Back in 2006 when I first started to play, the very first deck I built was a greatly diluted version of the Dragon X combo. It ran Keldon Marauders and friends to deal infinite damage to each opponent in any given multiplayer situation, abusing the Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead combo. Even though my build was terrible because I didn't know better at the time, I was able to squeeze off quite a few wins from it.
I remember how much fun I had with it, and that brought me to my current project. Here are the guidelines I held myself to while brewing:
1) all cards must predate the Fifth Dawn block (at least have an original printing prior to)
2) must be faster, or must have the potential to be faster than Hermit Druid (turn 2 win)
3) must use Nicol Bolas as the General
I wanted the deck to have a truly original vintage feel. By using cards people don't normally see, it helps everyone expand their knowledge, especially the person brewing.
So how does the deck work?
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 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 is removed again. rinse, repeat.
What do you do with all of that mana?
The primary win conditions are Shivan Hellkite and Ambassador Laquatus. If you don't have them available, there are various "x" spells and utility cards that can help dig for a win condition.
Looking through the list, it's obvious that most of the selections are the best of the best, so... where's the innovation? Below are some key interactions I put in there as my own signature in the deck building process.
Pandemonium + Nicol Bolas/or Worldgorger Dragon: can be a win condition in our main combo as well as a powerful disrupter when coupled with our General.
Power Artifact + Basalt Monolith/or Grim Monolith: another way to produce infinite mana.
Chains of Mephistopheles + Windfall/or Wheel of Fortune: a powerful way to strip everyone of their hand by the 3rd turn.
I'll give you an example of what a few god hands look like:
Hand 1:
Dark Ritual
Entomb
Read the Runes
Force of Will
Mana Drain
Animate Dead
Gemstone Mine
This is a turn 1 win, which is as follows:
Play Underground River, then play Dark Ritual into Entomb (grabbing Worldgorger Dragon), play Animate Dead on the dragon, and after you've generated 1,000,000,000+ mana play Read the Runes in response to one of the dragon's triggered abilities to draw and discard your deck, then finish it out by using Animate Dead to target Ambassador Laquatus or Shivan Dragon to deal infinite damage or infinite mill to everyone at once (while still holding a Force of Will and Mana Drain for protection).
Play Badlands, Lotus Petal, and Lion's Eye Diamond. Sacrifice the Lotus Petal and tap the Badlands for black to play Demonic Tutor. In response to the tutor, sacrifice the Lion's Eye Diamond for black. Search for Dance for the Dead and play it, targeting your newly discarded dragon. Generate 1,000,000,000+ mana and stop the cycle by targeting Ambassador Laquatus with the Dance for the Dead and milling the table for a lot.
Hand 3:
Buried Alive
Mana Crypt
Gemstone Mine
Dark Ritual
Necromancy
Mox Diamond
Strip Mine
Turn 1 win:
Play Mana Crypt, Gemstone Mine, and Mox Diamond (discarding Strip Mine). Tap Mox Diamond to play Dark Ritual into Buried Alive (grabbing Worldgorger Dragon, Aerial Caravan, and Shivan Hellkite). Tap the Mana Crypt and the Gemstone Mine to play Necromancy, targeting the dragon.
This deck is an absolute blast to play, and has become my favorite list overall. I hope you guys have as much fun with it as I have.
Every deck has room for improvement, so... following the guidelines I placed on myself, what are some changes you would make?
I do love a good Worldgorger deck. Have you considered Duress? It's not insignificant to be able to pick the counterspells or instant-speed removal out of an opponent's hand, or to counter it cheaply. I'd also recommend Frantic Search. Fantastic combo card. Sleight of Hand is fine if you're keeping to old cards only. Telepathy enables you to see what your opponents have in hand, which can be so useful.
Are you beholden to the notion of using pre-Kamigawa only? If not, consider these:
Thanks for the catch with Shivan Hellkite. I'm glad you picked up where I was attempting to go with it lol Frantic Search is an amazing idea, and I will find room for it at once.
I am stuck on the pre-Kamigawa stipulation, as it forces me to better myself as a player. You also find some hidden gems when you start going through cards from way back when.
I'll still strongly recommend Sleight of Hand and Duress, but if you don't need those in your metagame, then it's easy enough to pass.
Necropotence is a paradox. At first blush, it seems that it would hose your plan, but drawing cards into Entomb or Buried Alive is nothing to underestimate. Still, passing on it in this particular deck is not the most unreasonable thing to do. Necropotence just requires knowledge of the deck and how to maximize the card draw.
Necrologia is expensive at 5 mana, but you do have good ramp through mana artifacts and rituals. It's a great discard outlet, and it can dig you 30 deep as early as turn 1. Something to consider.
Hardcore combo without hermit druid? Awesome sauce. One thing I will mention is that In The Eye of Chaos looks out of place here, and it hardcore shuts down counters like force of will. You run way too many spells for it to be profitable. Someone could just path worldgorger for 2 mana while you stare at that 10 mana force or misdirection that you can reduce to 5 mana with the exile clause. I would run a trickbind in its place for instant speed anti graveyard hate. Stopping a bojuka bog, tormods crypt, or relic of progenitus seems like a thing you need to think about stopping.
Modern: UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy: UWBMiracles
Edh: UUUThassa Control WWWHokori Stax GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy BBBGriselbrand French List RBGShattergang(Super Villians) RWGHazezon Flicker UBRMarchesa Aggro URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)
I definitely see what you mean, however luckily that hasn't come up yet. It's mainly acted as a pseudo - Defense Grid, keeping counters away from the game plan. With trickbind outside my normal stipulations, I will look into other avenues to replace ITEOC.
Though, I hope by adding the other combo (Power Artifact + Monolith) it gives me a little added resiliency in case someone manages to kill/remove the dragon.
Still looking for the best slot for Duress and Necrologia at the moment. Thank you for your suggestions!
I think that Whispers of the Muse or Diabolic Vision and The Abyss could go. I just think that Whispers/Vision has a huge potential to be underwhelming, the the ability to delve into the deck with Necrologia outweighs the use of The Abyss. Killing creatures should not be a huge concern for the deck as it aims to end the game early, and The Abyss otherwise is pretty slow.
Another card I want to recommend is Night's Whsiper. It's pre-Kamigawa, and it's just an efficient card. Diabolic Vision at least goes for it, in my opinion.
I'm also not a fan of Aerial Caravan. I'd prefer Wu Spy as a win condition, personally. This way, though, Eldrazi could mean a loss for you, or at least the strategy falls apart.
My Nicol Bolas was a slower-burning spellslinger build, that generally revolved around firemind's foresight before I just turned him into Keranos for simplicity's sake. It had a fair number of cards in common with your deck.
Given that your land base has a lot of islands, why not Gush?
Lost looks solid I agree ItEoC feels out of place . I'm not sure ad nausam dies not deserve a slot while not usable on turn in most cases it should still instant win EOT at 5 in this deck. Can most likely shave another land for chrome mox at that point. Notion thief is also worth consideration as notion shell should instant win and in this kind of shell maxing wheel and pulling lots if cards in general in combo shell it's typically easy to either take a free win or at least eat a removal for your main combo since it's creature based .
I remember how much fun I had with it, and that brought me to my current project. Here are the guidelines I held myself to while brewing:
1) all cards must predate the Fifth Dawn block (at least have an original printing prior to)
2) must be faster, or must have the potential to be faster than Hermit Druid (turn 2 win)
3) must use Nicol Bolas as the General
I wanted the deck to have a truly original vintage feel. By using cards people don't normally see, it helps everyone expand their knowledge, especially the person brewing.
So how does the deck work?
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 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 is removed again. rinse, repeat.
What do you do with all of that mana?
The primary win conditions are Shivan Hellkite and Ambassador Laquatus. If you don't have them available, there are various "x" spells and utility cards that can help dig for a win condition.
My current list of Dragon X:
General 1
1 Nicol Bolas
Creatures 4
1 Aerial Caravan
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Shivan Hellkite
1 Worldgorger Dragon
Instants 22
1 Arcane Denial
1 Brainstorm
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Dark Ritual
1 Entomb
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Force of Will
1 Frantic Search
1 Insidious Dreams
1 Intuition
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Mana Drain
1 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Necrologia
1 Read the Runes
1 Snuff Out
1 Stifle
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Terminate
1 Tolarian Winds
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Buried Alive
1 Careful Study
1 Cruel Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Duress
1 Gamble
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Imperial Seal
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Personal Tutor
1 Recoup
1 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Unmask
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Artifacts 10
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Defense Grid
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Diamond
1 Scroll Rack
1 Sol Ring
1 Animate Dead
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Dance of the Dead
1 In the Eye of Chaos
1 Necromancy
1 Nether Void
1 Pandemonium
1 Power Artifact
Lands 37
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Badlands
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 City of Traitors
1 Gemstone Mine
9 Island
5 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Shivan Reef
1 Strip Mine
1 Sulfurous Springs
7 Swamp
1 Underground River
1 Underground Sea
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Volcanic Island
1 Wasteland
Looking through the list, it's obvious that most of the selections are the best of the best, so... where's the innovation? Below are some key interactions I put in there as my own signature in the deck building process.
Pandemonium + Nicol Bolas/or Worldgorger Dragon: can be a win condition in our main combo as well as a powerful disrupter when coupled with our General.
Power Artifact + Basalt Monolith/or Grim Monolith: another way to produce infinite mana.
Chains of Mephistopheles + Windfall/or Wheel of Fortune: a powerful way to strip everyone of their hand by the 3rd turn.
I'll give you an example of what a few god hands look like:
Hand 1:
Dark Ritual
Entomb
Read the Runes
Force of Will
Mana Drain
Animate Dead
Gemstone Mine
This is a turn 1 win, which is as follows:
Play Underground River, then play Dark Ritual into Entomb (grabbing Worldgorger Dragon), play Animate Dead on the dragon, and after you've generated 1,000,000,000+ mana play Read the Runes in response to one of the dragon's triggered abilities to draw and discard your deck, then finish it out by using Animate Dead to target Ambassador Laquatus or Shivan Dragon to deal infinite damage or infinite mill to everyone at once (while still holding a Force of Will and Mana Drain for protection).
Hand 2:
Worldgorger Dragon
Lion's Eye Diamond
Demonic Tutor
Ambassador Laquatus
Badlands
Lotus Petal
Duress
Turn 1 win as such:
Play Badlands, Lotus Petal, and Lion's Eye Diamond. Sacrifice the Lotus Petal and tap the Badlands for black to play Demonic Tutor. In response to the tutor, sacrifice the Lion's Eye Diamond for black. Search for Dance for the Dead and play it, targeting your newly discarded dragon. Generate 1,000,000,000+ mana and stop the cycle by targeting Ambassador Laquatus with the Dance for the Dead and milling the table for a lot.
Hand 3:
Buried Alive
Mana Crypt
Gemstone Mine
Dark Ritual
Necromancy
Mox Diamond
Strip Mine
Turn 1 win:
Play Mana Crypt, Gemstone Mine, and Mox Diamond (discarding Strip Mine). Tap Mox Diamond to play Dark Ritual into Buried Alive (grabbing Worldgorger Dragon, Aerial Caravan, and Shivan Hellkite). Tap the Mana Crypt and the Gemstone Mine to play Necromancy, targeting the dragon.
This deck is an absolute blast to play, and has become my favorite list overall. I hope you guys have as much fun with it as I have.
Every deck has room for improvement, so... following the guidelines I placed on myself, what are some changes you would make?
I do love a good Worldgorger deck. Have you considered Duress? It's not insignificant to be able to pick the counterspells or instant-speed removal out of an opponent's hand, or to counter it cheaply. I'd also recommend Frantic Search. Fantastic combo card. Sleight of Hand is fine if you're keeping to old cards only. Telepathy enables you to see what your opponents have in hand, which can be so useful.
Are you beholden to the notion of using pre-Kamigawa only? If not, consider these:
1 Swan Song
1 Pact of Negation
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Laboratory Maniac
I am stuck on the pre-Kamigawa stipulation, as it forces me to better myself as a player. You also find some hidden gems when you start going through cards from way back when.
Necropotence is a paradox. At first blush, it seems that it would hose your plan, but drawing cards into Entomb or Buried Alive is nothing to underestimate. Still, passing on it in this particular deck is not the most unreasonable thing to do. Necropotence just requires knowledge of the deck and how to maximize the card draw.
Necrologia is expensive at 5 mana, but you do have good ramp through mana artifacts and rituals. It's a great discard outlet, and it can dig you 30 deep as early as turn 1. Something to consider.
Draft it Here!
UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy:
UWBMiracles
Edh:
UUUThassa Control
WWWHokori Stax
GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy
BBBGriselbrand French List
RBGShattergang(Super Villians)
RWGHazezon Flicker
UBRMarchesa Aggro
URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)
Though, I hope by adding the other combo (Power Artifact + Monolith) it gives me a little added resiliency in case someone manages to kill/remove the dragon.
Still looking for the best slot for Duress and Necrologia at the moment. Thank you for your suggestions!
Another card I want to recommend is Night's Whsiper. It's pre-Kamigawa, and it's just an efficient card. Diabolic Vision at least goes for it, in my opinion.
Careful Study and even Hapless Researcher are decent choices, especially the Study.
I'm also not a fan of Aerial Caravan. I'd prefer Wu Spy as a win condition, personally. This way, though, Eldrazi could mean a loss for you, or at least the strategy falls apart.
My Nicol Bolas was a slower-burning spellslinger build, that generally revolved around firemind's foresight before I just turned him into Keranos for simplicity's sake. It had a fair number of cards in common with your deck.
Given that your land base has a lot of islands, why not Gush?
Land > ponder
-----
Lands > more fetch
Land > top
Lost looks solid I agree ItEoC feels out of place . I'm not sure ad nausam dies not deserve a slot while not usable on turn in most cases it should still instant win EOT at 5 in this deck. Can most likely shave another land for chrome mox at that point. Notion thief is also worth consideration as notion shell should instant win and in this kind of shell maxing wheel and pulling lots if cards in general in combo shell it's typically easy to either take a free win or at least eat a removal for your main combo since it's creature based .
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429