(Extended) Mono Red Dragonstorm

[Xanamir]

I think Browncoat's suggestion of using Empty the Warrens as a choice for Burning Wish is a solid one; it represents an alternative strategy that still revolves around your core goal of building up the storm mechanic.

Your odds of drawing two dragons during the game is pretty slim; generally, I mulligan if I have a dragon in hand unless it's an otherwise awesome draw. Also, you'll want to have Magma Jet so you can sculpt your draw pile and safely bury any dragons that might come up deep within the deck.

If you want to include a side combo, make sure that it rotates around your main strategy. Trying to include too many different strategies in a combo deck means that you'll often times not have the right cards to make either combo work. Dragonstorm is particularly intensive in its focus; I've found that trying to do ANYTHING other than focus on my storm count slows me down too much to reliably win, since you need several different cards in hand to combo out properly. There's just not enough time or room in the hand to be trying several different things.

[ronnung]

(2010-05-24 19:17 PM)Xanamir Wrote:  I think Browncoat's suggestion of using Empty the Warrens as a choice for Burning Wish is a solid one; it represents an alternative strategy that still revolves around your core goal of building up the storm mechanic.

Your odds of drawing two dragons during the game is pretty slim; generally, I mulligan if I have a dragon in hand unless it's an otherwise awesome draw. Also, you'll want to have Magma Jet so you can sculpt your draw pile and safely bury any dragons that might come up deep within the deck.

If you want to include a side combo, make sure that it rotates around your main strategy. Trying to include too many different strategies in a combo deck means that you'll often times not have the right cards to make either combo work. Dragonstorm is particularly intensive in its focus; I've found that trying to do ANYTHING other than focus on my storm count slows me down too much to reliably win, since you need several different cards in hand to combo out properly. There's just not enough time or room in the hand to be trying several different things.

Yea I often find myself wanting to include one more thing, which in turn ends up complicating a deck. I have a quick question, I do apologize if it is stupid. The rule is a player can have 4 of any nonbasic land card in there deck(besides restricted cards), my question is can you sport another one of that card in your side board?
Like can I have 4 dragonstorms in my deck and one in my side board?

Because if so then, I would add the burning wishes to my main deck and have a side board that allows for grabbing a dragonstorm, and a bunch of other single useful red sorceries like banefire, insurrection and many other ones.

[browncoat]

(2010-05-25 09:52 AM)ronnung Wrote:  Yea I often find myself wanting to include one more thing, which in turn ends up complicating a deck. I have a quick question, I do apologize if it is stupid. The rule is a player can have 4 of any nonbasic land card in there deck(besides restricted cards), my question is can you sport another one of that card in your side board?
Like can I have 4 dragonstorms in my deck and one in my side board?

Because if so then, I would add the burning wishes to my main deck and have a side board that allows for grabbing a dragonstorm, and a bunch of other single useful red sorceries like banefire, insurrection and many other ones.

Sadly you can only have a playset of a card between your sideboard and maindeck. Otherwise wishboards would be far more broken. Players could slip the 5th copy of a key card into their decks during the second and third games making the 4-of rule pointless. But leaving a copy of dragonstorm in the sideboard is not too bad with burning wish as you have 3 real copies of dragonstorm and 4 cards that can become dragonstorm so you have a theoretical 7 copies.

[ronnung]

So this the deck

4 simian spirit guide
4 bogardan hellkite
1 karrthus

3 dragonstorm
3 browbeat
2 empty warrens

4 burning wish
4 rite of flame
4 seething song
4 desperate ritual
4 magma jet

1 sensei divining top
4 lotus petal
1 chrom mox

4 crystal vein
4 ancient tomb
9 mountain

side board

1 dragonstorm
2 empty the warrens
1 browbeat
1 wildfire
1 flame wave
1 unwilling recruit
2 shattering spree
1 jokulhops
1 firespout
1 devestatin summons
1 fanning the flames
2 banefire

I would put more chrom moxes in but i figure that the draw back of chrom moxes is that you need to remove a useable red card and I don't think most of the time I will have one to throw away. Magma jets and browbeats are to gain some deck manipulation and card advantage, burning wish can draw any of the useful sorceries I might need in a pinch. And I put empty the warrens in as suggested by brown coat, and but in crystal veins and ancient tombs as suggested by xanamir. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

[browncoat]

Browbeat does not belong in the deck as it rarely will give you the effect you want. If your opponent sees you need cards he will just take the damage which can make it so you can't combo off (if you can combo off then the draw does not matter). If you need the damage any cards you draw probably won't equal 5 damage (magma jet as your only burn spell hurts in this respect). You may want to put in some other tech or hate (though admittedly I am not sure what). If you can't figure out anything in particular manamorphose or wild cantor would be decent place fillers, pumping storm while filtering mana.

Your wishboard is not too good though. Having an empty the warrens (or 2) and the dragonstorm is good but the rest is very conditional and expensive. Shattering spree is good but can be problematic with the lands that produce 2 colorless, you do want artifact destruction but I am not sure this is the right selection. Pyroclasm or firespout are also decent sweepers (which is a personal preference). Otherwise you don't really want/will have difficulty playing most of the other cards. Sadly I don't have any good suggestions for replacements as most of the decks that use burning wish have access to more colors which allows for more useful tech.

[ronnung]

Yea, my wish board is pretty much red sorcery cards I have available at this time. Do you think I should put 4 sensei tops with all that colorless land.

[browncoat]

4 tops would not be horrible, I am not positive how well they work in dragonstorm but you can test that and find out.

[Xanamir]

Just a quick observation based on my own experience playing this deck mono-red; 17 mana is going to be pretty tough to rely on. I found in my testing that anything under 20 meant that I would wind up burning rituals to get other things in play, which meant that I wouldn't have them when it came time to combo off. I'd suggest dropping the Browbeats for mana; that would make this deck list pretty solid in my opinion.

[browncoat]

(2010-05-29 01:51 AM)Xanamir Wrote:  Just a quick observation based on my own experience playing this deck mono-red; 17 mana is going to be pretty tough to rely on. I found in my testing that anything under 20 meant that I would wind up burning rituals to get other things in play, which meant that I wouldn't have them when it came time to combo off. I'd suggest dropping the Browbeats for mana; that would make this deck list pretty solid in my opinion.

I think his lands are fine as he has the chrome mox and lotus petals alongside the ancient tombs and crystal veins allow this deck to generate far more mana than the extended version will.