The prerelease showed me how powerful Thunderbreak Regent could be, and I knew that in the new standard that I would be playing a full set of them beside my old faithful, [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card]. I had been reading all of the articles all week on the regular strategy sites, and one in particular caught my eye. Matt Costa has been a long time contributor to premium strategy sites, and is well known for his love of control and tempo decks. If Islands are good in a format, you best bet that Matt will be playing them.
Matt’s last article before the Invitational suggested that an RG Aggro deck might just be the best place to be in the opening of this format. His list featured the full 8 dragons which I was hoping to play and presented a list which I found instantly attractive. I read similar articles from Ross Merriam indicating a similar leaning, so when the opportunity to play in a week one Standard tournament came up, I reached out to Matt immediately. He was quite happy with the list, and was especially high on the new Surrak. He cited that even in games where he lives up poorly vs. the board that his ability to grant haste allows you to steal back the play from a draw scenario, and is a big threat on his own.
I took his list to the MTGO beta client for some games, and was instantly impressed with the deck overall, while finding myself similarly unimpressed with Surrak specifically. Too often I found that the haste didn’t matter when the top end of the curve is [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card], which has haste anyway. Mono red and the token builds too often had a ton of chump blockers, and although he is beefy, he still trades with a Rhino or a single (insert premium removal spell name here). I wanted more from the slot. I wanted more durability and more evasion. I found both in [card]Ashcloud Phoenix[/card]. Seth Manfield was playing a similar RG deck at the Invitational, but his was much more heavily focused on Dragons and the Care about Dragons mechanic. He played a couple of copies of Phoenix in his list, and it looked very impressive on camera. I slotted in some of the fire birds, and was very pleased with the result. I did some tinkering with the numbers and removal spells, and finally settled on this for my Standard Event.
This deck was firing on all cylinders before the event, and vs the 7-1 decks at the Invitational, it posted an easy 80% win rate. Regent was completely unbelievable, as I expected, and when joined by Draconic Roar the incidental damage that the opponent receives over the course of the game really adds up. In fact, there were a number of games where I had dealt 9 damage to my opponent, and never ever attacked them. The natural progression of Thunderbreak Regent into [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] is strong enough, but when it starts on turn 3 on the play, it’s really hard to lose. I was very happy to be playing [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card] finally also in a deck with [card]Elvish Mystic[/card], as many of my game ones were heavily influenced by an unanswered turn 2 Rabblemaster. Once the deck gets to its mana and starts dropping dragons in sequence, it’s tough to lose as is, but when you’ve drained all the removal from your opponent’s hand with your early threats like Rabblemaster and [card]Boon Satyr[/card] that win rate gets even more exaggerated. As good as Rabblemaster was for me in every game one, he is very often the first card I look to cut in the post board games.
The sideboard is designed in such a way that you can really choose the tempo at which you want to play the post board games. If you are looking to beat mono read then all you have to do is sideboard out the less impressive threats like Rabblemaster and Boon Satyr for [card]Hornet Nest[/card] and more removal. This will buy you enough time to take over the game with your larger undercosted threats. If the games are going to be more drawn out or grindy, then again out with the Rabblemaster and 2 [card]Boon Satyr[/card] for the copies of [card]Xenagos, the Reveler[/card] and the Dragonlord herself, Atarka. I also would optimize removal whenever possible, by bringing in Roast against Abzan and [card]Arc Lightning[/card] vs token based strategies. I have been very impressed with Atarka in the board, as I have wanted an answer to [card]Elspeth, Sun’s Champion[/card]. We have few ways to interact with planeswalkers outside of the combat step, and Elspeth can quickly reset your board and then stay making a stream of tokens which can quickly overwhelm if left unchecked. Atarka’s ability to deal damage to planeswalkers directly is huge, and can even be used to split between them. This makes it a neat and tidy answer which also demands is own answer immediately from your opponent, or risk becoming the next meal. She also comes in only WITH the Xenagos, as The Reveler does a great job of making the mana necessary to cast her.
After more extensive testing I have found myself very unhappy with [card]Heir of the Wilds[/card]. Overall I feel like we can do better in that two drop slot. The games which we lose are often as a result of inconsistent mana production often created by early destruction of our men and producing creatures. The next change that I plan to make is the addition of [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card]. Ensuring a steady stream of lands along with the selection afforded by the addition of fetch lands and temples should serve to improve the consistency. The life gain is something I’m incidentally interested in, and the 4 toughness is a welcome addition. Roast was excellent against Abzan and the other midrange green decks, but really felt lack luster against the tokens and red decks. I definitely want access to 3 Roast in my 75, but I think that for now, [card]Wild Slash[/card] is more important to our short term survival. One further addition that I’m making is a single copy of Atarka’s Command. After watching Seth Manfield play it at the SCG Invitational, and playing some test games with it, it has really demonstrated its value. I do not think that more than 1 is necessary, but every time I draw the spell, it over performs.
I’ve been working on the deck with Toronto local and new streamer, Matt Mealing. The concerns that I have immediately are rooted in the matchups that go bigger than we do. Chief among those is GW Devotion. It seems that no matter how many times I play against it, and no matter how many Dragons I have to attack them with, the opponent can still outpace my damage output. I’m 70% sure that I can address that with some better boarding, so it’s a work in progress. The sideboard actually is still in flux, and I’m trying out some different cards to perform similar duties with the goal of determining which ones have the best application across different matches. [card]Barrage of Boulders[/card] for example, can be very effective at sweeping up tokens from Red decks, and to some degree, Jeskai decks, but is also very effective at breaking board stalls in midrange matches and killing our opponents out of nowhere. The card I’m most excited about trying out is [card]Harness by Force[/card]. There are bound to be a swath of Dragons circling standard for the next little while, so why not just bend them all to your bidding and kill your opponent with them!
I hope that you have enjoyed this look into my RG adventures. I will be working on this deck, and others like it as we look ahead to Grand Prix Toronto at the end of the month which is a Standard event. Don’t forget to check out the Dragons of Tarkir MTGO Preview stream this Thursday at 4pm EST as I battle a bunch of other amazing people in a special invite only event!
