A while ago (back when Mirrodin was still Standard material), I read some posts concerning a deck called "GoodForm", which had something to do with casting Form of the Dragon as soon as you could, and such shenanigans. Since I thought that Form of the Dragon wasn’t worth anything as there are so many flyers and weenies, I discarded it without contemplating upon it (something that I do far too often, most of the time to my disadvantage). Then, something changed.
I was doing some tests for my first article and I friend of mine suggested that he played with his GoodForm deck. Since Mirrodin was out of the question and I thought that it wasn't a deck worth mentioning I said ok and I went to play an "easy" game. Or so I thought. If you see that article, you will see that I lost a healthy number of games (8 out of 13 to be precise). That, kind of changed my perspective on the deck. Also results from the champs showed that it was not only a deck that several people played, it was even sideboarded against! But, first thing’s first.
Surprisingly, I won't be talking about this
particular form in the article
Yes, the deck was able to provide a second- turn Ideal of Form, of course devastating your hand in the process (1st turn: Land, Mox, Pentad Prism, 2nd turn: Land, Seething Song, leading to 2 mana of any color and 5 red mana).
After the Ideal (note: 99% of the time it's better to cast an Ideal, than a Form) you have many choices, as can be seen on the decklist. I will elaborate on most of them later on the article. I am mentioning this decklist mostly for historical reasons, since Mirrodin is already history (yay). So, let's proceed to the present.
So, I guess it's time for some card choice explanations (actually make that, enchantment choice explanations, as I think most of the rest speak for themselves!).
*Main Deck*
Form of the Dragon
Your main winning condition. Three copies are ok, since many times you will be casting a Form instead of an Ideal. Multiple slots also help in bringing another one after your first one gets in the graveyard somehow (see Wear Away and the like).
Genju of the Realm
Your secondary winning condition (secondary cause most of the time you plan on having a Meishin in play and they are not very synergetic). Most of the times, it's just plain better to get a Form, but one copy could save your life in some situations while not diluting your draws.
Confiscate
There's a very healthy list of things that you would like to have instead of your opponent... That includes Kokushi, Jittes, opponents' Forms, Ivory Masks and the list goes on... Heck, you can even grab a land if you're fast enough and your opponent is slow! Of course this card could easily turn into a "win more" card. You don't HAVE to fetch it; you should fetch it only if you are in danger.
Ivory Mask
A stellar card in this deck. Most of the time you will cast Ideal fetching this. But more on the possible scenarios after an Ideal later. This card is very good against most of the things that can damage you badly (these include but are not limited to: mill, "targeted mill", discard, direct damage, indirect damage and so forth). The only bad thing is that you can't target yourself with Compulsive Research. That’s minor thing, since you can't cast anything after an Ideal, but Ivory Mask is a card that you can hardcast pretty easily.
Privileged Position
This is a very nice card (of course) if someone has prepared a lot of hate against you, since it must go before your other more valuable enchantments. It's especially tasty in conjunction with Copy Enchantment, basically rendering you immune to targeted removal, which is much more common than boardsweepers.
Zur's Weirding
Your quintessential lock piece. There are decks that simply can't do anything after you have an active Weirding. And by active I mean, have a Form into play, basically enabling yourself to keep losing two life forever. It's a bit risky, but it's safe to assume that if you are under the mask's or the cage's (or better, both) protection that nothing too bad will happen by putting yourself in Lightning Bolt range.
Meishin, the Mind Cage
Another much needed card. Funny synergy with Enduring Ideal, since you won't play cards from your hand anyway. Possibly the first thing to fetch when you cast an Ideal if you are playing against an aggro deck. Remember that you can't copy it with Copy Enchantment.
Copy Enchantment
You Jack-of-all-Trades. You can copy a lot of things with it, like Privileged Position (as mentioned), Form of the Dragon, if you need one more copy, Confiscate, which I guess could be nice in some games, or even your opponents' enchantments, in a mirror match.
*Sideboard Choices*
Peace of Mind
So... Lets say that you've played an Ideal and you've set up your little base, with Ivory Mask, Meishin and Form of the Dragon. Barring enchantment hate, the only thing that can really hurt you is a Kokusho. It doesn't target and may cause you to lose that five life you keep getting set to every turn.. Even worse, your opponent could draw into another one and you'll lose any chance of recovery That's where Piece of Mind comes in. For a minimal cost it gets you right out of Kokusho range. Activated three times, it even gets you out of a double Kokusho! That's the reason that the number of Plains is a bit higher that the decklist before it.
Ivory Mask
Yes, one more Ivory Mask. It's a card that you need, since it saves you from burns and other bad targeted shenanigans, as I've described above. You certainly don't mind casting it, and it's pretty bad when your opponent destroys you newly brought mask and then Cranials your Forms.
Suppression Field
Goodbye Jittes all around. Pay for them tokens Meloku. There are quite a lot of cards with activated abilities around and this card makes a clown out of them. It's your early-game staller, before your big guys hit the ground.
Wrath of God
I guess that it's pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes weenies are too damn fast, and you are too slow. Wrath is your balancing factor.
Boseiju, Who Shelter's All
Countermagic hurt you really bad, especially if they keep on countering your Ideals. The safest thing to do is Boseiju an Ideal and go for a Zur's Weirding. That way, your opponent will have to limit himself to the cards already in his hand and you will (hopefully) be able to Ideal in a Form or a Peace of Mind (if you sided that in).
Ghost-lit Warder
Last, but not least, we come to the Warder. Some Mana Leaks used to be in his place here. But a Mana Leak is a dead card (like most of your cards) after an Ideal. This guy isn't. The ability to maintain some board control after you've gone epic can prove to be very good, enabling you to counter enchantment hate, or hated cards. Of course this isn't meant to be played as a creature.
*General Notes Upon Playing the Deck*
In general the deck isn't that hard to pilot. You just need to get seven mana as fast as you can and cast one of your biggies. Most of your draw spells are sorceries, and you have no countermagic to make you want to draw-go anyway. A nice thing to notice is the ability to put enchantments back on the bottom of your deck with Sleight of Hand and Telling Time. It can be very annoying to draw your much needed enchantments, especially Meishin, since it's the most difficult to hardcast. Unfortunately, we have no Brainstorms (at least yet), so if you draw an enchantment, it will stay to your hand. Anyhow. As I was saying, it's not that difficult to know what to do until you reach the mana (most of the time it will be: Land, Booster, or Land, draw if you don't have any boosters). The difficult decisions come when you cast your Ideal. So, I will dedicate a section in each of the match-ups to the best way I could think someone could bring the enchantments after casting an Ideal. Also, it is safe to assume that in game 2 your opponent will side all his enchanment hate in, so you should start with the "untargetability" lock. Another bad card would be Plague Boiler. But you can just Confiscate it and pay for the mana via Fellwar Stones and/or confiscatedlands...
*Green: To add or not to add*
I am very much against this... Most of the times I've tested I had enough (colored) mana to cast a 4-5 turn Ideal and cast several draw spells in between. Adding G for (most likely) the Old Man, seems a bit anti-synergistic... You add a 4th color to have a better mana base? And not exactly add, splash. But you need G so that you can cast Sakura to fix your mana. I wouldn't do this, especially after testing the deck and having so good results as far as mana (in number and color) is concerned.
*Match-ups*
Thanks to the Champs, we now have a better picture for the metagame, which allows me to test on a smaller number of decks, thus enabling me a bigger percentage of games for each match-up. I'll be only testing against deck that had a nice showing in the Champs. Also, decks I like! I will also post similar decks in every paagraph, since I didn't have time to playtest against all the decks that I wanted to.
Gifts Ungiven (Version played by Mathew Jones) Number of Games: 10 without Sideboard, 5 with Sideboard I won: 8/10, 4/5 Enchantment Series:Zur's Weirding->Privileged Position->Copy Enchantment:Privileged Position->Form of the Dragon. If you have the nagging feeling that youp opponent already has a Gifts in his hand you can set the untargetability first, since you don't really want him to start a cycle with Wear Away. Sideboard:Peace of Mind, Ivory Mask, Ghost-lit Warder Brief Impressions: Most of the time, an Ideal will be cast on the same round as a Gifts. But the Idealing player has an advantage and most of the times the game ends there and then. Kokusho is the most difficult thing to overcome, as he is a flyer (so casting a Form alone is generally considered a no-no) and he causes you to lose 5 life. I must stress that he doesn't target, so he laughs at puny Ivory Masks. Pre-sideboard, the best way to deal with him is a Meishin->Confiscate->Zur's Weirding. After sideboard you should bring your tech and the threat is almost non-existent. Two cards from your hand offset one flying wurm. Four cards eliminate the super threat of a double flying wurm. Another funny thing that you could do is fetch a Confiscate and attach it to your opponent's sole Island. Most of the Gifts players play only one Island and some painlands. If your opponent was unlucky enough to put it into play he just lost his deck's namesake until he draws a painland. Of course that could be considered "win-more", thus strengthening my above statement about Confiscate. Now from a Gifts player’s side… If GoodForm becomes a deck heavily played in your metagame, you should consider Cleanfall as a sideboard card, since it's arcane and gets past Privileged Position. If you set a cycle with Hana Kami, Soulless Revival, and Cleanfall I believe that it's too difficult for you opponent to overcome it.
RWeenie (Version played by Michael Pohling) Number of Games: 10 without Sideboard, 5 with Sideboard I won: 7/10, 2/5 Enchantment Series:Meishin->Ivory Mask->Form of the Dragon Sideboard:Wrath of God, Suppression Field Similar Match-ups: WWeenie, GWeenie Brief Impressions: It's a game of speed actually. If you manage to cast Ideal before they kill you, you've won. Yes. Just like that. Some times they will be too speedy. Some times you will be too slow. Most of the time you will win, because you will cast Ideal. The most difficult decision is if you should get out Ivory Mask first. I've never done that (always was too pressured by creatures), but if you don't die by your opponent's creature (+1 damage/creature by an imaginary Glorious Anthem) you could bring the Mask first, just to be sure.
B/G Control (Version played by Kyle Boggemes) Number of Games: 10 without Sideboard, 5 with Sideboard I won: 6/10, 3/5 Enchantment Series:Meishin-> Ivory Mask->Form of the Dragon Sideboard:Ivory Mask, Ghost-lit Warder, Suppression Field, Peace of Mind if he has Kokushos Similar Match-ups: B/G Aggro, The Rock, Brief Impressions: This match-up is so-so. They have access to discarding, which is bad for you. They also have access to dredge, which is bad for you too. Nevertheless, they rely on creatures to win and that is good, since creatures have a way of getting hosed by Meishin. A quite nasty surprise (and a reason that you shouldn't hardcast Form of the Dragon, is an Ink-eyedBirds of Paradise. Kokusho continues to be a very nasty creature and should be taken care of, as described above. That is, if he is present in the deck.
R/W Control (Version played by Jin Su Chong) Number of Games: 10 without Sideboard, 5 with Sideboard I won: 9/10, 3/5 Enchantment Series:Ivory Mask-> Meishin->Form of the Dragon Sideboard:Ivory Mask Brief Impressions: Most of the time you will cast an Ivory Mask and it will be game. Your real problem would be Wildfire (not present in the current build), but many times you will be too fast for that too. You really have nothing to worry about, since you have no creatures, except for the fact that all of the burn will be directed to you. Post sideboard there's the usual enchantment hate, but not in very big quantity, and it’s all targeted.
U/B Control (Version played by Luis Scott Vargas) Number of Games: 10 without Sideboard, 5 with Sideboard I won: 2/10, 3/5 Enchantment Series:Zur's Weirding->Form of the Dragon Sideboard:Boseiju Similar Match-ups: Mono-U Control, U/W Control Brief Impressions: So, we come to the first bad match-up. Countermagic is really bad for you. Even if your first Ideal resolves (which is all that you can hope for) the have the ability to counter all of your next ones. That's why you should always go for Zur's Weirding. You will slowly (and painfully) diminish their hand and you will (after a certain amount of life) be able to act free. If your metagame has a heavy control presence, you should go as far as adding a second Zur's Weirding in case your first one gets bounced. After the sideboard good things and bad things happen. You will be able to side in your Boseijus, so that your WeirdIdeal is uncounterable. That's good. The bad thing is that your opponent will most likely side in some heavy form of discard. He will also most likely have a Boseiju hoser, Shadow of Doubt. Plus he will have no dead cards (creature kill). Nevertheless, the match-up improves, only a bit. A nice thing is that your opponent has no access to enchantment hate.
Heartbeat of Spring Combo (Version played by Conor Moran) Number of Games: 10 without Sideboard, 5 with Sideboard I won: 6/10, 2/5 Enchantment Series:Ivory Mask->Form of the Dragon Sideboard:Ivory Mask(, Boseiju) Brief Impressions: Once again, it all comes down to speed. If you cast Ideal to bring Ivory Mask, there's a 99% chance that you will win. If you are too slow, you will be Magaed to death. It's that simple really. After sideboard, the game doesn't improve for you. They bring countermagic and more Myojin of Night's Reach. Now, that can't be good, can it? You bring more Ivory Masks and perhaps the Boseijus, but they have a far better sideboard against you.
W/G Beats (Version played by Aaron Lewis) Number of Games: 10 without Sideboard, 5 with Sideboard I won: 8/10, 2/5 Enchantment Series:Meishin->Form of the Dragon Sideboard:Wrath of God Brief Impressions: Presideboard, you shouldn't have any big problems. If a Maishin hits the board, they are pretty much screwed (unless they play main deck enchantment hate). The current version that I've tested against had too much enchantment hate in the sideboard which explains the downfall in the sideboard games. And, since it's a quite aggro deck, many times it won't allow you to bring your "untargetability" lock safely (since you will be trampled to death those two turns).
Enduring Ideal (Mirror Match) (Version played by Mike Laviolette Jr.) Enchantment Series: It depends... Read on. Sideboard:Ghost-lit Warder, Ivory Mask Brief Impressions: As most of the mirror matches, this is bound to be a bit stupid match-up. Well, it isn't. It's VERY stupid. The big player is Ivory Mask, since it will make you untargetable by your opponent's Forms. If he was silly enough to hard cast it he will lose since he will have to target himself. That's why it becomes a race of back-to-back confiscates and Ivory Masks. Also, Genju of the Realm is a semi-big player, since he can end the game in one round (depends on FormsConfiscates and pains), and can get pss the aforementioned Ivory Mask. After sideboard, channeling Ghost-lit Warder, can be a very sly and nice thing to do, but most of the time your opponent will have the mana. It's still a trick though.
*Conclusions*
So... Is this deck worth playing? It depends. As seen this deck has pretty good pre-sideboard games against most decks. Post sideboard, your opponent has access to enchantment hate, which is bad for you. Bad, but not fatal. It's a very fast deck and appeals to all types of players I think... Timmy likes to win with big effects (and doesn't mind thinking that he is a dragon that shoots fire while flying above the other punies). Johnny likes it because it's a combo deck of sort. And Spike likes it, because it can win him tourneys. The worst thing for this deck is the possibility of it becoming popular! If a Gifts player sides Cleanfall in, you're doomed. If weenies side Tempest of Light along with a possible Kami of the Ancient Law, or Nikko-Onna it's pretty bad. Ultimately, it's your decision!
***Thanks to Shadowlord for the decklist and for the help in decktesting!***
***Thanks to me(!) for the banner, to Binary for the editing, and to the guys in the Writer's Forum for letting me post this! ***
***Finally, a big thank you to the readers for devoting your time to read this (and for not being very bad to me in the forums maybe??)***
