Should I start playing a new opening

Once you have played and slain the Dragon a few times, you will have conqueered all your fears!

This opening is quite one that depends on change, or in other words, depends on who your versing plays.

Dolphin27

I actually love playing French, especially French advance. My opponents often enter positions they don't understand. 

Yeah, French advance blocks my Queen Bishop, but so what? Actually in many lines the Bishop is positioned right where he is needed. No matter that he is bad... But he isn't weak. It often happens that I retain my pair of Bihops and they bombard my opponent's position from afar later. Or I simply exchange them at rigfht time. But I love púlaying French ad it has much in common with d pawn openings.

Tactical Sicilians apart from the Dragon? I think every opening is tactical in it's own way, but the obvious ones are the Najdorf and Sveshnikov, and these are also two of the most respected Sicilians, with GM Jesus de la Villa giving each five out of five stars in his book "Dismantling the Sicilian". (He gives the normal Dragon three stars by the way, and the Accelerated Dragon four, though of course this is only his opinion, I personally would give the Accelerated Dragon five stars.)

The problem with both the Najdorf and Sveshnikov is the same as one of the problems with the regular Dragon. With so much theory it might become more about memorization rather than creativity. Also the Sicilian in general has more ways for White to avoid the main lines than any other opening, so you may spend your time studying all this theory yet rarely get your opening on the board. There's also the problem of opening explorer if you play online at live standard time controls (not correspondence) where some people will still use opening explorer as they play if they know they're going into a theory heavy variation despite the fact that in non-correspondence games this is cheating.

One Sicilian that I really like aside from the Accelerated Dragon is the Kalashnikov, which is similar to the Sveshnikov (its other name is the Accelerated Sveshnikov in fact) with one of the key differences being there's not nearly as much theory. In this Sicilian the pawn structure typically becomes fixed so knowledge about typical ideas/plans/piece placement becomes more important than theory. The Kalashnikov is one of those Sicilians that also allows the Maroczy Bind so you may not like that, but it's also another Sicilian where White doesn't castle queenside which in my opinion is wonderful. In general I have noticed that when a Sicilian variation has lines where White castles 0-0-0 that's where all the theory is generated.

You might believe you like that type of game with opposide side castling in the Sicilian, but I'd suggest to reserve judgement until you've played a few of those types of games and taken some losses. Also those positions really aren't as exciting as one might imagine because, again, there's so much theory behind them.

There are also some uncommon Sicilians you might look at like the Lowenthal Variation or the Pin Variation, though in the Pin White can get a huge attack if they know what they're doing without castling queenside and Black is pretty much forced to give up an exchange in the critical line.

Here's a Magnus game with the Dragon, I still wouldn't recommend it however since there's always a dark cloud hanging over it:

Carlsen is so great that he can handle even the Dragon as black with its weak d5 square and no bishop to watch over the critical d6 point!  It's why ...e6 is very rare in the dragon.  In the Najdorf with a Be7 the d6 pawn is protected well enough to allow ...e6 or even ...e5.  In fact one of white's stock plans against the Accelerated Dragon is a Marco hop so that Nxd5-exd5 exposes the weak e7 pawn for white's attack. 

the dragon shouldn't be played in the highest level chess as the f3 g4 h5 e4 system is deadly

Thank you so much for all your comments! I have learnt a lot about the Sicilian, but I think I will stick with the French Defense.

The theory side does not appeal, and neither does the difficulty of the positions. I will try some new variations in the French.

Thank you in particular to Glex, kikvors, Dolphin27 and TheGreatOogieBoogie.

You should change your opening when you feel you complete with your old one

The Accelerated Dragon Marcozy Bind is interesting. How about 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 Ng4 8. Qxg4 Nxd4 9. Qd1 Ne6 10. Qd2?! (most played move I think, but Rc1 is better. In any case they often transpose or at least black can still play the same plan) Qa5 11. Rc1 b6 12. Be2 Bb7 13. f3 g5! With ideas of h5 and Be5 and maybe putting a piece on f4. Black's play is interesting. Other than playing 10. Rc1 and never transposing with Qd2 (allowing Bxc3 and Qxa2, which wins a pawn for black but obviously it makes no sense to win that pawn when you get way behind in development and your queen is totally out of bounds), which still allows the same plan, the only other white try is 6. Nc2, but then black can build up for an eventual ...f5 push and the knight will not be on d4 supporting that square, making black's task easier.

I actually am happier as black to face the Maroczy Bind than the 5. Nc3 lines. After 5. Nc3 I always think there's the possibility that white can blow me off the board, especially if he's super booked up. After 5. c4, I not only am sure that I will know what I'm doing at least as well as my opponent (assuming my opponent is around my rating, 1800) but I am also sure that I will not fall prey to some quick attack.

Keep analyzing the same opening/defense strategy and you can get really good at using it in matches. 

You're welcome and I hope we didn't scare you away from anything unnecessarily. There's no harm in trying out various Sicilians at least, but then again the French is a great opening.

As a French player I know you must have an excellent understanding of good and bad minor pieces. I just wanted to share something funny that often happens in my Accelerated Dragon vs Maroczy Bind games. I've noticed that whenever one person fianchettoes a bishop the other player often tries to exchange this bishop. Thus in the Maroczy Bind often the White player will automatically think exchanging the dark square bishops is a good idea and will even go to great lengths to do so. The problem for them is that with pawns on e4 and c4 they're just left with a bad light square bishop after this, and then any endgame with one of your minor pieces vs this bad bishop is very fun to play.

Yes, the above is true, but honestly, only weak or inexperienced players will try for that plan. Any strong player with white should be able to use logic to see that without his DSB, his dark squares in any Maroczy Bind are extremely weak. Don't expect anyone over about 1600 to make that error.

1.e4 e6 is one of the best ways to counter 1.e4. Stick with it, and try learning IDEAS,  not moves.

This opening is really good. takes control of the middle, plus it controls some other spots as shown.

What is the best  thing on French? Not many players on lower levels know how to play it.

This is what can happen when you are lucky enough to face French advance, but unlucky to know anything.

Although not many players had ELO, but it shows what I wanted from the game to show.