Magic has a ton of iconic and beloved creature types, but you can make a strong argument that dragons are #1 all time.
Shivan Dragon was functionally the game’s mascot in the early years and the most desirable rare long before Black Lotus could command a price tag. Dragon cards appear across all five colors and in nearly every Magic product, usually as flashy and powerful rares.
With Tarkir: Dragonstorm putting an even brighter spotlight on dragon cards, there will be a lot of players tempted to go all-out and build entire decks full of these mighty drakes. So let’s take a moment to consider the pros and cons of dragon decks, and why such an exciting theme has been difficult to realize for much of Magic history.
NOT YOUR TYPICAL TYPE
You might not think it would be difficult to build an all-dragon deck. After all, typal creature decks are the most straightforward and intuitive archetype in Magic. You just play lots of creatures that share the same type, and then use effects which buff all cards of that type as a force multiplier – ideally stacking several of these “lord” buffs together to create an unbeatable wall of power and toughness.
However, dragons as a creature type simply do not function like the vast majority of types which you usually build around in this way.
Firstly, dragons are extremely expensive to cast. The median cost among actual dragon creatures (not counting changelings) is six mana! There are also very few spells which can efficiently create multiple dragon tokens from one card, which is one of the best ways for other typal decks to pull ahead. The tendency for dragon decks to play three or more colors further lowers your odds of having turn one or two plays in your opening hand.
This makes assembling a traditional mana curve of dragons a huge challenge. Not being able to put all your mana into deploying an army from turn one onwards really derails the snowballing gameplan of a typal deck, and an expensive army makes every enemy removal spell painfully high-impact – to say nothing of boardwipes.
A smaller army is bad because it limits the benefits gained from lord effects and the other support cards which define the typal strategy. But even if you could deploy dragons en masse early game, there’s reason to question whether playing those support cards is actually worthwhile. Normally a lord effect providing +1/+1 is increasing the total power of your army by at least 50%, as that buff applies across countless tiny creatures. But with most dragons already being plenty big, the relative benefit of lords seems infinitesimal.
Other support cards can still be extremely powerful with the right effects (more on that in a bit), but you’ll always be forced to make tough sequencing decisions as these jostle for the same spots on your curve as the other dragons you need to get down.
The second big issue with playing lots of dragons is admittedly more subjective, but maybe even harder to overcome: there’s no real strategic benefit to playing them together.
THE ALL-GENERAL ARMY PROBLEM
The lack of dragon-centric synergies goes beyond just a dearth of lord effects: compared to other creature types, most dragons just don’t complement each other on the battlefield.
The typical dragon card is designed as a standalone bomb rare, intended to play the role of curve-topping general for that expansion’s red deck, or a big-mana threat for ramp and control strategies. They’re not meant to want or need help in those roles, and so they aren’t usually set up to scale well with it.
In 1v1 Constructed formats with 20 life having more than one dragon in play is usually overkill, and potentially a dangerous overcommitment. In multiplayer Commander, the problem is reversed. By the time you can afford enough 5/5 flyers to threaten opposing life totals, an infinite combo deck or even a traditional “multiplicative” typal deck with lords and tokens could have found lethal many times over.
This is the problem when all the creatures in your army act like generals, and none of them are equipped to work as footsoldiers or support staff. Even in an environment where it’s not overmatched, trying to play an all-dragons deck like this will feel clunky, forced, and for most people unfulfilling. They don’t all frame it in terms of strategic value like me, but players do usually want to feel like the cards in their deck interact positively. They want to have a gameplan and an impact that goes beyond “show my friends a list of cards I like while they play an actual game”.
But with a lack of direct typal synergies and support effects, this will often demand the deckbuilder choose some adjacent mechanical element and build around that through a dragon-heavy lens.
In Commander, this will almost certainly be decided by the colors and text of the cards in your command zone. You could pick all sorts of themes, from flying creatures, to expensive spells, to creatures with big stats, to legendaries, to treasures, to “big red” mana generation and firebreathing.
You could even build around something more generic like sacrificing, card draw, ETBs or direct damage dealing – there’s always at least a few dragons which offer a given effect. So long as you’re willing to include a few cards that don’t have dragons on them, choosing a more general theme will help you unlock those areas of the curve that would otherwise be a weakness.
CELEBRATING DRACONIC EXCELLENCE
I think we’ve come as far as we can on this topic dealing in hypotheticals and counterexamples. So let’s consider some of the historically successful dragon deckbuilds and try to understand how they cover those weaknesses.
Perhaps obviously, the first key is getting dragons into play more efficiently. We might not be able to curve out from turn one, but the sooner we can accelerate into our first dragons, the more we can operate like a normal creature deck.
Traditional mana ramp can be supplemented here by typal effects like Dragonspeaker Shaman, Rivaz of the Claw, Nogi, Draco-Zealot and Urza’s Incubator. These cost discounters are some of the most impactful support you can offer a dragon-themed deck, and flavor purists might find them a more acceptable compromise over staple mana accelerants.
You also have cards which can cheat dragons into play, or at least get benefit from them without paying full price. Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Zirilan of the Claw, Magda, Brazen Outlaw, and Kaalia of the Vast are classic commander examples in this vein.
In the more fragile world of 1v1 constructed, deploying more than one dragon is usually game-ending by itself. So there’s much less reason to worry about supporting dragons in play or being able to cast a second wave of attackers. The most prominent incarnation of this gameplan was Standard Dragonstorm. While the gameplay was essentially the same as any non-creature combo deck, the light toolbox element with dragon ETBs and “fair plan B” offered by those beefy flyers were substantial elements in the deck’s success.
Another lesson we can take from past winners is which kinds of support card are worth running. Random tiny lord bonuses to dragons don’t make the cut because the actual difference is so small relative to the size of that dragon. So we need to prioritize effects where the return scales with the size of the creatures being played, or at least has the potential to do that.
Rather than a meagre +1/+1 to power, enablers like Miirym, Thrakkus, Lozhan, and Lathliss either literally double a dragon’s impact, or generate a big enough chunk of value to feel rewarding even when you paid six or more mana to trigger them.
Certain support cards allow for recurring, stacking, zero-cost triggers: with the right effects, these can add up quickly even given the smaller board state of a dragon deck. Silumgar, the Drifting Death and the rest of the Fate Reforged legendary dragons are great examples, as are Scourge of Valkas, Firkraag, and Wrathful Red Dragon.
The most efficient of Dragon token producers are also valuable – Vrondiss, Utvara Hellkite, and Ancient Gold Dragon are among the best of these engines. They may not get started that quickly, but they help us “catch up” in the midgame by rapidly expanding our army of valuable flyers.
AN EXCEPTIONAL SOLUTION
In general, the conclusion we can take away here is that most dragon cards are individually strong enough to build a deck around, yet a deck with lots of dragon cards requires a very precise build and the right kind of support to be competitive. Even then, you shouldn’t expect it to play with the kind of straightforward consistency of regular typal decks… with one exception.
The Ur-Dragon was printed seemingly as a gift to those who just want to slam as many big dragon cards in their deck as possible and have a good time without worrying about curve, color, or really anything else strategic. The dragon avatar literally ticks all of the boxes from our “draconic excellence” section in one go.
The only possible drawbacks of this monster are if you find it to be generic or unoriginal (it’s a top-two most-popular commander on EDHREC).
But the nice thing about Commander is that you aren’t always forced to play “the best card”. And with the enormous raw power of the dragon type, there are many other viable paths to success.
Tom’s fate was sealed in 7th grade when his friend lent him a pile of commons to play Magic. He quickly picked up Boros and Orzhov decks in Ravnica block and has remained a staunch white magician ever since. A fan of all Constructed formats, he enjoys studying the history of the tournament meta. He specializes in midrange decks, especially Death & Taxes and Martyr Proc. One day, he swears he will win an MCQ with Evershrike. Ask him how at @AWanderingBard, or watch him stream Magic at twitch.tv/TheWanderingBard.