Trogdor was a man ... I mean, he was a dragon man ... Or maybe he was just a dragon: But he was still Trogdor!
Store Championship Update - 7 April
After playtesting this for a while, I made a couple changes and took this to my store championship ... and won: I went undefeated through the entire afternoon. The changes I made included more removal and less "searching" cards in my mainboard. I also added 2x of the Phoenix as a flying option, but the base of the deck remains the same: go wide with dinosaur and fling a Ghalta in their face if you need to (which I did ... twice lol).
Anyway ... Was a fan of playing Red/Green back when Energy first came out, then the stupid Cat Combo killed any interest in the game at all, then Temur was a thing and during that time my buddy beat me with a deck that hit me with Electrostatic Pummeler and Fling ... super interesting concept of building up a creature and then just throwing it in your face instead of attacking with it! So here's the back-story:
On opening weekend for Rivals, I decided I would play an old Mardu Vehicles deck since I didn't have all the cards I needed to play/build the decks I wanted to yet. A lot of folks at my shop were playing dinosaurs and everyone wanted to play Ghalta, Primal Hunger, since they all got at least one of the promo cards at a recent event. I watched a couple of those Dino games and even played against two decks that were running him, but found there were one of two primary problems with that huge 12/12 dino: 1, he was an INSTANT target for removal or 2, every creature on the board before him was the target of removal so they could never play him using the minus ability. When I played them my vehicles were just too fast to really make it an effective card: my one buddy playing token cats had him out on turn 5 or so (using the minus ability), but because he doesn't have haste or reach, my flying vehicles dealt the final blow before Ghalta ever saw any action.
My solution for these problems, as I saw it, was Fling. Now I don't think I'm the first to think of it as I've browsed a few decks here that are running similar ideas, but that was my first impression and that's what I built this deck around. The first time I took this deck to FNM it placed third overall, only losing the first game and I'm gonna chalk that up to nerves since it was a new deck and I wasn't sure how to really play the cards together, or rather I kept forgetting to do things: what lost me the match was Vraska's Contempt (see? that removal I was talking about) used against Ghalta and I only had one mana on the board and a Fling in my hand ... SOL, right? Wrong, actually since I had a Drover of the Mighty on the board and totally forgot that he add's one mana of any color to your mana pool
Besides Ghalta, this deck plays a few very high-cost dinosaurs and being able to ramp is crucial throughout the game. I've found that cards like Evolving Wilds (recently dropped), Commune with Dinosaurs, Thunderherd Migration (recently dropped), and the Enrage abilities really help you move through your deck. These cards help with playing on the draw as they re-gain the mana advantage your opponent has and really allows for you to play heavy hitters very early in the game.
I've found that Regisaur Alpha is instrumental for your WinCon since it eliminates one of the greatest flaws of Ghlata by giving it haste. Wayward Swordtooth is a very sneaky card since it requires the City's Blessing to be able to attack and defend that most players just leave it alone since they think they have enough time to play around it. But the major benefit of that card, besides an extra mana per turn, is giving Rhonas the ability to attack early and dropping Ghlata's cost by for a potential turn 4 Ghalta on the board.
Any more I'll say here about gameplay is that I've gone up against Red Deck Wins and competitive control (B/U and B/W) and come out victorious and it always makes me feel good when a home-build topples those Tier-1 decks. But that leads me to the Sideboard since that is also crucial for your game 2/3 WinCons.
Sideboard Guide
It should be pretty obvious as to which cards you'll need to side in based on the deck you might be facing and, obviously, your sideboard should be tailored to your own store meta, but what I wanted to address real quick are the cards I pull out in favor of Sideboard cards, since that's always the biggest problem I have on the spot.
Carnage Tyrant is a great heavy hitter and a surprise when he's played in game one against control decks. But against anything aggro, he should be the first to go in favor of more removal. I'm also not really a fan of Samut, the Tested as a WinCon, but see her as more of a distraction for your opponent: they see her +1 and immediately see the benefit and devastating impact she could have and she becomes an immediate target. But honestly, I would prefer to lose her to an Exile spell than a dinosaur that can deal lethal damage a turn later. So to that end, she is often one of the first cards to be removed in favor of more removal as well. Wayward Swordtooth and Rhonas the Indomitable get sided out if I'm going to be bringing in more creatures to deal with control decks since losing a god to an exile spell is often crushing. Magma Spray needs to come out if your opponent isn't running smaller creatures/aggro.
Prowling Serpopard has worked wonders for me against these blue/black match-ups, but it's not a dinosaur so I can't grab him with Commune. In order to not disrupt my mana/dino curve I think pulling Rhonas is usually the best choice in this case. Especially if you played Rhonas in game one and they know you're running god's and have more Exile removal in store for you.
Anyway, check the updates as they come in and I'll report on how this deck plays at local events. This is the kind of Magic that is REALLY fun to play!
