[WGDX] Card discussion

[fury]

Hi all,

The very hateful metagame we have now has forced Dragon players to find new ways for the Worldgorger combo. The classical way to do that is to find a narrow window to combo off when the chances of being disrupted, countered or hated is very weak. With Fish and control decks, Dragon must now face a lot of stuff to combo off : split second effects, instant spells, hateful permanents with activated ability, or hateful permanents with static abilities.

To face these threats, Dragon used to pack in protection like Force/Duress, Abeyance, Pernicious Deed, Engineer's Explosives, Xantid Swarm, and so on.

What are your other means to fight against the threats, to find a way for the combo ?

I find a creature which should help, though I didn't test it. it's Kederekt Leviathan with a reanimation spell. What do you think of this ?

Kederekt Leviathan
Creature - Leviathan
When Kederekt Leviathan enters the battlefield, return all other nonland permanents to their owners' hands.
Unearth  (: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step or if it would leave the battlefield. Unearth only as a sorcery.)
5/5

[meadbert]

Does that combo with Show and Tell?

You could just board in to that and Tyrants with Show and Tell and Animates.

EDIT:  It was not clear from your post.  Did you find a card like Leviathan or are you talking about Leviathan himself.  I do not think Leviathan combos with Animate Dead well since he bounces your Animate and thus kills himself.  Basically you can rebuild all non land permenants for 2 mana every turn which is solid, but you do not get to swing with Leviathan.

[Nefarias]

The most relevant hate to Dragon is graveyard hate, which hates this too. This does nothing against any spell-based hate like Ravenous Trap or Nature's Claim. If something like a Qasali Pridemage or Ground Seal is preventing you from comboing off, Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth/Rushing River are better ways to go

[fury]

Sorry for not being enough clear, but the trigger I want to point out is indeed the one you described. Any animate spell with Leviathan clear the board from annoying permanents the opponent could have, though the animate too returns to our hand, making the leviathan sacrificed.

Or course, this Leviathan doesn't combo with Show and Tell. But your idea could be deepened, by using Kederekt Leviathan to make infinite mana with moxes and an animation spell.

[the boogie man]

I think that the best way to avoid hate is to have more than 1 avenue to winning. I was drawing up decklists, and I think hex-mage dragon is a great idea. you could run pirahna marsh instead of bazaar, or in conjunction with it.

[shroomy2dope]

post board i've been siding out 1 WGD for 1 living wish. that nulls extirpate.

 i also run ancient grudge and ray of revelation. that helps pop off crpyt and relic. with such a surplus of tutors plus so many cards to load the yard these prove to be really efficient.

 the double animate is still the biggest play for wgd post board.  hate is circumventable, but counters are a perpetual threat.
 seeing as how my combo is an instant and duress is a sorcery i'm also hard pressed not to play some number of alternate wins. i play read the runes/cunning wish, plus the typical Oona kill, that way i should have no problem picking up my winning under counter hate.

the win at instant speed is a realy tough contender for most yard hate, however i draw, pitch, tutor, for a lot of cards. this in mind i like to have the option to either remove, or play around the hate, to better accomodate myself in a random situation. because if anyone else plays wgd like i do they've found that most plays are random but function well do to card synergy.

as far as fish decks are concerned caller of the claw has been my mvp.
cannonist, rootmaze, and teeg, and aven mindscencor are all irrelevent to caller. pridemage is of no real concern unless you've already lost the tempo,(which you shouldn't), and samuri of the pale curtain becomes the must answer. which isn't an incredible hassle.

stax has been tricky for me. mono red and 9 spere. i've started plowing through those decks though by utilzing pithing needle and lake of the dead. i love boarding out my artifact accelerants and boarding in lake of the dead. it's a land, it's unexpected, and it produces explosive mana when it hits the board.

in short, i think beyond durres effects most hate/control belongs boarded in wgd. and a lot of that should be yard abusable do to synergy. some bounce for leylines and a plan for dredge and the deck becomes quite resilient post board. especially considering you probably only need 1 more win at that point.

[fury]

The most relevant hate to Dragon is graveyard hate, which hates this too. This does nothing against any spell-based hate like Ravenous Trap or Nature's Claim. If something like a Qasali Pridemage or Ground Seal is preventing you from comboing off, Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth/Rushing River are better ways to go

That's true, I forsake the idea...

I think that the best way to avoid hate is to have more than 1 avenue to winning. I was drawing up decklists, and I think hex-mage dragon is a great idea. you could run pirahna marsh instead of bazaar, or in conjunction with it.

Yes, I believe Dragon must be able to diversify his strategy by including one more graveyard independant threat. Former examples were found in the following strategies :

-> Dreadnought/Mask : used to be very efficient, but now obsolete, because of the errata of Mask and the dominance of the keyvault combo, which makes players pack in a lot of artifact destruction spells.
-> Tarmogoyf : still efficient I think, especially against control machups
-> Tombstaker : I still don't know what to think about this guy. Seems to be very quick, but it is costly in terms of cards in graveyard.
-> Vampire Hexmage / Dark Depths : I don't test it, but this seems very efficient too.
-> I like the idea of Piranha Marsh : it's costly in terms of tempo, but allows a win with only the WGD combo working.

Did anyone test these strategies in WGDX ?