The plan was to write some long, drawn-out theory article on Initiative, because 1) theory makes me giggle like a middle-school cheerleader and 2) the more I think about it, the more I’m able to apply it to basically every situation. Unfortunately – and I blame this on the Furby beside my desk that is currently DEMOLISHING me in a staring contest – I got off the plane from New York yesterday real sick, and haven’t recovered yet. My stomach feels pregnant and distended, and standing up does a whole host of bad things to my solar plexus. Maybe I got knocked up; I have been craving Ben and Jerry’s a whole lot lately. In any case, the high-fallutin’ Ivory Tower thinking cap isn’t fitting, so instead I’ll just talk about Standard.
Play Dragonstorm and stuff.
…
What, that’s not an article? But I want to go to sleep!
No, in all honesty, you could read all the strategy in the world, scour the corners of the earth for decklists, pore through statistic after tedious statistic in an effort to dissect the metagame, and none of it would help you qualify for Nationals more than that simple four-word sentence (the “and stuff” is essential, for those not in the know). Seriously. The deck is that good, and you need to be playing it. Everyone knows I like the rogue strategies, and Richard’s B/W deck is certainly a solid choice if that’s the direction you want to take. As for me, though, I’d be slinging dragons if I were going to Regionals.
I gave y’all a list last week, and here’s the updated 75:
Creatures (6)
Lands (22)
Spells (32)
- 4 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Seething Song
- 4 Dragonstorm
- 4 Remand
- 4 Telling Time
- 4 Gigadrowse
- 4 Rite of Flame
- 4 Lotus Bloom
Sideboard
Yeah, yeah, I switched back to Telling Time. It was a little like tying a tooth to a doorknob and slamming the door, because Compulsive Research is just so good game 1, but too many people are packing Persecutes now and everybody’s going to want to player-hate at Regionals. Something about giant, open tournaments causes people to haaaaaaate both 1) playing and 2) losing to the best deck. Number one is a good thing for the Dragonstorm player, because it means you’re playing a superior strategy to most of the players in the room. Numero dos sucks, though, because it means you’ll have to wade through a morass of random senseless hate.
Fortunately, this deck can do it with the right tools. But those tools require Research to sit on the sidelines, even though it’s almost an engine in and of itself.
With Telling Time, it’s much easier to keep Ignorant Bliss mana up in the early-to-mid-game against Black decks. Also, the whole “drawing too many dragons” thing did come up a few times against Dralnu, because those games take an incredibly long time and you don’t want to blank your Dragonstorms.
I don’t particularly like Pact of Negation because I’d rather proactively attack control decks with Pilferer and present an entirely different threat. The PILF also serves to blank their Pilferers if they bring them in, which is always a noble endeavor.
Re lands: I have no idea why people are doing things like playing nineteen lands in this deck. For one thing, there aren’t very many other cards you’d want in the maindeck even if you did manage to free up space. My main criticism, though, is that it’s not like you draw the nuts every time. Every game isn’t “Bloom, Song, Rite, Storm” on turn 4. While that “would be,” the fact is that you’ve got to play actual games of Magic every once in awhile. Those games involve crafting the landscape of the game several turns in advance, plotting a Gigadrowse at a crucial moment, setting up your draws, attempting to resolve test spells, and occasionally trying to get a single Hellkite or Hunted Dragon to go the distance. In order to do all of that, you need a bunch of land. In fact, the best post-board plan against U/B requires fourteen mana to Sudden Yoink Teferi and then Dragonstorm. You’re not ever getting there with nineteen lands, sitting around marinating and doing nothing proactive. It’s also awkward because you really, really want storage lands, but without a full 22 lands in the deck, you’re stuck with hands like “storage land, Mountain, Sleight of Hand, Telling Time” more often than you’d like.
This deck is much less “cute” than a lot of decks I recommend. The sideboard, for example, is mostly four-ofs. Part of that’s because Dragonstorm is an established deck and therefore it’s pretty obvious what most of the good cards are, but the other half of the story is that you really don’t have all that much wiggle room in the maindeck to be taking out spells. Therefore, you want your sideboard cards to do a very specific thing very well, because you know exactly what holes you need to plug in every matchup.
Speaking of matchups:
Gruul
You want to be up against a whole lot of this, and that’s lucky because Regionals are usually full of random aggressive decks. Many people say that’s because Regionals is full of random players, and random players like to beat down. In my experience, though, that’s just not true. Random players generally like “cute” decks, or Tier 2 “Johnny” strategies that play a lot of mid-range cards. Alternatively, they like decks that have a theme, like “discard decks” or “burn decks” or “land-destruction decks.” What happens at Regionals is that generally the, beatdown decks cut swaths through the field of randomness, and so by round 4 or so you’re up against players of varying calibers who are all turning men sideways. Control strategies like Dralnu, by contrast, are usually only good when 1) you’re better than most of the players in the room and 2) you can predict the metagame fairly well.
All of which is to say Dragonstorm will be a good choice for this kind of field. Combo generally has good matchups against aggro strategies without disruption, and this is no exception. Watch out for Magus of the Moon, and mulligan hands that don’t let you Dragon them early. Sideboard Repeals for the Gigadrowses. Drowse is actually alright in this matchup because it’s basically a Fog, but it’s hard to accumulate a lot of Blue mana through Magus of the Moon. Repeal can totally ruin their day if you hit their one-drop on the play, delaying a Scab-Clan Mauler for a turn and saving you a couple damage, but it’s really good at any point during the first three or four turns of the game. Drawing a card, far from being just a nice add-on, is incredibly important because it’s imperative to see as many cards as possible in the quickest span of time. All you’re doing is racing. Also, remember that you can target your Lotus Bloom for a single mana and then sacrifice it in response if you need to jack your storm count.
Dredge
First of all, this deck is “for real.” It can get incredibly fast draws – though whoever said “it kills on turn 3 most of the time” in Richard’s forums is flagrantly incorrect – and it has just the right amount of disruption to catch you with your pants down.
Dragonstorm is at about 60% versus their deck game 1, but it’s extremely close. Their clock is in all honesty about the same as Gruul’s, but sometimes they get the nuts (2+ Bridges) and sometimes they floss you with Delirium Skeins. It’s important to make sure you Gigadrowse them/their guys at the proper time. Sometimes you want to tap them down on their upkeep and get a couple lands as well as their team, only to have them flip six cards into an instant win with some combination of Bridge + Dread Return + Flame-kin Zealot. Therefore, it’s crucial to wait until the attack step in almost all circumstances. The exceptions are when you are pretty sure you can’t beat a Skeins if it resolves, in which case you need to Port their lands on their upkeep so they can’t cast it, or after board when you suspect Shadow of Doubt, which you have to deal with before you go off.
I find myself often winning with Hellkites one at a time against Dredge, because if you can hit their enablers early enough it usually is game. Sometimes, waiting for that extra mana to Dragonstorm for the win as opposed to resolving an early Hunted or Hellkite will give them the turn they need to combo you out. There’s nothing wrong with Songing out a Hunted Dragon, provided you have a plan for dealing with the tokens before you lose to them. Be aware that it enables their Dread Return by itself, but I see a lot of people losing because they are just sitting around hanging out with a bunch of dragons in their hand that aren’t doing anything, or they’re too preoccupied with setting up the nut draw.
I’d sideboard in the Crypt and four Ignorant Blisses for four Telling Times and a Gigadrowse. The reason the random Crypt is in the deck is that you really only want three Gigadrowses against Dredge; you have to deal with Shadow of Doubt if they’re telegraphing it, but you don’t really want to ever draw more than one. So you might as well sideboard one copy of a tremendous bomb and hope for the best when you draw it. It’s important to kill them quickly, though, because after sideboard they might have Bitter Ordeal, which is Some Bad News. So it’s perfectly fine to keep “risky” hands if they could pan out into nut draws.
Project X
Bitter Ordeal, once again, isn’t what you want to see, but fortunately there’s no Skeins to surprise ya out of nowhere this time. I haven’t tested this matchup as much as I’d like, because it’s not feasible to play on MTGO or whatever, but it’s largely two people throwing their combo pieces at one another. Gigadrowses are going to be Ports most of the time, but some of the builds have Shadow after board so you’ll have to be aware of that. Most I’ve seen, though, run a minimal amount of disruption (Castigate and Bitter Ordeals only) and clog their sideboards with a bunch of Wish targets. Save Remand for something that actually buys you a turn, and you’ll be fine. They have so many tutors that you can usually tell when the “big turn” is coming.
Dralnu
Aah, the “bad matchup.” Fortunately, I don’t think you’ll hit very many of these at Regionals for the reasons I mentioned earlier. The problem is that Gigadrowse is no longer the “NICE GAME BOYS” that it used to be because so many people are packing Rewinds. Furthermore, access to Extirpate means that if they randomly kill one of your Hellkites, you could be stone out of the game fairly quickly.
I used to board Dandan in this matchup, and the theory behind him was excellent. By presenting a threat that dealt a lot of damage very quickly, all of the sudden it was much more realistic for individual dragons to become lethal – that is, if good old Danny Boy didn’t do the job himself! The problem was that the double Blue on turn 2 is actually more difficult than I had imagined, and he’s terrible if he doesn’t slip in under countermagic. Also, it’s not entirely out of the question for Dralnu to avoid playing Islands in the first couple of turns if they know about the technology.
I explained Pilferer earlier, and the reasoning holds in this matchup. Most of the answers Dralnu will have in their deck after sideboarding give you an opening to combo them out. Also, if they board in their own Pilferers you need to have a way to deal with that.
Basically, after boarding you’re going to want to sit back, avoid dying, and sculpt the perfect hand. Singleton dragons, which I usually advocate because so many people are reticent to try them out, aren’t good here again because of Extirpate. Obviously if you can ever Word their Teferi then the game sure is over, but you don’t always get that lucky. You want to get into a position where you have so much mana that you don’t care about Mana Leak and Remand. Gigadrowse them on their end step to draw out Rewinds, then jack your storm count high with Rituals and Storm for more copies than they have countermagic in their hand.
Solar Flare / Flores-type Big Spell decks
These decks’ main weapon against you is Persecute, and that’s basically all you have to worry about. There’s Remand, sure, and Castigate sometimes, but by and large you don’t care very much about their “big threats.” They can’t tap out aggressively, and they don’t really have the tools to fight the long game, so they’re at a disadvantage on both fronts. Therefore, absolutely positively do not walk into the Persecute! If they play a turn 3 Court Hussar, don’t counter it as if you care about a 1/3. He’s precious. Let him plink his widdle heart out.
After boarding you have Blisses and Pilferers. I’d probably cut one or two Gigadrowse, the Telling Times, and some random Rituals because realistically it’s not very important to combo out at a blistering pace.
Okay, sweet. Since I started this article I’ve developed a progressive fever and am desperately wanting to pass out. Shotgun not dying. Peace.
Zac