Worldgorger Dragon Combo -- Still Viable?

[nineisnoone]

Grozoth 
6UUU
Defender (This creature can't attack.)
When Grozoth comes into play, you may search your library for any number of cards that have converted mana cost 9, reveal them, and put them into your hand. If you do, shuffle your library.
4: Grozoth loses defender until end of turn.
Transmute 1UU (1UU, Discard this card: Search your library for a card with the same converted mana cost as this card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library. Play only as a sorcery.)

Transmute it into your graveyard and then animate it back into play to tutor for.... pretty much anything you want.  You can also of course discard it to Bazaar, Read the Runes, or Thoughtseize yourself. 

Pretty much anything you want like Colosus of Sardia, Blessed Wind, Leviathan, Volley of Bouldders!  Savage 

Gozoth has to be the winner of the RTFC award.  I've seen so many players think he's amazing!

Whoopsies.  I read that wrong.  I thought it read with a total converted mana cost, rather than SAMEconverted mana cost.  lol.   

[Neonico]

All the props for the DragQueen NAme are for Fury, its his idea.

[frolll]

Yup, all hail Fury
I'm but an humble messenger in all this case... Anyway, the white splash seems really strong, Abeyance IS a nice card and, on an unrelated topic, Oona is quite the house.
Mulldrifters are just the icing on the cake, and the cake was already a tasty morsel - Dragon viable again, sure it is.

[nineisnoone]

Here's my list (with new modifications)

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
1 Strip Mine
2 Duskmantle, House of Shadow
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
(21 Mana sources)

4 Worldgorger Dragon
4 Mulldrifter
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
(9 Creatures)

4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy
(7 Animates)

4 Cunning Wish
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Demonic Tutor
(11 Draw/Tutor)

4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
2 Extirpate
2 Stern Proctor
(12 Disruption)

SB:
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Gush
1x Skeletal Scrying
1x Entomb
1x Pull From Eternity
1x Aura Blast
1x Rebuild
1x Darkblast
1x Snuff Out
2x Extirpate
4x Wasteland

New Card - Stern Proctor
UU
1/2
When Stern Proctor comes into play, return target artifact or enchantment to its owner's hand.

It avoids 4 of 9 Spheres.  It bounces either artifacts or enchantments.  And as a bonus, you can bounce your own Animate Dead from you Mulldrifter and then re-play it to draw another 2 cards or re-play on a Dragon for the win.  1BUU is expensive for a Draw 2, but it still counts as a bounce.  I think you should be able to loop with him fine either you bring him in first so there are no legal enchantments (of your own at least) to bounce, or if that doesn't work (though I think it should) just recast it.  As long as you have excess mana, you should still be able to go infinite.

The list is missing staples, specifically...

Wish over Intuition.  Wish expands my deck to my SB giving me more answers, can still tutor for combo pieces or chunk a WGD in the graveyard, and I can still get good draw out of it.  Scrying and Gush are solid, not as good as Intuition -> Deep Analysis, but I really like having more card slots to play with. 
In my mind, Wish Board and 4 open card slots is better than Intuition -> Deep Analysis overall.

Duskmantle, House of Shadow over Read the Runes.  Both win the game off an infinite mana loop.  Duskmantle is uncounterable, however.  Duskmantle has the bonus of producing mana when it's not being useful.  Read the Runes has the bonus of being able to discard a WGD to the graveyard.  If I didn't run 4x Thoughtseize to give me another discard option for WGD, I would probably run Read the Runes, but since I do run Thoughtseize, Duskmantle has solid. 
This is a big reason why I go Thoughtseize over FOW.

In the sideboard...

Stoke is the Win.  Gush and Skeletal Scrying are for drawing.  Entomb is for combo purposes.  Aura Blast for Leyline or other enchantments, hopefully, with Extirpate main deck to deal with it permanently.  Pull from Eternity is for Extirpate and Crypts.  Rebuild is against Stax.  Darkblast and Snuff Out are for creatures.  Wastelands and the last two Extirpates are hopefully enough for Ichorid and can be useful otherwise.

[c dizzle]

New Card - Stern Proctor
UU
1/2
When Stern Proctor comes into play, return target artifact or enchantment to its owner's hand.

It avoids 4 of 9 Spheres.  It bounces either artifacts or enchantments.  And as a bonus, you can bounce your own Animate Dead from you Mulldrifter and then re-play it to draw another 2 cards or re-play on a Dragon for the win.  1BUU is expensive for a Draw 2, but it still counts as a bounce.  I think you should be able to loop with him fine either you bring him in first so there are no legal enchantments (of your own at least) to bounce, or if that doesn't work (though I think it should) just recast it.  As long as you have excess mana, you should still be able to go infinite.

The problem with Stern Protector is that, if he is in play when you try to combo out, he bounces your animate spell on your Dragon. You have to have three mana out to use him with Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead or four mana with Necromancy to generate infinite mana. Though that USUALLY won't be a problem, it could delay you comboing out by a turn or two and that could cost you the game. Why not just run Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth?

[nineisnoone]

Mostly, it's just different for the sake of trying something different.  And generically, I tend to like spells with bodies.  Those 2 slots are basically constantly influx, as those are my "try new things here" slots.

[nineisnoone]

This was posted elsewhere

There's some cards i've thought about changing...mainly duress and (yes) demonic tutor.

The thing is that i haven't really found the duress's needed, 4 FoW seems to be enough.
Demonic tutor has mainly just slowed me down, every time i've had it in my hand i've wished that it was something else...It's just a weird thing to cut but i've really thought about cutting it.
/Zeus

I've honestly had the same opinion about Demonic.  Unless if you are getting Recall, I've found I rarely wanted to pay 2 extra mana get any card in my deck.  I'll probably cut Demonic for Vampiric in my build, but I'm just curious if anyone else has found Demonic to be sub-optimal.  Vampiric is just faster and if there is anything worth Tutoring for, it's worth the loss of a card for.

[c dizzle]

Mostly, it's just different for the sake of trying something different.

Try my pet tech on for size:



It might even be good if Welders come back in a big way... 

[DestroyNBury]

hey all,
just in case you don't have enough kill cons, how about bitter ordeal?
by itself, it can still remove a dsc, with a little help (from fetchlands) it can jester cap platinums/angels/tyrants in oath decks...

[c dizzle]

Or Jester's Scepter...

[fury]

All the props for the DragQueen NAme are for Fury, its his idea.

Yup, all hail Fury !
I'm but an humble messenger in all this case... Wink Anyway, the white splash seems really strong, Abeyance IS a nice card and, on an unrelated topic, Oona is quite the house.
Mulldrifters are just the icing on the cake, and the cake was already a tasty morsel - Dragon viable again, sure it is.

Thank you gentlemen

Some remarks about your tests :

* Sparkmage Apprentice obliges to splash red, it's not good for the mana base. Use Darkblast or Murderous Redcap instead.
* Demonic is a card you want to have. Vampiric is also very good, and I think both should be kept. Drawing a lot of cards is a good strategy, but having the right card at the right moment is better. I think Dragon should not forsake its tutoring power. I wonder if Demonic Tutor and Vampiric tutor could be completed by Imperial Tutor or Mystical Tutor.
* Bitter Ordeal is not a creature, so it's not a "reanimable" kill by itself. We need Witness to use it properly, and the Ancestral kill is more efficient. it's the same for Jester's Scepter.
* The Wishes strategy is quite very flexible, but I find it quite slow. With 3 manas to fetch something in the sideboard, I'd rather cast a lethal spell like Necromancy, or adding the spell I would fetch directly in the main deck. As dicemanx told us before, don't forget Dragon cannot handle all the threats it will face during its matches. The aim of the WGD strategy is only to find a narrow window to combo off safely.
* Duress may be less useful than in the past, but I wouldn't cut them totally. With more aggro-control decks, we are happy to disrupt the opponent when he has locks or bombs against us. 4 Duress seems to be not necessary, but I would never play less than 3 ( or 3 Thoughtseize if there are a lot of annoying creatures (Fish)

[zeus-online]

* Demonic is a card you want to have. Vampiric is also very good, and I think both should be kept. Drawing a lot of cards is a good strategy, but having the right card at the right moment is better. I think Dragon should not forsake its tutoring power. I wonder if Demonic Tutor and Vampiric tutor could be completed by Imperial Tutor or Mystical Tutor.

The thing with demonic tutor is that i've felt more like i've just given my opponent a time walk, what exactly should i find with it? The deck is pretty much:

Disruption
Draw
Animate
Dragon

It's just so consistent in what it does that i don't really feel a need to spend 2 mana to get a card, i'd rather just add more of what i usually would want to tutor for.

/Zeus

Ps. Here's what i wrote in the other thread:

I would probably never play dragon without 4 bazaars, they just speed everything up. (This was a comment to a bazaarless list)

I don't think mulldrifter replaces DA, but it is nice as an additional draw-card.

I've been playing this for a couple of days now:
Mana: (21)
6 Fetch
4 U. Sea
2 Island
7 Solomoxen
1 Mana vault
1 Mana crypt

Combo pieces: (16)
4 WGD
4 Bazaar
1 Oona
3 Animate dead
3 Necromancy
1 Dance of the dead

Draw/Search: (14)
4 Deep analysis
4 Intuition
3 Read the runes
2 Mulldrifter
1 Ancestral recall
1 Demonic tutor
1 Time walk

Disruption: (7)
4 FoW
3 Duress

Haven't really tested w/sideboard yet, which obviosly changes things ALOT.

There's some cards i've thought about changing...mainly duress and (yes) demonic tutor.

The thing is that i haven't really found the duress's needed, 4 FoW seems to be enough.
Demonic tutor has mainly just slowed me down, every time i've had it in my hand i've wished that it was something else...It's just a weird thing to cut but i've really thought about cutting it.

Basic island has screwed me over a couple of times aswell, but i'm not sure if i'm ready to go with "All-nonbasics" just seems risky.

If i where to cut 3 duress/1 demonic i'd probably add:
1 Mulldrifter
1 Animate spell (probably just animate dead)
2 Answers (Chain/repeal/e. truth)
OR 1 answer and the 4th mulldrifter.

It seems to me that with mulldrifter dragon can really rip through it's library insanely fast often i've been drawing like 4+ cards each turn after the first.

Alternatively i could just add in 2x Sundering titan (platz could be used vs. ichorid), 1 tinker, 1 animate spell.

I haven't started working on the SB yet, but i've really thought about adding white as it seems to be the color with the best answers to extirpate (Chant/Abeyance) I'd probably go with abeyance as it shuts down faerie macabre, but i'm not really sure if anyone would want to play that card anyway, Why bother preparing for cards noone plays?

There's also the question about going with 8x duress effects, but i simply haven't needed the 3 in my decklist so maxing them out seems suboptimal to me.

All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, since i have hardly done extensive testing.

/Zeus

[dicemanx]

This thread has become terrible all of a sudden - please don't spam suggestions until you've tested the ideas, because there are cards mentioned here that don't even work in the deck.

Secondly, I simply cannot take seriously any build that decides to cut 7-8 critical combo pieces that deposit WGD in the graveyard or enable you to go off - specifically, Intuition and RtR. It was already difficult enough to combo off early consistently with those cards in the deck, cutting them will make the deck much worse unless there is sufficient justification for replacing them. So far, I've seen none.

Finally, there are some classic mistakes that are being repeated all over again:

1) Succumbing to "the fear" - overloading the deck with disruption at the cost of combo pieces. I consider 7-8 disruption as about the maximum - in fact, the optimal number might turn out to be 4 for the upcoming meta. You have to focus on the deck's strength, not try to shore up every weakness - if you dilute the combo, you lose your main strength to the point where you'll start losing to random crap like Goblins which could now race you. Furthermore fighting control can involve just hammering away at their counters and punching through with animates - you don't have to match disruption for disruption.

2) Suggesting kill cards that don't work with Bazaar + WGD + Animate: Sparkmage is an example of this, which needs to be hardcast first or you need 2 animates to go off. This immediately invalidates the card as a legitimate win condition. Suggesting sorceries for kill cards is also unwise.

3) Going with more than 1 kill card - if you're going to do this, you ideally want big creatures that are powerful enough to be reanimated on their own. Otherwise there is no point to having more than one kill (either Witness or Oona is fine - why do you want more? Space in WGD is precious)

4) Using Entomb without adequate instant kill support - unless you plan on using an abundance of Intuitions and RtR, Entomb is pretty terrible. I'll let you figure out why, unless your goal is to draw many games. Even *with* adequate support Entomb isn't an automatic inclusion.

5) Cutting colored mana - there better be a strong justification for cutting colored mana. Strip Mine and Duskmantle are not it. Ancient Tomb is pushing it as it is, but at least Tomb makes some sense given the increase in casting cost with the addition of Mulldrifter and the existing Intuition/RtR.

6) Cunning Wish - this card does too little to be played in numbers beyond 1, and even playing 1 might be too weak now that Oona is such an ideal kill card. Again, this is partly succumbing to "the fear", and partly overestimation of how well a 21 mana source deck can handle 3cc+ spells. Casting 3cc spells better involve either immediately drawing cards or finding/enabling your combo, not fetching random crap out of the SB. 

7) Running Duress + Thoughtseize over FoW - tying up a B to cast Duress/Thoughtseize is not a trivial matter because it often costs you a whole turn and it also clashes with the sorcery speed card drawing (Mulldrifter). Furthermore, Thoughtseizing your own WGD is a neat trick, but it will rarely happen unless you're playing some random aggro that isn't playing any disruption of consequence against you. I'm not saying that running 8 Duress effects is automatically inferior than running some combination of FoW and Duress, but you have to be a little more sensitive to the deck's limitations (don't make a 21-mana source deck so mana hungry to the point where your average turn to go off becomes 4-5).

8) Running inadequate ways of putting WGD in the graveyard - if all you have is Bazaar, that's not going to cut it as almost any starting hand of 7 without Bazaar is probably going to be terrible. There is a reason the deck played so many Intuitions and RtRs, and as I said there better be a compelling reason not to run these combo enablers.

9) Cutting Demonic Tutor - not a chance this will happen. You're playing a 3 card combo deck!



To sum up, you have to keep in mind these things with WGD:

1) You goal is to ensure the deck combos very quickly by maximizing your combo or combo enablers and not diluting them by adding too much disruption or inefficient kill cards; this is the main reason to play WGD in the first place.

2) Be mindful of the mana limitations and only play the strongest 3cc+ spells that have powerful immediate effects; be likewise mindful of disruption tying up mana and costing you turns.

3) Be more appreciative of the synergies and flexibility of cards like Intuition + RtR - it is no accident that WGDX builds did so well using those cards. Casually dismissing such cards is a mistake.

[Neonico]

Really well spoken DIcemanX
Murderous redcap are cards i considered in my build for 2 simple reasons :
 - I anticipated alot more Tinker platinum strategy, especially played in French meta because it hoses Ichorid.
 - I kept Eternal Witness as a secondary kill, meaning one less space for the deck.
But it can be interesting sideboard strategy, or even Maindeck strategy if platinum become more played in the new metagame. It remains an instant speed kill possibly with necromancy, and i really consider adding pact of negation as a potential secondary disrupt solution even if i'm not sure it's the right move (Still testing).

Intuition and demonic tutor are really KEY cards of the deck, untouchable for me. Same for Read the Rune, especially in the Mulldrifter build to avoid decking.

I dont totally agree with you on Entomb. Entomb was mainly important in skwi version of the deck, but it is a pretty nice card with skwi remplacement : Deep Analysis. Its not strong because it can bury a WGD to combo out, but because it reads 1UB, discard a card, loose 3 life : draw 2 cards. Very important play, expecially in controle matchup.

[dicemanx]

Murderous redcap are cards i considered in my build for 2 simple reasons :
 - I anticipated alot more Tinker platinum strategy, especially played in French meta because it hoses Ichorid.
 - I kept Eternal Witness as a secondary kill, meaning one less space for the deck.

Platinum Angel was a problem when Laquatus was the kill card because a Welder on the table represented Platinum Angel. Without Laquatus the chances of the opponent getting a Platinum Angel in play before you combo out drops dramatically; even if you find that your opponents get Platz out quickly, I'd consider other possible cards other than Redcap that can be good targets of animation outside of the WGD loop such as Triskelion or Memnarch, or  Shivan Hellkite in a 5C version.

However, since you're running Witness, I'd rather opt for 2 Cunning Wish to take care of any Platz problems and drop any other alternate kill cards.

I dont totally agree with you on Entomb. Entomb was mainly important in skwi version of the deck, but it is a pretty nice card with skwi remplacement : Deep Analysis. Its not strong because it can bury a WGD to combo out, but because it reads 1UB, discard a card, loose 3 life : draw 2 cards. Very important play, expecially in controle matchup.

I've played with Entomb quite a bit before dropping it, and the option of Entombing DA has been pretty underwhelming for me. I must say though that some of my past teammates that were successful playing WGDX in local events disagreed with me as well, but I was obviously still skeptical about Entomb's value in the deck. WGD can sometimes win so effortlessly in spite of, rather than because of, a particular card.

Nevertheless, the point still stands that Entomb is not an option if people are underplaying Intuition/RtR/Wish, which was the main reason I brought up the card. As I understand it you're not disagreeing on that point, just on the exclusion of Entomb if there are sufficient Intuitions/RtR/Wishes being played.

[zeus-online]

About hate cards:

Which cards can we expect maindeck?
These are the most probably IMO:
Tormod's crypt (Most likely 2 at the max)
Swords to plowshares (Only in a very few archetypes)
Platinum angel (Only in a very few archetypes)
Cunning wish -> Extirpate (Rather slow)
Random bounce spell (Usually 2 at the max)
Pithing needle (Usually only paired with trinket mages, and only 1)
Leyline of the void (Very few decks run this maindeck)
Stifle (Mostly in fishy decks)

That is so easy to discover that it suggests conspicuousness or little need for perspicacity in the observer. Duress/Thoughtseize/mana drain/FoW

I think the maindeck is generally strong enough to play around most of these without having answers maindeck.
T. Crypt is just a matter of animate, Crypt in response, dump another dragon and animate again (Something i've done several times the last time i was messing with this archetype)
Plow/Bounce is a matter of having the fow, or just having it all setup for a repeat attempt the next turn, which isn't always easy, but doable.
Platinum angel - Well, without maindeck bounce this will be a problem...There's two approaches, just stop the tinker which is probably a good idea in the first place...If it sticks - Just draw the game.
Cunning wish -> Extirpate, don't worry, just race it!
Pithing needle, this is just a matter of having other ways of dumping the dragon - Read the runes is perfect for this.
Leyline of the void, if it sticks game1 and you have no bounce spells main, then it's almost GG, only option is to hardcast mulldrifter/Oona/WGD - That's pretty bad, although i have won 1 match by going land, crypt, lotus, WGD....I would probably recommend just conceding if you have no way of removing it...No reason to show your opponent what you're playing if your chances of winning has just been shot down.....One other way could be tinker/Huge dude.
Stifle, this is similar to plow/Bounce, and i'd probably threat it the same.

Another trick is to cast animate on the dragon, and then responding to the hate with necromancy and combo out in response.

/Zeus

[c dizzle]

Aparently, my sense of humor was missed. Another poster suggested trying tech "for the sake of trying something different". So I started suggesting subpar win conditions. If you have any other questions, see my wink at the end of the Sparkmage post.

[c dizzle]

Pithing needle (Usually only paired with trinket mages, and only 1)

But that deck is often Bomberman which runs multiple Aether Spellbomb. With one maindeck bounce spell in Dragon, that match-up is TOUGH.

[zeus-online]

Yeah but he dosn't have all day to get them!

Most of the hate you will be able to race anyway, so i'd say you'd probably only run into either needle, crypt or spellbomb....maybe two of them if he is lucky.

And if you lost, you might have seen them all since he would probably work on stabilizing his position by getting more and more...But it all requires time and mana.

/Zeus

[Hydra]

Before the format changes Bomberman was a difficult matchup for Dragon because of the sheer number of hate cards it could throw down.  Spellbombs, Stifles, Forces, Drains, Crypts, Needles, Swords, all these things have seen play in mains for Bomberman, and those coupled with a solid clock with a combo finish have made Bomberman a pain to deal with in the past game 1.  Games two and three Bomberman is one of the few decks that can bring in hate without seriously compromising its own gameplan, making the overall matchup a real challenge if the Bomberman player is properly equipped (and with Ichorid around they would be).

Losing Brainstorm should hit Bomberman's consistency quite a bit (as does the fact that Bomberman has never realistically been tier 1, which limits how much play it sees), but it's definitely something that should be taken into consideration.

[c dizzle]

Losing Brainstorm should hit Bomberman's consistency quite a bit (as does the fact that Bomberman has never realistically been tier 1, which limits how much play it sees), but it's definitely something that should be taken into consideration.

I agree. In fact, when Tyrant Oath was the best deck (i.e. a couple of months ago) I went to a tourney with Dragon. I was SOOOOO ready for Oath. I knew the match-up and how to win it. I had that deck by the throat. I never saw it. I did see Bomberman and to be completely honest, I didn't know how to play the match-up. I fumbled around and got beat badly. Needless to say, I'm more prepared for it now, but it still is a very bad match-up.

[nineisnoone]

Curious that you mention Bomberman...  Before the thread became terrible, I was actually testing out +1 Auriok Salvager, +1 Necrogen Spellbomb.  It's a great Intuition target that only needs an Animate spell to win you the game (as opposed to the 2x card you need in play/hand for Intuition to win normally).  You'd probably have to shift over to the 5c mana base that Neonico suggests, otherwise the W to hardcast Salvagers (if they give it to you) would be difficult.  I choose Necrogen's over the other's because it can discard a Dragon/Oona.

[fury]

Curious that you mention Bomberman...  Before the thread became terrible, I was actually testing out +1 Auriok Salvager, +1 Necrogen Spellbomb.  It's a great Intuition target that only needs an Animate spell to win you the game (as opposed to the 2x card you need in play/hand for Intuition to win normally).  You'd probably have to shift over to the 5c mana base that Neonico suggests, otherwise the W to hardcast Salvagers (if they give it to you) would be difficult.  I choose Necrogen's over the other's because it can discard a Dragon/Oona.

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)

[dicemanx]

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

[zeus-online]

Mulldrifter has been decent...I actually won 1 game i could not have won without it..
I had the loop going, but had no bazaar, i had used 1 read the runes and had 1 intuition in hand....so what to intuition for?
I went with: Read the runes(Irrelevant), mulldrifter, oona. If my opponent gives me read the runes or mulldrifter, i win the game with oona...If he gives me oona, i can stop the loop by animating mulldrifter, and then hardcast oona and mill his library.

I've also enjoyed the extra card-draw, sometimes turning a hand full of animation into business.

Currently playing with just 4 FoW's as disruption, only missed duress in one match.

/Zeus

[fury]

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

It depends on the version of the Dragon side we choose. For a Masknought-transformal sideboard, Mulldrifter is less efficient than Deep Analysis, because we must side out some reanimation spells to make space for the Mask-Nought combo. That's why it's a good idea to keep both, Mulldrifter and Deep, like in WGDX.II.

On the other hand, with a non-transformal sideboard version of WGD, Mulldrifter is very efficient, even post side (because we side less cards than in a transformal sideboard version). It is a strong way of drawing cards, and once reanimated, it is a good blocker or a beatdown attacker. Finally, it has a lot of tricks with the Dragon combo. For instance, we may pay the evoke cost, draw 2 cards, and reanimate in response, without bazaar on the table. In the same way, it is easier to win once the Dragon combo is cast, because Mulldrifter can help finding the kill. Cf the example of zeus. Another of mine : I start the WGD combo with vampiric tutor in hand and Mulldrifter in the graveyard. A vampiric on Necromancy allowed me to put into play Mulldrifter into the dragon loop, for the win.

[zeus-online]

Cf the example of zeus. Another of mine : I start the WGD combo with vampiric tutor in hand and Mulldrifter in the graveyard. A vampiric on Necromancy allowed me to put into play Mulldrifter into the dragon loop, for the win.

That almost happened in a game aswell, unfortunetly the drifter was lost a turn earlier

/Zeus

[Neonico]

In my last tests, Mulldrifter has proven to be really strong in the deck. So much new tricks to figure, as Fury mentionned, Helped me in 2 or 3 Games 1 against ichorid, wich is nice also and is gold in the control matchup, really nice way to draw cards.

As for the Kill selection, i stay with Oona+Witness (Witness can be nice with intuition for some regrowth like tricks) and i stand with the 5 colors manabase.

And still no transformationnal sideboard, beside perhaps Oath+Hellkite, as i still play Orchards maindeck.

I also keep at least one duress and one thoughtseize maindeck because of the high combo decks number i face here in France in testings. But IMHO, for a random metagame, 4 FoW can be enough, and in every case, i think that 4 FoW + 2 duress likes are the good numbers.

[c dizzle]

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

I know this answer doesn't exactly answer the question, but here goes. I tested Ichorid against Dragon today. I found myself wishing for Mulldrifter and Extirpate. I had already planned on dumping the 5 Duress effects I had and I think that +2 Extirpate and +3 Mulldrifter would be the way to go. An evoked Mulldrifter gets rid of Bridge as does Extirpate. That may be enough to swing the match-up from absolutely terrible to tough-but-manageable.

[Negator13]

So I don't actually know anything about WGD, but I was goldfishing the latest list because playing Mulldrifter in type 1 excites me. 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. I was thinking about the cards that WGD is usually afraid of other than LotV/Crypt, like Extirpate, STP, Stifle, etc... those are all 1 cc. Other than Duress, there are like 4 1 cc cards in the deck, and theres a crapton of colorless accel including Ancient Tomb. So... why not run Chalice, usually to be set at 1 (although probably good @ 0 in some matchups). Seems like it would be a better fit for the way the deck plays and would address all the problems that Duress could be trying to solve. Post board, it would hinder your casting of CoV, but it seems like you could either: play CoV on their LotV first, or use a different bounce spell/removal spell like Echoing Truth or Reverent Silence, or just transform post board.

Thoughts?

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?