Uncommon Dragons

Given that the spoilers for Dragons of Tarkir are in full swing I thought this week I would take the opportunity to look at a cycle of cards.

Card cycles come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The original sets of Magic the Gathering, Alpha and Beta had many different card cycles built in to them.

There was Healing Salve, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt and Giant Growth for example.  Obviously there's a huge difference in the power levels of these card, but there was one card in each colour and they all did different jobs.

You had the moxes, artifacts but one for each colour and they all do the same thing.

Then you had the Circles of Protection.  All white cards but one targeting each colour, however, each card played the same role.

So cycles come in all shapes and sizes and different roles.  When legends came along there was a particular cycle of cards that still has a huge effect on today's game because of a certain Nicol Bolas.
They were of course the Legendary Dragons; Chromium, Arcades Sabboth, Palladia-Mors, Nicol Bolas and Vaevictis Asmadi.

The Elder Dragon Legends were not only the first gold-boarded, multi-coloured cycle, but also the first true creature cycle in Magic.

21 years later and Dragons of Tarkir comes along with not 1 but 3 sets of gold-boarded, multi-coloured dragon cycles.

There's a brand new set of Elder Dragon Legends; Dragonlord Dromoka, Dragonlord Silumgar, Dragonlord Ojutai, Dragonlord Kolaghan and Dragonlord Atarka

There's a rare set of non legendary Dragons: Arashin Soverign, Pristine Skywise, Necromaster Dragon, Boltwing Marauder and Harbinger of the Hunt.

But within these sets the casting costs and power and toughness levels of each of the dragons varies and this wasn't quite what I was looking for.

Which leaves the Uncommon set of dragons. 5 dragons all with a CMC of 6, made up of four colourless and 2 allied colours, and all 4/4 Flying bodies.

At first glance a 4/4 body for six mana isn't such a good deal.

Compare Dragonlord Dromoka a 5/7 Flying, Lifelink body with Enduring Scalelord a measly 4/4 Flying body and you can easily see the difference. 

So for this uncommon cycle of dragons it's all about their abilities and they are quite a varied set of abilities to boot.

Let's take a good look at Enduring Scalelord's to start with, so what does the card text state:

"Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are placed on another creature you control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Enduring Scalelord."

The main point to consider here is that the first part of the rules text states; "one or more" and the second part states; "you may put a". So it doesn't matter if you put one, five or fifty +1/+1 counters on one creature you are only going to put one +1/+1 counter on the Scalelord.

Immediately I saw this I thought of my Ghave, Guru of Spores Commander deck.

You start utilizing Ghave's abilities to turn creatures in counters and vice versa and the Scalelord will become very large very quickly.  He is certainly a consideration for adding to the deck.

The next card that came to mind was Cathars' Crusade.

I think of all the cards I can think of this one has the best synergy with the Scalelord. Of course it scales upwards the more creatures you have the more that will get +1/+1 counters the counters that will get placed on the Scalelord.

There is another cycle of dragons in Dragon's of Tarkir. The Regents a series of 5 mono-coloured, rare, dragons. One of these dragons is Sunscorch Regent.

On it's own in a game of Commander, lets say 4 handed, this dragon will become huge very quickly but at the same time the Scalelord is also swelling in size.

These are just a few examples there's cards old and new that have fantastic synergy with the Scalelord and I am sure I'm going to see it being played in Commander decks not long after Dragons of Tarkir is released.

Next up, going clockwise on my cycle is Savage Ventmaw

I think this card is simpler and more straightforward than the Scalelord but in its own way just as powerful. The key is that he only has to attack, not deal combat damage to your opponent or any other harder to satisfy requirement.  Remember also that the mana doesn't empty from your man pool until the End of the Turn.

I looked at the Ventmaw and the first card that came to mind was Hellkite Charger.

I am pretty sure you can see where I will be spending my GGGRRR mana, okay I need an extra mana to pay for the Charger's ability but effectively I'm going to get as many attack phases as I have spare mana sources.

Whatever you do though you need to make sure you have a way to spend the mana that is generated when you attack, you can use it to cast cards or you can use it on something like Lord of Shatterskull Pass or even just Green Sun's Zenith. 

In two turns the Lord can be level 6 and wrecking havoc on your opponents board state or you can be hunting for another creature bomb and putting it in to play with the Zenith. Don't forget you can always add to the mana in your mana pool to make X bigger.

Next up on our cycle of cards is Swift Warkite.

Of the five dragons in the cycle this is my least favourite and I think the weakest. However, I understand that it's ability needs to be played around. 

The rules text for the Warkite break down into three sections:

"When Swift Warkite enters teh battlefield, you may put a creature card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your hand or graveyard onto the battlefield."

So far so good.  You get to play the dragon and another creature and the Warkite as graveyard recursion which is often abusable.

"That creature gains haste." 

This means whatever you put onto the battlefield can attack that turn or use an ability that turn.

"Return it to your hand at the beginning of the next end step."

And this is where I have a problem. Because this says at the beginning of the next end step it's hard to see it playing a part in any properly repeatable graveyard recursion tricks that don't involve more less than four or five cards.

You can use it with something like Crossway Vampire.

Sure the vampire can attack for 3 unblocked but without pumping the Vampire 3 damage in Commander is really underwhelming. And that's part of the problem with creatures with converted mana cost 3 or less that have Enter The Battlefield or ETB effects.

The first creature I did actually think of that works well with the Warkite is Big Game Hunter.

Now if you can work out a way to recur the Warkite then Fleshbag Marauder could be useful.

You can use the Marauder to sac the Warkite, returning the Marauder to your hand at the end of the turn. If you can recur the Warkite, you can repeat. But that just feels like you're adding the Warkite into an equation where it doesn't need to be added. If you can recur the Warkite you can do the same thing with the Marauder without the dragon.

And that is why I'm not convinced by the Swift Warkite in Commander. 

Next up, Cunning Breezedancer.

It's a great name for a dragon but that's about it. Gaining +2+2 when you cast a noncreature spell is okay but it's a temporary gain that requires work and cheep spells to make the most of. In Commander there are so many better creatures you could be playing in UW for 6CMC than this.

Take, as a direct comparison, Medomai the Ageless. Same CMC, same body both have Flying but their abilities couldn't be more different. I guess that's part of the fact that this is an Uncommon cycle of dragons and Medomai is a Mythic Rare Legendary creature.

Last in my cycle is Ruthless Deathfang.

Note it states; "Whenever you sacrifice.." and "target opponent.." so whenever you sacrifice a creature only one of your opponents can be forced to sacrifice a creature.

This is subtly but importantly different to Grave Pact.

Having said that this has got to be my second favourite card in the cycle, in last week's post I talked about Mono Black Infinite Combos, Most of those revolve around sacrificing creatures that and then brought back from the graveyard ready to be sacrificed again. Deathfang is just crying out to be used in decks that make use of such combos as yet another way to make use of the infinite combo to hurt your opponents.

Even if you're just sacrificing a Reassembling Skeleton to Carrion Feeder this still has the same effect as the Pact and is easily abusable in Commander.

So in order I rate them Enduring Scalelord, Ruthless Deathfang, Savage Ventmaw, Swift Warkite, Cunning Breezedancer.

Please remember this is just my opinion and this blog is dedicated to purely to Commander/EDH, I recognise in Limited, Standard, Modern etc these cards may have different ratings. Although it's hard to get past the idea of a pair of Enduring Scalelords going infinite between each other after you Bolster another creature in a draft match.

I hope you're as excited by all the spoilers being released by Wizards as I am at the moment.

Until next week I hope you all topdeck the answer you need.

Phil