GGoober
07-09-2009, 10:32 AM
HISTORY OF MAKING THE DECK
So I've played a couple of EDH games in the last year, and Rhys the Redeemed was my general. He was a blast to play and was purely for casual games. My group eventually got a little more competitive, and I was always the target of EDH games for no reason since Mycoloth under a Doubling Season was apparently too scary for them. To me it's purely casual.
I have a friend who plays Rafiq, and uses a heavy recursion engine with Gifts and Mirari, and plays Maze of Ith, making the game unfun for everyone once he gets his recursion engine going i.e. he pretty much wins the game through card advantage and Forbid/Capsize.
I played him again and he eventually decides to Catastrophe all lands and return them to his hand with Twillight Shepherd. That was not cool, and my group complains about LD in EDH.
So I set out to find some competitive generals, a few off my list were:
- Braids Cabal Minion (now banned)
- Ertai the Corrupted (now working on a list, will post it up when it's optimized)
- Arcum Dagson
(I don't play Zur because he's overplayed and I don't think he's that great at all. He's only good if you can protect him when he comes into play on turn 4).
I ended up picking Arcum Dagson, because blue is my favorite color and I wanted to be able to play with all the most powerful cards in MTG ever printed (Tolarian Academy, Memory Jar, Mind over Matter, Time Spiral, Mindslaver). I really wanted a deck that was flooding with the symbol u. And that means running a deck with Tolarian Academy, and that means running a deck with artifacts, and the most natural general would be Dagson. Furthermore, I hate creatures, so I wanted to play a deck that didn't involve aggro-ing out. I'm a big fan of prison decks, so this is an even better option for me to play a deck that's flooding with u and wins through prison effects.
I've been highly optimizing the list, and this is the best list so far. There are definitely a few changes to be added and tweaked over the months but for now, the deck focus highly on the 3 areas of gameplay:
- Manaramp
- Denial
- Tutoring//Card advantage
Playing Dagson has been a blast. There are multiple combos involved and although the deck is fragile without him, ensuring that he lands protected early game will signal games within 1-2 turns. I find it a challenge to go off in 2 turns usually when he's just out, making full use of my hand/library/mana availability. Without further ado, I present you the Prison Tinkerer, and I'll explain how the deck interacts with the 4 areas of gameplay as mentioned:
DECKLIST: ARCUM DAGSON, THE PRISON TINKERER
GENERAL: 1
1 Arcum Dagson
NON-CREATURE ARTIFACTS: 24
1 Mana Crypt
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Grim Monolith
1 Winter Orb
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Thousand-Year Elixir
1 Nuisance Engine
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Memory Jar
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Mindslaver
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Planar Portal
1 Ward of Bones
1 Darksteel Forge
ARTIFACT CREATURES: 20
1 Copper Gnomes
1 Manakin
1 Milikin
1 Silver Myr
1 Myr Retriever
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Epochrasite
1 Scarecrone
1 Filigree Sages
1 Junk Troller
1 Master Transmuter
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Arcbound Reclaimer
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Sharding Sphinx
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelavus
1 Memnarch
1 Sundering Titan
NON-ARTIFACT CREATURES: 3
1 Trinket Mage
1 Ethereal Usher
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
DRAWS/TUTORS: 7
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Frantic Search
1 Fabricate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gush
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
PERMISSION/CONTROL/OTHERS: 10
1 Hinder
1 Forbid
1 Power Artifact
1 Future Sight
1 Tunnel Vision
1 Capsize
1 Force of Will
1 Mind over Matter
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Stretch
LANDS: 36
17 Snow-Covered Island
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Gargoyle Castle (M10)
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Wasteland
1 Stripmine
1 Dustbowl
1 Maze of Ith
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Reliquary Tower
META-DEPENDENT CARDS:
Pithing Needle
Tormod's Crypt
COST-PROHIBITIVE CARDS:
+1 Mishra's Workshop
+1 Mana Drain
-1 Hinder
-1 Cathodion
PREVIOUS BANHAMMERED CARDS:
+1 Gifts Ungiven
+1 Metalworker (don't understand why he's banned. He's only good in monoblue.dec and MUD.dec)
+1 Tinker
GENERAL OUTLINES ON PLAYING THE DECK:
To those who are soft-hearted, this deck is ruthless, and you're bound to make enemies in your group. I've built this deck, and really wanted to test it's power so I played a couple of matches (duels and multiplayer) and it draws so much hate. It basically amounts to keeping Dagson off the board before you lock them down. Here are general strategies to the deck. Let's touch on each of the gameplay issues:
MANARAMP:
Mana-ramping is the most important aspect of Dagson-Prison deck. You need all the mana you need to tutor/cast and try to win as short as possible. Ramping in this deck is mainly used to grab win-condition off a tutored Planar Portal, landing a Mind over Matter to completely seal the deal. This deck can churn out powered-mana of up to 9cc by turn 3/4, putting it many turns ahead of other EDH decks.
The deck has the following absurd initial accelerants:
- Mana Crypt
- Sol Ring
- Mana Vault
- Grim Monolith
- Thran Dynamo
- Gilded Lotus
- Extraplanar Lens
- Gauntlet of Power
- Candelabra of Tawnos
- Mind over Matter
- Ancient Tomb
- Untap effects (Frantic Search/Treachery/Time Spiral)
PRE-DAGSON RAMPS:
The deck benefits most from initial mana-ramping. Ideally, you want to land Dagson around turn 3 latest, as such, you will enjoy the benefits of him being safer as removal gets more dangerous after turn 4 in EDH. There's always risks that he gets StP/Oringed, but the earlier you drop him, the better off you are. Don't be afraid to drop him on turn 2 without an artifact. It's usually better to drop him fast before an artifact if possible, in order to make use of the fact that he does not have hast.
Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Ancient Tomb
These are amazing in your opening hand. Dagson is all about the early game so these cards are crucial.
POST-DAGSON RAMPS:
After Dagson hits the board, you can tutor up the following ramping spells, depending on what you have in play.
High Tide effects: Gauntlet of Power, Extraplanar Lens
- If you have plentiful of islands, tutor up Gauntlet of Power/Extraplanar Lens (Gauntlet recommended since you don't lose a net land. Lens is much better under a Winter Orb).
- Note that the deck runs Snow-covered lands, and this is not for aesthetic purposes. The sole purpose is that the wording of Extraplanar Lens refers to the NAME of the card, so Snow-covered Island and Island have different names, therefore even if your opponent has Islands out, they will not benefit from the bonus of Extraplanar Lens.
- You'll be surprised at how much just one-Gauntlet of Power/Extraplanar Lens will accomplish in the deck. There was a game where I tutored for Gauntlet EOT and Mystical Tutored for Time Stretch, and casted a Time Stretch on turn 5, ending the game in a very boring fashion.
- When you have mana out, play out your hand, and with the decklist above, you should have a constant flow of cards. If you don't, I usually tutor out Planar Portal to find the missing combo pieces and go off in many different directions. With Planar Portal and a High Tide effect, you can basically Demonic Tutor for a card (since you're tapping 3 Islands to tutor for a card, as compared to 1B i.e. 2 lands to demonic tutor for a card).
Untapping effects: Candelabra of Tawnos, Mind over Matter, Frantic Search, Treachery, Time Spiral
- With Gauntlet/Lens out, Candelabra of Tawnos becomes a powerful card, and with Mind over Matter, you can have as many infinite mana as you need, as long as you can refill your hand (Tower of Fortunes, Arcanis). The deck needs various sources of increasing-mana generators, and Gauntlet/Lens with Candelabra does it very well, especially under Winter Orb. You also run Time Spiral, Frantic Search, and Treachery, all of which untaps lands. and thanks to new M10 rules, we don't manaburn anymore so there's no risks involved with generating mana.
Artifact mana: Gilded Lotus, Thran Dynamo, Tolarian Academy
- These are huge boosts to manaramp, especially under Winter Orb. Gilded Lotus is AMAZING, and is so in conjunction with Mind over Matter
Thran Dynamo is a supplement to Gilded Lotus, being second best accelerant in the deck.
- If there's ever one reason to play Dagson, it's Tolarian Academy. This deck is made to abuse it. Untapping effects make it broken, and Mind over Matter gives you almost infinite mana. With a Mycosynthe Lattice in play, your opponents would really start crying in one corner.
- Pre and post ramping is so important in the deck, because one of the deck's main strategies is to lock opponents under a Winter Orb, giving yourself a huge tempo boost as you go off. Which brings me to the next topic:
DENIAL:
One of the toughest problems Dagson faces is HATE, HATE from multiplayer. In duels, you're more than likely going to win. In my opinion, he's the best general after Braids in duels. But in multiplayer, you're not so lucky. We need a couple of quick denial plans.
PRISON-EFFECTS:
For people who play prison-decks e.g. Stasis, Stax, Land destruction, one can understand that prison-effects is one form of denial. One is accustomed to building a deck tailored to its manacurve but not many decks are accustomed to play against Land destruction (LD) or Stasis effects.
Winter Orb, Ward of Bones, Ensnaring Bridge
-Winter Orb is THE BEST card in the deck, and if I were to swear, people HATE the card. It draws in so much hate but if it lands, you're timewalking away with a general that tinkers for mana-ramp and answers while others have to slowly recover from it. Recall that the whole story to playing this deck is getting 2-3 turns undisrupted, which is more than enough time to win and go off.
- Winter Orb (WOrb) is usually unexpected, and it's best to tutor for it when the board is all tapped out, but don't be afraid to tutor it if you're tapped down yourself. You can always tinker for high tide effects, and if you have an Academy out, it's really laughable.
- Ward of Bones was a card that I played against someone who just put it there for fun. Apparently, I got destroyed by that card as he sat there with one general beating my face while I could not do anything. I thought about it in this deck, and realized its huge potential as a prison card. Note that the deck only requires that little land in play (namely Academy and 3-4 Islands with a high tide effect). Much of the land is useless anyway due to WOrb, so Ward of Bones typically reads that no one else can play lands unless you do, and if you get them to stick at 4-5 lands, I think not many decks can survive. You have all the tutorable artifact mana and high-tide mana that having 3 lands isn't a problem. There were times where I would dustbowl and strip my own lands to lock everyone out.
- Dagson deck has plenty of artifacts, but who else besides Karn runs those? Ward of Bone is a one-sided card as you play no creatures/enchantments (you don't have much of them out in play anyway).
TUTORING//CARD ADVANTAGE
Tutoring is perhaps the most annoying yet potent aspects of EDH. To be able to find anything you need, answers at everypoint.
Dagson is all about tutoring, so get used to shuffling that 100-card deck!
Here are a few guidelines to tutoring:
SAFETY: (assuming Dagson is in play)
- If you suspect Swords to Plowshares/Oblivion Ring the next turn, go for Lightning Greaves without a thought. If you suspect a more mana-heavy removal and your opponents are tapped out, go for Winter Orb (this is usually the first protection spell I tutor up).
- If you're still worried about creatures and enchantments, tutor up Ward of Bones to deny them on mana and creatures (since you have 2-3 creatures at most in play).
- If you're suspecting that Dagson is going to die inevitably, grab Thousand-Year Elixir to use him a couple of times before saying goodbye to him or if you have the chance, tutor up Mycosynthe Lattice and Darksteel Forge to make him indestructible. Although as a general, the only issue you'd ever have with him is not from him dying since you can replay him and mana isn't a problem for the deck. The problem comes when he cannot activate his ability e.g. Pithing Needle or when they control him. Then you should have tutored up Greaves or if you haven't, you have to blow up the board with a tutored Oblvion Stone/Disk.
- Tutor up Ensnaring Bridge if you're at risk at Phage/Serra Avatar swinging in for lethal.
LACK OF ARTIFACT CREATURES:
- There are many times where you lost fuel to Dagson i.e. you drew little to no artifact creatures. Tutor out Nuisance Engine. I used to play Myr Matrix before this card, but the early-game 5 was hard to reach. Nuisance Engine only requires 2 to generate a fodder to be tinkered for Dagson. It's your only cheap source of getting a recurrable artifact creature source. Indeed a nuisance for people out there.
- Tutor up Memory Jar or Tower of Fortunes to attempt to draw more cards and play off creatures. or Tutor up Crucible if you've nuked your Factories/Blinkmoth Nexuses so that you have food to feed Dagson
- Good artifact creatures that fuel dagson are Sharding Sphinx and Triskevalus.
LACK OF MANA:
This is explained above. If you have plenty of islands, grab a high tide effect (Gauntlet of Power, Extraplanar Lens). If you have a winter orb and little basic Islands, grab artifact mana (Gilded Lotus, Thran Dynamo). If you're stuck under your own Orb and don't have artifact mana, you can tutor for Candelabra under a high-tide effect to untap all your lands under Winter Orb.
PREPARING FOR MANA-RAMPING:
Here are some situations to boost mana (assuming enough Dagson fodder) and these are potent strategies under Winter Orb.
In play: Tolarian Academy
Tutor: Candelabra of Tawnos/Mycosynthe Lattice
In play: many Islands
Tutor: Gauntlet/Lens
In play: many Islands, Gauntlet/Lens
Tutor: Candelabra
In play: Mind over matter, 6 mana open
Tutor: Planar Portal and tutor up Tolarian Academy/Gilded Lotus
(at this point, if you have Tower of Fortunes, you can use Mind over Matter to untap it as you spend the mana from Academy into drawing cards, discarding to untap Tower and Academy, get mana tap draw, rinse and repeat. Basically, this is a tutorable version of the Arcanis-Mind over Matter combo).
In play: Mind over matter, artifact-mana/Academy
Tutor: uh, I think that's enough ramp in such a scenario.
COMMENT: Mind over matter is broken. I hope they don't ban it. Blue has gotten so much nerfs recently. If you were to ask me, the two most broken cards in the deck is Mind over matter and Tolarian Academy, followed closely by Planar Portal and Winter Orb. But yeah, in such a case, I would tutor for Tower of Fortunes to use that mana to draw untap mana draw untap mana rinse repeat.
The goal of all this mana-ramping is to win in a turn. When your mana-ramping engine is ready, use Dagson to tutor for Planar Portal, which tutors for Mind over Matter, which untaps Planar Portal, which tutors for Arcanis which draws your deck or you can tutor for other stuff if you don't like the Arcanis route. You just have to let your opponents know that if they don't have an action at any remaining time, you declare that you have infinite mana and with Mind over Matter, you'll have infinite draws, which leads me to the win-conditions:
WIN-CONDITIONS
Draw your deck via Mind over Matter/Arcanis or Mind over Matter/Tower of Fortunes. With Mind over Matter, you have infinite mana (discard cards you don't need).
Even if you don't have Mind over Matter, you should be able to assemble Planar Portal and a mana-engine in 2-3 turns if you're not disrupted, and while disrupting your opponents. As such, you can still get a couple of turns to go off.
Win-condition 1: Nevinryal's Disk/Oblivion Stone + Darksteel Forge + Mycosynthe Lattice
This blows up everyone's permanents except for yours since all permanents are now artifacts and Disk destroys artifacts. Darksteel Forge says that your artifacts are indestructible
Win-condition 2: Memnarch + Infinite mana = you own the game
Get infinite mana and an unstoppable Memnarch that takes all permanents to yours (including lands)
Win-condition 3: Karn + Mycosynthe Lattice
Armageddon's here as you turn their lands into 0/0 artifact creatures.
Win-condition 4: Karn + Artifacts
You don't have to draw your whole deck, but you shouldn't be able to deck yourself since Academy Ruins + with Mind over Matter allows you to start piling your graveyard back on top of your library. Meanwhile, you just use Mind over Matter to tap their permanents and beat in with your army for a couple of turns.
Win-condition 5: Junk Troller + Time Stretch
Keep putting Time Stretch back every turn, and you can beat with Dagson if you really wanted to.
Win-condition 6: Mindslaver + Academy Ruins
Slave everyone!
There's more win-condition but they're not as common. I've listed them in order on how you would win according to frequency.
SOME TRICKS IN THE DECK
I'll leave you to figure out what they do:
1. Lots of mana/Infinite mana + Memnarch (board control)
2. Karn + Mycosynthe Lattice (land destruction)
3. Master Transmuter recycling/"untapping" Gilded Lots/Mana Vault (mana engine)
4. Master Transmuter + Sundering Titan (land destruction)
5. Junk Troller + Time Stretch (infinite turns)
6. Mind Slaver + Academy Ruins (prison)
7. Nevinryal's Disk + Mycosynthe Lattice + Darksteel Forge (board sweeper)
8. Arcanis + Mind over Matter (card draw)
9. Mind over Matter + Tower of Fortunes + Tolarian Academy (card draw)
10. Planar Portal + Mind over Matter + Tolarian Academy (tutor your deck)
11. Crucible + Strip Mine (land destruction)
12. Memory Jar + lots of mana + Academy Ruins/Arcbound Reclaimer in response to Jar trigger (card draw)
13. Mind over Matter + Winter Orb (you untap your lands normally, they dont)
14. Mycosynthe Lattice + Tolarian Academy (mana engine)
15. High tide effect + Palinchron/Candelabra (mana engine)
16. Scarecrone + Solemn Simulacrum/Sundering Titan/artifact creature with comes-into-play ability + Dagson (recurring abilities)
17. Arcanis + Forbid (card draw)
18. Lots of mana + Capsize (board control)
19. Filigree Sages + Power Artifact (untapping)
20. Future Sight + Sensei's Top + Etherium Sculptor (card draw)
21. Memory Jar + in-response to Jar trigger -> Arcbound Reclaimer/Academy Ruins (card draw)
Lots more to be found! You only need 1 or 2 to win the game, but here are some good options.
For more information, please post here and your thoughts. These are my experiences with the deck, and I don't really play it much since it's an unfriendly deck. There's better EDH decks that are even worse e.g. Bryant Cook's Grim Long list lol but this one is from a Prison-approach.
If costs permit me, I need to get myself a Workshop and Manadrain. I just hope that the EDH group doesn't do so much bannings since it costs mana and time to dedicate to a deck.
Have fun!
So I've played a couple of EDH games in the last year, and Rhys the Redeemed was my general. He was a blast to play and was purely for casual games. My group eventually got a little more competitive, and I was always the target of EDH games for no reason since Mycoloth under a Doubling Season was apparently too scary for them. To me it's purely casual.
I have a friend who plays Rafiq, and uses a heavy recursion engine with Gifts and Mirari, and plays Maze of Ith, making the game unfun for everyone once he gets his recursion engine going i.e. he pretty much wins the game through card advantage and Forbid/Capsize.
I played him again and he eventually decides to Catastrophe all lands and return them to his hand with Twillight Shepherd. That was not cool, and my group complains about LD in EDH.
So I set out to find some competitive generals, a few off my list were:
- Braids Cabal Minion (now banned)
- Ertai the Corrupted (now working on a list, will post it up when it's optimized)
- Arcum Dagson
(I don't play Zur because he's overplayed and I don't think he's that great at all. He's only good if you can protect him when he comes into play on turn 4).
I ended up picking Arcum Dagson, because blue is my favorite color and I wanted to be able to play with all the most powerful cards in MTG ever printed (Tolarian Academy, Memory Jar, Mind over Matter, Time Spiral, Mindslaver). I really wanted a deck that was flooding with the symbol u. And that means running a deck with Tolarian Academy, and that means running a deck with artifacts, and the most natural general would be Dagson. Furthermore, I hate creatures, so I wanted to play a deck that didn't involve aggro-ing out. I'm a big fan of prison decks, so this is an even better option for me to play a deck that's flooding with u and wins through prison effects.
I've been highly optimizing the list, and this is the best list so far. There are definitely a few changes to be added and tweaked over the months but for now, the deck focus highly on the 3 areas of gameplay:
- Manaramp
- Denial
- Tutoring//Card advantage
Playing Dagson has been a blast. There are multiple combos involved and although the deck is fragile without him, ensuring that he lands protected early game will signal games within 1-2 turns. I find it a challenge to go off in 2 turns usually when he's just out, making full use of my hand/library/mana availability. Without further ado, I present you the Prison Tinkerer, and I'll explain how the deck interacts with the 4 areas of gameplay as mentioned:
DECKLIST: ARCUM DAGSON, THE PRISON TINKERER
GENERAL: 1
1 Arcum Dagson
NON-CREATURE ARTIFACTS: 24
1 Mana Crypt
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Grim Monolith
1 Winter Orb
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Thousand-Year Elixir
1 Nuisance Engine
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Memory Jar
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Mindslaver
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Planar Portal
1 Ward of Bones
1 Darksteel Forge
ARTIFACT CREATURES: 20
1 Copper Gnomes
1 Manakin
1 Milikin
1 Silver Myr
1 Myr Retriever
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Epochrasite
1 Scarecrone
1 Filigree Sages
1 Junk Troller
1 Master Transmuter
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Arcbound Reclaimer
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Sharding Sphinx
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelavus
1 Memnarch
1 Sundering Titan
NON-ARTIFACT CREATURES: 3
1 Trinket Mage
1 Ethereal Usher
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
DRAWS/TUTORS: 7
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Frantic Search
1 Fabricate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gush
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
PERMISSION/CONTROL/OTHERS: 10
1 Hinder
1 Forbid
1 Power Artifact
1 Future Sight
1 Tunnel Vision
1 Capsize
1 Force of Will
1 Mind over Matter
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Stretch
LANDS: 36
17 Snow-Covered Island
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Gargoyle Castle (M10)
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Wasteland
1 Stripmine
1 Dustbowl
1 Maze of Ith
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Reliquary Tower
META-DEPENDENT CARDS:
Pithing Needle
Tormod's Crypt
COST-PROHIBITIVE CARDS:
+1 Mishra's Workshop
+1 Mana Drain
-1 Hinder
-1 Cathodion
PREVIOUS BANHAMMERED CARDS:
+1 Gifts Ungiven
+1 Metalworker (don't understand why he's banned. He's only good in monoblue.dec and MUD.dec)
+1 Tinker
GENERAL OUTLINES ON PLAYING THE DECK:
To those who are soft-hearted, this deck is ruthless, and you're bound to make enemies in your group. I've built this deck, and really wanted to test it's power so I played a couple of matches (duels and multiplayer) and it draws so much hate. It basically amounts to keeping Dagson off the board before you lock them down. Here are general strategies to the deck. Let's touch on each of the gameplay issues:
MANARAMP:
Mana-ramping is the most important aspect of Dagson-Prison deck. You need all the mana you need to tutor/cast and try to win as short as possible. Ramping in this deck is mainly used to grab win-condition off a tutored Planar Portal, landing a Mind over Matter to completely seal the deal. This deck can churn out powered-mana of up to 9cc by turn 3/4, putting it many turns ahead of other EDH decks.
The deck has the following absurd initial accelerants:
- Mana Crypt
- Sol Ring
- Mana Vault
- Grim Monolith
- Thran Dynamo
- Gilded Lotus
- Extraplanar Lens
- Gauntlet of Power
- Candelabra of Tawnos
- Mind over Matter
- Ancient Tomb
- Untap effects (Frantic Search/Treachery/Time Spiral)
PRE-DAGSON RAMPS:
The deck benefits most from initial mana-ramping. Ideally, you want to land Dagson around turn 3 latest, as such, you will enjoy the benefits of him being safer as removal gets more dangerous after turn 4 in EDH. There's always risks that he gets StP/Oringed, but the earlier you drop him, the better off you are. Don't be afraid to drop him on turn 2 without an artifact. It's usually better to drop him fast before an artifact if possible, in order to make use of the fact that he does not have hast.
Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Ancient Tomb
These are amazing in your opening hand. Dagson is all about the early game so these cards are crucial.
POST-DAGSON RAMPS:
After Dagson hits the board, you can tutor up the following ramping spells, depending on what you have in play.
High Tide effects: Gauntlet of Power, Extraplanar Lens
- If you have plentiful of islands, tutor up Gauntlet of Power/Extraplanar Lens (Gauntlet recommended since you don't lose a net land. Lens is much better under a Winter Orb).
- Note that the deck runs Snow-covered lands, and this is not for aesthetic purposes. The sole purpose is that the wording of Extraplanar Lens refers to the NAME of the card, so Snow-covered Island and Island have different names, therefore even if your opponent has Islands out, they will not benefit from the bonus of Extraplanar Lens.
- You'll be surprised at how much just one-Gauntlet of Power/Extraplanar Lens will accomplish in the deck. There was a game where I tutored for Gauntlet EOT and Mystical Tutored for Time Stretch, and casted a Time Stretch on turn 5, ending the game in a very boring fashion.
- When you have mana out, play out your hand, and with the decklist above, you should have a constant flow of cards. If you don't, I usually tutor out Planar Portal to find the missing combo pieces and go off in many different directions. With Planar Portal and a High Tide effect, you can basically Demonic Tutor for a card (since you're tapping 3 Islands to tutor for a card, as compared to 1B i.e. 2 lands to demonic tutor for a card).
Untapping effects: Candelabra of Tawnos, Mind over Matter, Frantic Search, Treachery, Time Spiral
- With Gauntlet/Lens out, Candelabra of Tawnos becomes a powerful card, and with Mind over Matter, you can have as many infinite mana as you need, as long as you can refill your hand (Tower of Fortunes, Arcanis). The deck needs various sources of increasing-mana generators, and Gauntlet/Lens with Candelabra does it very well, especially under Winter Orb. You also run Time Spiral, Frantic Search, and Treachery, all of which untaps lands. and thanks to new M10 rules, we don't manaburn anymore so there's no risks involved with generating mana.
Artifact mana: Gilded Lotus, Thran Dynamo, Tolarian Academy
- These are huge boosts to manaramp, especially under Winter Orb. Gilded Lotus is AMAZING, and is so in conjunction with Mind over Matter
Thran Dynamo is a supplement to Gilded Lotus, being second best accelerant in the deck.
- If there's ever one reason to play Dagson, it's Tolarian Academy. This deck is made to abuse it. Untapping effects make it broken, and Mind over Matter gives you almost infinite mana. With a Mycosynthe Lattice in play, your opponents would really start crying in one corner.
- Pre and post ramping is so important in the deck, because one of the deck's main strategies is to lock opponents under a Winter Orb, giving yourself a huge tempo boost as you go off. Which brings me to the next topic:
DENIAL:
One of the toughest problems Dagson faces is HATE, HATE from multiplayer. In duels, you're more than likely going to win. In my opinion, he's the best general after Braids in duels. But in multiplayer, you're not so lucky. We need a couple of quick denial plans.
PRISON-EFFECTS:
For people who play prison-decks e.g. Stasis, Stax, Land destruction, one can understand that prison-effects is one form of denial. One is accustomed to building a deck tailored to its manacurve but not many decks are accustomed to play against Land destruction (LD) or Stasis effects.
Winter Orb, Ward of Bones, Ensnaring Bridge
-Winter Orb is THE BEST card in the deck, and if I were to swear, people HATE the card. It draws in so much hate but if it lands, you're timewalking away with a general that tinkers for mana-ramp and answers while others have to slowly recover from it. Recall that the whole story to playing this deck is getting 2-3 turns undisrupted, which is more than enough time to win and go off.
- Winter Orb (WOrb) is usually unexpected, and it's best to tutor for it when the board is all tapped out, but don't be afraid to tutor it if you're tapped down yourself. You can always tinker for high tide effects, and if you have an Academy out, it's really laughable.
- Ward of Bones was a card that I played against someone who just put it there for fun. Apparently, I got destroyed by that card as he sat there with one general beating my face while I could not do anything. I thought about it in this deck, and realized its huge potential as a prison card. Note that the deck only requires that little land in play (namely Academy and 3-4 Islands with a high tide effect). Much of the land is useless anyway due to WOrb, so Ward of Bones typically reads that no one else can play lands unless you do, and if you get them to stick at 4-5 lands, I think not many decks can survive. You have all the tutorable artifact mana and high-tide mana that having 3 lands isn't a problem. There were times where I would dustbowl and strip my own lands to lock everyone out.
- Dagson deck has plenty of artifacts, but who else besides Karn runs those? Ward of Bone is a one-sided card as you play no creatures/enchantments (you don't have much of them out in play anyway).
TUTORING//CARD ADVANTAGE
Tutoring is perhaps the most annoying yet potent aspects of EDH. To be able to find anything you need, answers at everypoint.
Dagson is all about tutoring, so get used to shuffling that 100-card deck!
Here are a few guidelines to tutoring:
SAFETY: (assuming Dagson is in play)
- If you suspect Swords to Plowshares/Oblivion Ring the next turn, go for Lightning Greaves without a thought. If you suspect a more mana-heavy removal and your opponents are tapped out, go for Winter Orb (this is usually the first protection spell I tutor up).
- If you're still worried about creatures and enchantments, tutor up Ward of Bones to deny them on mana and creatures (since you have 2-3 creatures at most in play).
- If you're suspecting that Dagson is going to die inevitably, grab Thousand-Year Elixir to use him a couple of times before saying goodbye to him or if you have the chance, tutor up Mycosynthe Lattice and Darksteel Forge to make him indestructible. Although as a general, the only issue you'd ever have with him is not from him dying since you can replay him and mana isn't a problem for the deck. The problem comes when he cannot activate his ability e.g. Pithing Needle or when they control him. Then you should have tutored up Greaves or if you haven't, you have to blow up the board with a tutored Oblvion Stone/Disk.
- Tutor up Ensnaring Bridge if you're at risk at Phage/Serra Avatar swinging in for lethal.
LACK OF ARTIFACT CREATURES:
- There are many times where you lost fuel to Dagson i.e. you drew little to no artifact creatures. Tutor out Nuisance Engine. I used to play Myr Matrix before this card, but the early-game 5 was hard to reach. Nuisance Engine only requires 2 to generate a fodder to be tinkered for Dagson. It's your only cheap source of getting a recurrable artifact creature source. Indeed a nuisance for people out there.
- Tutor up Memory Jar or Tower of Fortunes to attempt to draw more cards and play off creatures. or Tutor up Crucible if you've nuked your Factories/Blinkmoth Nexuses so that you have food to feed Dagson
- Good artifact creatures that fuel dagson are Sharding Sphinx and Triskevalus.
LACK OF MANA:
This is explained above. If you have plenty of islands, grab a high tide effect (Gauntlet of Power, Extraplanar Lens). If you have a winter orb and little basic Islands, grab artifact mana (Gilded Lotus, Thran Dynamo). If you're stuck under your own Orb and don't have artifact mana, you can tutor for Candelabra under a high-tide effect to untap all your lands under Winter Orb.
PREPARING FOR MANA-RAMPING:
Here are some situations to boost mana (assuming enough Dagson fodder) and these are potent strategies under Winter Orb.
In play: Tolarian Academy
Tutor: Candelabra of Tawnos/Mycosynthe Lattice
In play: many Islands
Tutor: Gauntlet/Lens
In play: many Islands, Gauntlet/Lens
Tutor: Candelabra
In play: Mind over matter, 6 mana open
Tutor: Planar Portal and tutor up Tolarian Academy/Gilded Lotus
(at this point, if you have Tower of Fortunes, you can use Mind over Matter to untap it as you spend the mana from Academy into drawing cards, discarding to untap Tower and Academy, get mana tap draw, rinse and repeat. Basically, this is a tutorable version of the Arcanis-Mind over Matter combo).
In play: Mind over matter, artifact-mana/Academy
Tutor: uh, I think that's enough ramp in such a scenario.
COMMENT: Mind over matter is broken. I hope they don't ban it. Blue has gotten so much nerfs recently. If you were to ask me, the two most broken cards in the deck is Mind over matter and Tolarian Academy, followed closely by Planar Portal and Winter Orb. But yeah, in such a case, I would tutor for Tower of Fortunes to use that mana to draw untap mana draw untap mana rinse repeat.
The goal of all this mana-ramping is to win in a turn. When your mana-ramping engine is ready, use Dagson to tutor for Planar Portal, which tutors for Mind over Matter, which untaps Planar Portal, which tutors for Arcanis which draws your deck or you can tutor for other stuff if you don't like the Arcanis route. You just have to let your opponents know that if they don't have an action at any remaining time, you declare that you have infinite mana and with Mind over Matter, you'll have infinite draws, which leads me to the win-conditions:
WIN-CONDITIONS
Draw your deck via Mind over Matter/Arcanis or Mind over Matter/Tower of Fortunes. With Mind over Matter, you have infinite mana (discard cards you don't need).
Even if you don't have Mind over Matter, you should be able to assemble Planar Portal and a mana-engine in 2-3 turns if you're not disrupted, and while disrupting your opponents. As such, you can still get a couple of turns to go off.
Win-condition 1: Nevinryal's Disk/Oblivion Stone + Darksteel Forge + Mycosynthe Lattice
This blows up everyone's permanents except for yours since all permanents are now artifacts and Disk destroys artifacts. Darksteel Forge says that your artifacts are indestructible
Win-condition 2: Memnarch + Infinite mana = you own the game
Get infinite mana and an unstoppable Memnarch that takes all permanents to yours (including lands)
Win-condition 3: Karn + Mycosynthe Lattice
Armageddon's here as you turn their lands into 0/0 artifact creatures.
Win-condition 4: Karn + Artifacts
You don't have to draw your whole deck, but you shouldn't be able to deck yourself since Academy Ruins + with Mind over Matter allows you to start piling your graveyard back on top of your library. Meanwhile, you just use Mind over Matter to tap their permanents and beat in with your army for a couple of turns.
Win-condition 5: Junk Troller + Time Stretch
Keep putting Time Stretch back every turn, and you can beat with Dagson if you really wanted to.
Win-condition 6: Mindslaver + Academy Ruins
Slave everyone!
There's more win-condition but they're not as common. I've listed them in order on how you would win according to frequency.
SOME TRICKS IN THE DECK
I'll leave you to figure out what they do:
1. Lots of mana/Infinite mana + Memnarch (board control)
2. Karn + Mycosynthe Lattice (land destruction)
3. Master Transmuter recycling/"untapping" Gilded Lots/Mana Vault (mana engine)
4. Master Transmuter + Sundering Titan (land destruction)
5. Junk Troller + Time Stretch (infinite turns)
6. Mind Slaver + Academy Ruins (prison)
7. Nevinryal's Disk + Mycosynthe Lattice + Darksteel Forge (board sweeper)
8. Arcanis + Mind over Matter (card draw)
9. Mind over Matter + Tower of Fortunes + Tolarian Academy (card draw)
10. Planar Portal + Mind over Matter + Tolarian Academy (tutor your deck)
11. Crucible + Strip Mine (land destruction)
12. Memory Jar + lots of mana + Academy Ruins/Arcbound Reclaimer in response to Jar trigger (card draw)
13. Mind over Matter + Winter Orb (you untap your lands normally, they dont)
14. Mycosynthe Lattice + Tolarian Academy (mana engine)
15. High tide effect + Palinchron/Candelabra (mana engine)
16. Scarecrone + Solemn Simulacrum/Sundering Titan/artifact creature with comes-into-play ability + Dagson (recurring abilities)
17. Arcanis + Forbid (card draw)
18. Lots of mana + Capsize (board control)
19. Filigree Sages + Power Artifact (untapping)
20. Future Sight + Sensei's Top + Etherium Sculptor (card draw)
21. Memory Jar + in-response to Jar trigger -> Arcbound Reclaimer/Academy Ruins (card draw)
Lots more to be found! You only need 1 or 2 to win the game, but here are some good options.
For more information, please post here and your thoughts. These are my experiences with the deck, and I don't really play it much since it's an unfriendly deck. There's better EDH decks that are even worse e.g. Bryant Cook's Grim Long list lol but this one is from a Prison-approach.
If costs permit me, I need to get myself a Workshop and Manadrain. I just hope that the EDH group doesn't do so much bannings since it costs mana and time to dedicate to a deck.
Have fun!