Here's my list of a rough draft:
4 dark ritual
4 entomb
4 animate dead
4 dance of the dead
4 bs
4 ponder
4 FOW
4 Buried alive
4 Daze
4 spell pierce
3 spell snare/ 3 lotus petal
2 Worldgorger
1 win con creature whatever you want
4 delta
4 fetches
3 underground sea
2 swamp
1 island
sideboard
1 Iona
1 Gravetitan
1 woodfall primus
2 flusterstorm
3 pithing needle
4 leyline of sant
3 thoughtseize
The vintage version ran in Intuition shell with Deep Analysis as the card-draw engine and Read the Runes as a way to both dump a worldgorger in hand and to interrupt the loop when you had infinite mana to find and dump an Oona. That seems like a good place to start.
The thing that makes a Worldgorger deck potentially better than a straight Reanimator deck is that you can build and play it as a strong control deck with a combo finish, vs. Reanimator which is built for speed and maximizing the combo. You wouldn't need to play more than 5-6 reanimation spells and only 5 creatures, giving you more room in the deck for control cards as compared to Reanimator which plays 9+ reanimates and 7+ creatures. And with Necromancy, you can win at instant speed, which is awesome.
And if a game is unfavorable, you can usually set up a situation to draw.
Once the engine is running, you could also just use witness triggers into casting Dream Twist and Coffin Purge to wipe out the opponent's deck or stroke them out.Originally Posted by LennonMarx
Compulsion is where I went at first, too. It also helps that it isn't terrible without the combo going. As for a third color, Green for Decay is probably best because so many problems the deck faces are permanents like Cage and Spellbombs, and Green also gives you Witness. Something like Stifle or Trickbind would probably also help and can allow for something like a tempo plan while defending the combo. All that being said, U/B/g with Oona or Blue Sun's Zenith and a small number of Decays is likely the way to go. Snapcaster Mage might also help when going off if you need to flash a particular spell back, but Flash of Insight is usually fine. You also definitely want Misdirection or Divert to defend the combo from Abrupt Decay, especially since without Cruise around BGx is probably going to come roaring back and represents a gigantic threat between Decay and DRS.
That being said, I'm not sure why I'd play Dragon over regular Reanimator.
It seems like I am the only one who doesn't know, how WGD and Animate Dead interact and how they create infinite mana (or a draw). Can someone explain it to me?
Animate Dead (and Necromancy) are templated as regular enchatnments that have EtB abilities that put a creature from the graveyard into play and then turn them into Auras enchanting the creature that was reanimated. Worldgorger Dragon has an EtB ability that exiles all other permanents you control. So when you cast Animate Dead targeting WGD, the stack goes like this after Dragon arrives:
1. Dragon's EtB ability exiles all permanents you control.
2. Animate Dead's leaves play ability triggers, causing you to sacrifice WGD
3. WGD's leaves play ability triggers, bringing all of your permanents back, with all of your non-EtB tapped lands untapped.
4. Animate Dead's EtB ability goes on the stack, targeting WGD.
This creates a loop where your lands pop in and out of play, allowing you to generate infinite mana. The downside is that killing WGD or destroying Animate Dead/Necromancy with the Dragon's EtB trigger on the stack exiles all of your permanents forever.
EDIT:
Forcing draws was the main argument for keeping Dragon banned in the first place. It's extremely unsporting.
True, but it is still within the rules and a legitimate strategy if you're in an unwinnable situation. To me it is a very large benefit that playing with Dragon adds that isn't present in any other deck in the format, adding to the potential that you might choose Dragon vs. Reanimator. To suggest that we not use a strategy available to us because it is unsporting is like saying that we shouldn't play Treasure Cruise in the last format because it was too good. If they need to ban it again for that reason, so be it, but if there's nothing in place to stop it from happening, it is going to happen.
I only got to play around with the Worldgorger Dragon combo once in Vintage when I tried porting over my Reanimator deck just with Tutors. I never actually encountered this interaction. Makes it less enticing to try in legacy as abrupt decay and STP are a bit more common in this format than in vintage.
Here is what I am looking at trying presently :
4 WGD
1 Oona
4 BS
4 FoW
2 Misdirection
3 Careful Study
3 Intuition
4 Duress/Thoughtsieze
4 Dark Rituals
4 Entomb
2 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead
2 Necromancy
4 Lotus Petal
3 Nephilia Drownyard
4 Delta
2 Strand
1 Mire (4 delta's and 3 other fetches, I just prefer to use OLS printings)
3 Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
It's tougher to pull of the draw than you think. The opponent also needs to not have a creature in his or her yard either. The chances that the game has gone long enough to use significant time off the clock, yet have no other creatures in either yard is small enough that I can't see it being a major issue.
Maybe time will prove me wrong, but we'll see.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Draw the game, not draw the match. And I'd say that if we're not actively killing their creatures, there's a good chance there won't be a creature in their graveyard.
I'm not the guy who thinks we should end all of our matches 2-0-8, but to suggest that getting out of a bad situation with a non-lethal Animate Dead (facing down lethal, no way to win, but cast Animate Dead and take the draw) is unsporting is silly, given that it is within the rules. I'd rather win the match than not, and as long as it's a legal play I'm not going to not use it.
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
Yes, I meant the game. The idea being that you'd win game 1, draw game 2 and then win the match by not having enough time for a game 3 is what I thought everyone was implying the "problem" with the draw play would be, which is why I mentioned the clock.
Sure we could attempt to not kill creatures, but Deathrite Shaman would be an issue that would take answering, the most straightforward of which would be to kill it or counter it. Sure, if you are just killing on turn 2 every time, you could avoid this, but I don't see this being a realistic "answer."
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
The original poster asked
"Is it even worthwhile in a world of Griselbrands?"
I gave several cogent reasons why it isn't. Please read the first post.
What about lands like Piranha Marsh, Scry Temples or one of the dual lands that gains you life? You can integrate them into the deck with ease and they can act as a win condition
Pithing Needle is a fine answer to Deathrite Shaman, along with bounce like Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth. I'm also not seeing us having a problem racing a Deathrite Shaman deck to the point where we'd need to lean on our ability to draw the game to actually escape that match with a win.
I'm not sold that this deck wants dark rituals. Also, the blue count is really low (16) for a deck with 6 pitch counters. I know vintage lists used to run less than 4 WGD, too. Not sure if that is something we can do in legacy or not, though.
I don't think it would be a major problem, but the fact that the forced draw loophole existed was likely why the card remained banned for so long. I don't expect to see too many people abusing the interaction, but it's something we should all be watchful for if we want the deck to actually see play.
Piranha Marsh seems good, especially if you're in BUg already and have access to Crop Rotation.
Here are the lessons we learned as TinFins developed:
If you're winning the turn you reanimate a single guy, you don't really need 4 copies.
Careful Study gets really bad really quick when you start cutting creatures.
Discard is probably better since it can be used to bin your wincon or protect an Entomb/reanimation.
That said, since this deck needs some additional piece to win, I'm not sure you can go as fast as TinFins, or even Reanimator. That won't make Careful Study any less terrible with 5 creatures, but you're probably right about Ritual, maybe even Petal.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Possible non-Dark Ritual build, more in line with it being a combo-control deck.
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
2 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Compulsion
3 Deep Analysis
2 Intuition
4 Entomb
3 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead
2 Necromancy
3 WGD
1 Eternal Witness
4 Drownyard
3 Sea
1 Trop
1 bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
3 Misty
1 Verdant
Obviously, this is pretty rough. Compulsion is there over Careful Study as we won't have guys in hand to discard all that often and it serves as an additional way to "go off" once we have all the mana. Maybe that slot should be Read the Runes? The discard split should maybe be 3/1 in favor of Seize over Duress, but there needs to be at least 1 duress there for the witness kill. I like witness over Oona as she is maybe cast-able and could do something pre-combo, but it might be too cute. Should also maybe have 3rd Necromancy over the 5th Animate Dead. Not sure about the decays main, either, but I don't think we want to just be cold to a resolved Shaman. Not sure what the board would look like. Some number of Needles and Xantid Swarms, likely. Probably the rest of the Decays. Beyond that, I'm open to suggestions.
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