[Deck] Dragon Stompy

[Tacosnape]

Tourney report. Whee. 1st Place. This brings my sanctioned tournament match win streak to somewhere around 50, I think. I need to calculate this.

Here's the list I played.

10 Mountain
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seething Song

4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Gathan Raiders
4 Rakdos Pit Dragon
4 Arc-Slogger
4 Akroma, Angel of Whatever

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Blood Moon
2 Umezawa's Jitte

SB:
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Pithing Needle
3 Pyroblast
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte

***Round One: (Advisory6000, Train Wreck)***
G1: I mull to a barely playable 6, so does he. Between Hymn, Seize, and Edict, he manages to get all of my early kill conditions in my yard. He then plays Haunting Echoes, leaving me three Simian Spirit Guides to kill him. No chance.
G2: Again we both mull to 6. I get stuck early on threats, but Needle on Deed and Staff lets a face-down Akroma deal ten before it gets Edicted away. I Magus him off Green to stop Putrefy and get a Chalice for 2 down and a couple more threats and manage to go the distance.
G3: I mull to 6 yet again. All I remember was that I got Haunting Echoed for every threat but Gathan Raiders with a Slogger/Dragon in my hand. I get the Needle/Chalice thing going again, drop my threats, draw Raiders, and go to town.
1-0 Me!

***Round Two: (Clight, Burn)***
G1: Threat. Jitte. Whee.
G2: Chalice. Threats. Whee. Also, for the first time in my entire 12-year magic career, I got to bounce a Chain Lightning in this game (I don't particularly remember where my Chalice went), which put her just in Slogger shot range while I was at 1.
2-0 Me!

***Round Three: (Jeff, Mono-R Goblins)***
G1: He drops a Lackey, I send a Raiders in front of it. I manage a Dragon and a Jitte while he gets stuck on three Ports and can't play much else.
G2: He tries to swing with Lackey/Driver to bait me into blocking with a Slogger so he can Pyrokinesis it. I Pyrokinesis his attackers instead. I get down a Raiders with 1 card in hand. He tries to Pyrokinesis it, I flip it over with Hellbent, I win.
3-0 Me!

***Round Four: (Chase, Landstill)***
G1: He STP's a fast Dragon, then forces a Magus. I peel a second Magus. Whee!
G2: My opening hand is an ungodly Tomb, City, Mox, Chalice, Magus, Magus, Magus. That's seriously the best hand I've ever seen in a given situation with this deck. I draw a Raiders, Imprint it, and Chalice for 1. The first Magus is enough to seal the game. Afterwards, he shows he 3 Hydroblasts in his hand.
4-0 Me!

***Semifinals: (Chase, Landstill)***
G1: He pitches Intuition to Force to stop a Moon. We play a game of STP Pong. Raiders, Swords. Dragon, Swords. Slogger, Swords. Fortunately I've still got another Dragon and another Slogger at this point, and he's out of swords and can't find double green for Witness.
G2: I almost get mana screwed here when he tries to Counter my Moxes, but a Pyroblast allows me to get just enough mana for a Blood Moon and the win.
5-0 / Advance Me!

***Finals: (Clight, Burn)***
G1: I get two fast Dragons bolted and topdeck land until my birthday. I lose horribly.
G2: I get Chalice-1 and Jitte. She has a Shattering Spree but gets stuck on 2 land and uses it to stop the Jitte, which would have connected the next turn. Mindbogglingly, my Slogger gets taken down by Magma Jet/Fireblast, and I slog her for 8 in response, rolling most of my library. Fortunately, my next two cards are Magus and Gathan Raiders, which is enough to go the distance while she's hurting for land.
G3: I take a Chain to the face to 17, then I lead Tomb, Chalice-1, down to 15. I get nailed with back to back Incinerates while getting threats down, then she just gets stuck and I swing for the win. Her final hand includes 3 Bolts and 2 Spikes.
6-0 / 1st Place / Store Credit Me!

So with only four decks of variety for the evening (Burn, Wreck, Landstill, Goblins), I came to the following conclusions.

1. I never flipped Akroma, but she was still pretty good the whole time. Everyone played around her like she was Gathan Raiders except Jeff, who Pyrokinesis'd a Gathan Raiders thinking she was Akroma. I played her off all colorless mana a couple times. Also, it was comforting to know that against that particular build of Landstill, all I had to do was ramp up to 8 mana and hardcast Akroma to win. Sulfur Elemental and Taurean Mauler wouldn't have done much better than Akroma tonight, but they wouldn't have done much worse either.

2. 24 Threats is really good. Definitely better than 22. But maybe not better than 23. I'll be testing one less threat for one more Jitte.

3. You can beat Burn without Trinisphere. I ran completely without it because I expected Landstill and MUC tonight but no Storm Combo and one Threshold max. Burn wasn't much of a problem. Trinisphere would have still helped in this matchup a lot, though.

4. Pyroblast is really a lot better than people (including me) give it credit for. I nailed a Counterspell aimed at a Chrome Mox that had it succeeded, I'd have lost the game.

[Jak]

Now where exactly did I say a two mountain hand? Or did I even mention "no other mana sources"?
Now please don't distort what I said. I just pointed out that cycling for a land is not exactly what you'd want to do with a deck that has no late game whatsoever
Really. It took me like four games to realise that. Topdecking is not what we're good at. Something like a slogger, pit dragon or akroma are topdecks good enough to still win you the game but a 4/4 kitten is definitely not.

And he makes you mulligan even more those hands that don't quite have the adequate amount of mana.

I took that as to mean less than 2, so him and a mountain. I am looking at him as a mountain. Late game he is a creature. You even say we are bad a top decking. He at least makes what would of been a useless land into a threat that might pull wins. Do not compare him to slogger or akroma because those are obviously better top decks. But when you have 6 lands out and resort to top decking against some deck, he will be better than a mountain.

[deviant]

Congratulations Taco!
You did a lot better than me, I managed a dubious 3-2. Lost to the winner who played grow-a-tog or something and it was game three when I realised it was not landstill o_O. (weird and quick games the first two. obviously I played like shit in the third where a needle on a tog would have been beating.)
The other loss was pretty much the deck shooting itself in the head. (Actually it was an opposing FoW to my mull-to-four-and-still-get-to-try-a-magus-on-the-first-turn-play.)

Anyway. Same conclusion about akroma - never flipped, was always good. Played only two though.

@Taco: have you btw EVER played the mirror? My first time with the deck and round four was a mirror! He had 4 pyrokinesis but I won 'cause I lucksack 1st turn sloggers like it's my job. So those are both really good, as is chalice at 0 on the play, but what else? Any insight? (I know this is highly unlikely MU but we were both a little stunned and lost in the woods of what-should-I-do so thought this would be an interesting subject.)

PS: I just take this opportunity to lick some Source-ass and thank you all for the most amusing deck to play EVER! It's a blast to mull to 5-5-4 and still win while the opponent is calling his friends to come and look at what a pile of shit this guy is beating me with! Consistency is a serious issue though and I'm with Taco about those trinis - they're better of threat.

[moOnsteak]

1. I never flipped Akroma, but she was still pretty good the whole time. Everyone played around her like she was Gathan Raiders except Jeff, who Pyrokinesis'd a Gathan Raiders thinking she was Akroma. I played her off all colorless mana a couple times. Also, it was comforting to know that against that particular build of Landstill, all I had to do was ramp up to 8 mana and hardcast Akroma to win. Sulfur Elemental and Taurean Mauler wouldn't have done much better than Akroma tonight, but they wouldn't have done much worse either.

2. 24 Threats is really good. Definitely better than 22. But maybe not better
than 23. I'll be testing one less threat for one more Jitte.

3. You can beat Burn without Trinisphere. I ran completely without it because I expected Landstill and MUC tonight but no Storm Combo and one Threshold max. Burn wasn't much of a problem. Trinisphere would have still helped in this matchup a lot, though.

4. Pyroblast is really a lot better than people (including me) give it credit for. I nailed a Counterspell aimed at a Chrome Mox that had it succeeded, I'd have lost the game.

Congratulation for a great finish. .
I've entered a tourney too yesterday and finished at 4 of 15 players. .
My easy victory goes against 43 Land and U/B/W Fish, have a hard time with U/G/W Landstill but still reach to win, and the only lost is against kind of Soldier Deck. .
I run 22 threats (3 Slogger, 4 Magus, 4 Dragon, 4 SSG, 4 Riders, 2 Sulfur, and 1 Akroma), 4 equipment (2 Jitte, 1 SoFI, SoLS), no Blood Moon but 3 Trinisphere. .

What I have to say is :
1.Morph creatures is good (also because they are colorless), but better with equipment assists them, I win against Fish because of a morphed Akroma equipped SoFI pass away Silver Knight. .4 Akroma will be next input for my list, and I'll not run less than 4 equipments. .

2.a.I'm getting confuse using Chalice. .with the casting cost of Jitte, in one side is nice, low, and can be casted early. .but it also shut off by Chalice @2 which is favorable against Landstill, Loam or any aggro deck. .so what options left on me is : board it out or pitch it for Riders, what a waste. .
2.b.Same case with Pyroblast / Pithing Needle and Chalice@1, I drop an early Chalice@1 to shut off StP, Brainstorm and Ponder against Landstill but my act makes my Pyro and Needle a dead card. .

3.Trinisphere is good but in the environment of Aggro, Pyrokinesis will take its place. .and yes, Burn can be beaten only by Chalice. .

4.Ancient Tomb is hurt, if my opening hand contain 2 Tombs 1 Mox and 1 SSG with some threats against Aggro, should I keep it? Because I kept it but lose because of dying by Tomb's 2 damage. .

[matelml]

If you don't expect to flip the Akroma, isn't Zoetic Cavern better?

[moOnsteak]

If you don't expect to flip the Akroma, isn't Zoetic Cavern better?

1st. .Zoetic Cavern is not a RED card. .can't be pitched for Mox and / or Pyrokinesis. .
2nd. .Akroma will be flipped if I'm able to do it. .so it's not like I'm not expect to flip her. .

[Dilettante]

I just used Akroma in a build that uses 2 Akromas, 1 more in SB. I did okay, came 2nd out of 19 (lost to Sligh while getting 1st hand mull to 5 with no-land hands). She's... handy for certain matchups. She allows you to play mindgames with Gathan Raiders and if played right, make them suck up Swords. If I see Countertop, she is absolutely invaluable, early and late... She does much more than a Sulfur Elemental for me, but it is a personal choice... How are you at playing the bluff game with your opponent? Can you get your opponent to play their pyroclasm with your Raiders in play?

[Dark_Cynic87]

Wurm--trample and alternate cc, Kitty--manacycling. I would pick wurm. This is, after all, a very aggressive deck.

[matelml]

Someone told me the deck can get away with 8-9 mountains, does that mean the last 1-2 lands would be better as Zoetic cavern?

[moOnsteak]

Someone told me the deck can get away with 8-9 mountains, does that mean the last 1-2 lands would be better as Zoetic cavern?

I run always 10 mountains as the creator of this deck suggest / test and being comfort with it, so I won't run less than 10. . in some spells's casting cost will be hard to covered if you run only 8-9 mountain. .

[zulander]

Tourney report. Whee. 1st Place. This brings my sanctioned tournament match win streak to somewhere around 50, I think. I need to calculate this.

Grats on the finish. Out of curiosity how many people showed up for it?

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Grats on the finish. Out of curiosity how many people showed up for it?

It's sanctioned and has six rounds, so at least 33 people, but less then the number required for seven rounds.

[Rinello]

Congratulations!

Taco, why 4 Akroma are better than 2 Akroma and 2 Sulfur elemental?

4 Akroma are most of the time a Grey Ogre (you wrote that you flipped Akroma only 2 times) while a Sulfur Elemental is stronger and has split second (nasty against Mongoose) .

Also: what do you think about coguar?

Thank You.

[Tacosnape]

Congratulations!

Taco, why 4 Akroma are better than 2 Akroma and 2 Sulfur elemental?

4 Akroma are most of the time a Grey Ogre (you wrote that you flipped Akroma only 2 times) while a Sulfur Elemental is stronger and has split second (nasty against Mongoose) .

Also: what do you think about coguar?

Thank You.

I don't know for sure that 4 Akroma -is- better than 2/2, or any other combination of the three guys struggling to make the team. People should realize that just because a build makes first place doesn't mean that the build is optimal. I'll probably give Mauler a shot next. It's also worth noting to everyone that I never said I don't -expect- to flip Akroma. I just didn't for this tournament. I've flipped her several times before. Flipping Akroma is at its absolute best in creature standoffs, which I didn't really have to face at all.

I also think Chartooth Cougar is a terrible idea. Ancient Tomb deals 2 damage to us a shot, meaning the number of times we can tap it are limited. Having a Mountain that you may very well have to tap a Tomb in order to get is not only pricy life-wise, but expensive in the tempo department.

Grats on the finish. Out of curiosity how many people showed up for it?

A whopping nine. Conflicts between Legacy + Draft = low turnout.

[Phantom]

I've been testing 4 Akroma as well, except in the Slogger slot. Hurts me a bit against Goblins and small aggro, but helps me a ton against blue. I've both hardcasted it and flipped it. I really like how easy the build makes hitting hellbent, as RPD becomes my highest casting cost. I'm still not 100% what the split should be between her, Mauler and Sulfur yet.

Also, congrats on the finish Taco. I found this amusing as you seem to have a brain lock on this one card:

4 Akroma, Angel of Wrath

Fury. We play red here son!

[Tacosnape]

I've been testing 4 Akroma as well, except in the Slogger slot. Hurts me a bit against Goblins and small aggro, but helps me a ton against blue. I've both hardcasted it and flipped it. I really like how easy the build makes hitting hellbent, as RPD becomes my highest casting cost. I'm still not 100% what the split should be between her, Mauler and Sulfur yet.

Also, congrats on the finish Taco. I found this amusing as you seem to have a brain lock on this one card:

Fury. We play red here son!

sadlfhsadlkjsdajfhsdkjlf. Fixed. At least, fixed in my opinion, anyway. 3AM Tourney Reports for the lose.

Akroma in the Slogger slot makes me cringe. Slogger was entirely my MVP of the night, wrecking Goblins, eating a Spark Elemental, providing insane reach, and being just slightly too big to kill by Pyrokinesis. I find myself ashamed that I ever argued against Slogger.

I did board one out on a couple occasions to increase my consistency, and I did get stuck with him in my hand against Train Wreck after starting with mediocre hands and not drawing lands, but the positives far outweighed the negatives and far outweighed the positives of any other guys in my deck except maybe Magus of the I Win. (Dragon had its finer moments also.)

[zulander]

It's sanctioned and has six rounds, so at least 33 people, but less then the number required for seven rounds.

If you read the report he played 4 rounds then went to top 4.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

If you read the report he played 4 rounds then went to top 4.

I saw four rounds followed by semi-finals (5) and finals (6). Clearly I am mistaken.

[Rinello]

Why Sulfur Elemental is THAT bad?

Taurean Mauler works against our strategy and is a bad topdeck,so I don't think he ever deserves a slot ,
but I think sulfur deserves one, maybe 2x.
Split second and +1/-1 rocks against Mongoose, Jotun and white weenie,
and casting cost is good for our mana curve.

Maybe 23 threat with 3 Slogger, 2 Akroma and 2 Sulfur is the best set of creatures, obv IMHO.

[deviant]

Slogger is so ridiculous I can't imagine ever playing less than 4 in this deck. It's a terrible topdeck when trying to remain hellbent, yes, but that hardly outweights how amazing he is any other time. Besides, I've only played in one tournament with DS and when the rush didn't take the game home and the opponent topdecked basic lands and slowly started to take control (this happened twice) - slogger was THE card I was hoping to draw. I was obviously getting a little flooded when this happened so I had the mana to cast him.

I'm also advocating moar threats to this deck, and I think akromas are the best additions atm. Is there any other viable mana-acceleration available besides the ones we are already running? Rite of flames doesn't really cut it, does it?
I would like to play more songs to help sloggers, akromas and other ridiculous first turns, but there are these disqualification issues :(