Do you think I could get away with playing only one Twilight Drake, or would that weaken the synergies too much? Also, should I run a big dragon (Onyxia for example) to ensure wyrmguard gets it's effect? (because I would ideally play my other dragons before Wyrmguard, as they cost less)
I'd really appreciate any insight on this topic, especially if it envolves statistics/percentages (I don't really know how to calculate them in this case)
You can calculate the exact probabilities of having a dragon in your hand after a certain number of draws by using the Hypergeometric distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergeometric_distribution , here's an online calculator:
Ignoring the mulligan makes it simpler. If you have 8 dragons then the chance of having drawn at least one after seeing say 5 cards is given by the calculator, using population size = 30 (cards in deck), Number of successes = 8 (dragons in deck), Number of samples = 5 (number of cards you have seen), and use the probability that this is >=1 successes (so cumulative probability with X>=1 field in the calculator), which is about 81.52%.
I've seen Firebat use calculators like that in his deck doctor videos to see the likelihood of having an activator by the turn you want to play a card requiring one.
If you also want to consider the mulligan it makes it a bit more difficult, depending on how many cards you mulligan and whether any of those were dragons. You need to build a probability event tree and multiply through the probabilities and add them up depending on each mulligan scenario.
EDIT: The best way to use this is build a table of how likely it is to have drawn an activator on turn 1, turn 2, turn 3, etc. and then change the number of activators and make the table again. Then look at the numbers and see which looks best to you. Once you get to the point where increasing the number of activators makes little difference to the probabilities, you have enough. Typically there is a sweet spot where the probability has a decent increase when you add an extra activator, and adding more makes less of an impact, at this point you have a decent amount in your deck.
Without any calculations for me 8 is the sweet spot. However I play priest and I need to have 2 dragons in hand when I want to activate duskbreaker. Without duskbreaker activation I would probably again try 7.
I would also follow the advice for primordial drake (probably I would replace the farie dragons).
I also noticed you have only 3 spells for your summoners. I have also found out that (at least for me) 3 is just one too little.
Last remark is me going out on a limp and might be invalid all together, but you run prince Liam with only 4 1 drops (if I counted correctly) I would think he typically only transforms two of them? That doesn't seem to great (but don't know the idea behind the deck further so please forgive me if this is as intended, thought to just point it out to you)
My suggestion is that you look at successful dragon decks from the past that use cards like Wyrmrest Agent and Drakonid Operative and see how many dragons they run. 8-10 seems to be a typical number. The Primordial Drake suggestion is great.
6 is the bare minimum, but that always felt too inconsistent for me. I run 10 in Wild Dragon Priest, but of course there's a lot more dragon support in Wild.
With 6-8 you can't be too greedy with your mulligans...you'll probably have to hold on to any dragon you have.
Looks like a decent deck though. If Spiteful Druid can work, why can't Spiteful Paladin eh?
I also noticed you have only 3 spells for your summoners. I have also found out that (at least for me) 3 is just one too little.
This deck is not running Grand Archivist, because random targeting could be disastrous. Maybe 3 spells is enough in that case.
What makes Spiteful Priest and Druid strong at the moment though is that there are no bad 10-mana minions in Standard currently. In Paladin, you'll have to settle for only 8-mana minions, which are a lot more hit and miss.
Last remark is me going out on a limp and might be invalid all together, but you run prince Liam with only 4 1 drops (if I counted correctly) I would think he typically only transforms two of them? That doesn't seem to great (but don't know the idea behind the deck further so please forgive me if this is as intended, thought to just point it out to you)
I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it: if Liam is deep in the deck, he doesn't have the potential to transform many cards, but in that case there is also a significant chance you'll not draw Liam himself, in which case it doesn't matter. With Spiteful decks, in most games you'll only draw about half your deck..
Dragon based priest decks in the last meta used to be running 6 dragons + 2 netherspite (which can be considered as 8 dragons). I'd say 8 is fine, but if you play your deck enough you will probably find by yourself if 8 is enough or if you feel like you are missing dragons too often.
I also noticed you have only 3 spells for your summoners. I have also found out that (at least for me) 3 is just one too little.
This deck is not running Grand Archivist, because random targeting could be disastrous. Maybe 3 spells is enough in that case.
What makes Spiteful Priest and Druid strong at the moment though is that there are no bad 10-mana minions in Standard currently. In Paladin, you'll have to settle for only 8-mana minions, which are a lot more hit and miss.
Well in this case I run spiteful priest without grand archivist and I still found 3 too little. However maybe in those games that I could have used 4 I might have lost anyway. So looking at it from that perspective maybe 3 is just as good than.
I see your point about Liam. Sort of a: if it doesn't work it doesn't work, but if you get lucky it (could) pay off.
Thanks to all of you for your replies. This deck is proving hard for me to fully optimize, my main concerns are whether to run 4 or 5 one drops and, in that case, whether if it would be better to cut a scaleworm, a spellbreaker, a twilight drake, a stonehill defender or an unidentified maul. Also spellbreaker vs scaleworm in general.
In terms of the dragon synergy stuff, I'll have to do some math but so far I see it more clear now :)
My suggestion is that you look at successful dragon decks from the past that use cards like Wyrmrest Agent and Drakonid Operative and see how many dragons they run. 8-10 seems to be a typical number.
I've looked at past and present decks that contain dragons, but it's still tricky to tell the right amount because of dragon activated dragons (book wyrm, drakonid operative and duskbreaker) and cards like netherspite historian. I think 8 is right, but I also want to run just 7 because I want to make room and twilight drake is not as good as in priest for example, I think one copy is enough.
You can calculate the exact probabilities of having a dragon in your hand after a certain number of draws by using the Hypergeometric distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergeometric_distribution , here's an online calculator:
Thank you so much, this looks like the right tool for the job. Funnily enough, I recall watching that firebat video and thinking at the time about getting my hands on a spreadsheet of some sort for that kind of thing.
I also noticed you have only 3 spells for your summoners. I have also found out that (at least for me) 3 is just one too little.
This deck is not running Grand Archivist, because random targeting could be disastrous. Maybe 3 spells is enough in that case.
This. In my opinion, 3 big spells is the sweetspot if you're not running grand archivist. 2 are not enough and 4 would make the deck too top heavy, and lay on hands is not so good in this deck that I would like two copies of it.
Last remark is me going out on a limp and might be invalid all together, but you run prince Liam with only 4 1 drops (if I counted correctly) I would think he typically only transforms two of them? That doesn't seem to great (but don't know the idea behind the deck further so please forgive me if this is as intended, thought to just point it out to you)
I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it: if Liam is deep in the deck, he doesn't have the potential to transform many cards, but in that case there is also a significant chance you'll not draw Liam himself, in which case it doesn't matter. With Spiteful decks, in most games you'll only draw about half your deck..
Regarding the one drops and prince liam, I'm having trouble optimizing the deck, I'm not sure if I want 5 one drops or if I can do with 4. In any case, I agree with batterystaple, I guess the only bad scenario would be drawing first all the one drops and then liam, the rest of the cases are either good (drawing liam before one drops) or irrelevant (not drawing liam at all). He still takes up a slot in the deck, but I think it's worth it, and adds some spice to the deck (especially if you get stuff like shudderwock like once did lol)
One thing that the answer depends on is the mana cost of the dragons because if you play a dragon, then you have to depend on drawing another dragon. So, if you have high mana cost dragons, you're forced to keep them longer and therefore are nearly guaranteed to have a dragon on hand when you want to play an activator. Not that I know the answer to your question, just something I've noticed from my previous decks.
The thing is do your activated cards usually need to be played before your dragons or not. eg. can you put a Ysera in your deck to hold on to for acivating and significant value when the time comes?
Your Wyrmguards are more expensive than your Cobalt Scalebane guys so you need an 8 mana or more dragon to satisfy my condition.
One thing that the answer depends on is the mana cost of the dragons because if you play a dragon, then you have to depend on drawing another dragon. So, if you have high mana cost dragons, you're forced to keep them longer and therefore are nearly guaranteed to have a dragon on hand when you want to play an activator. Not that I know the answer to your question, just something I've noticed from my previous decks.
The thing is do your activated cards usually need to be played before your dragons or not. eg. can you put a Ysera in your deck to hold on to for acivating and significant value when the time comes?
Your Wyrmguards are more expensive than your Cobalt Scalebane guys so you need an 8 mana or more dragon to satisfy my condition.
Yep, this is something I've pondered about, running a big dragon. I'm thinking either primordial drake (inmediate effect on the board, more defensive) or onyxia (no inmediate effect, more offensive, whelps are good with tarim)
Also, kinda unrelated, but since you seem like knowledgeable people, I'll ask it anyway:
Is it worth it to keep liam against control, or is it straight up better to try to find spiteful summoner instead? I'd say the latter but you never know.
Dragon midrange decks should be running at least 6 dragons but preferably 7. Depends if the dragons available are strong enough.
Have you tried Ebon Dragonsmith in place of twilight drake? 2 mana reduction with a decent body looks good. And its a dragon. 5 mana 3/4 dragon - equip a maul? Pretty decent.
Also, despite the fact that prince Liam is sure a fun card :), I think you lose too much to gain too little. Maybe if his ability effected not only your deck but hand as well. I just don't think he fits into this deck but i didn't experiment with him so you tell me ;P But just think about it - you can cut 3 cards in total (prince and argent squires) and add sth that actually support your tactic.
Nevertheless, decks look cool :) hope it serves you well!
If the OP is looking to cut a card, I'd suggest Prince Liam rather than Twilight Drake. PL disrupts the synergies, and the deck barely runs any 1-drops to take advantage of PL's already dubious effect. The deck is basically a MR Paladin build, and it doesn't have any end game - it's trying to finish the game with a lucky SS or a Dinosize alpha strike, and not out-value the opponent with a random Legendary that will seldom be drawn.
Have you tried Ebon Dragonsmith in place of twilight drake? 2 mana reduction with a decent body looks good. And its a dragon. 5 mana 3/4 dragon - equip a maul? Pretty decent.
I think the chances of having both in hand are quite slim, and in the matchups where maul matters most (aggro), I rather play it in turn 3.
Also, despite the fact that prince Liam is sure a fun card :), I think you lose too much to gain too little. Maybe if his ability effected not only your deck but hand as well. I just don't think he fits into this deck but i didn't experiment with him so you tell me ;P But just think about it - you can cut 3 cards in total (prince and argent squires) and add sth that actually support your tactic.
If the OP is looking to cut a card, I'd suggest Prince Liam rather than Twilight Drake. PL disrupts the synergies, and the deck barely runs any 1-drops to take advantage of PL's already dubious effect. The deck is basically a MR Paladin build, and it doesn't have any end game - it's trying to finish the game with a lucky SS or a Dinosize alpha strike, and not out-value the opponent with a random Legendary that will seldom be drawn.
Good point about liam, although I'm still unconvinced by twilight drake. This deck doesn't have much draw, which means hand size is small. It normally comes as a 4/5 or 4/6 on turn 4, and later on lower than that, I think it's not impactful enough.
So far I've decided to swap twilight drake for primordial drake (I still have to see how relevant it is in this deck, I might play onyxia or deathwing instead), just run 4 one drops and trade liam for the second spellbreaker.
An idea might be to include hydrologist? That helps with 1 mana secrets (which you don't play now obviously). Than maybe swap one of the fairy dragons for another primordial drake and swap out one spellbreaker and one squire? (Except if you really need 2 of spellbreakers?)
I'm not entirely sure if that would work out because you have one less one drop (and I can imagine you really want board presence) but the 1 mana secrets should help fill the gap later
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I'm playing a deck that has 6 cards that are activated by dragons (Cathedral Gargoyle, Scaleworm and Wyrmguard) and I'm currently running 8 dragons (Faerie Dragon, Nightmare Amalgam, Twilight Drake and Cobalt Scalebane).
This is the deck, for reference
Do you think I could get away with playing only one Twilight Drake, or would that weaken the synergies too much? Also, should I run a big dragon (Onyxia for example) to ensure wyrmguard gets it's effect? (because I would ideally play my other dragons before Wyrmguard, as they cost less)
I'd really appreciate any insight on this topic, especially if it envolves statistics/percentages (I don't really know how to calculate them in this case)
If you have Primordial Drake, I'd add that in.
You can calculate the exact probabilities of having a dragon in your hand after a certain number of draws by using the Hypergeometric distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergeometric_distribution , here's an online calculator:
http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx
Ignoring the mulligan makes it simpler. If you have 8 dragons then the chance of having drawn at least one after seeing say 5 cards is given by the calculator, using population size = 30 (cards in deck), Number of successes = 8 (dragons in deck), Number of samples = 5 (number of cards you have seen), and use the probability that this is >=1 successes (so cumulative probability with X>=1 field in the calculator), which is about 81.52%.
I've seen Firebat use calculators like that in his deck doctor videos to see the likelihood of having an activator by the turn you want to play a card requiring one.
If you also want to consider the mulligan it makes it a bit more difficult, depending on how many cards you mulligan and whether any of those were dragons. You need to build a probability event tree and multiply through the probabilities and add them up depending on each mulligan scenario.
EDIT: The best way to use this is build a table of how likely it is to have drawn an activator on turn 1, turn 2, turn 3, etc. and then change the number of activators and make the table again. Then look at the numbers and see which looks best to you. Once you get to the point where increasing the number of activators makes little difference to the probabilities, you have enough. Typically there is a sweet spot where the probability has a decent increase when you add an extra activator, and adding more makes less of an impact, at this point you have a decent amount in your deck.
I think 6-8 is the magic number
Without any calculations for me 8 is the sweet spot. However I play priest and I need to have 2 dragons in hand when I want to activate duskbreaker. Without duskbreaker activation I would probably again try 7.
I would also follow the advice for primordial drake (probably I would replace the farie dragons).
I also noticed you have only 3 spells for your summoners. I have also found out that (at least for me) 3 is just one too little.
Last remark is me going out on a limp and might be invalid all together, but you run prince Liam with only 4 1 drops (if I counted correctly) I would think he typically only transforms two of them? That doesn't seem to great (but don't know the idea behind the deck further so please forgive me if this is as intended, thought to just point it out to you)
My suggestion is that you look at successful dragon decks from the past that use cards like Wyrmrest Agent and Drakonid Operative and see how many dragons they run. 8-10 seems to be a typical number. The Primordial Drake suggestion is great.
6 is the bare minimum, but that always felt too inconsistent for me. I run 10 in Wild Dragon Priest, but of course there's a lot more dragon support in Wild.
With 6-8 you can't be too greedy with your mulligans...you'll probably have to hold on to any dragon you have.
Looks like a decent deck though. If Spiteful Druid can work, why can't Spiteful Paladin eh?
Dragon based priest decks in the last meta used to be running 6 dragons + 2 netherspite (which can be considered as 8 dragons). I'd say 8 is fine, but if you play your deck enough you will probably find by yourself if 8 is enough or if you feel like you are missing dragons too often.
Thanks to all of you for your replies. This deck is proving hard for me to fully optimize, my main concerns are whether to run 4 or 5 one drops and, in that case, whether if it would be better to cut a scaleworm, a spellbreaker, a twilight drake, a stonehill defender or an unidentified maul. Also spellbreaker vs scaleworm in general.
In terms of the dragon synergy stuff, I'll have to do some math but so far I see it more clear now :)
One thing that the answer depends on is the mana cost of the dragons because if you play a dragon, then you have to depend on drawing another dragon. So, if you have high mana cost dragons, you're forced to keep them longer and therefore are nearly guaranteed to have a dragon on hand when you want to play an activator. Not that I know the answer to your question, just something I've noticed from my previous decks.
Specially now Primordial Drake is hands down the non Legendary best taunt minion neutral in the game let alone dragon
The thing is do your activated cards usually need to be played before your dragons or not. eg. can you put a Ysera in your deck to hold on to for acivating and significant value when the time comes?
Your Wyrmguards are more expensive than your Cobalt Scalebane guys so you need an 8 mana or more dragon to satisfy my condition.
This space is intentionally blank.
Also, kinda unrelated, but since you seem like knowledgeable people, I'll ask it anyway:
Is it worth it to keep liam against control, or is it straight up better to try to find spiteful summoner instead? I'd say the latter but you never know.
Dragon midrange decks should be running at least 6 dragons but preferably 7. Depends if the dragons available are strong enough.
Have you tried Ebon Dragonsmith in place of twilight drake? 2 mana reduction with a decent body looks good. And its a dragon. 5 mana 3/4 dragon - equip a maul? Pretty decent.
Also, despite the fact that prince Liam is sure a fun card :), I think you lose too much to gain too little. Maybe if his ability effected not only your deck but hand as well. I just don't think he fits into this deck but i didn't experiment with him so you tell me ;P But just think about it - you can cut 3 cards in total (prince and argent squires) and add sth that actually support your tactic.
Nevertheless, decks look cool :) hope it serves you well!
If the OP is looking to cut a card, I'd suggest Prince Liam rather than Twilight Drake. PL disrupts the synergies, and the deck barely runs any 1-drops to take advantage of PL's already dubious effect. The deck is basically a MR Paladin build, and it doesn't have any end game - it's trying to finish the game with a lucky SS or a Dinosize alpha strike, and not out-value the opponent with a random Legendary that will seldom be drawn.
I think the chances of having both in hand are quite slim, and in the matchups where maul matters most (aggro), I rather play it in turn 3.
An idea might be to include hydrologist? That helps with 1 mana secrets (which you don't play now obviously). Than maybe swap one of the fairy dragons for another primordial drake and swap out one spellbreaker and one squire? (Except if you really need 2 of spellbreakers?)
I'm not entirely sure if that would work out because you have one less one drop (and I can imagine you really want board presence) but the 1 mana secrets should help fill the gap later