Worldgorger Dragon Combo -- Still Viable?

[wiley]

What he is saying is that animate dead requires a target when you play it.   The dragon that will be in the grave when animate dead resolves is not its original target and it will fizzle.  At least I think that is how it works.

It follows all the rules for Aura (Enchant Creature) cards. [WotC Rules Team 1997/03/14] For example, it counts for abilities that interact with creature enchantments, such as Rabid Wombat. [Aahz 1997/06/06]

G1.30 - Aura
G1.30a - Some enchantments have the subtype "Aura." An Aura spell requires a target whose properties are indicated by its enchant keyword ability. An Aura permanent comes into play attached to the object or player the spell targeted. [CompRules 2007/05/01]

[XdeckX]

I might have been confused by the wording of Animate Dead. It doesn't state a target in the text. But I forgot the Aura part of the card actually means it's targetted due to being an Aura.
So you might actually be right and it doesnt work. Lesson learned

[meadbert]

Here is the list I played:

2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl

Wins:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tidespout Tyrant (Should have been Oona!)
2 Necromancy
3 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead

Protection/Disuruption
4 Duress
1 Cabal Therapy (Should have been Tyrant or Chain of Vapor)
4 Force of Will

Draw/Tutor:
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Deep Analysis
4 Strategic Planning
4 Quiet Speculation

sideboard:
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Triskelivus (Should have been Tyrant)
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ancient Grudge
4 Oath of Druids
1 Gaea's Blessing

Although I bash Triskelivus and the main deck Tyrant, they actually did very well.  I once Planninged Tyrant into the yard, animated him and let him roll to victory so he is not terrible in the main deck at all.
I am worried that if I pull Tyrant I need to find room for bounce in the main.  One option is to drop Cabal Therapyl.

The token Cabal Therapy looks random, but he can protect you.  Your opponent may let Animate resolve and then let you mill your hand away only to counter the animate you get back with Witness.  The idea was that Therapy could protect from this and it is pretty solid against Long since you frequently know what is in their hand.  With Oona in the main, Therapy is not needed since you can just animate Oona and win on the spot.

[Jo84]

@xDeckx: This way wouldn´t have worked either as you can´t respond to Tormod's Crypt's activated ability as Necromancy has sorcery speed. (sorry my fault, should read the cards more frequently)

The Therapy is an interesting idea as the animate dead you get from Eternal Witness is the main weakness of the combo. I would rather cut a Quiet Speculation for Chain of Vapor, as you won´t be playing more than two of them in an entire game.

[Purple Hat]

@xDeckx: This way wouldn´t have worked either as you can´t respond to Tormod's Crypt's activated ability as Necromancy has sorcery speed.

The Therapy is an interesting idea as the animate dead you get from Eternal Witness is the main weakness of the combo. I would rather cut a Quiet Speculation for Chain of Vapor, as you won´t be playing more than two of them in an entire game.

Necromancy can be played as an instant.  if it is it dies at eot.

as I understand the most recent rule changes and oracle text: Animate dead still is a global enchantment with a CIP trigger that targets a creature and brings it from the graveyard then animate dead becomes an aura on that creature and it's text gets changed.  I haven't played since the changes they made to prevent you from bringing akroma into play with an animate dead though so I could be wrong about this.

[wiley]

9/16/2007 This is a new wording. Animate Dead is now an Aura. You target a creature card in a graveyard when you play it. It comes into play attached to that card. Then it returns that card to play, and attaches itself to that card again (since the card is treated as a new object in play).

http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=343

Stated in the official rulings section.  According to this the original target when Bert played the spell would no longer exist. 

Don't beat yourself up at all over this Bert, the only way you could have gotten around it would have been to luck sack a second dragon, a witness and another necro off bazaar (keeping the necro and dragon in hand) then grab lotus with witness and win.  I doubt your hand was very large at that point in the game though.

[fury]

Congratulations for your performance Meadbert !

If you're already running white for orim's chant, pull from eternity is a great option in the SB

I confirm. As Leyline of the Void is less played than before (people prefer playing Extirpate or Tormod's Crypt to manage the graveyard, except in Ichorid), Pull from Eternity is a real good option to bring back a Dragon or a removed-from-the-game  blue card by Force of Will.

Since both Long and Slaver are both good matchups and I only played against those decks all day I cannot really say this deck is good in general.  I never played against a Wasteland all day long.  I do feel confident in saying that the Long matchup is strong since I won four rounds against Long.

I agree on the fact that Long may be a favorable matchup, with some disruption and enough drawing to break their combo plan. But how do you consider that Control Slaver is a favorable matchup ? Generally speaking, Dragon  has difficulties to deal with control archetypes. Could you clarify this point ? Shouldn't we play Abeyance or Xantid Swarm against it ? A more aggro strategy (Tarmogoyf for instance) ?

What he is saying is that animate dead requires a target when you play it.   The dragon that will be in the grave when animate dead resolves is not its original target and it will fizzle.  At least I think that is how it works.

Indeed. When played, Necromancy/Dance of the Dead, Animate dead target the creature card in the graveyard. So if the target moves to another zone, the spell is countered. On the other hand, the CIP effects of reanimation enchantments don't target, so the change of the creature to reanimate is allowed.

[Dante]

I've always had insanely good matchups with Dragon vs Drain decks - in 3 tournaments including a Worlds and a SCG Chicago, I was 8-0 vs Drain decks (3cc, Slaver, Gifts).  The losses all came from mana denial decks (Steve's 2004 monoblue with 5 strips and Back to Basics, UR Fish, workshop, UB Fish).

[fury]

I've always had insanely good matchups with Dragon vs Drain decks - in 3 tournaments including a Worlds and a SCG Chicago, I was 8-0 vs Drain decks (3cc, Slaver, Gifts).  The losses all came from mana denial decks (Steve's 2004 monoblue with 5 strips and Back to Basics, UR Fish, workshop, UB Fish).

Which version did you play ? Dragon 5C, UB, splash ? Drain decks may quickly control the board, and it's difficult to combo off after turn 4 with Dragon.

[Dante]

I've always had insanely good matchups with Dragon vs Drain decks - in 3 tournaments including a Worlds and a SCG Chicago, I was 8-0 vs Drain decks (3cc, Slaver, Gifts).  The losses all came from mana denial decks (Steve's 2004 monoblue with 5 strips and Back to Basics, UR Fish, workshop, UB Fish).

Which version did you play ? Dragon 5C, UB, splash ? Drain decks may quickly control the board, and it's difficult to combo off after turn 4 with Dragon.

Twice it was UBg, once 5 Color.

[the boogie man]

How good is quiet speculation? I try really hard to understand what they do other than put deep anals in the yard. Is there a better card? Like intuition or lim-duls vault or something?

[meadbert]

Since both Long and Slaver are both good matchups and I only played against those decks all day I cannot really say this deck is good in general.  I never played against a Wasteland all day long.  I do feel confident in saying that the Long matchup is strong since I won four rounds against Long.

I agree on the fact that Long may be a favorable matchup, with some disruption and enough drawing to break their combo plan. But how do you consider that Control Slaver is a favorable matchup ? Generally speaking, Dragon  has difficulties to deal with control archetypes. Could you clarify this point ? Shouldn't we play Abeyance or Xantid Swarm against it ? A more aggro strategy (Tarmogoyf for instance) ?

Dragon has a bad Slaver matchup, but once I board into Tyrant Oath my Slaver matchup is amazing.  The result is that against Slaver I have a tough game 1 and then games 2 and 3 are heavily in my favor.

[islanderboi10]

4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
1 Eternal Witness

Lands
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Polluted Delta
3 Forbidden Orchard
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical
2 Island
1 Swamp

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

Instants
3 Intuition
4 Force of Will
3 Read the Runes
3 Duress
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor

Sorcerys
4 Deep Analysis
2 Strategic Planning
1 Demonic Tutor

Enchantments
3 Necromancy
3 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead


Here is the new list. I added the fourth deep analysis to make the draw engine better, it is also better witht he 2 strategic planning. I also went back to the witness kill because I seem to like it more.

Thoughts? thanks!

My sideboard is still the same.
I was wondering, and I know this was probably answered already, but how come the Oath Sideboard is 4 Bogarden Hellkites instead of say akrome + Dragon or something?

[Negator13]

You can't run Akroma 'cause it has pro black (i'm pretty sure). But Hellkite could actually be good since it's a damn good Animate target itself. Still I don't know if three more damage a turn is worth trading the ability to ping off troublesome creatures.

[Schonkreuz]

yea I think the way it works is that you can target akroma while she is in the grave cause the pro black isnt active or whatever and then as soon as she hits play she is like 'wooow, pro black' and the enchantment falls off and she dies.

[Dante]

yea I think the way it works is that you can target akroma while she is in the grave cause the pro black isnt active or whatever and then as soon as she hits play she is like 'wooow, pro black' and the enchantment falls off and she dies.

Actually this is not correct - the end result is that because the Aura never attaches to Akroma due to Pro: Black, it never "falls off", and Akroma stays in play.

There's a thread here http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=30025.0 that came out right after the Animate effects were changed to Auras.

The relevant parts are this (and note the difference between Protection from Black and untargetability from something like Simic Sky Swallower):

Animate Dead targets the SSS in the graveyard, when its abilities don't apply. Then the SSS comes into play, and Animate Dead attaches (this happens without any targeting). The Animate Dead is able to attach and does not fall off, because SSS doesn't say anything about being enchanted. This is similar to the Enduring Ideal interaction (you can Faith's Fetters a SSS off Ideal). You have a SSS enchanted with Animate Dead that will die if Animate Dead is destroyed (also, SSS does nothing to prevent Animate Dead from being targeted by, say, Naturalize.).

Animate Dead also targets Akroma in the graveyard, when its protection doesn't apply. Then Akroma comes into play, but the Animate Dead does not attach, because Akroma can't be enchanted by black auras. The Animate Dead is put into the graveyard, but Akroma stays in play. Animate Dead's leaves play ability does nothing, because there was no "enchanted creature

[Schonkreuz]

er I was close enough >>

[LordHomerCat]

yea I think the way it works is that you can target akroma while she is in the grave cause the pro black isnt active or whatever and then as soon as she hits play she is like 'wooow, pro black' and the enchantment falls off and she dies.

Actually this is not correct - the end result is that because the Aura never attaches to Akroma due to Pro: Black, it never "falls off", and Akroma stays in play.

There's a thread here http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=30025.0 that came out right after the Animate effects were changed to Auras.

The relevant parts are this (and note the difference between Protection from Black and untargetability from something like Simic Sky Swallower):

Animate Dead targets the SSS in the graveyard, when its abilities don't apply. Then the SSS comes into play, and Animate Dead attaches (this happens without any targeting). The Animate Dead is able to attach and does not fall off, because SSS doesn't say anything about being enchanted. This is similar to the Enduring Ideal interaction (you can Faith's Fetters a SSS off Ideal). You have a SSS enchanted with Animate Dead that will die if Animate Dead is destroyed (also, SSS does nothing to prevent Animate Dead from being targeted by, say, Naturalize.).

Animate Dead also targets Akroma in the graveyard, when its protection doesn't apply. Then Akroma comes into play, but the Animate Dead does not attach, because Akroma can't be enchanted by black auras. The Animate Dead is put into the graveyard, but Akroma stays in play. Animate Dead's leaves play ability does nothing, because there was no "enchanted creature

This was indeed the case... until a few months ago.  If I recall, the thing was that the Oracle for Animate said "destroy that creature".  However, Pro-Black protects you from destory effects, so Akroma sat in play without a drawback.  This was changed 2 or 3 updates ago to say "its controller sacrifices that creature".  You can still sacrifice a Pro-Black dude to a black source, so Akroma gets killed and you don't get anything in play.  They changed it specifically because of this quirky loophole, so you cannot Animate Dead Akroma anymore.

[fury]

@islanderboi10 :

You need 4 Intuition, no less. Intuition is better than Strategic Planning. SP digs the library, but cannot fetch any solution. Intuition can reach WGD, lands, Read The Runes, Force of Will, a reanimation spell, and so on. As I told before, I'm not sure SP brings a real comfort to WGD archetypes, in terms of tempo. I'm not sure that, with it, WGD would be faster, especially in a slower metagame. But I didn't test it.

Despite of that, the build seems to be correct. I would have considered replacing some Deep Analysis by Mulldrifters, for instance 2 of each. We have already discussed about the advantages of Mulldrifters.

7 disruption spells seems light to me. Indeed, the metagame is slowing down, so we should take care of more controlling stuff. I would consider 4 FoW and 4 duress anyway. In my UBw Dragon version (on which I will write an article, as soon as I have time ), I play 4 of each, and even 1 Thoughtseize more.

@meadbert :

Dragon has a bad Slaver match-up, but once I board into Tyrant Oath my Slaver match-up is amazing.  The result is that against Slaver I have a tough game 1 and then games 2 and 3 are heavily in my favor.

Can you clarify this point ? According to me, game 1, Dragon has a bad match-up because of the controlling power of Slaver (Mana Drain, FoW, bounces). Game 2 and game 3, with the Oath transformal sideboard, the controlling power of Slaver is still a problem, because it seems to me that you will have difficulties to pass an Oath.

Am I right ?

[meadbert]

The problem for me is Welders.  In game 1 if they get a Welder out than Force and Duress cannot save me from Tormod's Crypt.  Post board all Welder does is mean that I no longer need to find Orchard.

[islanderboi10]

You can't run Akroma 'cause it has pro black (i'm pretty sure). But Hellkite could actually be good since it's a damn good Animate target itself. Still I don't know if three more damage a turn is worth trading the ability to ping off troublesome creatures.

Im saying in the sideboard of the deck, there is 4 oath of Druids and 4 Bogarden hellkites. Why is that?

[Noah]

Hellkite is probably, off the top of my head, the fastest clock for Oath of Druids with animate spells. You oath a dragon 5 damage, oath a second 10 damage, attack with first dragon 15 damage, then pitch and animate 20 damage. Plus, in my environment there is a lot of fish and stax and Hellkite is nuts vs. that meta.

[Razvan]

How good is quiet speculation? I try really hard to understand what they do other than put deep anals in the yard. Is there a better card? Like intuition or lim-duls vault or something?

you can get ancient grudge and cabal therapy as well. unlike my original thought, that's mostly it for good flashback cards (other than ray too)

[fury]

Hi all,

Any Shards of Alara 's we must take into consideration for the WGD archetype ? I don't think something is playable in WGDX, but some cards may have an impact on the metagame : Tezzeret with Time Vault, Mindlock Orb, Scourglass, Lich's Mirror, Sharuum the Hegemon, Master of Etherium, Relic of Progenitus, Ad Nauseam, Ethersworn Canonist.

More Shop decks, against which we must fight ? Will Fish be stronger ?

[Noah_33]

Fish will be the problem, not Shops. Shops has always been a great match up.

[nineisnoone]

Hi all,

Any Shards of Alara 's we must take into consideration for the WGD archetype ? I don't think something is playable in WGDX, but some cards may have an impact on the metagame : Tezzeret with Time Vault, Mindlock Orb, Scourglass, Lich's Mirror, Sharuum the Hegemon, Master of Etherium, Relic of Progenitus, Ad Nauseam, Ethersworn Canonist.

More Shop decks, against which we must fight ? Will Fish be stronger ?

Ethersworn Canonist actually might be an interesting card for Dragon.  With Oona, you can win with just 1 spell anyways.  Plus, it makes Necromancy much stronger since you can win the game at instant speed and they'd have no counter to it (if you play it in response to their spell).  Not to mention that a Necromancy on a Canonist itself isn't a bad play at times.  Or simply the fact that a 2/2 Rule of Law can be a hinderence against decks in general, Tezzert and Storm.  Perhaps the old Squee engine could return (likely not, but it does bypass the effect in any case).

If it's in play you do loose the ability to Intuition/Read the Runes for the win however, which is a concern.  Maybe it'd work better in a Quiet Speculation list since, they don't run those cards anyways.

Just a thought.

[fury]

Fish will be the problem, not Shops. Shops has always been a great match up.

What type of Shops ? Prison decks have some annoying denial for Dragon, especially for 5C versions. I confess that AggroShop is not a real problem for Dragon, as WGD builds have a quicker clock. But Prison decks, with 9 spheres, mana denial and Smokestack should be taken into consideration. So I wouldn't say that Shop matchups are favorable, we still need some sideboard solutions to ease the match-up.

For Fish, do you consider BUG Fish or others builds ? What do we fear the most in Fish ? Some mana denial, annoying creatures and some disruption... I'm not convinced that the match-up is more difficult than Prison decks.

Ethersworn Canonist actually might be an interesting card for Dragon.  With Oona, you can win with just 1 spell anyways.  Plus, it makes Necromancy much stronger since you can win the game at instant speed and they'd have no counter to it (if you play it in response to their spell).  Not to mention that a Necromancy on a Canonist itself isn't a bad play at times.  Or simply the fact that a 2/2 Rule of Law can be a hinderence against decks in general, Tezzert and Storm.  Perhaps the old Squee engine could return (likely not, but it does bypass the effect in any case).

If it's in play you do loose the ability to Intuition/Read the Runes for the win however, which is a concern.  Maybe it'd work better in a Quiet Speculation list since, they don't run those cards anyways.

Interesting idea, but this may change the way of playing WGD. How many canonists would you play ? And what would you replace in current builds of WGD to enter this card ? Did you test it ?

[Neonico]

In  a combo deck, playing Canonist would turn all the Counter decks matchups to horrible....

[nineisnoone]

Ethersworn Canonist actually might be an interesting card for Dragon.  With Oona, you can win with just 1 spell anyways.  Plus, it makes Necromancy much stronger since you can win the game at instant speed and they'd have no counter to it (if you play it in response to their spell).  Not to mention that a Necromancy on a Canonist itself isn't a bad play at times.  Or simply the fact that a 2/2 Rule of Law can be a hinderence against decks in general, Tezzert and Storm.  Perhaps the old Squee engine could return (likely not, but it does bypass the effect in any case).

If it's in play you do loose the ability to Intuition/Read the Runes for the win however, which is a concern.  Maybe it'd work better in a Quiet Speculation list since, they don't run those cards anyways.

Interesting idea, but this may change the way of playing WGD. How many canonists would you play? And what would you replace in current builds of WGD to enter this card? Did you test it ?

I did a little testing last night, just goldfishing a list.  The list was basically Meadberts Quiet Speculation list - Duress (and something, I forget) + 4 Cannonist with the mana base changed to accommodate white.  I probably made some other changes that are non-ideal just because I like tinkering with stuff. 

It didn't *quite* work out the way that I wanted it to.  Lock pieces and disruption aren't exactly the same thing.  Duress has a much stronger impact on the opponent, while Cannonist take a little while to accumulate an equivalent impact.  As a consequence, if you don't get your FoW or your combo out, it's not really relevant as far as disruption goes, since you don't have much else going on.  Whereas, at least with Duress you have more Disruption going on. Due to that I started adding things like Negate to the list.  Cabal Therapy could also be considered, particularly if you run Speculation. 

Another thing is that when you combo off normally, you can't have a FoW to prevent things like "Chain of Vapor in response, you have no more permanents."  I don't mind FoW all that much, since I usually end up with more Animates then they have counters.  Cabal Therapy would also be good in this case.  I didn't have Read the Runes in my list, but in retrospect that should be in as it additionally gets rid of it as well as working as a win and discard.

So as far as being simple a replacement for a disruption piece, it's not that good.  At least as a 4-of.  I suppose I would play a couple above Abeyance, but I never liked the card much here in any case.  And even then it's only really good with Necromancy.  It might be better with the Therapies/Runes though.

I have a couple of other ideas. A bomberman/dragon deck.  The other being a BWU fish deck with a Dragon combo finish.  Neither of which would likely be meta defining, but could see working well enough.

[c dizzle]

If you are considering Canonist, why not just play Xantid Swarm? I understand that  Canonist helps you to win on their turn better, but your animate enchantments usually go like this in a normal Dragon build: 3 Necromancy, 3 Animate Dead, 1 Dance of the Dead. That means that you usually have 3 (and no more than 4) ways to go off with Canonist protection (i.e. in response to an opponent playing a non-artifact spell on their turn). With Xantid Swarm you can go off on your turn (instead of waiting for them to play something on their turn and then reacting) and use any of your animate enchantments to do so. It seems like Canonist can hurt as much as it helps and it limits your strategic options. I know it's fun to use new tech, but if the old stuff functions better there's no reason to change...