I've been thinking about a Dragon tribal deck lately and I've been realizing the thing dragons are missing that all other tribal deck have is a decent lord. And a unique characteristic to their tribe.
Merefolk, Elves, Goblins, Spirits they all have +1/+1 lords that give their tribe another feature (islandwalk, mountainwalk, haste, hexproof etc...). But the dragon's just don't have an efficient lord.
We have dragonlord's servant as a cost reducer, and crucible of fire as a buff. But we don't have one good lord wrapped in one package. Dragon's are already really expensive, so we don't have many of them, and because our tribal cards aren't as multifacetted as all the other lords in other tribal deck it takes us more cards to get equivalent payouts.
I don't think it's all that's needed, (dragons need more than just a decent lord to be viable) but we could really use a lord that reduces the cost and gives all dragons R: +1/+0 until end of turn. And we need this lord to be a dragon as well not a barbarian, or goblin.
Also we could use more cost efficient dragon's but that's a discussion for another time.
What do you guys think? Or maybe Dragon's were never actually supposed to be a tribe?
Dragon's were never actually supposed to be a tribe?
This.
Dragons are the top end/finishers of decks can't really form a tribal deck (in the traditional sense).
It is pretty evident as the cheapest playable dragon is at 4-mana in Thunderbreak Regent and most other plyables are 5-cmc: Stormbreath Dragon, Thundermaw Hellkite and Glorybringer.
I think Eldrazi are really the only "top-end" tribe to really break into modern. Other tribes simply don't have the likes of tron or Eldrazi Temple to use them with sufficient speed. The support might make dragon tribal a thing in standard, but otherwise you can throw them on the heap with giants, treefolk, angels, demons, sphinxes, and the Quest for Ula's Temple coalition.
I can see your points, and maybe in the future there will be a dragon tribal deck but I'm happy to see Wizards is at least trying to give us tools which help support dragon tribal.
We really need cards which help give us card advantage and mana ramp and you can see when they make M19 cards like dragon's hoard you can at least see them trying. Maybe there just isn't enough quality cards to support modern and it may only be a standard thing.
I also think we need more dragon's that can 2 for 1 at a lower cost. People praise thunderbreak regent but it's really just a 4/4 for 4, it doesn't help generate card advantage, we need more dragons such as glorybringer which can 2 for 1 at a lower cost. That'll help dragon's compete in Modern
Dragons don't need a lord. Most dragons are big enough to suffice as single card finishers power-wise. They don't need to play like elves or merfolk. That is also why they don't play well as a tribe. Eldrazi also don't function as a tribe because they buff each other. They barely even need the "Eldrazi" tribe, because their tribal comes from interaction with being colorless and interacting with exile.
The nature of dragons as expensive finishers doesn't really lend itself to building a "tribal" deck. If anything dragons exist for flavour which you can get away with in more casual games.
If Dragons had an Eldrazi Temple/Eye of Ugin equivalent, they would be much more playable. The problem is not really their cost or power level once they get cast. The problem is casting them on curve with everything else Modern is doing. Dragons would also benefit from a 4-5 CMC creature that would seriously impede an opponent's ability to win the game on T3-T4. Sort of like the equivalent of Thought-Knot Seer for Eldrazi. These two things would help the tribe a lot.
Right now, the best you can really do in Modern Dragons is T1 dork, T2 Sarkhan, T3 Glorybringer. Glorybringer is a pretty strong threat with immunity to Bolt, Push, and Decay. Once GB hits, you can take out your opponent's best creature (unless it's a 4/5 Goyf, an Angler, or a Tasigur). That's not terrible interaction but honestly, it's not that great and is still dead against many decks. With a better 5 CMC payoff, and another +2 mana engine, the deck could be decent.
I wouldn't say Sarkhan, fireblood is a HUGE step in the right direction. But it helps a little. I would much rather a dragon specific mana rock to help so it can't be taken out by the early aggression.
I also wouldn't mind seeing a dragon which is good enough to see play in other modern decks,something to finally put dragon's on the map.
I've been building dragon decks since 2003 and, of course, i tried to build a modern dragon deck when i found out about the format. What i found that you need for dragons in modern is:
-Urza's Incubator
-Dragonspeaker Shaman
-Rite of Flame
-Seething Song
The problem with two of these cards is that they make storm decks insane(song & RoF).
The problem with Shaman is the hate it will draw.
I don't think incubator would mess with any decks. Eldrazi might adopt it as well?
The mentioning of a dragon-land would help as well.
As for cards, like the ones i mentioned, that are in modern already: there's a 2-drop goblin that makes dragons (1) less to cast. There's Simian Spirit Guide, which is so much worse than Rite of Flame.
I feel like what is needed for Dragon's is a Tutor to get them online early. The high mana costs limits the numbers in a deck and requires accelerants to get them in a timely fashion.
For example:
Dragon Bait 2R
0/4 beast
3RT sacrifice Dragon Bait, search your library for a dragon and put it onto the battlefield tapped.
This lets you find the dragons in the deck, but yet the coming in tapped telegraphs what is coming so it's not too fast. You are paying 7 mana over two turns to get the dragon into play tapped so not to be too broken.
The dragon, drawn by a giant feast, settled for a slumber before continuing its' rampage.
The only downside is that without Incubator and dragonspeaker shaman, the ramp system is hit-or-miss. Plus, with those two cards, you can drop Steel Hellkite for 2 mana and Moltensteel Dragon for (r)(r) or 4 life. If that wouldn't help dragons become a thing, i don't know what would.
Dragons don't work as a tribe because there is nothing to help them in the low cmc slots from 1-3.
Hence why when you see them its usually in some RG Ramp Deck.
Same reason Angels and Demons don't work although Angels are worse of cause they are almost overpriced, WOTC hates White.
Basically if you want these creatures to work as tribes you need ways to generate mana for them, cost reduction, cheat them in to play and/or more cheap options at lower cmc. These Iconic Creatures are really made to go wide or stack nearly as synergistic as their lower cmc friends like Humans, Goblins, Elves and Merfolk in Constructed Formats.
For instance you want an Ancient Ziggeraut or Cavern of Souls that lets you generate some extra mana for creatures with say CMC 4 or greater. Or yeah a Dragon specific land that generates extra mana for Dragons granted you probably need two of those
Merefolk, Elves, Goblins, Spirits they all have +1/+1 lords that give their tribe another feature (islandwalk, mountainwalk, haste, hexproof etc...). But the dragon's just don't have an efficient lord.
As a person that was looking through options for a dragon tribal deck recently, an option that needs to be considered is making a blue-black-red dragon tribal, and that way you can use Silumgar, the Drifting Death as a basic win condition (the -1/-1 counters really make it an anti-token, and just imagine the control you could use with blue too, but also imagine full-swinging with a board of dragons, assuming you maintain control). Also, it adds a whole new revenue of different dragons to use, like [Dragonlord Silumgar, and other dragon-related cards (for example, Bladewing's Thrall or Dragon Shadow) that would just make things a lot easier for those dragons you have.
I have seen a few decks trying to use the RG Ponza ramp shell, but most threats are dragons instead of the usual ponza creatures. However, the problem with this is Ponza can only have 17-20 cratures, and 5-6 of those are mana dorks.. so only a few slots left for dragon tribal, cannot go "tribal" with only 10+ creatures.
Sure but that is the best method cause Dragons are expensive so you need ramp and land destruction to keep opponents at bay.
A good dragon deck probably needs some good board wipes, ramp/cost reduction and maybe some cheaper dragons. The cheapest good Dragon is what 5 cmc? That is not a good recipe for Dragons in Modern. Incidentally I think Sarkhan Fireblood is a good move in that direction and overall good if we are going to have Walkers all the time might as well make some cheap ones to push tribal. Granted that only helps to certain degree since 3 CMC seems the minimum from a walker.
With him though you play a dork turn 1, cast Sarkhan on turn 2 and can cast a dragon by turn 3 even if you miss the third land drop. That is not bad.
Hey guys, I've been dying to get into skred dragons and just recently took the plunge since modern horizons made the land base affordable. I've play tested my deck but I'm torn between which direction to go to combat the current meta... Simian spirit guides vs magma jet/mindstone. Here is my current list.
Skred dragons:
Maindeck (60)
4 Thunderbreak Regent
4 Glorybringer
2 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Sarkhan, Fireblood
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
2 Draconic Roar
2 Magma Jet
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Mind Stone
4 Blood Moon
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Scrying Sheets
19 Snow-Covered Mountain
Might be a dragon finisher needs to look something like this:
Shinesheen Scalelord3RR Creature - Dragon
If you dealt at least 6 damage to an opponent since the start of your last turn with red spells or permanents you control that aren't other colors, you may cast Shinesheen Scalelord with 1RR instead of it's normal mana cost. If you do, it deals 2 damage to you as you cast it.
Haste, Flying, Trample
When Shinesheen Scalelord leaves the battlefield due to a spell or ability you don't control, it deals 4 damage to any target. 4/4
This turns on the 1 and 3 drop dragons (Slumbering DragonDragon Egg ) and makes them useful beyond the small speed bump anti-aggro cards. Having even one Dragon Tempest or Scourge out can make Dragon Egg the best card in your deck, multiple can just be GG.
I like Dragon's hoard over Sarkan as ramp. You only ever get to loot or get mana from Sarkan, and Hoard does both functions as well but you can also cast bolt off Hoard, you can have multiple Hoards down, and straight draw is better than looting.
I've played a dragon deck along these lines several times at FNM and it performs reasonably well to quite good. It really trounces on creature based decks, excels in multi player, and performs very well as a midrange deck. Not top tier, but fun and my opponents have generally liked seeing a fun pet deck on the other side of the table.
What do you think about this? Its based on a combo between Nesting Dragon, Atla Palani and Dragon Broodmother. Nesting dragon lays the eggs, Broodmother's tokens devour them and Atla lets you play dragons at cost 0. In Legacy and Vintage this is sped up with Mox Ruby and Ruby Medallion, while in Modern you can use more copies of Dragonlord Servant or Dragonspeaker. Sarkhan helps too with its double mana ramp. As you spawn eggs and devour them more dragon-spawning dragons come into play like Lathliss, Wasitora and Skyline Despot. Scourge of Valkas keeps inflicting damages and Rhythm of the wild protects the dragons and speeds the creatures giving them haste.
Merefolk, Elves, Goblins, Spirits they all have +1/+1 lords that give their tribe another feature (islandwalk, mountainwalk, haste, hexproof etc...). But the dragon's just don't have an efficient lord.
We have dragonlord's servant as a cost reducer, and crucible of fire as a buff. But we don't have one good lord wrapped in one package. Dragon's are already really expensive, so we don't have many of them, and because our tribal cards aren't as multifacetted as all the other lords in other tribal deck it takes us more cards to get equivalent payouts.
I don't think it's all that's needed, (dragons need more than just a decent lord to be viable) but we could really use a lord that reduces the cost and gives all dragons R: +1/+0 until end of turn. And we need this lord to be a dragon as well not a barbarian, or goblin.
Also we could use more cost efficient dragon's but that's a discussion for another time.
What do you guys think? Or maybe Dragon's were never actually supposed to be a tribe?
Dragons are the top end/finishers of decks can't really form a tribal deck (in the traditional sense).
It is pretty evident as the cheapest playable dragon is at 4-mana in Thunderbreak Regent and most other plyables are 5-cmc:
Stormbreath Dragon, Thundermaw Hellkite and Glorybringer.
#I've tried my hand at a dragon deck as sort of a ramp-moon deck:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/756736-r-g-dragon-moon
Though it is probably a weaker "RG Ponza" deck for the most part.
#Another take on Dragons is just to slot them in a midrange deck which I've also tried especially since I really wanted to build a deck with Sarkhan Unbroken - https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/788037-temur-dragons
The deck isn't too bad but has mana-consistency issues and is slower than Jund/Abzan with less efficient answers.
We really need cards which help give us card advantage and mana ramp and you can see when they make M19 cards like dragon's hoard you can at least see them trying. Maybe there just isn't enough quality cards to support modern and it may only be a standard thing.
I also think we need more dragon's that can 2 for 1 at a lower cost. People praise thunderbreak regent but it's really just a 4/4 for 4, it doesn't help generate card advantage, we need more dragons such as glorybringer which can 2 for 1 at a lower cost. That'll help dragon's compete in Modern
The nature of dragons as expensive finishers doesn't really lend itself to building a "tribal" deck. If anything dragons exist for flavour which you can get away with in more casual games.
Right now, the best you can really do in Modern Dragons is T1 dork, T2 Sarkhan, T3 Glorybringer. Glorybringer is a pretty strong threat with immunity to Bolt, Push, and Decay. Once GB hits, you can take out your opponent's best creature (unless it's a 4/5 Goyf, an Angler, or a Tasigur). That's not terrible interaction but honestly, it's not that great and is still dead against many decks. With a better 5 CMC payoff, and another +2 mana engine, the deck could be decent.
I wouldn't say Sarkhan, fireblood is a HUGE step in the right direction. But it helps a little. I would much rather a dragon specific mana rock to help so it can't be taken out by the early aggression.
I also wouldn't mind seeing a dragon which is good enough to see play in other modern decks,something to finally put dragon's on the map.
-Urza's Incubator
-Dragonspeaker Shaman
-Rite of Flame
-Seething Song
The problem with two of these cards is that they make storm decks insane(song & RoF).
The problem with Shaman is the hate it will draw.
I don't think incubator would mess with any decks. Eldrazi might adopt it as well?
The mentioning of a dragon-land would help as well.
As for cards, like the ones i mentioned, that are in modern already: there's a 2-drop goblin that makes dragons (1) less to cast. There's Simian Spirit Guide, which is so much worse than Rite of Flame.
For example:
Dragon Bait
2R
0/4 beast
3RT sacrifice Dragon Bait, search your library for a dragon and put it onto the battlefield tapped.
This lets you find the dragons in the deck, but yet the coming in tapped telegraphs what is coming so it's not too fast. You are paying 7 mana over two turns to get the dragon into play tapped so not to be too broken.
The dragon, drawn by a giant feast, settled for a slumber before continuing its' rampage.
Turn 2: Utopia Sprawl -> Garruk Wildspeaker -> Fauna Shaman
Turn 3: Search for Balefire Dragon -> cast dragon
Turn 4: Win
The only downside is that without Incubator and dragonspeaker shaman, the ramp system is hit-or-miss. Plus, with those two cards, you can drop Steel Hellkite for 2 mana and Moltensteel Dragon for (r)(r) or 4 life. If that wouldn't help dragons become a thing, i don't know what would.
Hence why when you see them its usually in some RG Ramp Deck.
Same reason Angels and Demons don't work although Angels are worse of cause they are almost overpriced, WOTC hates White.
Basically if you want these creatures to work as tribes you need ways to generate mana for them, cost reduction, cheat them in to play and/or more cheap options at lower cmc. These Iconic Creatures are really made to go wide or stack nearly as synergistic as their lower cmc friends like Humans, Goblins, Elves and Merfolk in Constructed Formats.
For instance you want an Ancient Ziggeraut or Cavern of Souls that lets you generate some extra mana for creatures with say CMC 4 or greater. Or yeah a Dragon specific land that generates extra mana for Dragons granted you probably need two of those
At least it remains fun to mess around with in EDH as long as your group isn't doing stax and combo and stuff.
As a person that was looking through options for a dragon tribal deck recently, an option that needs to be considered is making a blue-black-red dragon tribal, and that way you can use Silumgar, the Drifting Death as a basic win condition (the -1/-1 counters really make it an anti-token, and just imagine the control you could use with blue too, but also imagine full-swinging with a board of dragons, assuming you maintain control). Also, it adds a whole new revenue of different dragons to use, like [Dragonlord Silumgar, and other dragon-related cards (for example, Bladewing's Thrall or Dragon Shadow) that would just make things a lot easier for those dragons you have.
Here's an example of a deck, albeit black-blue, it just goes to show the amount of options you would have expanding the deck to tri-color:https://deckstats.net/decks/118141/1119066-silumbar-sweeping-death-neg-co/en (I'll see if I can update this later for a better example with the three colors later)
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Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
A good dragon deck probably needs some good board wipes, ramp/cost reduction and maybe some cheaper dragons. The cheapest good Dragon is what 5 cmc? That is not a good recipe for Dragons in Modern. Incidentally I think Sarkhan Fireblood is a good move in that direction and overall good if we are going to have Walkers all the time might as well make some cheap ones to push tribal. Granted that only helps to certain degree since 3 CMC seems the minimum from a walker.
With him though you play a dork turn 1, cast Sarkhan on turn 2 and can cast a dragon by turn 3 even if you miss the third land drop. That is not bad.
Just for fun, I've tried using Form of the dragon, it gimped people a few times.. but in the end it's not good enough, cmc of 7 is too high.
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Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Still all the Iconic Creatures types have that problem too expensive. Dragon is probably still the closest to being viable of the gang. RGx
Did a search on mtgtop8. Saw this Skred Dragons list that did well. It has 10 dragons in it.
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20136&d=331069&f=MO
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I mean look at Humans and Spirits cheap creatures with powerful ETBs and strong synergy.
Skred dragons:
Maindeck (60)
4 Thunderbreak Regent
4 Glorybringer
2 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Sarkhan, Fireblood
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
2 Draconic Roar
2 Magma Jet
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Mind Stone
4 Blood Moon
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Scrying Sheets
19 Snow-Covered Mountain
Sideboard (15)
2 Vexing Shusher
3 Shattering Spree
2 Fry
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Damping Sphere
3 Dragon's Claw
Shinesheen Scalelord 3RR
Creature - Dragon
If you dealt at least 6 damage to an opponent since the start of your last turn with red spells or permanents you control that aren't other colors, you may cast Shinesheen Scalelord with 1RR instead of it's normal mana cost. If you do, it deals 2 damage to you as you cast it.
Haste, Flying, Trample
When Shinesheen Scalelord leaves the battlefield due to a spell or ability you don't control, it deals 4 damage to any target.
4/4
Scourge of Valkas and Dragon Tempest.
This turns on the 1 and 3 drop dragons (Slumbering Dragon Dragon Egg ) and makes them useful beyond the small speed bump anti-aggro cards. Having even one Dragon Tempest or Scourge out can make Dragon Egg the best card in your deck, multiple can just be GG.
I like Dragon's hoard over Sarkan as ramp. You only ever get to loot or get mana from Sarkan, and Hoard does both functions as well but you can also cast bolt off Hoard, you can have multiple Hoards down, and straight draw is better than looting.
I've played a dragon deck along these lines several times at FNM and it performs reasonably well to quite good. It really trounces on creature based decks, excels in multi player, and performs very well as a midrange deck. Not top tier, but fun and my opponents have generally liked seeing a fun pet deck on the other side of the table.
Artifacts
Ruby Medallion x3
Fire Diamond x2
Creatures
Atla Palani x3
Dragon Broodmother x3
Nesting Dragon x3
Dragon Egg x3
Lathliss, Dragon Queen x1
Wasitora, Nekoru Queen x1
Dragonlord Dromoka x1
Dragonlord Servant x2
Dragonspeaker Shaman x2
Scourge of Valkas x3
Skyline Despot x2
Enchantment
Rhythm of The Wild x3
Lands
Mountain x6
Cavern of Souls x4
Haven of the Spirit Dragon x4
Ancient Ziggurat x4
Rootbound Crag x4
Clifftop Retreat x4
Planeswalkers
Sarkhan, Fireblood x2
I was also thinkin maybe Asceticism could further help by protecting dragons once they are on the battlefield but i have mixed feelings.
What do you think about this build?