Hey everybody, it has been a little while since my last post, but I am here to answer everybody's questions and clear up any confusion. So without further ado, lets start another dissertation.

@MadDogLai: I am well aware of the worldgorger combo, and have been considering it for a while. If combined with something like the Elemental Bond and Temur Ascendancy, then that also means you have infinite draw to go with that infinite mana. You would essentially win the game right there at that point so I have been really considered putting that combo in.

@Rabid_Wombat: Yeah, more rocks the better. decided to not go with paradox engine, but have been considering getting some new cards, in fact, I already have some on the way. Sadly, the Mana Crypt that I really want is not in said package. I also wouldn't mind owning a Mox Diamond as well. Those two are great cards. I am a little hesitant on Lion's Eye Diamond because it is a sac affect and well price. Those three all together are over $200. think I will start with just getting my Mana Crypt as a start and keep building up from there.

@potatopotatopotato: Yeah, I know that top tier competitive commander decks all have a low average cmc and are generally not built around attacking. I get that, but, I still feel there is a way to do it. I believe any deck can be competitive if build correctly. Maybe cards don't exist for said competitive version yet, maybe they do and nobody has built it yet. Doesn't mean I can't stop trying. So while your opinion is valid, I will continue with how I want to play and make my damn best attempt at this deck for competitive. Thank you for your advice, and if you have any insights on the deck, I will be more than happy to hear about it.

@Forkbeard: I am glad you enjoyed the deck, it has been a labor of love for quite sometime and I am happy to see how far it has come. So on the thought of Sarkhan's Triumph, I like it, but it is a 3 mana specific tutor. We run Demonic Tutor for the reason that it searches for any card. Which with that in mind, I would think of running another card that adds any card to hand like Demonic tutor does. Cards that come to mind are Beseech the Queen, Diabolic Tutor, Grim Tutor, or even Enlightened Tutor. There also the tutors that put cards on top of the deck, like Vampiric Tutor. I think the ability to search for any card is just arguably more powerful than going for a dragon. The deck also might need more draw power, so I think adding something like Fact or Fiction or Treasure Cruise could be happening. I am also having a hard time fitting any more tutor like cards into the deck right now.

@BrettonTheKid: I personally like Dragonlord Kolaghan. She is great, and it is fine even if the last ability is dead in the water. She is cheaper than Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, and does the same thing as him without stealing dragons, which if your opponents don't play dragons, is also a dead in the water ability. My playgroups also play a lot of clone affects, so I would end up losing all of my dragons and would die right there on the spot. I do run Homeward Path in the event my stuff does get stolen, but that is one card out of 99. I will not deny though, that Karrthus is a great dragon and was something I did consider. So on to the next part, how is Deathrite Shaman out of place. We get a mana dork that comes out turn 1, can use any of the 10 fetch lands that I have used, or any of the ones that an opponent uses (remember, he can target any graveyard), and he can screw with graveyard decks. Gotten stuck in an infinite loop with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed's undying affect? Guess what, Deathrite Shaman just exiled the creature that was going infinite with the undying affect from Mikaeus. In the words of a friend of mine, Deathrite Shaman is a 1 mana planeswalker essentially.

@Dragonstompy: I am very glad that you enjoy the decklist. It has been fun, but improvements can always be made. In my testing for Rhystic Study, It never comes out. This card stays in the deck and should probably never be removed. It is just so good for drawing. Most competitive decks aren't going to let a rhystic study slow down there progress towards winning so you will be drawing off of that. Some of the time, it will be a lot of cards. If they pay for the study, then they are slowing down their progress which is also something you want. People don't want the dragons to explode, but they also don't want to slow down. Rhystic Study contains only downsides for the opponents and we spent 3 mana for it. I have also considered adding Phyrexian Arena as an extra draw source for the deck along with Rhystic Study. Would certainly never cut the study though. As for Broodmate Dragon, for 6 mana (5 with The Ur-Dragon commander), I just don't think he does enough for the deck. He does give a total power of 8 across two creatures, but I think I would rather spend that mana someplace else. To me, something like Hellkite Tyrant is just so much better. It is a matter of personal opinion, but I can see his appeal for the double enter battlefield triggers with say Scourge of Valkas or Dragon Tempest.

Alright people, that is my lengthy explanations. There will be another update coming here soon. As I mentioned earlier, got new cards coming in, and hopefully they speed up the deck further. One of the new cards being Carpet of Flowers and with most generals using blue in some way, this means only straight profit/value out of this card. Anyway, have a great day everyone and stay safe.

Thoughts on Necropotence?

Good deck. If you want see my vision of the same deck: The Raging Fury

Thedude636: Yeah I love Necropotence and I need one for my Prossh deck. For here, I would love to see it work and there will be days that it will since it is a draw card. The hardest part about it is the fact that it is a triple black colored spell in a 5 color deck. Might be hard to assemble 3 black sources to use asap, however, it could work very well. Love the card and the extra draw that it can net is awesome.

Azrael_Kai: Thank you, I am glad that you enjoy the deck. It has been a work in progress and I have loved working on it.

I apologize to the both of you for the late response, especially towards Thedude636. My life has been very busy lately with school and the holidays that had approached. Hopefully I get back to building decks and remaking a lot of them. Look forward to my next creation, Animar, Soul of Elements.

Vlasiax: I can't say I speak on behalf of Derpsofdoom, but I run a very similar deck and thought I might be able to provide some insight. On the topic of Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, Ojutai, Soul of Winter, and Wasitora, Nekoru Queen, I sort of agree. They are some of the weaker cards in the deck, but I think all of them serve their purpose. Kolaghan is good because of the ability stacking so it can get in for some really good early damage. There have also been a few occasions where it helps get to the 21 commander damage in two swings instead of 3. Ojutai has helped me with closing out games that are at sort of a stand-still because I can tap down the bigger threats my opponents have and get some good damage in. It also helps against Atraxa, Praetors' Voice decks because that card can be annoying to deal with, at least in my meta. Wasitora is again good against decks that run fewer creatures and it is really good in the early game at preventing them from getting a good footing. The countermagic and artifact hate kind of depends on meta, and in mine the Cavern of Souls is usually good enough. In the occasional more controlling matchups, I do bring in a Taigam, Ojutai Master, but I rarely have to. I do think those cards are definitely worth a place in control matchups, especially against multiple control decks. As for the plansewalkers, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh are just really powerful, irrelevant of what type of deck you are running. Ugin is really good at wiping the smaller creatures and permanents, which is good because dragons are typically very high CMC cards, and using his -11 is insane. Nicol Bolas is really good at either making sure your opponents don't have very many cards in hand with the +1, and once they're low on cards you can start using the +2 to steal their cards from their library, and the -12 is also crazy, even though it rarely ever gets to that point. I personally tried Sarkhan Unbroken and thought it was a little slow for my taste. I understand that it has ramp and card draw in its +1, which is good, and the -8 can put you way ahead, but I think the deck has better ramp and card draw already, and -8 is really difficult to get to. I've never personally tried Sarkhan the Mad, and I've always been interested to try it because the -4 can just straight up kill people, the -2 can remove bigger and better cards for a 5/5 flier, which is not a lot in commander, and the 0 is good to use if you've used the other two abilities because it has no abilities that add loyalty counters. Sorry if I've been rambling lol, I just play this deck a lot and have tried a lot of different combinations of 99 cards to see how the deck plays out.

So for the first thing on the agenda, I would like to formally apologize for my absence from this deck (and magic in general for that matter). Life has been keeping me busy with school ending a couple of months ago (I know, summer is almost over), but with the end of school, work then began to arise and it just became very hard to stay active on tapped out and find time to actually build any decks (especially this one in particular). With that being said, I am back once again to build, formulate, test, and build again.

Second lets begin with a thank you to TailoredBacon for trying to answer Vlasiax's question in my absence, I really do appreciate it and love having input being discussed here to help improve everyone's The Ur-Dragon Deck. So now it is my turn to actually provide some input on the question as well :D and this will bring us to the 3rd topic.

Vlasiax: I have been using Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, Ojutai, Soul of Winter, and Wasitora, Nekoru Queen mostly because they either fill a couple of rolls, or they are just strictly better than other dragons. Kolaghan will help provide extra damage when needed and if you have an army, the power will quickly grow out of control, but you are right, alone she does slightly under preform and it is very possible that you might not ever get to that army of dragons and might end up on the cutting block due to her cost and what she does, as she has no board impact right away. As for Ojutai, Soul of Winter, I have found that he will help lock down or slow down opponents that could very well grow out of control. Gilded Lotus is playing in almost every deck in my playgroup and tapping it down could help (but most of my group have ways of untapping it multiple times in a turn or other ways around it), so Ojutai is not bad, but for 7 mana, there might be something better. He lacks impact on the board upon entering and must attack to get his trigger, which if you have multiple dragons attacking, can be amazing, but if you don't, then he is more of a nuisance than anything. Wasitora, Nekoru Queen is probably out of all of the dragons you have mentioned, would be the one I keep, solely because of the Sac creature affect and strength it has on deck like Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Captain Sissay, or other commander decks that rely so heavily on the commander. Though once again, I have found that she does get removed rather quickly as people don't want to lose their commander. She also shares the common problem with the other two and it is that she doesn't impact the board when she is played and is just a creature that people are like "okay, got to get rid of it by next turn so we don't sac anything". Turns out, dragons are threatening, but when dolled out one by one, people tend to just remove them before they become a problem. Which this brings us to your second question about hate.

YES!!!!! It does bring hate as people are going to remove your dragons before they can do anything. This is short and simple, if you play a 6 mana dragon, that will be removed to the infamous one mana Path of Exile, then yes, they are going to do it. I have found that counterspells aren't as big of a problem as one might imagine, but they are there and having Cavern of Souls does help, but I have considered alternate means. I just saw Conqueror's Flail tonight, and holy crap. A card that will more than likely give +5/+5 (because we are 5 color) and it has a Grand Abolisher like affect, I will take 10 please. Steely Resolve is another that I will probably try to find room for. I do not know if I want Taigam, Ojutai Master, or Surrak Dragonclaw, just because of their mana costs. Surrak is more tempting because it gives all your creatures trample, and makes everything uncounterable. So he is tempting, but really unsure right now. Requires play testing!!! So we should always look for ways to protect our dragons, but we must keep it cheap in cost if at all possible. If we can ramp out cheap spells that protect our dragons, while being able to dull out dragons, that would be ideal.

Last point, the planeswalkers. Oh boy, the planeswalkers. What can I saw, flavor wise, I love both Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh and they are both very powerful, but they are very expensive and if I had the choice, I would probably only keep Ugin, and that itself is a maybe right now. The Sarkhans are another thing. Sarkhan Unbroken on paper looks like he should be in this deck 100% of the time, but in reality, I don't think so. He is 5 mana for a very kill able mana rock that draws you one card, maybe two is a full turn rotation happens. Plus the ult, strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies and paints a very large target straight on his forehead. He will be killed, it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when, and it will be very soon after he is played. Now if you play Doubling Season with him, then by all means, ult him right away and live the dream, then tell me how it was because it sounds glorious. Sarkhan the Mad is one that I have thought about, but ultimately, have left out because he will be a 5 mana draw a card once or twice, or make a 5/5 dragon that could have just been played for the 5 mana from the start. His ult seems really cool, but requires a lot of dragons to do this. If I had to have a planeswalker, and really, I want to use this guy, it would have to be the new Sarkhan, Fireblood. He is a 3 mana ramp spell for dragons that can either ramp or loot a card, which he will more than likely loot on his first turn he is out. Second, because his abilities are just helping with ramp or looting and his ult only makes four 5/5 dragon tokens, which isn't as scary as pull every dragon out of the deck onto the field, so he does not receive as much hate as Sarkhan Unbroken. I think this also might be the only planeswalker I run just because he is cheap and is exactly what I want. Though Dack Fayden is very tempting as he can also ramp with artifact stealing.

Okay, now for my final set of words for the night. This was a lot to think about and type, but it is what we are here for to help discuss and further advance ones ideas. This being said, for the months that I have been playing magic, I have been playing a Storm Grixis deck, a competitive Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck, and even a Marwyn, the Nurturer commander deck. All of the experience and ideas from these decks will help build and form a new and improved The Ur-Dragon deck. One that will help push the deck to its very limits. Also the M19 and Commander 2018 has some awesome stuff for this deck and I look forward to improving the deck with all the fun things found in these sets. A 3 mana Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  ^Flip that does impact the board straight away by discarding a card from all of our opponents and is a 4/4 flyer that can become a planeswalker in the later end of the game. Sold and I already have my Foil Prerelease Nicol Bolas for the deck. So with all of this, you guys can expect to see a new form of The Ur-Dragon Initiative in the coming month or two. Hopefully it is sooner, rather than later, but time must allow for research. I thank you all for listening, reading, and just enjoying the deck overall. Glad to see that it has remained high up on the ranks of the other The Ur-Dragon decks even with my absence and I hope everybody will continue to support The Ur-Dragon Initiative. Have a great night and may your sealed pulls and your commander games be great. Bye Bye!!!!!!

Vlasiax: Yeah, I originally did run Aggravated Assault and ended up removing in the old build just because I generally didn't have the mana to get additional combats outside of Savage Ventmaw. It is quite rare to get Hellkite Charger's affect off but when I can, the affect is generally pretty massive. So with that in mind, I probably will try to put Aggravated Assault back into the deck, but the question then comes to mind. What to take out for the card? I will have to look at this and see.

Vlasiax the damage from Thunderbreak Regent can really add up over time but the main reason I love that dragon is if you get a nuts draw Turn one ( e.g Mox Diamond, Sol Ring etc..) you can drop him on Turn 2 which can make even Tier 1 decks scoop ;)

There are also situations where damage is automatically applied ( Caltrops for example) in which case you can do 30+ damage to your opponents face if you have 10 dragons on the board.

Wow you were not kidding when you said you had massive changes for this deck. Most of cards that you added and cut seem to make sense as a whole, but there are a few changes I found surprising. As you said, you wanted to cut cards that only helped you cast creatures, so taking out cards like Urza's Incubator makes sense, but I was a little bit surprised that you took out Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. This card is insanely powerful in creature decks like this one, and gets even better with cards like Paradox Engine. I personally am also not a fan of having most of your removal only dealing with creatures, other than the Cyclonic Rift and Vandalblast, which means you only have one card that deal with enchantments, but it doesn't destroy it, just bounces it to hand. I feel like one of either Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile could be something like a Beast Within or Anguished Unmaking. The lack of basics was surprising, but if your meta doesn't run anything like Ghost Quarter or Field of Ruin, then it really isn't that big of a deal. I also feel like Homeward Path and Dragonlord Silumgar are kind of a non-bo, and I think that the dragonlord could be swapped for something else for this reason. I do like the addition of Lotus Cobra as it works insanely well with fetch lands, as being able to produce up to three mana off of one land is insane. I also like Boneyard Scourge and Thunderbreak Regent. They are definitely some of the weaker dragons, but having recursion or punishment for your opponents hitting your stuff, as well as being early game beaters is really good. Chromium, the Mutable was an interesting addition that I didn't expect, but flash, uncounterable, built-in protection, AND a 7/7 for six mana is pretty powerful. Overall, I think the new decklist is insanely powerful, just a little lacking in more versatile removal.

Heyo Vlasiax. I have looked at Sarkhan's Unsealing and I have been curious about it myself. I feel it can do well, especially since the affect is a on cast trigger. At 4 cmc, it isn't to hard to set up, especially if we drop a turn 1 or 2 mana crypt and set up for this card. If we can set it up early, it will see some great value as the game goes on, but if we do draw it late game, this card is pretty much dead. It also does not trigger on etb, so reanimate spells do nothing for this card. Overall, I think it is a good card, but for me personally, I don't really want to run it. I think it is worth trying, but like Dragon Tempest has a similar affect and gives flying creatures haste. Hopefully this helps and I apologize for the late response. Finals took over and then Christmas has been happening and etc. With that being said, Happy Holidays everyone!!!! Hope that your presents are great and if any of them are magic the gathering related, that your pulls are even greater.

Awesome deck! I have my own personal Ur-Dragon deck I use in my play group and still have upgrades/adjustments to make to it, but I have a question about facing Blood Moon . Would you consider using Prismatic Omen ever, or another card to play around it? I find the Blood Moon to be a problem every now and then and it just shuts me off until that player dies or I do. Thanks!

Good evening everyone, looks like a few more comments have come in and life has kept me busy again. Studies with the school semester and the like lol. Anyway, I will do my best to answer some of the questions that people might have.

@davidzedd: You are correct, Blood Moon is a problem, and Prismatic Omen can fix that problem, just as Chromatic Lantern does as well. I would love the run the omen if I can. It just comes down to finding the room for it, but if one can find a spot for it, I would definitely run the card just because of its ability to fix any mana issues we might have as a 5 color deck.

@Vlasiax: I do like haste on my dragons and it is important having that haste, it just comes down to finding the room for it within the 99 card space (again with this space issue lol). Sarkhan Vol I feel isn't exactly the best haste enabler as he will just get shot down pretty quickly to prevent the haste dragons. Fires of Yavimaya is great and was trying to fit it in the deck, but then something happened. That something is the wonderful printing of Rhythm of the Wild and that will be going in the deck somehow. Can't counter my creatures and they get haste (or a +1/+1 counter if a haste enabler is already on field), I am sold. I have thought about Mana Drain and ultimately have left it out for a couple of reasons. 1: I only have one mana drain and it is being used somewhere else lol (though it might return for a future deck, unsure at the moment). 2: The fact it costs BB is rough at times, but getting the extra mana for an early Ur-dragon is incredibly tempting, so I have considered it very much. Though, I have currently opted for a removal package instead of a counter spell package at the moment. Though, maybe I should add more counter spells?

Then here is a last thing, sort of an update. With the War of the Spark on the horizon, what are everyones thought's on some of the cool new stuff we are getting. Specifically the new Nicol Bolas. Seems fantastic to me and I would love a foil please lol. Though, something caught my eye much more than he did, and that is the new WUBRG Niv-Mizzet Reborn card (need a foil). I want to see what we can do with that thing so bad. Do we run it as a commander, or maybe a Ramos, Dragon Engine deck? I could see him being played in many places (Not here in The Ur-Dragon sadly) and I want to commence experiments on him ASAP. With that being said, if a ramos, or niv-mizzet reborn deck is on the way, the mana base and other cards will probably be taken from this deck in order to build that new one. Also, all of artifact cards (like Mana Crypt would probably run better in the ramos deck. Anyway, let me know your thoughts about recent cards. The recent sets that have come are really sweet and can't wait to see the rest of "War of the Spark".

@TailoredBacon: You are correct in the fact that the removal package is probably lacking, but definitely removing the cost reducing creature specific cards, like Urza's Incubator , was a vast improvement and I have noticed an overall increase in speed for this deck. It has threatened many games and has won many games due to the changes, but you are right that enchantment removal and the like would be a great help. Dragonlord Silumgar is fun and has actually won me a game or two, but it is situational at times. Homeward Path is incredibly important for creature based decks and I wouldn't leave home without it. Yeah, you just don't play its affect when you have silumgar on board, but if somebody else is doing something dumb, like stealing your dragons, you get them back. So maybe silumgar gets the bucket, unsure. As for the case in probably my favorite mono green card in existence Selvala, Heart of the Wilds , she was removed due to 2 things. 1: She was removed because I have built a second deck with her, specifically with the competitive format in mind and might I saw, she is vicious. MONO GREEN STORM FTW!!! 2: I only have one copy of her and she is 50 dollars, with her foil version being close to 200$ and with many other projects, just haven't opted to getting a second one yet. Hopefully that cleared up some questions or the like. Sorry for the late response, but school has been keeping me busy beyond what I wanted it to. Haven't gone to my local game store in months.

@Vlasiax: Yeah, normally when I move cards in and out, I generally go over a good explanation of why I do so. The last time I did though, was basically a huge revamp of the deck and so it wasn't just 5 or so cards. it was more like 20 or more lol and Selvala just happened to be one of them that I wanted for another deck (which was originally a Ghalta, Primal Hunger storm deck, then it become Selvala storm). I might try Glorybringer , he does seem decent and would reduce cmc a bit. Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury is one I have always loved and would love to throw back in, but its very possible that I might just do so. Have to contemplate it. My group plays seems pretty big bomb cards. We are constantly ending games by turn 5 or 6 with our standard edh decks and then turn 3 or less with our competitive decks. So generally Dragonlord Silumgar grabs something really great. Again, it all depends on playgroup, but we will see what I decide to shift around. As I said, might decide to build a Ramos deck to try and play with niv-mizzet or niv as commander.

Hey I was just checking out your deck list. Lots of interesting choices here. My question is, what is your meta like? Are you facing a lot of fast combo decks, and if so how do you fare against them? Would you say that your games go about 6 or 7 turns, or are they longer than that? Just trying to get a snap shot of your meta looks like. Thanks!