So, this article WAS going to be about playing Dragonstorm in Extended before Wizards decided in their infinite wisdom to gut the format. For those of you that don't know, the upcoming Extended season is now going to be Lorwyn block and newer as opposed to the last seven years of cards like it was previously. So in other words, it's now Standard on steroids. Anyways, this was a competitive deck and interesting rogue option before the changing of the format was announced, and it's still competitive and fun in casual Classic or Legacy. Anyways, on to the list!
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Creatures:
Instants:
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Artifact:
Land:
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The card choices are for the most part pretty self explanatory (mana acceleration, dragons, search), but I will explain a few:
The Dragons - Bogardan Hellkite is amazing. Eight mana gets you a 5/5 flyer and five damage on the field. While ideally of course you want to Dragonstorm four of them in for twenty, flashing one in on your opponent's turn to clear their board is a great way to slow down aggro. Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund is also essential for this deck to be competitive. When one cannot Dragonstorm for four or your opponent has gained some life, his haste ability allows you to "get there" before your opponent can drop Wrath of God or kill you with their own creatures. Unfortunately he's very difficult to hardcast (though I did do it once with a combination of Lotus Bloom for green and Dreadship Reef for black), which makes him a dead draw, but still critical to the deck.
Gigadrowse - Awesome. An incredibly versatile card against both aggro and control matches. It's obvious use is as a way to tap down your opponent's creatures, but it also is incredibly useful against control to tap down their mana sources on their end step to prevent the counterspells from flying before you combo off.
Lotus Bloom - this card is what gives you the speed to beat aggro. Suspend one on turn one and you should be able to go off on turn four almost every time.
Dreadship Reef - this card is critical against control decks. As long as you have the mana to hardcast Dragonstorm, it doesn't matter how many counterspells your opponent has. They can counter every mana accelerator you play and still just add to your storm count.
On to the playtesting!
Match One
Versus U/B Draw Go Control
Game One
I'm on the draw and keep a hand of two
Misty Rainforest,
Dragonstorm,
Peer Through Depths,
Desperate Ritual,
Dreadship Reef, and
Shivan Reef. I suspend a drawn
Lotus Bloom on turn 2 and attempt to cast
Peer Through Depths on his end step, which he counters. He plays a turn four
Thopter Foundry but doesn't have the corresponding
Sword of the Meek. He counters my
Lotus Bloom, at which point we proceed to sit there for far too many turns playing lands and watching me put counters on
Dreadship Reef. On turn seven he transmutes
Muddle the Mixture for
Sword of the Meek. On my turn I then go
Rite of Flame,
Desperate Ritual which gets countered,
Seething Song, remove counters from
Dreadship Reef, cast
Dragonstorm. He concedes.
Game Two
I sideboard out
Firespout for a
Negate, but otherwise do little. I keep a hand of
Scalding Tarn, two
Island,
Dreadship Reef,
Shivan Reef,
Desperate Ritual, and
Seething Song. I start putting counters on
Dreadship Reef, and in the meantime he drops a turn 3
Trinket Mage. This puts me on a clock, admittedly a very slow one, but a clock nonetheless. Again, not much happens, this time for about ten turns. I attempt to hardcast in
Bogardan Hellkite on his end step twice, but get countered both times. I have more than enough mana for him to counter all my mana accelerating spells and still play
Dragonstorm but can't draw a single one. On turn thirteen I'm down to one life, but drew a fortuitous
Gigadrowse the turn before and use it to tap down his
Trinket Mage and a few of his lands. He responds by tapping out and using the floating mana to get the Thopter combo online. I take a deep breath...and topdeck
Dragonstorm for the win.
Match Two
Versus U/B Thopter Depths
Game One
On the play, I keep a hand of two
Lotus Bloom,
Scalding Tarn,
Bogardan Hellkite,
Ponder,
Island, and
Rite of Flame. I
Ponder for another
Scalding Tarn, and leave a
Ponder on top of my deck. He uses a
Chrome Mox to drop a turn one
Dark Confidant. Doh! I
Ponder again on my turn and draw myself a
Seething Song, but don't like my next two cards and use
Scalding Tarn on his end step to shuffle my library. Meanhile, on his second turn he drops a
Thopter Foundry. I drop both my
Lotus Bloom on turn four, but don't have the
Dragonstorm. He gets a
Bitterblossom online and transmutes for
Sword of the Meek on his fifth turn. At this point I'm sitting at eleven, but he only is two life ahead of me thanks to
Dark Confidant and
Bitterblossom. On turn six I finally draw a
Dragonstorm and go off. On to game two!
Game Two
In a less budget build
Blood Moon would of course be another key component for disrupting your opponent. At this point it would be logical to go through all the matchups against what used to be the Extended metagame, but obviously that's no longer particularly relevant. I will say, especially with the inclusion of
Blood Moon the deck had at least decent matchups across the board with the exception of Red Deck Wins. I strongly encourage you to give it a try if you're looking for an exciting combo deck that has the benefit of allowing you to beat face with dragons!
5 Comments
This could be useful for you:
http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php
Easy way to create pretty decklists for the site. I'd also advocate splitting the text up a bit with more graphics, purely for aesthetic reasons.
Thanks for the tips, I will definitely keep both in mind in the future.
Isnt that deck almost exactly the same as dragonstorm from a few years ago? Fetchlands and a karthus do not make it a different deck, so what does, if anything?
It depends on exactly which version of Dragonstorm you're referring to. I would assume the 2006 version incarnations run by a number of pros for the (Standard) World Championship, most notably Makahito Mihara. The core win-condition is the same, but the draw engine is updated with more current cards and is arguably a bit more streamlined/efficient as a result. Otherwise you're correct, it isn't that different, I think that ultimately the fundamentals of that original deck are very strong and would have been a solid rogue choice in Extended (RIP).
don't take this wrong, but like you're presenting a deck as classic and legacy and really it's just a casual deck that fits those requirements and isn't really geared one way or the other, then throw out two matches with no real conclusion and a list that's not much different from the former, not trying to be discouraging, but sorry I am one of those who are getting frustrated by articles like this