[Deck] Dragonforce - G/u/(w) Natural Order

[quicksilver]

Deed is the bees knees here

Maybe you should get off your knees and stop juggling balls in your mouth.

[Reverend Damaged]

I'm really glad this is becoming a hot topic. I'm going to review everyone's suggestions and have a couple deck list variants up over the weekend.


So far:

I like the idea of Deed. I was considering cutting the 2 intuitions for 2 deeds. I know there's a lot of talk about the Goblins game this deck has, but from what I've played this just stomps goblins to begin with. Deed would just be the nail in the coffin.

However, against Thresh deed would be much better, since I wouldnt run into the "I have control with my Simic until Enforcer hits the table" situation as often.

I'll work on a few things and post what I come up with.

[scrumdogg]

While I completely agree that Putrefy is merely ok vs. Thresh (hitting only Mage, Needle, and Werebear in the white splash), and Deed is the bees knees here, I'm not sure how great it will be vs. Goblins. What I'm worried about is our recovery time after a Deed. We are going to have to drop some walls/acceleraters both to stall Goblins and to power out an effective Deed. Basically, after we blow it, we can't cast Natural Order, since nothing survived, so we have to hope for a Baloth or Stomphowler to come down and stop Goblins second wave. We also run little draw to help us get to gems post Deed.

I really think that this is where Living Wish would shine. It grabs Loaming Shaman or Wretch vs Thresh and something like Plague Spitter vs Goblins (here is where it would help to go up to 8 walls).

Still, I won't deny how powerful Deed is. I think if that is the dirction the deck goes in it might need some retooling to recover better.

(Also, Putrefy is pretty useful against Goblins. It's an instant, so it can shutdown broken Warchief plays. And of most use is smashing a Vial on turn two before it can get nasty.)

I don't believe that you are playing Deed correctly in this situation. While Turn 2 Putrefy on Vial is nice (or on Turn 3+ Warchief), it only hits one target and does nothing to the usual Goblin plan of exploding on your face. The correct way to play Deed is to get it on the board ASAP and then slow play them until YOU are ready to pop Deed. The longer the game goes, the uglier it gets for them with Deed on the board. As soon as you get to Natural Order mana, you can upgrade one of your guys (or cast a Baloth...), even if they have goblins on the board...they won't have many (unless they are a moron) as they won't overextend into Deed. They might get one turn of vomiting goblins onto the table & swinging, but since you have other guys that can block key Piledrivers...it isn't worth the Goblin player losing everything next turn when you implode the world. You also play Eternal Witness, which combos nicely with Deed & Natural Order & Baloth & stuff....

[insertnamehere]

I recently played watcher487 in a Tournament in West Springfield. What a surprise, I lost to that deck also. I have since sided 3 tormod's crypts in side and added 4 leyline of the voids to main dack(note: of the 6 games I have played with them main deck, 5-1.) Any deck playing graveyard manipulation will scoop if they don't have anything against it.

[Reverend Damaged]

Alright guys - I edited the final deck list running with an idea my friend had.


Him: "You don't really want to cut brainstorm, do you?"

Me: "Nope."

Him: "But Duress is a good idea. What about the elephant you wanted to add?"

Me: "Only 2 colors".

Him: "Well make it 3. Then you get swords too"

And so I did. Of course I don't know where swords will fit in the deck unfortunately. But I found a new store to play Magic at, and will get a chance to test this deck out against people come Wednesday night.


My main issue is this: my old deck, when I played Secret Force a couple years ago, maindecked 3 geddons as well as 2 plows (it was those "just incase" cards). If I played the geddons and the plows, would it be worth dropping black? I'll know after testing, but I think this may take the route my old deck did running geddon. I'll know Wednesday night but I'd like some input on the idea. Thank you guys again.

[Reverend Damaged]

Alright, I brought that final deck list to the 4x Pithing Needle tournament in W. Springfield, Mass. I didn't do too bad, either. Here's a small report on how the deck did.

Round 1 - Confusing.dec (2-0)

Game 1: He plays a Volcanic Island, says go. I play a 1 drop, and pass. He plays an Underground Sea (Grow? Thresh? Tog????) and plays Lightening Greeves (wtf???), he passes. I waste his black source. He goes, plays Bayou, plays Jitte (uhh??), passes. I waste the black source. He plays another land and passes the turn. I play eternal witness and get back wasteland. I forget to waste and play something else. I pass. He misses a land drop. My turn comes. I waste. He gets a land. My turn comes and I'm swinging with little guys and play an Elephant. He finally hits 3 land, and plays Serendib. Greeves. Swings. I waste on my following turn and get 2 Simic Sky Swallowers before the game is over.

Game 2: This guy goes turn 1, Bayou, BoP. I have NO idea what his deck actually is. So at this point, I'm playing Goldfish style. I get out a Simic, and try to smash him to death. I get multiple Elephants (one which gets putrified), and he continues to have to play guys just to block simic. I end the game a few turns later with lethal damage. His creature base is something like: Birds, Trygon Predator, Finkle, Hyppie, and Serendib. I still have no idea what exactly was happening, but there was no counters, he had 7 cards in his hand almost at all times, and still lost. I don't get it.



Round 2: Mono Blue Relic Orb (2-0)

Game 1: I play elves. I maindeck the Stomphowler, I swarm him. Game over.

Game 2: Long game, but I beat him to death with an Elephant even though he has 4 Propaganda's out. GG. I boarded in 3 Naturalize



Round 3: Pox (1-2, though my record here ended up 2-1 [see description])

Game 1: I have no idea how, but I STOMP this kid. 2 Simic Sky Swallowers absolutely devour him.

Game 2: Perish. I lose.

Game 3: I'm stomping him. Brainstorm to hide good cards is key this game. It comes down to I swing with Simic for 2 more turns and he's done. He's at 7. I have 3 creatures out. A bird, an eternal witness, a Simic Sky Swallower. He has 3 Chimeric Idols. One untapped, 2 tapped. I top deck natural order... AND ATTACK. Like an idiot. With Sky Swallower. I then order, about to get another Simic, and realize I can get the 4/4 and blow up and Idol. So I do. Then I realize I could of swung in for the win had I done that first. He has no cards in hand. Flips over his top card, showing it to everone as he would of conceded the game had it not been Perish. But there it is, a white bordered Perish. He Perishes, and wins 2 turns after.

My record this match went 2-1, since I was not only a good Tie breaker for his friend, but for him. We figured out that we both easily would of gotten in had we just ID'd, but it worked out well this way because the Pox guy, his friend (who was playing Relic Orb), and I all got into top 8.


TOP 8: 3 color Reanimator.

Game 1: I'm actually doing well. He gets Verdent Force, of all things, and then stalls out but is swinging in. I have a Simic in hand, which he saw, since he used Therapy and Duress to get rid of both of my STP's. I set up with Cradle and Creatures to cast Simic the following turn and just flat out win since he was running on an empty hand (or close to it) and a Verdent Force. He flashes back therapy and says "Sky Swallower". Without even thinking I throw the Simic in my graveyard and proceed to lose. Had I declared he missed by calling out the name of a card from Guildpact, I could of beaten him. That's what I get for playing too much casual magic in my free time.

Game 2: I peris down to 5. Which was awful, because my first hand was 2 birds, 5 hate cards, and no land. I should of kept it anyway. I go and play a little creature out of my 5 card hand, but turn 2 Akroma + Animate Dead tricks is just bad. I can't draw StP to save my life. Literally. I proceed to lose.







So there you have it. The deck did fairly well. Had I not made the 2 mistakes I did during the tournament I would of had 2 more games than I did. Maybe the second game against Reanimator would of been better for me had I not messed up the first one. But that's all in theory. Any other deck in top 8 I had a better chance of beating, even Pox. Reanimator was just too quick the second game for me to come back.


Some other stuff I've played this against recently was Burn and Thresh. Burn, thanks to the Plows (on my stuff) and Elephants was a 6-0 match. Thresh was a 3-0 match. However, I do think Thresh should of done better. Could of been the build, could of been the player, but I just had bigger better creatures and I had StP. Also, this was the U/g/r version. Had it had White in it for StP and Enforcer, I do believe I would of had a much worse win ratio.

[Reverend Damaged]

Wow, that build looks awesome. I love Trygon Predator.

Have you considered Ancient Tomb per chance, it'll make the second turn Natural Order that much more likely.

If you add in the 4 Tombs, this deck's core structure...

4x Birds of Paradise
4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Quirion Ranger
4x Natural Order
3x Gaea's Cradle
4x Ancient Tomb

will be identical to a deck posted on the create a deck contest. It ran Trinisphere and Chalice to hate out combo, thres and goblins instead of splashing blue for Brainstorm though. I think that's a great way to go too.

Trinisphere huh? I didn't consider that. Would greatly improve my game against combo. Even against decks like Pox, who abuse dark ritual and cheap spells under few land. I'll have to look into this.

[matxer]

I have tested this deck on MWS: it's both fun and competitive ! Sb is good too.

I'd wish more versatility when I play natural order, especially if the game stalls. Mimic is awesome but can't solve everything. Sometime you need another different beast on the board.

My suggestion is to replace one of the 4 Loxodon by a wurm. I hesitate btw the 3 following:
*autochthon wum: 9/14 trample is huge !!
* penumbra wurm: vs wrath and perish
* Crush of wurm: 3 6/6 tokens can bypass opponent's defense.

[Reverend Damaged]

I have tested this deck on MWS: it's both fun and competitive ! Sb is good too.

I'd wish more versatility when I play natural order, especially if the game stalls. Mimic is awesome but can't solve everything. Sometime you need another different beast on the board.

My suggestion is to replace one of the 4 Loxodon by a wurm. I hesitate btw the 3 following:
*autochthon wum: 9/14 trample is huge !!
* penumbra wurm: vs wrath and perish
* Crush of wurm: 3 6/6 tokens can bypass opponent's defense.

I'm glad you like the deck. I have been testing several other creatures for the "Wrath, you lose" situation. The 2 I've come up with that best suit this are Penumbra Wurm and Gigapede. Gigapede is more castable in the early game, and can keep coming back which is awfully annoying. Penumbra Wurm helps you deal with Wrath and Perish very well, while being able to swing for 6 the following turn, but he loses to STP. My suggestion, since you're testing this on MWS, is to replace a Hierarch with Gigapede (since he doesn't lose to plow) and see how he handles.

In testing against, well, anyone I can find (which until Type 1 night this coming wednesday is mostly Rogue items) I found P. Wurm to be best, but I am thinking that when it comes down to the modern meta, Gigapede will prove strong.

Also, could you let me know either here (since it would help this thread) or in a PM what your matches were like and against what decks? Like I said, I get once a week to test and I hate testing online solely because it's alien to me and I don't have a lot of free time to begin with. Some match reports would be awesome!


After Wednesday I'm hoping to have tested the Ancient Tomb/Trinisphere version (with 1 maindeck gigapede) just to see how it fairs against some bigger decks and should have some matchups there.

[matxer]

So the results so far:

Solo testing (the good point is that both oponents have exactly the same skill because because it's me vs me)
No sb, no mull.
vs Rg Sigh: 2-0
vs Blue Skies: 2-0

On MWS:
vs Rogue prison combo deck: 1-0

vs B reanimator (combo aggro): 1-1
I won easily after sideboarding in the graveyard killers (artefacts). No time for a 3d game but I'm confident its an easy match for Natural Order (or whatever the name of your deck) after sb.
vs RW control using cycles, eternal dragon, lightning rift and the dreaded humility + pyroclasm: 0-2
Bad matchup on game 1 due to humility + pyroclasm. Humility prevents Indrik from destroying it.
Game 2: I messed up the sb in and outs. Lost after a long battle. Several board sweepings with Akroma's vengeance and wrath.
After some thought, with the current sb, the best seems -3 quirions -4 swords +4 needles + 3 naturalize. Wall of blosom must stay due to pyroclasm.
And naturalize should be used only vs Humility whereas needle takes care of Rift. Anyways a bad matchup IMO.

Needs much more playtesting and perhaps some fine tuning but this deck is competitive IMO.

[Reverend Damaged]

Thanks for doing a little further testing for me. Like I said, I plan on testing out the Trinisphere/Ancient Tomb build soon and seeing how that fairs. The best part about that is it would change the sideboard to include the ever - devastating nail in the coffin: Armageddon. Then against control/combo you'd have Trinisphere + Geddon, as well as a decent clock. At least I'm hoping that would work in theory.


Edit: And the deck is called Dragonforce. :-D Because there's no dragons, and no Verdent Force. :-)

[matxer]

If you want, I can playtest with you on MWS using the following decks:

* Rg Sligh
* Blue Skies
* Truffle Shuffle (made T8 at World 2006)
* Landstill (4 colors version, made T8 at World 2006 and is really really strong).

[Reverend Damaged]

If anyone would like to help me test this, I have multiple versions built on MWS (I JUST got it, so if I don't get MWS right away just give me a few to get the hand of it.)


I need to test against some of the bigger decks, and should be online sometime tomorrow. People can find me on AIM at iamacircusmonkey to arrange for games (this is my name for work, but we can at least set up a time to play). Thanks.

[SillyMetalGAT]

Maybe you should get off your knees and stop juggling balls in your mouth.

Dude was that you on that account? That dude was so fuckin annoying! Please tell me that wasn't you.