I'm always interested in amplifying mono color strategies, especially Red. Dragons feel quintessential to Red, and so I started coming up with some strong Red Dragon themed cards with EDH specifically in Mind. After making a bunch of them, I started coming up with the idea of maybe 5 Mono Color Tribal Precons. Here is my first batch of cards for the Red Dragon deck.
Drathghan, the Erupting Tyrant
Legendary Land T: Add R. T, RRR: Return target Dragon card from your graveyard to your hand.
-- This is probably the most troublesome card as it provides Red with recursion that is seen very infrequently within the color. The bending of the color pie here however is justified (in my opinion) by flavor. There is Lore that speaks of Dragons being birthed from Volcanos and Fire, and I really wanted something to capture that. While bending the color pie to give Red some Recursion, I believe it is perfect as it is limited to purely Dragons, it is Legendary, and it gives some much needed survivability to Mono Red.
Scarthyn the Inferno4RRR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying
Whenever Scarthyn the Infero attacks, you may cast target Red instant or Sorcery card from your graveyard.
7/7
-- This was one of my older designs that I really liked. Dragons usually have some sort of devastating Firebreathing effect, and so I wanted to try and extend that into something a little more versatile. Once again, this dabbles in the dangerous zone because not only is it recursion but it is also repeatable. At first I thought maybe I should have it exile the card after use, but after thinking about it I feel like the limiting factors on this guy should allow for some crazy plays. Without haste or protection he's bound to have some people gunning to kill him. Only being able to cast Red spells is a big disabler of MOST broken cards... and you also need to have the instant or sorcery in your graveyard and the mana up to cast it. On top of it all... he is 7 mana. Anyhow, I thought this was a really cool idea. He is ideally one of the legends of the custom Dragon deck.
DragonfireXRR
Sorcery
If you control a Dragon, you may cast Dragonfire anytime you could cast an instant.
Dragonfire deals X damage to each nondragon creature.
-- This one is pretty straightforward, and one of my favorite designs. Its straight-up solid mass removal for anything that's not a Dragon, and gets a nice buff when you have a Dragon out.
Scorching BreathRRR
Instant
Scorching Breath deals 4 damage to any target.
You may cast Scorching Breath from your graveyard whenever a Dragon you control attacks.
-- Another recursion card, but again I think it's fairly justified. The "Firebreathing" aspect of Dragons is amplified with this card and gives you some more damage to throw around when you're attacking.
Bane of Civilization5RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
When Bane of Civilization enters the battlefield, choose one or both:
- Destroy all artifacts.
- Destroy all nonbasic lands.
5/5
-- The idea came to be when I was checking out Bane of Progress, and I thought this would be a neat ability on a Dragon. I wanted to make it a "choose" effect just because this theme deck based around Mono Red Dragons will likely have some good nonbasic lands (Like Drathghan) and a strong artifact subtheme. Choosing gives you some sway over what you want to die, and sometimes that's a good thing for everyone (you could be nice and not blow up everyones' nonbasic lands). Either way, it still causes civilization to collapse when it arrives.
Hellkite EggR
Creature - Dragon T, 2R: Sacrifice Hellkite Egg: Search your library for a Dragon card, reveal it, put it into your hand. Shuffle your library.
0/2
Valdrun the Dragonwaker1RRR
Legendary Creature - Dragon Shaman
Flying T, R: Target Dragon you control creature deals damage equal to its power to any target. T, XR: Return target Dragon card with converted mana cost less than or equal to X from your graveyard to the battlefield.
3/4
-- Valdrun is another scary card that dabbles in recursion, but once again limits it to Dragons. He is a powerful Dragonkind Mage himself, and channels the spirits of long forgotten hellkites and brings them back to life so they can wreck havoc once again. I'm not entirely sure if I like his first ability, but it seems nifty. He is the second Face card of the deck.
Hellkite Hoarder2RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
Whenever Hellkite Hoarder deals combat damage to a player, gain control of target artifact that player controls until Hellkite Hoarder leaves the battlefield.
4/4
-- I wanted to make something like a miniature Hellkite Tyrant. I really like the flavor of this card as it fits perfectly with Dragons and their greed for treasure.
Hellkite Ridge
Land
Hellkite Ridge enters the battlefield tapped unless you reveal a Dragon card from your hand. T: Add R. T, R: Target Dragon creature you control gains haste until end of turn.
-- This is just a thematic reboot of the good ol' Flamekin Village. It felt like a perfect fit for the deck.
Treasure Hoard3
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, create a colorless Treasure Token.
-- Oh yes... the Hoard of Treasure. I really wanted to make this type of card for a Pirate themed deck, but it actually fits well with the Dragons theme.
Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes5RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
When Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes enters the battlefield, return all artifacts from your graveyard to the battlefield.
When Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes dies, sacrifice each artifact you control.
5/5
-- Speaking of Dragons that love Treasure... Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes loves to claim all the lost treasures from times past.
That's all I have for now, but I'm sure I will be brewing up some more cards to boost Mono Red and one of the most Iconic Tribes in Magic. Stick around to see more, and then a Decklist that will contain the reprinted cards I picked as well.
As always, I enjoy to hear feedback on my designs!
If Haven of the Spirit Dragon is any indication, Drathghan should blow itself up at minimum. Repeatable card advantage on lands is ridiculously strong even when you aren't warping the color pie. Taking both into question, the ability should probably cost 4RRR if you don't want to sacrifice the land.
Scarthyn should probably have an exile clause on its cast ability to prevent extra combat step shenanigans.
Scorching Breath is pushed too hard. You seem to be undervaluing the sheer power of repeatable recursion. Again, if this were a 1-shot thing like Kozilek's Return, it would be fine.
The "both" clause is gratuitous on Bane of Civilization. Otherwise, it's a cool design.
If you hear birdlike screeching in the night, it's the phoenixes. They're angry at you for taking their shtick and slapping it on stuff like Valdrun. Leave the poor birds(' design space) alone, for heaven's sake. They don't get much tribal love as-is, and this is definitely what it would be.
Oh, and Treasure Hoard needs something else. They don't accumulate by themselves, after all. Otherwise, it's also just way undercosted.
And everything else that I didn't mention is great. There's a lot of flavorful and interesting stuff here that suffers from a bit too much enthusiasm when it comes to balance.
Drathghan, the Erupting Tyrant: Nope in so many levels. Too cheap, out of color, promotes repetitive games and no real disadvantage (produces red, does not ETB tapped).
Scarthyn the Inferno: I like the card. At this cmc, I guess it's allowed to be repetitive. I like how your graveyard becomes tool boxy, that's very cool. My only complaint is that Scarthyn does not want to be played along side other dragons or even as the sole finisher of a dragon deck. Interacting with graveyard and instants/sorcery makes this suitable for tap-out control deck above everything else.
Dragonfire: Looks good. This card suggests you want to make a deck with low CMC dragons so that they survive the sweep but MTG doesn't have many of these.
Scorching Breath: 4 damage for RRR is already an upgrade over Char in monored, making this repeatable for no reason is absolutely non-justifiable. I think you are really underestimating how repeatable effects impacts the game negatively.
Bane of Civilization: Not both please. Destroying your opponents landbase plus Crucible of Worlds in the same play is too impactful.
Hellkite Egg: Tutoring is another thing that makes games repetitives but since there is no decent dragon tutor in mono red and because this is easy to respond to I think it's fine.
Valdrun the Dragonwaker: Another repetitive dragon recursion... Dragons are not phoenixes you know, they are not suppose to be keep coming back. I think your dragon red deck are too controlling and reliant on cumulative CA and recursion. I know red has design problems in Commander but I don't think warping the color pie is a good solution.
Hellkite Hoarder: Really like this one. I think it' a bit too big for what it does.
Hellkite Ridge: Yeap, looks fine and fitting.
Treasure Hoard: Great card. Maybe a bit too efficient at ramping for colorless.
Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes: Very good one. Pie-wise I'm not entirely sure we should move artifact recursion from white to red. Red could get some extra graveyard action for sure.
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Drathghan, the Erupting Tyrant
Legendary Land
T: Add R.
T, RRR: Return target Dragon card from your graveyard to your hand.
-- This is probably the most troublesome card as it provides Red with recursion that is seen very infrequently within the color. The bending of the color pie here however is justified (in my opinion) by flavor. There is Lore that speaks of Dragons being birthed from Volcanos and Fire, and I really wanted something to capture that. While bending the color pie to give Red some Recursion, I believe it is perfect as it is limited to purely Dragons, it is Legendary, and it gives some much needed survivability to Mono Red.
Scarthyn the Inferno 4RRR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying
Whenever Scarthyn the Infero attacks, you may cast target Red instant or Sorcery card from your graveyard.
7/7
-- This was one of my older designs that I really liked. Dragons usually have some sort of devastating Firebreathing effect, and so I wanted to try and extend that into something a little more versatile. Once again, this dabbles in the dangerous zone because not only is it recursion but it is also repeatable. At first I thought maybe I should have it exile the card after use, but after thinking about it I feel like the limiting factors on this guy should allow for some crazy plays. Without haste or protection he's bound to have some people gunning to kill him. Only being able to cast Red spells is a big disabler of MOST broken cards... and you also need to have the instant or sorcery in your graveyard and the mana up to cast it. On top of it all... he is 7 mana. Anyhow, I thought this was a really cool idea. He is ideally one of the legends of the custom Dragon deck.
Dragonfire XRR
Sorcery
If you control a Dragon, you may cast Dragonfire anytime you could cast an instant.
Dragonfire deals X damage to each nondragon creature.
-- This one is pretty straightforward, and one of my favorite designs. Its straight-up solid mass removal for anything that's not a Dragon, and gets a nice buff when you have a Dragon out.
Scorching Breath RRR
Instant
Scorching Breath deals 4 damage to any target.
You may cast Scorching Breath from your graveyard whenever a Dragon you control attacks.
-- Another recursion card, but again I think it's fairly justified. The "Firebreathing" aspect of Dragons is amplified with this card and gives you some more damage to throw around when you're attacking.
Bane of Civilization 5RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
When Bane of Civilization enters the battlefield, choose one or both:
- Destroy all artifacts.
- Destroy all nonbasic lands.
5/5
-- The idea came to be when I was checking out Bane of Progress, and I thought this would be a neat ability on a Dragon. I wanted to make it a "choose" effect just because this theme deck based around Mono Red Dragons will likely have some good nonbasic lands (Like Drathghan) and a strong artifact subtheme. Choosing gives you some sway over what you want to die, and sometimes that's a good thing for everyone (you could be nice and not blow up everyones' nonbasic lands). Either way, it still causes civilization to collapse when it arrives.
Hellkite Egg R
Creature - Dragon
T, 2R: Sacrifice Hellkite Egg: Search your library for a Dragon card, reveal it, put it into your hand. Shuffle your library.
0/2
Valdrun the Dragonwaker 1RRR
Legendary Creature - Dragon Shaman
Flying
T, R: Target Dragon you control creature deals damage equal to its power to any target.
T, XR: Return target Dragon card with converted mana cost less than or equal to X from your graveyard to the battlefield.
3/4
-- Valdrun is another scary card that dabbles in recursion, but once again limits it to Dragons. He is a powerful Dragonkind Mage himself, and channels the spirits of long forgotten hellkites and brings them back to life so they can wreck havoc once again. I'm not entirely sure if I like his first ability, but it seems nifty. He is the second Face card of the deck.
Hellkite Hoarder 2RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
Whenever Hellkite Hoarder deals combat damage to a player, gain control of target artifact that player controls until Hellkite Hoarder leaves the battlefield.
4/4
-- I wanted to make something like a miniature Hellkite Tyrant. I really like the flavor of this card as it fits perfectly with Dragons and their greed for treasure.
Hellkite Ridge
Land
Hellkite Ridge enters the battlefield tapped unless you reveal a Dragon card from your hand.
T: Add R.
T, R: Target Dragon creature you control gains haste until end of turn.
-- This is just a thematic reboot of the good ol' Flamekin Village. It felt like a perfect fit for the deck.
Treasure Hoard 3
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, create a colorless Treasure Token.
-- Oh yes... the Hoard of Treasure. I really wanted to make this type of card for a Pirate themed deck, but it actually fits well with the Dragons theme.
Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes 5RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
When Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes enters the battlefield, return all artifacts from your graveyard to the battlefield.
When Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes dies, sacrifice each artifact you control.
5/5
-- Speaking of Dragons that love Treasure... Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes loves to claim all the lost treasures from times past.
That's all I have for now, but I'm sure I will be brewing up some more cards to boost Mono Red and one of the most Iconic Tribes in Magic. Stick around to see more, and then a Decklist that will contain the reprinted cards I picked as well.
As always, I enjoy to hear feedback on my designs!
Dunes of Zairo
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Scarthyn should probably have an exile clause on its cast ability to prevent extra combat step shenanigans.
Scorching Breath is pushed too hard. You seem to be undervaluing the sheer power of repeatable recursion. Again, if this were a 1-shot thing like Kozilek's Return, it would be fine.
The "both" clause is gratuitous on Bane of Civilization. Otherwise, it's a cool design.
If you hear birdlike screeching in the night, it's the phoenixes. They're angry at you for taking their shtick and slapping it on stuff like Valdrun. Leave the poor birds(' design space) alone, for heaven's sake. They don't get much tribal love as-is, and this is definitely what it would be.
Oh, and Treasure Hoard needs something else. They don't accumulate by themselves, after all. Otherwise, it's also just way undercosted.
And everything else that I didn't mention is great. There's a lot of flavorful and interesting stuff here that suffers from a bit too much enthusiasm when it comes to balance.
Scarthyn the Inferno: I like the card. At this cmc, I guess it's allowed to be repetitive. I like how your graveyard becomes tool boxy, that's very cool. My only complaint is that Scarthyn does not want to be played along side other dragons or even as the sole finisher of a dragon deck. Interacting with graveyard and instants/sorcery makes this suitable for tap-out control deck above everything else.
Dragonfire: Looks good. This card suggests you want to make a deck with low CMC dragons so that they survive the sweep but MTG doesn't have many of these.
Scorching Breath: 4 damage for RRR is already an upgrade over Char in monored, making this repeatable for no reason is absolutely non-justifiable. I think you are really underestimating how repeatable effects impacts the game negatively.
Bane of Civilization: Not both please. Destroying your opponents landbase plus Crucible of Worlds in the same play is too impactful.
Hellkite Egg: Tutoring is another thing that makes games repetitives but since there is no decent dragon tutor in mono red and because this is easy to respond to I think it's fine.
Valdrun the Dragonwaker: Another repetitive dragon recursion... Dragons are not phoenixes you know, they are not suppose to be keep coming back. I think your dragon red deck are too controlling and reliant on cumulative CA and recursion. I know red has design problems in Commander but I don't think warping the color pie is a good solution.
Hellkite Hoarder: Really like this one. I think it' a bit too big for what it does.
Hellkite Ridge: Yeap, looks fine and fitting.
Treasure Hoard: Great card. Maybe a bit too efficient at ramping for colorless.
Tyrant of Forgone Fortunes: Very good one. Pie-wise I'm not entirely sure we should move artifact recursion from white to red. Red could get some extra graveyard action for sure.
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Standard - For Fun
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