Power "Scale"

I brought out the Ur-Dragon in a four player game at a table with three other strangers. A great way to get a sense of where it's at, right? I said this was about an 8/10, because it really can do awesome things. And I was at a pretty spicy table, with with Eligeth/Halana, Akroma/Sakashima and Uril. 

I played 9 lands, two artifacts that were mana rocks, two spells and died. 

So what happened? Part of it had to do with keeping a hand that didn't have a lot of early action, beyond an Earthquake.

However, going back to the last post, I ended it talking about the manabase-but I was playing this game before I had looked at said manabase. 

In comparison, at the table was a player (one who took the lead in both games I played at that table) with a proxied up manabase, including Tropical Island, Breeding Pool, etc. 

In comparison, 80% of the lands I played entered tapped. 

Now, this isn't a missive on proxies-I have mixed feelings about them but lean on the side of: the necessity to make proxies is a problem of access, and until the false scarcity is reasonably addressed, then go for it. (A small part of me would like to see people innovate with what they have; however, there is little room to innovate in the area of manabases). 

What this is is a reassessment of my deck's power level, based on the mana. If I was running the "all rares manabase" then the Ur-Dragon deck would be pretty out of hand. It would likely be as strong as I say it is. 

I'm not, and I should take that into consideration when I tell people where this deck's power level is at-and I would encourage everyone to do so. Manabases are the engines decks run on and there is quite a range of strength to those engines! 

I overestimated the strength of the deck and it likely lead to my opponents making the normal assumptions. I can't blame them for that, but I am glad that this experience has me looking at the deck in a different light.