Or is that initial draw back just far too much to deal with? Giving all vampires in your hand madness is pretty sweet, and allows for the draw two part to be relevant, as well as giving the user the ability to cast lightning bolt in standard.
However, the initial "discard your hand" the turn he comes out isn't exactly sweet either.
I've noticed a slight price jump in the card. Is that just speculation or has it been confirmed playable now?
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There is no reason being friendly and being competitive can't be synonymous.
It's probably just the sort of random speculation that happens around a rotation. There has been some buzz about the card, but in my opinion it is still garbage. Madness doesn't work because you'd have to have more than four mana available to cast anything the turn you play the Dragon, and the whole point of playing a four-mana dragon is being able to play it on turn 4. If you play it on turn 4, you lose cards in your hand, and your opponent gets a chance to remove it before you can draw any extra cards. While most creatures die to removal, the other ones don't take your whole hand along with them.
It is just a fundamentally bad Magic card, and Madness doesn't really fix that.
This was exactly my thought process. I sort of assumed already the price increase was due to hype. But I hadn't seen any deck lists posted anywhere post-rotation, so I figured I might has missed something.
It's sort of depressing. If only it just read "At the beginning of your end step, if you didn't cast ~ this turn, discard your hand. But then it's too good. :l
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There is no reason being friendly and being competitive can't be synonymous.
Avaricious Dragon already has a good deck to fit in, and had it pre-rotation in my opinion. I do agree with Lugger that it's normally a bad magic card, and madness won't help, but one archetype will.
UR Prowess.
This is a deck that should have an empty hand by T4 if possible, and if not, they should be emptying it rather than playing a silly dragon (but really should have it empty).
Prowess decks already want to play 95% (random stat ftw) of their spells on their turn, so this cards downside is very much mitigated.
It's also a 4/4 flyer in a deck that should have folks down to around 5-8 life a maximum when he comes in.
Their multitude of 1-2 drops means that multiple dragons still aren't really wasted value, as usually they can cast them all.
Finally, let's look at another awesome conditional spell that needs something to work... Draconic Roar!
Removal and face burn all for two mana?!?! Fits perfectly into prowess, and can use Avaricious Dragon as a reveal.
For example, I posted a deck list in a prowess thread, but something like
I used avaricious dragon in a jund build pre rotation and it was amazing there. With den protector and k command you never really lost anything. I had both atarka and dragonlord kolaghan in the deck and my opponents had to waste their removal on the Ava instead because my card advantage crushed them. Yes atarka was huge there, but Ava let me dig for it, and the recursion spells made it so the 1-2 cards I lost on turn four didn't matter. It's particularly good now for enabling delirium too. Super underrated card, especially in multiples, but it is a build around card. By the way, if you are playing it, and thunderbreak regent, you would always play the thunderbreak turn 4 anyway and Ava turn 5, which I usually did. Disadvantages in a card can always be used as an advantage if you take the time to break it, but it requires actually thinking about it, and not just claiming it's bad because it's not obvious.
Disadvantages in a card can always be used as an advantage if you take the time to break it, but it requires actually thinking about it, and not just claiming it's bad because it's not obvious.
Well, no, not always. Sometimes disadvantages are just disadvantages, and trying to break them doesn't actually make up for the downsides of the card. Trust me, I did "actually think about it," and so did many people who tried to make the Dragon a competitive card and failed at it.
It was not a competitive card pre-rotation. If you had some success with it, that's great, but that's grossly outweighed by the complete lack of impact in tournaments over the past year. People tried it in all sorts of decks with all sorts of game plans. They all failed.
It sounds like the Jund deck you ran was successful because of good cards like Thunderbreak Regent, Kolaghan's Command, and Den Protector, and that was enough to outweigh the deficiencies of Avaricious Dragon. You could have replaced the Dragon with something else and your deck could have been better.
I see your point Rajasu, but certainly at times you can take certain "bad" cards and put them together in a way that has enough synergy to be better than "value cards".
My prowess example earlier. From my experience with prowess, it REALLY wants a removal+face spell, and currently the only efficient card that does that in their mana range is Draconic Roar, however again it's conditional.
By fulfilling the condition of Draconic Roar (admittingly using TBreak Regent too), you also get Ava-Dragon that goes well with this style deck. Prowess likes instants, but likes to usually play them on their turn for pump damage. Ava-Dragon provides that. It also mostly works in multiples due to its synergies with TBreak, and the ability to dig for lands and usually not flood with multiples due to inherently low land count.
I'm not saying my prowess deck would be the best, and I'm not saying Ava-Dragon makes the deck, however it contributes a lot.
I don't think there is a prowess deck that is "better" than a *toned/tweaked* version I provided using Ava-Dragon, and certainly not just by taking him out. There are most definitely different prowess decks, some probably being just as effective, but I would blanket statement call them better just because they use something else over the dragon.
Again, my stance is that the hype is rotation hype, and it will settle again. I also am not saying it's a good card, it's pretty bad lol. However I do think it's underrated and not as bad as people say, and I do think there are decks it can be successful in and even a best in slot or close to best in slot card for that deck.
Disadvantages in a card can always be used as an advantage if you take the time to break it, but it requires actually thinking about it, and not just claiming it's bad because it's not obvious.
Well, no, not always. Sometimes disadvantages are just disadvantages, and trying to break them doesn't actually make up for the downsides of the card. Trust me, I did "actually think about it," and so did many people who tried to make the Dragon a competitive card and failed at it.
It was not a competitive card pre-rotation. If you had some success with it, that's great, but that's grossly outweighed by the complete lack of impact in tournaments over the past year. People tried it in all sorts of decks with all sorts of game plans. They all failed.
It sounds like the Jund deck you ran was successful because of good cards like Thunderbreak Regent, Kolaghan's Command, and Den Protector, and that was enough to outweigh the deficiencies of Avaricious Dragon. You could have replaced the Dragon with something else and your deck could have been better.
I'm certainly not saying you are wrong, my deck may have worked with a different card better or worse. But that can be said about nearly any card printed. The cards I listed were chosen because they work really well with Ava, but it could have been better, I just found it didn't need to be. Ava provided a powerful draw engine for a deck that lacked it and a 4/4 flyer. Is thunderbreak better, absolutely. Frankly they should have made the Ava rare and thunderbreak mythic, if either deserved the mythic status. Now I only played fnm with it so I certainly wasn't breaking open any big tournaments, but this card may have been a victim of a standard with too many good stuff 3-4 color decks and couldn't compete from that alone. We will have to see
Disadvantages in a card can always be used as an advantage if you take the time to break it, but it requires actually thinking about it, and not just claiming it's bad because it's not obvious.
Well, no, not always. Sometimes disadvantages are just disadvantages, and trying to break them doesn't actually make up for the downsides of the card. Trust me, I did "actually think about it," and so did many people who tried to make the Dragon a competitive card and failed at it.
It was not a competitive card pre-rotation. If you had some success with it, that's great, but that's grossly outweighed by the complete lack of impact in tournaments over the past year. People tried it in all sorts of decks with all sorts of game plans. They all failed.
It sounds like the Jund deck you ran was successful because of good cards like Thunderbreak Regent, Kolaghan's Command, and Den Protector, and that was enough to outweigh the deficiencies of Avaricious Dragon. You could have replaced the Dragon with something else and your deck could have been better.
I'm certainly not saying you are wrong, my deck may have worked with a different card better or worse. But that can be said about nearly any card printed. The cards I listed were chosen because they work really well with Ava, but it could have been better, I just found it didn't need to be. Ava provided a powerful draw engine for a deck that lacked it and a 4/4 flyer. Is thunderbreak better, absolutely. Frankly they should have made the Ava rare and thunderbreak mythic, if either deserved the mythic status. Now I only played fnm with it so I certainly wasn't breaking open any big tournaments, but this card may have been a victim of a standard with too many good stuff 3-4 color decks and couldn't compete from that alone. We will have to see
I've had this card played against me a number of times. It's pretty much always resulted in a blowout. Err... In my favor, not my opponents.
Until there's a legitimate benefit to discarding your entire hand (madness doesn't count as you've tapped out in reasonable cases where you play this on curve ["but don't play it on curve" is a crap argument and I really don't want to hear it]), then this card is not good.
Even then, there are cards that are better at discarding portions of your hand (see: Lightning Axe).
This card could also be good if there is no removal in the format. Unfortunately, removal... exists(?) [water is wet? the desert is dry?] and this card is a boon to your opponent sandbagging that Declaration in Stone or Ultimate Price.
Of course a 4/4 flyer is better than a 3/3 with skulk. But if we are talking about a madness/delirium/graveyard engine it's difficult to find something better: You untap first, then get a *may* ability to discard your hand and draw X. Perfect for madness but unfortunately off colors since most relevant madness cards are in red and black. However requiring only one blue makes it easy to splash.
That being said Avaricious Dragon could still be better in very aggressive/burn decks. Because regardless of its drawback it's still card advantage: Discarding your hand at end of turn is irrelevant if you already played most of your good spells by t4 (would require you to have a lot of 1 drops and 2 drops). Once hellbent you are drawing 2 cards and playing those cards every turn so it's no longer a drawback.
So you never play a card not on curve? Sorry but I don't think you understand what a crap argument is, or you just build unimaginative decks that are tailor made for you by wizards. If that's the case then fine. But the rest of us aren't gonna refuse to play k command because it's not turn 3, or Jace because it's not turn two. Having to play on curve or not at all is the absolute worst argument a person could possibly make when designing a deck. But hey, being predictable, bland, and boring is fun for some people, just not all of us.
So you never play a card not on curve? Sorry but I don't think you understand what a crap argument is, or you just build unimaginative decks that are tailor made for you by wizards. If that's the case then fine. But the rest of us aren't gonna refuse to play k command because it's not turn 3, or Jace because it's not turn two. Having to play on curve or not at all is the absolute worst argument a person could possibly make when designing a deck. But hey, being predictable, bland, and boring is fun for some people, just not all of us.
Yeah, I play my 4 drops on turn 12. But I also like my 4 drops to be reasonable plays on turn 4 as well.
On turn 4, with a couple valuable cards in hand, Avaricious Dragon is not reasonable.
On turn 4, with a couple valuable cards in hand, Avaricious Dragon is not reasonable.
Hence a prowess deck that should ideally have dumped their hand already, and play this on T4. OR they finish dumping their hand on T4, the opponent scrapes by thinking, ah ok, I should be stabilizing now, then on T5 they drop the Ava-Dragon
Avaricious Dragon is a solid card in any deck that plans to empty out it's hand by turn 4 or 5, prowess, RDW etc. In those decks, it doesn't have a drawback, all it does is draw you an extra card every single turn.
It still has a bit of a drawback, its just not as bad. RDW often wants to save their burn spells in their hand if its Instant speed and use as removal on their turn or EOT face burn. Ava-Drag forces it to be on their turn. It minimizes the drawback and plays around it, but doesnt negate it.
No one mention it slams into Avacyn and dies? Feels like the kinda play where you tapout with him, attack next turn they flash in Avacyn and she kills him. Great way to lose a game.
If you tap out T4 for him, then swing next turn, he's drawn you 2 cards, and if he dies you wont have to discard those two cards. Basically he was just a 4cmc kill avacyn, draw a card at that point.
If you tap out T4 for him, then swing next turn, he's drawn you 2 cards, and if he dies you wont have to discard those two cards. Basically he was just a 4cmc kill avacyn, draw a card at that point.
Unless they flashed Avacyn in, at which point he's a 4cmc "discard your hand, draw a card".
I haven't really spent much time looking at the card, but there are plenty of cards in the format that work well with it. Like stated before, madness works well with it. There are lots of good sorceries out there that you can just pop off right away. You can play with cards that have activated abilities so you are doing something with your mana on opponent's turns. I don't have a specific deck together, but I bet there's a great deck out there that uses Avaricious Dragon and Asylum Visitor for huge card advantage and madness fun.
You know, I might check out that idea myself. No one steal it!!
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However, the initial "discard your hand" the turn he comes out isn't exactly sweet either.
I've noticed a slight price jump in the card. Is that just speculation or has it been confirmed playable now?
It's probably just the sort of random speculation that happens around a rotation. There has been some buzz about the card, but in my opinion it is still garbage. Madness doesn't work because you'd have to have more than four mana available to cast anything the turn you play the Dragon, and the whole point of playing a four-mana dragon is being able to play it on turn 4. If you play it on turn 4, you lose cards in your hand, and your opponent gets a chance to remove it before you can draw any extra cards. While most creatures die to removal, the other ones don't take your whole hand along with them.
It is just a fundamentally bad Magic card, and Madness doesn't really fix that.
It's sort of depressing. If only it just read "At the beginning of your end step, if you didn't cast ~ this turn, discard your hand. But then it's too good. :l
UR Prowess.
This is a deck that should have an empty hand by T4 if possible, and if not, they should be emptying it rather than playing a silly dragon (but really should have it empty).
Prowess decks already want to play 95% (random stat ftw) of their spells on their turn, so this cards downside is very much mitigated.
It's also a 4/4 flyer in a deck that should have folks down to around 5-8 life a maximum when he comes in.
Their multitude of 1-2 drops means that multiple dragons still aren't really wasted value, as usually they can cast them all.
Finally, let's look at another awesome conditional spell that needs something to work... Draconic Roar!
Removal and face burn all for two mana?!?! Fits perfectly into prowess, and can use Avaricious Dragon as a reveal.
For example, I posted a deck list in a prowess thread, but something like
4x Tbreak regent
3x Ava Dragon
4x Storm Mage
4x Elusive spellfist
4x Abbot Keral Keep
4x Titans Strength
4x Slip through Space
4x Adrenaline Rush
3x Uncaged Fury
4x Draconic Roar
22 lands.
That's just a rough thing, but just pointing out, he's a bad card, but most people judge too harshly imo
Reclaim
Pulse of Murasa
Goblin Dark-Dwellers
Gravepurge
Macabre Waltz
all play pretty well with it. Its definitely a very very niche card, but it does what it does really well imo.
Well, no, not always. Sometimes disadvantages are just disadvantages, and trying to break them doesn't actually make up for the downsides of the card. Trust me, I did "actually think about it," and so did many people who tried to make the Dragon a competitive card and failed at it.
It was not a competitive card pre-rotation. If you had some success with it, that's great, but that's grossly outweighed by the complete lack of impact in tournaments over the past year. People tried it in all sorts of decks with all sorts of game plans. They all failed.
It sounds like the Jund deck you ran was successful because of good cards like Thunderbreak Regent, Kolaghan's Command, and Den Protector, and that was enough to outweigh the deficiencies of Avaricious Dragon. You could have replaced the Dragon with something else and your deck could have been better.
My prowess example earlier. From my experience with prowess, it REALLY wants a removal+face spell, and currently the only efficient card that does that in their mana range is Draconic Roar, however again it's conditional.
By fulfilling the condition of Draconic Roar (admittingly using TBreak Regent too), you also get Ava-Dragon that goes well with this style deck. Prowess likes instants, but likes to usually play them on their turn for pump damage. Ava-Dragon provides that. It also mostly works in multiples due to its synergies with TBreak, and the ability to dig for lands and usually not flood with multiples due to inherently low land count.
I'm not saying my prowess deck would be the best, and I'm not saying Ava-Dragon makes the deck, however it contributes a lot.
I don't think there is a prowess deck that is "better" than a *toned/tweaked* version I provided using Ava-Dragon, and certainly not just by taking him out. There are most definitely different prowess decks, some probably being just as effective, but I would blanket statement call them better just because they use something else over the dragon.
Again, my stance is that the hype is rotation hype, and it will settle again. I also am not saying it's a good card, it's pretty bad lol. However I do think it's underrated and not as bad as people say, and I do think there are decks it can be successful in and even a best in slot or close to best in slot card for that deck.
I'm certainly not saying you are wrong, my deck may have worked with a different card better or worse. But that can be said about nearly any card printed. The cards I listed were chosen because they work really well with Ava, but it could have been better, I just found it didn't need to be. Ava provided a powerful draw engine for a deck that lacked it and a 4/4 flyer. Is thunderbreak better, absolutely. Frankly they should have made the Ava rare and thunderbreak mythic, if either deserved the mythic status. Now I only played fnm with it so I certainly wasn't breaking open any big tournaments, but this card may have been a victim of a standard with too many good stuff 3-4 color decks and couldn't compete from that alone. We will have to see
I've had this card played against me a number of times. It's pretty much always resulted in a blowout. Err... In my favor, not my opponents.
Until there's a legitimate benefit to discarding your entire hand (madness doesn't count as you've tapped out in reasonable cases where you play this on curve ["but don't play it on curve" is a crap argument and I really don't want to hear it]), then this card is not good.
Even then, there are cards that are better at discarding portions of your hand (see: Lightning Axe).
This card could also be good if there is no removal in the format. Unfortunately, removal... exists(?) [water is wet? the desert is dry?] and this card is a boon to your opponent sandbagging that Declaration in Stone or Ultimate Price.
Of course a 4/4 flyer is better than a 3/3 with skulk. But if we are talking about a madness/delirium/graveyard engine it's difficult to find something better: You untap first, then get a *may* ability to discard your hand and draw X. Perfect for madness but unfortunately off colors since most relevant madness cards are in red and black. However requiring only one blue makes it easy to splash.
That being said Avaricious Dragon could still be better in very aggressive/burn decks. Because regardless of its drawback it's still card advantage: Discarding your hand at end of turn is irrelevant if you already played most of your good spells by t4 (would require you to have a lot of 1 drops and 2 drops). Once hellbent you are drawing 2 cards and playing those cards every turn so it's no longer a drawback.
Yeah, I play my 4 drops on turn 12. But I also like my 4 drops to be reasonable plays on turn 4 as well.
On turn 4, with a couple valuable cards in hand, Avaricious Dragon is not reasonable.
Hence a prowess deck that should ideally have dumped their hand already, and play this on T4. OR they finish dumping their hand on T4, the opponent scrapes by thinking, ah ok, I should be stabilizing now, then on T5 they drop the Ava-Dragon
avaricious
adjective
Definition of avaricious
: greedy of gain : having or showing an extreme greed for wealth or material gain.
We all know what happens in the long run to greedy individuals.
You know, I might check out that idea myself. No one steal it!!