July Extended: Dragon's World

written by

Joseph Allgaier

To say the least, judgement has a lot of odd cards. If you were to judge the expansion by casting cost, you'd deem it poor. Wizards has tried for a long time to slow the game down, and rid the magic community of combo decks, but in spite of their efforts, they've created at least one more combo deck than they expected, and by far the fastest ever in extended.

At a glance, Worldgorger Dragon looks like the worst creature ever, with an unbelievable draw back: You lose all of your permanents when it comes into play. This cannot be a good thing.

What you failed to realize was that in conjunction with a very underused pair of enchantments, it turns into a turn 2 infinite mana combo.

Dragon's World.dec build by Joseph Allgaier

12 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
2 Swamp
2 Undiscovered Paradise

2 Worldgorger Dragon

4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Animate Dead
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Whispers of the Muse
2 Careful Study
2 Stroke of Genius
2 Dance of the Dead

SB: 4 Chill
SB: 3 Misdirection
SB: 3 Submerge
SB: 2 Annul
SB: 2 Coffin Purge
SB: 1 Capsize

The combo is not as complicated as I've heard people say it is, and even some don't believe it works. It goes as so:

Turn 1: Entomb - Worldgorger Dragon
Turn 2: Animate Dead - Worldgorger Dragon

This causes an infinite loop. Worldgorger Dragon's CIP ability goes onto the stack and resolves, removing your lands and animate dead from play which causes animate dead's LP ability to trigger and stack which destroys Worldgorger Dragon, the Dragon's LP ability then stacks and both animate dead and your lands are returned untapped, and of course the animate dead once again targets Worldgorger Dragon, and in response to the Dragon's CIP ability to float mana. Repeat this process over and over for infinite mana.

The win condition? Well, first it had to be an instant, as you need to respond to Dragon's or Animate Dead's ability, so the two choices where Ghitu Fire and Stroke of Genius. Stroke of Genius is a better fit for the deck, as a splash is not really needed in my opinion. With running only 2 in the deck though, we still need a way to grab it. This is where Whispers of the Muse comes in, giving us a way to draw up our entire library by paying continuously buying back Whispers.

Stroke away, gg.

Of course the combo is not always this fast, thus the inclusion of Vampiric Tutor, Brainstorm and Careful Study. Brainstorm is a sure fit in this deck as is Careful Study, as it sucks to get caught with a Dragon or two in hand. Then the answers are few: Discard it to having 8+ cards in hand, discard it to Careful Study, or put it back on your library in hopes to just grab it with entomb anyway.

Dance of the Dead is pretty much the 5th and 6th copy of Animate dead, as you can never have enough consistency.

I know the mana base is shaky, but hey we all strive to be like Kibler in our own little ways.

The hardest part of this deck I'm guessing would be a mirror matchup, as both parties will not want to entomb up a Dragon until they have counter backup for their opponents Dead. Combo'n off your opponents Dragon is kind of amusing.

And to be honest, I have no idea how this deck does against other control decks as of course I've yet to playtest the deck in competition, but I do know that anything without Swords, or Counter will have a hard time stopping this deck with its ability to go off so quickly. Show me a deck that can deal 20 by turn 2-3 and I'll retract my statement.

Have fun.

-- Joseph Allgaier
CunnyFunt on IRC
Rootdown on MTGO

PS.

Additional Clarification:

Worldgorger Dragon states to remove all OTHER permanents from the game when it comes into play, without any "played from hand" on the card text seen. Animate Dead is an enchantment and enters play targeting Worldgorger Dragon and becomes a creature enchantment and brings Dragon back into play, the dragon's ability stacks and resolves removing all permanents other than Dragon (this includes Animate Dead), Animate Dead states that when it LEAVES PLAY, not put into the graveyard, that it destroys the dragon, which prompts that all permanents reenter play. This brings all lands back into play tapped, along with Animate Dead which can then retarget the dragon to repeat the proccess. In response to Animate Dead's CIP ability, or the Dragon's you may tap and float untapped mana.

This works as the Dragon is currently worded, though there's no telling if the Dragon will be errata'd different. As for now, as no errata has been decided, it works.

Here are some links for rulings...

.28 <-- put into play
<-- errata on animate dead
.3 <-- comes into play (note E.3.Ruling.5)