|
Home Decks Combos Articles Visual Spoilers Features Art Links Search Forum |
|
|
|
|
Dragons are stupid. They're large, bulky, and everyone
seems to play them. Chant with me now: Hate, Hate, Hate. You over there, do the Braves chop and bellow out "OOOOOOVVVVVVVEEERATTTTTTED OOOOVERATEDDDDDDDDD" Someone heckle that Dragon player over there for me,
please: I mean come on! There are so many cooler things out there than the same big ole nasty Dragons we've seen. Heck, there are things close to them too that still have that edge. Let's check out a few examples.
There you have it four tribes, all similar in numerous ways to Dragons, and according to me far hipper. Sure they don't have a "From the Vault: Wurms" and no one seems to cry that there isn't a Hydra in every set, but these are some of the creatures that make up Magic's distinct flavor. In fact, these four particular creatures have something in common other than being "wannabe" Dragons, they're all a part of Master's Edition 2. Today's Tribal Coffee will be all about these alternative Dragon tribes.
Okay, it's time for a serious talk. Dragons were just thoroughly trashed as overrated, overused, and loved for no good reason. Now it's time to talk about Drakes. What in the world is a Drake anyway? ...no...not a baby Dragon. Drakes are actually kin to Dragon though, often being confused in mythology. Magic's Drakes have taken the form of the mythological Wyvern in many ways though. In fact, all of Magic's Wyvern's are Drakes. Wyverns are serpentine creatures that possess clawed wings and two legs. Quick, check the art, the article can wait. Have you found a four-legged Drake yet? Keep looking, there might be one, but I'm not telling. Beyond that, Drakes are typically much smaller and agile than Dragons, and typically Blue. So what can we do with Drakes? The obvious is a speedy deck full of Fliers that capitalizes on control elements as well. Many decks have run just Sea Drake and tons of control spells. However, this is all about Tribal so the deck is going to include far more creatures, still utilizing control elements to stop speedy tribes from dominating early and beefy tribes from standing a chance.
Sadly, this one isn't makeable in MTGO, but many of the concepts can be reproduced with online power, and heck, most of the missing cards are on player's wish lists. The way this deck works is a combination of "Mana Leak" sacrifice Drakes and Winter Orb tricks. The deck doesn't care about not untapping lands due to numerous methods to bounce lands and use of Garruk and Azusa to bypass the lack of lands untapping naturally. Unlike most control decks, this one seeks to establish control through limited game play highly empowering the minor "Mana Leaks" of the Spiketails and "mana-less" card casting from hand.
Wurms are some of the most in your face, giant creatures of Magic. Much like Drakes though, their real life influences are mainly Dragons. Wurms/Wyrms in real world mythology are extremely large Dragons that have no wings and appear even more serpentine than normal ones. This description of course matches the Magic version with most Wurms being massive giant beasts primarily of the Green persuasion. Since the last deck was primarily built towards non-MTGO players, this one will be the opposite. You can easily find alternative cards for the primary reason of making it MTGO based, but probably won't have four copies of Beserk lieing around. Beserk is one of the more expensive MTGO cards from Master's Edition 1, but definitely cheaper than paper ones that easily run close to $100 a pop.
Sometimes a deck is more about how it's played than the cards in it, this deck follows and plays off that line. The creatures are questionable at best when fighting because they appear so bad. The trick is in how you mess with an opponent's mind in the attack phase. Three of the four Wurms offer higher power efficiency at the cost of negative returns. However, with cards in hand, any block or attack becomes a "guess at best" for an opponent. Those who don't know the deck might expect a Giant Growth and accommodate for it, maybe a Stonewood Invocation or Might of Oaks at the worst. However, by playing "crappy Wurms" people probably won't expect a Beserk coming if they cautiously chump block it or let it through. Or maybe they'll block it en masse to lower it down towards a death only to be greeted by Gaze of the Gorgon. As long as you have a single card in your hand, your opponent will constantly be making painful choices.
Okay, so a Dragon is kinda like a really big Lizard with wings and fire breathing, that loves gold and... Yeah I'm not gonna waste your time explaining how Lizards and Dragons are alike, nor will I give an explanation of what real life Lizards are like(I assume you got that in the fourth grade). However, we will go over Lizards in Magic as they are one of the lesser known tribes. Lizards range in size from small Rootwallas to giant dinosaurs, and tend to do a variety of things. Typically Red or Green Lizards are ill defined tribe typically in the mid-aggro range (three to four CC). I think for now though, it's time for a budget paper deck. So put your wallets away, this is a deck you maybe make for less than $20. All prices from MTG Fanatic on 9/2/2008.
There you go! A fun Lizard deck for less than $20. At only $17.26 it's a bargain deck considering that beyond a few of the Lizards most of the cards are highly portable and great additions to any Green/Red deck. The deck concept is simple, use Stoneshaker Shaman to keep your opponents constantly worried about land destruction. Meanwhile, your Lizards run amok and help tie up your mana to avoid the only land destruction in your deck turning many of their slight disadvantages into needed mana syphons. If you need more syphons you can even run Plated and regular Rootwallas on top of the little guys.
Last on our list of Alternative Dragons comes the smallest of the tribes from today, the Hydras. Hydra in mythology originates from the Twelve Labours of Hercules. A serpentine beast that guards the gate to the underworld the Hydra possessed nine heads and breathed toxic fumes. Whenever one head was sundered, a new head would emerge. In order to slay it, as a head was cut off the neck had to be cauterized to prevent a new one from growing back. It even had poisonous blood that could kill near-immortal creatures, which was the reason Hercules had to slay it. One thing many forget is that the Hydra is still immortal, and to this day under some rock there may lurk a waiting Hydra head ready to snap at you. Hydras in Magic are almost entirely Red and always mimic the multi-headed concept of lore. Many possess the ability to regrow heads, and several tricks are played with counters to mimic unique abilities of specific hydras. The biggest thing about Hydras is their mana cost though. These are expensive beasts to cast and to maintain. Playing Hydras, means finding some method to generate massive amounts of mana while dealing with smaller tribes, luckily, those two things can go hand in hand. We're coming back to MTGO territory with a deck that can actually be made online.
The deck works pretty simple, try to survive however possible until Heartbeat of Spring or Doubling Season can drop out massive Hydras and spells. Doubling Season provides powerful effects to almost all the creatures while instantly empowering Chandra and Garruk to ultimate range. While not true Hydras, the two Changelings help fill out the tribe without going into White and provide some early support. Some of the cards are flashier, but a great budget replacement for anything in this deck is Pyroclasm to improve early game results. Well that's it for this Tribal Coffee. I expect the after talk will be all about how these tribes suck and how Dragons rule, but whatever. I didn't even cover all the almost-Dragon tribes that are cooler than Dragons. I mean there's Hellions, Snakes, Leviathans, Kavu, Viashino, and Kirins, all so much cooler than Dragons.
You can discuss this article in the MDV forums
here.
Articles
Spotlights from 2008: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Iced
Drake Latte. 
Wurm
Cup of Mind Blow. 
