Lands:
4 Fungal Reaches
4 Molten Slagheap
12 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Spinerock Knoll
Creatures:
4 Bogardan Hellkite
Other Spells:
4 Dragonstorm
4 Grapeshot
4 Incinerate
4 Lotus Bloom
3 Pyromancer's Swath
3 Rift Bolt
4 Rite of Flame
4 Shock
2 Tarfire
Sideboard:
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Dodecapod
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Ignite Memories
3 Sulfurous Blast
2 Wheel of Fate |
 Spine
Storm - late 2007.
Description of deck by
Kuan-Kuan Tian
(quoted):
Well, firstly, I have to say that I am in love
with the design and think that it is ingenious. The number one problem
with Dragonstorm in the current format is that it lacks good accelerants
due to the loss of Seething Song. This flaw was normally remedied by
using green accelerators and as such, Dragonstorm decks were often
structured like Mana Ramp decks in TSP Block constructed. The problem
with such a build of course was that the shift from Blue to Green cards
meant that you no longer had access to Blue library manipulation cards
which reduced the consistency of the deck and its resiliency to hand
disruption strategies. Indeed, without blue cards like Telling Time and
Sleight of Hand, Green based Dragonstorm decks often found themselves
lacking a win condition if their Dragonstorms were all stuck somewhere
in the middle of their deck.
When I personally tried to Revive Dragonstorm just
before Worlds, I decided to keep the Blue manipulation in the deck and
tried to fix the acceleration problem by focusing on Lotus Bloom, using
a mixture of Ponders and Tolaria Wests to try to suspend one every game.
However, the way that Chapin's decklist got around this problem though,
was even more ingenious. Firstly, he fixed the acceleration problem by
ensuring that his deck was completely Mono Red. This allowed him to play
a full armada of eight storage lands without the risk of colour screw.
Secondly, he solved the consistency problem by simply playing more win
conditions. Apart from Dragonstorm, the deck could not only win with my
beloved Aussie Storm combo of Pyromancer's Swath and Grapeshot, but, if
worse comes to worst, the deck could also just aim burn spells at the
opponent's head and win that way. On top of all of this, Pat also has
Empty the Warrens and Ignite Memories which he could side in for game
two as well.
Thirdly, Pat's deck runs Spinerock Knoll, which is the
card that holds the deck together as it serves multiple functions. Not
only does the Spinerock Knoll serve as library manipulation, acting as a
quasi-Impulse and digging four cards, but it also serves as a kind of
mana acceleration, effectively reducing the cost of your Dragonstorm by
allowing you to play it for the meager cost of tapping two lands. Of
course, the Spinerock Knoll is accompanied by what seems to be a ghastly
restriction but if you've ever actually played a few games with the deck
then you'll quickly notice that the need to do seven damage isn't much
of a hindrance at all. In fact, if you just think about it, fulfilling
the criteria for activating Spinerock Knoll is actually part of the
Dragonstorm game plan: not only does burning the Opposition make it
easier for you to Dragonstorm or Aussie Storm them out but playing a
number of cheap red spells in one turn also helps you build your storm
count!
And even on top of all of this, the Spinerock Knoll
also protects your win conditions from hand disruption spells and
Extirpates AND taps for mana as well. What a card!
However, despite the ingenuity of the deck, and
despite how tremendously successful the deck was at Worlds, I personally
do not think that it will be a good choice for the post-Worlds metagame.
This is mainly due to the fact that the deck is now a known quantity and
as such, many players will not only be prepared for it but will also
include hate cards in their decks and in their sideboards. Indeed, the
deck does have a number of weak points from which it can be attacked
while the fact that it is also restricted to single color also means
that it is not exactly well equipped to handle the hate. |
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