Well I am removing Chord of Calling today (Great card but has never been cast yet )In the 100+ games i have never yet cast Chord, so It is leaving. Gonna grab a copy of Hellkite Overlord though, so I guess Nature's will is still not coming.
it really is too bad. my Dragon deck is a timmy deck and it deals combat damage, i would like to untap lands with nature's will (of course, if I get natures will, I would want to play it in unison with Hellkite Charger or aggravated assault
I play Savage Ventmaw so more or less I don't need the Untap all my mana because by that point I'll have enough lands to pay 1 for each combat lol.
i also play Ventmaw, and it is true, getting RRRGGG or just attacking is more reliable than having to connect, sadly it is only 1/99 ways to gt the mana to get multiple attack phases.I would need to revise my dragon deck to compensate for multiple attack phases.
My wife bought Wizards and Cats, I bought vampires, and my best friend bought Dragons. He is newer to magic and Commander, but I have been holding his hand and helping him the best I can along the way.
He is buying shocks and fetches, and I directed him towards getting all 10 signets as ramp. One goal was to play turn 2 ramp so you can follow up on turn 3 by casting a five drop dragon. That plan helped him out a lot to open games up. Over time, he began to find better support cards, card draw, removal, etc.
We eventually got to a point where I showed him how much better it was to swap Scion with The Ur Dragon. Now he is able to cast a turn 4 Scion consistently. he follows that up with a turn 5 activation, turning Scion into The Ur Dragon, attacking, drawing a card and slapping down a nice permanent for free, and smashing for 10 commander damage.
Depending on the board state, one move is to go for Atarka, World Render and the double strike Commander knock out punch. Getting in for 22 flying commander damage by turn 6 is quite good and forces opponents to dig for spot removal.
Another goal is to just get Teneb and reanimate The Ur Dragon.
When we play, the toolbox nature of Scion also bails his deck out of games. Silumgar, the Drifting Death has done wonders at slowing down Vampires and getting Dragons out of tight spot.
Really, everything depends on what your play group looks like.
For example, I have seen Animar, Soul of Elements cast on turn three and combo his creatures out and win on turn 4. I also notice that Narset, Enlightened Master ramps out on turn three, then attacks on turn four and almost always wins with what she reveals, between mass land destruction, extra turns and extra combat steps. My own Mizzix deck can consistently ramp into Mizzix on 3, dig & tutor up a combo on 4 and go off on turn 5.
If that is who you are playing against, neither Scion nor The Ur Dragon are really a deck you should be playing. On the other hand, if you are playing games that want to go to turn 8 or later, I have found the deck can be quite powerful.
The thing O reminded my friend was:
Wizards want to slow the game down and play defensive control until they find a combo or otherwise take over the late game with a single powerful turn.
Vampires like to swarm the table and then pump their army
Dragons, on the other hand, want to hit like a ton of bricks. One powerful strike, often with a trigger for attacking or dealing combat damge.
Cats (depending on go tall, go wide, or go equipment) are somewhere in the middle. They are not as fast as vampires, but they hit harder, but not as hard as dragons. Being in GW, they tend to have some of the best answers of all the decks, with plenty of artifact, enchantment, and creature exile while still swinging for a lot.
This advice helped him understand his role at the table. I told him that he cannot expect to just churn out a swarm of creatures in the first three or four turns like Cats or Vampires, but when his deck does get rolling, it tends to make big splashy changes to the game state.
In fact, because he is using Scion of the Ur Dragon as his commander now, he has actually begun to find an entire reanimation sub theme.
in fact, because of the play line where he goes for The Ur Dragon as his first transformation, this has resulted in The Ur Dragon seeing more play time on the battlefield than it ever had when it was leading the deck.
Not usre if I mentiond it but the reason I play dragons is because of the Ur-Dragon. Prior to ur-dragon i did not like the only 5 color option i had (Scion) s i had heistated heavily on building dragons.
Upon teh spoilers for the Ur-Dragon i was hyped. Having never been able to play Dragons before due to only having Scion, I was psyched.
SO If i did build scion i would focus on a much more aggressive play style with consistent win cons and a much faster ramp package. But i was not aiming for the re-animator build, and I like having the ur-dragn in my command zone, that -1 helps a lot more than you may think (But my deck has a lot of -1 or -2 effects. It gets to the point where I am casting dragons for colors only, or in some cases (Like Steel hellkite and Draco) cast em for free.
Not usre if I mentiond it but the reason I play dragons is because of the Ur-Dragon. Prior to ur-dragon i did not like the only 5 color option i had (Scion) s i had heistated heavily on building dragons.
Upon teh spoilers for the Ur-Dragon i was hyped. Having never been able to play Dragons before due to only having Scion, I was psyched.
SO If i did build scion i would focus on a much more aggressive play style with consistent win cons and a much faster ramp package. But i was not aiming for the re-animator build, and I like having the ur-dragn in my command zone, that -1 helps a lot more than you may think (But my deck has a lot of -1 or -2 effects. It gets to the point where I am casting dragons for colors only, or in some cases (Like Steel hellkite and Draco) cast em for free.
Hey, that is great. I did not read every post, mostly because it was started back in like august or something and had been brought back to life several days ago.
Well, the other typical advice i can give and was giving to my best friend while he wanted to focus on The Ur Dragon was to have lots of ramp to compliment the cost reduction, and signets are my favorite because they help fix your mana and give you hints on which dual lands or shock lands to fetch up on those early turns.
As I said in my last post, you have to evaluate your play groups as well. If you games are ending on turn 4, there is not much we can do to help you. Otherwise, I suggest you have 12-14 ways to draw cards or tutor for card draw. With a lot of ramp and cost reduction combined with the desire to play a lot of dragons, you need to back that up with quality card draw to refill your hand and keep you from running out of gas.
You never posted a deck list on the front page in the opening post for us to follow your changes like most people do, so I am not sure what your deck looks like right now.
I will quote Tomer Abramovici from his article Budget Commander: $20 Draconic Domination Upgrade from Oct 09, 2017. Even what I cut and paste below is just a sampling and the highlights of what he wrote. He literally answers the question you pose in the title of this thread.
Right out of the box, Draconic Domination is a beatdown deck that's all about playing big splashy Dragons, usually casting one per turn, and swinging in for big damage. There are tons of heavy-hitting Dragons that get even deadlier with more of their brethren on the battlefield, such as Scourge of Valkas and Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury. If you manage to stick just a few of these Dragons on the board together and they don't get answered immediately, chances are you'll win the game in short order.
Since you'll be playing relatively few cards per turn and each card is a sizeable threat, Draconic Domination is well-suited to survive tables full of board wipes (e.g. Wrath of God) but may struggle with targeted removal (e.g. Swords to Plowshares) and sacrifice removal (e.g. Grave Pact). The deck does run Scalelord Reckoner and Monastery Siege to help protect against targeted removal and runs some graveyard recursion, but nonetheless it's a weakness to keep in mind.
(...)
I can't help but grin like an idiot when I look at The Ur-Dragon; this card is just plain epic! Huge mana cost for a huge, flashy as hell card, the epitome of Battlecruiser Magic in my eyes. The Ur-Dragon would've instantly been my top pick for a commander back when I was a wide-eyed Timmy new to Magic, and even now as a crotchety old man this card warms my cold, pessimistic heart. The Ur-Dragon is the ideal leader for a Dragon deck that wants to cast Dragons, which is a stark contrast to how Scion of the Ur-Dragon wants to play.
Is The Ur-Dragon a good commander for Draconic Domination? Yeah, absolutely! Dragons are a high-cmc tribe, so unsurprisingly the deck has a whopping average 4.37 converted mana cost! For reference, my decks generally have a 3.5 average cmc. That's insane! Because of the crazy high cmc of your spells, The Ur-Dragon's mana cost reduction is a huge help, reducing the cost of 28 cards in the deck. The mana reduction is honestly the main draw of The Ur-Dragon; it will sit in your command zone for the vast majority of your game, passively helping ramp out your big Dragons. Yeah, it has a huge powerful effect when it enters the battlefield, but at a whopping 9 cmc, The Ur-Dragon won't spend much time on the battlefield.
If you're looking to upgrade the deck and building specifically around The Ur-Dragon, the goal remains the same: casting big Dragons and winning with them. You're playing The Ur-Dragon for its eminence; casting it is just the cherry on top.
What Is The Deck Lacking?
As I often explain in my Budget Commander articles, every time I build a rough draft of a deck, I make sure I have a certain ratio of mana, interaction, card advantage, etc. This gives me a reference point to compare to the deck and see which areas may need improvement. My general ratio is:
50 mana; lands and ramp; usually a 38-12 split
10 sources of "card advantage;" I use this term loosely, but mostly looking for card draw or any spell that nets me 2+ nonland cards in hand / directly into play
6 targeted removal split between creature / artifact / enchantment removal
3 board wipes
2 recursion
2 flexible tutors
1 graveyard hate
1 surprise "I Win" card
That's always my starting point, which is then tweaked to suit the individual deck's strategy, and further tweaked with playtesting. I always find it immensely useful to figure out some quick ways to improve the deck in question. Let's see what the rough ratios are for Draconic Domination and how it compares:
54 mana/ramp: 37 lands and for ramp we've got The Ur-Dragon is an enormous one and counts more than anything else since it's always available, Dragonlord's Servant, Dragonspeaker Shaman, Farseek, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Sol Ring, Wayfarer's Bauble, Armillary Sphere, Commander's Sphere, Darksteel Ingot, Fist of Suns, Dreamstone Hedron, Frontier Siege, Curse of Opulence, Curse of Bounty, Herald's Horn, Ramos, Dragon Engine
9 "card advantage": Intet, the Dreamer, Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius, Teneb, the Harvester, Painful Truths, Elemental Bond, Palace Siege, Curse of Verbosity, Herald's Horn, Kindred Discovery, you can count Dreamstone Hedron too but I don't
7 targeted removal: Scourge of Valkas, Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius, Ojutai, Soul of Winter, Tyrant's Familiar, Rain of Thorns, Frontier Siege, Fractured Identity, and there's also Scalelord Reckoner / O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami but those rely on your opponents so I don't count them
6 board wipes: Ryusei, the Falling Star, Silumgar, the Drifting Death, Steel Hellkite, Deathbringer Regent, Crux of Fate, Fortunate Few
4 recursion: Teneb, the Harvester, Bladewing the Risen, Palace Siege, Haven of the Spirit Dragon; Boneyard Scourge gets itself back but that's not what I want
1 tutor: Scion of the Ur-Dragon
1 graveyard hate: Nihil Spellbomb
1 surprise "I Win" card: Hellkite Charger can let you take a bunch of extra combat steps with Savage Ventmaw or Curse of Bounty, which should be enough to deal lethal damage to all your opponents
It looks like Draconic Domination covers most of the ratios very well. It has above-average mana/ramp, which makes sense given its high average cmc. It has a good deal of interaction, including particularly good ones like Crux of Fate leading to one-sided board wipes. Even the mana-fixing is pretty solid, which is surprising considering how many people were complaining about the "poor fixing" the deck comes with. The deck covers its bases well, even if some of the card choices are subpar, like Dreamstone Hedron and Fist of Suns in the role of ramp.
The biggest weakness in the deck would be the lack of tutoring. The deck runs a lot of situationally great cards, from Nihil Spellbomb to ruin Reanimator decks to Silumgar, the Drifting Death locking down Go Wide strategies. However, you really need tutors to make sure you find those cards at the right times. Scion of the Ur-Dragon is fantastic at temporarily becoming a Dragon answer to a problem, but that's only one card in the deck.
I also feel the deck's card advantage department needs restructuring. The deck is built so you won't be casting more than one or two spells per turn, so you typically won't have an empty hand but you still want some raw card draw to make sure you're hitting your land drops and have options on what you can cast. Big cards like Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius draws cards, sure, but you're paying a lot of mana for that 5/5 body; you'll want a couple more mana-efficient ways to draw cards like Painful Truths.
That is kind of it. A five color dragons deck doesn't have to be a strict reanimator deck, but if you are not abusing your graveyard to your advantage, then you are not playing the deck to its fullest potential.
I hope some of hat helps.
Oh, and how many people are you playing again? If you are playing 4 player games and your win loss ration was 4-4 like you said in your opening post, then you are doing well. Any 4 player situation should have a 25% chance of victory with all things being equal... which they never are. Having a 50% win ratio (double of what should be expected).
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
I added the deck list to the first post (Well a link that has updates such as removed and added, Loyalty and the color percentage.
to answer your question about players, I usually play 4 sometimes 3. My deck has spread out to win about 1/3rd of the time now. It still wins and in 3 people it does fare better.
I do run Rise of the Dark Realm. Granted I would appreciate some more mass recursion, I do not see it ias strongly needed.
I do have a lot of raw power in this deck. I will also be switching out Sarkhan (Which is already used as draw power) to replace it with The Immortal Sun )Sice the immortal sun nullifies Sarkhan anyway and I am never going to get his ult off. Sun just seems better. I ave other draw spells as well (Like Kindred Discovery) and my dragons can activate all of those draw effects.
Looking at the list, here are the cards that stick out to me as bad, and why:
Crystal Quarry - This loses you one mana to get you five colors. Getting your colors should not be a problem in this deck. I would rather have City of Brass and Mana Confluence
Pillar of the Paruns - This doesn't have the option to add colorless for mono colored spells or artifacts, so this is the other card i would cut to make space for City and confluence.
The rest of the lands seem obvious and perfectly fine. If there was any problem, it is that you will roll over and die to Blood Moon, but i think we worry about that when it becomes a consistent problem, not before.
Fist of Suns - How often are you casting 6+ casting cost spells for only 5 with this? how many Dragons which cost 7+ are you cheating into play instead of using your normal cost reduction and just hard casting them? Mathematically, there are only 4 non-creature spells this cheats the casting cost of. As we know, your 6 drop dragons are really 5 drops because of The Ur Dragon, so it doesn't even help them. that means only 8 creatures and the commander benifit from this artifact. That is a total of 13 cards + The Ur Dragon. to me, that is not nearly enough cards to make it worth it. Moreover, it doesn't get around commander tax:
Fist of Suns doesn't replace any additional costs or cost increases, so you still have to pay the Commander tax. In game terms, Fist of Suns provides an alternative cost [CR 117.9]. The Commander tax is an additional cost [CR 903.10].
Channel the Suns - This is basically a ritual that gives you +1 mana for the cost of a card. Unless I am missing something, you are not doing anything to abuse this spell. You are not reducing the cost to a single green. You are not copying it cheaply to add 10 or more mana, or going infinite with it. I wouldn't ever want to draw this or burn a card from my hand to cast it. To me, this is an easy cut.
That is not many "obviously bad" cards, so I give you a lot of credit for building a solid list.
Here are the dragons I question, and why:
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury - I understand that the +1/+0 stacks with each Dragon, but he is a "win more" card. When he is the only dragon, it doesn't matter, and if you have three or more attacking... you are already attacking with three or more dragons, does the +3 or more really matter at that point?
Scion of the Ur-Dragon - If you are not interested in having him as your commander, then how excited are you to draw him in the 99? This deck isn't really built around him, so how much good is he doing you in the 99? He doesn't benefit from cost reducers, and you need seven mana if you want to activate him with haste, which also cannot be reduced. I think he need to be cut for something better too.
Dragon Broodmother - Maybe I am undervaluing this creature, but it doesn't look like you are taking advantage of Devour 2. You are not using Dragon Fodder or anything like that. That must mean you are just creating 1/1 dragons for EtB triggers and when you attack like with Kindred Discovery. That seems alright, but very slow. It also doesn't benefit much from your additional colorless cost reducers either. I just cannot imagine being excited about top decking and casting this.
Dragonlord Kolaghan - In commander, his second ability will never trigger, so this is only really in the deck to give haste. That's alright. I guess it is a redundancy.
Tyrant's Familiar - How often do you have this and The Ur Dragon in play? How often don't you? That 7 damage to a defending creature is very nice. Just how often is this just a 5/5 for six (or less with other cost reduction)?
Draco - I assume this is in here because you have a cool looking foil. I get it. It costs 10 less once you have all five basic land types, then an additional 1 or more less thans to The Ur Dragon and other cost reducers. Casting a 9/9 flyer for 5 or less is for real. However, unless you get one of your +1 power effects online, that 9 power sits at a funny place mathematically. At 10 power, you cna kill someone in four attacks, but at 9 power, it will take five turns without other help. that may seem trivial, but it isn't. especially when multiplied by two or three opponents. That means two or three more turns to kill people. That adds up. Still, a 9/9 for five is nasty. A Skullclamp and/or Loxodon Warhammer would really make a difference in the deck, and especially here. Suddenly you would have a 10/8 with life insurance, or a 12/9 with trample and life link.
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I only see six cards that really give you card draw. I like all of them, but are they really enough? I assume that your tutors are used to find Kindred Discovery, because that is your best card draw by far. It helps that you have the two tutors, and once you get Kindred Discovery going, I am sure you snowball into card advantage. Still... I like to have more draw in my decks.
There was a great artcle on the Wizards of the coast forums before they were taken down a few years ago that did the math of commander. It talked about four kinds of cards: Lands, ramp, draw/tutors, and "action spells." It showed the math between a deck with only lands and action spells vs a deck with 34 lands, 11 forms of ramp, 12 forms of card draw/tutors, and 42 action spells. It demonstrated that over the course of 10 turns, that despite having fewer action spells in the deck, the one with ramp and draw will see far more action spells each game and have access to more mana to cast those action spells (in addition to mana spent on ramp and card draw) than a deck without it. The main point was that players don't use enough ramp or enough card draw, and until you are hitting those numbers or higher, you probably are not playing enough.
Again I know that Kindred Discovery can go crazy, but what about when you don't have it or a tutor? then what? Additional draw spells will help you dig deeper, and I might cut some of the weaker dragons in favor of more draw. that way you hand isn't full of weaker dragons and you can dig deeper to the dragons you want.
Finally, I see nothing to answer nasty artifacts or enchantments other than Steel Hellkite. It seems like if someone plays any kind of meaningful defense against you, you are done for. You have zero outs... and are in five colors. That just wouldn't work for me.
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I hope that helps. It is just my opinion from my experience. Take it for what you will.
"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
For starters, Pillar has been gone for a while, (in place was a mountain, for cards like path to exile) i am gonna have to update that. (I guess i missed it in one of my first updates on the deck)
Crystal Quarry is also leaving (probably in place of Reliquary tower as no max hand size is nice, and quarry taps for colorless 99% of the time anyway)
Channel the suns was back when the deck was new and before i had such a great mana base. It is midocre now, But at least it has been useful It is gonna stay for now. Even as a ritual for only +1, i like getting WUBRG s opposed to getting BBB You can do more with WUBRG)
Kologhan is actually staying (Both of them) as The +1/+0 is a good aspect when hitting multiple people. he gets teh bonus regradless of where my dragons are going. The otehr one grants haste which is one of the 4 spells in my deck that does (Followed by Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, Temur Ascendancy and Akroma's Memorial.)
Scion is probably gonna go (Funnily enough, He has tutored for the kolaghan dragons before. for haste and the +1/+0)
Broodmother, she is bait. People waste kill spells on her and Draco. Leave them alive, They can be deadly, but i have seen so many spot removal dropped on those two and leaving my other more dangerous dragons alone. (Like Atarka)
Draco (just said, Bait, that is useful)
Tyrant's Familair. Granted he is often out when My general is not, but I still get a 5/5 haste.
I guess I will remove Channel and Scion and add in skull clamp and reoval (Like maybe Krosan's Grip, or maybe even spine of Ish Sah, (So i can get rid of blood moon)
Speaking fo blood moon, I have only ever lost one game (Due to blood moon) when it was played, and I was already bleeding. However, Ironically, It was also the reason i have wan a couple games. You would think a 5 color deck that runs one basic (Which is still a mountain) would suffer and I will admit i am not happy when i see it. But it is funny when it hurts the other players enough. Usually when Blood moon come out the red player is in the lead. But as of late, it is not the case. Blood moon is seen more as a desperation move in most of my games. Also if it is hindering me, other players are also in pain. ( can name 6 mono deck in my group, Norin, Nehab, Purphoros, Gonti, Linvala, Seton, as you can see, only two are red (and play blood moon) and i don't even play them that often.
Why I couldn't use some good cards which are not Dragons? When i play in 3 or 4 people i decided to put Sheoldred, Whispering One because card is awesome. Also, next time i will put enchantment Grave Betrayel when playing in 3 or 4 people.
Bought Tooth and Nail. I have already succeeded play for 9 mana and it was so cool. And what do you think about this dragon Mana-charged dragon? I will put him too in my deck.
I would argue that Genju isn't a particularly good card most of the time. And its especially not good in a synergy laden deck like a tribal strategy.
Sheoldred is one thing because she is independently powerful. She also supports the reanimation subtheme that this deck tends to like. But otherwise she does detract in a small way from your tribal synergies.
Betrayal is also a fine card but it's power is much diminished in a deck like this because you usually dont have a ton of removal. It works better in a deck focused around Grave Pact effects or board wipe heavy decks.
I mean I'm sure lots of people play T&N in their dragon deck as a higher floor, lower ceiling Dragonstorm. I don't because my curve is already pretty high and I generally dislike super generic tutors that make a deck too consistent.
Mana-Charged Dragon ia bad. Or at least not up to snuff. You generally don't want to rely on your opponents for your stuff to work. It may have some political value but I dont think that's worth it. Especially because powering it asks for you and your opponents to hold up mana meaning not advancing strategies. At best it may get one player kill in a game before someone decides you may turn it on him amd kills it. At worst its a 5/5 for 5 that you spent a turn casting when you could have cast something better.
Didn't know for Grave Pact, thanks. But it's not cheap card and i already bought too many cards for my Dragons, modern Elfs, Dinosaurs and some other decks.
Mana-Charged is better in 1 vs 1. Let say you have 8 mana in pool. Which is really often. In next turn you can deal 13 damage to player. Probably when you attack he will be under 30 life points, so 13 or even more damage is not small. But this is only my opinion
Grave Pact isn't a card for this deck either. Its for decks where you're abusing it with sac outlets. (However if you want it for other decks you can get Dictate of Erebos and/or Butcher of Malakir)
As for the dragon I would argue that it's not really any better in 1v1. In Multiplayer you have several opponents with answers but each one has to spread them out amongst three other players. In 1v1 you have fewer total answers floating around but now all of them are focused on you. If you play mana charged on 5(via Ur Dragon) and then on 6 play a land and smash in I'm going to let you crank all 6 mana you have and then I'm going to path him and eat 10 of your mana in a 1 for 1 card exchange. Hell even if I call out a card I actually have in the deck in Utter End or Anguished Unmaking I still get 7 to 8 of your mana in that exchange. Its not that it's necessarily an actual bad card as much as it just doesn't cut the mustard compared to options you could go with. For example my 6 cost dragons in a not particularly tuned deck are: Hoard-Smelter Dragon (to throw a little hate at my meta's Breya deck) Broodmate Dragon Intet the Dreamer Dragonlord Dromoka(a must) Ramos, Dragon Engine Numot, the Devastator(to take care of utility lands) Dragonlord Kolaghan(for Dragonstorm combos) Steel Hellkite Silumgar, the Drifting Death Teneb, the Harvester(reanimation) Hellkite Charger(c-c-c-combos with...) Savage Ventmaw
Ramos, Broodmate, and Intet are really the only ones I'd consider removing. The others are too good in their utility. And really Mana charged isn't even on the list of possible replacements.
No, I literally counted that. As I said, there were 13 cards in the deck, 8 of which were creatures, which benifit from the Fist. Obviously those are the 5 non-creature spells, and as I said, that is not nearly enough cards to benefit mathematically to justify having that card in your deck. At least, not in my opinion. Not to mention that you are not trying to play those spells on turn four (with ramp) or five, as they are not nearly as impactful. The turns you are ready to cast them, you should have the mana for them and they should pretty much win the game for you on the spot without really needing to save a few mana on them. I cannot see myself ever wanting to draw and cast Fist of Suns in a deck like this. I think it goes a lot better in Ramos.
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As for the other dragons, I did not read any compelling argument for them. As in, if I were trying to copy your deck and optimize it, they would be gone without a hint of regret. Saying something is "bait" is really weak. Every creature in your deck should be "bait," especially in Dragons, where every greature is a battle-cruiser threat. There are better dragons than those, and the deck already has enough good threats while needing to clear up room for more support... they are the easy cuts to make room for said support.
Remember, i am not trying to be negative, just make constructive criticism . I actually like how tight the list is and how few obvious weak points there are. I have shared the list with my best friend so he can study it and steal ideas he likes.
When I am pointing out 10 cards out of 99 and two of them are lands you are already changing, that is a credit to the deck. I just think you can get more value out of improving those other eight slots.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
I did a count myself and only fond 12, unless you are including draco, which you should not be as I often cast him for 5 or less. I try not to cast him when I will start having to pay upkeep. Forgot about my commander. d'oh.
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By bait i am referring to thems pending thier answers on the wrong card. For example, Numot, Broodmother and Draco often eat spot removal, My commander is aso very goo at getting answers used on him. All 4 are very good, but in the end, cards like Atarka, world render should be what they are saving their answers for.
Granted I guess Draco can be scary, but he does not have trample, chump blocking him works. Same with Numot (in fact of all my dragons, only two have trample and One fo them is Atarka (Can you tell i like Atarka?)
Broodmother is also really good in this deck. Her spawn may not trigger elemental bond and Temur Ascendancy (though Crucible of fire does allow them to.) They also trigger Dragon Tempest and Scourge of Valkas.
Now hen the litte guys attack, they also trigger 5 dragons
may not be the largest list, but they do pull their weight, and again, Broodmother eats so much spot removal I love to laugh about it. She is one of the few that is not a battelcruisr. What she can do and what she does do make her a good asset to the deck.
I guess I should find some way to grant Trample and Pumps overall. I still have to remove Scion as (like you said) not worth it.
As for Fist of Suns, It is a compelling argument overall, but more times than not, That reduction of 4 on Plague Wind and Rise of the Dark realms has won me games. Also, it eats artifact destruction. Granted that i only have 13 cards that use it, if people are spending a Krosan grip on it, I'm fine with that.
Sometimes Bait cards are what win you games. They perform on their own, but also distract people form the more dangerous threats.
But i also run Cost reduction For dragons (totaling -7 and I may have missed one or two) If i have all my reducers out, i am just paying the colors for my dragons.
I had a game this morning into the earpy afternoon which came down to his Scion deck and my vampires.
My Eldrazi Monument, and his inability to destroy it or trample over me is why I won.
My vampires all got flying and cpuld chump for days. Door of Destinies got up to 6 counters on it quickly because my deck is filled with vampires witch a converted mana cost between 1 and 3. Dark Prophecy was a synergy with the Monument. I sacrifice a token, lose a life to draw a card which was often a vampire, play it and get a counter on the door and a token, which were all larger and eventually stopped chump blockig and were 8/8 or larger.
A simple artifact hate spell could have taken out the monument, then plague wind effects would have eneded it for him.
I cannot overstate how important Rakdos Charm is.
That thing kills an important artifact, can be instant speed graveyard hate to stop a combo like infinite turns or anything else nasty, and the 1 damage option has caused my wofe to second guess when she should try to combo with infinite tokens. She is still mad at me for knocking her out of a game like that.
That is what I see as missing in your list. You don't need a lot of answers, but it doesnt seem like you have enough. Many games are won onnthe backs of stopping a combo or answering a nasty artifact or enchantment. Especially in Commander.
You might take a look at Aura Shards. That wpuld go well with Broodmother and constatnly trying to cast one or more dragon every turn if able.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
Technicaly I lost due to forgetting Mirari''s wake also gave +1/+1, But as teh game ended and we started packing up i remembered that so we agreed I won (It didn;t matter anyway. I was down to 1, he had 30 life, the other opponent had 22. I swung 6 dragons at each which i counted as 30 each. The guy with 22 mazed one of my dragons that was attacking the other player, so instead of taking 30 and being eliminated he only took 25.
Of course, a quick check after i knew the game was over. I realized that he still would have taken 30 due to having 6/6 dragons not 5/5
But yea Rite kicked on any dragon is still 5 artifacts gone thanks to Shards. It is a good pick. Will be worth it for now. I may later decide to remove other cards to include trample. Too bad there are no dragons that do that like the ones that grants haste.
I feel like the clunkiness of the manabase is it. Theoretically the cost reduction should make it much more feasible to play a deck full of 5 and 6 drops when they cost 4-5, but the lands entering tapped makes you still feel like you're playing these cards on turn 6 at times.
Oh wait, you meant assuming a perfect manabase. I think in this case it is the fact that it is a beatdown focused tribal deck.. There's probably a limit as to how good that can be.
I think you nail it 100% on all fronts. I love a good beatdown tribal deck, but that's ultimately a fair deck and it isn't going to compete at a top-tier level with the best of commander.
THAT SAID, turning it into a full-on Scion of the Ur-Dragon combo deck would probably be possible. I've tried to do that with my modification of the deck. I don't own or play a Skythrix, so no poison shenanigans, but using scion as a tutor piece and then reanimating the dragons it bins is powerful. Scourge of Valkas (whether "real" or copied by Scion) plus Rite of Replication also typically wins on the spot, so I added Rite to the deck. Rite is also great with Dragon Tempest and/or Broodmate Dragon.
I feel like the clunkiness of the manabase is it. Theoretically the cost reduction should make it much more feasible to play a deck full of 5 and 6 drops when they cost 4-5, but the lands entering tapped makes you still feel like you're playing these cards on turn 6 at times.
Oh wait, you meant assuming a perfect manabase. I think in this case it is the fact that it is a beatdown focused tribal deck.. There's probably a limit as to how good that can be.
I think you nail it 100% on all fronts. I love a good beatdown tribal deck, but that's ultimately a fair deck and it isn't going to compete at a top-tier level with the best of commander.
THAT SAID, turning it into a full-on Scion of the Ur-Dragon combo deck would probably be possible. I've tried to do that with my modification of the deck. I don't own or play a Skythrix, so no poison shenanigans, but using scion as a tutor piece and then reanimating the dragons it bins is powerful. Scourge of Valkas (whether "real" or copied by Scion) plus Rite of Replication also typically wins on the spot, so I added Rite to the deck. Rite is also great with Dragon Tempest and/or Broodmate Dragon.
What if you rite kicked valkas while you have Tempest out?
What if you rite kicked valkas while you have Tempest out?
"Now I am become death. Destroyer of worlds."
Edit: specifically, 5 triggers of 6 damage from 7 different permanents. 35 total triggers. 210 damage total capable of being fired in units of 6.
Edit the second: and that's from an otherwise empty board.
so if i had more dragons on board... more damage.
I am really bad with the math of Rite of Replication. I know that using it on Reaper king gives you 30 vindicates, but that is the limit. (6 permanents see 5 come into play. 30.)
But for valkas i counted 60 damage, from what you stated it is over 3 times that amount.
I am really bad with the math of Rite of Replication. I know that using it on Reaper king gives you 30 vindicates, but that is the limit. (6 permanents see 5 come into play. 30.)
But for valkas i counted 60 damage, from what you stated it is over 3 times that amount.
The only way it could be 60 is if each trigger was for 2 damage. However Scourge and Tempest both count the total number of dragons in play. So if your board is empty other than Scourge when Rite resolves you will have, as you said, 6 Permanents seeing 5 dragons entering play. This is a total of 30 triggers, each of which fires a 6 damage blast. Thats 180 damage. Add in the Tempest and you get another 5 triggers adding 30 more damage. If you have, say Dragonlord Dromoka to protect your plays, in play each of those triggers becomes 7 instead of 6 upping the grand total to 245.
Rites is a card I really want to include in my deck but too many of my dragons are legendary and nonbos with Steely Resolve so it would just be a dead card in my hand a lot of the time. But man, the thought of casting that on a Broodmate Dragon or of course Scourge of Valkas.
Been playing more with my deck now that I'm not a one work crew for the time being and so far my feel for the archetype is
* Having a constant flow of dragons once the 4rth or so turn starts. People removing your dragons? Throw down more! Don't stop. Inhale, summon dragon, exhale. Overwhelm their defenses and kill them before they can draw more defenses. This means
1: Having a bountiful supply of dragons so you can vomit them out every turn but not so much where you're staring at an un-castable hand. I'd say maybe around 20ish? Probably no more than 25 though. I myself am constantly experimenting with the right ratio because I also have to consider my normally awful drawing luck.
2: Keep a balance on the dragons CMC. Too many Ur-Dragon deck lists focus on raw power with a bunch of 6+ drops (This is considering the eminence discount) that are really only good at eating a Spell Swindle. 4-5ish mana dragons are not to be underestimated and do have their uses.
3: You need to keep drawing extra cards. A constant flow of new cards being added to your hand not only allows you to keep up the onslaught, but it also ensures that you don't miss a land drop. This is a casual deck so you're probably going to want to go mainly with permanent based gradual extra draw like Kindred Discovery but do throw in a couple one time spells like Painful Truths to refresh your hand if you get board wiped.
4: Speaking of wipes, a way to bounce back after your field is wiped out. We have options with reanimation like Patriarch's Bidding and instant board states like Genesis Wave. A couple of those must be considered so that the onslaught can play out anew after the Hour of Revelation. It doubles as an alternate wincon as all it takes is a sudden dragon swarm with a Scourge of Valkas or Dragon Tempest.
* Ways to deal with obstacles to your face smashing extravaganza because trust me you will be facing plenty in a multiplayer game.
1: Have some easy to cast, cheap instant answers like Swan Song and Nature's Claim as you'll be almost tapped out all the time. Cards like Utter End sound marvelous on paper but for that mana cost it's usually "congratulations on spending your turn to remove one thing".
2: The bigger, harder answers are going to be wipes. Personally, I'm a fan of the more one-sided types of wipes as this is a board state based deck. Things like Cyclonic Rift, Crux of Fate, and Toxic Deluge (As you're the one with the fatties that could survive). I recommend at least one panic symmetrical wipe like Merciless Eviction or Oblivion Stone.
3: You're a big theft target. Be sure to have some stuff like Homeward Path, Brand, mass bounce, or something.
4: Don't neglect graveyard hate. Just don't.
* Ramp is essential but don't overdo it. You're already getting a 1 mana discount for your main assets that can only be dealt with by bounce or really cruel uses of turn theft effects. Definately include the cheaper but effective ramp spells like Farseek and Cultivate but you won't actually need big ramp spells like Mana Reflection. You don't want to spend too much time buffing your manabase at the expense of time spent ramming dragons into people.
* Stay on topic. A lot of deck lists fail at that because most builders are hardcore timmies but for your deck to function at least somewhat smooth a level of restraint is necessary. I'm glad you opened that cool eldrazi or planeswalker or whatever but they only offer what you want, not what you need. The dragons alone are more than enough big splashy spells for the deck so you'll only want any other high costing spell to take the game or to stop others from taking them game immediately. Why include Sheoldred, Whispering One to kill other's creatures and reanimate your own gradually when you can do it all at once for less with living death? What is the point of including Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh when you're not actually trying to control the game as much as you're trying to just murder everyone in the game?
* Praise the Ice Age for killing the dinosaurs because I don't really regret missing out on most of the Ixlan block. Stupid vampires getting to double dip oh yeah you have your fun guys while we don't get any new dragon creature cards for 3 (4 if you count unstable) consecutive sets. Grumble grumble.
TL;DR Ur-Dragon is going to pretty much be a bad green deck but at least not horrifyingly boring and unpleasant to play with and play against.
I can agree that the big thing you want to do as a beatdown focused deck is to make sure that you follow up every one of your plays and especially once they answer them.
Ur-dragon does help with the problem, but you are still fundamentally a beatdown deck that throws down 5-6 cmc (cost reduction included) beaters.
Definitely include cheap removal, but understanding your role, only include enough to feel confident that you can take out something that absolutely matters when the situation calls for it.
I actually think library manipulation is extra important in beatdown decks as it allows you to not overdraw on big things or ramp but assist in making it more likely to hit the ratios that you want.
Since you do have access to blue, if your mana base is good enough to handle early turn blue, instead of running say.. 25 dragons, run 20 and then use those other 5 slots for cards that can either get you dragons or something else if the situation calls for it. Having access to all 5 colors allows a lot of access to multifunctional cards.
hmm, Patriarch's bidding is a card i should look into. At the moment i do not want to harm my mana base too much so i will stay away from Homward for now (As theft is not the biggest issue. (Aside from Merieke ri Berit, and i find answering one deck is not worth it I still usually win against her anyway)
I should look into Steely Resolve i am not sur if I will run it but since the only card i run that targets is in fact Rite, it might be worth it. Plus it will eat destruction.
Genesis Wave is another card I should look at as If i can get a high enough mana count, it would be worth it. I don't have many non permanents, so casting t for 10 will probably give e at least 8 permanents. In fact everything in my deck is also less than 10 CMC (except for Draco)
Added Journey to Eternity//Atzal, Cave of Eternity instead Unburial Rites. It cost 2 mana less and i can take my opponet creature. When this creature dies it comes back to me and then transform to enchantment, which gives you 1 mana of any color and for 5 mana you can bring your Dragons from graveyard to battlefield.
Journey can only enchant your creatures, you cannot steal opponents'.
(now if you had already stolen the creature then enchant, then kill it that is a different story.)
I might add that card if i can pick one up. It is a good card. Not as easy to flip it when you are running giant fatties, but who knows, maybe slap it into dragonspeaker shaman and run him into an attacker.
I always felt Numot, the Devastator is the opposite of what one should put in a The Ur-Dragon. The Ur-Dragon was designed to be cas' and fun. If you really want to be "that guy" there are decks way above the ur-dragon's league like STAX. Like, I know I wouldn't be happy if someone cloned/took control of my Numot and used it to lock me out of playing my spells so why would I think it would be ok to use Numot myself?
I always felt Numot, the Devastator is the opposite of what one should put in a The Ur-Dragon. The Ur-Dragon was designed to be cas' and fun. If you really want to be "that guy" there are decks way above the ur-dragon's league like STAX. Like, I know I wouldn't be happy if someone cloned/took control of my Numot and used it to lock me out of playing my spells so why would I think it would be ok to use Numot myself?
I was the first one here to bring up the use of Numot. He certainly, I think, requires a player who cares about the social contract. I only use him to blow up utility lands that are a problem. I have a general policy of not blowing up lands that only produce mana anyway. This mindset stems from my group having a guy who would consistently use Alchemist's Refuge to win and, for a while at least he's getting better about it, was really slow to play once he had that option.
Yeah definitely gotta take initiative with politics with that card. Me, I'm in a group that has no qualms with keeping me off a color or two if they must. I guess my new Crucible should help with that.
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i also play Ventmaw, and it is true, getting RRRGGG or just attacking is more reliable than having to connect, sadly it is only 1/99 ways to gt the mana to get multiple attack phases.I would need to revise my dragon deck to compensate for multiple attack phases.
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Not usre if I mentiond it but the reason I play dragons is because of the Ur-Dragon. Prior to ur-dragon i did not like the only 5 color option i had (Scion) s i had heistated heavily on building dragons.
Upon teh spoilers for the Ur-Dragon i was hyped. Having never been able to play Dragons before due to only having Scion, I was psyched.
SO If i did build scion i would focus on a much more aggressive play style with consistent win cons and a much faster ramp package. But i was not aiming for the re-animator build, and I like having the ur-dragn in my command zone, that -1 helps a lot more than you may think (But my deck has a lot of -1 or -2 effects. It gets to the point where I am casting dragons for colors only, or in some cases (Like Steel hellkite and Draco) cast em for free.
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Hey, that is great. I did not read every post, mostly because it was started back in like august or something and had been brought back to life several days ago.
Well, the other typical advice i can give and was giving to my best friend while he wanted to focus on The Ur Dragon was to have lots of ramp to compliment the cost reduction, and signets are my favorite because they help fix your mana and give you hints on which dual lands or shock lands to fetch up on those early turns.
As I said in my last post, you have to evaluate your play groups as well. If you games are ending on turn 4, there is not much we can do to help you. Otherwise, I suggest you have 12-14 ways to draw cards or tutor for card draw. With a lot of ramp and cost reduction combined with the desire to play a lot of dragons, you need to back that up with quality card draw to refill your hand and keep you from running out of gas.
You never posted a deck list on the front page in the opening post for us to follow your changes like most people do, so I am not sure what your deck looks like right now.
I will quote Tomer Abramovici from his article Budget Commander: $20 Draconic Domination Upgrade from Oct 09, 2017. Even what I cut and paste below is just a sampling and the highlights of what he wrote. He literally answers the question you pose in the title of this thread.
That is kind of it. A five color dragons deck doesn't have to be a strict reanimator deck, but if you are not abusing your graveyard to your advantage, then you are not playing the deck to its fullest potential.
I hope some of hat helps.
Oh, and how many people are you playing again? If you are playing 4 player games and your win loss ration was 4-4 like you said in your opening post, then you are doing well. Any 4 player situation should have a 25% chance of victory with all things being equal... which they never are. Having a 50% win ratio (double of what should be expected).
I added the deck list to the first post (Well a link that has updates such as removed and added, Loyalty and the color percentage.
to answer your question about players, I usually play 4 sometimes 3. My deck has spread out to win about 1/3rd of the time now. It still wins and in 3 people it does fare better.
I do run Rise of the Dark Realm. Granted I would appreciate some more mass recursion, I do not see it ias strongly needed.
I do have a lot of raw power in this deck. I will also be switching out Sarkhan (Which is already used as draw power) to replace it with The Immortal Sun )Sice the immortal sun nullifies Sarkhan anyway and I am never going to get his ult off. Sun just seems better. I ave other draw spells as well (Like Kindred Discovery) and my dragons can activate all of those draw effects.
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Alright, great.
Looking at the list, here are the cards that stick out to me as bad, and why:
Crystal Quarry - This loses you one mana to get you five colors. Getting your colors should not be a problem in this deck. I would rather have City of Brass and Mana Confluence
Pillar of the Paruns - This doesn't have the option to add colorless for mono colored spells or artifacts, so this is the other card i would cut to make space for City and confluence.
The rest of the lands seem obvious and perfectly fine. If there was any problem, it is that you will roll over and die to Blood Moon, but i think we worry about that when it becomes a consistent problem, not before.
Fist of Suns - How often are you casting 6+ casting cost spells for only 5 with this? how many Dragons which cost 7+ are you cheating into play instead of using your normal cost reduction and just hard casting them? Mathematically, there are only 4 non-creature spells this cheats the casting cost of. As we know, your 6 drop dragons are really 5 drops because of The Ur Dragon, so it doesn't even help them. that means only 8 creatures and the commander benifit from this artifact. That is a total of 13 cards + The Ur Dragon. to me, that is not nearly enough cards to make it worth it. Moreover, it doesn't get around commander tax:
Channel the Suns - This is basically a ritual that gives you +1 mana for the cost of a card. Unless I am missing something, you are not doing anything to abuse this spell. You are not reducing the cost to a single green. You are not copying it cheaply to add 10 or more mana, or going infinite with it. I wouldn't ever want to draw this or burn a card from my hand to cast it. To me, this is an easy cut.
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That is not many "obviously bad" cards, so I give you a lot of credit for building a solid list.
Here are the dragons I question, and why:
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury - I understand that the +1/+0 stacks with each Dragon, but he is a "win more" card. When he is the only dragon, it doesn't matter, and if you have three or more attacking... you are already attacking with three or more dragons, does the +3 or more really matter at that point?
Scion of the Ur-Dragon - If you are not interested in having him as your commander, then how excited are you to draw him in the 99? This deck isn't really built around him, so how much good is he doing you in the 99? He doesn't benefit from cost reducers, and you need seven mana if you want to activate him with haste, which also cannot be reduced. I think he need to be cut for something better too.
Dragon Broodmother - Maybe I am undervaluing this creature, but it doesn't look like you are taking advantage of Devour 2. You are not using Dragon Fodder or anything like that. That must mean you are just creating 1/1 dragons for EtB triggers and when you attack like with Kindred Discovery. That seems alright, but very slow. It also doesn't benefit much from your additional colorless cost reducers either. I just cannot imagine being excited about top decking and casting this.
Dragonlord Kolaghan - In commander, his second ability will never trigger, so this is only really in the deck to give haste. That's alright. I guess it is a redundancy.
Tyrant's Familiar - How often do you have this and The Ur Dragon in play? How often don't you? That 7 damage to a defending creature is very nice. Just how often is this just a 5/5 for six (or less with other cost reduction)?
Draco - I assume this is in here because you have a cool looking foil. I get it. It costs 10 less once you have all five basic land types, then an additional 1 or more less thans to The Ur Dragon and other cost reducers. Casting a 9/9 flyer for 5 or less is for real. However, unless you get one of your +1 power effects online, that 9 power sits at a funny place mathematically. At 10 power, you cna kill someone in four attacks, but at 9 power, it will take five turns without other help. that may seem trivial, but it isn't. especially when multiplied by two or three opponents. That means two or three more turns to kill people. That adds up. Still, a 9/9 for five is nasty. A Skullclamp and/or Loxodon Warhammer would really make a difference in the deck, and especially here. Suddenly you would have a 10/8 with life insurance, or a 12/9 with trample and life link.
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I only see six cards that really give you card draw. I like all of them, but are they really enough? I assume that your tutors are used to find Kindred Discovery, because that is your best card draw by far. It helps that you have the two tutors, and once you get Kindred Discovery going, I am sure you snowball into card advantage. Still... I like to have more draw in my decks.
There was a great artcle on the Wizards of the coast forums before they were taken down a few years ago that did the math of commander. It talked about four kinds of cards: Lands, ramp, draw/tutors, and "action spells." It showed the math between a deck with only lands and action spells vs a deck with 34 lands, 11 forms of ramp, 12 forms of card draw/tutors, and 42 action spells. It demonstrated that over the course of 10 turns, that despite having fewer action spells in the deck, the one with ramp and draw will see far more action spells each game and have access to more mana to cast those action spells (in addition to mana spent on ramp and card draw) than a deck without it. The main point was that players don't use enough ramp or enough card draw, and until you are hitting those numbers or higher, you probably are not playing enough.
Again I know that Kindred Discovery can go crazy, but what about when you don't have it or a tutor? then what? Additional draw spells will help you dig deeper, and I might cut some of the weaker dragons in favor of more draw. that way you hand isn't full of weaker dragons and you can dig deeper to the dragons you want.
Finally, I see nothing to answer nasty artifacts or enchantments other than Steel Hellkite. It seems like if someone plays any kind of meaningful defense against you, you are done for. You have zero outs... and are in five colors. That just wouldn't work for me.
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I hope that helps. It is just my opinion from my experience. Take it for what you will.
For starters, Pillar has been gone for a while, (in place was a mountain, for cards like path to exile) i am gonna have to update that. (I guess i missed it in one of my first updates on the deck)
Crystal Quarry is also leaving (probably in place of Reliquary tower as no max hand size is nice, and quarry taps for colorless 99% of the time anyway)
Fist of suns. you seem to miss the part that it is all my spells for WUBRG not jut creature spells. So spells like In garruk's Wake, Plague Wind and Rise of the dark realms have their cost reduced by 4.
Channel the suns was back when the deck was new and before i had such a great mana base. It is midocre now, But at least it has been useful It is gonna stay for now. Even as a ritual for only +1, i like getting WUBRG s opposed to getting BBB You can do more with WUBRG)
Kologhan is actually staying (Both of them) as The +1/+0 is a good aspect when hitting multiple people. he gets teh bonus regradless of where my dragons are going. The otehr one grants haste which is one of the 4 spells in my deck that does (Followed by Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, Temur Ascendancy and Akroma's Memorial.)
Scion is probably gonna go (Funnily enough, He has tutored for the kolaghan dragons before. for haste and the +1/+0)
Broodmother, she is bait. People waste kill spells on her and Draco. Leave them alive, They can be deadly, but i have seen so many spot removal dropped on those two and leaving my other more dangerous dragons alone. (Like Atarka)
Draco (just said, Bait, that is useful)
Tyrant's Familair. Granted he is often out when My general is not, but I still get a 5/5 haste.
I guess I will remove Channel and Scion and add in skull clamp and reoval (Like maybe Krosan's Grip, or maybe even spine of Ish Sah, (So i can get rid of blood moon)
Speaking fo blood moon, I have only ever lost one game (Due to blood moon) when it was played, and I was already bleeding. However, Ironically, It was also the reason i have wan a couple games. You would think a 5 color deck that runs one basic (Which is still a mountain) would suffer and I will admit i am not happy when i see it. But it is funny when it hurts the other players enough. Usually when Blood moon come out the red player is in the lead. But as of late, it is not the case. Blood moon is seen more as a desperation move in most of my games. Also if it is hindering me, other players are also in pain. ( can name 6 mono deck in my group, Norin, Nehab, Purphoros, Gonti, Linvala, Seton, as you can see, only two are red (and play blood moon) and i don't even play them that often.
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I would argue that Genju isn't a particularly good card most of the time. And its especially not good in a synergy laden deck like a tribal strategy.
Sheoldred is one thing because she is independently powerful. She also supports the reanimation subtheme that this deck tends to like. But otherwise she does detract in a small way from your tribal synergies.
Betrayal is also a fine card but it's power is much diminished in a deck like this because you usually dont have a ton of removal. It works better in a deck focused around Grave Pact effects or board wipe heavy decks.
I mean I'm sure lots of people play T&N in their dragon deck as a higher floor, lower ceiling Dragonstorm. I don't because my curve is already pretty high and I generally dislike super generic tutors that make a deck too consistent.
Mana-Charged Dragon ia bad. Or at least not up to snuff. You generally don't want to rely on your opponents for your stuff to work. It may have some political value but I dont think that's worth it. Especially because powering it asks for you and your opponents to hold up mana meaning not advancing strategies. At best it may get one player kill in a game before someone decides you may turn it on him amd kills it. At worst its a 5/5 for 5 that you spent a turn casting when you could have cast something better.
Grave Pact isn't a card for this deck either. Its for decks where you're abusing it with sac outlets. (However if you want it for other decks you can get Dictate of Erebos and/or Butcher of Malakir)
As for the dragon I would argue that it's not really any better in 1v1. In Multiplayer you have several opponents with answers but each one has to spread them out amongst three other players. In 1v1 you have fewer total answers floating around but now all of them are focused on you. If you play mana charged on 5(via Ur Dragon) and then on 6 play a land and smash in I'm going to let you crank all 6 mana you have and then I'm going to path him and eat 10 of your mana in a 1 for 1 card exchange. Hell even if I call out a card I actually have in the deck in Utter End or Anguished Unmaking I still get 7 to 8 of your mana in that exchange. Its not that it's necessarily an actual bad card as much as it just doesn't cut the mustard compared to options you could go with. For example my 6 cost dragons in a not particularly tuned deck are:
Hoard-Smelter Dragon (to throw a little hate at my meta's Breya deck)
Broodmate Dragon
Intet the Dreamer
Dragonlord Dromoka(a must)
Ramos, Dragon Engine
Numot, the Devastator(to take care of utility lands)
Dragonlord Kolaghan(for Dragonstorm combos)
Steel Hellkite
Silumgar, the Drifting Death
Teneb, the Harvester(reanimation)
Hellkite Charger(c-c-c-combos with...)
Savage Ventmaw
Ramos, Broodmate, and Intet are really the only ones I'd consider removing. The others are too good in their utility. And really Mana charged isn't even on the list of possible replacements.
No, I literally counted that. As I said, there were 13 cards in the deck, 8 of which were creatures, which benifit from the Fist. Obviously those are the 5 non-creature spells, and as I said, that is not nearly enough cards to benefit mathematically to justify having that card in your deck. At least, not in my opinion. Not to mention that you are not trying to play those spells on turn four (with ramp) or five, as they are not nearly as impactful. The turns you are ready to cast them, you should have the mana for them and they should pretty much win the game for you on the spot without really needing to save a few mana on them. I cannot see myself ever wanting to draw and cast Fist of Suns in a deck like this. I think it goes a lot better in Ramos.
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As for the other dragons, I did not read any compelling argument for them. As in, if I were trying to copy your deck and optimize it, they would be gone without a hint of regret. Saying something is "bait" is really weak. Every creature in your deck should be "bait," especially in Dragons, where every greature is a battle-cruiser threat. There are better dragons than those, and the deck already has enough good threats while needing to clear up room for more support... they are the easy cuts to make room for said support.
Remember, i am not trying to be negative, just make constructive criticism . I actually like how tight the list is and how few obvious weak points there are. I have shared the list with my best friend so he can study it and steal ideas he likes.
When I am pointing out 10 cards out of 99 and two of them are lands you are already changing, that is a credit to the deck. I just think you can get more value out of improving those other eight slots.
I did a count myself and only fond 12, unless you are including draco, which you should not be as I often cast him for 5 or less. I try not to cast him when I will start having to pay upkeep.Forgot about my commander. d'oh.=======
By bait i am referring to thems pending thier answers on the wrong card. For example, Numot, Broodmother and Draco often eat spot removal, My commander is aso very goo at getting answers used on him. All 4 are very good, but in the end, cards like Atarka, world render should be what they are saving their answers for.
Granted I guess Draco can be scary, but he does not have trample, chump blocking him works. Same with Numot (in fact of all my dragons, only two have trample and One fo them is Atarka (Can you tell i like Atarka?)
Broodmother is also really good in this deck. Her spawn may not trigger elemental bond and Temur Ascendancy (though Crucible of fire does allow them to.) They also trigger Dragon Tempest and Scourge of Valkas.
Now hen the litte guys attack, they also trigger 5 dragons
may not be the largest list, but they do pull their weight, and again, Broodmother eats so much spot removal I love to laugh about it. She is one of the few that is not a battelcruisr. What she can do and what she does do make her a good asset to the deck.
I guess I should find some way to grant Trample and Pumps overall. I still have to remove Scion as (like you said) not worth it.
As for Fist of Suns, It is a compelling argument overall, but more times than not, That reduction of 4 on Plague Wind and Rise of the Dark realms has won me games. Also, it eats artifact destruction. Granted that i only have 13 cards that use it, if people are spending a Krosan grip on it, I'm fine with that.
Sometimes Bait cards are what win you games. They perform on their own, but also distract people form the more dangerous threats.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Exploration
Mirari's Wake
Sol Ring
Chromatic Lantern
(and Savage Ventmaw sort of counts, while also stating that Fist of suns may work on 13 cards in my deck)
But i also run Cost reduction For dragons (totaling -7 and I may have missed one or two) If i have all my reducers out, i am just paying the colors for my dragons.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
I had a game this morning into the earpy afternoon which came down to his Scion deck and my vampires.
My Eldrazi Monument, and his inability to destroy it or trample over me is why I won.
My vampires all got flying and cpuld chump for days. Door of Destinies got up to 6 counters on it quickly because my deck is filled with vampires witch a converted mana cost between 1 and 3. Dark Prophecy was a synergy with the Monument. I sacrifice a token, lose a life to draw a card which was often a vampire, play it and get a counter on the door and a token, which were all larger and eventually stopped chump blockig and were 8/8 or larger.
A simple artifact hate spell could have taken out the monument, then plague wind effects would have eneded it for him.
I cannot overstate how important Rakdos Charm is.
That thing kills an important artifact, can be instant speed graveyard hate to stop a combo like infinite turns or anything else nasty, and the 1 damage option has caused my wofe to second guess when she should try to combo with infinite tokens. She is still mad at me for knocking her out of a game like that.
That is what I see as missing in your list. You don't need a lot of answers, but it doesnt seem like you have enough. Many games are won onnthe backs of stopping a combo or answering a nasty artifact or enchantment. Especially in Commander.
You might take a look at Aura Shards. That wpuld go well with Broodmother and constatnly trying to cast one or more dragon every turn if able.
*Removes Scion, Adds aura shards*
I played 5 games last night, 3 of them I won. The final game was due to a kicked Rite of Replication on Broodmate Dragon (along with giving y dragns +2/+2 due to a couple of pumps (Mirari's Wake and Vanquisher's Banner), and Haste thanks to Temur Ascendancy
Technicaly I lost due to forgetting Mirari''s wake also gave +1/+1, But as teh game ended and we started packing up i remembered that so we agreed I won (It didn;t matter anyway. I was down to 1, he had 30 life, the other opponent had 22. I swung 6 dragons at each which i counted as 30 each. The guy with 22 mazed one of my dragons that was attacking the other player, so instead of taking 30 and being eliminated he only took 25.
Of course, a quick check after i knew the game was over. I realized that he still would have taken 30 due to having 6/6 dragons not 5/5
But yea Rite kicked on any dragon is still 5 artifacts gone thanks to Shards. It is a good pick. Will be worth it for now. I may later decide to remove other cards to include trample. Too bad there are no dragons that do that like the ones that grants haste.
EDIT:: okay, I cannot find my aura shards.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
I think you nail it 100% on all fronts. I love a good beatdown tribal deck, but that's ultimately a fair deck and it isn't going to compete at a top-tier level with the best of commander.
THAT SAID, turning it into a full-on Scion of the Ur-Dragon combo deck would probably be possible. I've tried to do that with my modification of the deck. I don't own or play a Skythrix, so no poison shenanigans, but using scion as a tutor piece and then reanimating the dragons it bins is powerful.
Scourge of Valkas (whether "real" or copied by Scion) plus Rite of Replication also typically wins on the spot, so I added Rite to the deck. Rite is also great with Dragon Tempest and/or Broodmate Dragon.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
"Now I am become death. Destroyer of worlds."
Edit: specifically, 5 triggers of 6 damage from 7 different permanents. 35 total triggers. 210 damage total capable of being fired in units of 6.
Edit the second: and that's from an otherwise empty board.
so if i had more dragons on board... more damage.
I am really bad with the math of Rite of Replication. I know that using it on Reaper king gives you 30 vindicates, but that is the limit. (6 permanents see 5 come into play. 30.)
But for valkas i counted 60 damage, from what you stated it is over 3 times that amount.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
The only way it could be 60 is if each trigger was for 2 damage. However Scourge and Tempest both count the total number of dragons in play. So if your board is empty other than Scourge when Rite resolves you will have, as you said, 6 Permanents seeing 5 dragons entering play. This is a total of 30 triggers, each of which fires a 6 damage blast. Thats 180 damage. Add in the Tempest and you get another 5 triggers adding 30 more damage. If you have, say Dragonlord Dromoka to protect your plays, in play each of those triggers becomes 7 instead of 6 upping the grand total to 245.
Been playing more with my deck now that I'm not a one work crew for the time being and so far my feel for the archetype is
* Having a constant flow of dragons once the 4rth or so turn starts. People removing your dragons? Throw down more! Don't stop. Inhale, summon dragon, exhale. Overwhelm their defenses and kill them before they can draw more defenses. This means
1: Having a bountiful supply of dragons so you can vomit them out every turn but not so much where you're staring at an un-castable hand. I'd say maybe around 20ish? Probably no more than 25 though. I myself am constantly experimenting with the right ratio because I also have to consider my normally awful drawing luck.
2: Keep a balance on the dragons CMC. Too many Ur-Dragon deck lists focus on raw power with a bunch of 6+ drops (This is considering the eminence discount) that are really only good at eating a Spell Swindle. 4-5ish mana dragons are not to be underestimated and do have their uses.
3: You need to keep drawing extra cards. A constant flow of new cards being added to your hand not only allows you to keep up the onslaught, but it also ensures that you don't miss a land drop. This is a casual deck so you're probably going to want to go mainly with permanent based gradual extra draw like Kindred Discovery but do throw in a couple one time spells like Painful Truths to refresh your hand if you get board wiped.
4: Speaking of wipes, a way to bounce back after your field is wiped out. We have options with reanimation like Patriarch's Bidding and instant board states like Genesis Wave. A couple of those must be considered so that the onslaught can play out anew after the Hour of Revelation. It doubles as an alternate wincon as all it takes is a sudden dragon swarm with a Scourge of Valkas or Dragon Tempest.
* Ways to deal with obstacles to your face smashing extravaganza because trust me you will be facing plenty in a multiplayer game.
1: Have some easy to cast, cheap instant answers like Swan Song and Nature's Claim as you'll be almost tapped out all the time. Cards like Utter End sound marvelous on paper but for that mana cost it's usually "congratulations on spending your turn to remove one thing".
2: The bigger, harder answers are going to be wipes. Personally, I'm a fan of the more one-sided types of wipes as this is a board state based deck. Things like Cyclonic Rift, Crux of Fate, and Toxic Deluge (As you're the one with the fatties that could survive). I recommend at least one panic symmetrical wipe like Merciless Eviction or Oblivion Stone.
3: You're a big theft target. Be sure to have some stuff like Homeward Path, Brand, mass bounce, or something.
4: Don't neglect graveyard hate. Just don't.
* Ramp is essential but don't overdo it. You're already getting a 1 mana discount for your main assets that can only be dealt with by bounce or really cruel uses of turn theft effects. Definately include the cheaper but effective ramp spells like Farseek and Cultivate but you won't actually need big ramp spells like Mana Reflection. You don't want to spend too much time buffing your manabase at the expense of time spent ramming dragons into people.
* Stay on topic. A lot of deck lists fail at that because most builders are hardcore timmies but for your deck to function at least somewhat smooth a level of restraint is necessary. I'm glad you opened that cool eldrazi or planeswalker or whatever but they only offer what you want, not what you need. The dragons alone are more than enough big splashy spells for the deck so you'll only want any other high costing spell to take the game or to stop others from taking them game immediately. Why include Sheoldred, Whispering One to kill other's creatures and reanimate your own gradually when you can do it all at once for less with living death? What is the point of including Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh when you're not actually trying to control the game as much as you're trying to just murder everyone in the game?
* Praise the Ice Age for killing the dinosaurs because I don't really regret missing out on most of the Ixlan block. Stupid vampires getting to double dip oh yeah you have your fun guys while we don't get any new dragon creature cards for 3 (4 if you count unstable) consecutive sets. Grumble grumble.
TL;DR Ur-Dragon is going to pretty much be a bad green deck but at least not horrifyingly boring and unpleasant to play with and play against.
Ur-dragon does help with the problem, but you are still fundamentally a beatdown deck that throws down 5-6 cmc (cost reduction included) beaters.
Definitely include cheap removal, but understanding your role, only include enough to feel confident that you can take out something that absolutely matters when the situation calls for it.
I actually think library manipulation is extra important in beatdown decks as it allows you to not overdraw on big things or ramp but assist in making it more likely to hit the ratios that you want.
Since you do have access to blue, if your mana base is good enough to handle early turn blue, instead of running say.. 25 dragons, run 20 and then use those other 5 slots for cards that can either get you dragons or something else if the situation calls for it. Having access to all 5 colors allows a lot of access to multifunctional cards.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
hmm, Patriarch's bidding is a card i should look into. At the moment i do not want to harm my mana base too much so i will stay away from Homward for now (As theft is not the biggest issue. (Aside from Merieke ri Berit, and i find answering one deck is not worth it I still usually win against her anyway)
I should look into Steely Resolve i am not sur if I will run it but since the only card i run that targets is in fact Rite, it might be worth it. Plus it will eat destruction.
Genesis Wave is another card I should look at as If i can get a high enough mana count, it would be worth it. I don't have many non permanents, so casting t for 10 will probably give e at least 8 permanents. In fact everything in my deck is also less than 10 CMC (except for Draco)
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Journey can only enchant your creatures, you cannot steal opponents'.
(now if you had already stolen the creature then enchant, then kill it that is a different story.)
I might add that card if i can pick one up. It is a good card. Not as easy to flip it when you are running giant fatties, but who knows, maybe slap it into dragonspeaker shaman and run him into an attacker.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Speaking of lands I managed to score a Crucible of Worlds in a trade. Now begins the extra value for fetches and Haven of the Spirit Dragon.
I was the first one here to bring up the use of Numot. He certainly, I think, requires a player who cares about the social contract. I only use him to blow up utility lands that are a problem. I have a general policy of not blowing up lands that only produce mana anyway. This mindset stems from my group having a guy who would consistently use Alchemist's Refuge to win and, for a while at least he's getting better about it, was really slow to play once he had that option.