Source
r/gwent•
Hungrymaster

How to play against Dagon?

Question

I'm a returning veteran player so I thought I had a great grasp around the rules and ways cards work, but after playing over a hundred games this season (most in prorank), I still have no idea how Dagon exactly works.

Am I correct to assume the spell created in grave still summons new dagons even if you banish or lock the current iteration on board? I would rather not play grave banish just because of Dagon except for the couple decks I have space for neutrals in. Are there any sequencing tricks or tips that would help? Maybe a short first round or bleed on red coin?

Posted Apr 10, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

66
8BitCardinal:mo: Monsters•

I’ve been playing a lot of Dagon DW and these are what ultimately screws me over.

  • Banish Call of the depths in the graveyard

  • Banish or summon the toads from their graveyard if possible (ie: you have Incubus or Xavier)

  • Lock/banish Brewess. Dagon has consistency issues and preventing their Brewess thinning can hurt them a lot

  • Lock/banish their 2nd or 3rd Succubus. Succ will keep coming back after it gets killed/consumed if they have another succ in their graveyard. Preventing it from coming back is worth a lot of points. Be careful though as they have 3 succubi. They have 2 in their deck and can play a 3rd one with Lokke.

  • Use that one Unicorn card with a long name to potentially brick their Dagon, AQ, or Detlaff

  • CoC can target their Dagon through a defender if they ever play his 2nd form

  • CoC also helps if they ever play Kayran

  • If they greed and don’t consume AQ instantly, you can lock/banish it

  • If possible, try to get and maintain dominance as long as you can to brick their Aerondight

  • Play that SC harmony deck with Schirru and that Unicorn card, Kekker pirates, or any NG assimilate deck

Also, Dagon on blue coin who manages to get Dagon and 2-3 Brewess thins is gonna be a tough fight. There’s a good chance that they’ll go for a 2-0.

If they don’t use Brewess or Dagon in r1 they probably don’t have them. Use it to your advantage and get dominance to brick Aerondight. Try to push as hard as you can since they probably have a bad hand and would want to pass early. If they get a good hand instead. Try to keep up with the points if possible. Winning r1 and having last say is huge.

12
HungrymasterOPDiscipline. That is what you folk lack.•

Thank you so much! Those are great tips and will do a lot! I already play ST Harmony with Iharraquax (I guess that's the unicorn you mean), will look into fitting Schirru in as well. My NG Enslave has the most trouble, but sometimes I guess I can just race Dagon if they have a bad R1. Maybe I could look into getting a cheeky Squirrel somewhere in there as a CoC won't fit with 12 tactics.

2
8BitCardinal:mo: Monsters•

With enslave or assimilate you instead use Torres to get a copy of their Detlaff and some consumes.

Then you can use your Enslave to yeet their high value consume engines like AQ, Detlaff, and Succ.

If you manage to win r1 against them you can bleed r2 with either your own cards or theirs. Then dedicate r3 with whatever else you have.

2
akaean:TeamBG:•

There are two forms of Dagon. It is an evolving card that triggers its evolution when a round is one. What you appear to be describing is base Dagon (Dagon: Promised), which is a carryover card.

Dagon: Promised creates an artifact card called "Call of the Depths" in the graveyard and infuses 5 deathwish units with "Deathwish: boost lowest unit by 2 and worship Dagon". When Dagon is worshiped 4 times, the Artifact Call of the Depth triggers and summons a new Dagon.

To stop Dagon from coming back you have to either a) destroy Call of the Depths from the graveyard- via cards like Squirrel or Xavier. Or b) prevent Dagon from being worshiped 4 times.

If you stop two of the infused cards from triggering the infused Deathwish, Dagon can't come back. Banishment prevents deathwish, Purify clears infusions, and locks prevent both deathwish and infusions.

​

I would rather not play grave banish just because of Dagon

Unless you are playing a devotion deck, it's generally much more efficient to counter Call of the Depths with a squirrel than trying to prevent the infusions from going off. Especially since DW decks have a lot of dangerous cards that you want to shut down. It's probably better to purify or banish Cave Troll than a worship infused unit. Its probably better to lock or heatwave Arachas Queen to prevent Abaya shenanigans. etc. Its probably better to heatwave Haunt... etc etc etc. DW has a lot of high priority targets to hit with control.

Also GY hate is really helpful against Skellige and is pretty good against Simlas ST decks. Squirrel is still a really solid tech card for a lot of matchups, I don't really know why you would be opposed to running one.

7
HungrymasterOPDiscipline. That is what you folk lack.•

Mostly opposed because I haven't had that much trouble with Skellige and haven't seen a single Simlas since returning this season. I have some decks where I can and will fit a Squirrel, but I was mostly looking for tips for the decks where that isn't really an option. Thanks for the long writeup!

1
ActuatorOpposite1624:dandelion: The quill is mightier than the sword.•

You can indeed banish Call of the Depths from the graveyard. Dagon's first form gets it's provisions worth of points from multiple sources, so it's not really possible to counter all of the them consistently: carry-over can be denied by either banishing Call of the Depths or preventing your opponent from consuming the infused units; Dagon as an engine itself can be countered with locks and tall punish cards; and the infused cards can be locked, banished, or purified if they are not immediately consumed. Naturally, it's difficult to prevent all of these, so Dagon will most likely get some value during the match. The evolved form is much more easily dealt with: if you destroy the card, the earlier you do it, the less value it will have; if you lock it and your opponent doesn't have a purify, it will only be worth 8 points for 14p; and if you banish it before it's consumed, it will get absolutely no value at all.

1