How do you build a game-winning multiplayer combo around a dollar rare from Scourge? (Okay, and an expensive one from Champions of Kamigawa?) Here's how:

The Win:
4 Dragonstorm
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
2 Rorix Bladewing
2 Volcanic Dragon

Helpers:
4 Brainstorm
4 Duress
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Mana and Storm:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt

21 Land:
3 Badlands
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Crystal Vein
1 City of Traitors
1 Ancient Tomb

The deck operates on a very simple concept. Get to nine mana with all the mana-producing spells and cast Dragonstorm for at least four copies. If all four Kokushos are still in the library, just put all four from there into play. They immediately kill each other and Drain Life each opponent for twenty!

If you drew a Kokusho and couldn't Brainstorm it back into the library, Plan B is to put two Kokushos into play to get the ten-point drain, and one copy each of Rorix Bladewing and Volcanic Dragon. Those are the only two Dragons in Magic with haste, and they just happen to add up to exactly ten more damage so you can kill at least one additional player immediately. Great opportunities for politics abound here: you have the power to kill any one player right then, and can probably coerce at least one potential victim into helping you against another target.

(Technically speaking, Brimstone Dragon also has haste, a fact I gleaned from the StarCityGames.com Spoiler Generator - T.F.)

You'll often have extra Storm copies beyond the necessary four. Under Plan A, if somebody has gained life, the four-of Kokusho triggers won't win immediately. In that case, use extra Storm copies to grab one or more of the red haste dragons in addition to the Evening Stars and go from there. Under Plan B, get a third Kokusho and then try to hard-cast the fourth one from your hand next turn to complete the twenty-point drain.

The deck also does have a Plan C: You can hard-cast Rorix or Kokusho as early as turn 2 and go for simple beatdown.

The Card Choices
The deck is built as a typical casual multiplayer deck, omitting the Power Nine cards and following the Vintage restricted list. Let's review the individual card choices:

4 Dragonstorm
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
Obvious, as described above.

2 Rorix Bladewing
2 Volcanic Dragon
Other than the Evening Star, these seem to be the best Dragon targets because they've got haste. There's two of each because you may end up with one in your hand. (We can't just run four Rorixes; he's legendary, so we can only make use of one.) Yosei, the Morning Star is another good option if you tend to play small (three- to four-player) games. If only Yosei affected each opponent, like Kokusho does...

4 Brainstorm
A staple of all good blue decks in any format where it's legal. It's especially important in this deck because you need to be able to put a Kokusho back into the library if you happen to draw one.

4 Duress
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Also staples of all good black decks. Cast Duress against anyone with blue mana showing. (I'm not entirely sold on Duress in multiplayer, but it's cheap for a storm cost - T.F.)

1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
Naturally, these get Dragonstorm if you don't have one already, or a Dark Ritual if you do. The card disadvantage of Mystical actually isn't all that bad, since it reduces your chances of drawing an unwanted Kokusho.

4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song
These are the only two unrestricted spells that give a net gain of two mana for only one card. Use them and love them.

4 Desperate Ritual
This is the next-best unrestricted spell that produces mana and adds to Storm count. The only thing to splice it onto is another copy of itself - but if you do that, the spliced pair is equivalent to a Seething Song, and then you can re-cast the Spliced one for one additional mana.

1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
All of these are non-Power Nine fast mana that add to the Storm count. Of course, if you've got Moxen and Black Lotuses and they're welcomed in your playgroup, use those.

3 Badlands
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Crystal Vein
1 City of Traitors
1 Ancient Tomb
The land base is fairly flexible; it makes a compromise between two-mana colorless lands and colored mana. The eight fetchlands are essentially five-color lands because they can fetch any of the dual lands (and they have the well-known synergy with Brainstorm, of course). Twenty-one lands are sufficient because you rarely need to make more than three land drops to cast the Dragonstorm. If your group is heavy on Wastelands or Strip Mines, cut a few of the mana spells and add a few basic lands.

Besides Kokusho, the land base is the only expensive part of this deck. If your playgroup frowns on expensive piles of dual lands, or if you don't want to buy them, these can be replaced with little loss of efficiency by painlands and City of Brass and Gemstone Mine.

Other than Dragonstorm itself and the Dragon targets, the deck build is very flexible. If your multiplayer playgroup objects to using Vintage restricted cards, it's very easy to convert the deck into other formats. Replace the tutors with Intuitions and the restricted mana producers with Ruby Medallions. If your playgroup doesn't mind, you could use Personal Tutor from the Starter set.

Another alternate build for the deck, which I really like, is to make it legal for Legacy format (Type 1.5). This lets you run 4x Mystical Tutor and 4x Lotus Petal in place of the Vintage restricted cards.

The version presented in this article is the fastest build of the deck, and I think it's more fun that way. It's certainly possible to make a slower, more reliable build. Some of the mana producers could be cut for Force of Will and other counterspells, and you'd probably want some Scroll Racks to make sure you can put any dragons you happen to draw back into the library. Another path would be to increase the fetchland count to enable threshold and use Cabal Ritual for mana.

Playing The Deck
Playing the deck is very straightforward. As with most combo decks, the biggest decisions you make are what hands to mulligan. If you don't get a Dragonstorm or a tutor or a Brainstorm, send it back. If you get a Kokusho in hand without a Brainstorm/fetchland pair to get rid of it, send the hand back unless the rest of the hand provides a Dragonstorm and the means to cast it on turn 3.

Par for executing the combo is turn 3, and turn 2 is not rare with a draw like two lands, Lotus Petal, double-Dark Ritual, Seething Song, Dragonstorm. The biggest obstacle to fast wins is getting both black and red mana to cast both a Dark Ritual and a Seething Song. To combo off with only two lands means that either you can't use a two-mana land or that you did it with only red mana (thus, no Dark Ritual). And a turn 1 win is barely possible, but requires eight non-Ritual mana or a Lotus Petal or Mox to provide the second color.

In certain multiplayer groups, you may even want to slow-play the deck. Let someone else try to combo off first and suck up the counterspells - then step in when the coast is clear.

"Dragonstorm.dec" does have weaknesses, of course. Counterspells aren't even all that threatening; the best they can do is deny you a couple of mana or counter one copy of Dragonstorm. But Stifle will certainly ruin your day; if anyone is playing with that, try to get rid of it with Duress if at all possible.

Cranial Extraction will wreck you, too, and your only defense is Duress or outracing it. If your playgroup is heavy on Cranial, an option is to run a Burning Wish maindeck to get back an Extracted Dragonstorm. Trinisphere wrecks you just as hard, but that card should be hated out of any multiplayer group worth its salt.

Opponents that know stacking rules can cast something like Swords to Plowshares on one of the Kokushos in-between Storm copies resolving, shunting you from Plan A to Plan B. Do remember that you choose each dragon as each copy of Dragonstorm resolves - your opponents don't get to respond after seeing your choice of dragon before it comes into play. (If you get a Kokusho, they have to respond to it before the next copy of Dragonstorm resolves, so you'll know the fate of that particular Evening Star before you pick your next dragon.)

You could try to trick your opponents out of any responses by just grabbing all four Kokusho cards together and dropping them on the table. Further discussion on that topic will be left to The Magic Jerk.

The Dragonstorm combo deck is somewhat fragile, but when it works, it's a game-ending combo on turn 2 or 3 against any number of opponents. With this speed, it should do well in any aggro metagame and can outrace a good number of combo decks. And now I'm thinking of the potential to use it as an Emperor deck, with the lieutenant decks focused on disruption and countermagic...

- Erik Mooney
erik@dos486.com