This deck, designed by Chris Browne (Demonic Attorney on TMD) is a great throwback to the heyday of Dragon. The premise of this deck is very simple; there are two decks here. One is a Worldgorger Dragon combo deck that uses Bazaar of Baghdad, Intuition, and Read the Runes to get a Worldgorger Dragon in the Graveyard. Then when you use an aura (enchant creature) to animate a worldgorger dragon (from now on known as WGD), some interesting things happen. The enchantment comes into play, targeting the WGD. The WGD comes into play, with the enchantment attached. WGD's "enter the battlefield" trigger removes all permanents from play, including the enchantment that is keeping it alive. When the enchantment leaves play, WGD dies (poor dragon..). All your permanents return untapped! This includes the animate dead/dance of the dead/necromancy, which brings back the dragon. There is time for you to use your lands to add mana, and your bazaar of baghdad to draw/discard through your library, finding the one Oona. Once Oona is in the yard, you pick a time and have the animate enchantment target her. Then you activate her X+ U/B for 1,000 or however much. You remove your opponents library, get a bunch of tokens, and that usually amounts to you winning the game.
Now, being a deck solely focused on the graveyard to win, you are very vulnerable to any hate that people have for Dredge. This includes a wide, wide variety of hate, that really isn't possible to fight against easily. The best option? Change Decks!
The goal (in a perfect world) is to win game one by not having your opponent realize how you're going to kill them; which is not that hard considering many vintage players are familiar with vintage from the last few years, not from 2003, 2004, or 2005 (when dragon was more popular). Game two, after some grumbling about how it's hard to "fight through all the Ichorid hate" can be very easy to win. I recently smashed Painter Game 2 when they boarded out six REBs/Pyroblasts to bring in Ravenous Traps and Extirpates. I landed a Tezzeret and protected it while ignoring the four dead cards in his hand. Make sure you bring in 15 cards and shuffle them in to your deck before taking 15 cards back out. You don't want your opponent to know what you're doing.
I have been playing this for a few weeks and really enjoy it. It is fun and yet still competitive. It's also fun to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Dragon, Tezzeret" against people who know that the deck can transform.
If anyone has any suggestions, thoughts, or questions, feel free to ask!
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I remember the good`O days when dragon was awesome and had a small competitive edge......wizards shot this archtype down years ago. I still have the cards to throw it together, and I sometimes surprise the group with it. I just could never see myself playing this in a tourney ever again. To much hate, and not enough love these days.
S.M.
Some players have adopted an Oath sideboard plan. I think that Tezzeret is better then Oath, and that Oath is more vulnerable to any graveyard hate that would come in against Dragon proper. I strolled through the swiss of a 50+ player tournament in New York a few weeks ago; it has a lot more game then you realize.
If you decided to use a transformational sideboard into Oath, what 15 would you run?
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The deck in Dragon form didn't lose a single game 1, and any game losses came in game 2 where the opponent guessed correctly which deck to board in for. (Funny situation against an Oath deck, he boarded in against dragon, I ended up staying with dragon in and just beat down with Dark Confidant and a hard cast Oona)
The match draw was round one against Staxx. Game on i Dragoned out on tun 3 with him having staxx on field with no counters yet. Game 2 i boarded into Tezzeret and almost had the lock if not for me having to sack top to smokestack, then him weldering my time vault out for the top when i was holding yawgwill and key...unfortunately he had a Tormad's Crypt in play at the same time. Game 3 went to time as i stuck with Tezz in the deck.
Match 2 was against Oath. Game 1 he had oathed out Platinum Angel before i could combo out on turn 4, but with no library, no answers in hand, and me eventually drawing the echo he scooped. Game 2 turned into tezzeret and casted gift into the vault/key/will/regrowth package which he scooped to.
Match 3 was against another oath deck. Game one he had nothing as i dragoned out on turn 2. this is where in game 2 he boarded for dragon and i kept them in and just beat face while saving forces to keep oath off the board.
Match 4 was against black/blue hexmage/depths - Game one i accelerated out a bit but didn't have much else, he was running main board Sadistic sacrament but luckily enough when he cast it i was holding Intuition and was able to get Oona and 2 dragons out of the library...he grabbed all 3 necromancy out tho, but a tutor into animate dead ended it anyways.
Match 5 was against fish. Game one dragoned out turn 3 with not seeing anything from his deck except lands and some mox. Game 2 i had to lose tempo early by forceing a turn 1 choke tossing merchant scroll...got beat down bad and did nothing really in return. Game 3 turned into Tezzret. Turn 1 was swamp into sol ring into time vault...turn 2 upkeep vamp tutor into key with him scooping.
So all in all i'm definitely happy with the deck, not losing a single game one sets the deck into a really good position
Why no Entomb or Buried Alive? These cards were essential in making the old lists amazing. This deck was part of the reason Entomb was restericted.Now that Entomb is no longer restericted... Why not?
Why no Entomb or Buried Alive? These cards were essential in making the old lists amazing. This deck was part of the reason Entomb was restericted.Now that Entomb is no longer restericted... Why not?
Because intuition gets the dragon in the yaurd or you can grab 3 animate spells or 3 bazaar to get one in hand.....
Intuition does everything entomb does and then some.
Because intuition gets the dragon in the yaurd or you can grab 3 animate spells or 3 bazaar to get one in hand.....
Intuition does everything entomb does and then some.
When I ran this deck I ran both Intuition and Entomb... So... Why no Entomb again?
1st turn: Entomb- WGD
2nd turn: Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, etc... Combo.
Run Cunning Wish to grab a Stroke of Genius and win. Or run Whispers of the Muse or Airiel Caravan to search for a win con. That's how I ran my version. Either that or I just won with Ambassador Laquatus. This might be a different deck all together though really... I'll post my old list on here later to see what you guys think. It can still transform into something ele after board too.
How many people were in the event that you played in? Do you think that in a 100 person tournament where 12-15% of the decks are staxx based that you would perform just as well? I am very appreciative of Dragon and as a Staxx player, I hate playing against it, but it really isn't difficult to get around, especially with the creation of Ravenous Trap and Needle.
but it really isn't difficult to get around, especially with the creation of Ravenous Trap and Needle.
isn't this the whole point of transforming? you don't start game one with those in your deck. game 2 they loose most of their value (needle is still harsh, but can be countered).
edit-
ps..
i usued to play tezz that transformed into oath.. it was pretty good. so i'm very interested in this deck as well. plus i just really enjoy essentially getting to play two decks at one event. though you can't do this all the time (regulars you play against will be expecting it).
1.) Anyone who thinks cancel is viable should be shot. in the face. with a hammer.
2.) You misunderstand, what I was suggesting was the total exclusion of Spellstutter Sprite, because it just isnt that good anymore.
3.) Understand, Dredge is not really a Magic: The Gathering deck. When a card is playable in it, it doesn't mean it's a tournament playable card. It means it's playable in whatever crazy fantasy world that Dredge operates in.
is there any particular reason to run oona instead of Ambassador Laquatus?
Oona rfgs the cards so they cant gais blessing or pull some sort of grave trick, also animating or dropping an oona with a lotus or something can be a win right there (with disruption back up). It beats for anything from 4-6 depending on how you animate it or play it, it can rfg win cards like time vault while making a small army to quiken the clock.
win more. tempo loss when you need an untaped land early. horrilbe for transformational side.
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1.) Anyone who thinks cancel is viable should be shot. in the face. with a hammer.
2.) You misunderstand, what I was suggesting was the total exclusion of Spellstutter Sprite, because it just isnt that good anymore.
3.) Understand, Dredge is not really a Magic: The Gathering deck. When a card is playable in it, it doesn't mean it's a tournament playable card. It means it's playable in whatever crazy fantasy world that Dredge operates in.
I have played around with Pirahna Marsh when attempting to convert 43 Lands to Vintage and found it to be substandard. I guess in such a combo deck as Dragon including cards that are not good on their own, can create a critical mass of "not good cards" which leads to lower win percentages - Dragon already has plenty of those. Sure it's a permanent type that is difficult to remove and it can be tutored with Crop Rotation - but then you have to play Crop Rotation and Green - diluting your deck and possibly endangering your mana base. Mana screw in vintage is bad enough, but color screw is even worse. Coming into play tapped can be such a huge tempo loss. It is a unique win condition, but I think it falls under the category of really coolness, rather then really powerful. For example I like Eternal Witness as a better kill condition then the Marsh as it will help in the transformational sideboard.
**After edit(I cut myself off too quickly)**
Wanted to post a maindeck that I saw over at TMD for discussion, it is capable of sideboard transformation but just going to post maindeck for comments. Credit to Meadbert on the deck. It is a bit more proactive in being able to fill the graveyard quickly and utlize the card advantge from it's squees.
Few notes - I may end up starting up a thread on this because it is very different and people may want to address it's sideboard.
For more disruption could consider Cabal Therapies. An Iona has been discussed as a better reanimation target then a second Oona.
Note that it's non-obvious way to win is with Animate on a Dragon, Horror in Yard and extra Animate. Quoted from the thread for clarity
"You animate Dragon and generate some mana and then eventually have Animate target Horror. You then use the second animate on the Dragon. This will cause both animates and Horror to leave play. Dragon then leaves play bringing back both Animates, Horror and your black mana source. In response to the Animate triggers you sacrifice Horror to himself. Then the first animate brings back Dragon and both animates leave again.
Next time through the loop Dragon leaves play and brings back both animates. The first gets Horror and then next Dragon and from here everything starts again."
i was building cerebral assasin the other day (for for competitive tourneys per se, but because that deck is FUN), and realized that shivan hellkite is a much stronger wincon than oona, mainly because you can also kill a platinum angel if they have one in play (staxxx sometimes runs one as a tinker toy) it also kills right then, not during your opponent's draw step
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Josh "War" Monks
Seattle, WA
Team Still Had All These (ofc)
swerv'in your blighnin's since 2009
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4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
Disruption
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Animate Dead
2 Necromancy
1 Dance of the Dead
Other
2 Intuition
2 Read the Runes
1 Echoing Truth
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Brainstorm
1 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Mana Drain
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Volcanic Island
1 Fire//Ice
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
1 Time Vault
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tolarian Academy
This deck, designed by Chris Browne (Demonic Attorney on TMD) is a great throwback to the heyday of Dragon. The premise of this deck is very simple; there are two decks here. One is a Worldgorger Dragon combo deck that uses Bazaar of Baghdad, Intuition, and Read the Runes to get a Worldgorger Dragon in the Graveyard. Then when you use an aura (enchant creature) to animate a worldgorger dragon (from now on known as WGD), some interesting things happen. The enchantment comes into play, targeting the WGD. The WGD comes into play, with the enchantment attached. WGD's "enter the battlefield" trigger removes all permanents from play, including the enchantment that is keeping it alive. When the enchantment leaves play, WGD dies (poor dragon..). All your permanents return untapped! This includes the animate dead/dance of the dead/necromancy, which brings back the dragon. There is time for you to use your lands to add mana, and your bazaar of baghdad to draw/discard through your library, finding the one Oona. Once Oona is in the yard, you pick a time and have the animate enchantment target her. Then you activate her X+ U/B for 1,000 or however much. You remove your opponents library, get a bunch of tokens, and that usually amounts to you winning the game.
Now, being a deck solely focused on the graveyard to win, you are very vulnerable to any hate that people have for Dredge. This includes a wide, wide variety of hate, that really isn't possible to fight against easily. The best option? Change Decks!
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
Disruption
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Duress
Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
Other
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Intuition
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fire//Ice
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
2 Read the Runes
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Animate Dead
2 Necromancy
1 Dance of the Dead
The goal (in a perfect world) is to win game one by not having your opponent realize how you're going to kill them; which is not that hard considering many vintage players are familiar with vintage from the last few years, not from 2003, 2004, or 2005 (when dragon was more popular). Game two, after some grumbling about how it's hard to "fight through all the Ichorid hate" can be very easy to win. I recently smashed Painter Game 2 when they boarded out six REBs/Pyroblasts to bring in Ravenous Traps and Extirpates. I landed a Tezzeret and protected it while ignoring the four dead cards in his hand. Make sure you bring in 15 cards and shuffle them in to your deck before taking 15 cards back out. You don't want your opponent to know what you're doing.
I have been playing this for a few weeks and really enjoy it. It is fun and yet still competitive. It's also fun to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Dragon, Tezzeret" against people who know that the deck can transform.
If anyone has any suggestions, thoughts, or questions, feel free to ask!
Looking for a place to play in Southern NJ? Top Deck Games is the place! Like us on Facebook
what are the pros/cons?
Thanks Darth Monkey
Stuff people will bring in for Dragon will also hose Oath. Everything they sideboard for Dragon will be dead vs Tezz.
Trade Thread
Modern
RWGBurnGWR
GUInfectUG
GRTronRG
UWGifts TronWU
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RGWZooWGR
Legacy
BUWTinFinsWUB
UROmniTellRU
BURTESRUB
GElves!G
GBPSIBG
RGBelcherGR
UBRGWDredgeWGRBU
UBAffinityBU
RBurnR
Vintage
UBGDoomsdayGBU
0Martello Shops0
GElves!G
UBTPSBU
UBelcherU
0Dredge0
S.M.
Thanks Darth Monkey
If you decided to use a transformational sideboard into Oath, what 15 would you run?
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4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
Disruption
4 Force of Will
1 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Confidant
Combo
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
1 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy
1 Dance of the Dead
4 Intuition
2 Read the Runes
1 Echoing Truth
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Brainstorm
4 Mana Drain
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Tropical Island
1 Regrowth
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Ponder
1 Tinker
1 Time Vault
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tolarian Academy
The deck in Dragon form didn't lose a single game 1, and any game losses came in game 2 where the opponent guessed correctly which deck to board in for. (Funny situation against an Oath deck, he boarded in against dragon, I ended up staying with dragon in and just beat down with Dark Confidant and a hard cast Oona)
The match draw was round one against Staxx. Game on i Dragoned out on tun 3 with him having staxx on field with no counters yet. Game 2 i boarded into Tezzeret and almost had the lock if not for me having to sack top to smokestack, then him weldering my time vault out for the top when i was holding yawgwill and key...unfortunately he had a Tormad's Crypt in play at the same time. Game 3 went to time as i stuck with Tezz in the deck.
Match 2 was against Oath. Game 1 he had oathed out Platinum Angel before i could combo out on turn 4, but with no library, no answers in hand, and me eventually drawing the echo he scooped. Game 2 turned into tezzeret and casted gift into the vault/key/will/regrowth package which he scooped to.
Match 3 was against another oath deck. Game one he had nothing as i dragoned out on turn 2. this is where in game 2 he boarded for dragon and i kept them in and just beat face while saving forces to keep oath off the board.
Match 4 was against black/blue hexmage/depths - Game one i accelerated out a bit but didn't have much else, he was running main board Sadistic sacrament but luckily enough when he cast it i was holding Intuition and was able to get Oona and 2 dragons out of the library...he grabbed all 3 necromancy out tho, but a tutor into animate dead ended it anyways.
Match 5 was against fish. Game one dragoned out turn 3 with not seeing anything from his deck except lands and some mox. Game 2 i had to lose tempo early by forceing a turn 1 choke tossing merchant scroll...got beat down bad and did nothing really in return. Game 3 turned into Tezzret. Turn 1 was swamp into sol ring into time vault...turn 2 upkeep vamp tutor into key with him scooping.
So all in all i'm definitely happy with the deck, not losing a single game one sets the deck into a really good position
Ultimate hate of Spellstutter Sprite!
You just lost the game!!!
View here to see rules for the game:
The Game!
Because intuition gets the dragon in the yaurd or you can grab 3 animate spells or 3 bazaar to get one in hand.....
Intuition does everything entomb does and then some.
Thanks Darth Monkey
When I ran this deck I ran both Intuition and Entomb... So... Why no Entomb again?
1st turn: Entomb- WGD
2nd turn: Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, etc... Combo.
Run Cunning Wish to grab a Stroke of Genius and win. Or run Whispers of the Muse or Airiel Caravan to search for a win con. That's how I ran my version. Either that or I just won with Ambassador Laquatus. This might be a different deck all together though really... I'll post my old list on here later to see what you guys think. It can still transform into something ele after board too.
only if it's iona/vault oath. can't boarding into original oath still work? it's not reliant on the graveyard. (akroma, hellkite, ect).
i agree, can someone post this list. a few of you sound as if it's common practice, so i assume there is a competitive list that i've not seen.
isn't this the whole point of transforming? you don't start game one with those in your deck. game 2 they loose most of their value (needle is still harsh, but can be countered).
edit-
ps..
i usued to play tezz that transformed into oath.. it was pretty good. so i'm very interested in this deck as well. plus i just really enjoy essentially getting to play two decks at one event. though you can't do this all the time (regulars you play against will be expecting it).
Oona rfgs the cards so they cant gais blessing or pull some sort of grave trick, also animating or dropping an oona with a lotus or something can be a win right there (with disruption back up). It beats for anything from 4-6 depending on how you animate it or play it, it can rfg win cards like time vault while making a small army to quiken the clock.
Thanks Darth Monkey
It kills just by going off.
Legacy Competitive
BUReanimatorUB
RUSneaky ShowUR(Dismantled)
GBUReanimatorUBG(Retired)
(Pre-Mystical Tutor Banning)
{RIP:July 1, 2010}
Legacy Casual
UWBag Of TricksWU
GWEnchantressWG(Budget/In construction)
WSoul SistersW
Legacy Casual - Retired
UBT.E.S. - The EGG-pic StormBU
BGrave ExistenceB
Sig by Me =)
win more. tempo loss when you need an untaped land early. horrilbe for transformational side.
**After edit(I cut myself off too quickly)**
Wanted to post a maindeck that I saw over at TMD for discussion, it is capable of sideboard transformation but just going to post maindeck for comments. Credit to Meadbert on the deck. It is a bit more proactive in being able to fill the graveyard quickly and utlize the card advantge from it's squees.
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Magus of the Bazaar
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Krovikan Horror
3 Necromancy
1 Dance of the Dead
4 Animate Dead
4 Worldgorger Dragon
2 Oona, Queen of the Fae
4 Thoughtseize
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
Few notes - I may end up starting up a thread on this because it is very different and people may want to address it's sideboard.
For more disruption could consider Cabal Therapies. An Iona has been discussed as a better reanimation target then a second Oona.
Note that it's non-obvious way to win is with Animate on a Dragon, Horror in Yard and extra Animate. Quoted from the thread for clarity
"You animate Dragon and generate some mana and then eventually have Animate target Horror. You then use the second animate on the Dragon. This will cause both animates and Horror to leave play. Dragon then leaves play bringing back both Animates, Horror and your black mana source. In response to the Animate triggers you sacrifice Horror to himself. Then the first animate brings back Dragon and both animates leave again.
Next time through the loop Dragon leaves play and brings back both animates. The first gets Horror and then next Dragon and from here everything starts again."
Seattle, WA
Team Still Had All These (ofc)
swerv'in your blighnin's since 2009