The Fish Tank: Dragon's Approach Edition (May 2-8, 2021)
Welcome back to The Fish Tank, the series where we sneak a peek at sweet viewer-submitted decks and maybe, with our powers combined, turn them into real, fun, playable lists! This week, we have a special edition of The Fish Tank. Last week for Meme or Dream? we played and upgraded a Dragon's Approach list for Strixhaven Standard, and at the end of the episode, I challenged viewers to submit their own brews built around Dragon's Approach and Magda, Brazen Outlaw. Well, today, we're going to take a look at some of the most interesting submissions! What sweet Dragon's Approach lists did you all send it? Let's find out! But first, to have your own deck considered for next week's edition (and for our Fishbowl Thursday Instant Deck Tech), make sure to leave a link in the comments, or email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
Technically, Doug G.'s Jeskai Approach build breaks one of the rules of the challenge (there's no Magda, Brazen Outlaw), but the idea is unique and sweet enough that I wanted to show it off anyway. While we have some typical Dragon's Approach tricks (like discarding copies to Thrilling Discovery and Prismari Command to stock the graveyard and turn on the Dragon tutor mode quicker), what really intrigues me about the build is the spellslinger sub-theme, which is something I haven't seen explored. Birgi, God of Storytelling makes our Dragon's Approaches cost two mana, which is a much better deal than three for a Lava Spike. And we even have Sprite Dragon to grow into a massive threat as we sling our spells. Most Dragon's Approach lists narrowly focus on tutoring out a big Dragon with the spell, but Doug G.'s build has found a way to power up casting Dragon's Approach naturally, which is a super sweet idea!
Speaking of slinging spells, Zachary D. had a similar idea but one that embraces the Treasure plan, with Seize the Spoils and four Goldspan Dragons to back up Magda, Brazen Outlaw. Perhaps my favorite aspect of this deck is that it doesn't bother to play big, expensive Dragons at all, with our only Dragon's Approach targets being Sprite Dragon and Goldspan Dragon, which means the deck should be able to function pretty well even if we don't manage to tutor up a Dragon. While cards like Velomachus Lorehold are flashy, Goldspan Dragon should be almost as good at closing out the game and much better if we have to cast it naturally. Oh yeah, and the one Volcanic Geyser is hilarious, giving us the possibility of living the dream of making a ton of Treasure tokens and then killing our opponent with one massive burn spell to the face!
Quetzalito's Grixis Dragon's Approach deck certainly is one of the most unique of all the submissions. It's basically a Grixis Midrange version of Dragon's Approach that uses cards like Merfolk Secretkeeper, King Narfi's Betrayal, and Egon, God of Death to fill the graveyard, with Terror of the Peaks and Goldspan Dragon as Dragon's Approach tutor targets. By far my favorite part of the deck is the one copy of Syr Konrad, the Grim, which is a super-unique way to get a bit more value out of Dragon's Approach. Since Dragon's Approach allows us to exile copies from the graveyard to tutor up a Dragon, the copies we exile will be "cards leaving the graveyard," so they'll trigger Syr Konrad, the Grim to drain our opponent for even more damage. The other big upside of the deck is that it looks like a weird but fairly solid midrange deck, so we should have some chance of picking up some wins even in games where we don't manage to tutor up a Dragon with our namesake sorcery.
Andrew W.'s Dragon's Approach submission is another one that technically breaks the rules (no Magda, Brazen Outlaw) but is unique enough that I just had to feature it anyway. The goal of the deck is simply to hopefully one-shot kill the opponent with Goldspan Dragon after tutoring it up with Dragon's Approach by chaining together pump spells like Titanic Growth and Unleash Fury into either Kaya's Onslaught or Kazuul's Fury to double up Goldspan Dragon's damage and win the game, taking advantage of the fact that the Treasures that Goldspan Dragon makes when we target it essentially makes more of our pump spells free! While I'm not sure how consistent the plan will be (we only have three Goldspan Dragons, but Dragon's Approach combined with Cathartic Reunion and Thrilling Discovery should help us find them), when it goes off, it should be one of the most spectacular and surprising kills in Standard!
Last but not least, we have Chevalier's Izzet Dragon's Approach list, which has the fewest copies of Dragon's Approach out of any of the lists we've talked about today, with just 10, but it might be one of the most competitive of our Dragon's Approach lists thanks to its solid backup plan. The deck is basically Izzet Treasure Dragons. Most of the cards in our deck make Treasure tokens, which should allow us to turn on Magda, Brazen Outlaw's Dragon-tutoring mode pretty quickly. Along with our Treasure Dragons Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge, Galazeth Prismari, and Goldspan Dragon, we also have Brawl-precon all-star Shimmer Dragon, which offers a hilariously effective source of card advantage by allowing us to tap to Treasures to draw a card. The combination of Treasures, Galazeth Prismari, and Goldspan Dragon means we should also be able to cast massive spells like Magma Opus and Creative Outburst. And since most of our creatures are Dragons, we can even take advantage of the underrated sweeper Draconic Intervention. Put it all together, and Chevalier's list might be one of the least likely to tutor up a Dragon with Dragon's Approach itself, but it seems like the best Magda, Brazen Outlaw build of the bunch (and Magda was one of our build-arounds for the challenge). Plus, it looks like it could actually be pretty powerful and maybe even competitive!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for this week! Thanks to everyone who sent in Dragon's Approach decks! If you have your own take on Dragon's Approach, make sure to let us know in the comments, and you can leave other decks there for next week too! As always, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
