As I posted earlier when someone brought up braids... It doesn't do much. The mana is gone by your main phase now. It's not entirely worthless, but it basically is just for firebreathing... I can't imagine braids helping the dragon deck out very much.
Does it really matter? KotR is more expensive and better than the dollar mythic Bogardan Hellkite anyhow. Maybe it's a gimmick for a pure casual crowd but it's not one that anyone else would fall for.
Yeah, but we could've gotten it anyway if it just remained a rare and they had put a true mythic, or pumped up one that did deserve to be so.
Yeah, but we could've gotten it anyway if it just remained a rare and they had put a true mythic, or pumped up one that did deserve to be so.
like what? what could you shove in the knights portion of the deck thats mythic or deserves to be mythic other than kotr?
something like baneslayer would make games so one sided its not even funny. you know, i'm not a fan of the deck list. but i'm so tired of looking at this thread and seeing everyone say they could design a better list. stop saying it and do it. post it. back your statements up, what would you all have done differently that would've still made both decks fun, and encouraged you all to buy them?
like what? what could you shove in the knights portion of the deck thats mythic or deserves to be mythic other than kotr?
something like baneslayer would make games so one sided its not even funny. you know, i'm not a fan of the deck list. but i'm so tired of looking at this thread and seeing everyone say they could design a better list. stop saying it and do it. post it. back your statements up, what would you all have done differently that would've still made both decks fun, and encouraged you all to buy them?
I never said I could make a better list, probably couldn't even since I play casual. But it's the fact that Wizards cheats us with things like this. Like when I bought my Divine vs Demonic and MTG2010 came out and Serra Angel went from rare to uncommon... they could've done that since the duel deck and give me something better for my money.
Maybe turn Paladin en-Vec into mythic would've done the trick.
Want to see other duel decks I made ? Check out my Blog ! Feel free to post advice or give topics for me to make duel decks out of. Check out the Theros Block Planeswalker Theme Duel Decks Elspeth, Xenagos, Ashok, Kiora, Ajani
I added Braid of fire (Coldsnap) to the Dragon deck and it does miracles when you cast it! It brings some balance with minimum tweaking.
EDIT: Actually, I just read the new rules and I realized I wasn't playing the card correctly. Awww, too bad... Anyway, we play under the old pre-M10 rules as we find them better.
You were playing it wrong by pre-M10 rules, too, then. The mana empties before you can use it in your main phase, and, any unused mana that you didn't have, you'd take damage due to mana burn.
You were playing it wrong by pre-M10 rules, too, then. The mana empties before you can use it in your main phase, and, any unused mana that you didn't have, you'd take damage due to mana burn.
Braid of Fire is still awesome in a Dragon deck...what with all the firebreathing and instant burn going around. But yeah, you can't really waste a rare on something like that when you need all the rare spots for dragons.
Does it really matter? KotR is more expensive and better than the dollar mythic Bogardan Hellkite anyhow. Maybe it's a gimmick for a pure casual crowd but it's not one that anyone else would fall for.
It's an integrity thing. Just keep it at rare and call it what it is.
Don't buy it! It's total crap. Knights are so imba and dragons are so inconsistent.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Given up magic because a)its a waste of money b)it sucks the joy out of life c)im doing more interesting things than tapping pieces of plastic that have no intrinsic value.
I encourage you to do the same. Instead of FNM try Friday Night Something Spontaneous. Instead of thousands of hours and dollars on plastic imagine it with a significant other or friends sharing something meaningful. I randomly typed a new password, so bon voyage itches i encourage you to follow suit! Cheers
Don't buy it! It's total crap. Knights are so imba and dragons are so inconsistent.
Yeah, no. After playing some more games, these are surpisingly well-balanced... dragons are still winning most of the games for me, but with more games played, regression to the mean has kicked in and it's pretty close (~60% dragons wins, but most games I've played/seen the stronger player was piloting dragons).
That said, you really shouldn't buy it unless you want the alternate art cards AND you have one or more friends who enjoys playing the sort of casual games that duel decks cater to (yes to both for me)... but that should go without saying, since that's kind of the point of products like this.
Actually, I've found the knights to be more consistent in terms of its power. However, dragons have the ability to go from nada to ownage in a turn or two. so its really important for dragons to godhand. i found that dragons dictate how the game will turn out. if dragons draws a good hand, dragons win. if not, knights win. its much harder for knights to have a crap draw than dragons imo.
Actually, I've found the knights to be more consistent in terms of its power. However, dragons have the ability to go from nada to ownage in a turn or two. so its really important for dragons to godhand. i found that dragons dictate how the game will turn out. if dragons draws a good hand, dragons win. if not, knights win. its much harder for knights to have a crap draw than dragons imo.
In other words, sheer luck and player skill will pull the Dragon deck through a fraction of the time. Meanwhile, Knights will be curbstomping the **** out of the Dragon deck except for the off hand where Knights gets color-shafted.
AKA: We didn't want to design two balanced decks that were worth the $19.99 you paid for, so we just put in two $10 cards and built a deck of jank around both to sait you people. Only those two cards are now worth less than $10 because this precon made them more abundant.
I'm never investing in Knights VS Dragons. At the very least, Phyrexia VS Coalition gets me a Relic, reprinted Dragons with modern frames, and a foil Negator.
I mean, look at the Dragon deck! It has no idea what it is trying to do.
Goblin Subtheme, when Goblins had nothing to do with Dragons until Alara block. They could have made this Jund VS Bant, and had Knights VS Dragons as the underlying theme to justify this.
Attempting to use fast mana to churn out Dragons. Why not just go RG and use stuff like Elvish Piper? Or BR and use Reanimator spells?
Attempting to use Burn as removal against a deck that can render half of it's board indestructible, and against a deck that has access to Protection. Why not take a note from the Fire VS Lightning precon and put in actually useful Burn effects?
Attempting to go Mono-Red against a 2-color deck. Red is one of the weakest mono-colors. At least throw a Koth/Gauntlet of Power/Extraplanar Lense in the deck so we can make use of the Mountains!
The Dragon deck was not built to be even remotely competitive against the deck it's supposed to be battling! It has no synergy with itself.
And before someone brings up the whole "Knights slaying Dragons is fantasy, and these decks are on-flavor for following that", please bear in mind one thing: The fantasy scenario is Solo-Knight VS Solo-Dragon, not Army VS Solo-Dragon!
In other words, sheer luck and player skill will pull the Dragon deck through a fraction of the time. Meanwhile, Knights will be curbstomping the **** out of the Dragon deck except for the off hand where Knights gets color-shafted.
Well, so far after 12 games, 6 with knights and 6 with dragons, the dragons have won 10 of 12. The last time I played knights, they got off to a great start (as usual), and I had a 20-3 lead ... and then Thunder Dragon hit, wiping out all but 1 of my half-dozen or so knights, followed by top-decked Bogardan Hellkite on the next turn, and then a Dragon Whelp on the next to clinch the win.
The knights are strong early but generally inconsistent given the number of 1-ofs. The dragons get beat up for the first 5-7 turns, but inevitably a fatty is going to hit by turn 7 (usually doesn't matter which one, but some are certainly better than others) and the game completely swings in the other direction.
Goblin Subtheme, when Goblins had nothing to do with Dragons until Alara block. They could have made this Jund VS Bant, and had Knights VS Dragons as the underlying theme to justify this.
The Goblin subtheme lets it actually sorta survive in the early game. Just in case you didn't know, Dragons tend to cost a lot of mana. Having the goblins there provides a speed bump, while also letting them turn into mana later.
Attempting to use fast mana to churn out Dragons. Why not just go RG and use stuff like Elvish Piper? Or BR and use Reanimator spells?
Because they wanted the Dragon deck to be monocolor. Did you not read the explanation that WotC gave out? They answered this question.
Attempting to use Burn as removal against a deck that can render half of it's board indestructible, and against a deck that has access to Protection. Why not take a note from the Fire VS Lightning precon and put in actually useful Burn effects?
Last I checked, Knight Exemplar doesn't have shroud. You can use your burn against the thing making the other dudes indestructible. This is not hard.
Attempting to go Mono-Red against a 2-color deck. Red is one of the weakest mono-colors. At least throw a Koth/Gauntlet of Power/Extraplanar Lense in the deck so we can make use of the Mountains!
Red is not one of the weakest monocolors, since it (almost) always has a T1/2 deck, in some form, there. U barely gets it, in standard, while white/black are almost always paired. Same with Green. Most of the time, when you think of mono colored decks, they're WUBR, with White Weenie, MBC/Suicide, MUC, and Sligh/All in Red/etc.
Additionally, they wanted all the rares to be dragons. Koth is not a dragon. Gauntlet of Power is not a dragon. Extraplanar Lens is not a dragon. Additionally, Koth is a mythic, meaning that it would be the dragon deck's only mythic, meaning the 'poster card' of the dragon deck would not be a dragon deck.
The Dragon deck was not built to be even remotely competitive against the deck it's supposed to be battling! It has no synergy with itself.
Wat? It has the goblins that stall till you can sac them to get out your big dragons. It may not be 'good', but it still has synergy.
I think they did a better job with this that with "Scorch the World with Dragonfire" but there's definitely still room for further improvement.
The simple fact that they went far enough to include two Dragonspeaker Shaman and had slightly better early game sweeps/protection (both a better selection of early plays as well as Pyroclasm in addition to Breath of Darigaaz) makes the archenemy deck many times better than this hunk of junk.
Picked this up the other day and made a few tweaks to it (Like adding another Knight Exemplar, and Ajani Goldmane to the Knights and Liquimetal Coating and a few straight burn to the dragons)
Let's just say having Knight of the Reliquary out after dropping Ajani's Avatar and equipping Loxodon Warhammer playing against a mono-G deck and Forecasting Paladin of Prahv tends to make a lot of lifegain o.o... More than I had originally intended. (KotR enables multiple Sejiri Steppe drops as long as you have multiples in the deck and/or Selesnya Sanctuary)
Also, with the Dragons, I highly recommend putting in more stuff like Armillary sphere. You need to hit as many lands drops as you can or else it just doesn't work at all >.<.
Just played some games with my friends. I was dragons deck
Dragons struggle for mana if they dont get the require cards. A silver knight pretty much ends the game if u dont draw the needed removal spells and often a quick repriesal right after u dropped ur huge dragon which is annoying.
The dragon deck is just to jank compared with the knights. I often get down to below 7 life before i can play anything of importence with the dragon deck
Want to see other duel decks I made ? Check out my Blog ! Feel free to post advice or give topics for me to make duel decks out of. Check out the Theros Block Planeswalker Theme Duel Decks Elspeth, Xenagos, Ashok, Kiora, Ajani
Yeah, but we could've gotten it anyway if it just remained a rare and they had put a true mythic, or pumped up one that did deserve to be so.
like what? what could you shove in the knights portion of the deck thats mythic or deserves to be mythic other than kotr?
something like baneslayer would make games so one sided its not even funny. you know, i'm not a fan of the deck list. but i'm so tired of looking at this thread and seeing everyone say they could design a better list. stop saying it and do it. post it. back your statements up, what would you all have done differently that would've still made both decks fun, and encouraged you all to buy them?
I never said I could make a better list, probably couldn't even since I play casual. But it's the fact that Wizards cheats us with things like this. Like when I bought my Divine vs Demonic and MTG2010 came out and Serra Angel went from rare to uncommon... they could've done that since the duel deck and give me something better for my money.
Maybe turn Paladin en-Vec into mythic would've done the trick.
Dragon Crimson Hellkite Dragon Roost Dragon Tyrant
knights Hero of Bladehold Crovax, Ascendant Hero
random question wouldn't Steel Leaf Paladin be good for the knight deck?
Decks used- GGarruk vs LilianaB, WElsepth vs TezzeretU, WGKnights vs DragonsR
WGRAjani vs BolasRUB, WUVenser vs KothR, RUIzzet vs GolgariGB.
WBSorin vs TibaltBR, WRHeros vs Monsters RG
Want to see other duel decks I made ? Check out my Blog ! Feel free to post advice or give topics for me to make duel decks out of. Check out the Theros Block Planeswalker Theme Duel Decks Elspeth, Xenagos, Ashok, Kiora, Ajani
You were playing it wrong by pre-M10 rules, too, then. The mana empties before you can use it in your main phase, and, any unused mana that you didn't have, you'd take damage due to mana burn.
Braid of Fire is still awesome in a Dragon deck...what with all the firebreathing and instant burn going around. But yeah, you can't really waste a rare on something like that when you need all the rare spots for dragons.
It's an integrity thing. Just keep it at rare and call it what it is.
I encourage you to do the same. Instead of FNM try Friday Night Something Spontaneous. Instead of thousands of hours and dollars on plastic imagine it with a significant other or friends sharing something meaningful. I randomly typed a new password, so bon voyage itches i encourage you to follow suit! Cheers
This. Totally this.
Yeah, no. After playing some more games, these are surpisingly well-balanced... dragons are still winning most of the games for me, but with more games played, regression to the mean has kicked in and it's pretty close (~60% dragons wins, but most games I've played/seen the stronger player was piloting dragons).
That said, you really shouldn't buy it unless you want the alternate art cards AND you have one or more friends who enjoys playing the sort of casual games that duel decks cater to (yes to both for me)... but that should go without saying, since that's kind of the point of products like this.
What im doing is looking at it as a box of singles as opposed to two diffrent decks. youll be amazed at how diffrent they look
Everything will getting owned by "mythic" Ali Baba.
... how crappy that set would look like
Lemme guess... no Dwarven Demolition Team?
In other words, sheer luck and player skill will pull the Dragon deck through a fraction of the time. Meanwhile, Knights will be curbstomping the **** out of the Dragon deck except for the off hand where Knights gets color-shafted.
AKA: We didn't want to design two balanced decks that were worth the $19.99 you paid for, so we just put in two $10 cards and built a deck of jank around both to sait you people. Only those two cards are now worth less than $10 because this precon made them more abundant.
I'm never investing in Knights VS Dragons. At the very least, Phyrexia VS Coalition gets me a Relic, reprinted Dragons with modern frames, and a foil Negator.
I mean, look at the Dragon deck! It has no idea what it is trying to do.
The Dragon deck was not built to be even remotely competitive against the deck it's supposed to be battling! It has no synergy with itself.
And before someone brings up the whole "Knights slaying Dragons is fantasy, and these decks are on-flavor for following that", please bear in mind one thing: The fantasy scenario is Solo-Knight VS Solo-Dragon, not Army VS Solo-Dragon!
Driving Stick with Isochron Scepter.
Trinkets and Treasure: An Artificer's Toolbox.
Proc Drops: Playing with One Drops.
Deck Primer: Toshiro Umezawa
Well, so far after 12 games, 6 with knights and 6 with dragons, the dragons have won 10 of 12. The last time I played knights, they got off to a great start (as usual), and I had a 20-3 lead ... and then Thunder Dragon hit, wiping out all but 1 of my half-dozen or so knights, followed by top-decked Bogardan Hellkite on the next turn, and then a Dragon Whelp on the next to clinch the win.
The knights are strong early but generally inconsistent given the number of 1-ofs. The dragons get beat up for the first 5-7 turns, but inevitably a fatty is going to hit by turn 7 (usually doesn't matter which one, but some are certainly better than others) and the game completely swings in the other direction.
G Pumped Elvish Warriors G
GW Infectious Slivers WG
WU Milling Allies UW
Legacy:
UB Hex-Depths BU (combo-control)
G NO/Aggro Elves G
Commander:
WUBRG Sliver Army GRBUW (multiplayer)
WUG Rafiq the Exalted GUW (1-on-1 voltron)
GU Edric's Circus UG (multiplayer tokens)
B Relentless Rats B (multiplayer combo)
UB Sygg, the Punisher (in progress)BU
UBR Nicol Bolas, Elder Dragon Highlander RBU (in progress)
The Goblin subtheme lets it actually sorta survive in the early game. Just in case you didn't know, Dragons tend to cost a lot of mana. Having the goblins there provides a speed bump, while also letting them turn into mana later.
Because they wanted the Dragon deck to be monocolor. Did you not read the explanation that WotC gave out? They answered this question.
Last I checked, Knight Exemplar doesn't have shroud. You can use your burn against the thing making the other dudes indestructible. This is not hard.
Red is not one of the weakest monocolors, since it (almost) always has a T1/2 deck, in some form, there. U barely gets it, in standard, while white/black are almost always paired. Same with Green. Most of the time, when you think of mono colored decks, they're WUBR, with White Weenie, MBC/Suicide, MUC, and Sligh/All in Red/etc.
Additionally, they wanted all the rares to be dragons. Koth is not a dragon. Gauntlet of Power is not a dragon. Extraplanar Lens is not a dragon. Additionally, Koth is a mythic, meaning that it would be the dragon deck's only mythic, meaning the 'poster card' of the dragon deck would not be a dragon deck.
Wat? It has the goblins that stall till you can sac them to get out your big dragons. It may not be 'good', but it still has synergy.
The simple fact that they went far enough to include two Dragonspeaker Shaman and had slightly better early game sweeps/protection (both a better selection of early plays as well as Pyroclasm in addition to Breath of Darigaaz) makes the archenemy deck many times better than this hunk of junk.
Let's just say having Knight of the Reliquary out after dropping Ajani's Avatar and equipping Loxodon Warhammer playing against a mono-G deck and Forecasting Paladin of Prahv tends to make a lot of lifegain o.o... More than I had originally intended. (KotR enables multiple Sejiri Steppe drops as long as you have multiples in the deck and/or Selesnya Sanctuary)
Also, with the Dragons, I highly recommend putting in more stuff like Armillary sphere. You need to hit as many lands drops as you can or else it just doesn't work at all >.<.
Trades
Thanks to Xenoninja for the Avatar & Sig, from Heroes of the Plane Studios
Legacy:
XUArtifact UX
BGWMycoloth/Saproling Beatdown WGB
RRSuicide RedRR
EDH:
GOmnath, Locus of ManaG
BAnowon, the Vampire TribalB
UGMomir Vig, Simic VisionaryGU
WRJor Kadeen, VoltronRW
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedGRB
BGWDoran, the Siege TowerWGB
BGWGhave, Guru of tokensWGB
WUBRGScion of the Ur-DragonGRBUW
WUBRGKarona, False GodGRBUW
Nah, Wizards is too good to make a rookie mistake like that, instead they'll go all out and do:
20x Mountain
40x Dwarven Demolition Team
Dragons struggle for mana if they dont get the require cards. A silver knight pretty much ends the game if u dont draw the needed removal spells and often a quick repriesal right after u dropped ur huge dragon which is annoying.
The dragon deck is just to jank compared with the knights. I often get down to below 7 life before i can play anything of importence with the dragon deck
Decks used- GGarruk vs LilianaB, WElsepth vs TezzeretU, WGKnights vs DragonsR
WGRAjani vs BolasRUB, WUVenser vs KothR, RUIzzet vs GolgariGB.
WBSorin vs TibaltBR, WRHeros vs Monsters RG
Want to see other duel decks I made ? Check out my Blog ! Feel free to post advice or give topics for me to make duel decks out of. Check out the Theros Block Planeswalker Theme Duel Decks Elspeth, Xenagos, Ashok, Kiora, Ajani
Maybe try working a hobby or kitchen knife in under the tab?
:EDH:
WR Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (HOLD/100) WR
WB Teysa, Orzhov Scion (HOLD/100) WB