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Tough Nuts – A Balanced Type One Metagame? Part I

In the past, Vintage was not a tough nut to crack. With a minimal amount of research you could either completely break the format by importing an Extended favorite, finding a deck the Germans were working on and perfect it, or stumble across it through greater experience. Not so anymore – at least for the foreseeable season. The DCI has done its job and restricted all of the egregious offenders leaving a remarkably balanced format. No less than seven new archetypes have emerged this year as real competitors, as well as revamped approaches to old favorites.

In the past, Vintage was not a tough nut to crack. With a minimal amount of research you could either completely break the format by importing an Extended favorite, finding a deck the Germans were working on and perfect it, or stumble across it through greater experience. Not so anymore – at least for the foreseeable season. The DCI has done its job and restricted all of the egregious offenders leaving a remarkably balanced format. No less than seven new archetypes have emerged this year as real competitors (Draw7, Drain Slaver, Workshop Slavery, Simister Belcher, U/G Madness, Oshawa Stompy, and 7/10 Split), as well as revamped approaches to old favorites. Thus far, not one appears to be as blatantly powerful or metagame distorting as Long.dec or GroAtog.


In fact, it goes further than that. While some decks are better than others, far too many decks are viable simply because most of the best decks share with each other a key set of the most powerful cards in the format. Oshawa Stompy is half U/G Madness, which is 1/3 Fish, which is half Landstill, which is half Keeper, which is half EBA, which is half Tog, which is half Drain Slaver, which is half Workshop Slavery, which is half Draw7, which is half Belcher… okay, you got the idea.


So how do you win in a sea of good decks? What it takes to win at Type One right now is several key factors:


1) Consistency. Playing the most consistent deck among the multiplicity of extremely powerful archetypes is a way to distinguish yourself in a long tournament. The deck which mulligans least is naturally buoyed to the upper tables.


2) Knowing the Matchups. This is quite simply the most important factor at winning in Type One. I guarantee that when Marc Perez or Shane Stoots or Joe Bushman sat down for Grand Prix: DC Vintage East Coast Championship, they were prepared for each of the matchups they faced. They knew what to sideboard in, what cards were effective, what wasn’t, and they had tested it all before hand. Knowing the matchups not only makes your in-game play better because you know what you are supposed to do, but assists in making good decisions about maindeck and sideboard card choices.


Using decklists from cold, hard tournament data, Philip”Dr. Sylvan” Stanton constructed a list of Vintage decks to beat for StarCityGames.com. While I appreciate the scientific method and the objective approach that Philip brings to Type One analysis, one of my interests is peering behind tournament results and seeking to explain them. Knowing what won in what percentage is certainly useful, but it is of modest utility relative to benefits gained from understanding why.


Having piloted most of the decks on the gauntlet in testing or in tournaments, and having played against all of them at one time or another, I briefly present my thoughts on each archetype, its game plan, how the deck plays out, difficulty of play, its strengths, its weaknesses, its overall tournament quality, and any other thoughts I might have. I will try to cover the relevant parts of each deck in an attempt to make some helpful conclusions in an effort to stimulate an informed dialogue about the relative strengths of various decks in Vintage. With that idea in mind, I set about writing this article by attaching a rating to each deck. I attempted to do that and found it too difficult! It wasn’t hard to identify the top decks, but differentiating between mediocre and good decks is very difficult to do, because each of the decks that was good enough to make it onto this gauntlet is more than just a mediocre or a”good” deck, it is a nuanced weapon that has strengths and weaknesses. Illuminating those strengths and weaknesses will be far more useful than simply applying a relatively subjective number of stars to each deck.


Charbelcher a.k.a.”The Clock”

by Kim Kluck

1st place, 2004-03-07 Dulmen

Mana Sources: 39

Acceleration: 29


Free: (18)

4 Elvish Spirit Guide

1 Chrome Mox

1 Lion’s Eye Diamond

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Black Lotus

4 Land Grant


Lands 2

1 Bayou

1 Tropical Island


One-Mana Spells: 11

4 Dark Ritual

1 Mana Vault

1 Sol Ring

4 Tinder Wall



Two-Mana Spells: 4

1 Channel

2 Living Wish (for Academy or Mishra’s Workshop)

1 Grim Monolith


Fixers:

4 Chromatic Sphere


Plan A:

4 Goblin Charbelcher

1 Demonic Consultation

1 Spoils of the Vault

1 Tinker

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Demonic Tutor


Backup Plan A:

3 Goblin Welder


Plan B:

1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Necropotence

1 Yawgmoth’s Will

1 Ancestral Recall

2 Brainstorm

1 Timetwister

1 Windfall

1 Memory Jar

1 Wheel of Fortune


Sideboard

1 Bone Shredder

1 Deconstruct

1 Elvish Lyrist

1 Gemstone Mine

1 Goblin Welder

1 Mishra’s Workshop

1 Naturalize

1 Oxidize

4 Phyrexian Negator

1 Scavenger Folk

1 Tolarian Academy

1 Uktabi Orangutan


Background:

This deck was invented by a group of Vintage Midwestern players and it first showed up in the Columbus tournament piloted by Michael Simester. It was tuned, cutting Cabal Rituals, the two Barbed Sextants, and a few other cards were mixed and matched to create the final product piloted by Kim Kluck.


How Does it Play?

The”Clock” in Type One is as fast as it can be – generally a full turn faster than the deck in Extended. Unimpeded, this deck is capable of dropping a Belcher almost all the time, prepping for turn 2 or 3 win. How? Generally in either a hand of seven cards you can find the right combination of cards to be able to play a Belcher, play a Belcher and use it, or play a draw7 with mana floating in the hope of doing the same. The deck runs the maximum amount of good mana acceleration the Type One card pool permits – including such favorites as Tinder Wall and Channel. Additionally, it has Mishra’s Workshop and Tolarian Academy in the board to find with Living Wish so that they don’t interfere with the two-land plan – lands which are fetched via Land Grant to clear the way to instant kill.


Here is a sample hand I goldfished up for this article (I chose the first hand I goldfished – no setting myself up):


Elvish Spirit Guide

Land Grant

Black Lotus

Brainstorm

Living Wish

Goblin Charbelcher

Brainstorm


This hand isn’t too difficult to play out. Assuming you are going first, drop the Black Lotus. If that doesn’t resolve, then your Land Grant will most likely resolve. Then cast the Land Grant revealing your hand. Find the Tropical Island and play it. The interesting thing here is the potential with Living Wish. Workshop and Academy are potential targets. Mishra’s Workshop isn’t Wished up very often because of situations like this. It generates one extra mana than Living Wish costs, but it doesn’t activate the Belcher.


I play the Trop and Brainstorm into: Tinder Wall, Demonic Tutor, and Grim Monolith. If you are paying attention, you should already see how complicated this has gotten. There are two solid plays that I can see, and if you analyze the situation closely, I’m sure you might spot something better. The one move both plays have in common is to use Elvish Spirit Guide for Tinder Wall. First, we need to put two cards back. My preferred plan would be to put Demonic Tutor and Brainstorm on top of the library, and then Sac the Lotus for any color then play Grim Monolith and cast Belcher. This allows you to activate it next turn. Or if the Belcher is Forced, next turn you can use the Tropical Island and the Tinder Wall to Living Wish for Welder and cast the Welder using the Red floating from the Wall. The following turn, you can Weld out Grim for Black Lotus or the Belcher to fuel more spells using the Brainstorm or the Black Lotus.


An alternate play might be to put back Living Wish and Brainstorm, and then to sac the Lotus for BBB and then pay the Grim Monolith. Then tap the monolith floating B3. Then Demonic Tutor for Wheel of Fortune and sac the Tinder Wall to play it leaving B floating. (Just for kicks I went through that play assuming that my Wheel resolved and I drew:


Dark Ritual,

Dark Ritual,

Dark Ritual

Sol Ring

Demonic Consultation

Ancestral Recall

And the lone Tendrils of Agony


That was a bit bizarre, because I rarely use the Tendrils. In tournament play, and with the experience I have so far, I would have gone for the turn 1 Belcher with turn 2 Welder, because it doesn’t give your opponent a new hand with only three Belchers in the deck (you can’t Brainstorm the Belcher in your hand back because your Wheel may not resolve after you Tutor and then you’d have nothing but to cross your fingers and hope).


Difficulty of Play

The deck is not that difficult to play beyond mastery of the goldfish. However, mastering the goldfish requires a significant number of decisions, which only a truly experienced combo player can pilot to success. One mistake and you will likely lose the game. Sit down and play 500 goldfishes and you should be ready to go.


Strengths

Despite the efforts of Kim and others who have followed, and despite the enormous fad popularity of the deck, they have been unable to succeed in tournament play with this deck after its surprise entrance into the metagame. This deck represents an extreme in deck construction – built around speed at the expense of other qualities. Nonetheless, don’t assume, as I first did, that this was a”Force of Will or No?’ deck. This deck has proven in testing that this deck actually has resilience. The first line of defense is the deck’s overwhelming speed. Even after casting the first Belcher, you have enough mana usually to play another spell next turn, and sometimes on the same turn. By”another spell” I’m referring to a draw7 or equivalently broken card or: Welder or Living Wish.


Goblin Welder is the second line of defense. If they counter the Belcher, a resolved Welder will return it to play infinitely. Additionally, once in a while you can recur Memory Jar with Welder. The Welders are also in a perfect proportion to draw one when you want it. The third line of defense is Living Wish. This perhaps one of the coolest parts of this deck. In my testing against Fish, one of the key plays is to Living Wish for Scavenger Folk – which preemptively answers the Null Rod, which has to come down immediately in order to stop your Belcher, and is thus usable before Lavamancer is activated.


Finally, this deck has plenty of diverse mana costs to evade hosers like Chalice for zero. Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Tinder Wall, Dark Ritual, Channel, Land Grants, Elvish Spirit Guide (and Cabal Ritual should you run them) provides enough spells that you can realistically combo out in the face of Chalice for zero. And the multifaceted possibility of being able to combo out using the Tendrils kill makes this the premier choice for Goblin Charbelcher victory’s in Type One at the moment.


The deck’s strengths are first in its speed – it virtually demands that a deck without a turn 1 answer in Force of Will or Duress must have Null Rod or an equivalent answer and hope to play first game one in order to race the Clock. This means that against many decks, it will be able to win matches on speed alone. It also has the one advantage against slow control decks: if Belcher resolves, they might be in trouble, and even if it’s countered, Goblin Welder can bring it back. The cool thing about decks that run Null Rod is that if you are going first, you have two unimpeded turns to do what ever you want! This is because decks that run Null Rod do not run a full complement of Moxen. If they plan on Dazing, than you will have another turn as well – and even if they drop Rod you only need to Wish for Folk to get out of it.


Additionally, Chalice and other key cards may be too slow because if you drop enough Moxen on turn 1, Chalice for zero on their turn may simply not be relevant.


Weaknesses

The deck’s weaknesses are obvious. First and foremost, a turn 1 Force of Will can slow down this deck’s game sufficiently that it should be unable to recover before the opposing deck capitalizes to prevent recovery or actually executes you with a Berserked Tog, Mindslaver lock, or the like. An intelligent control player will recognize that Force of Will should be used where it is most effective – which may not mean waiting for Belcher. Countering a Dark Ritual or a Black Lotus may be much stronger, but that may be very situation specific, considering that this deck is much more likely to topdeck mana than another Belcher. If Portal becomes legal, Imperial Seal might be a good addition to the maindeck.


The other bad news is that Force of Will usage has never been higher. Since the death of Long.dec, the most successful deck in Type One runs four – a rule I term the Columbus rule, since for the last two months, every single deck in the Top 8 has had four Force of Will. This deck needs help against the best decks, not the worst, since that is where its inherent advantage lies.


The increased prevalence of Null Rod in the format means that winning the coin flip and making sure you get Charbelcher into play the 60% of the time the deck goldfishes it into play on turn 1 is important. Finally, cards like Damping Matrix and Chalice of the Void are also real threats in terms of significant hosers.


This deck has solid win percentages against almost all the decks I’ve tested against. The problem is that it is simply too unreliable for any given match of three. You need something that not only has a winnable matchup, but that can show it in a mere three games, not over thirty. For example, in testing, this deck has beaten my Tog 13-12, but in any given match of three games, it is simply not reliable. Carsten has told me that he mulligans nearly 60% of the time – which means you mulligan to four 8%, five 22% and to six 30% of the time.


How good is this deck? The biggest problem is that you can achieve a similar win ratio without the risk, and moreover, without the speed. Many decks in Type One can win by turn 3 or 4 and have a much stronger game plan. In fact, that is part of the problem – Slavery or Tog can play Force of Will on turn 1, and before you can recover, you will be scooping up your cards. While this may be the absolutely fastest deck in Type One, it lacks the resilience of Long.dec – the capacity to almost always clear the way, the ability to find Xantid Swarm maindeck to answer that threat, and also consistent answers to hate. This deck is closest to Long in terms of pure objective brutality, but is a long way away from being as good of a deck as Long.dec was – the first deck in a very”long” time to require two restrictions to stop it. Lion’s Eye Diamond performs a very unique function in Belcher though. It works wonderfully with the Wishes and tutors and draw7s, but it is even more awesome as a Belch activation. Isn’t it ironic, as soon as a card is found for effective uses, we are denied.


This deck is fun as hell to play – if you are winning. A deck like this would be unsuccessful in a Northeastern heavy control metagame or an Origins metagame with five or six rounds, but would be ideal for a fun local casual tournament. However, it can’t be discounted entirely because in a gigantic tournament like Gencon Type One championships, you might be lucky enough to play sufficiently suboptimal or unprepared decks to make it to the top 8 – but it is unlikely that you will luck yourself into the top spot. Of course, that could change if some awesome player becomes intimately familiar with it. Unfortunately, if that were to happen, I’m afraid we’d lose this”fair” deck by the DCI’s apparent preference to restrict decks of this nature. One question is whether this deck is better than Draw7. That is a question which more testing and tournament results will resolve.


Control/Drain Slaver

by Richard Shay

1st place, 2004-03-21 Newington

1 Platinum Angel

1 Pentavus

4 Goblin Welder

3 Fire / Ice

4 Mana Drain

4 Force of Will

2 Cunning Wish

4 Thirst for Knowledge

3 Brainstorm

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Memory Jar

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Time Walk

1 Tinker

1 Yawgmoth’s Will

2 Mindslaver

1 Black Lotus

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Jet

1 Sol Ring

1 Library of Alexandria

2 Underground Sea

4 Flooded Strand

4 Volcanic Island

6 Island


Sideboard

1 Echoing Truth

1 Shattering Pulse

1 Fire/Ice

1 Fact or Fiction

2 Blood Moon

4 Rack and Ruin

2 Blue Elemental Blast

3 Red Elemental Blast


Background:

This deck first appeared at the Dulmen, and after the restrictions of December and a brief moment of uncertainty in January, this deck has quickly become one of the most popular and successful decks in the format – partly in response to the theoretical predominance of Tog and its success as a foil to Workshop Slaver.


A list I consider much closer to optimal simply because it seems better suited to deal with real metagame threats than the more experimental and earlier list of Rich’s is what Jason Stinnett played at a recent Columbus tournament:


Jason Stinnett

2nd Place

Columbus, April, 2004

Draw:

4 Thirst for Knowledge

4 Brainstorm

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Memory Jar


Combo:

4 Goblin Welder

3 Mindslaver

2 Pentavus



2 Gorilla Shaman

4 Mana Drain

4 Force of Will

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Time Walk

1 Tinker

1 Yawgmoth’s Will

1 Black Lotus

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Jet

1 Sol Ring

1 Library of Alexandria

2 Underground Sea

4 Flooded Strand

4 Volcanic Island

5 Island

1 Tolarian Academy


Sideboard

2 Blood Moon

1 Duplicant

4 Flametongue Kavu

2 Gorilla Shaman

1 Platinum Angel

2 Rack and Ruin

3 Red Elemental Blast


How does it play out?

This deck is a monster – make no mistake about it. In terms of tempo, it isn’t significantly different from Tog – counter some spells to get some mana, to play more mana to draw some more spells to drop Slaver / or Welder and then Slave (Welding in Slaver with Welder that has been deposited via Thirst For Knowledge). More specifically, the general play is turn 1 Welder or Brainstorm, turn 2 drop a Mox and a second land and cast Thirst for Knowledge or hold Mana Drain mana up. Generally you do the latter and Drain into something broken on turn 3, or eot Thirst into more good stuff. Pretty soon you have cast into some more broken draw spells, or you have found Slaver and begin the process of taking their turns, which soon either ends the game or become infinite with Pentavus.


For some reason I have developed a reputation for disliking this deck – nothing could be further from the truth. I have had my doubts about earlier builds of this deck, but recent modifications have made this deck a real threat. The earlier weakness of this deck happened to be decks like Oshawa Stompy – decks that played Null Rod and many fast threats. Fortunately, Aggro is the easiest matchup in Magic to shore up. Flametongue Kavu not only does the trick, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be around for a long time. Duplicant + Goblin Welder also helps in that department, and double Pentavus helps as well. The double Gorilla Shaman in the maindeck bolsters this deck to a much stronger position against the Workshop variant and the two more in the sideboard are very difficult to deal with, virtually assuring a turn 1 Monkey in that matchup – something that makes the opposing turn one Chalice for two or zero – real threats – relatively harmless.


Difficulty of Play

The deck is relatively difficult to play in that some matchups are more difficult than others and the deck may have a number of decisions it will need to make at early stages in the game, with imperfect information inherent in being a control deck instead of the beatdown. The real key to success with this deck is not the difficulty of executing the game plan, but the experience necessary in recognizing the optimal game plan for any given matchup. This weighs on every aspect of the deck from design to sideboard decisions and requires not only experience with the key matchups – but knowing how to counter an opponents sideboarding plan with your own – or at least which cards are actually effective at doing so.


Strengths:

The deck’s strength is its power in a highly powered metagame. It may not have the versatility against aggro that Tog has, but has the advantage of presenting itself as a real threat to Tog – a deck which is particularly vulnerable to being Slaved. The Shamans will virtually assure victory against unwary Workshop users – negating opposing Goblin Welders in the process, and Blood Moon helps shore up weaknesses to slower control decks. Thirst For Knowledge and Brainstorm help this deck optimize quickly and control the game in a way that the opponent cannot recover from – creating an infinite Slaver lock with Pentavite tokens, double Welder, and a Mindslaver.


Weaknesses

The deck’s weakness is that it may have to face a lot of the hate aimed at it for Workshop Slaver and Dragon – Ground Seal, Shamans, and the like. It also has an unstable mana base that is run in order to abuse Blood Moon. This may slow the deck down sufficiently that decks like Madness, Oshawa and Food Chain Goblins can kill it before it can slave the opponent. It can’t plop down a Pentavus or large man as easily as the Workshop version, and as a result of a lack of Chalices (and Trinisphere), may actually have a worse matchup against the faster combo decks such as Draw7 and potentially Workshop Prison decks as well (which makes Shaman even better). As serious as the deck’s weaknesses may be, there is always room for improvement, since the deck has flexibility and time by using Drain and Force of Will.


Perhaps more concerning than the aggro matchups are the extreme control matchups or the aggro-control matchups. Decks like Landstill run Fire / Ice maindeck (and possibly Lightning Bolts as well) to deal with Welders and more counters than you run. They will attack your mana base while they run you over. Fish may have similar game plan – using Stifle, Force of Will, Wastelands, and Grim Lavamancers to prevent you from being able to do anything before you can combo.


The most obvious weakness is against pure combo. This deck lacks the Duresses of Tog, or Chalice of Workshop Slaver to preemptively stop Combo, but Shaman is no slouch.


Conclusions:

So, how good is this deck? I’d rate it at Excellent – one of the best decks in the format. It has a very good chance of winning any tournament, major or small. It may have some facially bad matchups, but its worst matchups are either inherent because they are of the best decks in the format, or easily solvable because they are aggro caused. It is probably worth mentioning that this deck has some play advantages over Workshop Slaver. It runs Mana Drain essentially over the Workshop/Gilded Lotus acceleration and as a consequence cannot run Chalice of the Void. If Chalice of the Void becomes a card heavily hated out, then that almost inevitably leads to the conclusion that this is the superior build of Slaver. This deck has a weaker maindeck against Aggro and is generally weaker against Tendrils combo than Workshop Slaver because it doesn’t run Chalice and can’t play Trinisphere. Nonetheless, it has serious potential to beat many Workshop Slavers if the player knows what they are doing. Mana Drain is like a Desertion. They Drain your Slaver and they play their own.


If you face the normal matchups people are likely to see, you will likely land in the top 8. The real question that needs to be answered is whether there is a compelling reason to run this over Tog. Tog has a much better chance inherently against Aggro and Aggro Control, and has Duress for control and combo. The reason to play this over Tog is based upon the assumption that you have a favorable matchup (or the use of Blood Moon – or both). If that assumption is proven false, or if the matchup is close, than that suggests that all those times you Slave a Stompy deck you’d be better off with a Tog. And as good as Flametongue is at shoring up the Aggro matchup, there is no substitute for being able to play extremely large men with Workshops and then Weld them back and forth in and out of play as needed. But again, one of the keys to Type One over the summer will be to see which deck has the advantage in this matchup: Slaver or Tog.


Dragon

by Bryan Finch

1st place, 2003-02-21 Ontario

4 Force of Will

4 Intuition

3 Compulsion

3 Duress

3 Animate Dead

3 Dance of the Dead

2 Necromancy

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Time Walk

4 Bazaar of Baghdad

1 Ambassador Laquatus

4 Squee, Goblin Nabob

4 Worldgorger Dragon

1 Black Lotus

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Emerald

1 Sol Ring

1 Mana Crypt

4 Polluted Delta

4 Underground Sea

3 Swamp

2 Island



Sideboard

4 Powder Keg

4 Stifle

3 Tormod’s Crypt

3 Chain of Vapor

1 Sliver Queen


This maindeck is most definitely the direction I’d take this deck: back to its roots. Force of Will is simply too important in the current metagame to not use, and cutting Green creates a much better game against Blood Moon.


How does this deck play out?

Simply, this deck drops Bazaar on turn 1 and draws two cards, discarding a Dragon and ideally a Squee or two. On turn two it should have seen enough cards to play Mox, Land Animate to win the game using the Dragon infinite mana combo and using the phasing Bazaar to mill your deck and finally switching the phasing Animate to Ambassador Laquatus to win the game by milling your opponent. Of course, this is an oversimplification, but against decks that are non-threatening or, alternatively, are very fast, that is an ideal plan.


Difficulty of Play

While this deck may be very easy to play because of its redundancy and consistency, this deck is much harder to play at a mastery level. The reason quite simply is because there are many subtleties that emerge when you know the details of the Dragon infinite loop combo which makes the difference between winning a tough match and losing it. Do you know how to win against TnT when your opponent has Platinum Angel in their deck? Practice against certain strategies designed to stop the Dragon combo will make the pilot much more prepared to deal with simple answers such as Tormod’s Crypt or Gaea’s Blessing and should virtually assure that you succeed over them.


As far as design goes, Blood Moon is increasingly prevalent and running more basics instead of Green is very desirable. Second, the only bottleneck in the deck is the outlet to get Dragon in the graveyard. Bazaar is generally thought of as the ideal outlet because it facilitates the fastest kills. Many players have redesigned the deck in order to maximize speed kills, but in my opinion this is unnecessary. As such, I am a huge fan of Compulsion and think that anyone who has taken the time to be good at this deck will slowly come to value Compulsion and Necromancy very highly.


In fact, because you have seven disruption spells, eight animate spells, seven outlets, six tutors, and all mana, the only bottleneck, as I have said, is the outlet, because everything depends on it. As such, I would advocate considering a fourth Compulsion. Without the outlets the deck, appears on the surface to be a pile of jank cards piled together. When the parts function together due to the outlet, it works like a wonder. Because of this, a fourth Compulsion would make the deck slightly more consistent and make Force of Will more usable. I would also consider Lim-Dul’s Vault over either Demonic, Vampiric, or both, as a way to up your Blue count as well – ideally to around fifteen, remembering that you can’t very well pitch Laquatus unless you plan on drawing or beating down with Dragons/Squee.


Strengths

The deck’s strength is the redundancy in deck design, the power of the combo, the ease through which the combo is achieved (you only need to cast one spell), and the streamlined deck design. People may also be slowly altering their sideboard as they do not expect Dragon to show up – an opportunity which afford Dragon a chance to win big. The deck is also strong against control decks because it tends to draw so many cards


Weaknesses?

The two biggest weaknesses the deck has is a high prevalence of hate and knowledge about the deck. The two are interconnected, but there is a perception about the strength of Dragon that has outlasted its tournament results that means that almost everyone is packing answers to Dragon, consciously or not, in that they may have netdecked a list that has Damping Matrix, Tormod’s Crypts, Ground Seals, Root Maze, or even worse Coffin Purges in it.


Chalice for two isn’t actually that big of a threat, because you find Necromancy rather easily, but it can slow you down. Blood Moon is a real problem – which is why the deck now has five basics and more fetch to find them. Perhaps even worse than hate is the fact that people know about it and talk about it. Last year, people weren’t that familiar with the Dragon build by Richard and Peter that swept Gencon, and there was an even bigger lag time as the deck filtered its way around the world to great success. There is a good chance that any person you sit across from with Dragon not only has tested against it at some point, but has actually piloted the deck before in tournaments, which means they will be more inclined to make correct plays against it.


How good is this deck? This deck is here to stay. The only problem with the deck is that while I think it is likely to do well at any given tournament, it seems unlikely to be able to take the top spot at a very large high profile tournament because of the weaknesses I described, i.e. good players will have answers. Nonetheless, the Duresses and Force of Wills means that this deck has the potential to combat anything.


[This Article is Continued in Part II.]