5 Underrated Dragons of Tarkir Cards for Commander

The next Standard-release set is Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and it’s the first time we’ll be returning to the eponymous plane since 2015. This got me thinking about the set that came out that year – Dragons of Tarkir.

On the whole, it’s a set that hasn’t had a major impact on Commander. Impact Tremors is the only card in the set that I would describe as “heavily played,” and there isn’t a single Commander in the set that deserves that designation. 

Although if you’re a Dragon enthusiast, there’s a good chance you’re more familiar with Dragons of Tarkir, as it features several powerful Dragon payoffs like Dragon Tempest and Haven of the Spirit Dragon.

However, the set has more than a powerful aggressive Enchantment and a few Dragon payoffs. On the whole the set is being underrated. I think there are several cards in Dragons of Tarkir that are being overlooked. In this article, I’ll take a look at some little-played cards from the set that you should seriously consider the next time you’re building a Commander deck.

UNDERRATED COMMANDER: SIDISI, UNDEAD VIZIER

The 1,434th Most Popular Commander on EDHRec

Tutoring is a really powerful thing in Limited. After all, it’s a singleton format, so being able to just grab whatever card is most powerful or useful in a given situation is a huge advantage over your opponents who are just drawing random cards. So why not play a Commander who can do it for you? 

Sidisi doesn’t even need another creature around to enable combos, since she can Exploit herself. You can actually go in a pretty broken direction with her using Ad Nauseam. If you build your deck correctly, casting Ad Nauseam can just win you the game. You can just fill your deck with all lands apart from Ad Nauseam, Glacial Chasm, and Sickening Dreams.

To pull this off, you play Sidisi and tutor up Ad Nauseam to draw your entire library. Then, you put the Chasm into play and cast Sickening Dreams, discarding your entire library from your hand and doing lethal to everyone but you.

If you’re not interested in going in this more broken direction, there are other things you can do with Sidisi too – like just going in the sacrifice direction. Sidisi gives you a potentially repeatable sacrifice outlet, after all. 

Gravecrawler goes particularly well with Sidisi in a sacrifice-oriented deck, since Sidisi is herself a Zombie, you can cast Gravecrawler from your graveyard repeatedly. So, tutoring up the ‘crawler when you have a nice Sacrifice outlet is a great way to generate tons of value.

In short, Sidisi is definitely powerful enough to be one of the 1000 most heavily played Commanders in Magic.

SHAMAN OF FORGOTTEN WAYS

Played in .9% of Green Decks on EDHRec

At three mana, Shaman of Forgotten Ways is a little bit clunky as far as mana dorks go. But it can tap for two mana at a time. And even though that mana is restricted to only creature spells, that’s a significant mana boost that can allow you to pull ahead in the game.

However, it isn’t just the Shaman’s ability to produce mana that make it an intriguing Commander card. It also happens to have an ability reminiscent of a banned Commander card – Biorhythm. 

I’ve argued in the past that Biorhythm should be unbanned, and while I think that’s still the case, Biorhythm’s effect is undoubtedly powerful. Punishing players for not having very many creatures – and outright killing anyone who doesn’t happen to have any – is very strong.

Now, the Shaman is a little harder to pull it off with, since it asks for way more mana and it’s a tap ability so it generally has to survive for a turn. However, in the meantime it can produce very useful mana for you, helping to make sure that the Shaman’s ability hurts your opponents more than it hurts you.

So, if you’ve got a Commander deck that is oriented towards ramping into big creatures, you should seriously consider the Shaman as one of the cards in your 99.

OJUTAI EXEMPLARS

Played in .017% of White Decks on EDHRec

Ojutai Exemplars isn’t the best non-creature spell payoff ever, but the modality of its trigger make it very intriguing. While none of them are completely insane on their own, getting this choice any time you cast a non-creature spells is very strong.

Tapping creatures can be used to slow your opponent down or give you an opening to make a much better attack. The fact it can gain first strike and lifelink out of nowhere means that it’s a real pain to block. And its ability to blink itself means that removal often just doesn’t work on the Exemplars.

While the Exemplars can work nicely in any sort of spellslinger deck, it’s also pretty good if your Commander is Hylda of the Icy Crown, where you can get a ton of value out of the “Tap target creature” mode.

With Hylda in play, tacking a tap effect on to every one of your non-creature spells means you also have the opportunity to get one of Hylda’s really powerful abilities. Making a 4/4 elemental token out of nowhere can be particularly devastating.

DEN PROTECTOR

Played in .7% of all Green Decks on EDHRec

Den Protector is reminiscent of the 11th most heavily played Green card on EDHRec – Eternal Witness. In fact, the Protector was often referred to as “Maternal Witness” while it was in Standard because of their similarities.

Returning any card from your graveyard to your hand while adding a body to the board is a massive deal. It gives you a 2-for-1, and often a very powerful one since you can choose the very best card in your graveyard.

I’m not advocating that people should play Den Protector over Eternal Witness. It’s fairly obvious that Eternal Witness is better than Den Protector. This is because it costs less mana to get the trigger and because it’s easier to blink her or loop her to get the trigger more than once. 

Den Protector makes you pay three mana to play it face down and then two more to turn it face up and get a card back. You do end up with a more formidable creature in the end, but generally you’d be happy to pay less and get something a little less impressive.

All of that said, a nerfed Eternal Witness is still a very good Magic card, and one that deserves to appear in more than .7% of the eligible decks on EDHRec. Having a second copy of Eternal Witness is never going to be a bad thing.

It’s gotten even better recently, since over the last few years we’ve recently received so many new face-down card payoffs and Commanders.

So, if you’re using Kadena or Zimone, Mystery Unraveler, Den Protector should be an auto-include in your deck.

VOLCANIC VISION

Played in .6% of Red Decks on EDHRec

Volcanic Vision asks for some serious set up and it costs lots of mana, but it does the sort of thing that a 7-mana card should do.

The damage it does never affects your own creature, so in the optimal situation it ends up being a one-sided wrath, and you probably don’t need me to tell you that is entirely insane. And you even end up getting a card back from your graveyard!

Volcanic Vision certainly isn’t a card that can slot into any deck in its color, like Den Protector can. However, there are plenty of Red Commander decks out there that like casting big flashy spells, and Volcanic Vision is a perfect fit for them.

For example, both Ovika and Zaffai give you creature tokens for casting Volcanic Vision, and getting that type of value on top of wiping the entire board is pretty nasty.

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I hope this article showed you that there’s more to Dragons of Tarkir than a bunch of cool dragons. What cards do you think are underrated in Dragons of Tarkir? Let me know over on X.