Michael Flores is a freaking genius. That’s neither a new nor a popular assertion, though it is one with which most people would have agreed at some point. Nobody, least of all Michael J himself, denies the timelessness of Who’s The Beatdown or the deckbuilding prowess that saw him construct masterpieces for Jon Finkel, Andre Coimbra, and countless others. Numerous long-tenured and highly-respected pros tout his worth and if ever you doubt it, just ask Mike himself. He won’t hesitate to remind you.
Strong ego aside, I have a strong respect for a lot of what Flores says and does. His Official Miser’s Guide did a lot to help my attitudes, and I have often played and enjoyed his brews. When I heard that he had qualified for Pro Tour Magic Origins following the RPTQ weekend, I was very happy for him and for what it could mean for innovative decks on coverage.
Then I saw his list and hoooooo boy, there were tingles in places we don’t normally get tingles. Dragons, my friends. So many Dragons. Of every color, in an ostensibly Mono-Blue deck.
Creatures (10)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (27)
Spells (22)
Sure, we can sit here and question things like the lack of Dragonlord Kolaghan or the maindeck copies of Encase in Ice, but all I see is Dragons. Look at them, sitting there all majestic and regal and ready to annihilate opposing faces. Mike surrounded them with a powerful base of blue staples and stalling tactics, with a gameplan that boils down to “don’t die, resolve huge threat, win the game.” That’s a bit simplified, maybe, but it’s a plan I can certainly embrace.
Unique Little Snowflake
Whenever I’m eating a self-cooked meal, I will start to think “hey, this would taste better if I added X next time.” To be fair, “X” is generally bacon. I rarely cook things the same way twice, and even frozen pizzas get tweaked to jazz them up a bit. It’s at the point where I can sense what I should be adding, and I hear that others do the same thing.
Building and playing decks are often the same. I just can’t take someone else’s 75 and play it. It’s not mine. It might be as simple as changing one or two cards, but unless I had some input in the list I just can’t feel comfortable playing it. As soon as I saw Mike’s list, trying as it did to maximise the effectiveness of Silumgar’s Scorn and the Dragon lands, both Crucible and Haven of the Spirit Dragon, I started wondering what I could do with other colours and their dragon-centric cards. Not so much a tweak as a complete change.
White was ruled out almost immediately. Orator of Ojutai isn’t impressing anyone, even if you do get to draw a card. Mike’s done blue, leaving us with three colours in which to play around. My first thought was to go with green, because Scaleguard Sentinels coming down on turn two as a 3/4 seemed like an excellent incentive. Green also gives us the best access to ramp and fixing should we decide that the Dragon lands aren’t enough, not to mention a ludicrously fast devotion base and the quietly forgotten Frontier Siege.
Looking at successful green-based Devotion lists, it quickly became evident that the Devotion approach was potentially a trap. As powerful as it could be, running 3-4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx along with Crucible and Haven in some numbers each doesn’t leave a lot of room for basic forests. An opening hand with two colorless lands and a bunch of GG spells is a mulligan waiting to happen. We might be able to get away with one Nykthos for value, but if we focus too much on Devotion we are asking for inconsistency.
Fortunately, green offers other ways to ramp us, not least of which is Frontier Siege. Brad Nelson and company tried hard to break this card right after Fate Reforged came out, and for a while it was a powerful strategy. While it did die out, mainly because it was weak late-game in decks that have already ramped but also because there were better options at the four-drop slot, there’s no doubting the power level of the card when it does land early. Many times these decks lacked a good way to capitalize on the Dragons mode on the Siege, with only Hornet Queen having flying. Clearly we will have a couple more flying creatures than that.
Aside from Siege and the near-omnipresent Sylvan Caryatid + Courser of Kruphix combo, we likely need a little more in the way of ramp. Something like Rampant Growth would be great here, but the best we have in that vein is Explosive Vegetation. There’s also the possibility of Market Festival, which might be a better bet. Aside from being able to change the fixing it gives us each turn, it also synergises very nicely with Nissa, Worldwaker and can be put on a Dragon land in a pinch to help us get GG.
Thinking Green
Actually building this deck was a really fun challenge. When I sat down to get started, all I had was four copies of Scaleguard Sentinels. The next logical step seemed to be four Sylvan Caryatid and four Courser of Kruphix, so in they went. I knew I wanted between twelve and sixteen Dragons to ensure I had one in-hand on the second turn, but the exact composition of that mix wasn’t clear just yet.
One other thing green gives us is a variety of other ways to get a Dragon onto the battlefield without actually casting it. Although Genesis Hydra was tempting as a place to dump all that mana, it really needs to be cast with X=6 to be optimal in a deck full of Dragons. Whisperwood Elemental both gives us sweeper protection and can sneak Dragons onto the battlefield for free, but won’t help us if we need to hit colored mana. Haven and Crucible don’t help us turn them face up, after all. That leaves us with See the Unwritten, which to be fair isn’t exactly a horrible place to be left. Even if we don’t have Ferocious enabled, we likely hit one Dragon for six mana while dodging Nullify (admittedly a small upside). That’s a deal I will take every time.
Settling on See the Unwritten actually informs a lot of our choices for the rest of the deck. We’re going to need to run several creatures with 4-plus power, which means our ramp is limited. There might be a version of the deck that does ramp, but if we’re seeing unwritten things then we want to go a different way. The first place I looked was Polukranos, World-Eater. Uncle Paulie has fallen somewhat out of favour recently (his fault I am Shore), but he’s still a four-mana 5/5 that can mow down opposing boards if you have the mana to invest in Monstrosity. I also want at least one Surrak,the Hunt Caller in here to pair with any off-the-top Dragons. With all the removal flying around these days, Boon Satyr is very important as an instant-speed way to get Ferocious back before untapping into an Unwritten.
To finish up the four-slot, I do want a couple of Frontier Sieges. In the event that we draw it late, we can set it to Dragons and start blowing up the opposing board. With both Courser and Boon Satyr in the deck we are resilient to Dromoka’s Command, but the card is obviously still something of a concern. This might end up as more copies of Surrak and/or Polukranos after testing.
Based on the direction our card choices led us, we seem to have more of a Devotion base than a ramp one. Nykthos might end up being in the deck after all.
Where Are My Dragons
I know why you came, and it wasn’t to read about another green Nykthos deck. You want the big winged payoff, and I for one can withhold it no longer. LET US BREATHE FIRE!
To reliably get our Sentinels to be a 3/4 on turn two, we want a Dragon in our first eight cards. I’m still not a number scientist, but I reckon that means we want at least twelve of them in our maindeck. Twelve Dragons. My Timmy senses are all abuzz at the mere thought! We’re in base green so we almost definitely want to start with green dragons. Foe-Razer Regent is… well, it’s not good. Maybe if it were bigger, or if the counters went on right away, or if it were a six-drop. As it stands, no. However we do have one of the best Dragons in Dragonlord Dromoka. Great against control as it lets you disregard counterspells, and still good against aggro with its huge butt and lifelink. Dragonlord Dromoka is likely our workhorse, but still I don’t want more than three. Dromoka, the Eternal is good, but in this deck feels like overkill, which I would like to avoid.
Still with our green Dragons, we are of course running a couple of copies of Dragonlord Atarka. Her Imperial Largeness is a solid answer to Elspeth, Sun’s Champion (which is bad news for us) as well as a way to clear out Hornet Queen, opposing Dragons and hordes of tokens. However we are also playing a single copy of Atarka, World Render for the sheer power level. Hitting that particular Dragon from a See the Unwritten when you have another Dragon or two already in play is going to just end the game right there, barring some overwhelming board presence or removal from your opponent.
Outside of green, our choices become a little more interesting. I definitely want access to both versions of Kolaghan, with the Dragonlord giving us the ability to win the turn we See the Unwritten and also acting as a deterrent to Satyr Wayfinder decks, while the Storm’s Fury version can dodge sorcery-speed removal, comes down at five mana and gives us a bigger punch. At least one of each Silumgar also seems correct. Dragonlord Ojutai is really good, but I am unsure that this is the deck that wants three or four of them. I will try a couple for now as the resiliency to removal is desirable, but it’s possible we want Dromoka, the Eternal here instead.
OK, here’s the initial list I’ll be testing in the next few days.
Creatures (30)
- 2 Polukranos, World Eater
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 3 Boon Satyr
- 3 Courser of Kruphix
- 1 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury
- 1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
- 1 Atarka, World Render
- 1 Dragonlord Silumgar
- 2 Dragonlord Atarka
- 4 Scaleguard Sentinels
- 3 Dragonlord Dromoka
- 2 Dragonlord Kolaghan
- 2 Dragonlord Ojutai
- 1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
Lands (25)
Spells (5)
The sideboard is a little weird, but I think it works. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver can be really bad for us, so the Display of Dominance is very important in any matchup where we might see the walker. Whip of Erebos can also be pretty bad for us, also destroyed by Display. Oh, and it also protects against removal. With all the aggro decks online, I would not want to be without Hornet Nest and Nylea’s Disciple, and Hornet Queen protects against other Hornet Queens. Plus, with a Frontier Siege on Dragons, we can use Queen to wipe their board. The planeswalkers also come in against control to help us stretch their removal even further, and Nissa can also ramp us.
With the Season Two Invitational showing that G/R Devotion is back in a big way, I am not sure that the Collected Company deck I wrote about recently is where I want to be. The matchup is very poor for Company, relying almost entirely on Devotion missing its big draws. The Dragon deck above should be better against Devotion but might struggle where Company excels, against the Esper decks that feed on Devotion. Either way, this list has proven to be fun in early testing and might just be the list I take to the Open Series in Baltimore next weekend.
Thanks for stopping by folks! I hope to see some of you in Providence, Baltimore or Montreal in the coming weeks.
Until next time… Brew On!