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BeJoSe's Deck Garage
Dragon Deck
December 2, 2008

BeJoSe,
    
       i see you're doing the deck fixes now and i think you could help me out with a deck i'm looking at making. i plan on making a Dragon deck that's completely red. i would be open to making it multi-color, if you think that would make it work better. i can't really go overboard budget wise on this one but please tell me whatever you think would make this better. i've mainly been doing my research on card kingdom for dragons, and here's what i've come up with:
 
Lands:25
25 Mountains
 
Creatures:19
4 Dragonspeaker Shaman

2 Dragon Whelp
2 Fledgling Dragon
2 Two-Headed Dragon
2 Shivan Dragon
2 Ryusei, The Falling Star
2 Kilnmouth Dragon
2 Shivan Hellkite
1 Dragon Mage
1 Rorix Bladewing
1 Dragon Tyrant
 
Spells:22
1 Dragon Roost
1 Dragonstorm
2 Pyroclasm
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Gratuitous Violence
4 Rite of Flame
2 Desperate Ritual
2 Seething Song
 
Artifacts:4
4 Lotus Bloom
 
Obviously dragons are going to take awhile to bring out, which is why i included a few burn spells and to speed up the process included a few mana increasement spells and artifacts like Rite of Flame, Seething Song, and Lotus Bloom. i would really appreciate your help with this one, especially since dragons cost so much money and i want to know if i would be getting my money's worth out of this one. It may or may not be much of a start but it's my first day of research so i think it could use some tweaking. Please help me out.
 
Cory

 
Who doesn't love dragons? You've definitely got the right idea about how to build the deck, so I shouldn't need to make too many changes
 
What to cut
You've made quite a few good choices so there really isn't much to cut apart from a few cards to stick out:

  • Lava Spike, possibly. The main problem with this is that it only allows you to hit players, not very helpful if you've got a problem creature on the board. While it does allow you to splice desperate ritual onto it, the main problem with that is that it nets you 0 mana and therefore isn;t really acting as acceleration.
  • Desperate Ritual, with the spike gone this becomes nearly always worse than rite of flame.
  • Gratuitous Violence, to tell the truth I don't think you really need to this card. Its only going to take you a few swings to finish off an opponent anyway so this feels a bit redundant, up to you.

 
What to add

  • I really like Solemn Simulacrum in a deck like this. It provides two important roles, firstly it accelerates your mana, always important in a deck like this. Secondly it provides early defense against creature rushes and draws a card to boot when it dies.
  • More Seething Song, this is an excellent 1-shot acceleration card allowing you to net 2 mana without having drawn more than 1 copy like Rite of Flame
  • Gauntlet of Power/Mana Flare will let you get dragons out vey quickly
  • Hunted Dragon, swings for 6 the turn it comes into play so it's a nice finisher. On the other hand it gives your opponent 6 power worth of creatures, something to watch out for.
  • More pyroclasm, you need board sweepers to deal with early creature rushs
  • Sulfurous Blast, this can either replace or go alongside the pyroclasm. On one hand it is more expensive but can deal with x/3 creatures.
  • Rakdos Pit Dragon, allows you to get an early dragon onto the board and is very scary with hellbent
  • Possibly Journeyer's Kite. Because you won't be playing your dragons untill later turns this will allow you to consistently hit your land drops. On the other hand it is a little slow and better suited to multiplayer.
  • Wheel Of Fate (or if you cn find/afford the original wheel of fortune), acts as a nice way to restock your hand after using your acceleration to get out a big dragon
  • Bogardan Hellkite, dragon and board sweeper? Why not?
  • Scourge of Kher Ridges, another nice dragon/sweeper combo


This deck looked fairly good for casual when it came in some theres not much else to say. What I can recommend is perhaps trying to add some consistency to the deck i.e. 4 of either dragon whelp/fledling rather than 2 of each but again thats up to you. The second thing you can do in this regard is to cut to deck down to 60 cards, however I wouldn't recommend cutting more than 2 mountains. On the topic of lands since your running a mono-color deck you might want to add in a few non-basic lands in the palce of a few mountains, things like Urza's Factory gives you something to do when your not palying dragons and Sandstone Needle is another nice way to accelerate your mana while Ghitu Encampment/Zoetic Cavern can act as early beaters.
In terms of what are the 'best' dragons I would have to say my favorites are: Dragon Tyrant, it can basically end the game in a single swing; Bogarden Helkite, flashing it in at the end of your opponents turns, taking out a few creatures or a few life points and then swinging with it is always nice and lastly Rorix Bladewing, nice simple and effective

 


 

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