Worldgorger Dragon Combo -- Still Viable?

[dicemanx]

In my goldfishing it felt like Duress was extremely clunky and it seemed like it would usually be better to just cast an Animate and draw a counter than Duress first because there's usually only enough colored mana to do one or the other.

This is an astute observation - it is very tempting to pack too much disruption at the expense of combo pieces. With Mulldrifter there is now even more reason to run a greater number of animate spells for instance.

Has Pact of Negation been tried?

There have been no accounts of any testing of Pact to my knowledge on these forums. It remains a card worthy of consideration, particularly in "speed" versions of WGD that up the mana acceleration, animate spells, and tutors.

On second thought, WGD removes the Chalice during the loop, so maybe it's not so good after all

CotV has been used in WGD in the past, but for different reasons - to stop faster combo by setting it to 0 or 1, or to protect alternate animate targets from removal (such as the CotV=1 + Sundering Titan/Verdant Force combo that was used against Fish for instance). You correctly point out that CotV doesn't protect the WGD combo.

[Negator13]

Yeah I'm thinking of a build with 0 Duress, 0 RtR (I think it's really clunky and awkward and I think Mulldrifter/Oona eliminate the need for it as a combo piece without BoB), 4 Mulldrifter, 4 DA, X Careful Study (probably 2 or so) and 10+ Animates. With Tombs and all the acceleration, 4 chalice in the board could be really good as well.

[fury]

EDIT: On second thought, WGD removes the Chalice during the loop, so maybe it's not so good after all.... still, I don't think I like the way Duress plays in this deck. Has Pact of Negation been tried?

That's the point. Most of the instant hate is 1cc, but the Dragon loop brings back Chalice with zero counters. So it's not a good strategy. Duress/Thoughtseize are costly in terms of tempo. For B, I'd rather play a vampiric tutor or set up my mana resources, instead of casting Duress with an opponent which has lands and creatures in hand. Despite of that, the disruption is a good way to open up a way for the combo. It's necessary, but must be gauged carefully in the build.

Pact of Negation is a good way to counter for free. But it is to be used only when the combo is ready, and not for countering an opponent threat. I didn't test it, but we should try to replace Duress/Thoughtseize with 4 FoW and 3/4 PoN.

[fury]

I was thinking about Krovikan Horror to be an alternate kill with Eternal Witness.



For UB Dragon builds with 2 kills, the Krovikan kill may be superior than the Oona one, in so far as it's an instant kill that works with an opponent's Platinum Angel on the table. Moreover, the annoying creatures of the metagame (Goblin Welder, Dark Confidant, Aven Mindcensor and so on) may be managed.

What do you think about it ?

EDIT : I was reexamining the amount of disruption slots. Seven ? Eight ? With what cards would you fill them ?

Some examples :
- 4 Force of Will + 3 Pact of Negation ?
- 4 Thoughtseize + 3 Duress ?
- 4 Thoughtseize + 3 Pact of Negation ?
- ...

Discuss.

[ill_Dawg]

re krovikan horror: I always thought he deserved a shot, for the reasons you mentioned and because he can work as a bad squee that can sometimes be a double squee.  Of course, that was back when squee was good. The problem was always that you need 2 animates to make him do anything, unless you want to hardcast him to take out a welder/confidant/etc. With witness, the double animate isn't really a problem, but without a high enough creature count to support his recursion ability, he could just as well be any creature with a cip damage ability.  FTK into the ancestral kill does everything you mentioned.

zomg, I posted something.

-=ADAM=-

[nineisnoone]

If you want a kill that works with Intuition only, you can try something like Flamewave Invoker instead of committing two slots to Salvagers and Spellbomb; alternately, if you go 5C then Witness is probably going to be sufficient. Still, I would not suggest running any creature kill card that isn't a good target for animation outside of the combo (limiting the options to kill cards such as Oona, Hellkite, or Sliver Queen) or isn't Witness.

I don't see how Flamewave Invoker wins with Intuition.... The play is Animate in hand, cast, Intuition for Salvager + Spellbomb + Black Lotus.

Salvagers isn't great on it's own... but if get it on the board, Intuition still wins you the game, so it's a relevant piece.

I'm curious how Mulldrifter is working out for people in testing.

The main thing change that I'm noticing in running it is that I'd rather just 2 cost animate than a 3 cost instant animate. Probably only running 2x Necromancy.  Though I'm not so sure about that as instant-speed is good.  But really most of the time, I'm either in hurry-up-and-win mode or I'm in draw-it-out-and-win-the-attrition mode, both of which the 2 cost animates do well.

Very interesting idea. Intuition on Black Lotus, Auriok Salvager and Necrogen Spellbomb makes you win. But I wonder if it is efficient in a Dragon build. Indeed, the kill in not an instant kill, and must be achieved during our main phase.

But the idea may have some interest if we want to multiply the ways of killing the opponent.

(by the way, the W splash doesn't imply to switch to a 5C Dragon  version, it is enough to pack in one or two tundra)

The main reason why I said 5c is b/c it sorta becomes a 3 card combo (and thus no easier than the normal combo) if you pack the 2 tundras.  Plus I kinda liked the idea of running Ignot Chewer SB for Stax.

Yeah, it's pretty slow, particularly when you consider that they'll just give you the Salvagers meaning it is a 9 mana win.  And it still uses the GY.  The main advantage of it is that it doesn't lose to instants (though Swords stops you from winning) and it's a fairly minimal intrusion.  Necrogen can be a discard outlet for you, Lotus is Lotus, and Salvagers on the board does stuff with Demonic, Vampiric, Spellbomb, Lotus, or Intuition.

I was thinking about Krovikan Horror to be an alternate kill with Eternal Witness.

How does that work?...  Don't you need as many creatures as damage you want to deal? Or am I mis-reading the text?

I was reexamining the amount of disruption slots. Seven ? Eight ? With what cards would you fill them ?

Some examples :
- 4 Force of Will + 3 Pact of Negation ?
- 4 Thoughtseize + 3 Duress ?
- 4 Thoughtseize + 3 Pact of Negation ?

I was doing the 4/3 Thoughtseize/Duress, but I'm actually thinking 4x FoW and 3-4x Extirpate...

It doesn't "literally" fix the instant problem, but so long as you get them to FoW something you can just Extirpate their and feel relatively safe that you'll be able to combo off with a single FoW for back-up rather than losing to instant + FoW.

And Extirpate can be randomly amazing as well against DA, AK, 4x Tendrils Builds, Bomberman, Ichorid, etc. etc... And it's really just one of those cards that I really like.

[Hydra]

If you want a kill that works with Intuition only, you can try something like Flamewave Invoker instead of committing two slots to Salvagers and Spellbomb; alternately, if you go 5C then Witness is probably going to be sufficient. Still, I would not suggest running any creature kill card that isn't a good target for animation outside of the combo (limiting the options to kill cards such as Oona, Hellkite, or Sliver Queen) or isn't Witness.

I don't see how Flamewave Invoker wins with Intuition.... The play is Animate in hand, cast, Intuition for Salvager + Spellbomb + Black Lotus.

Salvagers isn't great on it's own... but if get it on the board, Intuition still wins you the game, so it's a relevant piece.

Very interesting idea. Intuition on Black Lotus, Auriok Salvager and Necrogen Spellbomb makes you win. But I wonder if it is efficient in a Dragon build. Indeed, the kill in not an instant kill, and must be achieved during our main phase.

But the idea may have some interest if we want to multiply the ways of killing the opponent.

(by the way, the W splash doesn't imply to switch to a 5C Dragon  version, it is enough to pack in one or two tundra)

The main reason why I said 5c is b/c it sorta becomes a 3 card combo (and thus no easier than the normal combo) if you pack the 2 tundras.  Plus I kinda liked the idea of running Ignot Chewer SB for Stax.

Yeah, it's pretty slow, particularly when you consider that they'll just give you the Salvagers meaning it is a 9 mana win.  And it still uses the GY.  The main advantage of it is that it doesn't lose to instants (though Swords stops you from winning) and it's a fairly minimal intrusion.  Necrogen can be a discard outlet for you, Lotus is Lotus, and Salvagers on the board does stuff with Demonic, Vampiric, Spellbomb, Lotus, or Intuition.

Flamewave Invoker "wins" on its own because you can Intuition for it, Oona and an Animate and make it a "damned if you do, Damned if you don't" without burning an extra slot in the deck for the spell bomb.  With Dragon you want your win condition to be as efficient as possible to help make up for the fact that you have to work harder than most other decks tend to in order to set it up.  The most successful decks out there that have used Auriok Salvagers have been control decks that could afford the large mana investment that comes with Salvagers, something that I personally would be loathe to do in a Dragon deck.  Not "losing" to instants is a perk, but to get the mana base to supporting that you'd need to reconfigure it, and if you're going to go that far you might as well just play Reanim Bomberman and gear the whole deck towards it as opposed to trying to wedge it into Dragon.

[islanderboi10]

How would a potential 5-color build look?
Or would that be even considered viable?

Didn't Hale do well at Gen Con with a 5-color list?

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10287.html
Here is his report.

I can kind of see the metagame being similar to the type of meta it was back then.
Not to mention a 5-color list could have some nice sideboard slots...

thoughts?

[Neonico]

@Fury : I tested intensivly pact of negation in my Witness+Oona build, and it's really better than duress because of the tempo. And yes necromancy allows you to counter an important threat from your opponent and win with pact trigger on stack

[nineisnoone]

Flamewave Invoker "wins" on its own because you can Intuition for it, Oona and an Animate and make it a "damned if you do, Damned if you don't" without burning an extra slot in the deck for the spell bomb.

I still don't see it... maybe I'm just being dumb here...  Are you saying you cast Intuition mid-loop for the win? How is that different than just running 2x Oona's or tutoring for 3x Runes? That's a completely different situation than what I was suggesting...

and if you're going to go that far you might as well just play Reanim Bomberman and gear the whole deck towards it as opposed to trying to wedge it into Dragon.

Reanim Bomberman? Is there such a deck? I'd actually be curious to see.  I could see it working conceptually...

And every suggestion here isn't meant to be the "be all and end all" or anything.  Personally, when I have my 2nd Intuition (after casting for 3x DA), I'd find I often feel like I didn't have a really good Intuition play if I haven't drawn into the 2nd combo piece or I lost it somehow or whatever.  So,  I just realized that + Spellbomb + Salvagers was a 2 card combo of Animate + Intuition.  And just mentioned it because Bomberman came up in the thread.

I should note though at the time I was thinking that they would give me the Spellbomb rather than the Salvagers so the combo cost 4 mana (+ Intuition) rather than 6 mana.... But realistically the proper play is to assume they have the animate and give them the Salvagers.

[dicemanx]

I suggested Flamewave Invoker (one card) *instead* of Spellbomb + Salvagers (2 cards) because both the Invoker and Salvagers would have to be hardcast if the opponent doesn't do you the favor of depositing the card into the graveyard. I now realize that maybe you were hoping to exploit Salvagers outside of the WGD combo, which is certainly an interesting idea. Nevertheless I wouldn't endorse either strategy because I believe that you must strive to minimize the "useless" slots in WGD (ideally one card should be devoted to the win, and Oona is the best win condition at the present time in a non 5C build; Hellkite is the best in a 5C build).

Hydra also correctly pointed out that Intuition for 2 win conditions (2 Oona for instance) is superior to Intuition for Spellbomb and Salvagers if you have the animate in hand since it is almost guaranteed that they will give you the Salvagers over the Spellbomb and then you'll have to wait two turns before you win unless you have fountains of mana to work with.

Personally, when I have my 2nd Intuition (after casting for 3x DA), I'd find I often feel like I didn't have a really good Intuition play if I haven't drawn into the 2nd combo piece or I lost it somehow or whatever.

This seems strange. I almost never Intuition for 3x DA (2X DA and a WGD usually), and a second Intuition is almost always useful. If I wanted to make it more useful I would play Oona x2 to guarantee that I'd combo off with an Intuition if I don't have a Bazaar, but I'm so confident that this isn't an issue that I wouldn't bother with 2 win conditions.

[fury]

The Krovikan kill works as usual :
1) Witness reanimation in a loop, with 1 plus 1 animate enchantments
2) reanimation of Krovikan Horror in a loop
3) make another loop to "detach" the animate enchantment from Krovikan Horror
4) use its ability, and sacrifice the horror to itself to do one damage to any target.
5) restart from 1)

But after some tests, I would return to OOna + Witness if I consider 2 kills. Oona is a better beatdown, and if we want infinite damage, a 5C version with Kumano is better.

I still don't know if I would use one or two kills. Of course, only one is more efficient (as one of the most famous french players, kLu, said : "there is one card that is totally useless in an archetype : the kill !) and takes only one slot. But two kills allows more flexible strategies. For instance :
-> WGD animation with only Intuition in hand and no bazaar nor Mulldrifter,and only 2 RtR into the library : if we have only one kill, we cannot win
-> Oona can be pitched to FoW, and Witness may kill, which is not possible with a one-kill build.

Of course, these situations are quite rare, but I already have been confronted to this. To summarize the point, a one-kill version is more efficient, but more risky.

On the disruption, 4 FoW and 4 PoN are very efficient, unless we find a lot of Extirpates. With PoN in the build, we should be able to kill instantly, in response of the pact's delayed trigger ability. So we should play 4 necromancy and Oona/Witness or Kumano kills. The only drawback is that we haven't spells to make the opponent discard cards (Duress, Thoughtseize), and that can be very useful against some Dragon hate decks. Should we pack 4 black disruption in the sideboard ? In a transformal sideboard, we don't have the space...

Finally, I doubt on the efficiency of a 5C version of Dragon, if the metagame runs a lot of Shop decks. Wastelands and mana denial are very costly for Dragon 5C. What is your opinion about this ?

EDIT : With an Oath transformal board, this should be a good idea though, as NeoNico suggested it.

[Hydra]

Yeah, like Diceman I also usually go 2x DA and a WGD with the first Intuition.  The second is usually dependent on the board situation, but I've gone for triple Read The Runes for the second quite often just to insure I will find the win and get it where it needs to be.  I can see getting Mulldrifters with it as well if you're looking to bury your opponent under card advantage.

As far as Reanimator Salvagers goes no it's not an established deck, but with Mulldrifters and such it's definitely something you could consider trying if you want to try an animate combo that doesn't "lose" to instants.

[slyfer]

Why are you talking about "lotus, necrogen spellbomb, salvager" pile to win? Maindeck or side? If maindeck, there are better slots, and still this kill suffers the same exactly hate of dragon-kill, so I don't get the point. If in sideboard, it's useless because in game 2 and 3 you will face graveyard hate for sure, and extirpate is winning through pact/force.

Why are you talking of 5c manabase, that will be owned by workshop deck and aggro-control deck (fish, mwa, etc...)??? Dragon is still slower than Grim Long, I would play 5c in grim long, for sure not in dragon in today metagame!

I play 4 tarmogoyf in side, so I completely cut off the graveyard hate in game 2 and 3.
I play 3 dragon 1 oona 1 sundering titan 1 tidespout tirant maindeck.
4 fow 4 duress 2 chain of vapor
1 entomb

Again I don't understand the use of mulldrifter, with 3 mana I simply win instead of drawing into unknown cards.
Tyrant and Titan are the best creatures to animate if the combo is unavailable. Tyrant is game over for workshop (and still comboes with a couple of moxes I can generate infinite mana), Tirant is game over for control and combo deck when they have 2 land in play. Again mini combo with chain of vapor on animate , destoy other opponents lands, and animate again.
They are huge threats and at least they give you much tempo and you can focus on the combo while opponent have a threat to deal with.

Other card that are usefull both alone (reanimated/ hardcasted) and in combo are:
trikelion
memnarch
During the combo with another animate spell you make infinite damage with trikelion (he goes in and out during combo, you shoot while in), with memnarch, you get inifinite mana, and steal every permanent
I will wait to see if null rod will be played.

[fury]

Why are you talking about "lotus, necrogen spellbomb, salvager" pile to win? Maindeck or side? If maindeck, there are better slots, and still this kill suffers the same exactly hate of dragon-kill, so I don't get the point. If in sideboard, it's useless because in game 2 and 3 you will face graveyard hate for sure, and extirpate is winning through pact/force.

I also doubt on this solution, which fears the hate in the same way than the Dragon combo. But this should be tested though.

Why are you talking of 5c manabase, that will be owned by workshop deck and aggro-control deck (fish, mwa, etc...)??? Dragon is still slower than Grim Long, I would play 5c in grim long, for sure not in dragon in today metagame!

That's the point. Mana denial and control decks really annoy 5C Dragon. But with an Oath sideboard, only one Forbidden Orchard is needed to give creatures to the opponent. The Oath solution is efficient against Workshop decks and particularly aggro-control decks. It is non dependant from the graveyard, and opponent's creatures make the Oath activation easier.

The question is : is Oath sideboard enough quick in the future metagame ?

I play 4 tarmogoyf in side, so I completely cut off the graveyard hate in game 2 and 3.
I play 3 dragon 1 oona 1 sundering titan 1 tidespout tirant maindeck.
4 fow 4 duress 2 chain of vapor
1 entomb

Entomb is a good choice, as I explained before. It really speed up the combo (it's the 5th Dragon of the deck) and can put the kill into the graveyard during a Dragon loop.

I don't understand the argument about Tarmogoyf. If there is graveyard hate, Tarmogoyf will be quite feeble. This can be a good choice, but the justification should be rethink, I believe.

Why only 3 Dragon ? We're not playing Cerebral Assassin here, we need 4 of them to combo off as quicker as possible.

Again I don't understand the use of mulldrifter, with 3 mana I simply win instead of drawing into unknown cards.
Tyrant and Titan are the best creatures to animate if the combo is unavailable. Tyrant is game over for workshop (and still comboes with a couple of moxes I can generate infinite mana), Tirant is game over for control and combo deck when they have 2 land in play. Again mini combo with chain of vapor on animate , destoy other opponents lands, and animate again.
They are huge threats and at least they give you much tempo and you can focus on the combo while opponent have a threat to deal with.

Did you test Mulldrifter ? Sometimes, you cannot combo off, because of a Tormod's Crypt or an instant in the opponent's hand. Thus, reanimating a Mulldrifter will give you a beatdown power, and make you draw to find a solution. This reduce the clock of Dragon. Moreover, if Dragon is extirpated, Mulldrifter is a precious redundant alternate kill. Test it before rejecting it (but maybe it doesn't fit to your playing manners, so explain why please).

Tyrant and Titan are good choices in specific builds of Dragon. Against Workshop, Titan ruins your mana base, and even it's a good beatdown power, you will loose on a Smokestacks or a Karn Sliver Golem. it should be used in a 5C color, or against a deck with a lot of dual lands (to prevent our from destruction). Tyrant is good too to make infinite mana.

Despite these advantages, there are a lot of drawbacks and difficulties to include these two cards in Dragon. First of all, when the combo is not available, you won't be able to reanimate Titan or Tyrant. If there is a Tormod's Crypt or a Leyline of the Vault on the table, or a possible Extirpate in the opponent's hand, you won't be able to combo off with Dragon, nor reanimate your Titan or Tyrant. So these creatures are useless if you don't choose an Oath transformal sideboard. Secondly, the Tyrant kill is not an instant one, so if you reanimate it in response of another lethal opponent's spell, you will loose. Both creatures allow a control on the game, but we shouldn't weak the Dragon combo for them.

Other card that are usefull both alone (reanimated/ hardcasted) and in combo are:
triskelion
During the combo with another animate spell you make infinite damage with triskelion (he goes in and out during combo, you shoot while in),

Or Triskelavus. Thanks for the idea, this is a good one. Indeed, it allows an easy instant kill with a UB version of Dragon. But you should add Witness with it, or this will be very hard to have Triskelion into the Dragon loop. Of course, it's worse than Oona if Null rod is played, and we should be careful of that.

memnarch
 with memnarch, you get inifinite mana, and steal every permanent
I will wait to see if null rod will be played.

Memnarch doesn't allow instant kill, I would not take it as a kill.

[Andreas]

With PoN in the build, we should be able to kill instantly, in response of the pact's delayed trigger ability. So we should play 4 necromancy and Oona/Witness or Kumano kills.

Most likely I have misunderstood you (or just missed something), but how can you kill instantly with Oona?

[fury]

With PoN in the build, we should be able to kill instantly, in response of the pact's delayed trigger ability. So we should play 4 necromancy and Oona/Witness or Kumano kills.

Most likely I have misunderstood you (or just missed something), but how can you kill instantly with Oona?

The idea is to reanimate Oona after generating a great amount of mana with a Dragon loop. Then, all the generated mana is used into the Oona's ability. Then, You just have to cast Ancestral Recall on the Opponent to win.

Of course, with Oona alone, it's nearly impossible to win, because you rarely have Ancestral recall in hand after comboing off with Dragon. Most of the time, you have to dig your deck with Bazaar to put Oona into the graveyard, so you won't have any card in hand when you stop the loop. With Eternal Witness, you can bring back into your hand the Ancestral Recall, then outdeck the opponent before casting Ancestral Recall to make the opponent lose.

[zeus-online]

You can just flashback DA if you think it's necessary.

/Zeus

[fury]

You can just flashback DA if you think it's necessary.

/Zeus

Yes, but flashbacking DA is not killing instantly, because DA is a Sorcery. So with the delayed trigger ability of Pact of Negation on the stack, you won't be able to cast DA before you lose.

[zeus-online]

Oh sorry, didn't notice that you where talking about PoN, my bad.

On-topic:
I just don't see PoN as a good card in dragon, since dragon is alot closer to combo-control then pure combo which means that i often use my disruption to delay my opponent rather then to push my combo through, which PoN quite frankly isn't the best at.

If you where to use PoN why would you up the numbers of necromancy? Sure it allows you to win in response to the pact trigger, but why not just load up on 2cc animates? If i where to use PoN it would be to get a quicker kill, which would mean 2cc animates rather then necromancy.

You could ofcourse attempt to make what dicemanx referred to as speed dragon, in which case i'd probably try to load up on cards that allows you to win without bazaar, such as careful study to dump the dragon, and more cards which allows you to win when the loop is going. Entomb might also warrant a spot in such a deck.

However, i'd much rather stick to my gun and play WGDX.

/Zeus

[slyfer]

I play 3 dragon because I already play other 2 creatures maindeck (tyrant and titan), because I play entomb and multiple ways of "draw-discard", and multiple tutors. If you put dragon in the first intuition pile, in general it's not problematic to discard it, because of multiple copies of bazaar, RtR, study. Of course if you want for sure a dragon in the graveyard, just intuition for 2 dragon you know... While playing 4 dragon I am afraid to start with 2 dragons in hand, which is not so good. I tried in the past years 4 dragons, but I prefer 3 and one more spell slot.

Tarmogoyf does not suffer graveyard hate because it counts also the opponent graveyard. We play many kind of cards and it can be 5/6.
I am seeing that leyline is no more played, flash is gone, and people are using more extirpate/tormod/jayler as a "post B/R grave-hate-pack".
Tarmogoyf is the biggest creature that doesn't require an animate.

In my build the "beatdown wins" is done via tyrant and titan. If there is tormod in play, they must crack in response to my animate spell, so I have free space to continue with another "draw-discard-animate" plan. Try to animate a tydespout tirant on second turn LOL, it's the tits and 4 turn clock.
If they extirpate my dragons in game 1 I still can win via:
1) play/animate Oona
2) play/animate Titan
3) play/animate tidespout tyrant
1,2 or 3 are stronger than mulldrifter beatdown (imho). With mulldrifter they can race you in the beat, with titan I cut (sometimes at 100%) their mana, with tyrant I win the race because of multiples bounces, and Oona by herself does swarm.

Against workshop of course I don't animate titan lol.... I try to combo or animate tyrant.
Animate tyrant is gg because how they can handle it? The only way out is something like welder + duplicant combo...very narrow out for them.

The creatures are not useless, because this is the plan:
game 1: I have bazaar and dragon ready, I animate dragon. You play extirpate maindeck? ok, now you must exirpate dragon or you lose, but I still have chance to win.
game 1: you play leyline maindeck? you play icorid. I try to find chain of vapor if I am lucky or I scoop. Btw many decks scoops to icorids game1 (also before 1st June), and tell me which deck use leyline maindeck?  ^_^

You don't need witness for the "trikelion/triskelavus" kill, because al you need to do is just to set up the combo with dragon and trisky in gave (via intuition/entomb/etc.), and 2 animate spell. You loop, you stop the loop on triskelavus, then animate again dragon with the second animate.
You win also with 2 animate, and intuition in hand:
animate 1 dragon, take infinite mana, play intuition for triskelion and oona, and you win in any case.
I prefer triskelion because it cost less, it's usefull on it's own (the same reason is for kumano vs shivan hellkite....kumano can be hardcasted easier)
So it's not that hard to have triskelion in the loop, the problem is the 2 animate spell.

EDIT: ad zeus online suggested, I also don't see dragon as a "pure combo deck" like grim long, belcher, flash (r.i.p. lol). And I have in mind another build of dragon, speedy style, which upper the count of low cc spell to draw-discar like the hell , with 4 dragon 4 squee, 4 duress 4 study 4 fow, 2 echoing, 7 animate @cc2 etc.... only oona kill
But haven't tested yet.

[nineisnoone]

Nevertheless I wouldn't endorse either strategy because I believe that you must strive to minimize the "useless" slots in WGD (ideally one card should be devoted to the win, and Oona is the best win condition at the present time in a non 5C build; Hellkite is the best in a 5C build).

Yeah, I'm not sure about adding it either.  It has certain advantages, but I'm not really sure it adds much except redundancy.  But it has been useful post-disruption, like if a win gets taken away (needle on Bazaar) or if you get Crypt/Extirpated. 

But I'm not really sure it's better than Tinker as far as MD alt. wins go, which is really the question.

Yeah, like Diceman I also usually go 2x DA and a WGD with the first Intuition.  The second is usually dependent on the board situation, but I've gone for triple Read The Runes for the second quite often just to insure I will find the win and get it where it needs to be.  I can see getting Mulldrifters with it as well if you're looking to bury your opponent under card advantage.

As far as Reanimator Salvagers goes no it's not an established deck, but with Mulldrifters and such it's definitely something you could consider trying if you want to try an animate combo that doesn't "lose" to instants.

Hmmm. The more you guys talk about it the more I'm thinking I'm probably just over thinking the situation as far as Intuition goes.

I'll definitely be thinking about that Reanim Salvagers deck though.

[Hydra]

I play 3 dragon because I already play other 2 creatures maindeck (tyrant and titan), because I play entomb and multiple ways of "draw-discard", and multiple tutors. If you put dragon in the first intuition pile, in general it's not problematic to discard it, because of multiple copies of bazaar, RtR, study. Of course if you want for sure a dragon in the graveyard, just intuition for 2 dragon you know... While playing 4 dragon I am afraid to start with 2 dragons in hand, which is not so good. I tried in the past years 4 dragons, but I prefer 3 and one more spell slot.

Tarmogoyf does not suffer graveyard hate because it counts also the opponent graveyard. We play many kind of cards and it can be 5/6.
I am seeing that leyline is no more played, flash is gone, and people are using more extirpate/tormod/jayler as a "post B/R grave-hate-pack".
Tarmogoyf is the biggest creature that doesn't require an animate.

In my build the "beatdown wins" is done via tyrant and titan. If there is tormod in play, they must crack in response to my animate spell, so I have free space to continue with another "draw-discard-animate" plan. Try to animate a tydespout tirant on second turn LOL, it's the tits and 4 turn clock.
If they extirpate my dragons in game 1 I still can win via:
1) play/animate Oona
2) play/animate Titan
3) play/animate tidespout tyrant
1,2 or 3 are stronger than mulldrifter beatdown (imho). With mulldrifter they can race you in the beat, with titan I cut (sometimes at 100%) their mana, with tyrant I win the race because of multiples bounces, and Oona by herself does swarm.

Against workshop of course I don't animate titan lol.... I try to combo or animate tyrant.
Animate tyrant is gg because how they can handle it? The only way out is something like welder + duplicant combo...very narrow out for them.

The creatures are not useless, because this is the plan:
game 1: I have bazaar and dragon ready, I animate dragon. You play extirpate maindeck? ok, now you must exirpate dragon or you lose, but I still have chance to win.
game 1: you play leyline maindeck? you play icorid. I try to find chain of vapor if I am lucky or I scoop. Btw many decks scoops to icorids game1 (also before 1st June), and tell me which deck use leyline maindeck?  ^_^

You don't need witness for the "trikelion/triskelavus" kill, because al you need to do is just to set up the combo with dragon and trisky in gave (via intuition/entomb/etc.), and 2 animate spell. You loop, you stop the loop on triskelavus, then animate again dragon with the second animate.
You win also with 2 animate, and intuition in hand:
animate 1 dragon, take infinite mana, play intuition for triskelion and oona, and you win in any case.
I prefer triskelion because it cost less, it's usefull on it's own (the same reason is for kumano vs shivan hellkite....kumano can be hardcasted easier)
So it's not that hard to have triskelion in the loop, the problem is the 2 animate spell.

EDIT: ad zeus online suggested, I also don't see dragon as a "pure combo deck" like grim long, belcher, flash (r.i.p. lol). And I have in mind another build of dragon, speedy style, which upper the count of low cc spell to draw-discar like the hell , with 4 dragon 4 squee, 4 duress 4 study 4 fow, 2 echoing, 7 animate @cc2 etc.... only oona kill
But haven't tested yet.

Alright, I have a few comments on this:

1. What exactly is your full list?  You run 3 Dragons, then claim to be running a lot more Tutoring/card drawing than what should realistically fit in the deck (Bazaar/RTR/AND Study?  Plus tutors?!)  The reason you run 4 Dragon is to guarantee maximum opportunity to see one when you need it.  You throw that out in fear of drawing multiples, and yet you replace it with 2 cards that are equally useless draws (Titan and Tyrant).  You're deck design is nullifying your own intentions there and I don't think you even realize it.

2. Tarmogoyf *can* be a big critter.  The problem you have is that in your argued scenarios you're depending on your opponents playing subpar graveyard hate and relying on them playing into your Tarmogoyf, neither of which is an acceptable argument for inclusion.  In fact, I'm wondering where exactly it is you play so I can show up and have a field day.  Not playing Leylines is likely suicide in this format, and if areas exist that don't I'd like to exploit that.

3. Your argument for including Titan and Tyrant main deck is rather lacking.  If a standard Dragon deck wished to rush out a clock it could easily do so with Oona, but the whole idea of the deck is to not rush into the win game 1 but rather build up your hand and just bury your opponent with the card advantage you generate off DAs and Mulldrifters.  Post-board most Dragon decks have some sort of sideboard option that allows them to run out a big dude quickly, but that's usually a pretty poor strategy to commit to.  The "well if they Extirpate my Dragons" argument is flimsy as well, since the normal Dragon deck still has Oona, Mulldrifters and Witnesses to reanimate to win without adding otherwise "dead" draws to the deck.  The advantages Titan or Tyrant provide in certain match-ups are sideboard considerations, not main deck ones.

4. Your "game 1 plan" is no different from any other Dragon deck, except that the other Dragon decks are running less dead draws than you.

5. Trike has seen maindeck play in Dragon before, but currently it's not used because it requires you to have 2 Animates in hand, where as Witness wins as well and allows you to have that second Animate in the yard.  Yes it can be useful on its own, but Fish now has things like Goyf and Jotun Grunt to play with, as opposed to the old Fish decks which had a multitude of things that died to Trike.

[slyfer]

This is the list I'm playing and it was not made by me but by the most experienced italian dragon players (3 person). Of course I'm not saying that it's the best build, even if usually people gets pawned by italians at big tournament (see Valencia, see Duelmen 3 years ago, , see Barcelona, see every >200people tournament played in europe).

3x careful study
1x read the runes
4x intuition
1x entomb
3x deep analysis
1x demonic tutor
1x vampiric tutor
1x ancestral recal
3x worldgorger dragon
1x tidespout tyrant
1x sundering titan/eternal witness
1x oona
4x force of will
4x duress
2x chain of vapor
2x dance of the dead
2x animate death
3x necromancy
3x bazaar of bagdad
3x underground sea
1x tropical island
1x bayou
4x polluted delta
1x flooded strand
2x island
1x swamp
3x mox incolor
1x lotus
1x sol ring
1x mana crypt

1. 3 dragons are not so different than 4 dragons mathematically, I already have multiple ways of put a dragon in yard.

2. Leylines are a nonsense now that the only deck that really abuse graveyard is icorid. Flash is gone...so is leyline. Metagame is getting slower without flash/merchant/gush, and there is no need to "mulligan into leyline or die". Leyline is overkill right now.

3. as I already said I consider the plan B beating with titan/tyrant far superior to mulldrifter becuase they wins alone games, wheres mulldrifter does nothing compared to them. As of now, I 3 times my opponents scoops to titan cip because of armageddon 3 lands, and 1 times I won vs long cutting 2 lands gaining a fundamental turn (I could not combo, so I disrupt them).

4. my build is different from american's because italians play safer decks, and results came (the same with other decks , more conservative decks win more than turbo-decks, based much on lucky). But feel free to run dragon with 4 pact of N. 4 fow if you like...

5. trike in side is experiment, I have a not fixed side, because I'm testing.

[Hydra]

This is the list I'm playing and it was not made by me but by the most experienced italian dragon players (3 person). Of course I'm not saying that it's the best build, even if usually people gets pawned by italians at big tournament (see Valencia, see Duelmen 3 years ago, , see Barcelona, see every >200people tournament played in europe).

3x careful study
1x read the runes
4x intuition
1x entomb
3x deep analysis
1x demonic tutor
1x vampiric tutor
1x ancestral recal
3x worldgorger dragon
1x tidespout tyrant
1x sundering titan/eternal witness
1x oona
4x force of will
4x duress
2x chain of vapor
2x dance of the dead
2x animate death
3x necromancy
3x bazaar of bagdad
3x underground sea
1x tropical island
1x bayou
4x polluted delta
1x flooded strand
2x island
1x swamp
3x mox incolor
1x lotus
1x sol ring
1x mana crypt

1. 3 dragons are not so different than 4 dragons mathematically, I already have multiple ways of put a dragon in yard.

2. Leylines are a nonsense now that the only deck that really abuse graveyard is icorid. Flash is gone...so is leyline. Metagame is getting slower without flash/merchant/gush, and there is no need to "mulligan into leyline or die". Leyline is overkill right now.

3. as I already said I consider the plan B beating with titan/tyrant far superior to mulldrifter becuase they wins alone games, wheres mulldrifter does nothing compared to them. As of now, I 3 times my opponents scoops to titan cip because of armageddon 3 lands, and 1 times I won vs long cutting 2 lands gaining a fundamental turn (I could not combo, so I disrupt them).

4. my build is different from american's because italians play safer decks, and results came (the same with other decks , more conservative decks win more than turbo-decks, based much on lucky). But feel free to run dragon with 4 pact of N. 4 fow if you like...

5. trike in side is experiment, I have a not fixed side, because I'm testing.

That list looks like it was built by someone who just didn't have full playsets of things.  Anything less than a full set of Bazaar is flat out wrong in Dragon.  Yes new versions are geared towards winning without it, but that's no reason to cut the strongest card in the deck to less than a full set.  Likewise, you cut RTRs for Careful Studys, which while the two cards have been debated as being interchangeable in WGDX whichever one you have does alter how you play the deck, since RTR is a great dump for excess mana/permanents (especially now with Mulldrifter in the deck).  Careful Studys are less able to compensate for the loss of the 4th Bazaar than RTRs would be, since you see a lot less potential cards out of it.

I see that you also cut 3 mana sources (all artifact mana), but added more expensive and dead draws in their place?  I'm completely confused by what benefit this provides, as you're falling into the trap of "cool things".  Yeah Titan and Tyrant "win" certain matchups flat out, but why are you running dead draws in the place of cards that are good in all matchups?  I could see doing it if you meta is heavy to one deck (like running a Titan main if you're playing against a lot of Fish), but in an open meta it's not really something you should be doing.  Nevermind the fact that you're running less discard outlets than the standard Dragon.

As far as Pact of Negation and playing "safer" decks goes, I personally don't run Pacts, so I'm not entirely sure why you would bring that up.  I would personally stay with the 4 FOW and then either Duress or Thoughtseize, which is no different from your disruption, except that Mulldrifter's card drawing (coupled with the extra Bazaar and RTRs) means I see more disruption than you would.  I'm not seeing anything about your deck being "safer".  You have a weaker mana base, you have more situationally dead draws, you have weaker card drawing, I'm just confused all around.

Lastly, if Ichorid is all you're worried about, why wouldn't you just play 4 Leyline and protect them?  Jailer/Crypt/Extirpate, they're all even more situational than Leyline is, not to mention Leyline has the advantage of not completely wrecking your own gameplan to implement.  Yeah, you could board like 8 cards instead of Leyline and mess up your main, but why would you?

[dicemanx]

Here is quick tourney report from Noah Long, a strong player who enjoyed much success with WGDX in many local T1 events and went on to make top 8 in a SCG event where WGDX debuted. He presents his own approach to WGDX in the new meta, opting to ditch Duress entirely and going with the Oath transformational SB:

've been reading the thread from the manadrain.com about WGDX being still viable or not and took some ideas into consideration. Here's the list:
 
WGDX2
 
Wins
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
1 Mulldrifter

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
4 Intuition
4 Force of Will
3 Read the Runes
2 Misdirection
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor

Sorcerys
3 Deep Analysis
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal

Enchantments
3 Necromancy
3 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead

Sideboard:
4 Oath of Druids
4 Bogarden Hellkite
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
 
 
I played this list at the past Untouchables event spliting in the finals with Marc Sims. I finished with a record of 6-1 (5-1-1 actually but we played the last round for fun and I won).
 
 
The differences about the deck from how it used to look:
 
- Imperial Seal>Entomb: Seal finds me anything including Oath of Druids after board and the singleton Chain of Vapor main, while Entomb is just a situational tutor that speeds the deck up in a format without any Storm Combo willing to play through all the Spheres.
 
- 2 Mis-D, Brainstorm, Chain of Vapor>4 Duress: I found Duress/Thoughtseize way to clunky for the new format. There were just way to many other things I'd be wanting to do turn 1. Misdirection has been amazing for me aswell as the singleton Chain of Vapor. Before Mis-D was in the deck I was always wanting more FOWs when I was going off with Duress sitting in my hand with only 1 B sorce of mana and an Animate spell. It's also very good after the deck transforms as it protects the turn 1 Oath (which happened 4 times with Mis-D back up).
 
Since Ichorid is one of the best decks in the format now, 1 Chain has really helped the game 1 against their Leylines. With the added Imperial Seal, it's easier to get to it in need.
 
Brainstorm was added after I tested the Oath sideboard. I had been wanting something that worked well in both the WGDX and Oath strategies and Brainstorm was the best card that came to mind. It has been working very well for me.
 
- Transformational Sideboard: I think I boarded into Oath almost every game 2 and 3 except for the Ichorid and TPS match ups. Every sideboard in the format is playing at least Leylines, Crypt and/or Extirpate (which I can't beat as Dragon Combo) so I just give them dead cards by transforming almost every game. It seemed to work quite well at Untouchables, almost all the games I won with Oath ended with them having at least 2 graveyard disruption spells either in play or in their hand. A lot of people also mulliganed into Leylines and I just didn't care. I just shuffle all 15 cards in after every game and then board 15 cards out.
 
 
Well that's my report on WGDX2 for now.

[fury]

A very nice list. I have some questions about it.

1) Are 4 disruption slots enough (4 FoW) to pass through ? I'm testing how many disruption I might pack, and I rather find that we should pack 8 of them. I hesitate between 4 FoW/4Thoughtseize and 4 FoW/4PactofNegation.

2) Only one Mulldrifter ? I replaced the Deep Analysis by Mulldrifter, and the deck is drawing a lot.

3) I have difficulties to forsake Entomb, which speeds up dramatically the clock of Dragon. I will test Imperial Seal, but I'm not sure the large use of Extirpate (which reshuffle the library) will allow Imperial Seal to be efficient. But 3 tutors (Demonic, Vampiric and Imperial Seal) is a good idea, because they can be intuitioned to find the Oath or a Forbidden Orchard.

On the other hand, Chain of Vapor and Brainstorm seem to be excellent choices.

4) Are the Misdirection really useful ? Against which archetypes ? Are they only for the opponent's Ancestral Recall or for other stuff ?

5) The sideboard option is a classical efficient one. But I still wonder if a Masknought one is not faster. Indeed, Oath of Druids needs a turn for activation, and an activation condition. MaskNought only needs 3 manas of any color and 2 cards in the same turn. Moreover, if Phyrexian Dreadnought is bounced, this is not a problem, while if Bogardan Hellkite is bounced, it is lost until discarded or brainstormed. Of course, on the other hand, Masknought fears artifact destruction.

[Ancestralx]

I have seen this deck on workstation a lot lately and it seems to win through hate a lot of the time!! Fish playing stifle gives it a hard time.

[ill_Dawg]

speaking of stifle, has anyone given it any consideration recently? Mostly, I was thinking that if you run PoN it can save your a$$ in a pinch, it can take dragon's cip off the stack (to save your perms or give you a beater), it keeps necro from falling off, it keps stuff in play when the animate is nuked/bounced, it saves bazaar from wastes etc., it trumps crypt and chalice@2, and after al that it still pitches to force at the end of the day!

I'd think about it, but then again I'm in 'nam right now and I haven't touched cardboard in 5 years, so fel free to disregard my ramblings.

just my 500vnd

-=ADAM=-

[Noah_33]

Wow I finally found an email address to allow me on themanadrain.com.

Hey all, my name is Noah Long from Toronto. I'm good friends with Peter O. (dicemanx). Now I can finally add my imput to an archtype I've been playing for ever and love, WGDX.

A very nice list. I have some questions about it.

1) Are 4 disruption slots enough (4 FoW) to pass through ? I'm testing how many disruption I might pack, and I rather find that we should pack 8 of them. I hesitate between 4 FoW/4Thoughtseize and 4 FoW/4PactofNegation.

2) Only one Mulldrifter ? I replaced the Deep Analysis by Mulldrifter, and the deck is drawing a lot.

3) I have difficulties to forsake Entomb, which speeds up dramatically the clock of Dragon. I will test Imperial Seal, but I'm not sure the large use of Extirpate (which reshuffle the library) will allow Imperial Seal to be efficient. But 3 tutors (Demonic, Vampiric and Imperial Seal) is a good idea, because they can be intuitioned to find the Oath or a Forbidden Orchard.

On the other hand, Chain of Vapor and Brainstorm seem to be excellent choices.

4) Are the Misdirection really useful ? Against which archetypes ? Are they only for the opponent's Ancestral Recall or for other stuff ?

5) The sideboard option is a classical efficient one. But I still wonder if a Masknought one is not faster. Indeed, Oath of Druids needs a turn for activation, and an activation condition. MaskNought only needs 3 manas of any color and 2 cards in the same turn. Moreover, if Phyrexian Dreadnought is bounced, this is not a problem, while if Bogardan Hellkite is bounced, it is lost until discarded or brainstormed. Of course, on the other hand, Masknought fears artifact destruction.

1) Too much disruption for this deck only slows it down, well at least when you have to pay mana for it. I've found Thoughtseize and Duress were too clunky and actually slowed the deck down by a turn most of the time. I also didn't want to have Thoughtseize especially because of how much the deck already hurts itself. Between DA, Vamp/Seal, Mana Crypt, FOW, Orchard tokens and Fetch lands, this deck doesn't really treat itself with the respect it deserves. Pact of Negation is a card I'd be very uncomfortable playing with. When I go off I think I would always want disruption that allows me to have extra turns just incase I don't go off that turn due to my opponent having more disruption then me. They'll always let PoN resolve then re-counter the relavent, spell killing you on your next upkeep.

2) I would never cut or go lower then 3 Deep Analysis in this deck. It is the reason why Intuition is as powerful as it is in the deck. The Mulldrifter replaced the Entomb because Entomb was very situational. Sure it speeds up the deck a bit but if you had a Dragon or had other Tutors for Dragon, Entomb reads: 1UB lose 3 life; target player draws 2 cards. Kinda bad, when you could just pay 2U; draw 2 cards or pitch it to FOW/MisD. Mulldrifter also solves the wierd situation that Entomb also kinda did, where if you have a Read the Runes in the graveyard and you have Intuition in hand as your only way to get the win condition into the graveyard. When it was Entomb you could Intuition for the other 2 RtR and Entomb for Oona. If Enotmb was already in the graveyard you couldn't win because there wouldn't be 3 cards you could get that could stop the loop. With Muuldrifter it doesn't matter if it's in the graveyard already. You'd just intuiton for Oona and 2 random cards. They give you Oona (obv) then you end loop with Drifter and cast Oona FTW.

3) Imperial Seal is and has been amazing for this build especially with the Oath sideboard. Again it gets everything (obv) especially the 1 Chain main deck for the odd Leyline and or Crypt game 1, Oath after board, it's friend Forbidden Orchard and the 1 Brainstorm to put Hellkites back on top. Yes, I also like how WGDX now has 3 tutor s to Intuition for. Overall: Imperial Seal>Entomb.

4) You are disregarding Misdirection as the 5th-6th FOWs which is what this deck always wants in hand while going off. They also up the turn 2 win %, with back up, because of the lack of mana commitment turn 1. Plus, it's good vs. apposing Thoughtsiezes and you could randomly mise an Ancestral Recall  . It's also great when this build transforms for games 2-3. It again ups the turn 1 Oath % by a fair number. For the match ups where it's dead like Workshops, it shouldn't really matter because it can just be discarded through Bazaar or pitched to FOW. Duress and Thoughtseize are also not very strong vs. Shops due to their infi must counters. Plus on the draw Duress/Thoughtseize are worse then Misdirection because you can't pitch them to FOW. Shops are a good match up anyways. Overall Misdirection improves the Mana Drain match up by a lot by adding more Pitch protection and not slowing you down in the process.

5) fury wrote:

MaskNought only needs 3 manas of any color and 2 cards in the same turn. Moreover, if Phyrexian Dreadnought is bounced, this is not a problem, while if Bogardan Hellkite is bounced, it is lost until discarded or brainstormed.

If Masknought needs 3 mana and 2 cards wouldn't Oath be better and more consistant? Oath only needs 1 card and 2 mana leaving more chance for more protection in your hand. Also If Hellkite is bounced you just Oath out another or just discard and animte the bounced one. Against Fish, they can just swords your 12/12 and just win. With Oath you Wrath their board, gain 5 life then get another Hellkite. Fish can't win if Oath sticks and isn't destroyed.

Anyways that's my 2 cents on WGDX. Good to be on the forums finally and will be back soon to answer more questions. ttyl, Noah