MTG Salvation

Hi there guys, have had this deck for a while, actually one of the first decks i've ever built (of course with revisions). Wanted to make this deck Modern competitive, at least with local Modern tourny's. Wanted to see what people thought. Here's the deck, i'll post what it does after:



* Utvara Hellkite is in return to ravnica, planning on putting him in...cause he's insanely good.

Basic idea is to get out evlish piper and/or quicksilver amulet to get out creatures fast. Swiftboot to make piper hexproof. Than once the dragons start coming out, its pretty self explanatory. Crucible of fire and colossal might to things things huge. Lightning bolt of course to kill things before I get out piper.

Some thoughts: llanower elves for faster cast of elvish piper?
Missing any obvious bad ass dragons?
Missing any obvious spells essential for a dragon deck?

Any help would be much appreciated. its a fun deck overall, I enjoy playing it, just wanted to get it at a tourny level, so i can play in the local stores at their modern tourny's and not get killed. Thanks guys!

You need Bogardan Hellkite. He'll wipe the board for you.
Cut the "win-more" cards- Swiftfoot Boots, Colossal Might and Crucible of Fire. Add in more traditional mana-acceleration instead - Explore, Cultivate or Llanowar Elves/Birds of Paradise.

Dragonspeaker Shaman could be good, but would require a different approach (actually hardcasting them rather than cheating them in Via Elvish Piper/Quicksilver Amulet).

A third possible approach could be using Descendant's Path and some of the cheaper dragons (like Slumbering Dragon, Moltsteel Dragon, etc.).

At any rate, if you really want to play this deck in tournaments, it's going to be tough because people will kill your Elvish Pipers and Quicksilver Amulets, and plus some Modern decks will win on turn 4 or so.

rorix bladewing and dragonspeaker shaman are neither one modern legal. Those will need to go.

Second, as people before have pointed out, you are missing some bloody good dragons, such as Karrthus, tyrant of jund and broodmate dragon.

third, actually ramping to drop them would be far more reliable than putting out a weak creature like elvish piper. Cards like Sakura-tribe elder would actually ramp you and chump block earlier while you're ramping to quality threats.

Thanks for the suggestions, I agree with one HUGE thing that I have realized for a while too - I need mana ramp. Weather its for hard casting, or to bring out piper/amulet, I still need to get this stuff out fast. Also didn't realize bladewing was not modern, so took him out. This is what I have now:




lemme know what u guys think now!

Perhaps try some Fungal Reaches. If you're got lands that are doing nothing, you could save that mana and use it on an expensive dragon later on.

thanks for the suggestions guys, keep them coming! any suggestions on the sideboard?

Use Lightning Greaves instead of swiftfoot,it's one less mana and you're not worried about targeting your own guy. You can also move it around to give haste to other stuff for the cost of 0.

Where's the Hellkite Charger?Flameblast is so inefficient,and Mordant Dragon doesn't look like it'll do anything compared to Moonveil Dragon.

Sarkhan Vol?

Thundermaw Hellkite? It's way faster than any of the other dragons, and clears the skies for you to swing.

Jugan,the Rising Star is a little odd...I suggest removing him anyway since he's just a 5/5 Flyer. If you add any of the spirit dragons,it's Kokusho,the Evening Star,but you don't even run black mana in the deck (which raises the question of why you run Broodmate Dragon.

Dragon Broodmother can get out of control quickly,since it's every upkeep.

You still need more early defense and accel. Cut down on the big stuff, you can't win if you just keep taking damage. 4 Lightning bolts can't answer everything.

If you want to make this competitive, try lowering your curve, and don't rely on Elvish Piper or Quicksilver Amulet too much, since you will die on the turn you cast those normally. You would have lost against any combo decks at this point (most of them go off at turn 3 or turn 4 if you don't hinder them), aggro decks like affinity, and RDW. Delver will just bounce your elvish piper in response to you equipping, or just straight up counter it with mana leak (or make you miserable with remands while beating you down). Jund would have also decimated you by turn 4 (BBE). Tokens would have swarmed you to death (And if they haven't, you are about to get swarmed to death since you only put out a dragon a turn while they have an insane amount of tokens and anthems). Boros landfall would have made you cry with a turn 1 Steppe Lynx or Student of Warfare or Figure of Destiny.

You NEED Wall of Roots or Sakura-Tribe Elder or Overgrown Battlement to hold off early threats and beats while ramping.

You want to hit your land drops, so 24 should be the amount you aim for while you have this many 4+ drops.

Kessig Wolf Run should be used instead of Skarrg,the Rage Pits. Your dragons are already beefy enough, you don't need Crucible of Fire, try running more removal instead like Arc Trail.

Another route would be to seething song into dragonstorm, fetch utvara and thundermaw.
But I really don't think you can make tribal dragons competitive.