[WGD] Ub Dragon Reanimator

[death]

JANUARY 19, 2015, BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT

Announcement Date: January 19, 2015
Effective Date: January 23, 2015

Legacy: Worldgorger Dragon is no longer banned.

Worldgorger Dragon has a strange and powerful interaction with Animate Dead.
This used to be too powerful for Legacy. It is not clear that this is more powerful than animating Griselbrand,
and this interaction may add an interesting variant. Worldgorger Dragon is no longer banned.



3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae¹

4 Entomb
4 Buried Alive
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Cunning Wish
4 Pact of Negation

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Duskmantle, House of Shadow

SB: Stroke of Genius


Whelp. There you have it. We need a quick, solid and consistent plan that doesn't rely on 1-offs like
Nephalia Drownyard, Piranha Marsh, etc. Buried Alive and Cunning Wish are solid. The latter works as
win condition and also provides some resilience to the deck once you factor in a working wishboard.

• With infinite blue mana you can: Cunning Wish -> Stroke of Genius your opponent
• With a second copy of Entomb -> Oona, Queen of the Fae: Exile opponent's library
• With Buried Alive you can: 2 Worldgorger Dragon + Oona, Queen of the Fae in GY

I would rather have a little bit more stability and less glass cannon.

Those interested in a more traditional approach, from the list above you can swap

Buried Alive package:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Buried Alive
4 Cunning Wish

for

Intuition package:
4 Griselbrand
4 Careful Study
3 Intuition
1 Snapcaster Mage


In the list below, Intuition takes both roles of Buried Alive and Cunning Wish:

4 Griselbrand
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
1 Snapcaster Mage

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize

2 Ponder

4 Entomb
3 Intuition
4 Careful Study
4 Animate Dead
3 Dance of the Dead

4 Lotus Petal

4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Duskmantle, House of Shadow


This I believe feels closer to where Dragon wants to be, being the third variant of Entomb decks.
We run Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead +/- Necromancy in place of

• Reanimate/Exhume (in Reanimator)
• Shallow Grave/Goryo's Vengeance (TinFins).

Our reanimation spells in contrast are not susceptible to storm hate cards i.e. Envelop and Flusterstorm.

Furthermore,

• we don't lose life to our reanimation spells
• the effect isn't symmetrical unlike Exhume
• we have five ways of binning our creatures
• we have 2 instant-speed tutors in the deck
• 0 Dark Ritual means room for more spells
• two Meddling Magi aren't going to stop us

Card Choices
a) Enablers
Entomb - primary enabler, can search for any card. Examples of cards that can be searched of value: Crippling Fatigue, Coffin Purge.
Careful Study - a loot card that supplements Entomb, for instances where you drew creatures or you just want to cycle lands.
Intuition - counts as Entomb 5-8. With Snapcaster Mage you can replay Intuition and find the other half of the combo.
Buried Alive - fulfills the role of Intuition + Snapcaster Mage, for budget reasons. However, unable to stop loop.
Nephalia Drownyard - you use this to find a creature that ends the loop or directly mill out the opponent.
Duskmantle, House of Shadow - cheaper to activate if you are trying to bin a card with Brainstorm.

b) Reanimation
Animate Dead - the first card printed in Magic the Gathering. Primary reanimation since the drawback is only -1/-0.
Dance of the Dead - secondary enabler, drawback is creature CIPT. You can run this into a counter spell first.
Necromancy - costly at CMC 3, the drawback is that it's sacrificed at the end of turn if used as an instant.

c) Creatures
Worldgorger Dragon + Oona, Queen of the Fae + Snapcaster Mage - see below

d) Protection
Force of Will is the only counterspell recommended.
We get more benefit from discard: Thoughtseize, Duress, Cabal Therapy, Inquisition of Kozilek and Unmask.

Sideboard
Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth - as catch all bounce spells
Dystopia - deals with Deathrite Shaman, Containment Priest, white Leyline and Rest in Peace
Massacre - bring this in against any deck that plays Plains since they might be running hate bears
Engineered Explosives - deals with artifact hate: Grafdigger's Cage, Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle
Pithing Needle - use primarily against Sneak Attack/Dark Depths combo, Sensei's Divining Top and Grindstone





Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead lets you Enter an Infinite loop and "blink" all your permanents, this
is where you generate an absurd amount of mana off of lands since they come back into play untapped. You
can interrupt this loop only with an Instant spell or if Animate Dead ends up enchanting another creature.

First the Worldgorger Dragon needs to be in your graveyard (via Careful Study, Entomb, Buried Alive, or other such cards). Play Animate Dead, which turns into a local enchantment that pulls target creature out of any graveyard into play (meaning the Dragon). The Dragon comes into play, and summarily removes all of your other permanents from the game, including the Animate Dead and whatever lands (or Moxes) you have in play.

When Animate Dead leaves play, however, the creature it was enchanting is destroyed. The Dragon dies. And when the Dragon leaves play, all the permanents it had removed come back into play, including your lands (untapped), and the Animate Dead. Animate Dead pulls the Dragon back out of the graveyard, its comes-into-play ability triggers – at which point you can tap your lands for mana and then everything but the Dragon is removed from the game… again. Repeat. You net an amount of mana per cycle equal to what your mana sources can produce.

How Intuition piles work: 2 WGD + Snapcaster Mage

• Opponent hands you SCM: loop with either Dragon, interrupt by casting SCM flashback Intuition.
  Intuition for Oona + 2 Griselbrand. Animate Dead switching target to Griselbrand will stop the loop
  and you can hardcast Oona. Or if opponent chose to bin Oona, you switch to her and win on the spot.
  
• Opponent hands WGD: interrupt the loop with SCM in the yard, SCM enters play flashback Intuition.
  Intuition for Oona + 2 Animate Dead. You can hardcast Oona with your infinite mana or animate her.

Snapcaster Mage can also break the loop if there's an Entomb in the graveyard ready to be recycled.
Flashback Entomb to search for Oona, Queen of the Fae or Griselbrand if Oona is already in your hand.
(The loop ends when Animate Dead enchants another creature in the graveyard instead of Dragon.)


EDIT – For those unaware of the combo, with infi / + Duskmantle, House of Shadow/Nephalia Drownyard
you can mill your deck until you bin Oona, Queen of the Fae. You can then interrupt the loop by switching
Animate Dead target to OQotF and exile your opponent's library using the absurd amount of mana.

You can also mill your opponent out and stop the combo on one of the creatures that ended up in their graveyard.

If you drew a creature, a single Brainstorm + fetchland (or Duskmantle) activation can fix that. Or Careful Study.

Below is the non-FoW/Unmask version of the first deck, Thoughtseize replacing Pact of Negation:

3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Scholar of Athreos²

4 Brainstorm
4 Cunning Wish

4 Entomb
4 Buried Alive
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead

4 Unmask
4 Thoughtseize

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Duskmantle, House of Shadow

Cunning Wish is miles better than Read the Runes for those still in the dark.
Do I still need to include a reason to play this uber cool classic deck, lol.