It IS September, when they rotate out.

From What's In Standard

Dragons of Tarkir
Magic Origins
Until September 30, 2

Today is 31 JULY.

If they are in Standard until SEPTEMBER, and at the moment we are in JULY, that means we get to use DTK and ORI cards for the next 3 months.

I think he meant he thought it was currently September.

Ah OK.

That makes more sense.

I playtested this deck some rounds and found out this:

• Hand of Silumgar is quite better than the rats. It's more aggressive, and it also works as a threat stopper.
• Sword of the Animist is really slow here. You need 4 mana to make a very useful move. But still, it's really not a very tempo card. The equuiping target can be killed as a response, thus losing mana, develop a slower play, etc...
• Use the slots above to include better and faster removal (which seems lacking). Maximize your turn-2 play: Grasp of Darkness, Draconic Roar, Roast.
• Burn from Within is extremely uneffective. 2 mana for a less than a Shock as a sorcery. Even 4 Galvanic Bombardment are by far better. You can even discard them for a better effect later.
• Sanitarium Skeleton is weak, slow, and asks for a lot of mana to come back. I'd include Cryptbreaker there. It's not expensive (in bloth money and CMC), and you could go T1 Cryptbreaker Zombie, T2 Relentless Dead zombie, T3 another zombie, tap and draw card.

I can tell by your Comments that you aren't playing this deck the way it is intended.

Rancid Rats has the same Deathtouch ability as Hand of Silumgar, but it can also be recurred from the Graveyard by Relentless Dead due to the fact that it is a Zombie. It also has Skulk, which is useful to get final points of damage through.

I agree that Sword of the Animist is probably the weakest card in this deck, but it's +1/+1 helps to protect Thunderbreak Regent against all kind of things: Gisela, the Broken Blade, Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip, and it takes down Avacyn, the Purifier  ^Flip.

I don't really care if early Creatures who are equipped with it die, as that is less removal my Opponent has in the late game.

When it works it deals with mana and colour screw, or helps me get a Dragon on the field faster. It's absolutely insane if attached to Drana, Liberator of Malakir.

However, I will keep in mind that it is a card I could possibly remove for Grasp of Darkness, etc.

Burn from Within is to be primarily used as a finisher, NOT to kill early Creatures. CREATURES are supposed to kill/block early Creatures, then keep coming back to kill/block again.

This is why Sanitarium Skeleton is good. It hits the field early, can block early on, then start to come back to the field in the mid game. You'd be surprised how easy it actually is to keep getting this back out on the field.

Especially if Sword of the Animist has put land on the field.

I'll think about Cryptbreaker but I believe it would work best in a Madness or Delerium deck. I really can't see a lot of value in putting my cards in the Graveyard.

It would even work well in a deck that aims to get Liliana, the Last Hope on the field.

Thanks for your input. I will keep it in mind as I take this deck to its first FNM this week.

The more i look at this deck the more i like it!

If you find Sanitarium Skeleton not working out for you, Dragonmaster Outcast might be another 1 CMC creature that does well in the deck. It could be an early chump blocker, and later in the game will always draw a removal spell as a way to prevent a dragon swarm. You could even run it as a one of in the deck now as a late game bomb in place of one Drana, Liberator of Malakir.

All the Drana's are important because I REALLY want her to drop on Turn 3.

I've toyed with Dragonmaster Outcast in the past and it's tricky to get it to work. I will keep it in mind though, so thanks for the suggestion.

Quick note about the Sideboard: It works best when you take out all the Red burn spells and replace them with Black spells that deal most effectively with what your Opponent has.

I very much like the idea of decks finishing off the opponent with dragons, especially Thunderbreak Regent, since that card is beyond any doubt very strong.

That being said, I've personally found that recursive blockers as a means of getting to the mid and late game is too mana intensive if the opponents deck is even a little streamlined, furthermore, a plan based on blocking allows the opponent to dictate the terms of the game, which will never be a good idea.

I would suggest taking a look at your core strategy, if your core strategy is to beat your opponent to death with Thunderbreak Regent then I would consider starting the beatdown way before the dragon is down. If on the other hand, your plan is to disrupt and interact with your opponent, then you should not allow your opponent to decide whether or not they want to be interacted with, Rancid Rats kills the thing they want it to kill, Murder kills the thing you want it to kill.

One more thing, you've completely misevaluated Ruthless Disposal, it is a 3 for 2 in your opponent's favour, if you are considering raw card count, and it is the LAST card you want to have in your hand when your opponent casts Emrakul, the Promised End, as that will turn it into a 5 for 0

Fibbe I've actually found in playtesting that Ruthless Disposal has been more effective than I would have thought.

I have said that I want to see what decks are being played at my FNM and adjust accordingly, so Murder might be added to the Sideboard then. My partner went tonight to see what people were playing for WNM and said just about everyone is playing Angels. He also said that Mono-Blue won the night, so I am thinking about adding Virulent Plague to my Sideboard.

Rancid Rats can shut down big and fast strategies, but it can also be recurred with Relentless Dead and Kolaghan's Command. So they can keep choosing which Creatures they want to attack with, I can keep Deathtouching them, and then keep bringing Relentless Rats back to Deathtouch all day.

My beat down starts with Drana, Liberator of Malakir, not with Thunderbreak Regent. Will I be able to get these in time? Only tournament play will tell, at this stage.

Thanks for your feedback.

Another quick note, Murder does not work against Emrakul, the Promised End.

I know that no one has suggested that, but just want to make sure people are aware.

Until this deck has had its first FNM I'm not taking any more suggestions as we seem to be floating off in three different directions:

1. I know how to beat this deck, so it must be bad.

2. My FNM meta can beat this deck, so it must be bad.

3. I can think of theoretical situations which could shut this deck down, so it must be bad.

I will play FNM, report back, and make changes accordingly.

PLEASE NOTE:
While I am open to suggestions I really want to at least TRY to see if I can make recursion work, so I'm not the least bit interested in dropping that as a strategy at this stage.

I was searching for cards that would be good against this deck So you want to be an asshat? (Mono-Blue Control) and stumbled upon Akoum Firebird.

So far it feels like a better fit for this deck, with its flying and late recursion. At the very least I can get continual Ramp out of it with Sword of the Animist.

I've put in 2 copies and removed Hanweir Battlements. Now I just need to decide whether to fill the empty land slots with Westvale Abbey  ^Flip or Rogue's Passage.

I'm leaning towards Rogue's at this stage, but I'm going to test the hell out of Westvale first.

I'm also trying Kozilek's Return in the Sideboard, as I got information that a deck played at my LGS tonight won by casting Rise from the Tides.

I've also seen some mono blue rise from the tides decks floating around my LGS. They seem to operate by casting an artifact that gives them 1 life whenever they cast a spell of a chosen color and an enchantment that lowers the casting cost of instants and sorceries by 1. Then lots of card draw, Engulf the Shore and other disruptive stuff. Note that the deck does not seem to use counterspells. Sideboard includes creatures though like Thing in the Ice  ^Flip for example. Win-con is basically flipping thing in the ice and then gaining multiple extra turns or playing rise from the tides and multiple extra turns. They can also awaken lands to get beaters. It's a complex deck to deal with.

The Artefact is Prism Ring and the Enchantment is Jace's Sanctum.

The version played at my LGS used a lot of Counter spells. They need to get stuff in the Graveyard for their Rise from the Tides to get more value.

I'm aware of the Awaken cost on Scatter to the Winds.

Crush of Tentacles is also used.

It's not THAT complex. It's just a different version of a deck that was being played when SOI first came out. Imprisoned in the Moon has helped it by getting rid of a big Opponent Creature.

Argeaux,
Just noticed this is now the #1 deck on T/O! Congrats!!!

Thanks clayperce.

Now, get your Gruul Cluues (EMN) up there.

How do you make the mana symbols and the bigger font?

+1 this deck

Rogue_Titan at the bottom of your Profile page there is a link called "Formatting tips".

Click on that for detailed formatting options.

There are also shortcut buttons at the top of every Comment window. Have a look and you'll see B I H ... etc. The one that looks like a rain drop makes mana symbols for you.

I use html to format most of my Descriptions. You can look up some tutorial pages on that, if you want to learn it.

It's way too complicated for me to describe here.

One little short cut I found is that if you write some text then go to the next line and put three dashes in a row - three of those, it will turn the text into a larger size.

If you put three dashes in a row NOT underneath text, it will make a full page line.

Thanks for the +1

Use lb signs to make font bigger and use the [ [ symbol : R ] ] without the spaces to make symbols. There's a handy formatting guide on the bottom of the page, I'd recommend checking it out.

no Draconic Roar or Foul-Tongue Invocation? Also Flaying Tendrils maybe good in sideboard against myper aggro deck

Snow586,
Probably because 5 Dragons is nowhere near enough to get a reliable payoff from the cards. I like at least 7, and 9 is optimum. Here's the math if you're interested.

Argeaux,
You're probably at FNM as I type this, but just in case it's not too late ...
I finally got a chance to playtest this against Big Prowess (EMN). A few thoughts, in no particular order:

• Drana is just so good. Your deck had her and Firebird out together at one point, and it was perhaps the fastest clock I've ever been on :-)
• Sanitarium Skeleton and Relentless Dead did a TON of work, and presented me with tough decisions at every step. Use quality removal on a tiny dude who's coming back anyways, or did by a thousand small cuts? Urgh!
• I know you'e playtested it a ton, but I'll mention it anyways: Maybe just one more Swamp? The only times the deck stumbled was when I didn't have early. Of course, that may have just been me keeping hands you would have mulliganed :-)

Draw well!