even during the same game. Any Dragon deck wants to have Bazaar as soon as possible to combo off quickly, but if for any reason the Bazaar plan cannot be achieved, the player should have allowed another way to combo off.

For instance, the following opening hand is a very powerful one : Bazaar, Worldgorger Dragon, Animate Dead, Underground Sea, Black Lotus, Mox Jet, Duress. It is a one turn kill hand, but if the opponent begins with Needle on Bazaar, your dragon build is totally incapable to win the game. With the WGDX version, the player may draw an Intuition to combo off.

No doubt that FoW helps a lot and would boost the deck but understand that decision to drop it facing the fact that we DON'T LIKE to run additional blue spells (more or less only to power FoW) especially if they seem suboptimal to us, moreover a posted list offered 16 blue cards, the very lowest count to make FoW usefull.
 Finally the repeated use of bazaar weakens FoW too. I had some thoughts 'bout the Serum Powder thing after reading linsi's lines but you can't simply mull into bazaar 'cause you still need mana and a reanimator so I think that bazaar is not a must-have in a starting hand. Tutoring it after some discarding is also fine. Flash in general is a bad matchup as you can imagine, but I rather play a discarder (if I started the game) than passing the turn with FoW in hand due to the Pact they can't use if you begin. If you argue with Staxxx and it's spheres I would completely agree but against flash I fear, neither is really optimal. A word to the instant-kill ... it's possible but does it really matter in this deck? We care more about the mana/speed as you mentioned correctly in your post.

We must really understand that the WorldGorger archetype is a combo one, not a control one. So the use of Force of Will will occur only in two cases : to protect the dragon combo, or to prevent the opponent to win. So the WGDX build plans enough blue and useful cards ; the core of WGDX : Intuition, Read the Runes, Deep Analysis.

The fact that Bazaar is weakening the Force of Will argument is true. Both are card disadvantage. But keep in mind that you must play it carefully, the dragon strategy is not to use bazaar until a Worldgorger reachs the graveyard...

I agree that dragon needs "more weapons to be competative" but as long as the deck basically works via grave I have doubts it could be, so SB's dodging the graveyard-hate would be very interesting. At current state it's not competitive.

That's why I pass 2 Ichorids and 2 times Flash during my tournament where I finish first

Well, on the Oona and Triskelavus proposal, I want to develop on the Dragon kill, once we succesfully cast an reanimate spell on Worldgorger without any response to the opponent.

We know have a lot of choices to kill the opponent with the combo. Let's summarize them :

1) Eternal Witness + Cunning Wish + Stroke of Genius (and my variant R&D + Fire/Ice)
2) Shivan Hellkite or Kumano Master Yamabushi
3) Ambassador Laquatus
4) Caller of the Claw
5) Sliver Queen
6) Triskelavus/Triskelion
7) Oona

I must have forgotten some...

We can classified them in two categories : the kills that make the player win immediatly ; the kills that need something to make th eplayer win (one turn or an attack phase, for instance).

Let's see the pros/cons of each :

1) The witness kill makes us win instantly. It needs black and blue mana, so we cannot win directly with only a swamp in play (but it's possible to bring back a Mox Sapphire after the first loop to win despite the original situation). Main hate blocking the win condition : Orb of Dream.

2) Shivan or Kumano are also an instant win condition. it needs red mana, so they mainly include in a 5C version. they overcome Platinum Angel. I prefer the Kumano version, because it is easier to cast it by hand. Main hate : Orb of Dream, Pithing Needle

3) Ambassador Laquatus is not an instant win condition, but only needs colorless mana. It also needs an opponent draw phase to make us win. Main hate : Platinum Angel, Pithing Needle, Orb of Dream.

4) Caller of the Claw needs an attack phase to be lethal, but it doesn't need any mana  (except the reanimation spell). So its only main hate is Platinum Angel.

5) Sliver Queen is the Caller of the Claw version, with mana dependency. So it's sensitive to Orb of Dream.

6) Triskelavus/Triskelion is not a kill condition alone, but we can consider it with Eternal Witness. I explains this further.

7) Oona needs a turn to win. It's less sensitive to Platinum Angel than Ambassador Laquatus, that's true. But it needs mana, so it fears Orb of Dreams.

We see that some kills fear specific hate. According to me, the best kill is still Eternal Witness, with the multipurpose solutions it offers to clean up the obstacles to victory, and its capacity to kill instantly. Its main weakness is that Witness needs mana to win, so I want to suggest two ways of thinking, based not on infinite mana, but on infinite come-into-play abilities or free-activated abilities :

a) Eternal Witness + Triskelion
b) Eternal Witness + Bogardan hellkite

Note that of we compare these solutions to the classical Witness kills, we saved one slot.

I personally prefer the b) solution, because of the Flash ability of the Dragon : if we have red mana on the table, we can win without Eternal Witness on the table (animate + Worldgorger+ bogardan+ red mana to cast bogardan in the loop).

[dicemanx]

7) Oona needs a turn to win. It's less sensitive to Platinum Angel than Ambassador Laquatus, that's true. But it needs mana, so it fears Orb of Dreams.

Oona can win immediately via DA, but I would contend that even without the DA instant kill passing the turn and letting the opponent die during his draw phase will be good enough 99% of the time.

We see that some kills fear specific hate. According to me, the best kill is still Eternal Witness, with the multipurpose solutions it offers to clean up the obstacles to victory, and its capacity to kill instantly. Its main weakness is that Witness needs mana to win

I wouldn't call this the "main weakness". Notice that in your proposed Witness combinations you still need mana because the Witness needs to fetch another Animate which you then have to cast. You can potentially get around Orb of Dreams (if you had 4-5 mana to begin with and the Trike/Hellkite is already in the graveyard, unlikely scenarios to begin with) but I would hardly use Orb in any argument because the card doesn't actually stop the WGD loop.

There is no main weakness with Witness; instead, there are a number of small downsides. The first downside is the opportunity cost compared to Oona - Witness is not blue so it doesn't support FoW, and Witness is not a good alternate reanimate target. Secondly, Witness cannot win for you if you have no means by which you can cycle through your library. For instance, if you Bazaar away a Witness and WGD and your Bazaar is Needled or Wasted, you cannot win with only an animate.

These drawbacks were considered not to be too serious which is why Witness was chosen for WGDX in the first place, but I will say that if Oath wasn't played in the meta I would have been playing Ambassador instead. I would have also played Ambassador if the ruling for Ambassador + Blessing went in WGDX's favor. Now with the appearance of Oona, which easily trumps Ambassador, Witness's opportunity cost grew.

so I want to suggest two ways of thinking, based not on infinite mana, but on infinite come-into-play abilities or free-activated abilities :

a) Eternal Witness + Triskelion
b) Eternal Witness + Bogardan hellkite

Note that of we compare these solutions to the classical Witness kills, we saved one slot.

Actually, you have lost a slot, because Triskelion and Hellkite do nothing on their own and cannot combo independently with WGD. If you really want to save a slot, you can run Witness without anything else and just win with Ancestral. When we built WGDX we added Cunning Wish not so much because of the Witness, but because it added to the number of instant speed spells that could be used to win when comboing off (for instance Intuition + Cunning Wish + Animate is a win, but Intuition + Triskelavus + Animate isn't) and because Cunning Wish gave access to SB bounce spells.

I would rather run Cunning Wish and Oona over Witness + Trike/Hellkite. Wish + Oona can still handle Platinum Angel in a variety of scenarios, but I wouldn't even consider Platinum Angel when configuring the main deck because the Angel rarely appears game 1 in decks, and even if its there in the main deck, its not so easy to get it into play before WGDX combos off.

In my opinion cards like Platinum Angel and Orb of Dreams are phantom threats, and passing the turn (if you don't have DA available) with Oona versus winning instantly with Witness is largely inconsequential.

[CHOZO]

What do people think of using Chalice of the Void? At 1 it prevents a lot of hate cards from being played that could kill your combo. Extirpate, Stifle, Chain of Vapor, Duress, Thoughtseize, Aether Spellbomb are all examples. And I think the only cards that the dragon player would lose would be Ancestral Recall, Vampiric Tutor, Sol Ring, and Mana Vault. All those cards come in handy, but none of them are really needed to win. It could replace duress maybe?

[dicemanx]

What do people think of using Chalice of the Void? At 1 it prevents a lot of hate cards from being played that could kill your combo. Extirpate, Stifle, Chain of Vapor, Duress, Thoughtseize, Aether Spellbomb are all examples. And I think the only cards that the dragon player would lose would be Ancestral Recall, Vampiric Tutor, Sol Ring, and Mana Vault. All those cards come in handy, but none of them are really needed to win. It could replace duress maybe?

Chalice of the Void doesn't protect the combo because it will leave play and then return with 0 counters. CotV was played in the past for two reasons - to stop faster combo decks (Long variants), and to work in combination with transformational SBs.

[CHOZO]

What do people think of using Chalice of the Void? At 1 it prevents a lot of hate cards from being played that could kill your combo. Extirpate, Stifle, Chain of Vapor, Duress, Thoughtseize, Aether Spellbomb are all examples. And I think the only cards that the dragon player would lose would be Ancestral Recall, Vampiric Tutor, Sol Ring, and Mana Vault. All those cards come in handy, but none of them are really needed to win. It could replace duress maybe?

Chalice of the Void doesn't protect the combo because it will leave play and then return with 0 counters. CotV was played in the past for two reasons - to stop faster combo decks (Long variants), and to work in combination with transformational SBs.

Right, I forgot about that. XD

What about Ancient Tomb? Would it be worth including it to speed up the deck a little, or is there no room?

[dicemanx]

What do people think of using Chalice of the Void? At 1 it prevents a lot of hate cards from being played that could kill your combo. Extirpate, Stifle, Chain of Vapor, Duress, Thoughtseize, Aether Spellbomb are all examples. And I think the only cards that the dragon player would lose would be Ancestral Recall, Vampiric Tutor, Sol Ring, and Mana Vault. All those cards come in handy, but none of them are really needed to win. It could replace duress maybe?

Chalice of the Void doesn't protect the combo because it will leave play and then return with 0 counters. CotV was played in the past for two reasons - to stop faster combo decks (Long variants), and to work in combination with transformational SBs.

Right, I forgot about that. XD

What about Ancient Tomb? Would it be worth including it to speed up the deck a little, or is there no room?

Ancient Tomb wouldn't actually speed up the deck as far as goldfish rate is concerned - it might actually slow you down depending on what was cut to fit in the Tombs. Their primary benefit is to fight against Spheres; if there were a lot of 9Sphere decks in the local meta and I was set on running WGDX, then I would consider running 3 Ancient Tombs main. Of course the other possible plan is to splash white and run Kataki out of the SB as fury had proposed a while ago.

I tested WGDX briefly with 2 Ancient Tombs main, with inconclusive results. Sometimes they worked well in terms of allowing earlier hardcasting of DAs and Intuitions along with bigger RtRs, and sometimes they led to game losses because I couldn't find colored mana soon enough. Of course you can always replace business spells with Tombs instead of swapping colored mana sources for Tombs, but that remains to be tested.

[ReAnimator]

There is no way a platz will save them from oona unless they have a bounce spell and you are at 4 life and managed to not get any tokens from the ability (almost impossible).

Platinum Angel can also win it for them if you mill away your bounce spell with Bazaar while searching for Oona. Still, the likelihood of this scenario arising is extremely slim.

You could always put Dematerialize or Chainer's Edict in the sideboard for the one in a million chance.

j

There is no way a platz will save them from oona unless they have a bounce spell and you are at 4 life and managed to not get any tokens from the ability (almost impossible).

Platinum Angel can also win it for them if you mill away your bounce spell with Bazaar while searching for Oona. Still, the likelihood of this scenario arising is extremely slim.

I didn't think of that. You could run a 1 of Venser or AEthersnipe as a bounce spell main, then your only chance of not being able to deal with platz would be if you milled every single piece of reanimation out of your deck which is even less likely.

AEthersnipe doesn't even seem half bad, he is reasonably large to reanimate and you can even get double duty out of him pre combo by evoking him and then reanimating him. Venser is decent as he is instant speed and can hit spells but his increased cost and small body are lame.

These guy's being blue is also a good thing. I wonder if something like Ingot chewer isn't just better though as it is uber cheap to evoke and it can be more useful than bounce vs workshop decks.

I have no idea if wasting a slot on one of these solutions is worth it though, i'm just throwing it out there as a not unreasonable solution.

[CHOZO]

Wouldn't it make more sense to just use Dematerialize? That way you don't have to rely on having another animate spell?

[dicemanx]

I think the most sensible plan is to just play a normal bounce spell or a Cunning Wish, and simply not worry about the low likelihood of a Platinum hitting play before you combo off with a Bazaar only (if you combo off with RtR you will be guaranteed to find the bounce spell). Plus, what deck currently runs Platinum Angel maindeck anyways?

Still, if you want to add some exciting alternate reanimate targets, I'd consider Memnarch ahead of Venser or AEthersnipe.

[Stormanimagus]

There is no way a platz will save them from oona unless they have a bounce spell and you are at 4 life and managed to not get any tokens from the ability (almost impossible).

Platinum Angel can also win it for them if you mill away your bounce spell with Bazaar while searching for Oona. Still, the likelihood of this scenario arising is extremely slim.

You could always put Dematerialize or Chainer's Edict in the sideboard for the one in a million chance.

j

There is no way a platz will save them from oona unless they have a bounce spell and you are at 4 life and managed to not get any tokens from the ability (almost impossible).

Platinum Angel can also win it for them if you mill away your bounce spell with Bazaar while searching for Oona. Still, the likelihood of this scenario arising is extremely slim.

I didn't think of that. You could run a 1 of Venser or AEthersnipe as a bounce spell main, then your only chance of not being able to deal with platz would be if you milled every single piece of reanimation out of your deck which is even less likely.

AEthersnipe doesn't even seem half bad, he is reasonably large to reanimate and you can even get double duty out of him pre combo by evoking him and then reanimating him. Venser is decent as he is instant speed and can hit spells but his increased cost and small body are lame.

These guy's being blue is also a good thing. I wonder if something like Ingot chewer isn't just better though as it is uber cheap to evoke and it can be more useful than bounce vs workshop decks.

I have no idea if wasting a slot on one of these solutions is worth it though, i'm just throwing it out there as a not unreasonable solution.

From what I can remember of WGD decks they really DON'T lose to Stax and especially not stax without Chalice. Necromancy means they really REALLY don't die to Chalice as you'll have a 3cc Win Condition and most Stax decks won't be able to go Chalice @2 and Chalice@3 in time to prevent death. Most stax decks also don't run any relevant hate like Leyline, Extirpate or Stifle so you're good there. It's decks running the relevant hate that this deck should worry about.

[ReAnimator]

I think the most sensible plan is to just play a normal bounce spell or a Cunning Wish, and simply not worry about the low likelihood of a Platinum hitting play before you combo off with a Bazaar only (if you combo off with RtR you will be guaranteed to find the bounce spell). Plus, what deck currently runs Platinum Angel maindeck anyways?

Still, if you want to add some exciting alternate reanimate targets, I'd consider Memnarch ahead of Venser or AEthersnipe.

Yeah good points.

I'm an idiot, i was just sort of over thinking the situation and not focusing on what matters.

[dicemanx]

I think the most sensible plan is to just play a normal bounce spell or a Cunning Wish, and simply not worry about the low likelihood of a Platinum hitting play before you combo off with a Bazaar only (if you combo off with RtR you will be guaranteed to find the bounce spell). Plus, what deck currently runs Platinum Angel maindeck anyways?

Still, if you want to add some exciting alternate reanimate targets, I'd consider Memnarch ahead of Venser or AEthersnipe.

Yeah good points.

I'm an idiot, i was just sort of over thinking the situation and not focusing on what matters.

You're being too hard on yourself Andrew - in fact, you suggested some interesting cards to consider for the future in AEthersnipe and Venser, two cards that were previously unknown to me. AEthersnipe in fact is definitely something to keep in mind even if the Platinum Angel issue is currently a very minor consideration.

[vartemis]

I think the most sensible plan is to just play a normal bounce spell or a Cunning Wish, and simply not worry about the low likelihood of a Platinum hitting play before you combo off with a Bazaar only (if you combo off with RtR you will be guaranteed to find the bounce spell). Plus, what deck currently runs Platinum Angel maindeck anyways?

Still, if you want to add some exciting alternate reanimate targets, I'd consider Memnarch ahead of Venser or AEthersnipe.

Yeah good points.

I'm an idiot, i was just sort of over thinking the situation and not focusing on what matters.

You're being too hard on yourself Andrew - in fact, you suggested some interesting cards to consider for the future in AEthersnipe and Venser, two cards that were previously unknown to me. AEthersnipe in fact is definitely something to keep in mind even if the Platinum Angel issue is currently a very minor consideration.

For sure Andew... I had posted a reponse to your comment, but the net crapped out and I was too tired to retype it.  I think Aethersnipe would be a great solution for people who continue to use the Witness kill.  I would still choose it over the Chewer as it can get rid of more than just artifacts though.  Even if it was a bad idea, which it isn't, I still commend anyone who is willing to take the time to think about improvements to the deck, and gives plausible rationalle behind its reccomendation.  We aren't all going to come up with gold, but you won't find it unless you start panning for it, right?

j

j

[CHOZO]

One thing that bothers me when I play this deck is that when you play bazaar of baghdad, you're missing out on another mana source. So what do people think of running a couple Riftstone Portals as a solution?

[vartemis]

One thing that bothers me when I play this deck is that when you play bazaar of baghdad, you're missing out on another mana source. So what do people think of running a couple Riftstone Portals as a solution?

Riftstone pretty much only works if you are already milling stuff.  I think if I wanted to somehow make it produce mana, Id pick Uborg first.

j

[CHOZO]

Well, I figured Riftstone Portal would be a good choice because you would be discarding stuff with bazaar anyways. But you're right, Urborg would make more sense.

[c dizzle]

One thing that bothers me when I play this deck is that when you play bazaar of baghdad, you're missing out on another mana source. So what do people think of running a couple Riftstone Portals as a solution?

Dragon runs so tight on slots that I don't think you could fit it in and still maintain the right mix of consistency and speed. Dragon decks almost always run the following (at a minimum):

4 Dragon
7 Animate Enchantments
2 DT/VT
2 Win conditions (in various configuartions)
4 FoW
4 Duress/Thoughtseize
4 Bazaar
8 SoLoMoxenCrypt
3 DT/VT/Ancestral
7 Blue draw spells (DA/RtR/Intuition are the most common)

That's 45 cards. We still haven't addressed other choices like Mana Vault/Imperial Seal/Entomb and several others. Assuming we pick two of these, we're at 13 slots for land. Chosing to make two of those lands Riftstone Portal puts us in a very precarious position. We need black and blue mana to enable our combo and the Portal doesn't provide (or make other lands provide) either. It could help us with hardcasting the occassional Eternal Witness and could allow us to go off when pitched with a Bazaar in play, but I think that the decrease in the stability of our manabase is too high of a price to pay. I think that it's a good enough idea that it should be tested before dismissed, however.

Oona is nice new tech, too. She gives Dragon the ability to go the Reanimator route with a big flying body while also negating your opponent's VT (or even Imperial Seal)  that they ordinarily would have used to find and answer for her. I think that the Oona & Research/Development win condition suite becomes fantastic with Eternal Witness in the sideboard to be Researched in if necessary. That might be a win more, but moving the Witness out of the main helps us to up the critical blue spell ratio by one card. FoW thanks the guys at Wizards.

To shift gears once again, I have had some luck playing a Tyrant Oath transformational sideboard running Forbidden Orchard main. What this has done in the current environment is give me a way to keep Oath from triggering. RtR has also been nice to get rid of Orchard tokens. I've actually considered cutting the transformational board, but keeping the Orchards until Tyrant Oath slows down. Anyone had any luck with similar configurations?

[fury]

Dragon runs so tight on slots that I don't think you could fit it in and still maintain the right mix of consistency and speed. Dragon decks almost always run the following (at a minimum):

I would correct some things in your list :

4 Dragon
7 Animate Enchantments
2 Win conditions (in various configurations)
4 FoW
4 Duress/Thoughtseize
4 Bazaar
8 SoLoMoxenCrypt
3 DT/VT/Ancestral
10 Blue draw spells (DA/RtR/Intuition are the most common)

That's 46 cards. We still haven't addressed other choices like Mana Vault/Imperial Seal/Entomb and several others. Assuming we pick two of these, we're at 13 slots for land. Chosing to make two of those lands Riftstone Portal puts us in a very precarious position. We need black and blue mana to enable our combo and the Portal doesn't provide (or make other lands provide) either. It could help us with hardcasting the occassional Eternal Witness and could allow us to go off when pitched with a Bazaar in play, but I think that the decrease in the stability of our manabase is too high of a price to pay. I think that it's a good enough idea that it should be tested before dismissed, however.

I agree on that. I consider the following choice : a U/B build with some splash, or a 5C build. In both case, Riftstone portal doesn't seem very useful, and weakens the mana base. During my tests, I stated that a 12 lands build was enough. Maybe shall we consider a 12 lands manabase with an Uborg to bring black mana on bazaar of baghdad. Or leave one land slot for other stuff, like in WGDX.

Oona is nice new tech, too. She gives Dragon the ability to go the Reanimator route with a big flying body while also negating your opponent's VT (or even Imperial Seal)  that they ordinarily would have used to find and answer for her. I think that the Oona & Research/Development win condition suite becomes fantastic with Eternal Witness in the sideboard to be Researched in if necessary. That might be a win more, but moving the Witness out of the main helps us to up the critical blue spell ratio by one card. FoW thanks the guys at Wizards.

I have underestimated the new Oona kill. it's actually very efficient, because the need to kill instantly is no more relevant, excepting in some rare cases. Even against a platinum angel, Oona's ability will put into play lots of tokens, so that we can attack with Oona and block the angel. The only drawback I would find is the following situation :

The player is about to win instantly (Flash for instance), we reanimate a dragon in response. Oona alone cannot make us to win, because if we let the stack resolve, we lose the game. We must keep an instant kill like Kumano or Witness in that case.

So what would you consider as a 2 kill conditions ? Oona + witness ? Oona + R&D ? Witness + Cunning Wish ?

EDIT : and what do you think of this in combination with Witness ?

To shift gears once again, I have had some luck playing a Tyrant Oath transformational sideboard running Forbidden Orchard main. What this has done in the current environment is give me a way to keep Oath from triggering. RtR has also been nice to get rid of Orchard tokens. I've actually considered cutting the transformational board, but keeping the Orchards until Tyrant Oath slows down. Anyone had any luck with similar configurations?

I have played Forbidden Orchard without Oath in a U/B WGD build to prevent Oath activation, but I wonder if it's really necessary. Current Oath builds are quite slow, and WGD is a faster deck. Forbidden Orchard in WGD weakens the manabase and gives permanents for Stacks decks. Instead of giving tokens to the opponent to prevent its activation, I would rather disrupt or counter Oath. See my last report : counter on Oath ; Extirpate on Oath => game

[eightywpm]

If you use the Oona kill in response to Flash they will have no library left to use hulk to grab their win conditions.  There is no reason to let them grab all of their pieces if you're using necromancy.  Don't forget they can win with the Reveillark killi n response to your attempt at trying to combo. 

[c dizzle]

If you like the Redcap kill, you should just switch to Sparkmage Apprentice. It costs less, so it is easier to hardcast if you have to (unless you aren't running a 5-color manabase with Gemstone Mine or Forbidden Orchard).

As far as the Flash match-up goes, patience wins those match-ups. Only go off if you have stripped their hand in advance or in response to them trying to go off. Strategically speaking, that match-up is a ton of fun.