[Article] WGDX vs Flash/Ichorid/Stax

[dicemanx]

I do want to point out that WGDX is a modified version of a WGD build that ran Careful Study instead of Read the Runes. The builder of that original deck was Scott Limoges, who enjoyed quite a bit of success with it in a number of T1 events. Careful Study is certainly a viable option, but in my opinion RtR is stronger primarily for the reason that it serves as a combo piece that can be used to go off outside of Bazaar (i.e. you can Entomb or Intuition up a WGD into the graveyard and Animate with a RtR in hand and win; you cannot do this if the card in hand is Careful Study instead). This is mere opinion at this point, and it remains to be proven that RtR is superior to CS.

[islanderboi10]

Has anyone been testing Dragon?

As the meta becomes more Aggro/Control, I believe the deck can make a come back. I know that graveyard hate is big, but still, Dragon has always had to deal with that.

[fury]

Has anyone been testing Dragon?

As the meta becomes more Aggro/Control, I believe the deck can make a come back. I know that graveyard hate is big, but still, Dragon has always had to deal with that.

I agree. More aggro/aggro control builds will let combo make a return, and Dragon will have more interest than Flash (which has difficulties to go through against a deck full of small creatures). But it depends if Ichorid is still present in the metagame. In Europe, it's still the case, so the WGDX choice is not an evidence, and winning against Ichorid or Flash needs a lot of playing skill.

I suggest one thing, as some players are testing new transformal sideboards : is it possible to think about a WorldGorger Dragon sideboard, with a maindeck like MaskNaught or Fish like, instead of a WGD main deck ? I think of that because Ichorid is always present and WGDX loses all his first games against it. In that way, we keep the power of the Dragon combo and pass over all the graveyard hate, a lot of builds are packing main deck.

[fury]

WGDX 2.1 by fury

Hi again,

A) Introduction

I would like to share some of my tests, to complete my last article. At the beginning of the 2008 year, we state that the Vintage metagame has mainly  changed to an aggro-control one. There's a lot of builds with cheap and annoying creatures (Magus of the Moon, Gorilla Shaman, Tarmogoyf), with a control toolbox and anti-creatures and combo stuff. The other phenomenon we may consider is the re-rise of Shop decks, because of the Gush derestriction . Players has adapted against Flash/Ichorid/GaT this way, and it's quite efficient.

The slow mutation of the metagame is a good news for WGDX. Indeed, the aggro-control metagame is slowing down, fast decks like Long, TPS or Flash have to pack in more control pieces to go through. Thus the Dragon engine is more relevant now, but we musn't forget that the metagame is still very aggressive and hateful against it.

That's why I reconsidered slightly the main deck of WGDX, and tried to test two types of sideboards : a Fish transformal one, and the idea of dicemanx, the MaskNaught transformal sideboard.

B) The main list of WGDX :

« WGDXv2.1 »

Instants (16):
4 Intuition
3 Read the Runes
1 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Echoing Truth

Sorceries (8):
3 Deep Analysis
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor

Enchantments (6):
3 Necromancy
2 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead

Creatures (5):
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Eternal Witness

Artifacts (9):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault

Basic lands (4):
2 Island
2 Swamp

Lands (12):
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand

The main deck has not changed a lot, but I added some things to face the new metagame. I forsook Thoughtseize, not really useful and too costly in terms of life. I added an Echoing truth main deck, because WGDX needs some early removal to manage hate and multi aggressive threats (Leyline, Orb of Dreams, Tormod's Crypt, Platinum Angel, Empty the Warrens). I cut a non-instant reanim spell, reducing the number to 6, because I noticed that we generally speaking need only one reanim spell to win (I didn't know what to cut off instead of a reanim, if anyone has an idea on this point... Is 61 cards in WGDX possible according to you ?).
The mana base is also modified to add white and green color. I reinforced it by adding more basic lands against the mana denial decks. White and Green are useful to build a proper sideboard. 1 Tropical Island and 1 Tundra are enough, because they are only here to cast a key spell. I kept Entomb, which is very fast to combo off, to have a Deep Analysis in the graveyard, or to win without bazaar or Read The Runes.

C) The two sideboard I consider :

1) Fish transformal sideboard :

3 Meddling Mage
1 Dimir Cutpurse
3 Aven Mindcensor
1 Jötun Grunt
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Kataki, War Mage
1 Stroke of Genius

The aim of this sideboard is to have creatures with blocking abilities which slow down the opponent. Avens prevent fast tutoring stuff (combo, control anti-creatures solutions), Mages prevent cards to be played when the other creatures slowly kill the opponents (with the help of Jitte). Kataki is against Shop Decks.

2) Masknaught transformal sideboard :

4 Illusionary Mask
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Trickbind
3 Kataki, War Mage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Stroke of Genius

The purpose here is to have a non-dependant graveyard strategy which is very fast and aggressive. Indeed, the masknaught combo may be on the table at turn 1 or 2, and the WGDX engine can counter/disrupt the opponent's way to manage Dreadnought. Trickbind is useful to cast Phyrexian Dreadnought without Mask. It's also a very good counter against Flash. Kataki and Trygon are for Shop Decks, both on the table is generally speaking a very probable victory. The drawback of this sideboard is that it's paralysed by Chalice of the Void at 2. I would replace one Trickbind by one Stifle if I expect a lot of Chalice of the Void.

D) Some quick matchup analyses

I only did a few tests, it's not a definitive opinion on the different matchups ; I couldn't do statistics with so few tests.

1) The Fish solution is quite slow and is relevant for a more combo metagame (I think the metagame will be more combo-control in a few months).  Here are some considerations against very graveyard hateful builds :

Against GaT (and control machtups), the Fish solution seems to be a good choice : creatures to contain Dryad, Meddling Mage to prevent some key spells, Avens to slow down the opponent's clock. But dicemanx showed that WGDX is able to manage GaT with its own main deck

Against Flash (and combo generally speaking), the controlling ability of the Fish solution is relevant. Meddling on Flash turn 1, Avens turn 1 are very annoying for Flash and force the opponent to face several threats before comboing off.

Against Ichorid, Jitte is mandatory to manage the opponent's creatures. Jötun, even if it's slow, may annoy the dredge engine of Ichorid.

Against aggro-control, Jitte is again very useful to remove the key creatures, or to keep enough life to kill the opponent.

Against Shop decks, Kataki is to be used. We should stay careful, because the opponent may find a solution against Kataki (Tolarian Academy, Duplicant).

2) The Masknaught solution is very aggressive and is focused on the quick clock we impose to the opponent. We should stay careful however, because the metagame has a lot of artifact removals.

Against GaT (and control machtups), it's difficult to cast through the Mask or Dreadnought. the key is the attrition war dicemanx explained before. If GaT packs in more graveyard hate, it's in WGDX favor and its Masknaught sideboard, as the combo masknaught will be cast easier.

Against Flash (and combo generally speaking), WGDX has to count on its own disruption to threat the opponent with Dreadnought. It's a difficult fight of quickness and ressources.

Against Ichorid, it's easier. WGDX has only to cast as fast as possible Mask and Dreadnought, using the rest of the deck to manage the Ichorid threats or the artifact destruction. The Masknaught solution kills quicker that the average Ichorid clock.

Against aggro-control, once again, the clock is in the Masknaught favor. This solution doesn't fear Magus of the Moon, as it uses only colorless mana. We should be aware of annoying cards like Maze of Ith however...

Against Shop decks, Kataki and Trygon Predator make all the job. We even had better to keep the Dragon combo on shop decks, as they cannot survive if Kataki and Predator are early on the table.

E) Conclusion

To conclude, I would say that the very diversified current metagame may let a place for WGDX. Depending on the expecting metagame, the two sideboards I suggested still make the WorldGorger Dragon viable.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading !

[zeus-online]

Why have you cut the 4th bazaar? For me that has pretty much been the best card in the deck, i see no reason not to run 4.

Also, cutting the 4th Deep Analysis dosn't seem to be a good idea, i'd think more draw would make the GAT match-up better. It's one of those cards i really wouldn't cut.

I personally do not like the fish SB, but the masknought seems alright, although i'm wondering why you haven't considered the Oath SB?

There's also the possibility of a tinker SB with either DSC or Platinum angel.

/Zeus

[orgcandman]

Hate to derail a thread, but emerald charm cannot target animate dead anymore. It is always a local enchantment now. Similarly, Akroma, Angel of Wrath will no longer be left in play when the animate leaves play. Therefore, if I were playing dragon, I would be praying that you boarded in 4 emerald charms.

[islanderboi10]

Has anyone been testing the deck?

Any results?

[Pigeon]

Why doesn't WGDX use pact of negation to protect it's combo? It wins the turn it goes off, so it's not like you would have to worry about paying the upkeep cost.

[islanderboi10]

Here is a list, maybe can be taken into consideration..?

Instants:
3 Intuition
3 Read the Runes
1 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Echoing Truth

Sorceries:
3 Deep Analysis
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor

Enchantments:
3 Necromancy
2 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead

Creatures:
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Sundering Titan
1 Eternal Witness

Artifacts:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault

Basic lands:
2 Island
2 Swamp

Lands:
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand


There is  a serious rise of Shop Decks in my meta, so I wouldnt mind playing dragon. I have a tournament coming up, and I would need all the help I can.

here is a sideboard:

1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Trygon Predator
3 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
4 Stifle
4 Leyline of the Void


Thoughts on the Sideboard?

In the latest tournament, there was 4 shop decks in the top 8, 3 gush decks, and 1 dredge.

Thanks

[c dizzle]

fury-

I would reconsider using Echoing Truth main. One of the strongest plays against Dragon is Chalice @ 2. Echoing Truth can't bounce that, but Chain of Vapor can. If you ever faced Chalice @ 2 & 3, you would almost have to scoop with no possible outs other than swinging with Witness or a hard-casted Dragon. You still have another out (and the ability to combo out) if you run Chain of Vapor.

As far as wondering if 61 cards is possible- my current version runs 61 cards and it tests significantly better than 60 card versions. It is the only deck that I have ever been able to say with almost absolute conviction that running more than 60 cards is the right call (no Battle of Wits jokes, please).

I would also consider re-tuning your fetch-land ratio to 4 Polluted Delta and 1 Flooded Strand if you are insistent on running two basic Swamps. I believe that 5 fetchlands is the right number, but you want the ability to get a Swamp as consistently as possible.

I still like Thoughtseize over Duress. It gives you outs and can hit things that couldn't be hit before. Dragon is not a deck that needs the life to win; one life is all you need at the end of the game.  Even with fetchlands and VT/Imperial Seal, I still believe that the deck can (and should) run Thoughtseize. I have won matches with double Thoughtseize. I started by clearing my opponent's hand and then dumping my own Dragon with the second. I've also hit Magus of the Moon with Thoughtseize. I know that we disagree on this one, but I have found it way too useful in tournament play to go back to 4 Duress. That said, I could see going to 3 Thoughtseize and 1 Duress to help with the Recall/Witness kill (as was pointed out to me in a private chat with another forum member). Even in that circumstance, I still think that having all of your FoW available is more than enough protection for the combo, especially since I can NEVER recall playing a game where I had to resort to the Witness/Recall kill where my opponent hadn't used any FoW (i.e. they would be drawing all of them via my Recalls) and where I didn't have another Dragon in the graveyard & Necromancy available to start a new loop (putting the FoW I had already used back in my hand for another round of countering fun) if they could have possibly won a counter war. Duress just doesn't offer enough to offset the positives of Thoughtseize. Even the Misdirection argument doesn't hold up. If you target yourself and they misdirect it, they have to discard a card after losing two for the Misdirection. You will have decimated their defenses. If you target them and they misdirection it, there is one less card that can stop your primary kill at worst and a Dragon in your graveyard to boot at best.

[Godfish]

Would there be any advantage to using compulsion over read the runes? It seems like compulsion would be of more use before you had a chance to complete the combo.

[dicemanx]

Would there be any advantage to using compulsion over read the runes? It seems like compulsion would be of more use before you had a chance to complete the combo.

Compulsion was used in the older WGD builds. It was substituted by RtR for speed reasons, and to add some EOT threats to the deck.

I still like Thoughtseize over Duress. It gives you outs and can hit things that couldn't be hit before. Dragon is not a deck that needs the life to win; one life is all you need at the end of the game.

I'd be careful with this assessment. WGD doesn't always combo quickly, and against aggressive decks your life can matter. I've been in quite a few matches where I managed to win games with my life near zero, and that was even back in the Squee days. With Deep Analysis in the deck, and possibly Ancient Tombs (the new anti-Sphere card), life is arguably more important.

I'm not saying that Thoughtseize is incorrect, because I haven't come to a completely satisfactory conclusion whether it belongs in WGD, and in what numbers. It is possible that the correct configuration is to actually cut down on the Duress effects and load up with bounce - 2 Chain of Vapor and 1 Echoing Truth for instance, or 3 Chain of Vapor.

[c dizzle]

I'd be careful with this assessment. WGD doesn't always combo quickly, and against aggressive decks your life can matter. I've been in quite a few matches where I managed to win games with my life near zero, and that was even back in the Squee days. With Deep Analysis in the deck, and possibly Ancient Tombs (the new anti-Sphere card), life is arguably more important.

Peter-

Great points, as always. I will say (and I'm generalizing, here) that most agressive decks have less disruption and can be beat by playing aggressively for the combo. The new R/G Beatz deck is certainly an exception to the rule, since it runs a lot of silver bullets against Dragon, but it almost always takes a turn or two to get really disruptive (i.e. laying down Magus of the Moon and Seal of Primordium). In my limited playing experience against the deck (one tournament match), I found that I could set up before they started trying to disrupt my plan and combo with enough protection to win the game. As I look at that deck, though, I know they have all of the tools to cause Dragon problems. But many of those tools are disruptive creatures where proactively getting rid of them with a Thoughtseize would usually save you life in the long run (and even give you a card to reanimate if you hadn't pitched a Dragon yet *cough* Tarmogoyf *cough*). I would have to agree with you that, if you ran Ancient Tomb, Thoughtseize would cetainly be the wrong call. With a land that shocks you every turn, you can't afford to give up the life.

Everything is a delicate balance in this deck (as you well know). You often have exactly enough cards to go off with FoW back-up and one misplay (i.e. carelessly playing a Mox you didn't need) could cost you a turn that costs you the game. Building the deck is the same. Playing Squee forces you to move other cards around to be able to feed your FoWs enough blue cards. The balance of life is the same. I think I'm going to start playtesting with two Thoughtseizes marked so that I can measure what the effect a Duress would have made in it's place. I'll let you know how it goes.

[fury]

Why have you cut the 4th bazaar? For me that has pretty much been the best card in the deck, i see no reason not to run 4.

Also, cutting the 4th Deep Analysis dosn't seem to be a good idea, i'd think more draw would make the GAT match-up better. It's one of those cards i really wouldn't cut.

According to me, the main strength of WGDX is not Bazaar anymore. The draw/discard engine is more in Intuition/Read The Runes/Deep Analysis abilities to tutor/draw/discard things. 3 is enough so that Bazaar can be intuitioned end of turn, dropped next turn, so that you can discard the winning condition.

Slots are very restricted in this build, so I concentrate on the main strength of the archetype. Plenty of cards I played before don't find anymore place in WGDX now , like Time Walk, Imperial Seal or Mystical Tutor. If we find place for it, why not a 4th bazaar or Deep Analysis, but in exchange of what ?

I don't know if the 4th Deep Analysis is really missing against GaT, I didn't really test it, considering the dicemanx's results on this archetype. But maybe you're right.

I personally do not like the fish SB, but the masknought seems alright, although i'm wondering why you haven't considered the Oath SB?

The Fish SB is quite slow I confess, and I wouldn't choose it in an aggro control environment. If the metagame becomes more combo, it should regain interest.

I discussed the Oath Plan in my article. As Ichorid is very present in the European metagame, the Oath plan is not relevant, as the enchantments are always managed post-side (because of Leyline of the Void). That's why I would find other solutions. The Oath plan is a not-expected one, but it fears the same managing tools than LeyLine.

There's also the possibility of a tinker SB with either DSC or Platinum angel.

It's an alternate way of killing the opponent, but not another strategy against hateful decks. It should be considered though, even if it takes slots and reduce the consistency of the side board.

[meadbert]

I have been trying various sideboards.  I play a very different deck in general but here is some of what I have found.
First of all I run Brainstorm in the main so that may effect some other comments.

Post board, the Tinker plan works great.  I prefer DSC since you can pitch it to Bazaar with Leyline out and it reshuffles.  Also some enchantment removal doubles as artifact removal.  For instance some fish decks run Seal of Cleansing which removes Platz and Titan but does not touch DSC.

Merchant Scroll is good in the board.  I like to have 4 post board.  The idea is that Scroll does not use the yard as a draw engine.  Also Scroll finds Mystical->Tinker or Chain of Vapor.
Having a full set of Scrolls also allows Intuition->Scroll->Mystical->Tinker.
Chain of Vapor is really good.  I like to have access to 4 post board.  This gives plenty of ways to bounce Leyline and use the tradional combo.  Also the temp of Chain can help when you want to win with DSC.

I have toyed around with Gush.  Gush actually has some synergy since you can discard extra lands to Bazaar.  The problem is that you do not have enough lands anymore.  This has never worked out quite as I liked but I wonder if it still has potential.

The other idea I tried that did not work out was replacing Intuition with Compulsive Research post board.  Compulsive research can load the yard with Dragon if you are looking to combo out and it is a sweet draw engine with Leyline out.  Intuition is good for sure, but it is much weaker with Leyline in play.  Anyway, I would much rather Scroll for Ancestral than cast Compulsive Research.  Research seemed okay, but it was not good enough to either add to the main deck or clog up the sideboard.

The other card that is pretty good is Misdirection.  With all the Shop decks floating around I am not sure that MisD belongs in the main, but it is really solid against Control where MisDing your opponent's Ancestrals is a great way to win and fight through hate.

[Shock Wave]

The other card that is pretty good is Misdirection.  With all the Shop decks floating around I am not sure that MisD belongs in the main, but it is really solid against Control where MisDing your opponent's Ancestrals is a great way to win and fight through hate.

Can you elaborate on what a significantly advantageous role Misdirection plays in the Dragon vs. Control (?) matchup? I assume by control, you mean GAT or Oath?

Using pitch counters as a means to "fight through hate" with Dragon is not a good idea. This deck does not want to expend resources unless absolutely necessary, and it is highly unlikely for a competent opponent to walk an Ancestral into a Misdirection. Misdirection is a very narrow "solution" because it doesn't address any of the hate cards Dragon is concerned about.

I'm not sure about your other choices, but I contend that Misdirection, in the maindeck or in the sideboard, is a very poor option for Dragon players.

[meadbert]

I agree that Misdirection in the main is suboptimal in this Shop heavy meta.

Misdirection in the board is very good against Control.  The reason is that post board your primary graveyard based draw engine is likely to be taken out by an opponent's Leyline of the Void.  Because of Ichorid and Flash, most sideboards contains Leyline and that will come in against Dragon.  Intuition for Deep Analysis is no longer the strong play that it was pre board.

Going for a combo win becomes more difficult.  Your options are to try to bounce Leyline and then combo off.  This is why I propose running Chain of Vapor.  Your second plan is to just Tinker for DSC.  Misdirection is great for protecting Tinker.

Misdirection is very good against GAT.  GAT really wants to scroll for Ancestral and resolve it early.  Misidirection serves two purposes.  First it can protect your own Ancestral from Thoughtseize, Force or Misdirection.  Second it can potentially steal GAT's Ancestral Recall.

Because control decks are likely to have 4 Leyline and 2 Needle in the board they are going to want to pull out some cards.  Duress and Thoughtseize are two common cards to get pulled.  Dragon has too many cards that it wants in the yard anyway, and if your opponent does not start with Leyline in play then Misdirection is much better against Deep Analysis.

Without access to Duress/Thoughtseize and not expecting Misdirection in Dragon, many GAT player may actually walk their Ancestral Recalll into a Misdirection.

Finally Misdirection can be wonderful for protecting your combo.  If all you play is GAT then I would run it in the main deck.  There are several good ways to answer Dragon.  Their can be permanent based lock pieces like Leyline of the Void.  There can be counter spells.  Finally there can be removal/bounce in the form of Swords, Disenchant or Echoing Truth.  Hand rape is not so good since Dragon frequently draws several cards a turn so top decking an Animate spell is too likely.

Misidirection does not protect well from removal.  The reason is that you may be forced to discard your Misdirection as you Bazaar for Eternal Witness.  Force of Will does not have the luxury of waiting that long.  GAT must force animate right away which gives you a chance to protect your animate spell with Misdirection.

If you look at what tools GAT has access to preboard then you find maybe 1 removal Spell in Echoing Truth.  There are also some Duress effects which are ineffective at stopping the combo.  GAT's mainboard defense is actually dominated by countermagic where GAT will run 4 Force of Wills and as many as 3 Mana Drains.  Misdirection protects you from those Force of Wills and Mana Drains.  Also, in some cases your opponent will actually have double counter backup.  In this case it is nice to have Misdirection backup for your Duress.

A significant weakness that Dragon has against GAT in game 1 is those Misdirections that GAT runs.  Deep Analysisis Misdirectable.  Because Deep Analysis is frequently played after Bazaaring it into your yard or after Intuitioning you are likely to be tapping out to play one or two DAs.  In this case you may not want to lead with Duress to remove Misdirection.  For this reason walking your own Deep Analysis into GAT's Misdirection is very common.  Having Force or MisD to protect your own DA from GAT's Misd is very important.

Back when Meandeck Gifts and Long were King and Stax was barely showing up I actually ran Misdirections in the main and never regretted it.

[dicemanx]

Meadbert, you bring an interesting perspective to the table, but I remain skeptical about Misdirection's usefulness versus GAT post SB; I also would contest that GAT's Misdirections are a "significant weakness" of WGDX that runs 3-4 Deep Analysis. However, as I still remain undecided on the correct disruption suite (which must now address the danger that Shop decks present).  I cannot offer much further commentary until enough testing is done. I'm actually more curious to hear about your opinion of Brainstorm in WGD. I have yet to hear about that card working out well from past WGD players that have tried it, and I haven't tested it myself on theoretical grounds - there are simply too many legitimate cards to test so some need to be cut based on theory.

What I can suggest is that WGD builders and players revisit some old tech from the past - Xantid Swarms (which are better when the control/combo decks are slower - Gifts and Long were too fast which resulted in the abandonment of Xantids when WGDX debuted), and the card I'm most interested in testing - Carpet of Flowers. Carpets can permit some amusing possibilities like hardcasting WGDs, fueling large RtR, or hardcasting DAs. I'm much more interested in ways of winning resource battles (mana and cards) or bringing in blanket stoppers (like Xantids or Abeyance) rather than disruption spells that only trade 1-for-1 or worse out of the SB. Carpets already work well with Masks + Dreadnaughts along with Survival of the Fittest as a transformational SB option, but they can stand on their own against slower U-based decks.

GAT must force animate right away which gives you a chance to protect your animate spell with Misdirection.

Curiously enough this isn't necessarily true, although it does lead to an interesting dilemma for both players. If there is a Bazaar on the table, the GAT player might choose to let the Animate resolve and possibly force a draw if the WGDX can sense trickery on GAT's part, but only if the Witness kill is used. (To clarify: GAT might hold off on the FoW until the Bazaar strips away the WGDX player's hand; once Witness is found, whatever spell the Witness returns - likely an Animate - would then be countered instead). The problem is that WGDX plays a lot of instant speed kill cards, so when the Animate is cast and the WGD player has an Intuition or RtR in hand then holding off on the FoW could be a game ending mistake. I think the odds are in favor of an immediate FoW in general, but the GAT player should be studying their opponent very carefully for any clues about the proper timing of their FoW.

What is also amusing is that Witness has somehow ascended to the position of "best WGD kill card", which is something that I would dispute. Witness has its set of problems, as does Ambassador Laquatus. I was actually set to revert back to the Ambassador and go completely UB until Oath recently reared its ugly head again. I also wish that the ruling on Ambassador versus Blessing (remember that one?) was changed to what I think is more intuitive so that I could abandon Witness altogether.

According to me, the main strength of WGDX is not Bazaar anymore. The draw/discard engine is more in Intuition/Read The Runes/Deep Analysis abilities to tutor/draw/discard things. 3 is enough so that Bazaar can be intuitioned end of turn, dropped next turn, so that you can discard the winning condition.

I've mentioned before that I felt Bazaar had a diminished role in WGDX, and the deck no longer has to rely on the card. However, I would not run less than 4 as it still is the card I look for in my opening hand even if I plan on a single activation. It is imperative that a WGD reaches the yard as quickly as possible in some matches and have the ability to exploit those otherwise useless Animate spells; increased reliance on the resolution of a RtR or Intuition, fairly costly spells in a mana light archetype, is opening the door to trouble in my opinion.

As I look at that deck, though, I know they have all of the tools to cause Dragon problems. But many of those tools are disruptive creatures where proactively getting rid of them with a Thoughtseize would usually save you life in the long run (and even give you a card to reanimate if you hadn't pitched a Dragon yet *cough* Tarmogoyf *cough*).

Maybe - I'm not sure how important this is though. WGD is a very fast deck, and situations where you would select a beater out of their hand to save yourself some life in the short run rather than their disruption spell so that you can go off would likely indicate that WGD is not being exploited enough for what it does best. I would personally consider Thoughtseize over Duress for two reasons - as a means of discarding WGD, and as a way of removing a Magus of the Moon. There aren't any other disruptive creatures that typically concern me. If it turns out that those are insufficient reasons, I'd likely stick with Duresses or, as I mentioned above, swap out some for more maindeck bounce spells.

[c dizzle]

I would personally consider Thoughtseize over Duress for two reasons - as a means of discarding WGD, and as a way of removing a Magus of the Moon. There aren't any other disruptive creatures that typically concern me.

The other card that concerns me (since Goblines w/ Aether Vial sees play in my metagame) is Stingscourger. There are also some Fish builds running around that are running Waterfront Bouncer main. These aren't huge threats right now, but you know I'll use any anecdotal evidence to support Thoughtseize's inclusion in the deck.

[fury]

What I can suggest is that WGD builders and players revisit some old tech from the past - Xantid Swarms (which are better when the control/combo decks are slower - Gifts and Long were too fast which resulted in the abandonment of Xantids when WGDX debuted), and the card I'm most interested in testing - Carpet of Flowers. Carpets can permit some amusing possibilities like hardcasting WGDs, fueling large RtR, or hardcasting DAs. I'm much more interested in ways of winning resource battles (mana and cards) or bringing in blanket stoppers (like Xantids or Abeyance) rather than disruption spells that only trade 1-for-1 or worse out of the SB. Carpets already work well with Masks + Dreadnaughts along with Survival of the Fittest as a transformational SB option, but they can stand on their own against slower U-based decks.

Your comment reminds me the former debate about the choice Xantid vs Duress. In a more combo metagame, Duress seems to be better, and in a more control environment, Xantid assures the combo, provided it can stay on the table.

Would you anyway cut Duress ? I find the build with only Xantid quite weak and unable to disrupt the opponent, even if it prevents the opponent to play. And I didn't find place for 4 Xantid Swarms in WGDX without cutting important cards.

On the other hand, I find the Carpet of Flowers idea very relevant. The card drastically reduces the Worldgorger clock, balancing the drop of bazaar, providing mana of any color to cast key spells (Read The Runes, Deep Analysis, or sequences like Entomb+ Necromancy, Deep+flashback and so on) very early in the game. This choice is very relevant in the US metagame, which is plenty of GaT ; nevertheless, Carpet would be less effective in Europe, where there are a lot of Ichorid and Shop decks. In a word, this choice is a metagame choice, and covers most of the world's metagame, in so far as the most frequent color played in Vintage is blue.

Addendum : I did some stats about islands in the Vintage decks in the french metagame. The french environment is full of Stacks, Ichorid and MUD, and even with that, 60% of the decks have blue in their manabase. So, the Carpet of Flowers' choice seems to be very relevant, even in a less favorable metagame.

Abeyance is also a nice way to prevent the opponent to play annoying activated abilities or instant spells, but should we splash White only for it in a non 5color version ?

What is also amusing is that Witness has somehow ascended to the position of "best WGD kill card", which is something that I would dispute. Witness has its set of problems, as does Ambassador Laquatus.

May you explain this ? The only drawback I would find for the Witness kill is that it takes 3 slots for a 2 kills-strategy (1 Eternal Witness ; 1 Cunning Wish ; 1 Stroke of Genius and an alternate kill with Ancestral Recall). An alternate 2 kills-strategy would be for instance 1 Ambassador Laquatus+ 1 Caller of the Claw. It saves one slot, but cannot kill instantly. We could consider a Kumano+Shivan Hellkite strategy, which can kill instantly, but we need red mana to kill. I wonder why Eternal Witness cannot be considered as the best kill condition. Note on the place of kills main deck or in the sideboard : given Leyline is very present, we should consider including Research/Development instead of Cunning Wish. R&D may reshuffle WorldGorger Dragons or Eternal Witness which have been removed from the game.

I've mentioned before that I felt Bazaar had a diminished role in WGDX, and the deck no longer has to rely on the card. However, I would not run less than 4 as it still is the card I look for in my opening hand even if I plan on a single activation. It is imperative that a WGD reaches the yard as quickly as possible in some matches and have the ability to exploit those otherwise useless Animate spells; increased reliance on the resolution of a RtR or Intuition, fairly costly spells in a mana light archetype, is opening the door to trouble in my opinion.

I thought about this, and I confess you're right. I come back to 4 bazaar.

I want to add some comments about the meadbert experiments. Misdirection is, according to me, not enough multi-purpose. It cannot counter/disrupt some opponent's key spells. And the protection of the combo may be assured by other cheaper means. I would take the following base if I want to increase the protection of the combo (sacrificing the clock) :
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
2-3 Thoughtseize

On Merchant Scroll : isn't the card too slow for the WGD clock ? Could we consider Imperial Seal to reach directly Tinker, instead of doing Intuition=>Merchant=>Mystical=>Tinker ?

But I really like the Tinker-DSC version with a lot of bounces, instead of a transformal (and slots costly) sideboard. With this alternate no-graveyard kill, we may build a strong sideboard with artifact and enchantment destruction (Engineers Explosives, Reverent Silence for instance)

[fury]

Has anyone been testing the deck?

Any results?

Dear Vintage Worldgorger players,

I recently organized a full proxy tournament, where I decided to play an adapted WGDX version of this archetype. I am convinced that with the current aggro metagame, WGDX may succeed despite what people said by the past. The challenger Flash is more resilient and powerful, but it has some weaknesses like a lower ability to draw/find solutions (for now ; it's possible that Flash builders find new ways to improve the Flash archetype).

I) The build :

Here is my adapted list :


// Lands
    3 Polluted Delta
    4 Bazaar of Baghdad
    3 Flooded Strand
    1  Island
    1  Swamp
    1  Tropical Island
    1  Volcanic Island
    2  Underground Sea

// Creatures
    1  Eternal Witness
    4  Worldgorger Dragon

// Spells
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mana Vault
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Pearl
    3  Necromancy
    2  Animate Dead
    1  Dance of the Dead
    1  Echoing Truth
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    3  Read the Runes
    4  Force of Will
    4  Intuition
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Entomb
    1  Research/Development
    4  Duress
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Time Walk
    3  Deep Analysis

// Sideboard
SB: 4  Illusionary Mask
SB: 3  Phyrexian Dreadnought
SB: 3  Energy Flux
SB: 2  Stifle
SB: 1  Extirpate
SB: 1  Trickbind
SB: 1  Fire/Ice


It is a classic WGDX build, with a transformal sideboard based on the combination Illusionary Mask + Phyrexian Dreadnought, as dicemanx proposed it before. Here are the quick arguments for my choices for the main deck and the sideboard (I rediscuss them after the report).

For the main deck, I chose to include an Echoing Truth instead of a 7th reanimate spell, in order to remove annoying things in Game 1. I also chose to add a 61th card after a long thought : Time Walk. The introduction of this last card would not change significantly the probability of drawing, comparing to a 60 cards build, and Time Walk may be very useful in any circumstances, especially with the transformal sideboard. Moreover, it can give an alternate kill with Witness, by giving infinite turns.

I kept a 12-lands based strategy, because I didn't expect a lot of denial decks.

Lastly, I slightly modified the kill condition. Instead of Cunning Wish + Stroke of Genius, I chose a combination which can be included in game 2 and 3 : Research & Development and Fire/Ice. Stroke always stayed in the sideboard, and was a dead slot in it. With a lot of cards which remove from the game, I thought R&D may be useful. Fire/Ice were perfect to kill annoying creatures or tap blockers at games 2 and 3. I had to adapt the mana base, weaken it by replacing one Underground Sea by one Volcanic Island. I didn't really feel this weakness during the tournament.

The sideboard is around 4 Illusionary Mask, 3 Phyrexian Dreadnought and 2Stifle/1 Trickbind. Stifle/Trickbind are here to cast Dreadnought without mask, and may counter key effects like the Flash trigger. For the rest, I packed Energy Flux for any shop deck (I found it more useful than Kataki War Mage, and this choice avoids the white splash color), and I tried one Extirpate for Ichorid and control decks (Leyline of the Void is definitely a bad gravehate card according to me).

II) The tournament :

Full proxies tournament (this gave a very diversified and significant metagame, see breakdown further) ; not homologated (but I don't care for it )

Number of players : 36 / 6 swiss rounds + top 8. (some good players were coming from the Legacy or extended, I briefed most of them about the Vintage metagame to help them to build/use their sideboard)

Breakdown :

1 WGDX                         
2 Ichorid 5 colors           
3 Stacks                   
2 MUD                             
1 Aggro Dreadnought     
3 Oath Tyrant               
2 Control Slaver                 
3 Fish (UWB or with Red)   
3 Flash Slivers version only
2 Goblins                        
1 Dawn of the Dead           
3 GaT (dryad or Tarmo)     
1 Stacker                        
2 Manaless Ichorid             
1 Bomberman                   
3 GushedTarmogoyf           
2 Super Long                     
1 Deeznought                     


I start with a difficult matchup : Flash...

1) WGDX vs Flash Slivers (Toss : Flash) 2/1

Game 1 :

He mulligans to 6 cards, I keep my hand of 7.

I have a good hand with Force of will*2, Intuition, Deep analysis*2 and Bazaar. He begins with Tropical Island=>Poisonous Sliver. I set up my combo by discarding the deeps. He tries Merchant Scroll on Ancestral Recall, i force, he forces, i forces again. Both of us have 2 cards in hand, but I can draw with the deeps. He plays Merchant for Mystical tutor, so I assume wrongly he's searching Flash (he would have chosen Flash directly !). I duress him, and find and remove a Flash in his hand, so its mystical was certainly for Summoner's pact. I entomb for WorldGorger during my turn. Once he draws, he will only have summoner's pact in hand, and I lose if he topdecks a Flash. But this won't occur, and I can intution 3 reanimate spells to win.

Note that the kill was very difficult : I have only 3 cards in library when Eternal witness reaches the graveyard. And Research/Development was remove on a Force of Will, so that I couldn't reach Fire/Ice. So I had to do the following to win :
* reanimate Eternal Witness to bring back Necromancy
* Necromancy on WorldGorger to make a loop with Eternal Witness on the board
* bring my entire graveyard except one Worldgorger into my hand
* Stopping the loop by bringing back the last Worldgorger.
* Playing Ancestral Recall on my opponent, keeping 4 Force of will I may hardcast in hand.
* Duress the 3 cards he drew.
* casting Worldgorger Dragon with Black Lotus, countering it with Force of Will to put it into the graveyard
* restarting the loop to bringing back the 3 duress, ancestral recall, force of will, reanimate spells  and the Worldgorger.

I outdecked my opponent like this

Game 2 : I switch to the Masknought sideboard, removing Worldgorger and reanim spells.

He starts with 2 Poisonous Slivers turn one. I have one mask and a bazaar, but I draw nothing useful. He plays a third poisonous, and I know that I have one turn to find a solution (fire/ice).  This won't come, and I died, full of poison counters.

Game 3 : same plan. I fear his graveyard hate, even if I didn't see it.

It's a very rough game. I mulligan to 6, then I start with a mask+ bazaar but no Phyrexian Dreadnought. He plays a poisonous sliver. I duress him for a merchant scroll next turn, but he can cast a brainstorm, Demonic Tutor to find Ancestral Recall.  I cannot counter/disrupt him, the only duress I drew next was discarded for bazaar (good choice, I could dig my deck). I collect the poison counters, he has a lot of mana, and hardcast a Protean Hulk to kill me more quickly.

I have no cards in hand, and try to draw with bazaar to find a Phyrexian Dreadnought. I top time walk which gives me time. He slows me down by wipping away my mask, because he's sure to win in 2 turns (that was a mistake). I top my phyrexian (great !), cast mask + nought in the same turn without being countered.

He understands that I have a big 12/12 under the flipped card, and decides to block with Hulk to bring back all others slivers and win next turn. I attack, he blocks with protean and he puts into play the 3 other poisonous slivers, and the heart sliver.  I say "your turn", but I'm happy : I kept Echoing truth + Force of Will in my hand, after passing an uncountered Ancestral Recall....
He draws, then attacks. I play Echoing Truth, he answers with pact of negation, I force it. I take just one damage from the heart sliver and I attack next turn for the win.

Finally, I finish the game with 8 poison counters and  2 life. And he took exactly 20 damages : 2 from fetches, 6 from the first attack of the Phyrexian Dreadnought (which was blocked), and 12 from the second unblocked attack. That was close !

1-0-0

2) WGDX vs Goblins (Toss : Goblins) 0/2

Game 1 : Goblins has a very explosive hand, and begins with Leyline in play. I lose 2 turns to manage it, and need one turn to combo off. I can duress him a red elemental blast, but I won't have enough time to win. I side Mask+Nought.

Game 2 : He has the same explosive and hateful hand, I Mulligan to 6, and cannot win quickly enough. I extirpate his Wastelands, hardcast Eternal Witness to block Lackey, but he has 2 Fanatic Mogg to pass his Lackey. I cast Illusionary mask, but the Dreadnought won't come.

It was a very frustrated match, Goblin has a very regular clock and ways to annoy the opponent's deck. I hope I won't meet him again, as the player is very good, especially when he uses his sideboard.

1-1-0

3) WGDX vs Ichorid  5C (Toss : Ichorid 5C) 2/1

Game 1 : He drops bazaar and pass. I have Ancestral and no bazaar, I play it and discard a Worldgorger Dragon during my discard step. He discards some dredge during my turn, and seems to be ready to kill me quickly. But I reanimate WGD next turn, with Read the Runes and Eternal Witness in hand. It's a great 2 turns kill for me, and I thank God for
it, because he was ready to kill me next turn !
I side the Masknought combo because of the Ichorid gravehate.

Game 2 : He begins with bazar + dredge+ Leyline of the Void. I cast Illusionary Mask and find a Dreadnought by drawing with bazaar. I cast it and will win in 2 turns, but he's also very well, and will kill me before. He creates a lot of zombie tokens, by playing cabal therapy 2 times. I force the first cabal, and keep one card in hand... it's a Time walk.
With the second cabal, he didn't think about this card, so he names something wrong. Next turn, I attack, then play the other turn. He blocks with a lot of tokens to kill my dreadnought, and will have enough Ichorid and Narcomoeba to make a lot of tokens, and reanimate Zealot for the win. That was close !

Game 3 : I quickly setup Mask + dreadnought at turn 1, he won't have time to dredge early enough.

2-1-0

4) WGDX vs Deeznought (Toss : Deeznought I never have the toss !) 2/0

Game 1 : We duress each other. He has nothing in hand, topdecks several Force of Will and Stifle with ancestral recall. I cast 1 deep with its flashback, and through its force of will, I setup the combo, cast eternal witness to bring back duress and protect the WGD combo.

Game 2 : I side for the masknought combo. He begins with a very good hand : Wasteland/Strip mine, Fetch, Engineer Explosives, Trinket Mage, Trygon Predator, Sensei Divine Top. I stifle its strip mine, cast Intuition on mask, and cast Dreadnought. He destroys it with explosives, but another Dreadnought reaches the board. He tries to cast tarmogoyf to block it, but I Fire/Ice it and attack for the win.

3-1-0

5) WGDX vs Control Slaver ( Toss : Control Slaver ; I never begin...) 2/1

Game 1 : he begins with plenty of moxes, Merchant Scroll, Force of Will and double Thirst of Knowledge.  I pass time walk that he didn't counter, then I cast 2 duress to discard Merchant Scroll and one thirst. He nearly has no cards in hand, and must force my  Ancestral Recall, leaving him at zero cards in hand. I cast a deep, flashback it and have entomb /animate in hand. I can reanimate next turn with a Force of Will in backup.

Game 2 : he begins with library of Alexandrie and no blue. The game lasts, I try to find a Dreadnought for my mask, he waits for a blue mana source. When he topdecks a blue mana source, he plays tinker for sundering titan + pithing needle.
I won't be able to use my mask to cast dreadnought when I drew it, and the sundering destroyed most of my lands. I concede.
I decide to restore my deck with the WGD combo, as I didn't see any graveyard hate.

Game 3 : I begin with  some disruption, a bazaar and WGD in hand. He has only 2 welder and a lot of mana. I disrupt a Force of Will and a Gifts Ungiven. I entomb for Deep Analysis, so that I may draw next turn, but it's not necessary, I top a necromancy to win. If I knew, I wouldn't have weaken my deck by siding mask+naught at the 2nd game. Actually, the WGD combo can manage the hate/counter power of Control Slaver decks, even with a lot of bounces.

I have 12 points, but I'm not sure to be qualified for the top 8. My opponent won't be qualified, but refuses the draw, so I have to play a very difficult match against Manaless Ichorid.

4-1-0

6) WGDX vs Manaless Ichorid (Toss : guess it... Ichorid ! ) 2/1/1

Game 1 : He doesn't mulligan and has bazaar + dredge + ichorid + 2 bridges : broken hand. Fortunately, I can entomb WGD and have Animate Dead in hand. He dredge 11 cards, with 3 bridges in the graveyard. He Cabal Therapy to name something, but I counter (I fear he names Animate Dead...), removing R&D from the game. He is about to win, so I decide to reanimate dragon and make an infinite loop, though I would have drawn bazaar next turn...
It's a draw, because I cannot reach Eternal Witness and have no way to dig/discard through my library.

I side for Mask+ nought, as he saw what I'm playing.

Game 2 : He mulligans one time to 6 cards, then 2 times with serum powder. He bazaar golgari, then Unmask me Stifle. I have a slow hand with Illusionary Mask and Intuition. I drop a land, then he cabals my mask. I must Intuition for mask with black lotus, losing one turn. He dredge all his deck but two cards, and misplays his turn (he forgot to activate Ichorid, he draws too early, and should have made plenty of token to kill me in the turn). After his mistake, he cabals to create 4 tokens, then sacrifices 3 to bring back zealot ans attacks. I have a very low amount of life, he certainly will kill me next turn. So I try to reach Fire/Ice and kill one token, so that he cannot kill me in one turn (he draws his last card from his library...) and he loses with no cards in his library next turn.

That was close !!

I take the risk to restore my WGD combo despite the hate, because he is very fast and I must win quickly. I assume he will lightened his gravehate to reinforce the clock, as he saw I have a transformal sideboard based on Illusionary Mask and DreadNought. A risky bet !

Game 3 : After a serum mulligan, he begins very fast with bazaar chalice (that I force) and golgari.
I don't have time to setup the combo, and he didn't see that I return to the WGD combo.
A great turn 3 kill for him ! I keep the same WGD strategy.

Game 4 : He mulligans to one card (I have luck finally !), I have my first good hand of the round.
I begin with Ancestral, Read the runes to discard 2 Deep Analysis. He draws without dropping any land... I draw on deep, I draw bazaar, and find Worldgorger. One reanim and I win ! I'll find a necromancy two turns later, when he cannot find his bazaar to start.

This was a very tough game. I didn't have chance on my opening hands during this round, but fortunately, he completely ruined his hand in the last game. He confesses he should have kept the first hand with Leyline but no Bazaar, because he assumed I return to the WGD combo.



At the end of the Swiss rounds, I reach the 3rd place (5/1/0) . Flash and Gob are 1st and 2nd. In the tournament, there is always Manaless Ichorid, MUD, Oath and Long. This will be very difficult to go through...

The Top 8 with the pairings :

1 Goblins
2 Flash
3 Me with WGDX
4 SuperLong
5 Manaless Ichorid
6 Tyrant Oath
7 MUD
8 Gushed Tarmogoyf aggro

Goblins vs GushedTarmo
SuperLong vs Ichorid
Flash vs MUD
WGDX vs Oath



7) 1/4 WGDX vs Oath (Toss : Me ! It's enough rare to be noticed !) 2/0

Game 1 : I have a good hand with Bazaar+ Black Lotus. He also has a broken hand with Oath+ Forbidden Orchard. He tries to make pressure on me by casting its Oath without backup, because he has some tutors and draw cards in hand. I counter, I duress him during  my turn to remove Demonic Tutor. He brainstorms during my turn, I answer with intuition for 3 deep. He brainstorms again but cannot find another Oath or something useful. I attack with my tokens. He finally find Regrowth
for Oath, which he casts with success. He won't have time to activate it. With the help of the deeps, I will find Worldgorger next turn and reanimate it, with time walk to be sure he won't come back.

Game 2 : I chose the masknaught strategy, because he's playing extirpate.
He begins with Brainstorm and Forbidden Orchard, and draws Oath. I duress him, he
protects his Oath with brainstorm, and I see he has no protection
when he casts Oath next turn. I counters Oath, then extirpate it. He won't be able to come back in the game and concedes.

We speak about the game, the player confess that he's apparently tired,
and he has misplayed the second game. He should have played it more control against me. A very nice guy, though he was furious against himself.

8) 1/2 : WGDX vs Flash  (Toss : Me, I invoked the Good Eye on me...)

Game 1 : I start with Bazaar and a lot of moxes, but no blue nor black to cast key spells. He has a lot of counters, but nothing threatful. I try to pass an entomb, he hardcounters with force of will, I counter, he misdi. He passes an Ancestral Recall, but no Flash in hand, only Protean Hulk.
I have no cards in hand... I duress him, next turn then he finds a Brainstorm which will give him a vampiric tutor=> flash=> game

Game 2 : I keep the dragon combo, my opponent won't side hate. I start with land + 2 moxes and Stifle/Extirpate in hand. He starts with Ancestral, I try an Intuition during his turn, but he counters it. He draws with Brainstorm to find Summoner's Pact and Flash. He casts Summoner's Pact and Flash with a Force of Will in hand. I let the Flash resolve, then stifle the capacity of Protean Hulk, and stack my Extirpate on Force of Will, so that he cannot counter my Stifle (he's full tap, the two only ways to pass his combo are Force of Will or Pact of Negation).
My opponent wants to counter Stifle before I play Extirpate, but I explain him I can stack any number of spells and effects before I give him back priority. We call a judge for confirmation.

Extirpating Force fo Will makes me win, unless he has a Pact of Negation, but I take the risk, and nevertheless, I lose if I don't try this. He hasn't Pact of Negation in hand, so I win, because he won't be able to pay the Pact during his next upkeep. That was close !

Game 3 : same plan, I will try to disrupt him. He certainly will play more carefully. He mulligans to 5, then he starts with  Tropical Island and Virulent Sliver. I have a very good hand with Ancestral Recall, Bazaar, Vampiric Tutor, Necromancy and Black Lotus. It's an nearly-one turn kill, but
I will lack black mana to kill my opponent. I tried it because of his mulligan and I assume he has no real threat as he hardcasts a Sliver the first turn. I play Black Lotus for Vampiric Tutor, put
Worldgorger Dragon on top of my library, then play Mox Ruby and Bazaar to discard WGD.
I only have bazaar and mox ruby on the table, so I wait for mana to reanimate dragon. During his turn, he only attacks me with his sliver, and cast sylverkeep. Apparently, I was right : he's waiting for a brainstorm or a merchant to draw...

I top dance of the dead, drop a land and reanimate. My opponent counters with Disrupt. Next turn, he drops a land, attack and pass. Wew the tension is very high !

I play Ancestral Recall during my turn, he cannot misdi me, because he has no blue card in hand. I dig my deck to find a source of mana to cast necromancy. I reanimate next turn. My opponent ask me for the kill, because he has now a playable misdi in hand, and he hopes he can block the loop.

So I'm careful not to make mistakes. I use Bazaar until Eternal Witness is in the graveyard,
and I bring back Necromancy. I cast it, he cannot misdi the necromancy, because ther are only WGD in the grave.
I bring back my entire grave in hand, stopping the loop.  I duress him, and start again the loop after discarding WGD with bazaar. I kill him with fire/ice.

That was close, I had a chance he didn't draw any useful spell to reach a flash the last 2 turns.


I access to the final match. On the other side of the table, the Goblin player defeats the TarmoGush player. My friend Vincent, who plays SuperLong, won his match against Ichorid. It's a good news for me, as Manaless Ichorid is very annoying for Dragon. I hope Vincent will win against the
goblin player, but it will be difficult, as the goblin player is very good. And Vincent won against him ! Tinker/Platz helped him a lot...

The final will be interesting. I know exactly how he is playing (we often test decks each other), he is very skilled with the Long deck.

8) Final : WGDX vs Long (Toss : Long)

Game 1 : he begins with Thoughtseize and a good hand (Necropotence). I have Time Walk, Entomb, intuition, land, mox, R&D, Duress. He removes Entomb, because he fears an explosive combo start of me. I duress him and remove Grim Tutor. He drops a land and a mox, and waits for a Ponder during my turn. I draw a land, and have 2 intuitions in hand and Necromancy. He ponders during my turn, I intuition for 2 WGD and one deep analysis in response, he cannot counter. He ponders an awful hand : Ancestral Recall, Yawgmoth's Will and Dark Ritual. He can play ancestral during my turn, and draws Yawgmoth's Will, Dark Ritual and Demonic Tutor. During his turn, he casts Dark Ritual for Necropotence and draw 4 cards at the end of turn. Next turn, he certainly will be ready to combo off (Mind's Desire, Ponder, Black Lotus in hand). He should have draw more, because I'm also ready to win... In my turn, I reanimate for the win, he ponders to find only Cabal Rituals and a useless Pact of Negation.

Game 2 : he starts with a good hand : Yawgmoth's Bargain, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Demonic Tutor. He cast Demonic Tutor to find another Dark Ritual to cast Bargain next turn for the win. Unfortunately, I have a good hand too, with WGD, Bazaar, Animate Dead, Duress... but no black mana ! I put bazaar into play and activate it to discard WGD and Deep Analysis. Next turn, he is able to cast Bargain, and draw 18 cards (life =1). Unfortunately, he won't be able to reach
Tendrils of agony, though he can do a big storm ! He is obliged to tinker for Darksteel Colossus
(he has Platinum Angel in hand and hardcasts it with Dark and Cabal Rituals). He discards a lot of cards, and I pray that he won't have any disrupt... I must win quickly, or I will lose... I draw no black mana source, I bazaar to have 2 more cards, and find an Underground Sea. Wew I've got chance ! I can duress him, or take the risk to win. I observe the board, he has no blue mana, is full tapped except for a mox ruby. So I try to reanimate Dragon, hoping he has no Pact of Negation... And that is the case, because he has no answer to my reanimation. "Do you concede ?
No, show me the kill". He wants to see the kill, because with Platinum Angel on the table,
he doubts I can win (actually, he didn't really know how my deck is working, and he doesn't know that the WGDX version of Dragon can manage the Angel). He hopes I will fail my combo.

So here is the kill :

* After a reanimation, I cast an intuition to avoid the « last-card-of-the-library-bad-luck-its-Eternal Witness! » effect. I choose R&D, Eternal witness, and Force of  Will. He leaves me Witness in the hand, I discard it with bazaar, and top Extirpate, that I play to see his hand. He's full of blue spells, but has no blue anymore to play it. I remove Brainstorm and know now that I can combo off safely.
* I reanimate Witness to bring back R&D (because I have a second animate in hand).
* I restart the loop with witness. As I have Emerald and Underground Sea on the board, I can play R&D for Fire/Ice, but I must find Mox Ruby to kill.
* I play R&D to bring Fire/Ice, Entomb, and Stifle into my library
* I cast intuition to find Fire/Ice, Entomb and Stifle.
* I bring back these cards, and cast Entomb to bring into the loop a Necromancy, a Dance of the Dead and Black Lotus.
* I stop the loop by bringing my graveyard into my hand
* I play Black Lotus, Mox Ruby, and hardcast Worldgorger Dragon, hardcounter it with Force of Will to discard it without drawing (i could, but it's more funny like that ).
* Then, I restart the loop with red mana on the board and a eternal fire/ice. I kill his platz to kill him next.

He confesses he removed the pacts because he has them in hand with no possibility to use them in game 1. But he regrets not having them with Platinum Angel ! Moreover, He confesses he went too quickly when he casts Yawgmoth's Bargain, he didn't see he will lack blue mana (and he didn't expect not to draw Mox Sapphire or Black Lotus on his 18 cards too).

So I finish at the first place after a hard tournament. I wasn't very lucky for the toss, but the matches were very interesting !

Some comments on the performance :

The WGDX build has revealed itself very multi-purposes, it could handle a lot of situations, though some matchups were very difficult to win, especially the top tiers decks (Ichorid and Flash, I met 2 ichorids and 2 times the same Flash player). The Masknought sideboard is an interesting alternative, but it was less useful during the top8 matches. I have discovered during the top 8 that most of decks had some gravehate, but not as much as I thought. So I mostly kept the WGD combo, as the gravehate entered by the opponent was possible to manage. Maybe on some ways, I would return to a sideboard similar to what I exposed in my article :

3 Reverent Silence
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Energy Flux
1 Stifle
1 Trickbind
1 Fire/Ice
3 Extirpate

I will test it, and will see if the WGDX supports a non transformal sideboard. In the same way, I wonder if the 61 card Time Walk is not an « over-card » in WGDX. I didn't lack of reanimation spells during the tournament, but I would prefer driving the deck with 7 reanim spells rather than 6. The Fire/Ice kill were efficient acording to me.

Should we forsake the WGDX archetype for Flash ? I fear it will be the case if Flash or Merchant are not restricted. WGDX still has some good points comparing to Flash, but I feel this won't last very long... The debate is opened !

That's all for now. Thanks for reading,

fury

[CHOZO]

I'm sure there is a reason for it, but why not just use shivan hellkite instead of eternal witness and research development?

[dicemanx]

Thanks for the report fury, and good job on the 1st place finish! The R/D into F/I kill is very interesting, although I wonder if, as CHOZO suggests, it might be better to just get rid of Witness and R/D and replace with Shivan Hellkite. This would of course require a 5C approach, but it would also allow you to support good W spells out of the SB (Kataki, Abeyance, Serenity, Balance etc). I see that you got a lot of mileage out of your SB Stifle and Extirpate as well, which is quite notable. The 61st card (Time Walk) is debatable; while I haven't used Time Walk in my builds in the past, I still am not completely sure if that card belongs. I think if a transformational SB is used then it makes sense to run Walk, but otherwise it will do little apart from enabling the occasional extra land drop.

Your question about forsaking WGD and opting for Flash - I think that Flash overshadows WGDX now as it is faster and more resilient, and has better card drawing/search with the BS and Ponders. WGD has a better midgame with actual card advantage cards (DAs) but the format is fairly fast right now that this advantage isn't that impressive.

Incidentally, in the finals, did your opponent really cast the Ponder on your turn? Ponder is a sorcery. Maybe it was a Brainstorm instead?

[linsi]

congrets to the first place!

i have a question, in the match against ichorid, where you were forced to create a draw.did your opponenet really had no creatures in grave or did you have 2 rean spells?

i play gorger myself, not wgdx, and i use the oath+tyrannt sb. have you ever played the oath sb, iam curious wich is better, mask or oath, imean both need another turn to do something and cost 2 mana so they are simmilar somehow and atm a tyrannt in play seems to me to be better than a 12/12 guy.
 i would be happy if you have some expirience helping you to compare this for us.

furthermore iam glad that you defeatet that stupid flash decks, but iam not sure how the new flash kill with body double and that white guy(forgot its name) will work against wgd. i think the future will show up.

[The Atog Lord]

On the matter of Time Walk. I've run Dragon a fair amount in the past, and have found that Time Walk is a card that I would not consider cutting from the deck. It generally cycles, while increasing the count of blue cards in the deck. Early game, it replaces itself with no cost. In the later game, it allows you to set up a turn of card-draw followed by a turn of pushing through your win condition. It allows you to set up well against counter effects too. It also lets you get more mileage out of your Bazaars. And if you board in any attacking creature, it makes them better.  In short, any Dragon deck that I would play would include Time Walk.

[fury]

Thanks for your replies, gentlemen. I wish to add something about the performance :

1) Though I nearly never had the toss, I would consider I had luck during this tournament. The Flash  player I met two times (first rounds and semi-final) made mistakes. Against a more skilled player, WGDX would maybe have lost, according to me, though I master the deck quite well now. Moreover, there wasn't any Reveillark Flash deck in the breakdown. The Reveillark version seems to be more powerful (see discussion in the Adepts Chronicles' part of the TMD forums [ Here ; If I could, I would post there )

2) I'm pretty sure WGDX can handle Ichorid 5 colors. But the Manaless version is quite a nightmare. I won only because my opponent misplays one game, and because I had very powerful hands.

Despite the result, I think the Worldgorger Archetype is dying slowing, not because of the hate, but because of the rise of more degenerated archetypes (Flash and Ichorid).

I'm sure there is a reason for it, but why not just use shivan hellkite instead of eternal witness and research development?

Using Shivan Hellkite saves one slot yes. It handles plenty of situations. But the Eternal Witness/Research-Development kill is more multi-purposes. In a global strategy (main deck and sideboard), R&D may shuffle again your removed  from the game cards into your library. After the first game, Fire/Ice can be included main deck. Moreover, the Witness kill doesn't fear Pithing Needle. Finally, the witness kill does not need red mana to win. See my first game, where I outdecked my opponent with ancestral recall. Of course, most of the time, I want to have infinite blue, red, green and black mana on the table to cast R&D and plenty of Fire&Ice. But the witness version is able to kill with only black mana on the table. To cast the first reanimate spell, then to cast another reanimate with Witness on the table, so that any card may be played after ; once this occurs, you can reach any mana/card/solution/kill to win. With my decklist, I may kill with Fire&Ice, infinite Time walk, or infinite ancestral (plus others cases which never occur : attack with Worldgorgers, Extirpate the whole opponent's deck, and others funny tricks). The hellkite kill is a draw if you don't have red mana on the table, and in my build I have only 2 playable cards that are red (excepting Worldgorger, that I didn't cast often ).

I'm not saying the hellkite or kumano's kill is bad, I'm just arguing about the choice I made.

Thanks for the report fury, and good job on the 1st place finish!

I really thank you too, because your analyses on the Worldgorger archetype are very useful and help me very much to understand and improve the build and my skill

The R/D into F/I kill is very interesting, although I wonder if, as CHOZO suggests, it might be better to just get rid of Witness and R/D and replace with Shivan Hellkite. This would of course require a 5C approach, but it would also allow you to support good W spells out of the SB (Kataki, Abeyance, Serenity, Balance etc).

I have heavily tested the 5C version one year ago, I wasn't convinced after discovering the WGDX version of the archetype. The U/B version is consistent, and don't suffer from the instability of the 5C version. But I would consider this again, because each color would be able to bring some interesting solutions. To prepare this tournament, my way of thinking was to ask the following question : if I find a card useful for the Worldgorger archetype, how can I find a similar one in blue or black ? That is how, for instance, I replace Kataki with Energy Flux, because some Stacks decks were still functionning with a Kataki on the table (with 2 Energy Flux, none were running !). But of course, depending on the hate we must fight, the 5 colors version has more cards' choice.

I see that you got a lot of mileage out of your SB Stifle and Extirpate as well, which is quite notable.

I wish I could include more of these cards in the sideboard. That's why I suggested another sideboard with more Extirpate and Stifle, which are able to disrupt and slow down Flash and Ichorid decks. The unlucky Oath I eliminated with counter + extirpate played carelessly. Duress + extirpate is also very annoying for the opponent's deck, and I think it's a part of the Worldgorger strategy to heavily disrupt decks which are faster than it.

The 61st card (Time Walk) is debatable; while I haven't used Time Walk in my builds in the past, I still am not completely sure if that card belongs. I think if a transformational SB is used then it makes sense to run Walk, but otherwise it will do little apart from enabling the occasional extra land drop.

After playing it, I would keep it as the 61st card. I consider that the card reduces the deck by one card, in so far as when you have it, you play another turn (no card, nor mana disadvantage). Moreover, you have one additional draw phase, one land drop, one additionnal attack phase which may be crucial to win. Of course, it is restricted, but it can be tutored to make broken turns, especially with Dreadnought on the table.

Your question about forsaking WGD and opting for Flash - I think that Flash overshadows WGDX now as it is faster and more resilient, and has better card drawing/search with the BS and Ponders. WGD has a better midgame with actual card advantage cards (DAs) but the format is fairly fast right now that this advantage isn't that impressive.

I agree. That's why I wonder if the WGD archetype is still viable. Maybe we should reconsider the WGDX with the Flash tutoring engine, even if the Hulk combo is more simple to cast. If Flash is restricted (I don't think it will be), the WGD build will get back interest. I'd rather see the DCI unrestrict Entomb to make WGDX more explosive.

Incidentally, in the finals, did your opponent really cast the Ponder on your turn? Ponder is a sorcery. Maybe it was a Brainstorm instead?

According to my notes and my memory, it actually was a Ponder he played during my turn. I didn't see the mistake, nor him. I don't think he wanted to cheat, I know the player. It was an involuntary mistake, we were both tired !

i have a question, in the match against ichorid, where you were forced to create a draw.did your opponenet really had no creatures in grave or did you have 2 rean spells?

You are right, I didn't clarify it. I only had one reanimate spell. Actually, I didn't see on the moment I could reanimate in his graveyard, I was in a hurry to go to game 2, because he had an explosive hand, and I had to win before him. My opponent made an awful head when I cast Entomb, and he believed he would lost the first game, despite his broken hand (he saw me playing WGDX before). So when I told him I couldn't kill him after casting the reanimate spell, and thus it was a draw, he was very happy and began to board immediatly. Thanks for the remark ! (maybe I should have said nothing, he maybe would have concede ).

i play gorger myself, not wgdx, and i use the oath+tyrannt sb. have you ever played the oath sb, iam curious wich is better, mask or oath, imean both need another turn to do something and cost 2 mana so they are simmilar somehow and atm a tyrannt in play seems to me to be better than a 12/12 guy.
 i would be happy if you have some expirience helping you to compare this for us.

I already tested the Oath sideboard. As I showed it in my article, Oath fears the enchantment removals like Emerald Charm or Reverent Silence. Moreover, the WGD archetype lacks of library manipulation (Brainstorm for instance), reducing the efficiency of the plan (though Intuition helps a lot to find the Oath). I prefer the Mask+nought sideboard, because you can cast the creature in the same turn, and don't have to wait to have the kill on the table. And if Mask is destroyed during your turn, Dreadnought is still on the board. With Oath, you must wait for its activation to have your tyrant on the table, and that gives enough time to your opponent to find a solution (bounce, stifle).

But the Oath/tyrant solution is not bad, it's a more control option than the mask+nought sideboard. The last argument for the Mask+nought option is that it brings Stifle and Trickbind, 2 well-multipurpose cards.

furthermore iam glad that you defeatet that stupid flash decks, but iam not sure how the new flash kill with body double and that white guy(forgot its name) will work against wgd. i think the future will show up.

Well, the Flash matchups were quite difficult to go through ! But I will test the reveillark kill against WGDX, I like new challenges.

On the matter of Time Walk. I've run Dragon a fair amount in the past, and have found that Time Walk is a card that I would not consider cutting from the deck. It generally cycles, while increasing the count of blue cards in the deck. Early game, it replaces itself with no cost. In the later game, it allows you to set up a turn of card-draw followed by a turn of pushing through your win condition. It allows you to set up well against counter effects too. It also lets you get more mileage out of your Bazaars. And if you board in any attacking creature, it makes them better.  In short, any Dragon deck that I would play would include Time Walk.

Thank for your opinion, I totally agree !

[Lemnear]

I'm wondering why you still play that outdated combo using cunning wish and recurring whitness. Even I don't know why such a fast combo-deck even need a draw engine, so Read the runes and Carefull study are both not only carddisadvantage but moreover a waste of slots. Try using this:

1. animate Dragon creating some mana
2. declare Whitness as new target for the reanimation spell
3. Whitness grab another reanimator form the grave
4. Cast that spell declaring Dragon as target
5. Both reanimation enchantments come into play and leave it naming Dragon and Hellkite as targets
6. Repeat as you wish

Our team did some testing over weeks and realize that Force of Will with that less blue spells AND Bazaar is useless. We stuck on discard and we're not disappointed moreover you'll able to shoot down not only your opponent but make Meddling Mage (What reanimator to name???) and Platz nearly useless using Hellkite that is very similar to the former engine via Laquatus and Shivan Hellkite but not blocked by Needle. Check it out!


Team RS - Dragon's Fang

4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
1x Swamp
4x Underground Sea
5x Moxe
1x B. Lotus
1x Mana Crypt
1x Entomb
1x Vamp. Tutor
1x Dem. Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Duress
4x Thoughseize
4x Animate Dead
4x Dance of the Dead
4x Squee, Goblin Nabob
4x Worldgorger Dragon
1x Eternal Whitness
1x Bogardan Hellkite
4x Intuition

[dicemanx]

I'm wondering why you still play that outdated combo using cunning wish and recurring whitness. Even I don't know why such a fast combo-deck even need a draw engine, so Read the runes and Carefull study are both not only card disadvantage but moreover a waste of slots. Try using this:

Read the Runes enable alternate discard and allow you to win with a WGD in the graveyard and no Bazaar in play; it makes sense to pair RtR + Intuition with Cunning Wish as the kill card to enable you to win. For instance, Intuition, Animate and Wish is a kill, but Intuition, Animate, and Hellkite isn't. If you examine your list, you will have to mulligan around 40% of the time because without Bazaar your hands will be unkeepable. Also, Intuition is weakened because outside of having Bazaar on the table, Intuition + Animate does *not* win the game. What is also puzzling is that you include Entomb; Entomb + Animate doesn't win either, and once again you need Bazaar to be in play already.

I think you greatly underestimate the synergies that gave rise to the RtR build, and you also underestimate the importance of card drawing. Not every game in T1 ends by turn 2. Keep in mind that your proposed list has been done before, and WGDX was meant to be an evolutionary step away from such lists. The older lists (such as the one presented in your post) are overly reliant on Bazaar, and run a lot of potentially meaningless cards if Bazaar is not drawn or is destroyed (via Wasteland, Needle post SB etc) such as Squee or Intuition or the excessive animate spells.

Our team did some testing over weeks and realize that Force of Will with that less blue spells AND Bazaar is useless.

I agree that with a lower blue card count FoW diminishes in power. However, FoW is as important as ever in the current environment because of the speed of other archetypes. Reliance on Duress effects is also quite risky because playing a Duress often consumes a full turn; for instance, ideally you want to play Bazaar on turn 1, land and Mox on turn 2 and play Duress, then Animate on turn 3. If that Duress is a FoW, you could be comboing off on turn 2 with protection instead of having to wait.

I'm not saying that 8 Duress effects is incorrect, but we would need to see whether that translates into success in actual tourneys first and whether the loss of FoW is OK for the deck to be successful.

We stuck on discard and we're not disappointed

What did you test against, and with what results?

moreover you'll able to shoot down not only your opponent but make Meddling Mage (What reanimator to name???) and Platz nearly useless using Hellkite that is very similar to the former engine via Laquatus and Shivan Hellkite but not blocked by Needle.

Your build doesn't improve over the WGDX build versus Meddling Mage or Platinum Angel - both builds can overcome either creature equally easily.

Needle is also rather inconsequential in the analysis, because of the rare times that an opposing deck has Needle in the SB, they will name Bazaar and totally shut you down. You won't find Needle naming Laquatus or Hellkite. I think you're actually wasting a slot on Witness in your build because you can run B/R duals or 5C lands and Shivan Hellkite, which does the job of two cards (Witness and Bogardan Hellkite).

Also, to make your Entomb and Intuition make more sense, you need to run *two* kill conditions (how quickly people forget this). For instance, suppose that you have Entomb (or Intuition) and Animate and plan to kill with another Intuition. You can Entomb/Intuition a WGD into the grave, animate it, but then you have no follow-up with the Intuition in hand because you can't get another creature kill card into the graveyard. If a second kill card is used in the deck the follow-up intuition can grab both, and one will get deposited into the graveyard. For the second kill card I'd run Sliver Queen because it is actually castable in a 5C build and makes for a great alternate reanimate target.

There is a way around the need for 2 creature kill cards though - because you're running Squee, you can Intuition for a Squee and Shivan Hellkite, then stop the loop by animating Squee and hardcast the Hellkite. You can do this only if you're running ample R mana though. However, I don't like Squees all that much because they are rather useless without Bazaar and very slow in generating card advantage. The format is too fast for them to work effectively.


I would suggest that if you intend to be reliant on Bazaar, that you try going balls-to-the-wall and beef up your fast mana (Lotus Petal and Dark Rituals), animate spells, and add Serum Powders to assist in finding the all important Bazaar. You can trim back on cards like Squee and on some of the Duress effects (Really, what exactly can stop your combo turn 1 that you need to duress away? Why not just hammer away with Animates until you punch through). Here is a sample build:


4x WGD
2x Shivan Hellkite
4x Animate Dead
4x Dance of the Dead
1x Necromancy

3x Buried Alive
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Serum Powder

1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Imperial Seal

3x Duress
4x Thoughtseize

5x Mox
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Lotus Petal
4x Dark Ritual
4x Badlands
4x Polluted Delta
3x Wooden Foothills

On the matter of Time Walk. I've run Dragon a fair amount in the past, and have found that Time Walk is a card that I would not consider cutting from the deck. It generally cycles, while increasing the count of blue cards in the deck. Early game, it replaces itself with no cost. In the later game, it allows you to set up a turn of card-draw followed by a turn of pushing through your win condition. It allows you to set up well against counter effects too. It also lets you get more mileage out of your Bazaars. And if you board in any attacking creature, it makes them better.  In short, any Dragon deck that I would play would include Time Walk.

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).

[linsi]

@fury thank you for clearing the situation, i thought of something like that^^.
 
the both sb variations are ,to my mind personal decisions to make, they have pro`s and con`s both.
the mask plan seems to be very fast and disruptive with stifle, but somehow it doenst suits me.
i think the mainpoint why i think the oath plan is superiour is that the hole deck with its bazaar action and the disruptive slots work better as a combo deck than transforming it into a kind of "fast aggro".
all synergies and all decisions while building the deck are made to create a damn fast combo deck, but thats my personal point of view.

@lemnear: your team is not the first, i hope that, to say fow with too less blue is useless^^. yes, thats true!
but in all the other dragon built, exept yours, is enough blue, so why do you want us to cut the card which avoids opponents first turn kills?

according to your list i want so say that it is build straght forward, it wants to start the combo as fas possible after duressing/thoughts. thats a good strategy, but its not that easy.
i miss more card draw, you cant have a bazaar always in your opening hand and even with powder if you have one always, the quality of your statr hand must be at least non optimal.
what iam trying to say is there are decks like flash that beat you up, even if you have a 2nd turn kill in hand, cause they run fow, i know that you have 8 duress but i think that powder decreases you hand card quality in that way that you dont have enough recources to win a after your ammo is shoot away.

have you ever thought off an instant win, where is necromancy???

to sum it up, dragon needs more weapons than your list has to be competative in the current meta,
maybe iam wrong, but in theory fow is a must!

[Lemnear]

As lot of response ... so where to start...

I guess that argueing point by points takes much to long so I try to answer by overlooking the written terms ... If I miss something essentially please remind me. 

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.

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.

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.

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. Away from this I'm aware of the power of read the runes but it's power basically rely on the dragon in the yard or hand. I'm know it could replace the Squee-thing but he could do a better job if the game took a few turns more as you mentioned too (at this point I could talk 'bout the discarder again  ). And again I agree to our reliance on bazaar and we both agree that needle would hit bazaar not a Shivan Hellkite. So what's your 2 favorite kill-conditions in the deck? I'm not even sure if you really need 2 if both are graveyard based and neither dodge hate.