IBC is the first Constructed format that I really took a shot at understanding and attempting to qualify for. Due to circumstances, I only ended up playing in one GP Trial and one qualifier. Having only played in Limited qualifiers the last few years, and having missed out on a lot of Magic while overseas in the Army from mid 1994 to late 1996, I did not have a team to work with to prepare. Fortunately, I reconnected with somebody I knew from Magic prior to my army stint: Frank Gilson. Frank was also looking to qualify (which he did with a U/W/B discard/control deck - he wrote the report up on Mindripper, if you are interested) and we decided to work together for the IBC season. Due to our schedules and the fact we live over two hours away from each other, we only playtested online, and sporadically at that; however, we sent numerous emails sharing thoughts, ideas and decks. I built a ton of decks and ran to MIRC to test them. Most of them did okay, but nothing really struck me as a deck I wanted to play in a tournament. And then it happened: I was playing a G/B/U deck and he dropped a Quirion Dryad and I watched it grow, and grow, and grow. Eventually it killed me, and I thought it would be neat to try to build a deck where the Dryad could truly excel.

I had played the G/U tempo bounce a fair amount and thought it was good, and decided to try to fit the Dryad into this style of deck. I made a rule on the spot: Everything in the deck that wasn't a Dryad had to make the Dryad grow. After some playtesting and thought, I modified it a few times and came up with something very close to this deck, which I brought to a GP trial for Denver at Neutral Ground in Northern California.

Land
7 Forest
10 Islands
4 Yavimaya Coast

Critters
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Gaea's Skyfolk
3 Vodalian Merchant
3 Mystic Snake

Bounce
4 Repulse
3 Rushing River
1 Temporal Spring

Counterspells
4 Exclude
4 Disrupt
2 Confound
3 Evasive Action

Fixers
4 Opt

Sideboard had the obligatory four Jungle Barriers and four Gainsays, as well as a couple of Dodecapods, a Temporal Spring, a Traveler's Cloak to sneak my Dryads past Lynxes, and three Binds to use against Deeds.

Counting the Merchant as a Cantrip, the deck had twenty-one Cantrips, serving the double duty of fixing my mana as well as putting a counter on my Dryad and getting me more stuff to put a counter on the Dryad. I wasn't very happy with the Merchant as my fourth creature, but couldn't find anything to fit the bill better; plus, if I replaced him, I would have to up my land count and therefore would need to be dropping other cards. Early in the game with the Opts and Merchants, I would always keep land until I got up to four between my hand and on the table. After that point, I would use them to dig for other spells. Four was the magic number, because it let me cast Mystic Snake or a small creature with counter backup from Evasive Action or Confound. Once the deck got to five, it was really as far as it needed to go, with Creature and Repulse/Exclude/Rushing River, or those three plus Evasive Action backup. The Dryad was the wrecking ball I had hoped it would be, and with the counter backup not only was it hard to kill, but it grew every time my opponents tried.

I played the deck quite a bit online, and had good success overall and was quite pleased with it. The day before the trials I was emailing back and forth to Frank, and he said it does not do very well vs. R/G. I was stunned. I played all those games online, so surely I would have noticed that kind of gap. I immediately loaded up Apprentice in two windows and played it against my best R/G. Well, Frank was right: It did not do very well against R/G. He and I emailed back and forth a few times, but decided that there wasn't much to be done for the deck at this point and I would just have to see how it worked. I decided to make sure to playtest any future deck against a good gauntlet of what the field might be before I tried using it.

Well, here goes nothing, I thought as I sat down to play. Sadly, I don't have the names of my opponents available, but I remember in general what they played and how the matches went.

Round 1

Game 1: My opponent opened with a turn 2 Thornscape Familiar, turn 3 Raging Kavu, turn 4 Flametongue Kavu and turn 5 Thornscape Battlemage. I do not remember whether or not we got to turn 6, but it really doesn't matter - I got rolled badly.

Game 2: Great, I thought - round 1 and my worst matchup. In came the four Jungle Barriers... But then a strange thing happened. It seemed like my opponent had switched decks on me. He was playing Green, White, and Blue lands and no creatures. I got out an early Dryad and started to swing. He tried a Questing Phelddagrif. I Excluded. He tried a Treva two turns later, and I let it hit the table so I could bounce it. Game ended the next turn.

Game 3: Now I was confused. My deck does great against big, slow creatures like Phelddagrifs and Treva, but not so good against the fast, efficient R/G set. Not really sure which I would see, I went down to only two Jungle Barriers and brought in the second Temporal Spring, as I saw a lot of tap lands in the second game. He got off to a slow start, and it got worse as I used my Temporal Spring on a land with Fertile Ground. My deck picked up steam pretty well, and he could not recover from the early tempo disadvantage.

Matches: 1-0 Games: 2-1

Round 2

Game 1: Within the first few turns, it became clear he was playing a R/W/U aggro deck. My deck always seemed just a turn late, and his Urza's Rages on my Dryads were something I just could not answer.

Game 2: This game was the opposite. Everything he tried was just a turn late, and I got a couple of Dryads out the he could not deal with and ended it pretty quickly.

Game 3: I kept a hand with an Island and an Opt. In my playtesting this had generally worked pretty well, but this time it did not. I ended up discarding two times and he had a turn 2 Legionnaire, a turn 3 Galina's Knight, and a turn 4 Lightning Angel.

Matches: 1-1 Games: 3-3

Round 3

Game 1: He started with a turn 2 Mongoose, a turn 3 Raging Kavu, and a good amount of burn, followed by a Skizzik to finish me off. I was never really in the game. Like I said - a weakness against R/G.

Game 2: I got out an early Jungle Barrier and a couple of Dryads. Confound helped save a Dryad and grew it out of Rage range. I went slowly and built up my forces, then started sending my Dryads into his chump blockers. He was trying to build towards a Rage, but when I killed him he was still a couple of land short.

Game 3: We were almost out of time, so we encouraged each other to play fast, as a draw would knock us both out of a shot at the top 8. He proceeded to triple Mulligan. While he was busy with this, I stared at my hand: One land and an Opt. I really agonized over this, but decided to believe in my deck and keep the hand. I also had a Dryad and a Skyfolk, so there was good potential for early pressure with a green land. Also, I am pretty sure I had an Exclude and a Repulse. Of course, I ended up discarding three times before I cast something, and when I did it got Flametongued out of existence. In short, he rolled over me and beat me just before time was called.

Matches: 1-2 Games: 4-5

Round 4

Game 1: I decided to play one more round to give the deck a chance to redeem itself. My opponent was playing almost the same deck as my round 2 opponent, and, despite my early barrage of Excludes and evasive actions, eventually got down some creatures and killed me. My Dryads died to Rages, and that was about it.

Game 2: Looked a lot like game 1, except he threw in a Jilt for good measure.

Matches: 1-3 Games: 4-7

I decided to stick around for a little bit, to see what was being played at the top tables and play a"just for fun" game against somebody else who crashed and burned early as well. He was playing R/G blue hate with four Yavimaya Barbarians, four Blurred Mongeese and four Overabundances; somehow, I managed to win a game, but he won the other two.

On Monday I was ready to start again and put together a deck with the Dryad that will beat R/G just about every time. I tinkered with it a little bit and came up with this deck:

Lands
4 Elfhame Palace
11 Forest
11 Plains

Creatures
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Llanowar Knight
3 Standard Bearer
3 Fleetfoot Panther
4 Coalition Honor Guard

Creature Enhancers
4 Armadillo Cloak
4 Gerrard's Command

Fixers
4 Eladamri's Call
4 Sterling Grove

Not exactly what you would call a balanced deck, but I was not interested in balance. I wanted to get revenge on red decks for beating up my U/G. It worked very well for its intended purpose, but clearly was also going to do well against decks sporting Pernicious Deed or Rout. As an additional note, I found that Gerrard's Command worked very well as a counterspell vs. Rage.

Over the next couple of weeks, I experimented with a lot of decks but really was not happy with anything. I was planning to go to GP: Denver, and a just a few days before the event I decided to try to combine the two decks above to see what I could come up with.

What I built was this.

Lands
7 Forest
4 Elfhame Palace
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Coastal Tower
4 Islands
1 Plains
4 Lay of the Land

Creatures
4 Questing Phelddagrif
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Gaea's Skyfolk
1 Fleetfoot Panther

Counterspells
2 Evasive Action
2 Mystic Snake
2 Confound

Creature Enhancers
2 Armadillo Cloak
2 Gerrard's Command

Other Stuff
4 Repulse
4 Fact or Fiction
3 Eladamri's Call

At the last minute I could not go to GP: Denver, so I promptly launched into an extended playtest session with this deck. I tested it against the decks that did well at Origins PTQs, as well as my best decks and other good decks posted on the net. After Denver, I tested it against those decks as well. I modified it over time, as the Commands were very often dead cards, and as the deck played other things it became clear that four Questing Phelddagrifs were too many, as were three Calls. As you will see, the deck almost stayed with the original rule that everything in the deck makes the Dryad grow. Unfortunately, I had to play with the Lay of Lands, as nothing else fit the bill in that slot. Below is the final version that I played with at the one PTQ that I went to.

Friendly Dryads

Lands
6 Forest
4 Elfhame Palace
4 Yavimaya Coast
3 Coastal Tower
4 Islands
1 Plains
4 Lay of the Land

Creatures
3 Questing Phelddagrif
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Gaea's Skyfolk
1 Fleetfoot Panther

Counterspells
2 Evasive Action
3 Mystic Snake
2 Confound
2 Exclude
1 Absorb

Creature Enhancers
2 Armadillo Cloak

Other Stuff
4 Repulse
4 Fact or Fiction
2 Eladamri's Call

The one Absorb looks kind of random, but I really did not want an extra one of any of my other counterspells. Maybe I should have had a second Absorb instead of one of the Excludes, but, at any rate, this is the deck that I settled on. I took it to only one PTQ and went 2-2. I won my first two matches, but then lost a very close match to my playtest partner in extra turns, followed by a painful double mulligan loss chased with a dose of three Urza's Rages for my three Quirion Dryads. Oh, well.

In playtesting, the deck stands up well against the field. It is diverse enough to have answers to whatever your opponent is playing. Here is the brief breakdown against some of the field:

Domain - Tough matchup. Lays help against Global Ruin/Destructive Flow. The Cloak allows enough damage from a single creature to be effective even if they get a restraint up. After the sideboard, the Aura Mutations help the deck considerably. You have a counterspell advantage vs. most Domain decks.

U/G Tempo - Somehow, Friendly Dryads always seems to gain massive card advantage and beat these decks. It is almost never the same spells, but it is very consistent. The sideboard has no answers to save them.

New Solution - My critters are better than your critters. Smart Meddling Mages can cause some problems. Confound is huge in this matchup.

Liquid Tempo - Similar to the U/G Tempo Matchup, but a little tougher. Friendly Dryads will generate card advantage, and the Cloak allows you just a few points to keep you out of burn range.

R/B/U Creatureless or Near Creatureless - Another tough matchup. Card Advantage is key here, both before and after the board. Confound will be a dead card sometimes, and you will die with it in your hand; however, it will flat-out win you about one game in six, as you will Confound a key something and go on to win.

Rocket Shoes - Questing Phelddagrif and Armadillo Cloak make this a favorable matchup for Friendly Dryads. After the sideboard, the Barriers and extra Cloaks make this even better.

Dromar decks - Another good matchup for Friendly Dryads. The Lynxes cannot be the MVPs against this deck the way they are against other creature decks; the Phelddagrifs and Skyfolk can fly over them, and the Dryads make them not attack or walk through them with Cloaks. Confound helps out here a lot, too.

R/B/W - A fair matchup. Phelddagrifs have huge potential to rule supreme, and if you Cloak one you need only fear Void, and they better draw it quickly...

I had hoped to be writing a great success story with this deck; sadly, it was not to be. Still, I played it enough against so many different decks that I have great confidence in it. It looks a little confused, but it plays more consistently then you would expect a deck to that has multiple cards with only 2-3 copies. If you try it, let me know how you do. Good Luck.

Thanks for reading,
Eric Downing
luckyguyca@yahoo.com
ericish on Mirc

P.S. - Special thanks to Acidwurm on MIRC who really made sure that the deck could play against anything.