[SCD] Worldgorger Dragon Combo

[Finn]

ver. 1/30/15

2 Dig Through Time
1 Cunning Wish
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Careful Study
3 Baleful Strix
4 Entomb
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Animate Dead
4 Necromancy
3 Worldgorger Dragon

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Nephalia Drownyard
2 Duskmantle, House of Shadow

sb:
1 Stroke of Genius
3 Massacre
1 Dismember
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
1 Pact of Negation
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Explosives

[Slag]

Bazaar of Baghdad made this deck good in Vintage and in 1.5. We do not have it, so what can we use to get the third combo piece once you have Reanimate on the Dragon? If there is no such mechanism, the deck is moot. Is it even worthwhile in a world of Griselbrands?

Deck to follow once this question is solved.

Didn't Type 1.5 use Compulsion as extra bazaars in dragon combo?

[Jables237]

Well, we need a second critter in the yard to stop it from locking the game. So that is a strike against it. It has to use Animate dead, also another strike. Pro's: Infinite mana is good. Animate dead can be grabbed with E. Tutor, not how big of a plus that is or not.

[sjmcc13]

There are some cards that draw and discard other then Bazzar, just none of them are free.

I would look at :
Intuition
Entomb
Burried Alive
Desolate Lighthouse
Putrid Imp
Duskmantle
Nephalia Drownyard

[LennonMarx]

Desolate Lighthouse and/or Nephalia Drownyard come to mind as lands that can do the job.

Edit: Ninjaed!


Well, we need a second critter in the yard to stop it from locking the game. So that is a strike against it. It has to use Animate dead, also another strike. Pro's: Infinite mana is good. Animate dead can be grabbed with E. Tutor, not how big of a plus that is or not.

The animate problem isn't a huge deal as you can run up to 12 of them (Dance of the Dead, and more Importantly, Necromancy exist). The combo creature is also likely an incidental Oona, as once you go off you find it. The question is, really, how many mill enablers can you run?

[Jables237]

Desolate Lighthouse and/or Nephalia Drownyard come to mind as lands that can do the job.

Edit: Ninjaed!

Those both seem way too slow. 3 mana and tap? No thanks. I think we want faithless looting or careful study.

[Finn]

Right. Both work fine in that role. OK, this is getting somewhere fast. Forget need two creatures in the bin. That is solved.

In fact, I think Desolate Lighthouse is actually rather better than Bazaar in the sense that you get some better card selection. It can't reasonably find the Dragon though.

Jables, it could cost a million. Doesn't matter. You have infininte untapped lands.

[LennonMarx]

Those both seem way too slow. 3 mana and tap? No thanks. I think we want faithless looting or careful study.

Those aren't there to bin the dragon, though they can do that, they are there to mill yourself out once you get dragon. I'm sure some number of Study/Looting would get played in addition. Also, of note, Drownyard is a win-con once you go off with it in play.

[Richard Cheese]

Bazaar of Baghdad made this deck good in Vintage and in 1.5. We do not have it, so what can we use to get the third combo piece once you have Reanimate on the Dragon? If there is no such mechanism, the deck is moot. Is it even worthwhile in a world of Griselbrands?

Deck to follow once this question is solved.

Would Altar of the Brood work as a kill condition here? Not that it solves the tutor problem, but it's very cheap.

[Deviruchi]

Is it a time for Buried Alive, Ambassador Laquatus and Necromancy?

[sjmcc13]

4 Putrid Imp
4 WGD
1 Oona
4 BS
4 Ponder
4 Animate Dead
2 Necromancy
4 Entomb
3 Intuition
4 FoW
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Delta
2 other fetches
4 Sea
4 basics

[alphastryk]

Would Altar of the Brood work as a kill condition here? Not that it solves the tutor problem, but it's very cheap.

You need another creature to end the loop already, so your kill should be that creature.

Oona is likely the best option off the top of my head

[leegoo]

Those aren't there to bin the dragon, though they can do that, they are there to mill yourself out once you get dragon. I'm sure some number of Study/Looting would get played in addition. Also, of note, Drownyard is a win-con once you go off with it in play.

I like the Drownyard (in theory at least)

Strategic Planning?

[Finn]

I would not mind the kill card being something that is useful before you go off. That would be a major boon for the deck. In fact, I bet it is a requirement. But there are probably thousands of candidates.

[LennonMarx]

You need another creature to end the loop already, so your kill should be that creature.

Oona is likely the best option off the top of my head

Eternal Witness could be better? Though it would require playing something like Deep Analysis, but I'm not sure we don't want to do that anyways.

[nedleeds]

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/wallpapers/Griselbrand_AVR_1920x1080_Wallpaper.jpg

I say no. Dragon takes up more deckbuilding space on mana sinks, is vulnerable to abrupt decay, stifle, GPM, even more cards if your mana sink targets. If bazaar was available then there's a reason but if bazaar was legal we'd be playing vintage. griselbrand can be exhumed, reanimated for profit, fits better into a permission graveyard blue shell, works with show and tell and in a vacuum is a retardedly powerful card that just wins most of the time. Dragon can win on the spot but assuming you are > 7-10 life it's hard to argue that griselbrand doesn't effectively win anyway. If they have removal it's moot, only with griselderp you have the upside of maybe you know, drawing 7.

[LennonMarx]

I say no. Dragon takes up more deckbuilding space on mana sinks, is vulnerable to abrupt decay, stifle, GPM, even more cards if your mana sink targets. If bazaar was available then there's a reason but if bazaar was legal we'd be playing vintage. griselbrand can be exhumed, reanimated for profit, fits better into a permission graveyard blue shell, works with show and tell and in a vacuum is a retardedly powerful card that just wins most of the time. Dragon can win on the spot but assuming you are > 7-10 life it's hard to argue that griselbrand doesn't effectively win anyway. If they have removal it's moot, only with griselderp you have the upside of maybe you know, drawing 7.

Thank you for showing up and being your usual bight, cheery, and useful self. If you'd like to help people brew, cool, if not, we are all aware that Grisselbrand exists.

[Megadeus]

You could play an instant speed win condition so you don't actually need another creature to stop the combo.

[Jables237]

Right. Both work fine in that role. OK, this is getting somewhere fast. Forget need two creatures in the bin. That is solved.

In fact, I think Desolate Lighthouse is actually rather better than Bazaar in the sense that you get some better card selection. It can't reasonably find the Dragon though.

Jables, it could cost a million. Doesn't matter. You have infininte untapped lands.

Oh I thought you meant to get dragon into the yard in the first place. My mistake.

[rufus]

What about just filling the graveyard in bulk with cards like Tolarian Winds? Once you're going off, something like Read the Runes or Pulse of the Grid should be super-potent at filling the graveyard.


The question is, really, how many mill enablers can you run?

There's a decent list. Cards like Careful Study,Faithless Looting,Ideas Unbound and Life from the Loam come to mind. It's a bit more restrictive if you want them to work at instant speed.

Edit: You could also go with Grindstone...

[Finn]

Given the two lands that both do the trick, we are either in red/blue or black/blue. And there is always three colors. We can borrow some tech from dredge. But I think given the reliance on the GY, this deck competes in design space with Reanimator. We probably need both discard and counters for incidental hate from Deathrites and stuff.

[LennonMarx]

Given the two lands that both do the trick, we are either in red/blue or black/blue. And there is always three colors. We can borrow some tech from dredge. But I think given the reliance on the GY, this deck competes in design space with Reanimator. We probably need both discard and counters for incidental hate from Deathrites and stuff.

Well, we are UB by default as we need to cast Animate Dead and Entomb and stuff. The question is really is the 3rd splash color red for Loothouse + Bolts + Rebs or green for (castable) Eternal Witness + Life from the Loam + Enchantment Removal postboard.

[rufus]

....

I say no. Dragon takes up more deckbuilding...

Thank you for a well-reasoned post. I think we can do without the poster spam though.

[Jables237]

Well, we are UB by default as we need to cast Animate Dead and Entomb and stuff. The question is really is the 3rd splash color red for Loothouse + Bolts + Rebs or green for (castable) Eternal Witness + Life from the Loam + Enchantment Removal postboard.

White gives enlightened tutor and maybe Silence.

[Darkenslight]

Thank you for a well-reasoned post. I think we can do without the poster spam though.

Guys, you should play Blue Sun's Zenith as the win condition, as it gets around both Progenitus and Emrakul.

[rufus]

White gives enlightened tutor and maybe Silence.

Depending on the graveyard filling strategy, Argivian Find might work too.

[H]

You need another creature to end the loop already, so your kill should be that creature.

Oona is likely the best option off the top of my head

Oona is the best because she Exiles cards, so you get around Emrakul and it's ilk.


Eternal Witness could be better? Though it would require playing something like Deep Analysis, but I'm not sure we don't want to do that anyways.

What would Witness get back?


Guys, you should play Blue Sun's Zenith as the win condition, as it gets around both Progenitus and Emrakul.

That seems reasonable and it's an instant so you don't have to break the loop to cast it, but you do need it in hand to go off.

I played a fair amount of Dragon in Vintage back before Decay, so I'm interested in seeing how this goes.

[sjmcc13]

Guys, you should play Blue Sun's Zenith as the win condition, as it gets around both Progenitus and Emrakul.
So does oona

[Finn]

I am inclined to steer clear of white despite how handy E-tutor is. The deck is necessarily part control due to its place in the meta, and the kind of control white gives us are antithetical to a combo-control deck like this. And I agree with LennonMarx. We are in black and blue for sure. I think three colors will be too hard on consistency since we have a land as part of the combo. It looks like UB is the way to start.

Also, you want the wincon to be a creature. That way you can animate it with the same spell that you have been using to infinite with the dragon. Laquatus is an example that works, but I am hoping that there is some sort of staple that does it better. Like if Snapcaster or Clique could somehow be a wincon.

[LennonMarx]

Guys, you should play Blue Sun's Zenith as the win condition, as it gets around both Progenitus and Emrakul.

That is certainly possible in a build with Cunning Wishes, though all of the viable win conditions do so (Oona, Wish->X Spell, Eternal Witness looping). Of possible interest, is there a viable win condition that doesn't target the opponent?

[rufus]

That is certainly possible in a build with Cunning Wishes, though all of the viable win conditions do so (Oona, Wish->X Spell, Eternal Witness looping). Of possible interest, is there a viable win condition that doesn't target the opponent?

I think the most obvious choices are Helix Pinnacle and Laboratory Maniac.

[LennonMarx]

What would Witness get back?



I kind of assumed everyone in here has played as much vintage dragon as I did as assumed the witness kill was known. It goes like this:

Step 1: Animate Dragon
Step 2: Mill your library (however we are doing this) and generate infinite mana
Step 3: On one of the loops, switch Animate Dead's target to Eternal Witness, get back another animate dead with her.
Step 4: Animate Dragon again.
Step 5: Put your entire deck in your hand with witness triggers
Step 6: Break loop by having both Animate Deads target witness.
Step 7: Cast (I'm assuming Deep Analysis here, but some target player draws spell) on your opponent.
Step 8: Duress all the relevant cards out of your opponents hand.
Step 9: Repeat steps 4-8 until they are decked.

Edit:

I think the most obvious choices are Helix Pinnacle and Laboratory Maniac.

I totally blanked on Maniac. Pinnacle is super sweet, though. Shame it triggers on upkeep and not as soon as you add the 100th counter

[H]

I kind of assumed everyone in here has played as much vintage dragon as I did as assumed the witness kill was known. It goes like this:

Step 1: Animate Dragon
Step 2: Mill your library (however we are doing this) and generate infinite mana
Step 3: On one of the loops, switch Animate Dead's target to Eternal Witness, get back another animate dead with her.
Step 4: Animate Dragon again.
Step 5: Put your entire deck in your hand with witness triggers
Step 6: Break loop by having both Animate Deads target witness.
Step 7: Cast (I'm assuming Deep Analysis here, but some target player draws spell) on your opponent.
Step 8: Duress all the relevant cards out of your opponents hand.
Step 9: Repeat steps 4-8 until they are decked.

OK, that seems like it makes you run more pieces than just 4 Dragons and 1 Oona though. What's the advantage? That Witness is more castable I guess?

[sjmcc13]

Step 6: Break loop by having both Animate Deads target witness.

So you run 2 witnesses? as the first one is still in play since it got exiled with the animate Deads, and came back as a new witness, not a animated one.

[Richard Cheese]

Maybe this is a silly question, but with the amount of excellent grave hate available right now, what makes this any better than Reanimator, Dredge or TinFins?

[rufus]

So you run 2 witnesses? as the first one is still in play since it got exiled with the animate Deads, and came back as a new witness, not a animated one.

Nah, just pop it in and out with the worldgorger dragon triggers. To end the loop, I think you can pull the WGDs out of the graveyard to fizzle animate dead.

[sjmcc13]

Maybe this is a silly question, but with the amount of excellent grave hate available right now, what makes this any better than Reanimator, Dredge or TinFins?

It is more fun to play...

[leegoo]

I don't think anyone here believes this is a better (or even good, although it's possible) reanimator deck. It's been dead in Vintage for a few years now, and probably has too many cards that interact with it to ever be tier 1 (or likely even 2)
But it's new... and by god somebody has to put 4 Gorgers in a 75, if only for Nostalgia. See Land Tax.

[rufus]

How strong is a bulk fill approach? Something like:


Brainstorm
Ponder

Tolarian Winds
False Memories
Dig Through Time

Animate Dead
Dance of the Dead

Worldgorger Dragon
Griselbrand

Daze
Force of Will

Think Twice
Laboratory Maniac


Lands

EDIT: This is bad...

[LennonMarx]

OK, that seems like it makes you run more pieces than just 4 Dragons and 1 Oona though. What's the advantage? That Witness is more castable I guess?

Well, it's only more pieces if Deep Analysis isn't something you already want. I don't know if that is the case. In vintage you did the loop with Ancestral Recall, which you obviously were playing anyways.


So you run 2 witnesses? as the first one is still in play since it got exiled with the animate Deads, and came back as a new witness, not a animated one.

Hmm, you're right. The draw spell in vintage being instant speed mattered. 2 Witness may not be that bad, though, or you need to run a main deck bounce spell of some sort, which might also be something we want.

Edit:

Nah, just pop it in and out with the worldgorger dragon triggers. To end the loop, I think you can pull the WGDs out of the graveyard to fizzle animate dead.
Yes! That! I knew there was a way to break the loop so you could play sorceries and then start it back up with only 1 witness.

[ShiftyKapree]

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

[benthetenor]

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.

[rufus]

...
Yes! That! I knew there was a way to break the loop so you could play sorceries and then start it back up with only 1 witness.

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.

[btm10]

Didn't Type 1.5 use Compulsion as extra bazaars in dragon combo?

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.

[JanoschEausH]

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?

[btm10]

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:


And if a game is unfavorable, you can usually set up a situation to draw.

Forcing draws was the main argument for keeping Dragon banned in the first place. It's extremely unsporting.

[benthetenor]

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.

[Nuke is Good]

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.

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.

[sjmcc13]

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

[H]

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.

[benthetenor]

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.

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.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Hapless Researcher?

[H]

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."

[nedleeds]

Thank you for showing up and being your usual bight, cheery, and useful self. If you'd like to help people brew, cool, if not, we are all aware that Grisselbrand exists.

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.

[» Arcanis «]

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

[benthetenor]

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."

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.

[LennonMarx]

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

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.

[btm10]

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 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.


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

Piranha Marsh seems good, especially if you're in BUg already and have access to Crop Rotation.

[Richard Cheese]

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.

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.

[LennonMarx]

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.

[mifme]

How about :
4 world gorger dragon
4 animate dead
4 necromancy
4 entomb
4 careful study
1 oona queen of the fae
4 codex shredder

Then disruption acceleration etc,

With codex shredder out every dragon loop you mill a card into your graveyard until you get oona then gain mana and eventually animate dead oona for the win, or lab maniac and deep analysis ........
After a while you could use shredder to get back stroke of genius and force opp to draw there deck.

[Finn]

Piranha Marsh is good, yes. But you are adding a card to the combo. If the wincon is say, Ambassador Laquatus, you need the following:

Underground Sea
Nephalia Drownyard
Animate Dead
Worldgorger Dragon


You resolve Reanimate Dead targeting the dragon and repeat enough times to get indefinite amounts of both blue and black mana in your pool. Then you continue to cycle the EtB effects until you see Laquatus by using the accrued mana to power the drownyard. You target him with your reanimation spell and deck your opponent with the large amount of mana. You do not need Laquatus in hand, or want him there. All the other options I am seeing require extra pieces. But like I said, you would like Laquatus to be something more generically useful instead. That way you can run more than one and get use out of topdecking it. In my example you do not want more than one Laquatus, and you don't want to draw him.

Frankly, the drownyard does the job of Laquatus anyway, so any other creature would be fine.

[LennonMarx]

Piranha Marsh is good, yes. But you are adding a card to the combo. If the wincon is say, Ambassador Laquatus, you need the foolowing:

Underground Sea
Nephalia Drownyard
Reanimate Dead
Worldgorger Dragon


You resolve Reanimate Dead targeting the dragon and repeat enough times to get indefinite amounts of both blue and black mana in your pool. Then you continue to cycle the EtB effects until you see Laquatus. You target him with your reanimation spell and deck your opponent with the large amount of mana. All the other options I am seeing require extra pieces. But like I said, you would like Laquatus to be something more generically useful instead. That way you can run more than one and get use out of topdecking it. In my example you do not want more than one Laquatus, and you don't want to draw him.

I think the closest you are going to get might be Laboratory Maniac in a U/B/r version that uses Lighthouse over Drownyard. Then you just go off, mill everything, bring him back, and then loot again to win. I suppose the deck could also be built in a way such-that you play 3-4 Cunning wish as well, so you have a few utility spells in the board and then wish->Stroke to kill them.

[FakeSpam]

I'm excited that WGD is an option in Legacy. If you want to get inspired by history, here is Jander's list from over a decade ago:

4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Sliver Queen
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Animate Dead
3 Dance of the Dead
3 Necromancy
3 Compulsion
3 Lim-Duls Vault
4 Intuition
3 Duress
4 Force of Will
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
2 Swamp
1 Island

I personally ran red and Shivan Hellkite over the Wall of Fish(tm) and a few other minor changes. More vaults, less compulsion, no dance, and I ran Verdant Force.

The problem with making a current Legacy version of the deck is that there is no substitute for Bazaar of Baghdad. That card was really the core of the deck. In fact, the deck shouldn't even have been named after the 7/7 flier at all.

So, the problem is how to make the deck consistent, resilient, and explosive without that crucial card. I'm gonna start digging through gatherer.

[mifme]

I'm excited that WGD is an option in Legacy. If you want to get inspired by history, here is Jander's list from over a decade ago:

4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Sliver Queen
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Animate Dead
3 Dance of the Dead
3 Necromancy
3 Compulsion
3 Lim-Duls Vault
4 Intuition
3 Duress
4 Force of Will
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
2 Swamp
1 Island

I personally ran red and Shivan Hellkite over the Wall of Fish(tm) and a few other minor changes. More vaults, less compulsion, no dance, and I ran Verdant Force.

The problem with making a current Legacy version of the deck is that there is no substitute for Bazaar of Baghdad. That card was really the core of the deck. In fact, the deck shouldn't even have been named after the 7/7 flier at all.

So, the problem is how to make the deck consistent, resilient, and explosive without that crucial card. I'm gonna start digging through gatherer.


Codex shredder.

[Finn]

Fakespam comes out of the woodwork.

I only played against the deck like twice. I recall Bazaar being key to filling the yard quickly before you go off. In a world of Brainstorm, Ponder, and Dig Through Time, is this really so pivotal? Or am I forgetting something?

[LennonMarx]

Codex shredder.

Problem with shredder is you have to have it in play before you go off yet it doesn't do anything until you go off. At least Drownyard taps for colorless and Compulsion fixes your draws some. It's probably way too slow and fragile for legacy, but years ago in a casual Dragon deck I played Bonded Fetch.

[H]

Can we at least agree that Oona is a pretty superior replacement for Ambassador Laquatus, since doing nothing versus Emrakul is pretty bad?

Also, in the worst possible case of having to cast either, at least Oona can do something useful, even though she does cost twice as much.

[Finn]

Honestly, if we are using Drownyard, Laquatus literally has no purpose. He should be something that makes the opponent draw a card.

[FakeSpam]

Fakespam comes out of the woodwork.

I only played against the deck like twice. I recall Bazaar being key to filling the yard quickly before you go off. In a world of Brainstorm, Ponder, and Dig Through Time, is this really so pivotal? Or am I forgetting something?

If there was anything to get me here, this is it.

Bazaar could be used for the following:

1) Tutor for multiple cards with vault and intuition.

2) Uncounterable draw engine.

3) Uncounterable discard without needing a full hand.

Other cards barely fill one of these roles, while Bazaar did all three.

[Rivfader]

Not sure about this one, but if you have badlands and shivan gorge, can't you do infinite damage to your opponent when reanimating the dragon? I suppose the game ends when your opponent has zero life, regardless of still being in the dragon-loop.

[FakeSpam]

Not sure about this one, but if you have badlands and shivan gorge, can't you do infinite damage to your opponent when reanimating the dragon? I suppose the game ends when your opponent has zero life, regardless of still being in the dragon-loop.

Yep. Dead is dead.

[btm10]

Can we at least agree that Oona is a pretty superior replacement for Ambassador Laquatus, since doing nothing versus Emrakul is pretty bad?

Also, in the worst possible case of having to cast either, at least Oona can do something useful, even though she does cost twice as much.

Yes.

Since we're talking about specific lands being important (Drownyard, Piranha Marsh) as well as reanimation is Life from the Loam worth looking into?

Possibly unrelated, but Intuition or Buried Alive allows you to set up a pretty resilient combo turn, with Intuition likely being the way to go because it's an instant and can be cast for reanimation effects, as much as the idea of casting Buried Alive for Oona, Lab Man, Dragon sounds great.

[Jables237]

Honestly, if we are using Drownyard, Laquatus literally has no purpose. He should be something that makes the opponent draw a card.

I think the plan with drown yard is to self mill until we hit Oona. Then exile their library.

[H]

If there was anything to get me here, this is it.

If we knew that we'd have unbanned it sooner, :wink:

Here's a look at a "recent" Vintage Minus 6 list, piloted to a 6th place Vintage Champs in 2011.

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Dark Confidant
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
4 Duress
2 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead
1 Necromancy
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal (last minute change from Mystical Tutor)
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Force of Will
2 Intuition
2 Read the Runes
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Sideboard: 15 Cards

4 Mana Drain
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tolarian Academy

I played essentially this for a good part of 2011 as well with decent results. Obviously, some of these cards have no substitutes in Legacy though and part of it's strength came from it's transformational board.

[Finn]

Can we at least agree that Oona is a pretty superior replacement for Ambassador Laquatus, since doing nothing versus Emrakul is pretty bad?
If I am seeing this correctly, you can kill the opponent before the Emrakul trigger resolves with something like Limestone Golem. But, ya know...Limestone Golem...bleh.

[LennonMarx]

Yes.

Since we're talking about specific lands being important (Drownyard, Piranha Marsh) as well as reanimation is Life from the Loam worth looking into?

Possibly unrelated, but Intuition or Buried Alive allows you to set up a pretty resilient combo turn, with Intuition likely being the way to go because it's an instant and can be cast for reanimation effects, as much as the idea of casting Buried Alive for Oona, Lab Man, Dragon sounds great.

That's kind of what I was trying to go for in my list a page back, though I didn't find room for a loam. Seems like it could be good, plus Intuition for 3 DA is a great way to grind against some decks. Intuition for Loam + Drownyard + X is a nice setup play as well.

[H]

If I am seeing this correctly, you can kill the opponent before the Emrakul trigger resolves with something like Limestone Golem. But, ya know...Limestone Golem...bleh.

I think I would rather never win if it came to having to put Limestone Golem in a deck.

Come to think of it, this could be a chance to live the dream and go 0-0-7 in a tournament! :cool:

In reality, we need to find the most compact win condition that can combo somewhat consistently.

[Jander78]

It seems like this deck needs to take a page out of Storm's book and run Gitaxian Probe and a 3/4 split of Duress and Cabal Therapy. With cards like Abrupt Decay, Swords to Plowshares, and Stifle in the format, I wouldn't rely on Force of Will to protect this very fragile combo going off blind.

[potatodavid]

Altar of the Brood anyone? Bounce their deck out of the game?

[Richard Cheese]

You don't really even need the additional piece to be a land. If you're making arbitrarily large amounts of mana, you can just use Whispers of the Muse to draw your entire deck and have lethal storm count. That does still require you to either have another creature to reanimate + a way to bin it, or to go for Brain Freeze, which is just as vulnerable to Emrakul.

[FakeSpam]

It seems like this deck needs to take a page out of Storm's book and run Gitaxian Probe and a 3/4 split of Duress and Cabal Therapy. With cards like Abrupt Decay, Swords to Plowshares, and Stifle in the format, I wouldn't rely on Force of Will to protect this very fragile combo going off blind.

That's why if I had it all to do over again, I'd be looking at white. Who cares what shit they have when you can just Abeyance?

[Finn]

Well, I have thought about it, and I think the easiest way to do this is to use Snapcaster as your final Animate Dead target and then use something from the graveyard to finish the job. It could be Consult the Necrosages, but that needs Nephalia Drownyard available. It may get Wastelanded. Snapcaster means that you could potentially go off without the ability to "Bazaar" anything if you happen to be holding the Snappy in hand. It also has the benefit of Snapcaster being a generally good card, so you can run 3 of them or something. You are not faced with the dilemma of having to discard it to win.

[MaximumC]

I'm thinking Drownyard is probably all you want maindeck as a kill condition. Dragon+Drownyard means you can go get whatever creature in your deck you need to finish the game, such as removal for your opponent's True Believer or whatever, and then you can mill out the opponent at your leisure. Or just mill em out. And, unlike Oona, you don't have to lose important slots in the deck to do it. Unlike Marsh, it doesn't come into play tapped. Oona can either be there as a 1 of or come in out of the board against Emmy. That should be fine.

Another gem that's been printed recently is Kruphix' Insight. This digs 6 deep and lets you bin a Dragon and pull an Animate Dead at the same time. This makes me wonder about a BUG version of this deck. Something like this:

Creatures (8):
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Eternal Witness

Tutors (3):
1 Crop Rotation
2 Entomb

Card Draw (10):
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Kruphix' Insight

Enchantments (4):
4 Animate Dead

Control: (14)
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
1 Divert
4 Duress
3 Abrupt Decay

Mana (20):
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Nephila Drownyard
2 Wasteland

SB:
Whatever you like, but including Oona.

[rufus]

I think that getting the land piece - i.e. Shivan Gorge or Nephilia Drownyard into play might be a bigger challenge than the reanimation piece.

[Mystical_Jackass]

What do you guys think about Hedron Crab?

T1 drop. On second turn he can even mill yourself 6 for a reanimate target if necessary, then he's a win cond. Seems functional since he can mill both librarys.

[Finn]

Well, the game has come a long way since 2004. It really was a 3-card combo back then. It still is, but we could possibly make the third piece an incidental one. If the deck is only two colors, Drownyard makes a lot of sense and should be relatively tame. But I am positive you are correct that it is not sufficient by itself which is why I mentioned Snapcaster. With the unlimited mana from the dragon, Snapcaster can be flashed from your hand to save the game from the dragon or used from the graveyard to flash the kill spell back. I kinda like Cunning Wish to fetch the kill spell in this case actually.

[benthetenor]

This is probably the list I would start with:

3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Ancient Tomb

3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
1 Mulldrifter

3 Necromancy
3 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead

other spells
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
2 Deep Analysis
2 Read the Runes
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe

It's based on Vintage and uses the 12 cantrip shell which doesn't exist there, but the thing that is missing is of course Bazaar of Baghdad. But there's no point in complaining about that because it does not and likely will never exist in Legacy. I am open to needing more ways to put creatures into the bin, either Careful Study or more Read the Runes or both, and everything could get shaved down a little since there are so many cantrips. But I like an Ancient Tomb to get the combo off the ground and to power out Intuition, and I like the stability of all of the cantrips. I will be testing this list going forward to see how to make it better. I am not a fan of Drownyard since it does nothing until we are already winning. I also think it's important to run both FOW and discard since they have different strengths and weaknesses, and having Force of Will leads more naturally to a control gameplan.

[Pastorofmuppets]

What do you guys think about Hedron Crab?

T1 drop. On second turn he can even mill yourself 6 for a reanimate target if necessary, then he's a win cond. Seems functional since he can mill both librarys.

Handjob Crab seems like it could work, but once your opponent knows why you're running it, it's going to eat a bolt/StP every time.

So does the deck just fold if the WGD death trigger gets Stifled?

[LennonMarx]

I think that getting the land piece - i.e. Shivan Gorge or Nephilia Drownyard into play might be a bigger challenge than the reanimation piece.

Indeed. There needs to be some redundancy there. Crop Rotation feels a little iffy in that regard. A U/B/r version could just play more of the lands though that is starting to be a bit of a lot of colorless sources. Likely some number of Compulsion/Read the Runes are needed as well. If Cunning Wish is the way to go, Read is a good target for that, too.

[Kobal]

Just a spontaneous idea: Could it work to add Thought Scour, Mental Note and Dig Through Time to the Deck? The cantrips to mill yourself and maybe bin a Dragon, and Dig to recoup if your initial attempt has been thwarted.

[ZimAshe]

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away hen Dragon Combo was first a thing and they had to restrict Entomb because of it. We used Whispers of The Muse to draw our deck and then Searing Touch or Ghitu Fire to kill.

[LennonMarx]

Just as an aside, does anyone know how MODO would handle the WDG + Animate Dead drawn game situation?

[FakeSpam]

Well, the game has come a long way since 2004. It really was a 3-card combo back then. It still is, but we could possibly make the third piece an incidental one. If the deck is only two colors, Drownyard makes a lot of sense and should be relatively tame. But I am positive you are correct that it is not sufficient by itself which is why I mentioned Snapcaster. With the unlimited mana from the dragon, Snapcaster can be flashed from your hand to save the game from the dragon or used from the graveyard to flash the kill spell back. I kinda like Cunning Wish to fetch the kill spell in this case actually.

I like where this is going.

Honestly, though, how you kill someone doesn't matter as much as getting to that point. Is there anything really better than entomb/buried alive?

[FakeSpam]

Just as an aside, does anyone know how MODO would handle the WDG + Animate Dead drawn game situation?

It probably just crashes and deletes all your tickets.

[sjmcc13]

Just as an aside, does anyone know how MODO would handle the WDG + Animate Dead drawn game situation?

Game clock runs down and you loose.

[LennonMarx]

Game clock runs down and you loose.

I'd believe that. Once the change goes live on MODO I'll have to test it out.

[Finn]

I like where this is going.

Honestly, though, how you kill someone doesn't matter as much as getting to that point. Is there anything really better than entomb/buried alive?

Probably not. Well, I hate Buried Alive. It is an expensive sorcery that does nothing to the board state, is card disadvantage and the part I hate most is that it tips your hand, allowing your opponent to do something like Enlightened Tutor or Brainstorm at eot and then have their own turn to execute their hate.

Intuition I like a lot better. But I think Entomb is clearly the best card here. It is good for setup. It is great in the absence of a Drownyard.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

w00t! Get to bring out my favorite combo deck once again!

This has been said, but the advantage of dragon over a deck like reanimator is the ability to play more of a control role. You only need 5 creatures, and maybe 7 reanimation spells. This means you can cut shit like careful study and play cantrips that don't cause card disadvantage (like more ponders!)

I'm going to start working on this deck. A base of:

4 Entomb
4 Intuition
4 Dance of the Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
X Dig through time

4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce

4 WGD
1 OOna

Seems good.

[sdematt]

No love for Wu Spy? Digs for combo and can kill with Dragon loops.

[sjmcc13]

I'd believe that. Once the change goes live on MODO I'll have to test it out. the combo is legal in vintage... You could test now.

I think I have everything other than Intuitions, but need to double check my card pool when I get home from work in about an hour and a half.

[Finn]

I wonder if Kederekt Leviathan would be helpful. If you have never seen this (I do not know of it has ever been part of a tournament deck), you use Necromancy on the leviathan at some non-sorcery time, such as opponent's eot or attack step. That takes care of whatever permanents you don't like, and you get Necromancy back to do it again. And if we do the deck right, the entire combo can be an instant speed thing anyway.

[nodahero]

Is it possible that if we run Intuition we can also make the case to run Accumulated Knowledge?!?!

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Is it possible that if we run Intuition we can also make the case to run Accumulated Knowledge?!?!

I've always been happier with Deep Analysis. Not sure if that's too slow tho.

SO MANY OPTIONS!

[FakeSpam]

Is it possible that if we run Intuition we can also make the case to run Accumulated Knowledge?!?!

It's possible, but the hand is the last place you want the cards in your deck. That, and in what scenario would you Intuition for AKs instead of combo pieces?

[Redkid43]

What about Mikokoro as a way to draw into Entomb....remember that the Animate Dead enchantments now all have triggers so you can respond once infi mana is achieved and get Oona to end the loop. You can always Entomb in response to WGD triggers

[owerbart]

do you guys really think is easier to put a creature in our GY than just kill them playing a piranha marsh / nephalia drownyard?

i don't get the point.

[LennonMarx]

If we are on the use lands to mill plan, I'm not sure how many colorless sources you can actually play, but Duskmantle, House of Shadows could serve as Drownyard 5-8.


do you guys really think is easier to put a creature in our GY than just kill them playing a piranha marsh / nephalia drownyard?

i don't get the point.

If we have a drownyard/duskmantle we get to put any creature we want into our graveyard.

[Redkid43]

I think with Eldrazi running around Oona or Marsh is probably the best win cons but Drownyard is nice to set up, but duskmantle is a turn faster

[sjmcc13]

do you guys really think is easier to put a creature in our GY than just kill them playing a piranha marsh / nephalia drownyard?

i don't get the point.

The point is secondary kills, and backup plans.

If the drownyard can kill you kill with the yard, but if they run emrakul, gain shroud (Leyline), etc then you need another way to win.

Back in the day (before Kamigawa was released) I use to like Caller of the Claw as a secondary kill as few decks could deal with 1000+ bears.

[Finn]

1 Cunning Wish
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
4 Entomb
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Animate Dead
4 Necromancy
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Kederekt Leviathan

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Nephalia Drownyard

sb:
1 Stroke of Genius

Forget Eldrazi triggers. The entire combo is instant speed, so you can stroke the opponent out with the trigger on the stack. This version wants very much to have Nephalia Drownyard do the major work, with Snapcaster into Cunning Wish as the backup plan. We could manipulate the numbers to make the deck more resilient, but it will never be perfect. Leviathan may be entirely unnecessary, but its inclusion makes killing you with aggro or any sort of permanents pretty well impossible unless that permanent be Rest in Peace or something.

[owerbart]

The point is secondary kills, and backup plans.

If the drownyard can kill you kill with the yard, but if they run emrakul, gain shroud (Leyline), etc then you need another way to win.

Back in the day (before Kamigawa was released) I use to like Caller of the Claw as a secondary kill as few decks could deal with 1000+ bears.

If they gain shroud you just kill them with Shivan Gorge + a Red Source.

Seriously guys the whole "put a thing in a graveyard, then do X, Y, Z" it's unnecessary complicated IMO.

[phazonmutant]

You need another creature to end the loop already, so your kill should be that creature.

Oona is likely the best option off the top of my head

Not necessarily true. If your plan is to mill them with Drownyard, if they have any creature in your deck you can end the loop there. If their creature is Emrakul, you get to borrow their Emmy and hopefully win with it. Obviously this wouldn't work against Storm or some Omni variants, but having a few other creatures as toolbox options isn't the worst anyway.

[LennonMarx]

If they gain shroud you just kill them with Shivan Gorge + a Red Source.

Seriously guys the whole "put a thing in a graveyard, then do X, Y, Z" it's unnecessary complicated IMO.

Wait, so doing something our deck already does (put our entire deck in the graveyard) is more complex than putting 2 extra lands into play? Am I missing something here?

[ZimAshe]

If I were to play in a tournament tomorrow i may consider playing this untested.
Potential for a turn 1 win with a lucky draw.



Creatures (4)

1 Ambassador Laquatus
3 Worldgorger Dragon

Spells (41)

4 Lotus Petal
3 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Ponder
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead
3 Cunning Wish

Lands (15)

1 Volcanic Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard:

1 Searing Touch
1 Whispers of the Muse
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Stroke of Genius

[zulander]

Why not run a set of Burning Wish? It gets Exhume, Buried Alive, and Banefire as a win-con and any removal you need for anything stalling the board, and after you start the loop so you don't have to bin another creature. Seems solid to me.

So:
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, queen of the fae

4 Burning Wish
4 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
4 Animate Dead
2 Necromancy

4 Faithless Looting
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder


I think right now for me this is the core I'll be testing with.

[Redkid43]

1 Cunning Wish
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
4 Entomb
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Animate Dead
4 Necromancy
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Kederekt Leviathan

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Nephalia Drownyard

sb:
1 Stroke of Genius

Forget Eldrazi triggers. The entire combo is instant speed, so you can stroke the opponent out with the trigger on the stack. This version wants very much to have Nephalia Drownyard do the major work, with Snapcaster into Cunning Wish as the backup plan. We could manipulate the numbers to make the deck more resilient, but it will never be perfect. Leviathan may be entirely unnecessary, but its inclusion makes killing you with aggro or any sort of permanents pretty well impossible unless that permanent be Rest in Peace or something.


I would start here. No love for Oona?

[Richard Cheese]

Why not run a set of Burning Wish? It gets Exhume, Buried Alive, and Banefire as a win-con and any removal you need for anything stalling the board, and after you start the loop so you don't have to bin another creature. Seems solid to me.


Pretty sure you'd still have to bin another creature or have some other way of stopping the loop before you could cast any sorceries. As it is I don't see how your list avoids drawing.

[Nervkind]

What about Piranha Marsh? No need to splash for red, compared to shivan gorge and can even tap for black.
Wouldn't want to expose it to Wasteland though, so 90% of the time one would play it the turn you go off.
So it's not too bad that it comes into play tapped. Small disadvantage is, that it targets.
Also it doesn't take up that much space compared to other win conditions, so you could play a more control oriented build.

[AmuletOfQuoz]

Is Bitter Ordeal not a better wincon than any creature in these colors?

[Nervkind]

Is Bitter Ordeal not a better wincon than any creature in these colors?
Could work, but you need another creature in the yard to stop the combo, since it's sorcery speed.
And it requires a third combopiece, that you can't just use from the yard.

[phazonmutant]

Someone mentioned Grindstone as an option. This seems interesting as an avenue for a hybrid combo deck. Here's a sketch:
4 Entomb
4 Animate Dead
1 Necromancy
2 Worldgorger Dragon
4 Grindstone
4 Painter's Servant
2 Goblin Welder
1 Trinket Mage
1 Imperial Recruiter
4 Thoughtseize
2 Pyroblast
2 Faithless Looting
2 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Lotus Petal
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn

I'm sure that this list is horrible in many ways, but it does some interesting things. Neat combos:
If you have Grindstone in play, Dragon in bin, and Animate Dead/Necromancy in hand, you can mill yourself until you hit Recruiter, get infinite mana, then break the loop with Recruiter, get Servant, and mill them.
Similarly, if you have Painter in play, Dragon in bin, Animate Dead/Necromancy in hand, and either Intuition in hand or Trinket Mage in grave/hand, you can make infinite mana and tutor up Grindstone.
You can use Entomb and reanimation or Goblin Welder to tutor for either half of the Grindstone/Painter combo.
Intuition for Dragon, Dragon, and either Trinket Mage or Recruiter depending on if you have access to Painter or Grindstone (respectively) is basically a double Entomb.
Grindstone in play and nothing relevant in bin. You can mill yourself to start getting somewhere.

Some things I don't like about this list is that it seems too slow to get out the gates without Sol lands (the color requirements are too high to play them), how high the mana curve is, and how little disruption I've been able to fit. The blue count seems way too low for Force, and the curve is too high for Daze. It is neat that the combos work together so well.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

My problem with lands like drownyard are:

1) I don't like running lands that either CIPT to tap to produce colorless, when I already want to be running ancient tomb/City for Intuitions/Necromancy

2) They have to be in play before you go off. I'd rather jam animate on a WGD and then figure out a way to mill myself/get a creature in the yard. I think that's why intuition (and Dig through time) is so damn good in theory.

Anyways, lotsa good ideas. Time to start testing. Here's what I'm going to sleeve:



4 WGD
1 Oona

4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Intuition
4 Entomb
3 Dig Through Time

4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
3 Thoughtseize

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
1 Island
1 Swamp


I'm concerned about having only 1 WinCon, but we're only in the initial phases of developing the shell.

[sjmcc13]

I'd believe that. Once the change goes live on MODO I'll have to test it out.
Just tied a solitaire game on Modo.
Got exactly 1 dragon in the yard, animated it, and selected Yield until End of Turn.

Everything automated except for selecting the dragon for the Animate when it came back, had to do that manually every time.
So ya, and infinite loop will drain your clock and cost you the match unless your opponent stupidly concedes.

[LennonMarx]

My problem with lands like drownyard are:

1) I don't like running lands that either CIPT to tap to produce colorless, when I already want to be running ancient tomb/City for Intuitions/Necromancy

2) They have to be in play before you go off. I'd rather jam animate on a WGD and then figure out a way to mill myself/get a creature in the yard. I think that's why intuition (and Dig through time) is so damn good in theory.

Anyways, lotsa good ideas. Time to start testing. Here's what I'm going to sleeve:



4 WGD
1 Oona

4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Intuition
4 Entomb
3 Dig Through Time

4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
3 Thoughtseize

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
1 Island
1 Swamp


I'm concerned about having only 1 WinCon, but we're only in the initial phases of developing the shell.

List looks solid. My one concern is that it looks like it would be fairly hard with this build to get the Oona into the yard as you can't intuition for her directly, so you need Either Entomb + Intuition to go off, or double entomb. Since you are on 8 tutors to get dragon in the bin, I think you might be able to go down to 2 WGD and and maybe trim something else to make room for 2-3 Read the Runes. 3 Seems better so you can intuition for it, but I'm not sure what the last cut would be.

[Jander78]

My problem with lands like drownyard are:

1) I don't like running lands that either CIPT to tap to produce colorless, when I already want to be running ancient tomb/City for Intuitions/Necromancy

2) They have to be in play before you go off. I'd rather jam animate on a WGD and then figure out a way to mill myself/get a creature in the yard. I think that's why intuition (and Dig through time) is so damn good in theory.

I mostly agree about Drownyard, but, I will say, that it is a win condition and a way to mill yourself if needed (Brainstorm / Ponder -> WGD on top -> Mill -> Animate)

Out of the builds I've been throwing around, so far I feel like this is the closest to being somewhat decent. Still needs work:


4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae

4 Intuition
4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Careful Study

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 City of Traitors
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
4 Nephalia Drownyard


As for the lack of Entomb, I'm not sure it belongs in this deck, especially if you're not running Drownyard or some way to mill your win condition.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

@Lennon: I think in principle I agree with you completely. I just want to test a build with 4 of all relevant combo pieces/search to see what the deck is capable of. My reasoning with not running a read the runes is because once you go infinite, all you need is intuition -> 3 entombs, or DTT for entomb and you're all set. In the case you draw an oona, you could always thoughtseize/Brainstorm it away.

@Jander: I won't completely dismiss drownyard, especially in 2 color builds, but right now, I'm not sure it's necessary. Also, about your list, do you like the careful studies? I find I hate them even in traditional reanimator style lists. And with only 4 cards to profit from the discard, it seems like the card could bite you in the ass more often than not (especially on a mull!).

[MaximumC]

@Lennon: I think in principle I agree with you completely. I just want to test a build with 4 of all relevant combo pieces/search to see what the deck is capable of. My reasoning with not running a read the runes is because once you go infinite, all you need is intuition -> 3 entombs, or DTT for entomb and you're all set. In the case you draw an oona, you could always thoughtseize/Brainstorm it away.

@Jander: I won't completely dismiss drownyard, especially in 2 color builds, but right now, I'm not sure it's necessary. Also, about your list, do you like the careful studies? I find I hate them even in traditional reanimator style lists. And with only 4 cards to profit from the discard, it seems like the card could bite you in the ass more often than not (especially on a mull!).

I suspect Drownyard is just too good to pass up. I mean:
T.1 - U.Sea, Entomb Dragon
T.2 - Drownyard // Lighthouse // Crop Rot for Either, Animate Dead

That's a wrap. Entomb + Animate Dead + (Drownyard/Lighthouse/Crop Rot) is essentially instant win on turn 2. That's faster than any other Dragon win in Legacy, I think.

[Jander78]

@Lennon: I think in principle I agree with you completely. I just want to test a build with 4 of all relevant combo pieces/search to see what the deck is capable of. My reasoning with not running a read the runes is because once you go infinite, all you need is intuition -> 3 entombs, or DTT for entomb and you're all set. In the case you draw an oona, you could always thoughtseize/Brainstorm it away.

@Jander: I won't completely dismiss drownyard, especially in 2 color builds, but right now, I'm not sure it's necessary. Also, about your list, do you like the careful studies? I find I hate them even in traditional reanimator style lists. And with only 4 cards to profit from the discard, it seems like the card could bite you in the ass more often than not (especially on a mull!).
Careful Study is an awful card. I have no argument on that. My build is designed on speed (which may certainly not be the best way to go), which I why I chose them, but honestly, in retrospect, they may be better served as Entombs or even Compulsion.

[Cire]

just curious - does dance of the dead also work?

[Jander78]

just curious - does dance of the dead also work?
Yes. It works the same as Animate Dead.

[aCatNamedBootsy]

just curious - does dance of the dead also work?

It does, but I don't think the deck would want more than 7 or 8 Animate Dead effects. Between that or Necromancy, I'd rather have Necromancy.

[Cire]

It does, but I don't think the deck would want more than 7 or 8 Animate Dead effects. Between that or Necromancy, I'd rather have Necromancy.

Idk - doesn't that depend on whether or not you want to do the balls to the wall turn 2 combo or not?

[Redkid43]

Necromancy has the added benefit of going off at instant speed, were dance does not.

I see lots of awesome Ideas so far. you think adding green for crop rotation could pave the way for some non zero amount of abrupt decay in the side?

[AngryTroll]

Dragon's a three card combo, but there are tons of options for the third card. I think I'd most seriously consider the Nephalia Drownyard, Piranha Marsh, and Baleful Strix. The Strix is fine on its own; it's weak to Bolt, but in those matches it draws a card and soaks up damage.

With the Strix in play you eventually draw an Entomb to bin Oona, Queen of the Fae. If you draw Oona before Entomb you need to draw a Brainstorm and Entomb to put her back and then bin her. You can run a single removal spell of your choice (Dimir Charm?) to kill the Strix to prevent you from decking yourself.

Buried Alive does have the advantage of making this a two card combo, for what that's worth.

I like that the third combo piece can be a land, which doesn't have to take up slots (the land count will need to be higher than normal to support the colorless and/or cipt lands, but it's still fewer slots than a second combo piece) or a Baleful Strix, which is super reasonable to run in a control combo deck.

[Cire]

Ignore this as it is just a brainstorm for the "fastest possible - WorldGorger combo" - which I was aiming for turn 2 high consistency playing as much protection as possible

1st - Land (hopefull + Entomb or (if Worldgorger is in your hand) Discard
2nd - Drownyard or Land + Crop Rotation + Animate or Dance + Protection + Protection


So

4 Careful Study
4 Hapless Researcher
4 Worldgorger Dragon
4 Drownyard
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Crop Rotation
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead
4 Daze
4 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Entomb

no clue how consistent that is?

Edit- NVM - daze is awful as you need the land in play to go off. . . .

[emidln]

If you run Witness and a draw spell, you'll still need a backup win somehow because a single Deep Analysis would be a functionally dead card if you can't flash it back ever. It might as well be a Cunning Wish / Stroke of Genius / Blue Sun's Zenith or something of that ilk unless you are planning on playing multiple Deep Analysis.

[apple713]

just checking that this question has been answered already... why is this better than existing decks with 2 card combos?

you now need gorger and enabler, and a way to win...

[Echelon]

Funnily enough I was thinking something similar.

Seeing as your goal is to start a loop with Animate Dead & WGD, why shouldn't you run Show and Tell to nail your opponent with after casting an Intuition for 2 Animate Dead and a WGD..?

Edit: Never mind, my evil plot doesn't work. D'oh!

[FakeSpam]

just checking that this question has been answered already... why is this better than existing decks with 2 card combos?

you now need gorger and enabler, and a way to win...

It isn't.

The only nice thing about this combo is that the majority of the pieces are so flexible, so you get to run more than 4 "copies" of a combo piece.

[Richard Cheese]

just checking that this question has been answered already... why is this better than existing decks with 2 card combos?

you now need gorger and enabler, and a way to win...

Oh, and a bunch of protection, since you lose to basically any grave hate or counters, as well as Abrupt Decay and Swords to Plowshares.

[.dk]

Oh, and a bunch of protection, since you lose to basically any grave hate or counters, as well as Abrupt Decay and Swords to Plowshares.

Sign me uppp!!! Where can I buy a ticket on the #badideaexpress !?!?!

[Richard Cheese]

The only way I see this combo being viable is if it can be made so compact that the deck can afford to run a ton of protection. On the upside, it doesn't care about life total, so it can afford to be slower than AdNaus, TinFins, and Reanimator, and it plays through Thalia and Canonist fairly well. Still, I think if I wanted a slow but well-protected combo I would just go with High Tide and get the added benefit of not being vulnerable to Wasteland.

[Redkid43]

Tin Fins inspired

1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Griselbrand

4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Careful Study
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Daze
3 Read the Runes

2 Piranha Marsh
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra

[PunkRocker1134]

I think Dragon is a bit of a middle ground between Storm/Tin Fins and High Tide. It can definitely have more speed than High Tide, but since it can pay more protection it plays the slower game better than Storm or Tin Fins, theoretically at least. Another perk is that once dragon is in the bin, you can overload counters easier since all you need is one of 7+ cards to resolve at that point. When it comes to comparing it to High Tide directly, you are trading the ability to be faster, play through cannonist and Thalia easier, as Richard Cheese mentioned, and have only a "2-card" combo, for not having wasteland protection. Its definitely worth exploring. I'm thinking the best build is probably a slower shell with plenty of control elements, with maybe sol lands or rit to give it the ability to be fast if need be.

Edit: Might Breakthrough be better than Careful Study or Read the Runes? Breakthrough for 1 might be pretty good after we've launched a slew of discard spells out. It draws a lot and bins, exactly what we want. It probably isn't great at all, but maybe something worth considering. It does, however, require a build that uses discard as its main, and probably only, protection, which may well be the way the deck should go anyway.

[Rood]

// Lands
1 [MR] Island (1)
2 [M11] Swamp (1)
2 [JGC] Bloodstained Mire
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ISD] Nephalia Drownyard

// Creatures
1 [V11] Oona, Queen of the Fae
4 [JU] Worldgorger Dragon

// Spells
4 [5E] Animate Dead
1 [VI] Necromancy
3 [IA] Dance of the Dead
4 [V09] Lotus Petal
4 [DDC] Dark Ritual
4 [M12] Ponder
4 [DDJ] Brainstorm
4 [JGC] Entomb
4 [THS] Thoughtseize
3 [FNM] Cabal Therapy
3 [TE] Intuition

Is basically where I'm at right now. I think Intuition for 3 Entombs to kill is almost neccessary...

[Finn]

I'm pretty sure this deck competes for market share with Reanimator rather than any of the super fast combos. And Reanimator is not an instant win where this deck is, so there is merit there. Because of Abrupt Decay especially, I see discard as the best buffer from disaster.

This is a combo that has not been explored in this format EVER. Obviously we are prudent to discuss it. Maybe it is not possible to make it work. But every post pointing that out in the absence of any data literally has no purpose whatsoever since we would collectively be morons not to pursue it anyway.



EDIT: Also, this is the reason I am not using Oona in my initial build. Oona is typically only going to be good if you have access to some form of self-mill, right? If you have that, what do you need Oona for? You can mill the opponent with the same mill engine you are already using. Honestly, does Oona do anything whatsoever in that scenario? She does not say "draw" on her, so you have to wait for the opponent's draw step to win. I am advocating using Snapcaster instead because in the same scenario you have just milled most of your library. You have a Cunning Wish that you give flashback to. Then you then just grab Blue Sun's Zenith or something to win on the spot. My version has the advantage of the Snapcaster actually doing something useful if you happen to draw it and you can flash it in from your hand mid-combo so the game does not draw. Oona, you can't cast and you have to discard her. The only disadvantage I can see is if you have two Entombs and you fetch both Oona and the dragon to combo without Drownyard.

This seems obviously better to me. Have I not thought this through?

EDIT: If you are doing my version, Drownyard is inferior to Duskmantle because you get to mill one card at a time.

[apple713]

Oh, and a bunch of protection, since you lose to basically any grave hate or counters, as well as Abrupt Decay and Swords to Plowshares.

so basically there are 0 good matchups.... 1/3rd of the field plays abrupt decay, another 1/3rd plays STP, and the last 1/3rd plays bounce spells targeting either of your combo pieces. I don't think there is a single deck this has a good matchup against... Dredge maybe?

[Cire]

I have been thinking about this further and this is what I have come up with:

4 DRS
2 Dragon

3 Dance of the Dead
3 Silence
4 Lotus Petal
4 Orim's Chant
4 Entomb
4 Intuition
4 Thoughtseize
4 STP
4 Animate Dead

8 Fetch Lands
5 Duals/Basics
4 Nephalia Drownyard
3 Piranha Marsh

Basically just going with the whole - land kill at the moment. The idea of this build is to get a 2nd turn (on the opponent's turn) entomb or Intuition for two dragons, then combo land and followed up by Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead. . . .

Who cares about STP/Abrupt decay when you have silenced them before you go off. Still weak to gravehate though.

[Jander78]

Is basically where I'm at right now. I think Intuition for 3 Entombs to kill is almost neccessary... .
Why would you Intuition for 3x Entomb when Intuition puts cards in your graveyard? If you already have the Animate spell in hand, Intuition for Dragon, Dragon, Oona will win you the game as long as you can stop the combo from looping.


so basically there are 0 good matchups.... 1/3rd of the field plays abrupt decay, another 1/3rd plays STP, and the last 1/3rd plays bounce spells targeting either of your combo pieces. I don't think there is a single deck this has a good matchup against... Dredge maybe?
This deck used to do fine against decks packing maindeck STP, Naturalize, Stifle, Chain of Vapor back in the day. It's not a question of if it can compete against those cards, because historically it can, but whether or not this combo works well and efficient enough without Bazaar of Baghdad, which was the main engine to this deck.

[FakeSpam]

I don't have a complete list together yet, but here is where I'm at:

- Probably want to run the full set of dragons if milling into them is a possible plan. (drownyard, careful study)

- I'm not crazy about sorcery speed manipulation. Ponder, Careful Study. You are on notice.

- I think entomb is amazing. Get dragons. Get your win condition. If you pick the right sideboard cards you can use it to tutor for all sorts of answers, too. It puts what you want where you want it at instant speed for one mana. I'm interested in discussing this further, because right now this is one seems like an auto-include.

- I don't think there is room for Force of Will. If there is, the blue count is still really low.

- You need Dark Ritual. The deck is too slow without it. Lotus petals might be overkill.

- I think there is room for 7/8 reanimation targets. 4 dragons, 1 Oona. I'm considering 2x Griselbrand and 1 Kederekt Leviathan for the other targets. Maybe the Leviathan sucks, but I like the idea. Other reanimation targets give you the ability to soak up counters and/or removal.

- Old versions ran a single chain of vapor to deal with random hate. Without vault, we can't depend on drawing something like that. What other options might there be? We've covered the Leviathan. I was considering Dimir Charm. It works with the gameplan of the deck while also being able to handle random bad things.

- Dance of the Dead sucks. Necromancy is amazing. I reccomend a 4/3 Animate Dead/Necromancy split.

EDIT:

- I like Snapcaster. I'd like him more if he could snap back animate dead, though. :(

[Redkid43]

I think Dragon is a bit of a middle ground between Storm/Tin Fins and High Tide. It can definitely have more speed than High Tide, but since it can pay more protection it plays the slower game better than Storm or Tin Fins, theoretically at least. Another perk is that once dragon is in the bin, you can overload counters easier since all you need is one of 7+ cards to resolve at that point. When it comes to comparing it to High Tide directly, you are trading the ability to be faster, play through cannonist and Thalia easier, as Richard Cheese mentioned, and have only a "2-card" combo, for not having wasteland protection. Its definitely worth exploring. I'm thinking the best build is probably a slower shell with plenty of control elements, with maybe sol lands or rit to give it the ability to be fast if need be.

Edit: Might Breakthrough be better than Careful Study or Read the Runes? Breakthrough for 1 might be pretty good after we've launched a slew of discard spells out. It draws a lot and bins, exactly what we want. It probably isn't great at all, but maybe something worth considering. It does, however, require a build that uses discard as its main, and probably only, protection, which may well be the way the deck should go anyway.

This is an option. Read the Runes is there to stop the loop with Griselbrand and WGD to get Oona.

[apple713]

Who cares about STP/Abrupt decay when you have silenced them before you go off. Still weak to gravehate though.

so now you are talking about a 4 card combo in legacy...

[Cire]

so now you are talking about a 4 card combo in legacy...

Or. . . you treat silence the way you do any protectionl? I don't get your point? It's not like it's required to go off - but it helps more against AD, for example, than anything else except more discard.

[Jander78]

I don't have a complete list together yet, but here is where I'm at:

- Probably want to run the full set of dragons if milling into them is a possible plan. (drownyard, careful study)

- I'm not crazy about sorcery speed manipulation. Ponder, Careful Study. You are on notice.

- I think entomb is amazing. Get dragons. Get your win condition. If you pick the right sideboard cards you can use it to tutor for all sorts of answers, too. It puts what you want where you want it at instant speed for one mana. I'm interested in discussing this further, because right now this is one seems like an auto-include.

- I don't think there is room for Force of Will. If there is, the blue count is still really low.

- You need Dark Ritual. The deck is too slow without it. Lotus petals might be overkill.

- I think there is room for 7/8 reanimation targets. 4 dragons, 1 Oona. I'm considering 2x Griselbrand and 1 Kederekt Leviathan for the other targets. Maybe the Leviathan sucks, but I like the idea. Other reanimation targets give you the ability to soak up counters and/or removal.

- Old versions ran a single chain of vapor to deal with random hate. Without vault, we can't depend on drawing something like that. What other options might there be? We've covered the Leviathan. I was considering Dimir Charm. It works with the gameplan of the deck while also being able to handle random bad things.

- Dance of the Dead sucks. Necromancy is amazing. I reccomend a 4/3 Animate Dead/Necromancy split.
My only concern with Entomb is needing a second target in the graveyard or a milling outlet to BIN your deck (Drownyard / Compulsion). Other than that it's great and if you plan on having multiple reanimate targets outside of Dragon, then yes, it is an auto-include.

Dimir Charm is a great utility card for this deck.

[apple713]

Or. . . you treat silence the way you do any removal? I don't get your point? It's not like it's required to go off - but it helps more against AD, for example, than anything else except more discard.

I'm very skeptical. I love WGD, and i want him to work but 3 card combo's are not great in legacy which is why i abandon omni tell, because it was inferior.

If you really want this to work why not simply just view it as an improvement to the current version of reanimator? Substitute reanimate or exhume for animate dead and necromancy and start from there.

Once you animate WGD if an opponent counters your stroke or whatever win con you hope to win with, you can't end the loop that WGD creates can you?

on the constructive side entomb is a no brainer and discard seems better than trying to jam a bunch of FOW/ other blue cards into the deck.

[Nervkind]

Cantrips / Draw
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Read the runes
1 Dig through time

Reanimation
4 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead

Tutors
4 entomb
2 intuition

Protection
4 Thoughtseize
4 FoW
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce

Utility / Wincon
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Dimir Guildmage
2 Worldgorger Dragon

Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Usea
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Delta
2 Marsh Flats
3 Piranha Marsh

This is how i would build it. Some card quantities may seem a little odd, like the 1 Dig Through Time i want to play more, but didn't know what to cut. Maybe 1 read the runes. This list obviously still needs a lot of tweaking and is just there to show my general idea. I don't want to combo of fast, but be a more control oriented Deck. That's why i don't play any rituals or petals. But on the other hand quite a lot of protection. As a win condition I found Dimir Guildmage to look sweet, but this is interchangable. It gets around Emrakuul and lets you draw cards yourself If you need to. I also love the 4 Snapcaster Mages in the deck. They serve two purposes. First they should generate CA by flashing back our Cantrips and Spell Pierces and slow down the aggro player a little bit. Second it is Used as a third combopiece. What brings me to the next point. The deck has 18 possibilities as the third combopiece! 18 Guys! And 25 if you also Count Brainstorm and Ponder, but they may sometimes fail to find something good. Entomb,Intuition, Read the Runes, Dig through Time (almost always finds something),Dimir Guildmage, Piranha Marsh And of course my favorite: Snapcaster Mage The fact that you almost certainly have an Entomb or Intuition or whatever in the grave when you go off makes this a fine combopiece. Snapcaster is also excellent with Intuition. You want to intuition for a certain spell and you have only 2 left in the Deck? Just take a Snapcaster! Maybe one could cut the Piranha Marsh, in order to not be so vulnerable to Wasteland and not play any tapped lands, but this needs testing.

What do you think of it guys? My german folks were not that excited, but screw them! I like it and you hopefully too :)

[Darkenslight]

Idk - doesn't that depend on whether or not you want to do the balls to the wall turn 2 combo or not?

Necromancy is flash-lite, so you can also jump-start the combo on their turn with a Stroke list.

[Di]

That's why if I had it all to do over again, I'd be looking at white. Who cares what shit they have when you can just Abeyance?

FWIW, I was running a full set of Xantid Swarms in the sideboard over Abeyance at the time, and it worked really well. Maybe a little tougher now that Abrupt Decay is around, but that's essentially the only removal spell that matters here that's been printed since, and it's not like there are decks running both StP and Decay. Essentially you're just playing against grave hate/removal/counters every match anyway, but Swarm does a much better job of stopping the handful of counters or Extractions or whatever without tying up mana.

Or you could just stay B/u/x and run Defense Grids.

[Cire]

I'm very skeptical. I love WGD, and i want him to work but 3 card combo's are not great in legacy which is why i abandon omni tell, because it was inferior.

If you really want this to work why not simply just view it as an improvement to the current version of reanimator? Substitute reanimate or exhume for animate dead and necromancy and start from there.

Once you animate WGD if an opponent counters your stroke or whatever win con you hope to win with, you can't end the loop that WGD creates can you?

on the constructive side entomb is a no brainer and discard seems better than trying to jam a bunch of FOW/ other blue cards into the deck.

I thought my win con was Drownyard/Piranha Marsh. . . .

anyway - I think the reason not to look at this deck as a better reanimator is because it is not - reanimator is much better at recovery than this deck which is essentially a glass cannon combo deck that has potential for a lot of protection. The only downside is that the type of protection we need is all over the place.

If it makes you feel better (i.e) my list with chants and silence - just replace them with more discard (and the STP with chain of vapor and the lotus petal with dark ritual). That way you're playing 11 discard spells and 4 "removal" with a consistent turn 3 combo. That seems pretty good to me?

[rufus]

... Dredge maybe?

Dredge, I think, can race, and may play Coffin Purge from the sideboard.

How well can playing for instants from the graveyard instead of a conventional mill permanent work? There's some engine potential:

Dream Twist
Think Twice
Forbidden Alchemy
Desperate Ravings
Mystical Teachings
Increasing Vengeance
Oona's Grace

(It's a bit of a pity that Necromancy doesn't have proper flash for use with Mystical Teachings)

[FakeSpam]

Once you animate WGD if an opponent counters your stroke or whatever win con you hope to win with, you can't end the loop that WGD creates can you?


If your opponent is in a position to do something to stop you, doing so before you combo is the better plan.




My only concern with Entomb is needing a second target in the graveyard or a milling outlet to BIN your deck (Drownyard / Compulsion). Other than that it's great and if you plan on having multiple reanimate targets outside of Dragon, then yes, it is an auto-include.


I see what you are saying. I wish it could also get Animate Dead. I like how Entomb works within the combo as well as enables it.

[Jander78]

I see what you are saying. I wish it could also get Animate Dead. I like how Entomb works within the combo as well as enables it.
Agreed. I think it's an auto-include for now, just takes up a lot of room (6 - 8 slots) with Entomb + Intuition.

[FakeSpam]

FWIW, I was running a full set of Xantid Swarms in the sideboard over Abeyance at the time, and it worked really well. Maybe a little tougher now that Abrupt Decay is around, but that's essentially the only removal spell that matters here that's been printed since, and it's not like there are decks running both StP and Decay. Essentially you're just playing against grave hate/removal/counters every match anyway, but Swarm does a much better job of stopping the handful of counters or Extractions or whatever without tying up mana.

Or you could just stay B/u/x and run Defense Grids.

I wish we had discussed this further back in the day. Now we're talking three color. BUG or WUB. I like swarm, but it ultimately gets hit by the same cards you are trying to stop. If you are talking 1:1, that's okay. Since the swarm should be taking up agriculture before your dragons. Swarm doesn't stop two, though.

Your experience with Xantid Swarm was different from mine. I never liked the thing.

[Finn]

I realize that this is bad form, but I can't proceed until I get this resolved. I can't see how I am wrong, but seeing as how I got no response, and just about everyone else is going about this differently, I need to know. So I am asking the same question again. Am I missing something here?

Also, this is the reason I am not using Oona in my initial build. Oona is typically only going to be good if you have access to some form of self-mill, right? If you have that, what do you need Oona for? You can mill the opponent with the same mill engine you are already using. Honestly, does Oona do anything whatsoever in that scenario? She does not say "draw" on her, so you have to wait for the opponent's draw step to win. I am advocating using Snapcaster instead because in the same scenario you have just milled most of your library. You have a Cunning Wish that you give flashback to. Then you then just grab Blue Sun's Zenith or something to win on the spot. My version has the advantage of the Snapcaster actually doing something useful if you happen to draw it and you can flash it in from your hand mid-combo so the game does not draw. Oona, you can't cast and you have to discard her. The only disadvantage I can see is if you have two Entombs and you fetch both Oona and the dragon to combo without Drownyard.

[leegoo]

I realize that this is bad form, but I can't proceed until I get this resolved. I can't see how I am wrong, but seeing as how I got no response, and just about everyone else is going about this differently, I need to know. So I am asking the same question again. Am I missing something here?

Oona beats Eldrazi, Progenitus, etc by removing the cards, which you otherwise can't do with just the land.

Snapcaster + Cunning wish means you have to have cunning wish in your deck. (two slots vs. 1, I know, you can argue both are ok outside the combo, but generally cunning wish is pretty bad, especially if you are thinking of it as a 1 of.)

[FakeSpam]

I realize that this is bad form, but I can't proceed until I get this resolved. I can't see how I am wrong, but seeing as how I got no response, and just about everyone else is going about this differently, I need to know. So I am asking the same question again. Am I missing something here?

I kinda covered this in a ninja-edit above.

1) Snapcaster doesn't do enough for his slot.

2) You are now running Cunning Wish to enable Snapcaster. That's another slot for a tutor that doesn't get combo pieces and that you can't use because you need it to win.

3) Oona is a fairly sizeable beatstick outside of the combo.

Is it redundant? Kinda. But Snapcaster/Cunning Wish isn't a superior choice.

[Di]

I wish we had discussed this further back in the day. Now we're talking three color. BUG or WUB. I like swarm, but it ultimately gets hit by the same cards you are trying to stop. If you are talking 1:1, that's okay. Since the swarm should be taking up agriculture before your dragons. Swarm doesn't stop two, though.

Your experience with Xantid Swarm was different from mine. I never liked the thing.

I ran three colors for virtually the last year I played the deck, and it was always good. Mana was never the issue. The only cards Swarm gets hit by that something like Silence/Abeyance wouldn't is Swords/Decay/Bolt, the last of which is going to be sideboarded out anyway. It'd stop a single removal spell, but not two, but this was still on top of the rush of discard effects you threw at them too. But I'm starting to think that Silence seems more afforadable. Abeyance was hot because it stopped Tormod's Crypt, but these days it's fairly rare to see activated graveyard removal. Rest in Peace/SE is used over Relic or Spellbomb. So Silence could work for a single mana, which isn't too debilitating given you have Rituals, Petals, and actually have lands that tap for mana (quick aside: how many times would you have pooped your pants with glee if you had access to Urborg at this time?!) Though it really depends on the build. Personally I think you could go Esper with Silence, or UB with Defense Grid and try to back it up with lots of free counters like Fow, Pact of Negation, and discard.


Also on another note, it seems very few people here remember that this was a deck before the Bazaar of Baghdad builds that Shockwave invented circa summer 2004. I haven't seen a single post reference this. I played it a bit and against it a lot once Worldgorger Dragon came out; Entomb builds with Intuition similar to the builds that are being posted now. And the deck did fine. Bazaar put it into overdrive, but the deck still ran great without it because Entomb was a terrific enabler. It just happened to run a lot more options to use the mana once you comboed. Obviously these days there's much more efficient removal and counters, but if the deck could perform in a 1.5 environment with Workshops and Mana Drains and friends, it can certainly do it here as well.

[.dk]

Abeyance was hot because it stopped Tormod's Crypt, but these days it's fairly rare to see activated graveyard removal. Rest in Peace/SE is used over Relic or Spellbomb. So Silence could work for a single mana, which isn't too debilitating given you have Rituals, Petals, and actually have lands that tap for mana


Don't forget about Deathrite Shaman... that's likely going to see more play again without Treasure Cruise in the format, as BUG Delver will in all likelihood be better again. Abeyance does deal with that. And I know you're probably running counterspells in your deck too, but if you aren't, then City of Solitude is a decent choice as well if you feel you need to shut off activated abilities.

[Finn]

I kinda covered this in a ninja-edit above.

1) Snapcaster doesn't do enough for his slot.

2) You are now running Cunning Wish to enable Snapcaster. That's another slot for a tutor that doesn't get combo pieces and that you can't use because you need it to win.

3) Oona is a fairly sizeable beatstick outside of the combo.

Is it redundant? Kinda. But Snapcaster/Cunning Wish isn't a superior choice.right. Thanks for the response. I will have to think on that. But why Oona? Duskmantle Guildmage wins the game right there and can be cast from your hand.

[Di]

Double post: build. Given Probe/Therapy makes a ton of sense, why not actually abuse it?

3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
4 Baleful Strix

4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
3 Intuition
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Pact of Negation

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Piranha Marsh
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

I really, really like the idea of Baleful Strix in the deck. It fulfills a ton of roles here. Cantrip, blocker/stall, draw loop with WGD, Therapy fodder, secondary creature to animate to stop WGD loop, etc. It's absolutely insane here. Rest is straight forward. Intuition over Buried Alive because finding spells is good, and casting this in the middle of the loop is relevant. Also finding Therapy is good. There are very few lands, but you never actually want to hit more than two. Between Probe/BS/Strix, you can hit the third land/Rit/Petal for casting Intuition pre-combo. I also chose Pact for this reason, because it's free. This could be Thoughtseize too. I think Force of Will is costly given the blue cards in the deck you fully want to be casting and you'll rarely hold them up. The win condition lands are experimental, just because they allow the deck a bit more flexibility.

Currently this build completely packs it to maindeck graveyard hate like Deathrite Shaman barring Necromancy shenanigans, but it's very fast and surprisingly consistent. The again, this is why shit like Pernicious Deed was in the sideboard of these decks...

[Di]

Don't forget about Deathrite Shaman... that's likely going to see more play again without Treasure Cruise in the format, as BUG Delver will in all likelihood be better again. Abeyance does deal with that. And I know you're probably running counterspells in your deck too, but if you aren't, then City of Solitude is a decent choice as well if you feel you need to shut off activated abilities.

City of Solitude accomplishes everything we need technically. Three is a bit expensive, but it allows the deck to just win the following turn.

[.dk]

City of Solitude accomplishes everything we need technically. Three is a bit expensive, but it allows the deck to just win the following turn.

Right. I experimented with that in the early days of Tin Fins development for the same reason, and 3 was just a little much for that deck. However... with this deck being slower than Tin Fins, you may have more time to develop your mana base before going in for the kill, allowing you to cast/resolve City.

[Jander78]

Won't there be an opportunity between Dragon loops where City of Solitude isn't in play and the opponent can interact and disrupt your combo? I'm not sure of the errata and if there were any rules changes on Animate Dead's triggers.

[sjmcc13]

right. Thanks for the response. I will have to think on that. But why Oona? Duskmantle Guildmage wins the game right there and can be cast from your hand. Duskmantel is a 2/2, Oona is a 5/5 that makes more dudes as she beats down your opponent.

Oona means you have the option to go into a beat down mode if you can not combo off for some reason

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Won't there be an opportunity between Dragon loops where City of Solitude isn't in play and the opponent can interact and disrupt your combo? I'm not sure of the errata and if there were any rules changes on Animate Dead's triggers.

When Dragon's etb trigger removes all other permanents (including the City and Necromancy), Necromancy's ltb trigger goes on stackwith WGD still in play. That's when he may StP the dragon, right?

[Jander78]

When Dragon's etb trigger removes all other permanents (including the City and Necromancy), Necromancy's ltb trigger goes on stack keepign the WGd in play. That's when he may StP the dragon, right?
I'm pretty sure that StP, or worse Stifle, would ruin your day, regardless of City of Solitude.

[Richard Cheese]

When Dragon's etb trigger removes all other permanents (including the City and Necromancy), Necromancy's ltb trigger goes on stackwith WGD still in play. That's when he may StP the dragon, right?

I think it works like O-Ring/Flickerwisp/Tidehollow:


WGD enters play, "exile all your shit" goes on the stack
StP in response, Dragon leaves, "return all your shit" goes on the stack
Return nothing
Exile everything
Sadface

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I'm pretty sure that StP, or worse Stifle, would ruin your day, regardless of City of Solitude.

I'm like 99% sure that's how the things are. Unless Necromancy's ltb effect works in some strange way, like in fact being a static effect that puts the creature in gy or w/e. But I'd say that once WGD removes all stuff (including the City of Solitude and the reanimation enchantment), there's an Animate/Necromancy ltb trigger waiting on stack to resolve, and that's when the Dragon might be hit by removal or its ltb trigger might be Stifled.



WGD enters play, "exile all your shit" goes on the stack
StP in response, Dragon leaves, "return all your shit" goes on the stack
You cannot StP in resp if there's City of Solitude still in play.
But I guess you may StP the dragon in resp. to AD's ltb trigger, with all things being in exile. Then they return (as WGD left play) and the combo would start again, if only there'd be that WGD in grave, but alas, WGD is plowing...

[H]

I think it works like O-Ring/Flickerwisp/Tidehollow:


WGD enters play, "exile all your shit" goes on the stack
StP in response, Dragon leaves, "return all your shit" goes on the stack
Return nothing
Exile everything
Sadface


Yeah, that's how it would work. Same with someone Decaying your Necromany/Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead.

[Richard Cheese]

I'm like 99% sure that's how the things are. Unless Necromancy's ltb effect works in some strange way, like in fact being a static effect that puts the creature in gy or w/e. But I'd say that once WGD removes all stuff (including the City of Solitude and the reanimation enchantment), there's an Animate/Necromancy ltb trigger waiting on stack to resolve, and that's when the Dragon might be hit by removal or its ltb trigger might be Stifled.



You cannot StP in resp if there's City of Solitude still in play.
But I guess you may StP the dragon in resp. to AD's ltb trigger, with all things being in exile. Then they return (as WGD left play) and the combo would start again, if only there'd be that WGD in grave, but alas, WGD is plowing...

Yeah my bad, didn't realize you were asking about it specifically with City in play. I think you still have the opportunity to Swords because the wording on Necromancy and Animate Dead is "When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it."

On a more constructive side, if you are doing damage with each dragon cycle, you'll win without ever having to stop the loop since SBEs are checked any time one of the various triggers goes on the stack right?

[H]

Yeah my bad, didn't realize you were asking about it specifically with City in play. I think you still have the opportunity to Swords because the wording on Necromancy and Animate Dead is "When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it."

On a more constructive side, if you are doing damage with each dragon cycle, you'll win without ever having to stop the loop since SBEs are checked any time one of the various triggers goes on the stack right?

Yes, any time any one would receive priority, that player loses if they have 0 or less life.

[Cire]

If we are talking City of Solitude and abeyance then why was my suggestion of Silence/Chant thrown out for being a 4 card combo - isn't it pretty much the same thing?

[Richard Cheese]

Yes, any time any one would receive priority, that player loses if they have 0 or less life.

Woohoo, just run all the colors and use E. Tutor to search for reanimation AND Purphoros, God of Awesome!


If we are talking City of Solitude and abeyance then why was my suggestion of Silence/Chant thrown out for being a 4 card combo - isn't it pretty much the same thing?

Yes. Basically what the detractors of this combo (like me) are saying is that it's weak to so many angles that you almost have to run something like Abeyance in the current format.

[.dk]

If we are talking City of Solitude and abeyance then why was my suggestion of Silence/Chant thrown out for being a 4 card combo - isn't it pretty much the same thing?

Yes, and in context of this deck, I don't think it should be thrown out. For the record, I think just about all of these ideas are bad, albeit fun! :)

[Cire]

But - I guess that's the rub - at lease from where I am standing - people talk about those cards as if they are worse forms of protection that FOW/Daze etc. Why is that? Even the conversation of "having" to play them, and them being a "4 card combo" seems like people don't really think of them as protection spells? Why not? They are the perfect protection spells for this decks weaknesses - AD and STP. (Although I guess duress/thoughtseize may be better - but these could potentially be "efficient discard" 9-16)

[FakeSpam]

I know I'm a bit out of the loop, but is probe/therapy really that good?

Better than Thoughtsieze/Therapy?

Baleful Strix is an interesting choice. It's arguably better than Merfolk Traders or Owl Familiar, even if you don't get a discard.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

[Jander78]

I know I'm a bit out of the loop, but is probe/therapy really that good?

Better than Thoughtsieze/Therapy?

Baleful Strix is an interesting choice. It's arguably better than Merfolk Traders or Owl Familiar, even if you don't get a discard.

I can't believe I just wrote that.
Yes, Probe->Therapy is that good. Turn 1 it can rip a hand apart or at worst, not whiff.

[Redkid43]

Fuck it just play dredge.

4 Golgari Grave-Troll

4 Stinkweed Imp

4 Golgari Thug

3 Shambling Shell
4 Ichorid

4 Nether Shadow

4 Narcomoeba

4 Street Wraith

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Balustrade Spy

1 Sun Titan

1 Worldgorger Dragon

1 Animate Dead

1 Priest of Gix

1 Scholar of Athreos
4 Bridge from Below

4 Cabal Therapy

4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Dread Return

[btm10]

If we are talking City of Solitude and abeyance then why was my suggestion of Silence/Chant thrown out for being a 4 card combo - isn't it pretty much the same thing?

The deck probably isn't very well positioned right now because of how many angles of hate it's susceptible to but,

a. Brewing it is fun

and

b. Abeyance stops DRS, Scavenging Ooze, and Spellbomb activations in response to Animate Dead or a trigger, and Silence and Chant don't. DRS is probably the nastiest form of maindeck hate you're likely to encounter because it's going to be everywhere, so it's likely worth :1: to wait a turn.


I know I'm a bit out of the loop, but is probe/therapy really that good?

Better than Thoughtsieze/Therapy?

Baleful Strix is an interesting choice. It's arguably better than Merfolk Traders or Owl Familiar, even if you don't get a discard.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

Yeah, Probe/Therapy is crazy good. You can also Therapy yourself to bin Dragon.

[EunB]

I know I'm a bit out of the loop, but is probe/therapy really that good?

Better than Thoughtsieze/Therapy?

Baleful Strix is an interesting choice. It's arguably better than Merfolk Traders or Owl Familiar, even if you don't get a discard.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

I notice nobody has mentioned Vendilion Clique yet.

In my opinion it's perfect for this deck --

1. It can check to see if the coast is clear EoT or similar
2. You can cast it while you're looping
3. You can clique yourself to cycle through your deck for your kill (and/or put Oona or similar back into deck)
4. It's a may ability and the net is 0 cards so you don't have to deck yourself while making inf. mana like with Owl Familiar or Strix
5. It's a beater itself that can end the game if it needs to

While the downsides are obvious (costs more and if you get stuck with only lands you're screwed), I think barring really bad luck it's the best option for the type of creature/ETB slot.

[Richard Cheese]

But - I guess that's the rub - at lease from where I am standing - people talk about those cards as if they are worse forms of protection that FOW/Daze etc. Why is that? Even the conversation of "having" to play them, and them being a "4 card combo" seems like people don't really think of them as protection spells? Why not? They are the perfect protection spells for this decks weaknesses - AD and STP. (Although I guess duress/thoughtseize may be better - but these could potentially be "efficient discard" 9-16)

Eh, you've also got DRS and sometimes Ooze to deal with, and if you're trying to mill with a land, Wasteland. Postboard you get Spellbombs, Grafdigger's, Containment Priest, Canonist, Rest In Peace...Abeyance is really the only thing that deals with all the maindeck hate, postboard you'll probably need some bounce.

[death]

Eh, you've also got DRS and sometimes Ooze to deal with, and if you're trying to mill with a land, Wasteland. Postboard you get Spellbombs, Grafdigger's, Containment Priest, Canonist, Rest In Peace...Abeyance is really the only thing that deals with all the maindeck hate, postboard you'll probably need some bounce.

A transformational sideboard might be a good option.

[btm10]

A transformational sideboard might be a good option.

I was considering this, but it would probably be the only SB option, and this deck is awkwardly timed against Dredge and definitely slower than Reanimator, so you'd have one matchup where you're relying on keeping the combo an getting a fast start and another where you're likely just dead. It also sort of forces you into going on the Snapcaster plan main to you can transform into UBx(yz) control. (that's the most sensible option, right?) The issue of wincons after transforming is also sort of tricky - do you leave a small combo package of something like 1 Dragon, 1 Oona, 3 Animate effects in? Do you board the whole combo out and add TNN?

[AngryTroll]

Baleful Strix is an interesting choice. It's arguably better than Merfolk Traders or Owl Familiar, even if you don't get a discard.

I think Baleful Strix is going to end up being a lot better than Merfolk Traders. The lists are all going to run Brainstorm and Entomb already, so Baleful Strix will work just as well as Traders as a combo piece, and it's much better at buying time than the Traders as a blocker.

[FakeSpam]

As Enub points out, strix is not an optional ability. Traders and familiar are also mandatory.

That's not gonna cut it in an arbitrarily large finite loop.

[kihachi]

As Enub points out, strix is not an optional ability. Traders and familiar are also mandatory.

That's not gonna cut it in an arbitrarily large finite loop.

Not sure why it matters. You draw your deck and get at least what, 40 mana? Break the infinite combo at some point with Entomb for Oona, reanimating Oona instead of Dragon, then sac Strix to a Cabal Therapy (either in the yard or that you drew while drawing your deck and then played), then cast another Reanimate spell on dragon again and make infinite mana without Strix coming into play anymore.

[EunB]

So why not Vendilion Clique then? It disrupts your opponent, can be cast after you go infinite, digs through your own deck without killing yourself and is value by itself. I know I'm for sure testing 4x Clique right off the bat.

[tescrin]

I feel like winning with lands like Shivan Gorge are probably better than using a targeted spell; at least G1. It's non-targetted, infinite damage, instant speed, and on color. You could go crazy and have Stensia Bloodhall and Piranha Marsh in there too.

Considering you could go off with a hand like:
Animate Dead, Faithless Looting, Shivan Gorge, Badlands, Dragon

Seems fine. Having 8-12 lands that happen to be the win cons of the deck means you're quite close to just being a 2-card combo.

[death]

So why not Vendilion Clique then? It disrupts your opponent, can be cast after you go infinite, digs through your own deck without killing yourself and is value by itself. I know I'm for sure testing 4x Clique right off the bat.

Question: If Vendilion Clique is the only card left in your hand after going off and you cast it, how are you going to cycle through your deck if you have no hand? I might try 1 or 2, or maybe in the sideboard since he doesn't guarantee a combo finish.

[gonyoda]

Vendillion Clique is a decently good card for this for EOT is the coast clear. I think that a U/B shell is good for sure. Dark Rit, 4/3 Anim Dead Necro, probe/therapy/duress/entomb.

Have we considered forbidden alchemy? Or is Intuition just better?

And i know this is horrible, but Bonded Fetch is a haste looter...just saying haha.

[Finn]

You can't cycle through your deck very well with Clique. You just end up with a hand of lands. Strix is a fantastic card, but it is slowwwww. Not really useful for a deck in a hurry to go off before opponents find their hate.

[Zupponn]

How necessary is blue here?

[FakeSpam]

4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Grislebrand

4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Intuition
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Pact of Negation

2 Dimir Charm

4 Dark Ritual
4 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

This is what I would start testing if I had cards.

I wish there was a boomerang with cheap flashback. For reasons.

[Richard Cheese]

You can't cycle through your deck very well with Clique. You just end up with a hand of lands. Strix is a fantastic card, but it is slowwwww. Not really useful for a deck in a hurry to go off before opponents find their hate.

Man, I feel like I'm just pissing in your Cheerios here, and I really don't mean to be, but I really don't see this being a deck that can realistically try to go off before hate comes down. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this combo is nearly identical to TinFins (to start at least), except in every scenario I've seen, it requires one more card to go off, and at least one more mana or a second land drop. The biggest problem I see though, is that so far there's just no good way to find that third piece. Unless someone comes up with a way to make that last bit pretty interchangeable without completely watering the deck down, I think those super fast kills are going to be pretty rare.

I don't think that the combo isn't worth exploring, but I really think you want to take advantage of the fact that you don't care about your life total and take the time to build the hand/board required to go off with protection. Maybe even ditch all the fast mana and go with Tops?

[apple713]

Man, I feel like I'm just pissing in your Cheerios here, and I really don't mean to be, but I really don't see this being a deck that can realistically try to go off before hate comes down. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this combo is nearly identical to TinFins (to start at least), except in every scenario I've seen, it requires one more card to go off, and at least one more mana or a second land drop. The biggest problem I see though, is that so far there's just no good way to find that third piece. Unless someone comes up with a way to make that last bit pretty interchangeable without completely watering the deck down, I think those super fast kills are going to be pretty rare.

I don't think that the combo isn't worth exploring, but I really think you want to take advantage of the fact that you don't care about your life total and take the time to build the hand/board required to go off with protection. Maybe even ditch all the fast mana and go with Tops?

now that you mention tin fins, why not devote a deck to protect griselbrand... You don't have to water it down with storm cards just run protection and rock and roll with him alone. draw 7 cards, attack for 7, gain 7... Griselbrand is the reason they unbanned WGD, because they were unsure that WGD would be better.

[Darkenslight]

4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Grislebrand

4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Intuition
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Pact of Negation

2 Dimir Charm

4 Dark Ritual
4 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

This is what I would start testing if I had cards.

I wish there was a boomerang with cheap flashback. For reasons.

So, I heard Capsize is A Thing...

[EunB]

1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Worldgorger Dragon

4 Entomb
1 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
3 Dig Through Time
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

1 Vendilion Clique
3 Snapcaster Mage

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Ponder

1 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
2 Swamp

Sideboard:
4 Void Snare
1 Pact of Negation
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Contagion
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Wipe Away
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
3 Pithing Needle

Testing this list currently... took the advice that if we're clearly going to be worse at being fast like Tin Fins / Reanimator then we should capitalize on the fact that we don't need to dedicate a large part of our deck to the combo. This deck durdles a long time, seeking to strip opps. hand while decaying any threats in the setup for an EOT instant-speed combo turn. Snapcaster works pretty well for initial value and also wins the game once the loop is established (assuming we didn't Delve away too much action, there's almost always an entomb/dtt in the gy). Sensei's Top allows for some very interesting plays and hiding important pieces until we need them. In the testing this deck has not felt very competitive but is rather fun to play -- a lot of lines and a lot of posturing.

[Nervkind]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this combo is nearly identical to TinFins (to start at least), except in every scenario I've seen, it requires one more card to go off, and at least one more mana or a second land drop. The biggest problem I see though, is that so far there's just no good way to find that third piece. Unless someone comes up with a way to make that last bit pretty interchangeable without completely watering the deck down, I think those super fast kills are going to be pretty rare.

I don't think that the combo isn't worth exploring, but I really think you want to take advantage of the fact that you don't care about your life total and take the time to build the hand/board required to go off with protection. Maybe even ditch all the fast mana and go with Tops?

That's exactly what I tried to accomplish with my list and I think I think I solved it pretty well. Let me remind you guys, since noone commented the first time...


Cantrips / Draw
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Read the runes
1 Dig through time

Reanimation
4 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead

Tutors
4 entomb
2 intuition

Protection
4 Thoughtseize
4 FoW
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce

Utility / Wincon
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Dimir Guildmage
2 Worldgorger Dragon

Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Usea
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Delta
2 Marsh Flats
3 Piranha Marsh

This is how i would build it. Some card quantities may seem a little odd, like the 1 Dig Through Time i want to play more, but didn't know what to cut. Maybe 1 read the runes. This list obviously still needs a lot of tweaking and is just there to show my general idea. I don't want to combo of fast, but be a more control oriented Deck. That's why i don't play any rituals or petals. But on the other hand quite a lot of protection. As a win condition I found Dimir Guildmage to look sweet, but this is interchangable. It gets around Emrakuul and lets you draw cards yourself If you need to. I also love the 4 Snapcaster Mages in the deck. They serve two purposes. First they should generate CA by flashing back our Cantrips and Spell Pierces and slow down the aggro player a little bit. Second it is Used as a third combopiece. What brings me to the next point. The deck has 18 possibilities as the third combopiece! 18 Guys! And 25 if you also Count Brainstorm and Ponder, but they may sometimes fail to find something good. Entomb,Intuition, Read the Runes, Dig through Time (almost always finds something),Dimir Guildmage, Piranha Marsh And of course my favorite: Snapcaster Mage The fact that you almost certainly have an Entomb or Intuition or whatever in the grave when you go off makes this a fine combopiece. Snapcaster is also excellent with Intuition. You want to intuition for a certain spell and you have only 2 left in the Deck? Just take a Snapcaster! Maybe one could cut the Piranha Marsh, in order to not be so vulnerable to Wasteland and not play any tapped lands, but this needs testing.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Looks like I missed quite a bit in a day...

@Oona: The main reason I prefer this is because you don't need it in play/hand when you start the combo. Just go infinite mana, intuition for 3 entombs and win. With the lands, you can't go off (well, I suppose you could go off and draw...) until there's a land in play. Not saying drownyards are bad, just saying it'd prefer to have a WinCon that I can fetch mid-combo with Dig/Intuition.

@Di: Man, that list looks savage. I was hoping to make cabal therapy work with intuition, but in the end I couldn't justify playing non combo creatures. My concern is that Strix says you must draw card upon CIP. Has that ever been a concern going off? Maybe run a single bounce spell to prevent yourself from decking? Either way, the list looks good.

I agree with the sentiment that it's probably not best to build dragon for speed. Traditional reanimator will always have us beat, since reanimate costs 1 mana and they need 1 less card to go off. I was pretty confident that a blue shell with FoW/Spell pierce was the way to go, but after seeing a list with strix/therapy...

[kryllex]

Uhm... what about good ol' Necromancy?

[Whippoorwill]

I'm pretty sure this works, but confirmation would be nice before I start building with this in mind.


Baleful Strix in play.
Animate Worldgorger.
Dragon exiles all other permanents.
Dragon dies.
Permanents return.
Put Strix on the stack first followed by Animate Dead.
Dragon returns and starts the loop over again.


Assuming this works, you would be able to make infinite mana without drawing more than you want to (switch the stack order for Strix and Animate if you want to draw cards). You would still need to win at instant speed, but that is a non-issue really with a Wish build.

[area]

Sheer elegance in its simplicity, Whippoorwill. It works as far as I can tell.

[L-Luck]

You really have to ask yourself why you would play this over Reanimator. The advantages are:

- Win inevitable if your opponent can't interact the turn you go off
- Not life dependent

Both of those points lead to playing longer games, so why don't we?

Dragoncontrol 1.0
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
1 Worldgorger Dragon
3 Snapcaster Mage

4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
2 Intuition

2 Lingering Souls
2 Necromancy
3 Animate Dead

2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce
1 Abeyance
4 Swords to Plowshares

18 Manabase of doom including 2 Nephalia Drownyard


This is obviously a pretty rough draft, but it should make my point clear. Other things I would be interested in would be one value reanimation target, probably Griselbrand.

[Poron]

just a question: does this deck, in order to win, requires only to reanimate a creature, right?

Because every deck to beat in the format is playing Confinement Priest for Dredge, Elves and SnT...

[FakeSpam]

So, I heard Capsize is A Thing...

That's buyback. I want to be able to use entomb and intuition to fetch my answer to random game 1 stuff.

I know putting cards in the bin to protect against random graveyard hate sounds counterproductive.


@Whippoorwill - Screw your rules, man. Seriously, though. I didn't look at the interaction that way (or that closely)

This plan still involves playing baleful strix, though.



How necessary is blue here?

It's not. Maybe Black/Red is better.

[Di]

I'm very surprised people are concerned about the mandatory draw off Baleful Strix. It's like we all forgot that this combo put us in the middle of an infinite mana loop that will draw us into Entomb and Intuition to dump any other creature in the deck to stop the loop. So no, it's not going to ever be an issue. Unless you happen to have no other creatures left in your library because you miraculously draw all of them before another Entomb or Intuition, and there are none in the opponent's graveyard. I'll put my money on those 0.1% odds.

FWIW, Baleful Strix has been remarkable for me in virtually every game I've seen it. Kills Delvers, stops the loop, draws cards, gives a critical flashback to Therapy, allows you to win instead of purely forcing a draw (which noticeably is happening far more than I thought it would), and my favorite of making multiple Animate Deads in hand useful if it happens to be in your graveyard. It increases the lines the deck has by an incredible amount. I like seeing it every single game.

I don't know if my list is necessarily the best place as there are plenty of solid options to try (namely Cunning Wish), but I feel very strongly that 3-4 Baleful Strix is near-mandatory for the deck. It offers too much for the deck not to use.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I feel like what would put Worldgorger above a lot of reanimate decks is if it wasn't a strictly 'grave hate' deck to play against, but on top of that its vulnerable to wasteland and disenchants. The elegance of Reanimator is it's a minimalist effort, you entomb or drop in an Iona and reanimate it, no extra bells and whistles like this or Jeskai Ascendancy.

What the deck really needs is another mid-range wincon, like Sneak Attack or something like that so it becomes difficult for them to hate. I'm not sure what that would be though.

[Whippoorwill]

I'm very surprised people are concerned about the mandatory draw off Baleful Strix. It's like we all forgot that this combo put us in the middle of an infinite mana loop that will draw us into Entomb and Intuition to dump any other creature in the deck to stop the loop. So no, it's not going to ever be an issue. Unless you happen to have no other creatures left in your library and there are none in the opponent's graveyard. I'll put my money on those 0.1% odds.

I think it's more that if you were forced to draw during each iteration of the loop you would deck yourself without gaining the infinite mana. Instead, you would at most have the amount of mana equal to the number of lands you control x the number of cards in your deck. I think it really depends on the win condition you use as to how important the mandatory draw is (it gets worse the more mana needed).

[Di]

I think it's more that if you were forced to draw during each iteration of the loop you would deck yourself without gaining the infinite mana. Instead, you would at most have the amount of mana equal to the number of lands you control x the number of cards in your deck. I think it really depends on the win condition you use as to how important the mandatory draw is (it gets worse the more mana needed).

That's a fair point. However, gaining X*(number of lands you control), when you will have arguably a minimum of ~35-40 cards in your deck, should always be enough. Between casting Entomb for Oona, and casting the remaining Dark Rituals and Lotus Petals, you can run the opponent out of cards with that allotted amount of mana as that would require probably around ~47 mana maximum, which you can achieve even if you only have one land in play.Additionally, even if you can't generate enough mana within that window, but do have the option of stopping the combo temporarily, then you could simply cast/flashback Therapy and get rid of the Baleful Strix in play to have the freedom to go infinite with the next Animate Dead you likely have in hand after drawing your deck.

[rufus]

What about running WGD in a persist/undying deck with cards like Flayer of the Hatebound, Geralf's Messenger, Geralf's Mindcrusher, Murderous Redcap, River Kelpie, or Woodfall Primus?

[leegoo]

What about running WGD in a persist/undying deck with cards like Flayer of the Hatebound, Geralf's Messenger, Geralf's Mindcrusher, Murderous Redcap, River Kelpie, or Woodfall Primus?

how do you get them in play?

[M+1]

I feel like what would put Worldgorger above a lot of reanimate decks is if it wasn't a strictly 'grave hate' deck to play against, but on top of that its vulnerable to wasteland and disenchants. The elegance of Reanimator is it's a minimalist effort, you entomb or drop in an Iona and reanimate it, no extra bells and whistles like this or Jeskai Ascendancy.

What the deck really needs is another mid-range wincon, like Sneak Attack or something like that so it becomes difficult for them to hate. I'm not sure what that would be though.

Hexmage/Depths?

[LennonMarx]

Hexmage/Depths?

That's actually kind of interesting. If you manage to go off, Dark Depths is a reasonable plan-C win condition once you have infinite mana. The only problem is that you have to run a lot of copies of those cards to not have that combo also be reliant on the graveyard.

[Rivfader]

Hexmage/Depths?

This also crossed my mind. Crop rotation can work for both combo's, as an instant it can get a piranha marsh during the loop as a killcon. Perhaps there's even some synergy with animate dead and vampire hexmage.

[kihachi]

At this point I'm torn between two versions of the deck. One has Baleful Strix, Gitaxian Probe, and Cabal Therapy. All I have been doing is goldfishing, but Strix seems great. It blocks almost anything well, replaces itself, sacs to Therapy, draws your deck with Dragon, and breaks the Dragon loop if it's in your graveyard (at which point if you have a second reanimation enchantment in hand, you win).

However, my version of this deck only has four spots open for additional disruption/protection (I use Force of Will), whereas if I cut these twelve cards, I can up the Dragon count from 2 to 4 and add Careful Studies to have greater redundancy, and still have room for six of the following cards - Pact of Negation, Daze, or Thoughtseize.

I like the thought of having more counterspells, especially Pacts which are crazy good on the turn you go off, but the major drawback of this version is that you need an extra Entomb in hand (or some way to get it) when you go off, since you can't interrupt the loop with a Careful Study. The Strix version otoh wins with a Strix in play or a Strix in the yard and a reanimation spell in hand (which is easy to accomplish since we can run 8 or more).

I'm probably over-thinking this, but any thoughts on which way to go?

[Darkenslight]

Testing this tonight:

3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Baleful Strix
1 Eternal Witness

4 Commune with the Gods
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Living Wish
4 Entomb
4 Abeyance
4 Silence
3 Crop Rotation
4 Animate Dead
4 Necromancy

4 Gemstone Mine
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
4 Bayou
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
2 Nephalia Drownyard

Sideboard:

4 Abrupt Decay
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Blood Artist
1 Karakas
1 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Tendo and Gemstone are for making any color of mana, as they don't ETBT. We can Crop away those lands. Testing Commune as it finds both our land and our enchantment, but not both. May change to Grisly Salvage. Using a Wishboard as a precaustion. IT may work, it may not.

[rufus]

how do you get [the undying / persist creatures] in play?

One way would be to reanimate them too. It's a bit of a derpy approach, but let's say you play something like:

4 River Kelpie
4 Geralf's Mindcrusher
4 Worldgorger Dragon

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Animate Dead
4 Dreams of the Dead

4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will

Lands

You can reanimate bodies for value, use WGD to force a draw, or as a 3 card combo.

[btm10]

I'm very surprised people are concerned about the mandatory draw off Baleful Strix. It's like we all forgot that this combo put us in the middle of an infinite mana loop that will draw us into Entomb and Intuition to dump any other creature in the deck to stop the loop. So no, it's not going to ever be an issue. Unless you happen to have no other creatures left in your library because you miraculously draw all of them before another Entomb or Intuition, and there are none in the opponent's graveyard. I'll put my money on those 0.1% odds.

FWIW, Baleful Strix has been remarkable for me in virtually every game I've seen it. Kills Delvers, stops the loop, draws cards, gives a critical flashback to Therapy, allows you to win instead of purely forcing a draw (which noticeably is happening far more than I thought it would), and my favorite of making multiple Animate Deads in hand useful if it happens to be in your graveyard. It increases the lines the deck has by an incredible amount. I like seeing it every single game.

I don't know if my list is necessarily the best place as there are plenty of solid options to try (namely Cunning Wish), but I feel very strongly that 3-4 Baleful Strix is near-mandatory for the deck. It offers too much for the deck not to use.

I'm going to test this. Strix has got me thinking about Shardless Agent too, and Agent does Cascade into Entomb, Animate Dead, and Dance of the Dead. I'm not sure if this is going too deep, but it's an option.

[codethulu]

You really have to ask yourself why you would play this over Reanimator. The advantages are:

- Win inevitable if your opponent can't interact the turn you go off
- Not life dependent

..


Instead of focusing on not being life dependent, why not look for ways to utilize that resource that reanimator can't afford to? Right now I'm working on a mono-black list using spoils of the vault as a tutor. It also enables a larger discard suite, basic lands, and lake of the dead for uncounterable fast mana.

[Cire]

Since people are starting to test this - I will leave out my advocacy of Silence/Chant. Instead I want to ask an ethics question.

The combo - if built to draw instead of to win - is the cheapest combo deck there is - tying with Breakfast of only needing 2 cards and 3 mana. However it only needs 2 cards in the library instead of Breakfast's ten or so.

Given that - would it be unethical to built this deck to try to get the draw over and over? Yes you would never win - but . . . trolling . . . hoping your opponents just concede . . . . maybe play a single win con in your deck and just keep drawing until you can win? Idk - it's an interesting thought experiment - how many times do the rules even allow you to draw? 3?

[Richard Cheese]

Since people are starting to test this - I will leave out my advocacy of Silence/Chant. Instead I want to ask an ethics question.

The combo - if built to draw instead of to win - is the cheapest combo deck there is - tying with Breakfast of only needing 2 cards and 3 mana. However it only needs 2 cards in the library instead of Breakfast's ten or so.

Given that - would it be unethical to built this deck to try to get the draw over and over? Yes you would never win - but . . . trolling . . . hoping your opponents just concede . . . . maybe play a single win con in your deck and just keep drawing until you can win? Idk - it's an interesting thought experiment - how many times do the rules even allow you to draw? 3?

Seriously? I know it has a stupid name and that's all my fault, but some of you guys really need to look at TinFins and how it works. It's not that it's the most amazing deck or anything, but why the hell would you pay :1::b::b: to draw when you could win?

[EunB]

Seriously? I know it has a stupid name and that's all my fault, but some of you guys really need to look at TinFins and how it works. It's not that it's the most amazing deck or anything, but why the hell would you pay :1::b::b: to draw when you could win?

Because this is the thread for Worldgorger, not TinFins. If you want to play that you should be reading that thread. There are a lot of questions you could ask anyone who's not only reading and commenting on lists found in the "Decks to Beat" section, but that's not the point. To answer your question, paying 1BB to draw a game if you're fizzling is better than getting a loss if you fizzle. It's basically a reset button. Not perfect, but not something to easily dismiss.


Given that - would it be unethical to built this deck to try to get the draw over and over? Yes you would never win - but . . . trolling . . . hoping your opponents just concede . . . . maybe play a single win con in your deck and just keep drawing until you can win? Idk - it's an interesting thought experiment - how many times do the rules even allow you to draw? 3?

IIRC, you can have infinite draws, given enough time. Games are played until someone has 2 wins, so you can write 2-1-15 on the match slip.


This also crossed my mind. Crop rotation can work for both combo's, as an instant it can get a piranha marsh during the loop as a killcon. Perhaps there's even some synergy with animate dead and vampire hexmage.

If we're going the control route and slotting multiple win-cons into a shell how about Thopter/Sword? Entomb can grab sword and we can then also play Thirst for Knowledge to dig and bin Dragons. Reminds me of Gerry T's ThopterDepths list in Extended that allowed instant wins alongside the grindhouse.

Obviously this is bad as we're still reliant on our Graveyard but it's good at buying time. Maybe a sideboard strategy.

[death]

1-0-X is still a win.


http://8e8460c4912582c4e519-11fcbfd88ed5b90cfb46edba899033c9.r65.cf1.rackcdn.com/sales/cardscans/MTG/LGN/en/nonfoil/CallerOfTheClaw.jpg

BEARRSS everywhere!! I found this after digging through some old stuff. It works well with Intuition (for those who run it) and it's a win con unlike Snapcaster Mage. It has flash so it can stop the loop anytime plus the glory of winning with bears is priceless.

[Rivfader]

It has flash so it can stop the loop anytime

How? I suppose you'll flash it in response to the ETB trigger of the dragon, so the loop just continues afterwards?

[jvmauck]

After a bit of thinking and bouncing ideas off of a friend, I believe that staying somewhat within a traditional Reanimator shell is wise. Reanimator has always been about "I win," however, it's never had an "I win this turn" combo. It's always been "Here's this big creature, I hope you can deal with it." Adding Worldgorger Dragon to the mix makes it able to not only have big G daddy, but an "I win now" combo.

Here is a preliminary list.

4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Entomb
4 Cunning Wish

3 Careful Study
3 Ponder
3 Thoughtseize

4 Animate Dead
3 Dance of the Dead
2 Necromancy

4 Lotus Petal

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Nephalia Drownyard

SB:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pact of Negation
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Misdirection
1 Intuition
1 Scholar of Athreos

What are your thoughts?

[death]

Looks close to mine, except for the absence of Buried Alive. I'm not liking the Careful Studies since we don't have that many creatures to start with unlike Reanimator which have 11-13, but having that option is nice here although I don't expect the card being near potent as it is in a Reanimator shell.

Duskmantle, House of Shadows is better than Naphalia Drownyard since it's cheaper to activate. There can be occasions where that ability is useful outside of the loop.

[FakeSpam]

I know this sounds really bad, but I want Undead Gladiator.

[EunB]

Looks close to mine, except for the absence of Buried Alive. I'm not liking the Careful Studies since we don't have that many creatures to start with unlike Reanimator which have 11-13, but having that option is nice here although I don't expect the card being near potent as it is in a Reanimator shell.

I think Careful Study is fine with the amount of creatures he has -- most Reanimator lists only run 7-8 creatures main. Usually 4 Gris, 1 Elesh, 1 Tidespout, 1 flex of Iona/Sire of Insanity/Inkwell depending on meta.

[jvmauck]

Well, I run 7 creatures in my reanimator build with 3 careful study, and it's been decent, so I was going with that. I really don't like buried alive because of the cost and it's a sorcery, which automatically makes it worse for the deck. Since the deck wants to go off quickly.

[sjmcc13]

1-0-X is still a win.


http://8e8460c4912582c4e519-11fcbfd88ed5b90cfb46edba899033c9.r65.cf1.rackcdn.com/sales/cardscans/MTG/LGN/en/nonfoil/CallerOfTheClaw.jpg

BEARRSS everywhere!! I found this after digging through some old stuff. It works well with Intuition (for those who run it) and it's a win con unlike Snapcaster Mage. It has flash so it can stop the loop anytime plus the glory of winning with bears is priceless. I loved that card back in the day. It was a way to go off without having any mana sources, you could go lotus, entomb, Bazaar, Animate and still have a kill condition. also nice if you were comboing off with an EoT Necromancy.

It is a nice card, but you kind of want a way to give the tokens haste if you run it outside the board as an alternate kill.

[codethulu]

Instead of Oona, how about Bloodrite Invoker?

It's on-color and will win the game by itself given infinite mana. I don't like that Oona requires the opponent to draw a card (or am I mistaken?).

[death]

I really don't like buried alive because of the cost and it's a sorcery, which automatically makes it worse for the deck. Since the deck wants to go off quickly.

With Dark Ritual it's cheap plus it bins Oona in the yard making it a 2-card combo, not having to rely on 4 copies of lands that don't produce colored mana is also an upside.

[jvmauck]

Instead of Oona, how about Bloodrite Invoker?

It's on-color and will win the game by itself given infinite mana. I don't like that Oona requires the opponent to draw a card (or am I mistaken?).

My response to that card is that Oona has a body by itself that you could swing with and win. Also, the 1 defense is damning with burn type removal. Oona is used in Vintage, I think there's probably a reason for that. :smile:

[jvmauck]

With Dark Ritual it's cheap plus it bins Oona in the yard making it a 2-card combo, not having to rely on 4 copies of lands that don't produce colored mana is also an upside.

Those four lands allow you to go off turn two. Buried alive doesn't without needing a lot of ramp with ritual and petals.

[sjmcc13]

Oona has the advantage of being able to just enter play and beat down your opponent as a tertiary kill option (after milling them and exiling their library) bloodrite Invoker does not.

There are plenty of other creatures that can kill your opponent with infinite mana, but not many that can be a beat stick as a last resort like Oona.

[death]

Those four lands allow you to go off turn two. Buried alive doesn't without needing a lot of ramp with ritual and petals.

Turn 2 is perfectly fine. Dark Ritual allows my deck to go off turn 1.

[EunB]

In my opinion the only other viable mana-sink creature alternative to Oona is Scholar of Athreos as its ability circumvents Leyline of Sanctity while still being outside bolt range. Oona beats are not to be ignored, as others mentioned.

[jvmauck]

Turn 2 is perfectly fine. Dark Rituals allow my deck to go off turn 1.

That's cool and all, but I don't see where I would find the room without getting rid of a lot of stability. (Cunning wish) I would rather have a little bit more stability and less glass cannon. That's why I run d rituals in the board of reanimator and not in the main.

[jvmauck]

In my opinion the only other viable mana-sink creature alternative to Oona is Scholar of Athreos as its ability circumvents Leyline of Sanctity while still being outside bolt range. Oona beats are not to be ignored, as others mentioned.

And that's why Scholar is in the board. :smile: