Of course the real gentleman duelist runs both Dragonspeaker Shaman and Cultivate playing whichever is needed as the situation demands. Why not have both options available to you?

^^ Running every piece of ramp/fixing in the deck takes 15 spots. If you don't include bloodbraid or the terramorphics. That is why. It doesn't become a question of cultivate vs shaman at that point as ranger vs shaman, assuming you are willing to run up to 12 pieces of ramp. Since I personally would rather just cast a hellkite hatchling, there's another level of depth involved (due to me running 3 crucible, kiln dude, and a couple of other things).

In a more blunt statement, you can't run everything.

Ah if your worried about what to cut then just toss away the Thallids and Goblins. Won't that leave you hilariously under-defended in the early turns? Your playing Enter the Dracomancer! Your probably going to lose anyway. Might as well do it chasing a dragon rather than cowering behind a goblin.

Hey new to the forum. I have to agree with some, the Shamans do more harm than good. This deck is one of my favorites and does relatively well. Here is my build:

[1v1] "Starter"
A library for the Dragons 2014 deck (Enter the Dracomancer)
60 Cards. 35 nonlands (15 creatures, 20 spells). 25 Lands (7 10 4; 4 other).

Land
   4x Terramorphic Expanse
cost  
   4x Dragon Fodder
cost  
   2x Borderland Ranger
   4x Cultivate
   2x Jund Charm
   4x Maelstrom Pulse
   1x Soul's Fire
cost  
   1x Archwing Dragon
   1x Bloodbraid Elf
   1x Ogre Battledriver
   1x Spellbreaker Behemoth
   2x Explosive Vegetation
cost  
   1x Broodmate Dragon
   2x Dragon Broodmother
   1x Flameblast Dragon
   2x Predator Dragon
cost  
   1x Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
   1x Kilnmouth Dragon
   1x Form of the Dragon
cost  
   1x Hellkite Overlord
cost  
   1x Banefire
   1x Savage Twister

I have tried this deck with all thallids / fodders, then none of them. I now use 4 Dragon Fodder and no thallids, and that is working well for me. It gives me 2 chump blocks / trade w/ a 2/2 in my primary color, and synergizes well w/ Ogre Battledriver.

Edit: @Kratos: our builds are only 4 cards different. Conceptually, they are almost identical. Because we have so much ramp, I suggest removing 2 lands in favor of 2 more bombs. I also use 2 landcyclers, which helps make up for having only 23 land. I find topdeck mode with less lands in the deck and more bombs is much more effective.

I have no clue what topdeck means.

Regarding your post about lands... even with all the ramp I find consistency issues with land. I would rather play 25 land. This deck is in desperate need of another board sweeper. Actually normally I run 3 soul fires and no jund charms. However since I am ranked pretty high on xbox now I find myself playing AG. DW, MM like 80% of the time. So the jund charms are back in.

What two bombs did you have in mind?

Welcome to the forum! I like you already! I, too, love this deck, but, you might need to define relatively well





There's the deckplanner which is a great tool for anything involving your deck, especially posting.

Thanks for the site, it works great. As for relatively well... I don't know the exact numbers. I don't keep stats but currently I ranked in top 70 and it is in my rotation for ranked games. I don't know how you guys evaluate success in this game. Its in my rotation along with LoD, CMD. DnB, EA, DW, FW, Elves, and UB.

Personally, I track my win/loss info, cause I like numbers.
EtD, while fun, is one of the worst decks, win-wise. Both in my playing with, and against.
However, that doesn't stop me from playing it all the time, cause I like it.

One of the members here came up with a tracking doc, for those of us that like numbers - while I don't personally use this one, I will be using it next year, to be sure.

Welcome Kratos!
I too love the Dragon deck.
Too chime in, after a long time rolling with Shamans I removed them last week. I've only had a couple of games under my belt since but I think I'm liking the deck better now. I did run them more as an extra early body and less as pseudo-ramp and am not really missing them.

Kratos, I feel you will find Bloodbraid will under perform for you as it's basically just going to pull more ramp (if your lucky) or something unusable your turn such as a Jund or a Maelstrom with nothing to play them on.
I highly recommend Crucible of Fire.
Lovely when you Broodmother spits out 4/4's without you having to devour anything.

I can't imagine the deck would work well if you're running all the shaman and cultivate cards. There's just too much that wants to be played on the curve, and does not help in the late game. I think the last time I played this deck I had shaman/ranger just to make sure it was a body that could do something. If I can fight my gag reflex I might dust this off...

I think that is actually one of the funniest decks in a game. Turning "Opponent has 16 health and I have no creatures" to an "Opponent dies with -2 health" on t6 once was just an enormous win

I want to throw in one thought again why (among others…) this deck is perceived as so weak: You don’t have enough things to do for setting up a game and/or builing defense and you don’t use your mana in the first two turns to a satisfying level in many cases . Many builds running 4 Dragon Fodder as the only cards below 3CMC will probably find themselves often enough going:

T1: Land (maybe Terramorphic Expanse) – pass
T2: Land and because we don’t have 1 of our 4 cards for 2CMC: – pass
T3 we are already looking at something on the other side of the table in most of these duels, so we severely are running behind because we want to start ramping now, setting up a game and hope to survive.

If you have not experienced this, maybe it was just me but I had enough of those games . Thus I tried to get more things done early without running 8 Tukatongue Thallid / Dragon Fodder . I exchanged the Explosive Vegetations for two land cyclers which after discussion in this forum became Igneous Pouncer instead of Valley Rannet and I exchanged some Dragon Fodders for Tukatongue Thallids. These changes plus the 4 Terramorphic Expanses let me set up in the first two turns on a much more frequent level than before. I still run behind in many set ups... but not so far anymore

Last comment here: I do not think that Dragon Fodder is necessarily better than Tukatongue Thallid. Besides the mana cost all these token things are only meat walls in my play and I normally do not want to trade two tokens for a bear because smart opponents tend to play a random giant creature once their bear is gone.

Just me...

^^ Frankly, the thallids have never done jack squat for me other than get devoured at some later date. The number of situations where thallid was relevent and hellkite hatchling was not is limited to my left hand. I run the fodder merely because the 6 mana dragon wants a chance at food and the four mana dragon I run to have more kilnmouth bait also wouldn't turn down the chance. But the 1 mana creature in an all flying deck........... it has not been good enough to put in. I'll just cycle a pouncer for a swamp or a mountain instead and be glad my turn 2 did something.

This is a fair statement.

I should have added that I do not run any devouring creatures (besides Gorger Wurm who is rarely devouring because there is no need). My bad . Running a devour-heavy deck I can follow your argument. Just wondering if you have sufficient time and tokens left over turn 5 but it seems so. Just alternative builds I guess.

You don't run Predator Dragon? That guy is a beast!
Plus, the tokens from Dragon Broodmother have devour...and I'm assuming that everyone runs that...

@ Kratos24: topdeck: it's the moment when your hand is empty and you hope to draw something usefull.

in your build, I think you can change your lands.
You need to be sure to get a forest early to play cultivate or ranger on turn 3, get a swamp then get mostly red mana.
So when you don't play shaman you should play more forest than mountain Imo.
Also, 3 swamps is enough. Even 2 is enough.

I don't run Predator Dragon, indeed. He is a beast but a beast you have to construct your deck around. And that's the point: I particularly do not think that devouring is the best way to go but this is just my personal feeling. Without devouring Predator Dragon is just a hasty 4/4 flyer . For one mana more you get Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund who is a hasty beast by himself.

You are right I run the Dragon Broodmothers and I get some devouring tokens... I don't run them however. Just a joke of a non-native-speaker Don't take me too serious. In fact the tokens are indeed devouring more from time to time than my beloved 5 mana wurms. But... to close the loop... hoping for some devouring tokens turn 6 or 7 does not let me think better of Dragon Fodder.

Shamans and rangers are also food that tends to show everywhere in this deck.

So...who wants to step up and get Mjack a new mouse for Christmas?