It’s Time to Build Rakdos Dragons

Dragons are enduringly popular in Commander and are one of Magic’s most beloved creature types. While Ur-Dragon and Miirym remain the mainstay decks for the archetype, I think it’s high time we all took a look at red-black – or Rakdos – Dragons. There’s a lot of gold in them there hills. 

Let’s kick things off with the cards that can inspire this renaissance: the RB Smaug cards from The Hobbit. Aside the mono-red Smaug the Magnificent, there are two Rakdos versions to consider.

Smaug, Wicked Worm does an appreciable impression of Dockside Extortionist. While the treasures entering tapped invariably makes him slower, he provides both a mana boost and card draw in the command zone, which is the exact recipe for a great casual Dragons Commander. 

Smaug the Impenetrable from the scene boxes, meanwhile, offers an all-in approach on big damage and treasure creation. He’s kind of the spiritual successor to Gadrak, though Gadrak is decidedly easier to cast.

While both Smaugs do look pretty enticing, there’s arguably a better option for a Rakdos deck already in Rivaz of the Claw, a mana dork that can provide two mana to cast Dragon spells, and also allows you to cast Dragons from your graveyard. This is what we want to be doing in the archetype, and it’s why I listed Rivaz on my list of Underrated Dragon Typal Commanders.

There was a Commander I didn’t mention there though – one that might be waiting in the wings to steal your focus. I’m talking about Chainer, Nightmare Adept.

IT’S TIME TO CONSIDER CHAINER FOR YOUR RAKDOS DRAGONS COMMANDER

Chainer is one of my favorite Commanders, and one I used to play quite a bit. It’s a Commander that spawned arguably one of the best cold opens (and endings) to a Tolarian Community College video, if I may say so myself. It’s also criminally underrated in 2026. 

Chainer grants haste to a creature that enters from anywhere other than from being cast from your hand. So, from the graveyard, from exile, as part of a reanimation effect – hell, even Chainer himself from the ‘zone. He also has the great ability to discard a card to cast a creature from your yard, once per turn. So, you could pitch a land or spell you don’t need to get one you want or just discard a creature to then cast it just to get the haste. Sound good? It gets better.

There are certain cards that can be returned to your hand easily from the yard. Squee, Goblin Nabob and Shenanigans are the two most popular, with one coming back on your upkeep, and the other being a dredge card that can replace your draws. There’s another you can unlock if you’re doing Chainer Dragons: Spit Flame.

Spit Flame is a removal spell for smaller creatures, but the key part is that you can pay red when a Dragon enters to get it back. That means you can pitch it to Chainer, cast an Animate Dead, and use your spare mana to grab it right back. Hell yeah!

This isn’t the only distinctly Chainer card you can take advantage of when building Rakdos Dragons. A biggie is Monument to Endurance, which changes those discards into resources – or just more burn for your deck that is already burning people out. 

One of the reasons Chainer came back on my radar this year was Twilight Diviner, a three-drop from Lorwyn Eclipsed. It’s a doubler for creatures entering or cast from graveyards, giving you the ol’ Double Dragon technique. This is ridiculously cool, aside from being good value, and the kind of card that inspires a new build. 

CHAINER LETS YOU PLAY THE TIMMY-EST HAYMAKERS

One of the better reasons to consider Chainer for your Dragons Commander is that he allows you to circumvent the mana cost on some of the biggest and scariest Dragons in the format – all while using the likes of Entomb, Buried Alive, Vile Entomber and Sarkhan’s Triumph to access those cards ASAP. 

Phyrexian Dragon Engine is already a solid pick for Chainer decks, and so it gives you the best excuse to run Mishra, Claimed by Gix alongside it – and access one of the coolest Meld cards around.

Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia is a monster of a card. When it enters or attacks, you can choose three from a list of fantastic effects and start to wail on your opponents. Mishra isn’t the easiest Meld to pull off in Commander, but Chainer helps get you there.

Of course, there are plenty of massive Dragons to consider. Summon: Bahamut is one I consistently forget is a Dragon, but it’s probably one of the most fun haymakers printed in a hot second – even if it is from Final Fantasy, it’s the epitome of Magic’s love for big stupid big mana plays. Cheating this one into play early with Chainer is a recipe for success.

Chainer doesn’t let you circumvent casting timing restrictions, but there’s a reason people play Dualcaster Mage and other Flash creatures in Chainer lists: you can Flash them out of the yard anyways. Blast-Furnace Hellkite, then, becomes not only a monster reanimator target and a surprise kill, but also a repeatable on-board trick. 

Dragons are nominally about burn, and quite literally about burn in a lot of their cards. Dragon Tempest, Scourge of Valkas, Kokusho and Twinflame Tyrant all increase the damage your Dragons deal. Combining them with Terror of the Peaks, Wrathful Red Dragon, and Drakuseth, Maw of Flames is enough to melt life totals across the board, even as your own wanes from indulging your necromantic pursuits.

There’s another Dragon worth including if you’re really leaning into burn here, especially if you’re also making mana: Brainstealer Dragon. Getting this into play early allows for some cheeky pilfering of opponent’s cards. If you do end up casting their spells, they lost life equal to the mana value – meaning you’re getting even more burn/drain. 

FILLING THE GRAVEYARD IS EASIER THAN EVER

While the staples of these decks are fairly timeless – in that you can’t really beat Entomb, Buried Alive, Reanimate, and Animate Dead, new cards are being printed all the time that help keep things well-oiled.

To get cards in there in the first place (beyond tutoring them and discarding them) you now have brilliant graveyard fillers like Incarnation Technique and Breach the Multiverse. These can’t be soft-countered by graveyard removal, as the milling and reanimation is all part of the spell’s resolution, meaning you always get to see at least some cards. 

A little slower than these but still a great choice is Palantir of Orthanc. It’s a Phyrexian Arena that at times can result in you milling more cards into the yard, which is pretty fantastic – especially as those cards milled can burn out the opponent more. It’s exactly what you need in a deck about assaulting opponents with big flying threats. 

While Dragons are the big draw to this kind of deck, there are some non-Dragon utility creatures well worth slotting in. In previous years these have been the likes of Magus of the Wheel and Feldon of the Third Path, but now we can also consider Barrowgoyf, a great mill and recursion engine that can gain us some life top-ups and block like a champ. Even Zuko’s Conviction is a great riff on classic effects to buy-back creatures – the kicker can be clutch, with both modes being great either way.

At the end of the day, you’re just wanting to churn through your deck as quickly as possible in order to set up for big reanimation plays. Using an Industrial Advancement or Shifting Shadow allows you to get those creatures in and out of play with haste and see more of your deck.

THE BIG PAYOFFS

While Doomed Necromancer, Apprentice Necromancer, and Phyrexian Delver are Chainer main-stays, we’re verging off the beaten path here a little to consider the cool Rakdos Dragons cards we can consider. Bladewing the Risen suddenly becomes an attractive target in a deck that revolves around Dragons, for instance.

Ancient Brass Dragon takes this to the logical conclusion, with the ability to reanimate a whole bunch of stuff – and coming out swinging with Haste from Chainer. Even Metamorphosis Fanatic is fan-tastic, as it can grant our burn Dragons a lifelink counter, which is a cheeky way to keep in shape. Combine it with a Mortuary Mire to ensure you get the Miracle cost.

Once we’ve filled the yard, we can command Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant to swoop in and make a bunch of 2/2s – either that or snap off a deadly Living Death or Bringer of the Last Gift. When combined with Terror of the Peaks or Bone Devourer, you end up putting people on notice. It’s your game to lose.

DRAGON’S HOARD

While reanimation can help us cheat mana costs, just having extra mana is also a viable solution to hard casting haymakers outside of green.

Ancient Copper Dragon and Cavern-Hoard Dragon are the obvious includes here, being on-theme and able to make a boatload of treasure. If you’re running those and other ways to make treasures, then Smaug the Magnificent can swoop down and deliver a molten stream of damage based on the size of your gold pile. 

At that point, there’s no excuse not to run one of my favorite red cards, Descent into Avernus. It just makes games fun. It gives you the extra mana to cast your big spells and adds on to the pervasive burn that Dragons love to leverage to keep up the pressure.

END STEP

While five-color or Temur (RUG) Dragons tend to be the more popular ways to go when it comes to Dragon Typal, I do want to sound off about how reducing the quantity of colors in your deck can lead to more interesting builds. It can also take the pressure off, as people will focus on the more popular Dragon Commanders because they know they’re silly if left alone. 

While big spells and reanimator are the more attractive aspects of trying a Commander like Chainer, Nightmare Adept, don’t forget to consider some of the mid-range Dragon support cards. Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander gave us both Parapet Thrasher and Thundermane Dragon, which are well worth a look – and being in black, you get to take a Crux of Fate as one of your wraths (alongside the burn wraths that trigger Smaug and Wrathful Red Dragon, of course!). 

It might just be time to build Rakdos Dragons.